Grandpa's House
The screen door pushed against my back as I juggled the keys and a stack of cardboard boxes while unlocking the front door. The house still smelled like old people. Stale, musty air and a hint of boiled cabbage. It was full of furniture, clothes and books that were all older than I was. I pulled the curtains and opened the two smaller windows on either side of the picture window. They were stubborn, and released with a creak. Cool October air lifted the drapes and rustled the magazines on the coffee table.
I inherited the place from my grandfather. I didn’t deserve it, but that’s the kind of man he was. He thought a second chance would help me get back on my feet.
It still didn’t seem real. It was more like I was visiting and he'd walk out of the kitchen any minute. I wandered from room to room overwhelmed with the idea of packing up his belongings. I had no clue where to begin. Someone told me I should have an estate sale or hire an auction company and they’d empty and sell the place for me. Lake front property was high dollar. I would be able to pay Chucky back the $8,000.
But I couldn’t sell my grandpa’s home. His house on Hen Lake was the only constant in my life. I played on that beach as a kid, built bonfires by the water when I was a teenager and spent every Thanksgiving and Christmas there up until I was 18 years old and my parents died. I was too young to realize the pain Grandpa went through then. It could have brought us closer together but my grief was full of anger. He’d already lost his wife. When he lost his son and daughter-in-law it never once occurred to me the pain he must have suffered.
One of the spare bedrooms was converted into an office. A mammoth mahogany desk held a typewriter and a desk lamp. The racket of him hammering away on that old Royal still echoed in my mind.
Hundreds of books lined the walls. It seemed like as good a place as any to start. I knew I would never read any of them. One by one, I stacked books in boxes. The bottom shelf was full of photo albums. Old black and whites from when my dad was a kid. Birthdays and holding fish he’d caught. Graduation from college and my parents’ wedding.
And newspaper clippings from the 12 car pile-up on the highway in the winter of ’89 and the program to their funeral. Grandpa even had an album full of photographs of me all through my childhood and a handful of articles from when I played football and baseball in high school. A manila folder was stuffed in the back of the album. It contained paperwork from the courthouse and attorneys regarding a couple of my run-ins with the law. I had no idea he kept those. Tears welled in my eyes.
Pounding at the front door startled me. I yanked on the blinds and saw Chucky’s green El Camino in the driveway. That ridiculous car with a bed like a pickup truck made my skin crawl.
Chucky staggered in. He had been loaded for three months straight. Since his mother died that summer. He hadn’t spoken to her once in nine years. After he ripped her off, she said she wanted nothing to do with him until he got his life straightened out. She was gone and he never made it right with her. He numbed the pain with drugs. It was the only way he could cope with the grief and the guilt.
He’d always smoked weed and drank booze, and then he turned to heavier drugs. He even broke the cardinal rule and started using the products he sold. Coke. Heroin. Crystal. All the stuff he told me when I started working for him that I was forbidden to even think about using. Chucky had never been one to follow rules. When we were kids he was always in trouble at school for something. Cheating. Fighting. Vandalism. Not much changed thirty-some years later. I felt sorry for him for a while, but his pity party was nauseating.
“Hey nice place,” he said looking around the living room.
“Thanks,” I said, hiding my irritation.
“I like that console TV. Is that still hooked up to that antenna tower outside?” he said pointing at the old television with the wooden box built around it with decorative spindles and drawer pulls.
I thought for a minute he might be a human and offer his condolences to me, but he was too busy feeling sorry for himself to notice he wasn’t the only one who lost someone.
“So I was thinking,” he started. “You got this big house all to yourself and you’re paying me on the loan, so why don’t I crash here for a while and you can pay me…” he did math in his head. “Say, sev… eight-hundred a month instead of a grand, and that’ll be like rent.”
He had me by the balls and he knew it. Borrowing money from Chucky and his partner Hector was a big mistake. I knew it at the time but I didn’t have any other options. I paid Chucky one thousand dollars a month for a year straight and almost every penny went to interest. I thought being a part of the crew would get me a better deal. I was wrong. The principle $8,000 kept me under Chucky’s thumb.
**
The next day I went to see Hector at his auto repair garage in downtown Blair. Chucky and Hector teamed up several years back. Chucky was in charge of the drug ring and Hector was in charge of the chop shop and stolen car end of their business. They used the repair shop as a front and did their dirty work at night.
Hector waved me into his back room when he saw me walk into the garage. I expected him to be pissed at me for showing up during regular business hours. He knew I was there about Chucky before I even said a word.
“You have been real fair to me, Hector. Chucky was too up until a few months ago.” Hector nodded in agreement when I mentioned Chucky. “I need to get out from under the money I owe you guys.” Hector’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “Is there anything I can do to get caught up on the loan?”
Hector took a notebook out of a file cabinet and thumbed through pages. “You’re still making payments to Chucky on that eight G?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He knocked the payment down to 800 now that he’s living in my grandpa’s house with me.” I could tell by his face we weren’t on the same page.
He started to speak, then hesitated. “You’ve been square on that loan since July,” Hector said tapping on the paper. I was relieved, yet confused. “Chucky’s been real sloppy lately. I can’t have sloppy,” he said.
It took me a second to connect the dots. Chucky played me. I overpaid by $3,000.
Carrying on the rest of the conversation wasn’t easy. All I could think about were the extra jobs I did for him and the times I was out collecting cans and bottles to keep from being light. Chucky made a fool of me. I wanted him dead.
“I don’t want to sound like I am showing you any disrespect,” I had to concentrate on what I was saying to keep my thoughts straight, “but I need out. I am glad to hear I’m square on the loan. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t, but I can’t do this anymore.”
Hector nodded. I could tell he knew where I was coming from. “Not just yet. We got some loose ends still and I can’t have loose ends. Let me see what I can do. I might have something. One or two more jobs,” he stopped and kept eye contact with me. “Big jobs."
I was across the garage when Hector called out to me. He jogged over. “Until I get this straightened out, don't let Chucky know we spoke. When does he expect another payment?”
“Not for a couple more weeks.”
“Good. You let him keep thinking everything is normal. Just for another day or two. I'll text you later and let you know when we can close this out. Okay?”
He could see I was not too thrilled with the idea.
“I’ll be in touch,” he said and extended his hand to me.
I shook his hand and walked out.
***
I walked by the shoreline to get my mind off Chucky. Dozens of Canadian geese floated across the lake. Grandpa's fishing boat sat upside down on the beach near the dock that jutted out into the water. The same dock I watched my father and grandfather put out every spring and take in every fall when I was a kid. I hadn’t thought about the dock. It had to come out of the water before winter.
I put on Grandpa's waders and grabbed his tool box. The soft lake bottom was congested with weeds. My foot sank into the muck and stirred up a cloud of silt when I stepped into the water. I made my way out to the deepest section of the dock and started pulling the bolts from the collars and brackets that held the wood to the metal poles. It took me an hour to get the deeper sections onto shore. The shallower sections rested on cinder blocks and were easier to bring in. The work was just what I needed. Pulling the dock made me feel like I belonged on the lake.
When I went back inside Grandpa’s house, I found Chucky sprawled out on the living room couch. Fast asleep. My cigar box was open on the coffee table. My weed was spilled around another empty fifth of whiskey from the liquor cabinet. Pain surged in my jaw and hands from clenching my teeth and fists. My face went hot. Anger consumed me.
I stormed to the back bedroom and rummaged through the closet where Grandpa kept his hunting rifle. A layer of dust covered the gun case and his cardboard box of ammo. I loaded several rounds into the magazine, racked one into the chamber and ran back to the living room. The time had come for his miserable excuse for a life to come to an end. I cocked the hammer back, pressed the muzzle against Chucky’s temple and wrapped my finger around the trigger.
I held the gun to his head. I kept it there, trying to muster the courage to fire the weapon, until my arm grew tired and my muscle ached.
My phone chimed.
I lowered the rifle.
I couldn’t kill him. I had never even been able to shoot a deer in the wild. Even though he screwed me over, I still saw the scared seventh grader sitting next to me outside the principal’s office when we got caught stealing candy from the marching band’s fundraiser. We were close back then.
I returned the rifle to the closet. Chucky never even woke up.
The chime was a text from Hector. He had two jobs for me. First, I needed to pick up a package from the shop and after that I needed to ride out to Metro Detroit with another guy so I could drive a van back to Hector's shop. I left Chucky on the couch and drove up to Blair.
Hector wasn't in the shop when I got there. One of his mechanics gave me the box. It was small, like an old audio cassette case. I had seen hundreds of those. I knew exactly what was inside.
The mechanic relayed a message from Hector as he wiped grease from his hands on a rag. “He said to stash that in your house and then come back and ride over to Vic’s with Danny.”
“My grandpa’s house? That’s in Roosterville. I just drove all the way up here.”
“Hector was very specific. That box can’t be in the vehicle on the way there or the way back.” He pushed the edge of the rag into his pocket. “Don’t question him. He has his reasons.”
I spent the entire drive back wondering why he wanted me to take the package just to sit on it.
Chucky was still passed out on the couch. I stashed the box in Grandpa's underwear drawer and headed out for what I hoped would be my last job working for Hector.
****
It was after 2:00 a.m. when I returned to Grandpa’s house. The television flickered in the living room. I clicked it off. The room went dark and the house was silent. The hallway was partially lit by the bathroom light. I reached in to flick the switch. The drawers and cabinet doors hung open and had been rooted through. Grandpa’s diabetes bag was dumped out on the counter. Chucky wanted the needles. Of course. I was ashamed I didn’t realize earlier why Hector wanted the package in the house.
I burst into Grandpa’s bedroom. White cotton boxer shorts were strewn everywhere. The cardboard package, ripped to shreds, littered the top of the dresser. I ran to the bedroom Chucky claimed and found him sitting on the floor with his back against the side of the bed. Cold and lifeless. A syringe hung from his arm and his face was frozen in a smile of satisfaction.
I sat down next to him. All at once I forgave him for everything he had ever done. Time grew hazy.
I sat there until my phone chimed. Hector sent me another text.
Bring me her broomstick and I’ll grant your requests.
I had no idea what that meant, and I didn’t really care so much about deciphering Hector’s code as I did about having a dead body in my house. Friend or not, I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t call the police. I couldn’t bury him in the yard.
The lake. The idea sailed through my brain with a wave of relief. I was no stranger to losing loved ones, but I couldn’t wrap my head around what I felt about Chucky. Having to dispose of a dead body gives a person a sense of urgency that doesn’t leave time for asking why and shaking one’s fist at God.
Grandpa had a couple of nylon sleeping bags on the shelf in the garage. I pulled them down and grabbed a roll of duct tape and a flashlight. I unrolled the first sleeping bag and pulled it over the head. When I leaned the body forward away from the bed it slumped over. I slid it around so the body was straight and inched the sleeping bag all the way down. I started to wrap the tape around to keep the material tight against the body, but stopped on the first pass. I couldn’t just wrap it up. It had to be weighed down too.
I went outside, by the water, and found four football-sized rocks and stuffed them into the sleeping bag. I pulled the second bag over from the opposite direction and wrapped so much tape around it that it looked like a silver mummy. I started to drag it to the back door, but the bulk of it was too awkward to get a good grip. I went back to the garage and found a length of rope.
When Grandpa took me fishing years ago and showed me how to tie a Palomar knot, I bet he never thought I’d tie one around a body. I dragged it out by the water. It took every ounce of strength I had to heave it up and over the edge of the boat. I put two cinder blocks from the dock inside and tied the loose ends of the rope around them.
I rowed across the eerily calm water. The dead of night made it difficult to gauge how close to the middle of the lake I was. The light on the back porch of the house was just a glint. I lowered one of the blocks over the side to act as a guide. It banged against the aluminum and made so much noise I was sure I would stir up a flock of ducks or wake a nosy neighbor. The boat leaned heavy to one side as I managed to push the second block over. The pair of weights helped pull the body up and over, and nearly capsized the boat. With a splash and a gurgle Chucky sank to the bottom.
I collapsed onto the bench and caught my breath before rowing back in.
The morning’s first light broke the tree line when I stepped into the muck at the water’s edge and pulled the boat onto shore. My biceps seared in pain. I hadn’t had a workout like that in years. Exhaustion washed over me. I stumbled into the house and then went to the living room ready to flop onto the couch, but stopped.
The picture window overlooking the front yard perfectly framed the El Camino outside as it glistened in the sunshine. Perfect. I had forgotten all about the car. I had to get rid of that too.
I pulled my phone out and read Hector’s text again.
Bring me her broomstick and I’ll grant your requests.
It finally made sense. I drove the El Camino up to the shop and left it in the parking lot. I thought about my grandfather as I walked all the way back to Roosterville. And Chucky. I knew I’d never be able to look at the lake again without thinking about him resting in the muck. I just hoped he stayed there.
I inherited the place from my grandfather. I didn’t deserve it, but that’s the kind of man he was. He thought a second chance would help me get back on my feet.
It still didn’t seem real. It was more like I was visiting and he'd walk out of the kitchen any minute. I wandered from room to room overwhelmed with the idea of packing up his belongings. I had no clue where to begin. Someone told me I should have an estate sale or hire an auction company and they’d empty and sell the place for me. Lake front property was high dollar. I would be able to pay Chucky back the $8,000.
But I couldn’t sell my grandpa’s home. His house on Hen Lake was the only constant in my life. I played on that beach as a kid, built bonfires by the water when I was a teenager and spent every Thanksgiving and Christmas there up until I was 18 years old and my parents died. I was too young to realize the pain Grandpa went through then. It could have brought us closer together but my grief was full of anger. He’d already lost his wife. When he lost his son and daughter-in-law it never once occurred to me the pain he must have suffered.
One of the spare bedrooms was converted into an office. A mammoth mahogany desk held a typewriter and a desk lamp. The racket of him hammering away on that old Royal still echoed in my mind.
Hundreds of books lined the walls. It seemed like as good a place as any to start. I knew I would never read any of them. One by one, I stacked books in boxes. The bottom shelf was full of photo albums. Old black and whites from when my dad was a kid. Birthdays and holding fish he’d caught. Graduation from college and my parents’ wedding.
And newspaper clippings from the 12 car pile-up on the highway in the winter of ’89 and the program to their funeral. Grandpa even had an album full of photographs of me all through my childhood and a handful of articles from when I played football and baseball in high school. A manila folder was stuffed in the back of the album. It contained paperwork from the courthouse and attorneys regarding a couple of my run-ins with the law. I had no idea he kept those. Tears welled in my eyes.
Pounding at the front door startled me. I yanked on the blinds and saw Chucky’s green El Camino in the driveway. That ridiculous car with a bed like a pickup truck made my skin crawl.
Chucky staggered in. He had been loaded for three months straight. Since his mother died that summer. He hadn’t spoken to her once in nine years. After he ripped her off, she said she wanted nothing to do with him until he got his life straightened out. She was gone and he never made it right with her. He numbed the pain with drugs. It was the only way he could cope with the grief and the guilt.
He’d always smoked weed and drank booze, and then he turned to heavier drugs. He even broke the cardinal rule and started using the products he sold. Coke. Heroin. Crystal. All the stuff he told me when I started working for him that I was forbidden to even think about using. Chucky had never been one to follow rules. When we were kids he was always in trouble at school for something. Cheating. Fighting. Vandalism. Not much changed thirty-some years later. I felt sorry for him for a while, but his pity party was nauseating.
“Hey nice place,” he said looking around the living room.
“Thanks,” I said, hiding my irritation.
“I like that console TV. Is that still hooked up to that antenna tower outside?” he said pointing at the old television with the wooden box built around it with decorative spindles and drawer pulls.
I thought for a minute he might be a human and offer his condolences to me, but he was too busy feeling sorry for himself to notice he wasn’t the only one who lost someone.
“So I was thinking,” he started. “You got this big house all to yourself and you’re paying me on the loan, so why don’t I crash here for a while and you can pay me…” he did math in his head. “Say, sev… eight-hundred a month instead of a grand, and that’ll be like rent.”
He had me by the balls and he knew it. Borrowing money from Chucky and his partner Hector was a big mistake. I knew it at the time but I didn’t have any other options. I paid Chucky one thousand dollars a month for a year straight and almost every penny went to interest. I thought being a part of the crew would get me a better deal. I was wrong. The principle $8,000 kept me under Chucky’s thumb.
**
The next day I went to see Hector at his auto repair garage in downtown Blair. Chucky and Hector teamed up several years back. Chucky was in charge of the drug ring and Hector was in charge of the chop shop and stolen car end of their business. They used the repair shop as a front and did their dirty work at night.
Hector waved me into his back room when he saw me walk into the garage. I expected him to be pissed at me for showing up during regular business hours. He knew I was there about Chucky before I even said a word.
“You have been real fair to me, Hector. Chucky was too up until a few months ago.” Hector nodded in agreement when I mentioned Chucky. “I need to get out from under the money I owe you guys.” Hector’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “Is there anything I can do to get caught up on the loan?”
Hector took a notebook out of a file cabinet and thumbed through pages. “You’re still making payments to Chucky on that eight G?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He knocked the payment down to 800 now that he’s living in my grandpa’s house with me.” I could tell by his face we weren’t on the same page.
He started to speak, then hesitated. “You’ve been square on that loan since July,” Hector said tapping on the paper. I was relieved, yet confused. “Chucky’s been real sloppy lately. I can’t have sloppy,” he said.
It took me a second to connect the dots. Chucky played me. I overpaid by $3,000.
Carrying on the rest of the conversation wasn’t easy. All I could think about were the extra jobs I did for him and the times I was out collecting cans and bottles to keep from being light. Chucky made a fool of me. I wanted him dead.
“I don’t want to sound like I am showing you any disrespect,” I had to concentrate on what I was saying to keep my thoughts straight, “but I need out. I am glad to hear I’m square on the loan. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t, but I can’t do this anymore.”
Hector nodded. I could tell he knew where I was coming from. “Not just yet. We got some loose ends still and I can’t have loose ends. Let me see what I can do. I might have something. One or two more jobs,” he stopped and kept eye contact with me. “Big jobs."
I was across the garage when Hector called out to me. He jogged over. “Until I get this straightened out, don't let Chucky know we spoke. When does he expect another payment?”
“Not for a couple more weeks.”
“Good. You let him keep thinking everything is normal. Just for another day or two. I'll text you later and let you know when we can close this out. Okay?”
He could see I was not too thrilled with the idea.
“I’ll be in touch,” he said and extended his hand to me.
I shook his hand and walked out.
***
I walked by the shoreline to get my mind off Chucky. Dozens of Canadian geese floated across the lake. Grandpa's fishing boat sat upside down on the beach near the dock that jutted out into the water. The same dock I watched my father and grandfather put out every spring and take in every fall when I was a kid. I hadn’t thought about the dock. It had to come out of the water before winter.
I put on Grandpa's waders and grabbed his tool box. The soft lake bottom was congested with weeds. My foot sank into the muck and stirred up a cloud of silt when I stepped into the water. I made my way out to the deepest section of the dock and started pulling the bolts from the collars and brackets that held the wood to the metal poles. It took me an hour to get the deeper sections onto shore. The shallower sections rested on cinder blocks and were easier to bring in. The work was just what I needed. Pulling the dock made me feel like I belonged on the lake.
When I went back inside Grandpa’s house, I found Chucky sprawled out on the living room couch. Fast asleep. My cigar box was open on the coffee table. My weed was spilled around another empty fifth of whiskey from the liquor cabinet. Pain surged in my jaw and hands from clenching my teeth and fists. My face went hot. Anger consumed me.
I stormed to the back bedroom and rummaged through the closet where Grandpa kept his hunting rifle. A layer of dust covered the gun case and his cardboard box of ammo. I loaded several rounds into the magazine, racked one into the chamber and ran back to the living room. The time had come for his miserable excuse for a life to come to an end. I cocked the hammer back, pressed the muzzle against Chucky’s temple and wrapped my finger around the trigger.
I held the gun to his head. I kept it there, trying to muster the courage to fire the weapon, until my arm grew tired and my muscle ached.
My phone chimed.
I lowered the rifle.
I couldn’t kill him. I had never even been able to shoot a deer in the wild. Even though he screwed me over, I still saw the scared seventh grader sitting next to me outside the principal’s office when we got caught stealing candy from the marching band’s fundraiser. We were close back then.
I returned the rifle to the closet. Chucky never even woke up.
The chime was a text from Hector. He had two jobs for me. First, I needed to pick up a package from the shop and after that I needed to ride out to Metro Detroit with another guy so I could drive a van back to Hector's shop. I left Chucky on the couch and drove up to Blair.
Hector wasn't in the shop when I got there. One of his mechanics gave me the box. It was small, like an old audio cassette case. I had seen hundreds of those. I knew exactly what was inside.
The mechanic relayed a message from Hector as he wiped grease from his hands on a rag. “He said to stash that in your house and then come back and ride over to Vic’s with Danny.”
“My grandpa’s house? That’s in Roosterville. I just drove all the way up here.”
“Hector was very specific. That box can’t be in the vehicle on the way there or the way back.” He pushed the edge of the rag into his pocket. “Don’t question him. He has his reasons.”
I spent the entire drive back wondering why he wanted me to take the package just to sit on it.
Chucky was still passed out on the couch. I stashed the box in Grandpa's underwear drawer and headed out for what I hoped would be my last job working for Hector.
****
It was after 2:00 a.m. when I returned to Grandpa’s house. The television flickered in the living room. I clicked it off. The room went dark and the house was silent. The hallway was partially lit by the bathroom light. I reached in to flick the switch. The drawers and cabinet doors hung open and had been rooted through. Grandpa’s diabetes bag was dumped out on the counter. Chucky wanted the needles. Of course. I was ashamed I didn’t realize earlier why Hector wanted the package in the house.
I burst into Grandpa’s bedroom. White cotton boxer shorts were strewn everywhere. The cardboard package, ripped to shreds, littered the top of the dresser. I ran to the bedroom Chucky claimed and found him sitting on the floor with his back against the side of the bed. Cold and lifeless. A syringe hung from his arm and his face was frozen in a smile of satisfaction.
I sat down next to him. All at once I forgave him for everything he had ever done. Time grew hazy.
I sat there until my phone chimed. Hector sent me another text.
Bring me her broomstick and I’ll grant your requests.
I had no idea what that meant, and I didn’t really care so much about deciphering Hector’s code as I did about having a dead body in my house. Friend or not, I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t call the police. I couldn’t bury him in the yard.
The lake. The idea sailed through my brain with a wave of relief. I was no stranger to losing loved ones, but I couldn’t wrap my head around what I felt about Chucky. Having to dispose of a dead body gives a person a sense of urgency that doesn’t leave time for asking why and shaking one’s fist at God.
Grandpa had a couple of nylon sleeping bags on the shelf in the garage. I pulled them down and grabbed a roll of duct tape and a flashlight. I unrolled the first sleeping bag and pulled it over the head. When I leaned the body forward away from the bed it slumped over. I slid it around so the body was straight and inched the sleeping bag all the way down. I started to wrap the tape around to keep the material tight against the body, but stopped on the first pass. I couldn’t just wrap it up. It had to be weighed down too.
I went outside, by the water, and found four football-sized rocks and stuffed them into the sleeping bag. I pulled the second bag over from the opposite direction and wrapped so much tape around it that it looked like a silver mummy. I started to drag it to the back door, but the bulk of it was too awkward to get a good grip. I went back to the garage and found a length of rope.
When Grandpa took me fishing years ago and showed me how to tie a Palomar knot, I bet he never thought I’d tie one around a body. I dragged it out by the water. It took every ounce of strength I had to heave it up and over the edge of the boat. I put two cinder blocks from the dock inside and tied the loose ends of the rope around them.
I rowed across the eerily calm water. The dead of night made it difficult to gauge how close to the middle of the lake I was. The light on the back porch of the house was just a glint. I lowered one of the blocks over the side to act as a guide. It banged against the aluminum and made so much noise I was sure I would stir up a flock of ducks or wake a nosy neighbor. The boat leaned heavy to one side as I managed to push the second block over. The pair of weights helped pull the body up and over, and nearly capsized the boat. With a splash and a gurgle Chucky sank to the bottom.
I collapsed onto the bench and caught my breath before rowing back in.
The morning’s first light broke the tree line when I stepped into the muck at the water’s edge and pulled the boat onto shore. My biceps seared in pain. I hadn’t had a workout like that in years. Exhaustion washed over me. I stumbled into the house and then went to the living room ready to flop onto the couch, but stopped.
The picture window overlooking the front yard perfectly framed the El Camino outside as it glistened in the sunshine. Perfect. I had forgotten all about the car. I had to get rid of that too.
I pulled my phone out and read Hector’s text again.
Bring me her broomstick and I’ll grant your requests.
It finally made sense. I drove the El Camino up to the shop and left it in the parking lot. I thought about my grandfather as I walked all the way back to Roosterville. And Chucky. I knew I’d never be able to look at the lake again without thinking about him resting in the muck. I just hoped he stayed there.