Page 77 - WTP Vol. X #7

I just stood there. It was that quiet after a rain—you could hear each car that went by on the highway above us, the wheels spitting water back up.
Tony gestured around himself. “I got the whole world as my canvas! Nothing you can take from me! I’m as free as I can be. That’s what you don’t get—you’ll never get me, because you think I must want to be like you. I don’t.”
“All right,” I said, and turned to go.
“Sorry, Pops.”
“Well...” I said, giving up. “I’m sorry, too.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t cause you no more trouble.”
I left him there, under the overpass, which I guess was where he wanted to be. I gave up on something that day; I know a lot about life, but Tony is the one piece that I just can’t make fit.
~
After that, he disappeared. Nobody in town ever saw Tony again. Maybe he moved on to someplace else, I don’t know; I’m not even sure if he’s alive. Paul was satisfied knowing Tony must have done it. Thankfully GasCo gave me another chance, let me keep my job.
It’s not so bad. I get a 3% pay bump every fifteen months, and the 401k plan is pretty good. Next year Patty’s going back down to part-time, then who knows, maybe in a few more years she can retire, then I will. I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t stay at GasCo. I guess I won’t ever have to find out.
The deck still isn’t finished. It’s become sort of a running joke. People say things like, “Oh, Glenn’s deck will be done before that Olsen boy ever gets around to proposing,” stuff like that. I’ll have to break down and spend the money one of these days, hire someone to help me finish it. But Patty and I are doing fine. Things didn’t go according to plan, but we own our house, so we’re better off than most. We’ve still got retirement to look forward to. We’ll get by.
Maxwell Parker is the author of the middle-grade book Troublemak- ers as well as the grown-up novels The Real Truth and Murder, She Vaped: The Ironic T-Shirt Caper. He lives in Japan.
"I
own the place before, but everyone in town knew I was in charge, and now I had to wear a shirt with my name on it to remind everyone whose bitch I was."
hated not being my
own boss. I didn’t
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