Excerpt (Chapter) from Denizens of Death
an eBook (Kindle Book) by
Brian Pinette
Sam
It was hot. Too hot for early late night. Usually by eleven, the Texas heat would be worn down and there would be a breeze to highlight the temperature loss. Not tonight.
I wanted to talk to someone, but everyone was in their room either watching television or asleep. None of us had a car so we were free prisoners. We all knew it. Except for Lionel, the self-promoting, oddly arrogant “writer.” But he wasn't really one of us. He and his dog stayed to themselves. He stayed in his room and each day – he would take his dog for a drive.
This once abandoned manufactured home was turned into an illegal rooming house. The perpetrator was now doing time for being a slumlord in West Virginia, two States away. He also tried to assault a cop with a screw-driver. But he wasn't the owner of the land. His name was Kirk. He was the silent partner. The real Landlord. I looked it up on the internet. He owned the land. He held the deed.
He bought the property for the land according to the deed. The run down, abandoned shack was his inspiration. Turn it into a transient, come one, come all, rooming house. It was illegal. This was a residential neighborhood and in the dead center of family homes was a commercial, transient only “rooming house.”
But I was given a special deal. I was allowed to take fifty dollars off my rent if I would assume the title of property manager. I collected the rent. I watched the house further decay right before my eyes. I cared. But I didn't do anything to change anything. I guess I don't care enough.
We have a roof over our heads and it doesn't leak. I used to tell everyone “we are where God wants us to be.” I don't know if I ever really believed that. If I did, what kind of God would allow this to happen? That's why I don't say it anymore. That is why I don't believe it anymore.
We were ten miles from the nearest Walmart. Too far away to walk. There was a neighborhood convenience store. But not so convenient to us. It was about a half mile walk. And there were no streets lamps, so you couldn't get there after darkness arrived. We all knew there were things in the trees. We knew there was always someone or something watching us from behind the trees.
We lived in Texas hill country. Very rural. Trees, big lots. Neighbors you never saw. Or neighbors you saw but who never said hello or goodbye. They lived in pretty brick houses or RVs or manufactured homes or a combination of both. Most had pick up trucks. Most had more than one. Some lived atop the hill and others behind the hills. We saw cars go up and wind in and out of trees and then they disappeared. Houses dotted the hills like pimples or acne on a teen's face.
We were all lost denizens of the hill country. We were the odd ones. We were the ones who lived in the once abandoned home – a carpetbagger type – turned into a get rich quick rooming house scheme. Pay as you stay. No matter where you came from, what you had, what you didn't have. Pay as you stay. Weekly. Monthly. Or longer. Black, white, Hispanic, drunk, pedophile, felon, straight, sober, gay. Pay as you stay. Your yesterday didn't matter as long as you could pay – so you could stay, today, tonight.
This is hicks-ville. Cowboys and red-necks. The deep south died in 1865. There was no need for a resurrection. But the real-life deep south was alive and kicking here. It was alive but not too well. Or maybe, like zombies, many of those who lived in the Texas Hill country just didn't know they too, were dead or dying.
But I was careful. I was one of the last of us who remembered ... I was more than once called nigger when I was a child. I've been called nigger since. And I'm sure I'll be called nigger again, before I pass away.
This was just another night like the night before, like the day before the night before. I wanted a drink. I wanted something. I've been clean and sober going on six years. Coke was my drug of choice. But any kind of alcohol sounded good, too. I just wanted something to help me make it through the night.
I was an over-weight black man who knew it all. I had my diabetes under control. My weight fluctuated. It was constantly on the rise. But I was six feet tall. I was a big old, black man.
I pontificated and ruled over my two wives and three children until they wanted no more. They left me. I didn't leave them. Even the friends I met along the way are gone.
I was hoping one day I would have grand-kids and they'd call me Old Sam. Or Grandpa Sam.
Now I rule over my life of emptiness. I'm sixty eight and alone. And the feeling of loneliness is over-powering. And I am power-less to do anything about it.
The TV said it might rain, but I don't think so. Not tonight.
Old Sam. Yea, I kind of like that name. Old Sam.
