Chapter Two – Work From Home
—
As the alarm went off on the alarm clock, Rezzie groggily woke up and turned it off by hitting the giant top button that turns it off. He wasn't able to really get much sleep last night due to restless sleep. It wasn't a particularly pleasant aspect of his as he preferred to get a decent amount of sleep at night. However, he had to play with the hand he was dealt.
It had been a couple of days since he did that odd job and he still couldn't get it off of his mind. His actions and the events that went down that day lingered on inside of him. It was a mix of pity, guilt, and conflict. He didn't know the full story behind their way of life. He didn't know what was right in the situation and he certainly didn't know what was best. All he knew what was he did know and what he didn't know. All he can do is let the emotions pass by with time and use this as a lesson for the future.
Out of nowhere, the alarm went off blaring again out of the blue again, much to Rezzie's annoyance. He forgot to disarm the alarm after shutting it off, and since he didn't it went to standby to be activated again. After hitting the alarm, Rezzie got up out of bed and rubbed his temples and ears in pain. The high-pitched noises that the alarm made were painful to him, borderline unbearable at times. But it was the only noise capable that could end up waking him up out of deep sleep against his will.
Looking at the time, he saw that it was past eight o'clock. Going over to his closet, he slipped on a pair of black swim trunks and a black tank top with orange and white lining. Stepping out of his bedroom, he walked down the hallway and could smell the aroma of pancake batter in the air. Rezzie knew that was his father's cooking -he practically grew up on it.
Entering the kitchen, he saw as his father was making a batch of waffles in the waffle iron. Back in the forests, his mother typically stayed home while his father worked in construction. Now that they moved down here in the capitol, things have changed. After his father got a stroke that activated a repressed Hepatitis C virus in his body, his liver was gradually killing him while at the same time punishing him severely if he ate even the slightest amount of sugar. This left him medically unfit to work.
So now while his mom works at a computer job for a fashion designer company, dad stays home and takes care of everything in the house. Rezzie's mother loves it because of the fact that he's home all the time and doesn't have to travel anywhere like he did back in their old way of living. However, his father never was able to adjust to modern living, having grown so fond of the open air, the vast groves and the fresh oxygen. Maybe there will come a time he will be able to return back there someday.
Rezzie's father noticed his son come into the kitchen, giving him a small smile, "Hey, buddy, you had a good rest?"
"It was all right, I guess. Not as good as I hoped it would," answered Rezzie as he rummaged through the kitchen cupboards, "I'm gonna put some coffee in the pot. You think mom is gonna want some or no?"
"She might as long as it's not the flavored stuff that you like drinking," his father opened up the iron and plopped the cooked waffles on a ceramic plate where he had a few others that were already made before Rezzie got up, "I think we still have some dark roast in the cupboard, she likes drinking that."
"Already got it," Rezzie pulled out the dark brown plastic bag of coffee grounds out of one of the cupboards, "the waffles smell really good, dad. When will they all be ready?"
"Thanks, they'll be ready In a few minutes. Go set the table once you get the coffee brewing, and put out the butter and syrup, too."
"Sure thing, dad."
As Rezzie was preparing the coffee maker and the pot to get coffee brewing, his father had to step to the side in for a second in order to pour more batter into the waffle iron before closing it. When he stepped aside, Rezzie finished preparing the maker and turned it on to get the coffee brewing. By the time that the coffee would be done, he'll have the table set and ready.
Pulling out plates, cups, napkins, forks and knives, he prepared three places at the kitchen table, one for himself and both of his parents. He then opened the fridge, took out the butter and the sugar free syrup, and put them out in the center of the table. Finally, he pulled out a pitcher of milk and filled up his father's glass before sealing it back up and putting it back in the fridge. Since he and his mother were both having coffee, he kept their glasses empty for the meantime.
At that moment, the coffee machine beeped on to signify that the coffee was done brewing and a pot was ready to be drunk. Taking out two packets of creamer and four packets of sugar out of the cupboard, he tore them open and dumped the contents in there before taking the pot and pouring half the contents made into his cup. At that moment, his mother came into the kitchen half-asleep, having been woken up by the scent of breakfast that had earlier drawn Rezzie in.
"Hey, honey, you had a good night?" Rezzie's father asked with a smile on his face.
"Yeah," his wife answered before hugging her husband, then giving Rezzie a kiss on the cheek, "and how are you doing, Rezzie?"
"Doing fine, mom," Rezzie hugged his mom with a smile on his face; he always was a bit of a momma's boy, "you gonna join us for breakfast today?"
"Eh, I'm just not feeling it right now. I think I'll skip it for today. Maybe mom will have some when she comes back from work," his mother answered, "she does get back from work in a few minutes."
"You sure about that? Because these are smelling pretty damn good," Rezzie's mother pouted a bit at her husband before he nodded, "I'm just screwing with you. I'll save your share for Sarah."
As Rezzie's mother went into the garage to smoke a cigarette, right on cue the front door opened up. An old lady with dark skin and silver hair, looking to be in her mid sixties walked into the house and locked the door behind her. She had a very kindhearted and peaceful expression on her face, mostly to be expected from one who is devout to inner peace.
Sarah Meraxus, Rezzie's grandmother on his mother's side, originally lived in St. Axis City several counties away from the farmhouse that Rezzie and his family resided, taking up work there as a surgical tech. When his family moved to the capitol, they invited her down to live with them and keep the entire family in one place. Two years after the invite, when she got done making the arrangements for her to transfer to the night shift at the general hospital in the capitol, she moved down and lived with them. Now she's been there ever since.
As she entered the kitchen, Rezzie perked his attention to her, "Hey, grandma, how are you?"
"Oh I'm doing just fine," his grandmother soothed as she gave Rezzie a hug before hugging her son-in-law, "and how're you doing today?"
"So far so good," answered Rezzie's father before asking, "you want to join us for breakfast? We're having waffles."
"Sure, I would love to. I could smell them cooking all the way from the driveway," the old woman chuckled, "let me get my shoes off and my stuff put away real quick then we'll eat."
"Of course."
The old woman took her shoes off in the garage, hugged and greeted her daughter while she was in there, and came back and hung her jacket at one of the chairs set at the kitchen table. Rezzie's father set the freshly-cooked waffles on the kitchen table before he and Rezzie sat down and got themselves comfortable.
As they got their plates loaded up with breakfast, Rezzie turned to his grandmother and spoke, "So, any stories from work tonight you wanna tell us?" Rezzie always loved talking with his grandmother about her time at work because nearly each day was a completely different story.
"Well, we had a patient come in last night with glass jelly jar jammed and broken up his rectum," she explained, causing her grandson to grimace in disgust, "from what he told us in his drunken stupor, he did it on a bet with his friends. Problem is his body broke it while it was in there. It took us all night to pull the broken pieces out of there, and when I left to go home, they were still working on patching up his lower intestines and his butt hole. It will likely take them all morning to patch all of that up because it looked like tattered cloth."
After processing the story, the table was silent before Rezzie said with disdain, "I can't believe humans are so freaking stupid…"
For the next few minutes, they ate their breakfast without much in the way of talking. Rezzie, who was always a faster eater than most, finished his plate first and put the messy dishes he used in the sink to be washed. He had a pretty good arrangement with his family; in exchange for not having to pay rent or bills, he would have to help out considerably around the house. He didn't mind it at all, since it would allow him to save his money.
Rezzie's father finished off the last bit of his breakfast before looking over at his son, "So, do you plan on doing any odd jobs today?"
"No, I plan on heading over to Grandma Michelle's to cut her yard. It's been a couple of weeks so I'm sure it needs to be done," Rezzie answered, taking his father's dishes and putting them in the sink as well.
"You know, you need to find yourself an actual job instead of all this freelancer crap," Rezzie's father complained as he pointed at him, "I've done that in the past, and there are times it'll do you more harm than good."
"The only reason I'm a freelancer at all right now because I haven't heard anything back from the places I applied to. All this online application garbage is so messed up. I assure you, once I get an actual job to pull through, I'll be good to go and only do odd jobs for side cash."
"I'm sure you'll be able to do what you have to do," his grandmother spoke in an assuring tone as she finished her plate and put her empty dishes in the sink, "I've seen it first hand, especially with you young folk. There isn't much in the way of opportunity for you all like there used to."
Her words carried weight in this case. He's been having the hardest time in the world trying to find a job ever since he dropped out of medical school earlier in the year due to conflict of interests and stress. It was bad enough that the economy and the job market was in dire straits. But with the faulty online application servers and high cost of living, it was very difficult to get a decent job, much less a full time one, that can help make ends meet. So Rezzie decided to be a freelancer, which did pay good money when completed fast enough. The problem was that it was erratic, he could go days if not weeks without finding an odd job to do.
Rezzie decided to take his mind of the matter by taking care of the kitchen. Using dish soap and sink water, he cleaned up the dishes and tools that they used before rinsing them off. Then, he opened up the dishwasher and set them in there to not only dry but to be ran through the dishwasher once it's full. He then set the cleaned waffle iron in one of the lower cabinets underneath the kitchen counter. Closing the dishwasher, he grabbed a spray bottle of cleaner and a wash rag. Spraying down the kitchen counters, table, microwave door and the fridge doors, he wiped down everything he sprayed until they were dried off. He disregarded the trash for the time being, since he takes it out at night.
Going into the garage, he grabbed the keys to the shed off the key rack above the shoe dresser and closed the door behind him. Stepping outside to the back yard, he walked over to the shed at the corner of the back yard and unlocked the padlock sealing it together. Opening the shed double doors, he pulled out the necessary materials he needed to do the job: a push mower, a weed eater, a electric outdoor blower and an extension cord. Once he made sure the mower was filled with fuel and the weed eater was filled with premix, he loaded everything on top of the push mower and lugged it through the wooden gate separating the front and back yards before hauling them down the street.
The house they were living in was about a half dozen houses away from where his grandmother lived. One of the fringe benefits of living in the capitol was that most of their family lived there so they're always close by when something happens. The downside is that, in Rezzie's case, he isn't necessarily close with most of them so he often feels overexposed even when slightly in their presence.
After spending the next few minutes juggling around several pieces of lawn care equipment several hundred feet, he came up to his grandmother's house. His grandmother, Michelle, was a retired employee of the same fashion design agency that his mother worked at. Matter of fact, one of the reasons that his mother was hired was because of his grandmother. After her husband died last year to intestinal cancer, she had been in a travelling kick with her other retired friends that lived in the neighborhood. One could speculate that she travels to fill the void, but to Rezzie she is just living her life to the fullest.
After unloading everything on the sidewalk, he put on his headphones, cranked up some music, revved up the lawn mower and got to cutting. Normally, with a riding mower it would go by faster. However, Rezzie preferred the push mower because it was good exercise for him. After a little over an hour, he was done mowing both the front and the back yard. But before he could get started with weed eating and edging the yard, his grandmother came out the front door.
An older woman in her early seventies, she appeared to be in her fifties, bearing platinum blonde hair that was cut short and curled up naturally. She wore a pink t-shirt, white shorts and light tan flip-flops. One of the main traits of his grandmother's side of the family was the genetic decelerated aging that her side of the family possessed. Most people from her line have lived until they were almost a century or longer. If Rezzie played his cards right and kept a healthy and stress-free life, he would probably live that long as well.
Approaching her grandson, she waved to him as a greeting, "Hello! How're you, Rezzie?"
"Doing all right so far, grandma," Rezzie answered, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm, "give me another half hour or so and I'll be done."
"When you do, you want to come in and cool off? I'm sure you could use a drink."
"Sure, I'll be in soon."
After she went back inside, Rezzie put on his clear work glasses and started up the weed eater. With careful precision, he edged the sidewalks, the garden beds and the concrete surface surrounding the swimming pool. When he got done, he rolled out the cord, plugged in the electric blower, and blew off the debris back into the lawn. After putting all of his tools into the back yard, he took the pool skimmer and scooped up any of the excess debris that ended up falling into the pool by mistake.
When he finally got done with that errand, he put away the pool skimmer and turned on the outdoor faucet that turned the water hose on. Using the hose, he sprayed off the lawn care equipment clean, steam rising off from still being hot from usage. Afterwards, he sprayed off his feet, turned off the faucet, and headed on inside his grandmother's house through the back patio door.
The living room that was connected to the back patio was large and expansive, designed to sit close to a dozen people with ease. It was expected, since every now and then they had large family gatherings among the family members that lived in the capitol. Connected to the side of it was a bar with four stools that separated the living room and the kitchen, which was nothing out of the ordinary. In the kitchen was his grandmother, who was rummaging through the fridge trying to find something to snack on.
"Hey, grandma, I'm done with your yard," Rezzie called to his grandmother, catching her attention.
"Thank you, Rezzie," his grandmother nodded in gratitude before asking, "you want to have that drink now?"
"That would be lovely, thank you," Rezzie answered as he sat down on the stool, "so, what do you got?"
"I got water, juice, Gatorade, soda, Hetap," she rummaged through the fridge some more, "you probably need to replenish your electrolytes so I'll grab you a Gatorade."
"Actually, I would kill for a Hetap. Hadn't had one in some time."
"I'll grab one for myself, too," she pulled out two cans of Hetap and some boxed cookies that she usually keeps refrigerated, "I'll have to go out and get some more."
"If you want, I can go get you more. I don't have much else better to do today."
"Oh no, it's perfectly fine. I'll get some more the next time I'm out."
As Rezzie cracked open the lid and took a sip of the beverage, he felt the cool and delicious taste dance along his taste buds. It always was a refreshing thing to drink after a hot day in the sun. He remembered during his childhood grabbing some with his mother after getting off of school every Friday. The freelancer sighed with a small smile on his face as he remembered the good memory.
On the corner of the counter was yesterday's newspaper, lying neatly in the corner. Rezzie remembered that the newspaper for today hadn't come in yet, seeing as the delivery boy only comes in the afternoons now. He felt his curiosity be piqued as he finished the Hetap. Throwing the empty can in the trash, he reached over to the newspaper and scooted it over to himself. But before he could even open it, his jaw dropped at what was on the front.
One of the stories on the front page was the story regarding the incident that occurred over at Randall's place two days ago. He was surprised at how quickly that these reporters and the police moved in making all of this public. Rezzie's grandmother walked over and saw the story that he was intently reading.
"Family Summer Hindered by Drug Bust," his grandmother asked, "what do you think that is about?"
"Let's see now," Rezzie cleared his throat before reading aloud, "A couple was arrested in Dogwood Hills around noontime Wednesday for the possession of a large quantity of crack, marijuana, and methamphetamine in their house. The young couple, Tora and Gayle Campbell, were arrested outside their home in Dogwood Hills late afternoon Wednesday after police were called to the residence. The husband was found semi-conscious with a concussion when police arrived and it revealed hours prior that there were signs of forced entry and an extremely heated struggle. The couple's daughter, Arianna, who has been going to private school, has been taken into the custody of her grandparents. The roommate of the couple, Randall Gates, who was responsible for most of the drug paraphernalia is still at large as the only thing they could find of him were bits of his face burnt to an electric box on the sidewalk. A warrant has been issued for his arrest. The chief of police reported that the attack could likely be tied to any of the local gangs, but so far have no evidence to go on as there were no witnesses at the time."
"Well isn't that something. A drug dealing family gets beaten, then busted," Rezzie's grandmother was surprised and amused, "about time the police were on the ball about all of this."
"Yeah, about time. Let me finish reading this," Rezzie looked white as a sheet as he flipped a few of the pages to the other half of the story, "Local authorities in the Capitol City Police Department ascertained the location from an anonymous tip from homeless man Lucas Gallagher, who claimed to have heard signs of conflict from outside the neighborhood. Reporters and police tried to locate Gallagher for more information, but the search has been fruitless due to the cameras at the gas station that the call was made from were down for repairs that day."
Rezzie let out a sigh of relief at the last part of the article, something that his grandmother caught note of. In her eyes, her grandson did show a particularly keen interest in the newspaper article. Maybe he had some knowledge on the people involved in the matter that others did not. Deciding that asking is rather than simmering over the matter, she decided to speak her mind.
"is everything all right? You were looking a little gray for a minute, there," his grandmother asked, cocking her head in concern, "Do you know anything about this?"
"Oh no, it's nothing like that. It's just that this is some heavy stuff," Rezzie brushed the matter off before rising up out of the stool, "nevertheless, I'm gonna head on home. Have a nice day, grandma."
"Okay, have a nice day," his grandmother walked over and embraced him tightly, "you take care of yourself now."
"I will, grandma. I will."
After returning the embrace, he released it and walked out the back door. Loading all of his tools on top of his mower, he gave a light heave and pushed them around to the front yard and down the street towards his house. Looking back over at the freshly cut yard from a distance, he felt satisfied in his work for the day. He was sure he'll have to come back in a week or two in order to cut it again, but it didn't matter because it was all the same to him.
As he was going down the road, he had a relieved expression on his face. The newspaper article had surprised him as they managed to nearly get away with everything clean. The break-in, the fighting, the beating. No one saw a thing, and Tora remembered nothing substantial about what happened, otherwise they would've given them up when he got arrested. And the police call that Rezzie made afterwards was the most shocking thing of all. He must've had some sort of luck for the cameras to be down in that gas station for the day. The police were now trying to chase Lucas Gallagher, a figment of Rezzie's imagination.
The only two things that bothered him were Randall and the child. From what he could guess, Randall must've managed to regain consciousness after the scuffle, peeled his face off that metal plate, and ran for his life the moment he heard sirens coming. While Rezzie could respect his level of self preservation, it showed him that there was no such thing as 'honor among thieves'. After all, he left that couple out to dry for the wolves to pounce on them. He was sure that Nesha and Titan were going to have their hands full with him now that he's on the run. He's sure to want payback since he didn't leave any brain cells behind with the burnt pieces of his face.
As for the child, that was a cruelty on his part, one that he'll have to live with. By his hand, he set the table for her parents to be taken away from her. She was going to a private school, one that was funded by the drug money that her parents accumulated. Despite having a hand in drugs, Rezzie couldn't deny the amount of risk and sacrifice they were taking in order to give their daughter a better life than what they lived. It was moving to him. Now she would have to leave her old life behind and go to a different school and a different way of life. Whether she will be able to go towards that better future is completely up in the air. Rezzie will be sure to remember this for the rest of his life.
But for now he had other plans. Pushing his lawn mower all the way back home, Rezzie thought forward towards tomorrow. He was to be expecting company that afternoon so he had to make plans as to what to do when they get there. He knows Nesha and Titan will be there, so he'll discuss what to do with Randall then. But nevertheless, he knows is that he couldn't wait for tomorrow to come.