Chapter 5 - Leroy Jr

Most mornings were noisy. Between the fact that his parents could not talk to each other without shouting and their dogs that had barely been trained, he was used to the usual commotion surrounding Burke ranch. But this morning it seemed… More insistent… Actually, as he gradually emerged from his dreams, he heard voices he could not recognise… Several ones. Several people were at the ranch. The realisation made him sit straight up, like electrised. He stood up and walked to his window. Several people were gathered in the yard by the hummer and his father was waving his hands and arms and shouting interjections with his usual coarse voice. Only this time, his voice was high pitched. He was annoyed, scared or angry… Like an animal, his behaviour was predictable and you could have wrote little notes about him in order to hunt him down. He had his favourite places, his favourite food and it seemed like he was just doing the same mistakes again and again… Leroy Jr had no idea how he achieved to become a counsellor. Money, probably… Or the comfortable thought of somebody whose family had been around for generations. "But they can't do that, can they?" shouted one person. He stood up, putting short tanks on and slipped into a shirt. He walked out barefoot to find his mother, anxiously observing the scene, a magazines with half-started crosswords in her hands.

She had that bonny figure, all in angles. She had long black hair that were as dried as the yellowish grass surrounding the ranch. A long time ago, she could have been mistaken for a witch. She would always wear flowery dresses cut in the old ways. Plain and simple. Her eyes were naturally defiant and cold, giving the impression that she was in a constant state of unhappiness. Although it was not completely correct, it was not completely wrong either. At that moment, she had a weary look on her face and was silent, which was unusual. She always had an opinion on everything and was quite adamant about the fact that her views deserved to be respected. But it seemed like she did not have any opinion on what was happening right now… Or that she was saving her bitter words for later.

"I don't know what to tell you mate. I'd need to check the laws about this." said Leroy Burke Senior. He was a round shaped man. Beer gut, small arms and a big head. He was compensating his small height by standing strong on his feet and keeping his head held high. But today, he seemed to be a bit too overwhelmed by the people in his yard, apparently very annoyed.

"Well, check them then!" said one of the men, leading a group of roughly twelve people. "Where do they get their money? It's fishy!" shouted one of the women. "I… I can only look into the laws you know…" the woman who spoke did not seem happy about the answer "Well, get the police to look into it!" Leroy raised his hands once more "Now now… Let's calm down shall we? We are not getting the police involved without a good reason." another man, a farmer by the look of it sighted loudly before saying "That is not right, it does not sound right at all Leroy…" Leroy started smiling, his twisted and odd smile, and walked down the steps of the entry. "I'll look into it. I'll go there myself and see what they are doing. I promise I promise." the farmer did not look impressed. "And then what?" Leroy shrugged and said simply "And then we see what we can do. Calmly, quietly." his eyes meeting the ones of the angry woman from earlier.

Once the group away and the family back into the house, Junior asked, arms crossed on his chest, ready to hear the last major crisis of Wood Burrow, after the accidental death of an old cow last month. "What was that about?" Leroy Father sat down at the dining table, obviously exhausted after having to deal with the situation. He looked puffy and he was breathing heavily. Probably the heat coupled with what had just happened. "It's… It's… Nothing really…" Judie, his wife darted quickly "That did not sound like nothing.". She had her back turned to them, putting a filter in the coffee machine with a visibly irked attitude. "It's… Come on Judie… they are always complaining about everything, they're like that, you know…" the round man said before pulling out an old and stained napkin from his pocket and applying it to his face. She slammed the lid of the coffee machine swiftly and pressed the button. "For once Leroy, I agree with you." Father and son raised their eyes to observe the frail figure of the mother, still turning her back on them, preparing three cups. "Agree with me?" asked Leroy who was way too shocked to just savour the first time in month his wife agreed with him. Junior, on the other hand had a strange feeling. The young man sat at the table, quite curious, this time, to hear what his mother had to say.

He always had been convincing himself that Judie Burke was not very clever and did not have a very full life. She had never really worked, although she came close to it. He knew she went to a school to learn some office administration skills, but she got married before she could actually find employment. He never saw her passionate about anything or with big plans of any sort. Her only real hobby, that required her to do anything, was religion. She prayed, went to church, attended a bible study group… She tried to get him into religion when he was young, but he never found the interest. He would end distracting everybody in his young bible group and after having been kicked a couple of times, she stopped sending him to them. Leroy Jr believed in God though. He believed something was there, that something, in some weird ways, was trying to maintain some kind of balance in the world. Maybe not in a purely catholic perspective. The few passages he could remember from the holy book did not appeal to him in anyway or were too general to mean anything.

She straighten up and carried a tray of three cups to the table. "They are arguing about nothing. Good christians are legally buying land and they are unhappy. It makes no sense." Leroy senior sat up, his eyes starting to detail that face that he had overlooked for so many years. He had been in love, a lot, at first. She was a good woman. The kind to not want to hang around bars and other men. She also knew how to take care of a husband. Food, cleaning, kids… He sometimes had moments of extreme lucidity, realising he could not have come this far in life without her. But then, the monotony of their existence, her assertiveness, made him grow uninterested. He now realised he lived next to a ghost. He knew the outline of her. Her story. But he realised that the years of shouting for menial issues and the hours and weeks of silence turned them into roommates at most. They shared a bed, they shared a table and a house, but the scheduled life of their household deadened his attention.

"Good christians? Who?" Judie's eyes raised a second on her husband's oblivious face. She seemed to be disappointed for a short moment before shaking her heads. "Lee… You're so blind sometimes." she said, serving the coffee in the three cups. Junior had sat down again. He was twenty one years old and never he had seen such a serious conversation under this roof. Judie ended up sitting at the table, finally.

"Last Wednesday, with Mary and Richard, we went to their church." "Who's church?" The old counsellor asked. Judie took a small sip of her cup. "Eden's Gate church." taking a spoon of sugar to put in his coffee, Senior frowned "What's that? Is it one of those evangelical groups we had last year as well?" her eyes darted towards her husband, "No." her spoon slammed swiftly on the table. "These evangelical groups, they preach and preach and they do the opposite once you have your back turned. I don't trust them." and she took another sip. "Oh I see… Well, if they are good christians, I don't see any issue with them, you know. As long as they are nothing like these satanic lunatic kids that they show on TV, I'm fine with it!" the husband ended up saying, giggling in his coffee. His mind seemed to wander quickly off, forgetting all about that heavy mood that weighed for a couple of minutes in the kitchen. "Junior. I need you to bring some flyers to Rafael. And make sure he puts them in a good place! Well visible when people come in!"

In the car, Leroy Jr had put some music, one of the local radio always broadcasting old rock and roll music. His fingers were taping on the wheel, following the rhythm of the song. He had the feeling that something was up. The people this morning at the ranch, his mother's attitude… The discomfort he was feeling could be explained by a lot of things. And he knew that. Leroy Jr was nobody, really. Just the son of… He had tried school and was average at best, a distraction for other pupils some other times. His father found him a couple of jobs that he tried doing before getting fired for showing up late or ending up in arguments with everybody. The fact was, Junior did not like to be bossed around. He did not like to do something useless. Saying that living at his parents' house, borrowing their money to go out and see his friends, was something that he liked was a mistake though. He hated it. He hated literally every option laid ahead for him. Was it all? Working until you retire and then die? Wasn't there something else to life? He had no idea if he was honest with himself. The young man often cultivated his know-it-all attitude, but the truth was, he was certain he did not know a lot.

What he lacked in academical knowledge and practical skills, he made up for his wit. The tall and skinny young man was way too clever for his own good. Most of the time, he was able to gauge a situation way quicker than everybody else, but sometimes he had a dreadful feeling, like life itself was on the verge of stopping. Maybe it was just the general mood of the area. Empty farms, broken roads, people leaving for greener pastures… It had a smell of death, only, it was coming slowly and you only realised how bad it was when it was too late. It will pass, he thought to himself, it will pass… That deep feeling, full of desperation, like an itch in the back of his mind, would pass.