13 Days of Halloween by Jerry eBooks

Author:Jerry eBooks [eBooks, Jerry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

The knocking began a week after Roger moved in.

He’d arranged for the job and the apartment before his discharge, hardly a challenge after fifteen years managing on and off base services from posts all over the world.

Big city, because he was used to being around a lot of people. In a place far from anywhere he’d ever been stationed, to try something new. Furnished, because the Air Force had always provided.

The landlord liked veterans. He had family in the military and kept one or two smaller places in his properties for retired servicemen and women. Pensions guaranteed the rent, and carefully vetted candidates made responsible tenants who kept an eye on things. He liked single vets with uncomplicated histories.

Roger started working at the pop-up costume store the day after arriving in town. Halloween guaranteed he’d be busy, and he already had another manager’s job lined up at a department store for the Christmas season. That gave him time to line something up long-term, if he could see himself living in this part of the country for a while.

It was hard to see living anywhere out of uniform, out of the service. Without a mission. It was even harder to live with the hurt of no longer being needed.

Every evening, he rushed back to the new apartment to unpack. By the weekend he was squared away—TV up, clothes in closet and drawers, boxes and papers gone, kitchen stocked. Ready for inspection, as if he’d been stationed there for a year.

The single neighbor who preferred being called Mrs. Wise had stopped by one evening when he was taking trash to the garbage room. She’d left her door cracked open, a little wider each evening.

“Mr. Cassidy?” she’d asked, offering a plastic bag filled with warm, tightly packed Tupperware. “Sorry I missed you in uniform,” she continued, with a bow of the head and a smile. “When you know me better, you can call me Mary, but for now let’s keep it neighborly.”

He took the bag, thanked her, headed back to his apartment.

“I put my number in the bag,” she said. “In case you need something. And tell your friends they can ring my apartment. The lobby buzzer doesn’t work for your place. Call me so I can let them in, if you’re expecting them. And if you aren’t, what’s your number, honey?”

“No phone, yet.”

“What’s your cell number?”

“Don’t have one. I don’t have any friends.”

She watched him until he reached his door. “You have one, now.”

He went in. Turned the lock against her need. There were a lot of guys he knew who’d take her up on whatever she had to offer. Hit it and quit. But she didn’t have what he needed. And he couldn’t give her what she wanted. No one could. Not ever. There was nothing there for him, just more empty promises. And a reminder of why he’d joined the service, given himself to service, all these years.

The next day, he put her empty Tupperware back in the bag and left it at her door.

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