II
729 Words
IITHIS MORNING, CHUCK opened up the highway store again. Like he had most days for the last 20 years.
He sat on the faded wooden bench, under the faded metal awning out front and waited.
The morning was still cool, a slight breeze from the south that would mean another hot day. Not enough to raise the dust. In the shade, it was comfortable. The bench was wooden, but curved to support your back. And he had his step stool out there to keep his booted feet up off the ground.
Nearby, a tall thermos of lemonade spiked with vodka was busy perspiring. Ice cubes slowly melting, sometimes shifting with a light tinkle as they settled in.
Lately, he'd been putting that extra "juice" in it. Just to take the edge off.
Didn't expect much customers coming in today, if any. Like the last few weeks.
Once a Lazurai was rumored in the area, people left. And mostly didn't come back.
Chuck didn't have much of a choice. And didn't care anyway.
He stayed with his wife, Charlene. She had her good days and others. Mostly others, more recent.
He'd gotten an OK from the doctor to bring her home from the hospital, to those rooms in the back where they'd lived in for so long. She wasn't expected to live as long as she had, so every day seemed another blessing. But they both knew what was in her was eating her up. Day to day, they kept going.
Chuck had gotten used to being her nurse. For awhile, one of the professional nurses had come by once or twice a week to answer his questions and check in on him. But she hadn't been around in weeks. Not since the rumor got started.
He'd heard of entire cities emptied out just because of a traveling Lazurai rumor. And when the story didn't pan out, it didn't mean people would come back.
His store was stocked OK, everything except propane canisters, electrical generators, and gas cans. The crowd had bought these all out, on their way to somewhere else. There was still plenty of gas in the ground for the pumps out front. If the power lines went dead, he had his own generator hardwired in and bolted down so it couldn't "disappear." If need be, he could last for months just cannibalizing the fuel in the ground and what food he had on the shelves. As long as he didn't get tired of beer nuts and beef strips.
It might get lonely, though.
He stayed because Charlene stayed.
Charlene didn't want to leave for treatment, as she'd be too far from the baby's grave out back.
That seemed to be the turning point for her. She never seemed to recover after the baby had died.
Death was such a weighted term. But it was more accurate than anything else.
He remembered that day when they held the small ceremony out back. One of the few days he didn't open up the store. The local lay-pastor had come out to say a few words. And a friend with a backhoe had dug the hole in that dried, hard ground. Chuck had bought a concrete cross, but couldn't afford to have the baby's name carved into it.
Charlene was in a wheelchair that day, and never left it to walk again since. Only left it to lay down in their bed, which she had left less often as her illness got worse.
Chuck left a folding chair out there by the grave, where he could come and talk to their baby, to tell it all the things he had on his mind. Even read children’s stories out loud. And sometimes Charlene would ask about what he had told the baby. Sometimes, she'd ask Chuck to sing a hymn for the baby, for her.
Chuck used to have a great voice for singing. They'd go every Sunday down the road to a little town that was big enough for a small congregation in one of the store fronts there. Chuck would sing the hymns along with everyone else, often leading them with his strong baritone.
Nowadays, he hardly could get through half the verses before he would break down and sob.
That was the reason for the chair. Sobbing things out helped him get through the next few days.
Otherwise, most of his day was dusting the shelves, sweeping dust from the floor out the front door, or sitting where he was. Waiting.
- Writer
