Page 27 - WTP Vol. XI #2

swamp cooler.
“He just needs to rest up a while before he can get going again. He’s expected in Phoenix any time now.”
“OK, Sug,” she says.
“That’s for anybody to know as far as I’m concerned.”
I step out back into the heat. The first step is always a shock to me, back to the heat of the day. It’s time for our supper and time for Willie to go off to work to check on the two ladies who work for her. On my way to the trailer I wave to Mrs. Sanchez and Sonia who are sitting in some shade on the playground. Used
to be grass there, I remember. Now it’s just mowed down weeds. Sonia’s the only child here among us anymore. Any other children are grown up and gone far away from this place.
Inside Hunter is sitting at the kitchen table. He’s to himself. I scrub potatoes and put them on the coun- ter. It’s too hot for meatloaf so I mold some hamburg- er into patties for frying later.
After a while I say, “Where’re you from originally, Hunter? Were you born in Alaska or somewhere else?”
“That was a long time ago,” he says.
“I’m from Arkansas. Both my husband and I came from there. Then we lived in the Texas panhandle. Then we ended up here. We managed this trailer court together for seventeen years, Lloyd and me.”
Hunter shrugs. “Could end up here or anywhere else, I suppose. This place ain’t so bad. There’s hotter places than here. Hell, maybe.”
We both laugh at this one. While I cut up lettuce and
an onion, he goes outside to check his car. It’s still parked in the visitor’s space. No other place for it.
I slice the tomato. I buy my tomatoes in the stores, only place to get them. Not like in Arkansas when my folks put out their summer tomatoes and such at the roadside. Right then I remember to toast the ham- burger buns. I got the kind Lloyd always liked with sesame seeds sprinkled on top.
After supper I put our dishes in the dishwasher. Hunter goes down the hall to the bedroom. I stay up cleaning and putting things away. I shower and put on a fresh nightgown, cotton and thin. It’s dark in the trailer when I open the bathroom. Out of habit, with- out even thinking about it, when I leave the bathroom I turn left into my bedroom.
So that’s how it happened that Hunter begins to stay with me in my bed. I won’t lie or pretend it went other- wise. After being alone for so long you’d think I’d for- get what it was like to sleep with a man and lay beside him. He’s not Lloyd, I know that, but I’m thinking it’s the same, the very same, and I remember all of it.
In the darkness, in a night full of quiet heat, I can almost hear the stars. I hear Hunter breathing in a raspy way. I hear him turn in the dark. Three more nights pass like that.
There’s so much to be kept up with on a daily basis in the court. I hire Hunter to make some necessary repairs on the Rec Center. The Partnership takes a yearly depreciation on it. That’s when structures aren’t worth as much as the year before and you can report it to the IRS.
Hunter fixes some linoleum squares in the kitchen, tightens wires in the outside lights, and pours Drano down the sinks that need it. I pay him cash out of
the Partnership maintenance budget for that type of thing. I know I can’t keep him here as a regular main- tenance man. It’s simple. He’s a sales rep in his heart. He speaks no more in the darkness than the light, but I feel closer and closer to the truth about him. Can I trust him or am I alone again?
Ten dollars, another twenty, another twenty after that. I pay him for all the work he accomplishes and finally the fence near where Sonia plays is mended. Papers and clutter are thrown away. He oils the play- set. He makes it so the loose leg on the set no longer pulls irregular when she swings high. I keep track of the expenses for the required accounting.
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