**thanks for being so patient for a full-time student! Enjoy the next chapter!**
Chapter 3: Hellos
The house was small, bright, and empty. Morning sunlight streamed in through the windows of the entryway, landing in streaks on the naked walls and wood floors. Bags of clothes and books sat in the living room, slumped over, waiting to be given permanent homes. There was a quaint kitchen through a low-hanging doorway and a set of stairs that wound to the top floor.
Dust danced through the slanting bars of sunlight as Lee nudged the front door open with his shoulder, boxes tucked under his arms. He set them down with a grunt, wincing as the loud clang of baking dishes and cooking pots clambered within. He straightened to his full height and breathed the place in, catching the distinct scent of cigarette smoke. Lee made a mental note to get some candles on his next trip to Save-Lots, maybe they would help to mask the smell.
"Grab me the pliers, hon?" Lee heard someone shout outside. "I think I almost got it."
"Dad, can I play on it? Huh? Can I?"
"Duck, if you don't stop getting in my way I swear I'll chuck you clean over that fence."
Lee stretched his arms up over his head and winced as a loud crack followed. He had chosen a neighborhood with plenty of activity on purpose. Just a few nights alone in that hotel were enough to make him realize that he was not ready for that amount of quiet yet. Rubbing his hands together, he wandered over to the window and surveyed his street. Minivans rolled out of driveways and bikers pedaled by, the spokes of their wheels flashing in the morning sun. Lee's next-door neighbors—the ones who had been making a racket all morning—seemed to be getting an early start. One of them had his head shoved under the hood of an old tractor as he shouted instructions back to a blonde woman. She sat on the front steps, waving off a skinny kid who was bouncing around both his parents. Too much noise was better than none at all.
Lee spent the rest of the morning putting away what little possessions he had, waiting around for a sofa to sit on or a bed to set up. At noon his stomach growled insistently, so he extracted a squashed granola bar from his back pocket and shoved it in his mouth.
"Anybody home?" called a voice from the front of the house.
Lee craned his head to see who had stepped in. The man had a suspicious look on his mustached face, greying hair shoved under a baseball cap, and he was up to his elbows in grease. When Lee rounded the corner, he could almost feel the man's eyes hot on him, inspecting and wary. "I don't usually bug neighbors but…well the wife said it'd be nice if I did. I'd shake your hand but…" he flashed his hands in case Lee hadn't seen the black smudges on his palms.
Lee wiped the crumbs off his own hands and came cautiously into the entryway. "Name's Lee."
"I'm Kenny. Outside is Katjaa—" he gestured out the window to the blonde woman sitting comfortably on the porch, "—and that there's Duck."
Lee blinked. He wasn't sure if he heard correctly. "Duck?"
"Yeah. Ken Junior, but we call him Duck. Nothing fazes him, like water off a duck's back, y'know? Though frankly I think it's because he as dumb as a bag of hammers."
Just then, a freckly kid around ten poked his head through the doorway. He had skinny limbs and eyes too big for his face. "Dad, can I please play on the tractor? Just for a second? I asked Mom and she said I could. Pleasepleaseplease?"
Kenny rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Oh, for god's—fine. Don't touch any of the buttons or you'll be sorry."
Duck let out a "Yes!" through his teeth and bolted in the direction of his driveway.
"Seems to make it up in enthusiasm, though," Lee commented.
Kenny chuckled. "No kidding."
Lee paused, wondering if he had anything to offer his new neighbor—a drink perhaps, he would kill for a beer—but knew that there wasn't anything in this house but dust in the corners and quite possibly mold on the ceilings. He didn't think he'd be having company this early on in the day, much less in his new life.
After a moment Kenny hitched up his jeans, swearing under his breath as he realized that the grease had rubbed off on them. "Listen, there's actually another reason I came over. I, uh, I was hoping I could get your help with that tractor?" He jerked his head in the direction of his driveway, where the motionless hunk of metal sat like a sleeping giant. Duck was perched in the driver's seat, hands on the wheel, spurting noises omitting from his mouth. "I think the breaks must be rusted over, and I could sure use an extra pair of hands to help me push it into the grass. Get it out of the way."
Lee didn't have much else to do besides wait around for his furniture to arrive. There was no couch to sit on or a bed to put together. He rolled up his sleeves. "Sure, I'll lend a hand."
Kenny nodded curtly and led the way across the grass towards the tractor. He let Duck remain in the driver's seat and press lightly on the gas pedal as Kenny turned the key in the ignition and braced his hands on the back. Lee followed his lead and together, they heaved their weight on the metal giant until the wheels screeched over the pavement and sliced through the grass. Duck's "wheee!" went on even after the tractor had come to a stop. Kenny wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. The task hadn't taken a minute and yet Lee's limbs were shaking when it was done.
Kenny grunted, gesturing appreciatively to the front porch. It looked like Katjaa had brought out a pitcher of an icy drink and she was pouring four glasses full. It wasn't beer, but Lee gave her his profound thanks as he downed it in two gulps. Lee was relieved that Katjaa looked at him with a non-judgmental eye as he brought her up to speed, leaving out the fact that he was fresh off the prison bus. He didn't want to think about what that detail would do to his budding reputation.
"Kenny and I moved here last summer from Fort Lauderdale," she explained. Her voice was easy and pleasant, edged with an accent Lee guessed to be European, though he couldn't be sure. "It certainly was an adjustment."
"Duck likes it well enough," Kenny chimed, pouring himself another glass of lemonade. "It's a good neighborhood, especially if you're lookin' to raise a family. You got kids?"
It wasn't new by any means, that sharp inward stab that struck at the oddest times, set off by the most trivial things—the smell of lilies, seeing a happy couple in the street, the sound of a woman laughing. Lee swallowed. "No…no kids."
"Would've liked one, then?"
Lee shrugged in an attempt to brush off the nauseous feeling. "Y'know."
Katjaa shot Kenny a reproachful look and redirected the conversation down a lighter path. "So, Lee, where do you work?"
This wasn't a particularly helpful topic, either. "I used to teach history up at the university."
She blinked in polite interest. "That's wonderful. Teachers are so underappreciated these days."
Lee hesitated a moment, mouth struggling to form the right words. He knew he would have to tell them everything eventually, being neighbors and all. The longer he concealed his story, the worse it was going to be. "No, I uh…I usedto. I was laid off a little while ago."
Kenny seemed to perk up real quick, eyebrows raised all the way up to the rim of his hat. "What were you fired for?"
"Ken," Katjaa hissed
"It's a reasonable question, Kat." He turned back to Lee, eyes squinted doubtfully. Lee couldn't help but wonder if this was the reason he had been invited over here: A Welcome-to-the-Neighborhood Interrogation. "People get laid off all the time. Good people, even. When the economy's this bad, there's no telling what's around the next corner, y'know?"
"Uh…yeah."
Kenny leaned in a little closer, a strange expression caught between curiosity and wariness. "Or you could have broken a rule or two, right?"
Lee stood there dumbly, jaw hanging open. "I…"
CRASH.
It pierced the air like a gunshot, edged with a sound like a thousand tiny knives grinding together. When Lee turned around, it took him a moment to realize what was wrong, but then he saw it: the tractor had managed to flip onto its side—engine gurgling and sputtering—Kenny's boy wedged between it and the grass.
Duck didn't seem to grasp what had happened, either. He lay there stunned, unable to raise his head more than an inch off the ground. His mother's scream was the thing that made him realize that something was terribly off about lying with a mouthful of dirt and blood.
Kenny sprang off of the porch, tripping over his own feet on his way to the yard. Lee was hot on his tail, making a beeline for the overturned hunk of metal spitting out black smoke. "Shitshitshit." Kenny's eyes were as wide as saucers as he turned them on Lee, his hands raised and trembling as if they were ready to punch the tractor rather than lift it up.
"You get that side, I'll get this one!" ordered Lee above the grinding of the gears. "I've got it leveraged, we lift on three!"
Kenny, spurred by the urgency in Lee's voice, obeyed and shoved his fingers under the metal.
"One, two…" Lee dug in his heels, "…three!"
They heaved it, groaning and straining under the weight. After a few seconds of stasis, the tractor raised a few inches off the ground, enough for Duck to crawl through. "GO!"Kenny growled through clenched teeth. Katjaa appeared immediately to his left, hands gripping Duck's wrists as she yanked him out and across the grass. Lee's arms were beginning to tremble violently, but he made sure the kid and his mom was at least five feet away before letting out a shout of release. He and Kenny let go, the metal monster crashing back to the ground with a note of finality.
Shaking from his head to his fingertips, Lee reached underneath the tractor and forced his arm into an unnatural arc. He finally felt it: the warm metal of the keyring. With a lot of coaxing, he managed to yank it out of the ignition. The great beast sputtered, gurgled, and finally stopped altogether. Lee gave the old tractor a prod with his foot for good measure
"Mom, I'm fine." Duck was struggling against his mother's arms, as she was trying to hold his squirming form in place.
"You're not fine. You bit your lip—look there's blood everywhere."
"Mom…"
"Does it hurt when I do this—?"
"Ow!"
She raised her eyebrows in an "I told you so" kind of way.
There were a few scrapes and bruises where the tractor had pinned him down, but Duck's skinny build had saved him from being crushed, if only by a centimeter. When Kenny had finished scolding Duck and was certain he was all right, he wandered back over to Lee, thumbs in his pockets. His eyebrows were furrowed together, his lips pressed in a thin line underneath his furry mustache. "Thanks, Lee." Kenny extended a calloused hand and Lee shook it. Kenny's grip was firm and his gaze unflinching. "Really. Thank you. You saved my boy."
Lee nodded, glad that the suspicious glare had faded completely out of Kenny's eyes. "Anytime."
Kenny broke the handshake after a solid ten seconds, "I'll deal with all of this later," he waved a hand in the direction of the overturned tractor. "I think it's gonna take more than two guys to lift this motherfucker."
Lee nodded in agreement, his shoulder throbbing uncomfortably. He was going to feel that tomorrow.
The sound of a roaring truck broke up the silence as a large moving van pulled up to the curb.
"Hey, you need any help unpacking, neighbor?" asked Kenny.
Lee was glad to accept the help, but even more eager to leave the subject of his employment behind.
