“What’s the matter with this apartment? You sure as hell loved it after we got married. It excited you. You had hundreds of ideas for fixing it up to suit your style and needs. No God-damned complaints then,” Roy shouted.
“You’re such a jerk. That was ten years ago, for Christ’s sake. Ten years,” she emphasized angrily. “By now a decent husband would have thought about having kids and owning a home. You live primarily in the in the past. You want to keep things the way they were. You drag things in the past and want the same in the present, like staying in an apartment for ten years was a good thing, so let’s not change it. I see thing in the past as old and could be made better in the present as I look to a more modern and exciting future. This place is ancient, it’s stagnant. It’s part of our history. Now let’s make progress. Progress isn’t to be found in the past. Progress and modern living can be found in the present and especially what’s to come in the future. We have a stagnant life now and you want to keep it that way. I can’t live the rest of my life ruled by the past. I want a modernized progress in our lives.”
“So now it’s not about the apartment, it’s about me being a bad husband. Why is it that men always have to give primary importance to how the wife feels, thinks, and desires? You want a house, then get a job and we can both try to pay for one.”
“I take care of this apartment. I clean it, wash dishes and clothes, I do all the grocery shopping, and I always have dinner ready for you. I run errands and make phone calls for you. I remind your numb brain of appointments, birthdays, even our own anniversary. All that is tiring, too, especially when my work goes from breakfast until after dinner clean up. Your workday is not that long nor as tiring. You come home, fall into a chair, drink your beer, which I have to bring to you, watch the TV news or sports, and sit there expecting dinner. You don’t help with cleaning the table and dishes after dinner. No way. Not your job, right? Women’s work, right? You splash your fat ass back into the chair, have another beer and focus on the TV again. You ignore me, you blind Jackass.”
“You want equality of the sexes? You got it. It doesn’t just happen at a particular time of your choosing. I have my jobs, too. Who’s the handyman around here? Who has responsibility for the car? What would happen if I decided not to go to work? Will you become the breadwinner then? How about the bills, car payments and repairs, life insurance, cable TV? Need I keep going?”
“Well, you can’t give me kids, so at least get me a home of our own. Are we going to get old and die in this antique place? Perhaps it’s time to get a divorce. We don’t make each other happy anymore.”
“What? And lose my spectacular maid service? You get money each week from my paycheck. Why the hell are you complaining?”
“Your free maid services? Is that what you said, you outrageous bastard? Is that all you think of me? You’ll forever be a pig, a male chauvinist pig. Just when did you walk out of your Cro-Magnon cave?”
“Wow. All I needed was my baseball bat for a club, bang you over the head to knock you out, then drag you around by the hair into my cave.” He laughed. “Now that really would be erotic. Oh, darling, I can feel the stiffness already. You wanna taste?”
“You’re such a gross and hopelessly, incorrigible moron. Don’t you think that a fixer-upper home in the country would be affordable for us? If you want I’ll get a job to help with the mortgage and any loans we incur, and I’ll help with the repair work. I’ll put in more than my fair share to get out of this apartment.”
“A fixer-upper, huh? And you would do your share of the repairs? Bullshit! You’d find some excuse to lay low when the repair work was started. You’d most likely have your face in a book so you can learn more words like that ‘incorrigible’ word you just slandered me with.”
“Sorry if I use words that you don’t understand, but why segue, oops, did it again, into talking about vocabulary instead of what the issue is? We are discussing buying a cheap home and then fixing it up, both of us. If I had a part-time job I could use the extra hours to work on repairs. I’d end up doing far more work than you would. Now that should make you happy.”
“You think I’m stupid? You never were subtle, but deceptive and manipulative would be a better description of you. You think I don’t notice that?”
“Roy, none of our friends live in an apartment. Apartments are for newly married couples or for senior citizens. For young couples, apartments are like clothes that you out-grow. Time for something more roomy, more stylish, more personal, have a sense of ownership and independence. Why is that so difficult for you to understand?” Leah hung her head. She felt empty like a skeleton with only the outward appearance of a human.
“See what I mean? No subtlety when calling me stupid and unaware. You’re a piece of work. Not even a good piece of ass anymore. You must have been the Devil’s apprentice growing up. Got me to marry you by saying you were pregnant and come to find out, I’m shooting blanks. Good thing, too, ‘cause then we’d have a little devil rug rat for you to cuddle and coddle, then turn the beast against me.”
“I did think I was pregnant. I missed my period, and we were having regular sex. Not a good piece of ass, huh? Saying that I’m not even a good piece of ass anymore could be because you take that ‘piece of ass’ phrase literally. Mr. if you want shit on your dick, then scoop it out of the toilet and masturbate with it. That should thrill your perverseness. Christ almighty. Look at what ten years has done to us.”
The arguments dwindled but for the remainder of the week, there were no meals at dinner time, no washed clothes, plus an appointment missed because Roy wasn’t reminded of it. There wasn’t any beer in the refrigerator, nor much food either. Furthermore, the food storage and shelves were nearly empty since there was no grocery shopping. The house was dusty and disorganized. Leah took care of her own needs without thinking about Roy, who was forced to wash his own clothes in the washing machines provided in the basement of the apartment complex.
There was an eye-catching stack of books on the floor next to the arm of the couch where Leah sat. Usually, one was opened and in her hands, as Roy watched TV. He simmered with rage and wanted to kill the bitch.
Roy placed his socked heel on the coffee table as if it were a footrest. A few minutes later, when he pulled his feet away, the socks brushed a patch of dust away, making a clean path. His sock acted as a dust cloth. He looked at it, then at Leah. She was looking at him as he looked at her. He saw the slightest grin, then turned his head away and asked himself, “How can I kill this bitch and get away with it?” That put a grin on his face, too, but his grin had imaginary blood dripping from it.
Whatever dishes, glasses and utensils Roy used, he had to wash, or they would remain on the countertop near the sink. When that happened, he took Leah’s weekly allowance away, but he failed to think about the consequences. After he said it, he realized his mistake, but he did not correct himself. After he had sternly informed Leah of this, she smiled at him knowing that he was only making matters worse. Now instead of choosing not to do the housework, she couldn’t do many of the required shopping jobs because she didn’t have the money.
At the beginning of the second week, Roy’s rock-solid determination to teach a lesson to Leah caved in like a sandcastle in a rainstorm. He now got a bitter taste of how many jobs Leah did while he was at work, how hard she worked around the apartment, paid the bills, and made appointments. She kept track of the jobs she needed to do, like when to clean the apartment when to wash clothes, when to get dinner ready, and when she needed to do the grocery shopping. Then the labor of after dinner cleaning and dish washing, plus much more, he supposed. He hated himself for acknowledging those facts but dreaded acting like he had finally realized her superior worth to the marriage. Depression poisoned his pseudo-macho superiority. He became adamant about not admitting or apologizing for anything.
*******
One night, while both were focused on a TV comedy, from opposite sides of the couch, Roy initiated a conversation with Leah. He spoke about a compromise which included starting to look at fixer-upper homes if Leah would guarantee that she would do the work that she always had done and if she shared the labor on the repairs and remodeling to the house. Roy stated that if she reneged on the compromise, he would purposely stop paying the mortgage and let the bank take the house. They would lose the house and then he would start divorce proceedings. asking that she receive no financial support from him. Of course, it would be a hostile divorce for both of them and that would make them both miserable for however long it took for the divorce to become final.
Roy was playing hardball. Leah expected that. If he hadn’t suggested a compromise by the end of the week she would have planned one of her own. But Roy needed to feel that he was in control, that he had the power, that he gave the commands and, since he felt like a hammer in the compromise, he wanted to pound with it, thinking that he would be making the sound of fear and authority, like a judge’s wooden gavel.
Leah hid her internal smile, showing only a somber grin to convince Roy that he had the better of the compromise and that he had out-smarted her. Her brain tingled with the thrill of looking for a home. Outwardly she tried to suppress her happiness even though she felt as happy a newborn baby nursing at its mother’s breast.
It took nearly three agonizing months of Saturday-only house hunting to find their fixer-upper. They both agreed that it was a good deal, especially with the owners having been given the house in a parent’s will. They were in a hurry to sell and get out of that burden.
It was a sturdy home, built nearly one hundred years ago. It would take years of work to be satisfied with the repairs and remodeling, but they both accepted that fact. They both knew that every repair, every remodeling job increased the value of the home.
One thing Leah was curious about was why Roy always thought more seriously about the cellar, especially if the floor was in poor condition. He seemed to focus on that, so she asked, “Why are you so interested in the cellars?”
“No big secret,” he said thoughtfully. Casually, he responded, “I eventually want to have a man cave and a workshop area there.”
“OK, but all the other cellars, most anyway, had cellars in better condition.”
“True, but I want to patch that cracked, crumbled area, set metal stanchions in the floor, then cover the whole old floor with a couple of inches of new concrete. Then I’ll build the walls to make three rooms: a man cave, workshop area, and a family den or, perhaps, a guest room.”
“A guest room? That surprises me, but I like the idea. Won’t all that take quite a while to accomplish?”
“Oh, I don’t intend to finish it, just get a rough start by getting the hardest parts done first. The rest I can finish a little at a time. Once you help me get it started, then I’ll start wherever your priorities are; the kitchen probably, right?”
“If you want to have regular dinners after your job.”
“Just as I thought. Then it’ll be the living room, dining room, toilets and our bedroom. The guest room can be” . . .
“Whoa, whoa there. Slow down. I’d rather hear about our immediate next fix, not the whole list of jobs, I’ll still spend time on the cellar. Sometimes we can have you working the main house while I’m working in the cellar. Then we can change which repairs to do so we don’t get bored and frustrated.
They recognized and were surprised that they were having a friendly conversation as they paused to look at each other.
Leah spoke, “Roy do you see how nice we are being to each other? We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we aren’t angry, frustrated, and hating each other.”
“Christ. That’s what I was thinking, too. How did this happen? I owe it to you. First the house hunting cooled our anger and now, talking about fixing up the house seems to have warmed us to be more kind and accepting of one another. I like it. We are becoming a family of two. Who knows, maybe we could adopt a child. A cute rug-rat or an infant.”
“Really, Roy! Do you mean it? It would make me so happy,” Leah gushed, causing her eyes to moisten. Spontaneously, she hugged Roy.
“Sure I mean it, but it’ll have to wait until the house is livable for a child. Probably in a year.”
Leah’s eyes were now filled with tears. She had her head on Roy’s shoulder and said, “A wonderful family of three.”
Saturday morning they departed the old house and drove back to their apartment to eat, relax and sleep. Roy said he was feeling excited about the house and wanted to stay up. Perhaps he’d watch the late-night news. His real reason was to have peace of mind so he could quietly focus on how to kill Leah and dispose of her body. He grabbed a beer and sloppily saluted himself for his great acting performance, although it drained him to pretend to be her changed husband for hours.
Roy and Leah returned to the old house every Saturday and Sunday. When Roy felt that his pretentiousness was faltering he would ask Leah to measure a particular room, or get something from his vehicle, in order to get her out of his way for ten minutes of relief.
He noticed that she was good with a tape measure, could use the level properly, could hammer nails at a glacial pace, and screwdrivers were difficult for her tiny wrists. But she learned the names and shapes of nails and their sizes, plus the names of different kinds of screws. At least she was giving her promise a good effort, though he’d much rather work alone.
He kept bottles of drinking water in the cellar to ward off the hot, sweaty work. He thought about getting a mini-refrigerator for the water bottles, but mostly for the beer he wanted. They could have a lunch sandwich with deli meat and toppings and bread kept in the fridge. But then he trashed his good idea.
When Leah returned from the measuring job, she handed Roy a piece of paper with the measurements. Roy would look at it and say, “This will save us some time. Thanks,” then he’s push the paper into his front pocket. He thought of telling, no, he thought of asking her to sweep the dusty, gritty cellar floor but that would raise too much dust.
He glanced at her slim body. A fine shape but with such small bones and little muscle. She’ll try to help, but she wasn’t built for hard labor. He’d have her do tiny jobs to match her tiny bones and musculature.
“See here,” Roy stated as he pointed to the cracked floor. “This is where groundwater has risen and seeped into the concrete floor from underneath the cement. When that concrete got wet, it also got weak and crumbled a little at a time, from the bottom upward. Imagine you are grocery shopping, and you have to carry paper bags to the car. The paper bags are usually strong enough to do that easily. But what happens if a bottle of liquid leaks all over the bottom of the bag?”
“Disaster,” Leah responded quickly. “The paper at the bottom of the bag is severely weakened by the water so the bottom will drop out and your groceries will fall to the ground.”
“Exactly. And another thing. Do you see the mold on the floor and the walls?
“What happens is the concrete floor gets wet from groundwater, then crumbles little by little until the floor cracks. The ground water rises through the crack to create persistent dampness and that dampness encourages the mold to grow. So when we fix the crack we’ll be fixing both problems.”
“See?” Leah said delightedly. “You’ll be a natural at fixing things and you can teach me how to fix things, too. That way twice as much work gets done.” Leah smiled at him, then rubbed his shoulder.
“These tools will do the heavy work.” Roy pointed to the pickaxe and the sledgehammer. Either one will help crack the damaged concrete so it can be removed in preparation for the fix. I’m going to use the pickaxe which usually penetrates the concrete enough to crack it, especially this pointed part.”
Leah looked at the pickaxe. “That’s what the goggles are for, right? The flying pieces of concrete.”
“Good. Now let’s both put them on, then you stand back a little for the extra protection.”
Leah moved about six feet away but had a clear view of what the pickaxe could do to concrete. Roy’s first strike with the pickaxe made her flinch. She also felt small shards of concrete hitting her work pants like rain on a tent.
As she watched Roy, she thought, He’s usually excited about fixing this house for us. Never would have expected that. I thought he’d be whinny, complaining and morose, but, like I was thinking about before, his attitude has changed a lot. Could it be genuine?
When they were giving each other the silent treatment a couple of months ago, she broke the silence just once when she said, “Divorce is an option for us.” She remembered him saying, angrily, “Don’t be so fuckin’ silly.”
She flinched again when she heard Roy shout at her. She thought, at first, that she’d done something wrong and was getting yelled at. Thankfully, it was only Roy trying to get her attention as she was drifting away in a day-dream.
“Leah. You’ll need to pick up the concrete pieces that are light enough for you to carry. Bring them up the steps and outside you’ll see where I started a pile of rubbish. In a week or two I’ll have the accumulated rubbish picked up and taken to the dump. Leave the heavier pieces for me.”
Holy shit! Leah thought. He’s acting as if he cares about me. Who is this guy? And what did you do with Roy? Roy hasn’t acted this kindly since when we were dating and maybe the first year of marriage. Haven’t had too many pleasant surprises, but I like more of them.
At the end of the day, Roy had opened the crack about eight feet long and four feet wide.
He said, as he wiped the sweat on the sleeve of his forearm, “I’ll dig it deeper next time but, for now, that’s a good start.”
“You’ve dug down a way but the dirt looks dry. How come?”
“Yeah, groundwater leaks are confusing. The water will rise through the crack, wet the concrete, then withdraw back down the crack to the water table while the surface dirt, under the crack, is drying.” She’ll believe whatever I tell her as long as I sound confident and knowledgeable. A good lie is always one that has an element of truth in it.
Leah looked at the hole and thought, He does seem to be doing a good job. So far, anyway.
On the way to the car, Roy secretly smiled, then gazed at Leah joyfully and said, “Tomorrow I’ll dig down two or three feet and line the hole with thick, plastic sheeting which will give the hole a water barrier. That will encourage the water to take the easier route which will be parallel to the floor.” The hole isn’t deep enough for your body, dear, he mouthed to himself.
“Then what,” Leah added, with pleasing, enthusiasm in her voice.
“Well, my Dear, then the floor will be almost done. After the plastic liner in anchored, you and I will fill in the hole.” Roy smiled, imagining Leah lying in the hole that he would delight in filling, taking extreme pleasure with each shovel full of dirt. Then he’d seal her and the crack with concrete, being careful not to tear the plastic. “We’ll need to pack the dirt down as much as possible with our feet,” he added.
“So what do we do then? Dance on top of the dirt? Now that would be ‘dirty dancing’ like in the movie.” She presented a toothy smile as her lips expanded broadly.
“What movie? What’s dirty dancing? I don’t get it.”
“OK. Forget it. It’s just a reference to a movie about dancing. I was just trying to be funny.”
“That’s OK.” Roy pointed to a new tool called a tamper. He said, “See that tool? See the square, flat, iron bottom?” When the hole is filled I’ll slam that flat bottom onto the dirt many times to compress it, making it as firm as possible. After the dirt is packed it needs to be level with the bottom of the old concrete floor, so that when filled with fresh concrete it will be level with the top of the old floor.”
Roy paused as he looked at Leah’s smiling face, then said, “You know, Leah, I was really against buying a house and having to fix it up, but I’m excited now and happier than I’ve been in a long time. This project may be saving our marriage.”
With good control of his facial muscles, Roy constructed a wonderful smile, with just the right wrinkles, dimples, and stretches of skin all working in unison.
Leah kept smiling kindly as she thought, Bullshit. You are up to something. What she said was, “I think you’re right, Dear. A couple that works together stays together.”
Leah looked away from Roy when she felt her gag reflex start to engage. She controlled it, though she did feel a bit of bile on her tongue. She spit to remove most of it.
Sunday morning after breakfast they drove to the house. Roy started to fill in the hole as he said, “We need to get this done today because tomorrow morning Jackson’s Concrete Company is sending a truck with our fresh concrete. They’ll put an aluminum shoot into one of the cellar windows. It’ll go to about a foot from the floor, then the concrete will flow onto the old cellar floor. Two or three workmen will be there to spread it to a two-inch thickness.”
“And you have everything you need to make your concrete for this specific hole.”
“Of course. The wheelbarrow and concrete bag are over there in the corner.” He pointed.
“You are teaching me so much, Roy. It’s all so interesting especially since you are a good teacher. Can you teach me how to make the concrete for this hole before you fill it in?”
“OK, love. It’s kind of interesting, in a way. So let’s get the wheelbarrow and the two bags of concrete. I’ll carry the bags and you get the wheelbarrow and bring it closer to the hole. You’ll also need to go outside and turn on the water hose.” He pointed to the hose that was coiled, like a green snake, on the floor.
“Of course,” Leah hurried up the steps, went outside, and twisted the water faucet on. She returned to Roy in less than a minute, and then watched Roy attentively, a sparkle of an idea brightened her retina. The flash was bright enough to blind her for the length of a breath. She covered her smile with her left hand and rubbed her closed eyelids with the other hand.
“I’ll buy more so we can use them for other projects. This project will probably only take a little less than those two bags. I’ll make only enough to cover the area that we repaired after we fill it nearly with compacted dirt.”
Roy lifted the bag and set it into the wheelbarrow, took out his folding pocketknife and sliced opened the bag. When he had moved the bag and then set it into the wheelbarrow the powdered concrete was shaken, so the dust billowed out choking the both of them. They started waving their hands like fans to push the dust cloud away. Leah thought it looked like they farted and were fanning the stink away. Internally, she laughed at herself. “This is the easy way to do it. Each bag is pre-mixed, so you simply add water, then with that hoe,” he pointed,
“you keep stirring, pushing, and pulling until the mixture is consistently thick, like paste, but not so watery that it would flow if you put a scoop of it on the floor”.
Roy was feeling macho again, in power, proud of himself for being the boss of the action and teaching a stupid novice the first-grade basics of home repairs. To him she was a couple colors short of a rainbow which didn’t make her bright.
“There. See how easy it is, Honey? I’m going to leave the concrete in the wheelbarrow wetter than usual, so it doesn’t dry out as I’m filling in the hole. You can grab the extra shovel and help me. Roy continued filling the hole. He smiled when he heard Leah’s footsteps approaching. He guessed she was waiting for him to tell her where to throw the dirt.
But he was now occupied with the thought that all he needed to do was tell her to move up next to him, distract her while he slowly maneuvered behind her, and then crush her skull with the shovel. He thought, I’ll be so damn thrilled, and sexually excited that I might have an orgasm and squirt a stream of semen down my pant leg. I’ll enjoy watching her fall into the pit. I’ll play it over and over in my head like watching my favorite movie repeatedly. He could feel himself getting hard, the rubbing against his jeans excited him. He said, “Now Honey, keep . . .”
Roy never finished that sentence. Leah wasn’t holding the extra shovel. She was lifting the pickaxe high over her head, point first. In the middle of Roy’s sentence, she used all her power to deeply drive the point of the pickaxe into the crown of his head. She maintained a hold on the handle and her hands trembled. She saw that the pressure from the pickaxe caused bits of fluid, brain, blood, and bone fragments to squeeze out around the hole where the pickaxe had been driven. Leah noticed that the pickaxe had penetrated Roy’s skull about six inches. It was so deep that she laughed nervously as she thought, If there was any life left in him, he might choke to death on chunks of his brain and skull.
Surprisingly, Roy tried to turn his head, but Leah held the pickaxe firmly preventing him from turning of his head. Roy fell to his knees, and then Leah pulled out the pickaxe. The bloody gore gagged her, so she vomited into the wheelbarrow. It mixed with what remained of the wet cement. She looked away, took deep, calming breaths, and thought, God, that was so much harder than she thought it would be. Even pulling the pickaxe out of his head was difficult due to the suction built up around the penetrated part of the pickaxe.
Leah continued her effort to remove the pickaxe, which was the only thing stopping Roy’s body from falling to his knees, leaning forward toward the hole. Leah let go of the handle and after a push, Roy’s body plunged, pickaxe, too, into his eternal resting place. She thought, Now, asshole, you have plenty of time to learn about dirty dancing.
Roy landed down but rolled to face-up. His face was bloody, his teeth were red, his lower lip was half torn off and one of his eyeballs had popped out, most likely due to the pressure the pickaxe caused internally. His eyeball was hanging by its optic cord attached to the back of the eyeball.
Leah looked at the eyeball. “No use staring at me, Roy. Doesn’t scare me. Wow, Roy, I’m hungry, so after I finish here, I’m going home to celebrate with wine and cheese.
“He was always a couple of face-lifts from handsome anyway. What the hell attracted me to him? Wisdom is wasted on youth.”
She spoke to the corpse, again. “I beat you to it, my darling shit-for-brains. Enough of your torturous, agonizing bullshit. You thought it would be me in that hole, didn’t you? Surprise, surprise, dickhead.”
Leah jumped into the hole, stretched out the body as flat as she could making Roy look like a human crucifix. She climbed out and started shoveling dirt into the hole to cover his body. She sprayed the dirt lightly with the hose to get it slightly wet. That not only prevented rising dust but made it easier to compress the dirt around Roy’s body with the tamper tool. Before she covered the body itself, she emptied Roy’s pockets. She found his folding knife and opened it.
From watching the CSI shows on TV, she learned that to prevent putrefaction gases from swelling up the body and creating an underground disturbance she needed to slice deeply into Roy’s torso from the solar plexus to the pubic bone area. She gagged and when it was done she vomited onto Roy’s coiled, purplish intestines.
She shoveled a foot of dirt into the hole, this time covering the body, then wet it and tamped the dirt as compressed as possible. Every foot of added dirt was treated the same way until the dirt looked like a slab of rock. She stopped at a level just below the bottom of the old cement floor.
She added a little more water to the concrete mix because it had thickened too much. She mixed it thoroughly. She picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow and almost immediately spilled the cement all over the floor, but she reacted just in time to correct the tilt of the unsteady wheelbarrow. She again struggled to lift the handles in the air, so the front of the wheelbarrow emptied half the cement into the hole which she troweled to make the cement level. She saw that to reach the level she wanted, she needed more cement. She lifted the wheelbarrow handles again and poured three-fourths of what was remaining. She saw a piece of her vomit and felt queasy. She troweled it level and considered it satisfactory, so she quit, then swept her fingers across her forehead wiping the sweat away like a windshield wiper.
She completed the job, and removed the tools and supplies, all but the wheelbarrow. She didn’t realize that she should have washed the inside of the wheelbarrow to clean off the cement. She talked to herself and said, “I’ll ask the cement workers to remove the wheelbarrow before pouring their load of cement over the old concrete floor.
In the early afternoon, as she was driving home, she called the ACE Cement Company office and left a recorded message for the workers to remove whatever was still in the cellar. She mentioned the wheelbarrow. She also wanted to check to see if Roy had paid for the load of cement and the labor but that would have to wait until tomorrow.
Leah felt as if each ray of sunshine that fell on her was filled with the cuddly warmth of happiness. At the climax of that feeling, she laughed loudly, echoing inside the car, and screamed, “Fuck you, Roy. I beat you. I beat you to the punch.” She hit the steering wheel with one hand until it ached.
When she arrived home, she didn’t shower right away. She opened a bottle of expensive wine, sat at the table, relaxed while eating cheese, and felt ecstatic triumph. The feeling enclosed her like a full-length mink coat.
See sipped more wine and thought, What about the life insurance? That’s the money I’ll need to remodel this entire house. Can’t take the risk of selling the house, because then some unexpected occurrence might expose Roy’s body. She smiled, then whispered, “I like this place. I’ll make it a good home.”
Of course, she thought, I might have to wait an extended period to collect the insurance money. But in the meantime, she’d apply for a loan at her local bank where, it just so happens, that her older brother was the loan officer. She’d use that loan to get started on repairs and remodeling. Then when the insurance money came, she’d pay back all of the loan and probably still have enough left to pay for a handyman to help her. She laughed as she hoped he looked like George Clooney. She was pleased with herself, especially with the outrageous and coincidental luck of having her brother being the loan officer. But her brother hated Roy and would be happy for her to be free of him. “Yippee!” she shouted as she opened a second bottle of wine.
“Shit,” she thought. What if the insurance people want proof that Roy is dead? Then I wouldn’t get the money for years. She paused. Fuck it, I’ll wait and live in this house until I get it. Getting a bank loan will force me to get a regular job to pay the monthly payments. Hell, it’s all worth it to be free of Roy. “Free from Roy at last, so I can have a blast because when Roy fell, he fell to hell. Damn, I’m a poet and don’t know it,” she slurred on her way to getting drunk.
Then, “One thing I know for sure. That the cellar will be my favorite part of my home, even if I remarry and have kids the cellar will always be like a sacred place to me.”
Leah’s next trip to the house was pleasant. The cement floor looked spectacular, the wheelbarrow was upside-down so as not to fill with rain, if there was any. She turned the wheelbarrow right-side-up and immediately viewed why she should have cleaned it while the cement was wet. Then she saw a note duct taped to the bottom of the wheelbarrow. It was stuck to the hardened cement layer. She picked it up and read it.
“Dry ceement hard ta cleen. Fill barrow with warm water. Add 32oz. bottle a ‘liquid’ DRANO, not use gel kind, or other drane cleener. Wait for nex day. Cleen off soft ceement with tuff brush. Jose.”
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