Three months later his son and his husband were dead. Shot multiple times in the front of a fancy wine store in downtown Richmond. Once his son and his husband were down, the shooters had double-tapped them both. The sign of a professional. Ike wondered if the last image Isiah had of his father was a glass shattering against a kitchen cabinet.
Ike started to scream. It didn’t build in his chest first then erupt. It came out fully formed in one long savage howl. The heavy bag began to jerk and jump spasmodically. Technique was tossed aside in favor of animalistic instinct. The skin on his knuckles split and left red-hued Rorschach paintings on the bag. Droplets of sweat ran down his face and dripped into his eyes. Tears ran from his eyes and stung his cheeks. Tears for his son. Tears for his wife. Tears for the little girl they had to raise. Tears for who they were and what they all had lost. Each drop felt like it was slicing his face open like a razorblade.
FIVE
Buddy Lee checked his watch. It was five minutes to eight. The sign said that Randolph Lawn Maintenance opened at 8 A.M. Monday through Saturday. Ike should be rolling up any minute.
The AC in his truck wasn’t much better than the AC in his trailer. The air blowing from the vents was tepid at best. The system needed a dose of Freon, but his electric bill was due this week. When it came down to having a working fridge at home or a working AC in his truck, the fridge was going to win every time.
Buddy Lee changed the station on his radio. Nobody played real country anymore. Just a bunch of baby-shit-soft male models singing about bumping and grinding over a steel guitar. A logging truck flew down the road past the gas station where Buddy Lee had parked his truck. Randolph Lawn Maintenance was housed in a single-story sheet-metal warehouse across the road from a Spee-Dee Mart and down the road from the Red Hill Florist. Buddy Lee resided in Charon County, which was about fifteen miles from Red Hill. Buddy Lee thought it was funny his son and Ike’s son had grown up only twenty minutes apart but found each other in college. Life sends us down some strange roads on our way to our destiny.
He was about to go back in the gas station and get another cup of coffee when he saw a white dually truck pull up to the gate at Randolph Lawn Maintenance. The truck stopped, and Ike hopped out to open the gate. He rolled the chain-link gate out of the way and pulled into the parking lot. Buddy Lee watched him get out of the truck again and enter the building.
As he climbed out of his own ramshackle truck, he started coughing. He knew it was going to be bad. His esophagus felt like it was being pulled like saltwater taffy. His lungs strained to force oxygen into his bloodstream. Buddy Lee gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles went white. After sixty agonizing seconds the cough subsided. He spit a wad of phlegm on the ground and jogged across the two-lane highway that bisected the town.
The inside of the warehouse was as sparse as a military barracks. A worn coffee table sat to the right of the entrance buffeted on one side by a metal folding chair and a threadbare leather love seat on the other. An old-fashioned glass-faced drink machine sat against the left wall. Most of the slots in the machine were empty. The three that weren’t had a plain blue can that said COLA on the front. On both walls there were numerous posters advertising a wide variety of lawn and garden products. All the posters either promised to kill your grass or make your grass grow. A few suggested they would execute insects with extreme prejudice. The back wall of the lobby had a security window in the center with a door on the left. Ike was standing near the security window. A big key ring dangled from one finger.
“Hey, Ike,” Buddy Lee said. Ike put the key ring back in his pocket.
“Hey. Buddy Lee, right?” Ike asked. Buddy Lee nodded his head.
“Hey, you got a minute? I’d like to talk to you about something,” he said.
“Yeah, I got a few. Can’t talk long, though. I gotta get my guys out on the road,” Ike said. He pulled the keys out again and opened the Masonite door. Buddy Lee followed him through the door to back of the warehouse. Pallets of fertilizer, granular herbicide, and pesticides were staged in lines that stretched ten deep all the way back to a wide roll-up door. Long sections of metal lawn edging were stacked against the back wall on the right side of the roll-up door. A small metal desk with a laptop and a Rolodex was positioned directly behind the security window. Behind the desk was a cubicle. Ike entered the cubicle and sat behind another metal desk. Buddy Lee sat in a weathered wooden chair positioned in front of the desk. The desk was as spartan as the lobby. It had a laptop, a pen holder, an in-box and an out-box, and nothing else. A short two-drawer filing cabinet sat next to his office chair.