9 Tales Told in the Dark 6 by 9 Tales Told in the Dark

Author:9 Tales Told in the Dark [Dark, 9 Tales Told in the]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bride of Chaos
Published: 2015-09-29T22:00:00+00:00

THE END

An End for Some by Jason Lairamore

The sky was blue and a cool breeze blew in the morning air. It was a nice day to work and make some money. I’d already changed into some bibs, some boots, and a cut off tee.

My grandpa, Pa, was on his knees off his back porch looking at an inset square of concrete. Beside him was a new, bright-red, hand pump.

“I’m looking for work,” I said. He hauled his gangly self up and squared up proper to face me, his six feet three to my five feet eleven.

“What’s the first thing I taught you about work, Jerol?” he asked. Pa was the go-to guy when I needed a job. He was always doing something. He’d been retired over ten years and still worked every day on one project or another.

“Set a price,” I said. I needed money. School had just let out and I wanted new traps. Dad’s old ones were bout rusted through.

“Close,” he said. “I got four hours of easy labor. Going to reopen the well house. Pays three dollars an hour.”

“I’ll take it,” I said and stuck my hand out.

“Done.” Pa didn’t take my hand. He put on his work gloves.

“Could have got five dollars an hour out of me easy, boy.” He shook his head. “Know your worth, Jerol. That’s the first thing to know when setting out to work. You’re fourteen years old. Don’t sell your time cheap when you know you deserve more.”

He met my eye and held it. “Know you're worth your salt. Understand?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He handed me a shovel and set me to digging a shallow lateral line down the hill to the garden. I got to it. Easy job.

My grandma, Nan, came out on the porch a while later. I was at least a hundred feet away and still digging the line. Pa was up taking a drink of sweet tea. It’d got hot today.

I waved, but Nan wasn’t looking. She talked to Pa. I stuck the shovel back in the dirt and heard Pa’s Mason jar break.

Pa stared at Nan.

“What’s going on?” I called.

“Jerol, you need to get home,” Pa yelled.

That didn’t sound good. I shouldered the shovel and walked back to the house.

“Go, Jerol. Hurry,” he said. I looked at Nan. She looked like she’d been crying, but it was hard to tell. She kept looking at the ground.

Eight year old Tom and six year old Ellie, a couple of cousins living with Nan and Pa, stood on the other side of the screen door that led out back. I nodded at them. Nan went inside, taking them with her.

“Go Jerol,” Pa said again.

“What is it?” Pa never sent me home in the middle of a job, nor did he act scared. I’d never seen Pa scared.

He looked at me for a long time, his face an open eyed question mark that made my stomach ache.

“It’s best your Dad tell you,” he finally said.

I rode my bike as fast as I could back home, my mind awhirl with what could have made Pa’s eye’s go so wide, so hopeless.

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