Uncle Otis

By Shawn A. Lawson

Anthony Brandt once wrote, “Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.”

When it comes to Allen Blackwood, this quote rings painfully true. Allen has always been intrigued at the thought of discovering his family history. With no help from his mother - who never seems open to discuss her family back in Mississippi - Allen is able to pick up snippets of information over the years. Oddly, a strange secrecy surrounds a lot of his southern relatives – this is especially so when it come to the mysterious Uncle Otis. Allen yearns to seek the truth, but never can find the time to go for a visit until, down on his luck, he decides to give up on his hand-to-mouth lifestyle in Virginia and sets out for Mississippi. With the hope of starting new and the chance to shine some light on the timeworn family mysteries; Allen sets out for Mississippi.

In Mississippi, State Police Detective, Lashauna Trudeau, is working the double homicide of an elderly couple. Being a woman of color in the Deep South is a difficult obstacle to overcome by itself, but being a woman of color with a badge is a near impossible task for the average. Trudeau is anything but average. She succeeds with her sharp wit and a tenacious investigative style and her bulldog mentality soon puts her on the trail of a reclusive family with a long history of lawlessness. Diving deep into a nasty world full of drugs and bad men, Trudeau will stop at nothing to bring the murderer to justice.

Allen’s quest to reunite with his relatives proves to be more than he bargained for and his pursuit of learning the family history puts himself, and others in danger. As Allen begins to uncover the truth behind his family, he sinks deeper into a dangerous world. Detective Trudeau must find a way to identify the killer, and save Allen before he disappears completely - into the dark waters of the Whiskey Bayou.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781728344355

Shawn A. Lawson

Shawn A. Lawson is the author of The Christmas Canteen, Knight of the Black Flag, and Uncle Otis. He and his wife live in Gloucester, Virginia.

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© 2020 Shawn A. Lawson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/22/2020

ISBN: 978-1-7283-4436-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-4434-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-4435-5 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

I Gettin’ Heavy

1

2

3

4

5

II Painful Awareness

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

III Where All the Wild Things Hide

1

2

3

4

5

6

IV The Dying of the Light

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

V A History of Bad Men

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

VI Money and Geography

1

2

3

Epilogue

Acknowledgment

I

GETTIN’ HEAVY

1

Pascagoula, Mississippi

T he gulf breeze blew through Inez Taylor’s thin, grey hair. She rolled slowly across the short bridge, just down the street from her house. The placid sound of the tires along pavement – barely audible over the gentle rustling of the leaves along the creek. She closed her eyes - recollecting a time when the bridge was wooden, and the road was dirt. Her daddy used to come down to this creek – cast his lines, on cool summer afternoons. Things had changed so much – transformed in what seemed to her, like the blink of an eye. She remembered herself so long ago, as the little girl, in the summer dress, carrying her daddy’s minnow bucket down this road. The waft of air was hitting the sweat on the back of her neck - cooling her from the summer heat. The humidity - unequivocally brutal this summer, had her constantly doing the laundry, to keep her clothes from smelling sour. Luckily, there were only a few weeks of summer left and God willing – they would be cool. Come September, the weather would break - it always did.

Inez was pretty good at predicting the weather around these parts. She’d lived in Pascagoula her entire life. A fifth generation native, she claimed. She hadn’t ever even traveled further than Mobile in all her life, which was not too far across the Georgia border. She’d never felt the need to - she was as fine as wine, right here at home – always had been. Inez had come from a tough line of Mississippi cotton people, who had always taken care of their own. After emancipation, they never relied on anyone for support, but themselves. They weren’t in need of a single thing that they couldn’t provide on their own. Her family had always lived off of the land, their land, and roughed it out through the worst of times. That’s the only way that she knew. It was how her parents were raised by their parents, and how she was taught.

She was tough and she was a survivor. She’d once heard that one of her distant relatives was brought to the docks of Pascagoula, aboard a slaver straight from Africa. The land where she and her husband now lived, was the same land that her family had occupied ever since they won their freedom - and when she said won, she meant won! The war wasn’t only won by the white folk. Many black folk laid down their lives in the struggle, too. Don’t tell that to any white man around these parts though. They were likely to get upset, and even though she wasn’t afraid of any white man - she didn’t need any trouble. White folk have been known to get a little crazy in Mississippi, from time to time. She didn’t have any intention to go aggravating them. No sir, she had made it seventy two years, without any trouble and she didn’t need any now.

On the other hand Jasper, her husband, had never known when to keep quiet. When he was a bit younger, it seemed like he went a looking for trouble on the regular, from the whites. He was never the kind of man to take the verbal abuse from the crackers, without having a few words to say of his own. He had quite the temper back then, and it’d caused quite a bit of grief over the years - for them both! They’d been married for forty seven years now, and it was only in the last ten or so, that he’d stopped getting in so much trouble. Shoot, Jasper had his own bed down at the jail house for a while, and nary was a police man that didn’t call him by his first name, when they saw him in the street.

He was a good man though - had always come home when he wasn’t locked up and had never raised a hand to her. He was a good father, too. Lionel was the apple of his daddy’s eye when he was a young boy. Even though the boy was grown now, Jasper still let Lionel get away with too much. Sometimes, a man needs to hear the truth from his father, instead of what he wants to hear. Lionel had let his wife throw him out of his own house, and he just went without a fuss. He came to his daddy, and instead of Jasper telling Lionel to man up and to go on back to his own house, he let the boy move back in. Living with his parents wasn’t no place for a forty-two year old man to be. Inez meant to say something to the both of them about the situation, and soon. They were all going to sit down and have a come-to-Jesus meeting, if he was gonna’ stay for any length of time, cause she sure wasn’t going to be doing a grown man’s laundry, unless it was her husband’s.

She vowed that she would work that out with the two of them later. It had gone on for long enough! But for now, she was going to enjoy her afternoon walk - or ride, was more like it. She had been a riding in this here wheelchair for the last five years - ever since the stroke had disabled the left side of her body. Woke up one morning and couldn’t move a muscle. Difficult and scary as it was - she pulled through. She was a fighter - a survivor!

How much further you want to go? Jasper asked. He was her legs now, pushing her up Orange Grove Road - the narrow, paved way that ran past their home and on up to the old oak tree. The one that she used to play in as a young girl. A crow cawed from a tree branch overhanging the road.

She looked up at the bird, just as it was chased from its branch by a smaller and much quicker bird, protecting its nest. As the crow flew away, it cawed again, as if to warn them all that he’d be back. Just a bit further. Inez said, Just up to the oak tree today.

Jasper knew exactly what tree she meant. The old, live oak that stood along the edge of the road, just around the next bend. It was the only destination that she ever wanted to visit, when she was out for her evening walks.

You ain’t tired, is ya’? Inez teased.

Naw, Naw I ain’t tired…you just gettin’ heavy, is all.

Inez reached around to smack his arm, bringing a chuckle from Jasper. You better watch yo’ tongue, old man…or I’m gonna cut it out yo’ mouth when you sleepin’.

You better watch you’rn, or I’ll leave you down here by this oak tree.

You better not…

I will, Jasper picked.

Just hush, and let me enjoy my ride!

He did.

2

A fter sitting under the oak tree long enough for Jasper to smoke a cigarette, the two returned to their home. The baby blue paint that jasper had put on the wood board a few years back, was fading to the point that it almost looked white. The summer sun had been hot this season. Maybe, she thought, she could get Lionel and Jasper to paint it before winter set in. As the two came around the bend and their driveway came into view, they noticed an unfamiliar car parked behind Jasper’s Buick. Who could that be? Inez wondered aloud. Jasper pushed her up the driveway slowly and took a good look into the empty car, as they passed by. There was nobody inside of it, and nothing that Jasper could see gave him any indication as to whom it might belong. There was an empty 7-11 hotdog box, with mustard smeared along the edges and a couple of beer cans on the seat inside. Jasper looked around the yard, then up and down the street, to see if there was anybody around, but he couldn’t see anyone.

You suppose it’s Lionel? Inez asked. Her voice was a little shaky, at the peculiarity of finding the strange car parked in their driveway.

Must be, Jasper said, a little uneasy himself. Why ain’t he at work though? He pushed Inez’s wheelchair up the wooden handicap ramp - the same ramp that he and Lionel had built for her right after she’d had her stroke. They approached the front door. The screen was closed, but the main door was ajar. Did we leave the door open? Jasper asked, as Inez was wondering the same thing. He pulled the screen door open and wrestled the wheel chair into the living room. At first glance, nothing looked out of sorts - the room was in the same order as he remembered leaving it. The TV remote was still on the arm of the easy chair - the quilted throw blanket over the backrest. A pile of Inez’s Better Homes and Garden magazines were stacked on the coffee table and no lights were turned on. Everything seemed just fine with the place, until a long haired white man came from out of the darkness of the hallway, holding a gun.

Jasper felt his heart drop out of his chest and hit the floor. For a second, he couldn’t catch his breath to speak.

Inez was the first to say something, Who the fuck is you?

The long haired man didn’t answer her. Though he was dressed in nice clothes, his skin looked like he was in desperate need of a bath. Like he’d worked hard all day, down at the shipyard, and just put on his clean clothes, without showering. Only he was dirtier than that – he looked rotten - his eyes, his skin, his hair, his teeth – everything. He asked his own question, like he didn’t even hear hers, Where’s Lionel?

Jasper finally caught his breath and started pulling Inez’s wheelchair back out of the front door. He ain’t here, now you need to go on and get. Just as his back reached the screen door, it suddenly opened from the outside and another man stepped inside, this one wearing panty hose over his head, and he pushed Jasper back into the room. They wore similar clothes - the kind that you might have found at a thrift store, maybe back in the eighties. Both had on long leather jackets, despite the heat. The second man stayed behind Jasper and Inez, between them and the door.

I ain’t gonna ask you again, old man…Where’s Lionel? the dirty man barked.

Inez, realizing that there wasn’t any way for them to escape, did the only thing that she could think to do. She began yelling at the top of her seventy two year old lungs, HELP! The man at the front door simply closed it.

Shut up, old woman…we ain’t gonna’ hurt ya,’ He said, rather unconvincingly.

Fuck y’all, and get the hell out of my house, Inez said.

The man with the gun laughed. You’re pretty feisty…for an old cripple.

Don’t you talk to my wife like that, Boy, Jasper said. Just then, he was hit in the back of his head with something. He didn’t know what it was, but it felt a lot like a Greyhound bus. He went sprawling across the room – crashing down on top of the coffee table - breaking the legs off and leaving him in a pile of broken wood, and Better Homes and Garden magazines. He felt the back of his head with his hand, and it was immediately covered in blood. Through his ringing ears, he heard Inez crying, Oh Lord, Oh my Lord! She tried to wheel herself over to her husband, but only made it halfway, before she was spun around by the man with the gun. Now, look here, Bitch! We ain’t leaving till you tell us where Lionel is staying.

What y’all want with Lionel? Inez asked, through her tears.

That ain’t any of your business, the man at the door said. His voice sounded older – more gravelly.

Let’s just say…he owes me some money, the man with the gun said. He knelt directly in front of her wheelchair. His breath smelled of beer, mustard, and decay. He smiled with a set of rotten teeth. Now look, this has gotten a little out of hand. He motioned at Jasper on the broken table, We didn’t come here to beat up on a couple of geriatrics. We came here to talk to Lionel and get my money back. All you have to do is tell us where he is, and we will leave you and your husband alone to go on watching Sanford and Son and eating your watermelon, or doing whatever your kind does on these beautiful, lazy afternoons.

She knew where he was supposed to be. Lionel was supposed to be at work at the shipyard, at least that’s where he told her he was going, when he left early this morning. I don’t know where he is, Inez said, through her tears. Now get the hell out of my house ‘fore I call the law on you sons-of-bitches.

The man by the door stepped forward and punched Inez in the back of the head with the brass knuckles – the same ones he’d laid the old man out with. She tipped forward out of her wheelchair - falling face down, onto the rug that her mother had given to her and Jasper, the day that they were married, back in 1967. She never even tried to catch herself as she fell, taking all of the impact with the floor, directly on her nose. Inez Taylor died within sixty seconds of landing on the carpet. Upon seeing his wife struck in the head, Jasper picked up a broken table leg and scrambled to his feet. He managed to take a single wobbly step towards the man that had hit his wife, with every intent of smashing his brains out through one of his ears, when a bullet hit his chest, knocking him back onto the broken table. Jasper watched the two men scramble out of the front door, knocking over Inez’s wheelchair as they went. The car engine started up, and he heard it back out of the dirt drive. He ignored the pain in his chest and his shortness of breath, long enough to pull himself over to his wife. She had not moved a muscle, since she was hit in the head. He rubbed her back until he died beside her, on their living room floor.

3

Hampton, Virginia

S parks flew as Allen Blackwood made his way down the dimly lit corridor - flashlight in hand. The temporary lighting, run along the ceiling, was not sufficient enough to see into the darker recesses of the building. The blackness ahead was momentarily interrupted, as another series of sparks flew - someone was welding overhead. All that Allen could see of the worker creating the fire shower, was the bottom half of his legs, on top of the ladder – the rest of the man was hidden among the pipes in the ceiling. Allen stepped into an open door to avoid being struck by the flaming hot debris. His plastic hardhat was no match for the superhot metal. Luckily, this room was on the exterior of the building and was lighted naturally by large windows. Allen tried the light switch to see if it worked, while he was waiting for the welding job to finish. The switch did nothing. These rooms were supposed to be complete, according to the update that Allen received from his coworkers earlier this morning.

Allen sighed, pulled the handheld radio from his belt. Keying the microphone he said, Come in, Randall.

Randall’s voice scratched back over the radio, Go ahead.

Who wired the lights in room four-o-seven? Allen asked.

They ain’t working, are they?

How’d you guess?

After a brief pause, Randall crackled. Carl’s on his way…

It was going to take Carl a few minutes to reach the fourth floor of the Chamberlain Hotel. There were only a couple of passage ways that could be used, since the entire building was under construction. The old hotel had been built in 1928 and was long overdue for a remodel.

A private group, along with the City of Hampton, acquired the property, formerly owned by the government, and planned to use it as their centerpiece in a massive project designed to revitalize the area. Fat chance of that, Allen thought. This city has been flat-lined for longer than Allen had been alive. He lit a cigarette, standing beside an open window overlooking Ft Monroe and the Chesapeake Bay beyond. The poison burned his lungs. He exhaled and stood watching the smoke as it left his mouth and passed out of the open window, dispersing into the early summer air.

A soft breeze carried the scent of his clothes up to his nose. He smelled of cigarettes, whiskey, and the woman that he’d met last night. What was her name? Did she even say? Surely she had, but it would have been one of the few things that was spoken after they left the bar last night. He’d met her before – Tina? Tanya? He knew it, he was sure of it, but his mind was still foggy from the amount of alcohol that he’d consumed. She’d still been there in his apartment sleeping, when he’d left for work this morning. He successfully crept out of the door at 6:00 am, so as not to wake her. Talking sometimes just made things difficult, especially when sober. What would he say anyway? Hi, how are you doing? Thanks for last night. By the way; what did you say your name was?

He hoped that she’d be gone by the time that he returned home. He didn’t intend to be rude, but wasn’t looking forward to seeing her again, anytime soon. Besides, he’d noticed the slightly discolored area around her ring finger. She’d never mentioned it, and he never asked, but it didn’t take a scholar to figure out that she was probably married – most likely, a military wife with her husband deployed away. Poor guy was overseas fighting a war, while his wife was lying in Allen’s bed. Allen felt a twinge of remorse, but quickly dispelled it. From what little he could remember, he hadn’t picked her up. It was the other way around, and for all he knew, the recently removed ring was the result of a divorce. He hoped that it was the divorce thing, but he really didn’t care one way or the other. He had no intention of ever seeing her again - or so he told himself now. One thing was for sure – he would have no company tonight - he needed to get some sleep tonight.

He looked around the city from the window. Fort Wool, with its stone walls and towers, was just across the water, on a small man-made island. The island and the fort were both the brainchild of Robert E. Lee, when he was an Engineer for the U.S. Army. Allen had always been appreciative of the historical significance of the Hampton area. Unfortunately, the city had done a very poor job of keeping that history alive and there wasn’t much left to spark the interest of the tourist. Nothing like the larger neighboring cities, such as Williamsburg, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach. Vacationers passed right through Hampton every day, without second thought, on their way to the more popular spots.

Allen had grown up just a few miles away from where he was standing right now - over in Buckroe Beach. Back in the 1920s, the Chicago gangsters used to vacation at Buckroe and the neighboring town of Phoebus. It was so well traveled by the mobsters, that Phoebus even received the nickname of Little Chicago by the gangsters. The notorious Al Capone built a house between Phoebus and Buckroe, which still stands today. The 1920s was the era that the locals liked to glamorize, but Hampton’s tough reputation goes back even further than that. Allen had read somewhere that after the pirate Blackbeard was killed, back in the 1700s, his head was brought to Hampton Harbor, and hung from the old wooden Hampton River Bridge, as a warning to others who might get the bright idea to become pirates. Allen’s family even claimed to be distantly related to a pirate that once sailed with Blackbeard. He had no idea how they would know such a thing, but it was a cool story to tell his friends, none-the-less. One thing was for sure, even though the pirate and gangster days were long gone, Hampton still carried the reputation of being a tough town.

Allen watched a tug boat trudge slowly through the Bay, towards the Hampton River and wished that he was on it, instead of here. The low steady drone of the diesel engines, plowing across the waves, could clearly be heard, as black smoke pumped out of the smoke stack.

The cigarette left a bad taste in his mouth, and he wished that he had something to drink. He looked at his watch - it was only 11:15 am. He was going to have to make it all the way until noon before he could get to his car and finish off his flask of whiskey. It would help him make it through the remainder of the day. He considered bringing the flask inside the building, so that he could nip it from time to time, but decided against the idea for fear of being caught drinking on the job. He found that lately he needed something to help him get through the day. He despised the people that he worked with, and he hated construction work in general, but it was all that he knew. There weren’t a whole lot of options for uneducated people these days. Not when college grads were flooding the workforce and taking all of the jobs that didn’t require so much manual labor.

Allen promised himself that he was going to go back to school someday, but that had never happened. He was thirty one now and couldn’t imagine himself ever having to study for another exam. Things could be worse, he guessed. He was a site foreman for the company he was working for, and although he was in no danger of getting rich, he was paying his rent - usually. Allen felt like he fit in with the people of this profession. It was tough work physically. That, and the lack of any education at all necessary to perform it - it was where all of the rejects of the fucked up American society wound up. Respectable companies won’t hire people with serious criminal records, but a construction company was happy to have the body on the jobsite. It was a rough trade to be in, and an even rougher one to be in charge of. It was a little sketchy when you had to convince a man who’d just been released from prison, to do something he didn’t really want to do, just because you asked him to. Allen had been in a number of scraps with people on the job in the past - mostly because his tolerance of people was very low – made especially so when he’d been drinking.

Carl walked into the room, breaking Allen from his thoughts. He tossed the cigarette out of the window, but didn’t turn around - Carl didn’t immediately say anything either. The man was about the same age as Allen, but looked a few years older due to premature greying hair. It was Allen’s opinion that Carl only had a job with the company because he was dating the boss’s sister, Patricia. That said, Allen needed to be guarded around him, because word always got back to the boss, via Carl.

Randall said for me to come up here, Carl finally explained. Allen faced him, and noticed immediately that Carl had made his fifteen minute trip to the fourth floor, without any tools or a ladder, and therefore he couldn’t do any work without wasting another fifteen minutes retrieving them.

I thought we were finished wiring the lights in this room. Allen said.

Me and Jonas did, Carl said. Jonas was another shining star in Allen’s opinion, and happened to be Carl’s best buddy.

Well then… Allen tried to control his frustration, …you and Jonas need to get some tools, grab a ladder, and do it again…because you and your pal evidently didn’t do it correctly the first time.

"Well… it was Jonas who wired this room…" Carl began to put the blame on his buddy. It was one of the things that Allen disliked the most about the man. He never took responsibility for his own actions.

Just go get your gear and fix it! Allen didn’t have the patience to listen to any of Carl’s excuses right now.

Carl left the room, just as Randall came in carrying a ladder. He came all the way up without his tools, didn’t he? Randall asked. He was smiling, because of a running joke that he and Allen had about Carl being an idiot.

Allen just shook his head, He’s consistent…I have to give him that much!

Consistently bad! Randall joked. You ready for lunch?

Randall Jefferson was a black man - standing five feet, eleven inches tall, and was about three hundred pounds. He looked like a human bowling ball, but despite being more than a little on the fat side, he was as strong as a Brahma Bull. Randall had also grown up in Buckroe. He and Allen were friends since middle school, and he was also one of the most sincere people that Allen had ever met. What are we eating today? Randall asked, after setting down the ladder.

I’m going to skip lunch, Allen said, without looking his friend in the eyes. He could feel Randall’s eyes scrutinizing him.

You gonna be eating with your other best friend, Elijah Craig, again today? Randall asked, with a twinge of sarcasm in his voice. Elijah Craig was Allen’s whiskey of choice, and Randall knew it.

Allen glanced up at Randall’s face. He was trying to get a read on if his friend was kidding around, or not. Based on the disappointed way that Randall was looking back at him - he guessed the answer was - not.

Randall exhaled, Look, I ain’t one to be all up in someone else’s business, but it seems to me like you’ve been letting that shit rule you for quite a while now. Randall shook his head the way a disappointed father might shake his head at a son – one who was making the wrong choices in life. I’m all about the partying and having fun, but you need to separate that shit from your work life. It’s going to get you in trouble.

The things that his friend was saying made sense. Allen knew that he’d let the drink sink its hooks in him. Hell, he was more aware of it than anybody else, but he also knew that Randall didn’t realize that the two of them were at different points in their life right now. Randall had a wife and a young child. He had people around him all the time – people that cared about him - Allen didn’t. There were women that came around once in a while, but only for a drink, or whatever the high Allen could provide them at the time. Other than that, he was alone. It was depressing to go to work every day, only to go home every night to an empty apartment. His routine was a miserable existence. After work some nights, all he’d do was nurse a bottle – watching TV until he fell asleep, only to get up the next morning and do it all over again. When it was warm outside, he spent the evenings, sitting on the steel balcony that adjoined his front door, with a steel staircase that ran down the back of the building. If it was especially hot it was his best option, since the apartment he rented didn’t have any central heat or air, and it could get quite muggy in the summertime.

Other nights he went down to the local watering hole, the Big Horn, and drank there, but that could get expensive. He could buy a whole bottle of whiskey for what he spent on a few drinks down there. The sad truth was that his life, as a whole, revolved around spending his time alone while trying to decide on where he was going to pop the top on the next bottle. It had become his only pleasure, and no matter how hard Randall tried, he just didn’t understand how miserable it was for Allen to be sober. Randall could stand there and talk to him all day, and it wasn’t going to change the fact that he was going for a drink, just as soon as the lunch bell rang.

Allen knew that he was probably to the point where he needed professional help if he was going to quit, but that was only if he wanted to quit. Right now, he had no intention of doing any such thing. Yeah, thanks for the concern, Allen said. I’ll keep that in mind.

Randall shrugged his shoulders. His disappointment was apparent, Whatever man! Just know that if you need someone, Shannon and I are here. Randall turned and walked out of the room, at the same time Carl and Jonas back came in.

Where do you want us to start? Carl asked.

Allen looked at Carl - lit another cigarette and without saying another word - left the room.

4

I t was a quarter past five when Allen walked into the company office. The reception area was small. There was barely enough room for the two chairs placed on either side of a large potted plant that had grown nearly tall enough to reach the ceiling tile.

Allen popped a hand full of Tic-Tacs into his mouth, to freshen up his breath. He preferred chewing gum, it masked the alcohol better, but the mints were all that he could find on short notice, in the truck glove box. He’d taken a couple of swigs from his flask while he was out in the parking lot, and he didn’t want Chip, his boss, to smell it on him. Now he was standing in the small lobby. There was an open receptionist window to his left, and to his right, a white door with dirty finger marks all around the handle. A cheap picture of a sailboat adorned the only open wall. It was the kind of picture that Allen imagined someone could pick up at a yard sale for a couple of bucks. Allen poked his head in the window and saw that there was nobody at the desk. He tried the door, knowing full well that it would be locked, they were in Hampton after all. Of course it was locked, so he leaned his head through the receptionist window again and yelled, Chip? There was no answer at first. He called again, and as he did, Chip Avette’s sister, Patricia came waddling around the corner from somewhere in the back. She didn’t say hello, she ignored that Allen was even standing there, and simply pushed a button under the receptionist desk. The door behind Allen made a buzzing noise.

He’s in his office, Patricia finally said. Allen pulled open the door and went in.

Chip Avette was indeed in his office and was on the telephone as Allen entered. Chip was a big man, standing nearly six feet four and moderately overweight. He had once been in pretty good shape, but years away from field work and even longer away from his youth had packed on the extra pounds. He wore a crisp white shirt and tie, with business slacks - he always did. Allen felt a little under-dressed in the dingy jeans and the t-shirt that he’d worn all day on the jobsite. Without breaking from his conversation on the phone, Chip motioned for Allen to sit in the chair across from his desk. Allen ignored the gesture and used the time to look around Chip’s office. The whiskey was beginning to take an effect and he was afraid that if he were to sit down, the room would start spinning faster than it already was.

Hanging on the wall were numerous plaques for donations made by the company to little league baseball teams, and a couple of blown up pictures of Chip and his late father, fishing from the back of a very substantial boat. There was also a picture of Chip’s very plump wife, Shelly. Allen always had to fight back the urge to call her Lulu, since she reminded him of the fat lady from the Dukes of Hazzard TV show – right down to the hairdo. He knew them well – they’d grown up in the same neighborhood. As he looked at the picture, Allen felt himself sway a little, deciding that it was time to sit down. He took the chair Chip had offered him. Sitting now, he looked out of the office door and across the hall to find Patricia at the receptionist desk, staring directly back at him. Allen despised the girl and was pretty sure that she felt the same about him. It didn’t help the situation that she was Carl’s girlfriend - he and Carl loathed each other.

She was chewing on a piece of gum that made Allen think of a grazing cow. He couldn’t help but chuckle and waved goodbye, as he gently pushed the door closed, so that he didn’t have to look at her anymore. Chip finished with his phone call. Sorry about that, He hung up the receiver, Freaking supply companies! He pulled his desk drawer open and removed an envelope, then tossed it onto his desk in front of Allen. Look…I know that it’s late and you’ve worked hard all day, so I will make this as quick and painless as I can. He motioned for Allen to pick up the envelope.

Allen opened it. Inside, he found a check for five hundred dollars made out in his name, What’s this?

It’s some extra money, to hold you over for a couple of weeks.

What do you mean? Allen asked, confused.

Look… Chip said, …I’m not one for beating around the bush…you know that…so I’m going to give it to you straight. I’m laying you off for a couple of weeks, to give you some time.

Give me time…for what? Allen could feel his blood pressure rising, causing the room to spin a little faster.

Look, I don’t know how to put this gently, so I’m just going to lay it out there, Chip explained.

You keep saying that…so please, do.

Chip took a deep breath, he was clearly uncomfortable, "You are a hard worker…maybe the best I have, and I hate to lose you