Rodger was sitting in his small two-bedroom trailer that he had been renting, ever since he had returned from Alaska. It took a lot of maintenance to keep it going, but it is what it is, he thought. "Shelter."
He had been divorced for almost a year now, yet he hadn't had a date or even entertained any other woman in all that time. The last time he had sex was with his wife the day after he began to live his dream, which became his nightmare.
Another tear dripped down from his cheek, yet he ignored it. He had ignored them all for a very long time, because he didn't like the idea of sitting around and wallowing in self-pity. But this didn't mean he was over it -- he never came to terms with what had happened.
He blamed himself and karma. He had selfishly saved all his change behind his wife's back for the trip. In his mind, he could see that as being too selfish. Karma reared its ugly head and struck him down. All that saving, and now he had nothing.
Another day of nothing to do, Rodger thought, as he rose from the sofa thinking he should eat something. What stopped him from fixing himself something to eat wasn't due to a lack of appetite. It was because he didn't want to clean up after himself. It just didn't seem like it would be worth the trouble. Nothing he did for himself seemed worth the trouble, that was the problem.
In the divorce, the home was sold. They split the check fifty, fifty. But Rodger still hadn't cashed his. It was hidden in a safe that was placed under his bed, neatly cut into the floor of the trailer house.
Rodger pulled a beer out of the refrigerator and popped the top as he heard a car pull up to his mobile home. He sat in one of the only two chairs that were in the trailer, anticipating the knock.
He knew who it was before they knocked. His kids, both, Jesse and Lora. Jesse was twenty-one years old now, while Lora was a year younger, at twenty. Both were great kids and were presently working their way through college.
Rodger called out "it's open!" before they made it to the door. He knew that the thin walls would allow the kids to hear him easily.
The door swung open, and both the kids called out "hey dad", very demurely as the state of their father left a lot to be desired.
Rodger sat back in his chair. He had aged probably ten years in the last eighteen months alone. His hair that was at one time dishwater blond was now bright silver. His shaggy beard the same, with no signs of the red his beard used to be full of.
Rodger had sad eyes now. Devoid of any hope or even wanting. It was like he was waiting to die. The trailer smelled of alcohol and dry rot -- reflecting the suffocating paracosm he now lived in.
Though Rodger had somehow held his job, he didn't look like he had anything to speak of. The trailer only had one chair and a small sofa in the front room. The dining room table consisted of a small round table and one chair with the arm broken off.
Inside the cabinets, his children knew that they would only find ramen noodles, and maybe a loaf of old bread. The last time they were there, they threw away the bread as it was full of mold.
Seeing her father so beaten had torn Lorie's heart out of her chest. She had never quite felt such visceral pain. She didn't want to sit in the sofa across from him, so, she sat on her father's lap instead. She gave him a quick peck and held him lovingly for what seemed a long time for Rodger.
She had shed many tears over the last year, holding her defeated father in her arms like she was his parent. She loved him like all little girls love their fathers, and even though she was grown up now and going to college, their relationship had only grown. Before the trip to Alaska, people had often commented on how wonderful it was to see them together. Their relationship could make many a father and daughter jealous.
She finally jumped up and pulled her dad to his feet. Rodger then shook Jesse's hand and gave him a nice fatherly hug.
In the course of all this, Rodger hadn't smiled once. Only if you knew him well enough and were watching him closely enough, could you see the emotions he let slip when he embraced his daughter.
They got comfortable in the room before Rodger spoke. "The rules still apply!" he demanded.
"No Dad, they don't!!" Lorie rose to employ her will over her strong father's.
Rodger didn't know what to do. Lorie had never defied him. She had always honored him in every way, even when he was wrong and knew it. She would never stand up to him like she had just did unless she felt she had good reason.
"Lorie!"
"Dad, sit your ass down and shut the fuck up. You look like shit. You're miserable and so is mom. Now shut up and get the cotton out your ears and stuff it in your mouth. If you can't do that, Jesse will!"
There were two facts at work; first, Jesse could easily do it. He stood at 6'2" and weighed 250 lbs -- and was on the football squad in college. Rodger had lost twenty-five pounds and looked sickly, more than anything else.
Jesse laughed though. Then he said. "I won't hurt you dad. I never will. But we aint been talking about this for too long now. We is going to talk and we is going to do it NOW."
"Son, please. What happened in Alaska is really not something you wish to hear. You need to stay out of it. Neither one of us will stop loving you" he said as if he were talking to a two-year-old.
"We know already what happened. Mom had an affair and got pregnant. The only thing is..."
Rodger jumped to his feet and shouted out "GOT PREGNANT?"
"Yeah, dad. Maybe you aught to talk to her once in a while. Then you will find things out like the fact that you have another daughter."
Rodger was ready to scream. But he held his temper back. Then he wondered which one of the five men had knocked her up. He knew they all went bare back and not a single one used condoms. He wasn't afraid of STD's but by God, pregnancy wasn't even on his radar.
"Well, I am sure she will find out which one of them got her pregnant and will sue him for child support. He certainly deserves it."
"Which one?" jumped Lorie. "What the fuck, Dad no, don't you dare say that about mom."
After a few moments, Rodger thought about what to say.
"I told you both. You do not want to know what happened in Alaska."
Then he rose and went to a drawer opened it and pulled out a ziplock bag. He walked to the chair that he had been sitting in and sat back down. He then pulled out several locks of his hair from his head and put it into the bag. Handing it to his daughter, he said, "here you go Lori, now you can find out for yourself."
Both the kids changed the topic and started to encourage Rodger to go out for dinner.
It took a lot of pestering before he finally relented. He took the first shower he had in days and put on his cleanest shirt and pants to go out in.
Chapter two:
Starting:
Rodger sat in a soft chair at the seafood restaurant that Jesse and Lori brought him to. He had noticed but didn't say anything about the two extra seats. Emptiness filled his mind as he sat and tried to engage in conversations between his kids. Somehow, nothing important seem to be spoken.
Jesse ordered for him, starting with some alligator balls. Deep fried alligator meat with a spicy breading. He dipped them into some ranch dressing before he ate them.
Having some food in his stomach for the first time in days seemed to cheer his mood up a bit. Lori was quick to take advantage of the mood change, and tried to approach the topic that was sticking in her craw for a year now.
"I bet you miss your work shop with all your tools." Lori started.
"Yeah, but I haven't started too many projects in the last year. So far, I've sort of been enjoying just laying around and taking it easy."
Jesse scoffed, "my father laying around taking it slow. Give me a break." Jesse laughed. "And saying you're enjoying it, dad really?"
"My father wouldn't ever be happy unless he was rebuilding, fixing, renovating or even just building something." Lori continued. "So why don't you start by fixing the gutters on your mobile home?"
"They don't use gutters on a mobile home, Lorie. Not without special ordering them. They use a drip edge." Rodger answered completely unaware that the kids were opening him up just as they had planned.
"I need to replace the T111 to some hardy sheets. They don't rot as badly down here in the south like T111 and other sorts of siding. It is good stuff and I have already picked up all the sheets I need along with the trim boards. Just need to get the nerve up to go..."
He wanted to say go home and get his compressor and nail gun, but the house was sold. Rodger didn't so much as go into the home to pick up all his clothes. He pretty much stayed out of the way of everything in the house, leaving Jesse and a moving crew to load everything in a truck and tote it off to a storage shed, where it had stayed untouched for almost a year.
Rodger would never admit it, not even to himself, that he was frightened to go into the storage shed because he may find something that would remind him of his past life.
As he thought about what was in the shed, he felt someone pull out one of the empty chairs on the table. He turned his head to see his sister Karen sitting down next to him. He smiled lovingly as he reached for his hug that she always seemed to have for him.
They all started to speak pleasantly to one another when the waitress approached and took their drinks order.
Rodger went straight for the hard stuff. No one said a word as Rodger ordered a whisky and coke, while everyone else ordered sweet tea knowing that he was still in a lot of pain.
All three of them saw how seeing his sister seemed to brighten his mood a bit too, but nothing brightened his mood up more than when the waitress set two dozen oysters on the half shell right in front of him. All for him!
