Tethered – Chapter 1

Life shouldn’t be marked by the number of days that have passed since your birth, it should be counted by the number of days you can remember. Those days don’t come by often enough for most, myself included. Most of the time we have no control over when they come or what they bring. In 1982 I had one of those days, I remember everything about it. Some days are like that, some days are with you forever.

It was summer and I had the kids working at the shop with me. Back then we didn’t have a lot of money, so every summer the older kids would come with me to work. Most of the time I’d give them small simple tasks. My eldest son Vince was old enough now that I could start giving him real responsibility. It was nice, it was like having an extra employee around, except he was ten and I didn’t have to pay him, perk of being the boss I guess. 

I’d opened Moe’s Trailers two years previous and I hadn’t taken a day off yet. Not because I was a workaholic or anything like that. You see it was because nothing ever got done when I wasn’t there. People would be stealing, not money but time. They just wouldn’t be doing what they should have been doing. So I had to be there.

The day that changed everything was Aug 26, 1982. It was a busy one, people coming to rent trailers or buying hitches, trying to get things done before the end of the summer. I had Vince hooking up hitches in the lot. He must have done at least ten already that day. For a small town with a population less than 2000 that was a lot, granted there are a lot of farmers in the area, but still, it was a lot for us and he was getting good at it.

Because of the population size, most people in Barrhead either knew each other or knew of each other. So, when I saw Smith for the first time I should have known something was up because well, I didn’t know him. He pulled up in his dull silver-colored Ford Taurus. A model I came to learn later wasn’t in production for another couple years. I didn’t see him walk up to the store but I remember seeing the car pull up, then I became distracted by another customer. The Taurus must have parked there for a good ten minutes before he came in. 

I had my second oldest in the shop with me, she was six and loved playing with the money. She’d take the cash from people and then hand it over to me. I liked having her there, people were less likely to want to rip off a six-year-old girl. 

When Smith finally came in he didn’t look around at all, he came right to the desk and asked for one of our trailer hitches. I’d like to say he made an impression on me then, but he didn’t, I remember he was pale, that’s all. If someone had asked me to describe him I’d simply tell you he was average and pale. He could have driven away and I’d never had thought about him again. But he didn’t – wait I’m getting ahead of myself.

He paid for the hitch in cash, which Nicole took and I sent Vince out to hook it up for him. 

Like I said it was a busy day and the second he left the shop I was busy helping another customer. Vince knew what he was doing, and I didn’t have time to check on him. I thought nothing of it and moved on. Every so often I’d steal a glance out the front window to make sure Vince and the other guys were still working. They always were, but it was a habit. So when I looked up and saw the man push Vince back against his car and raise his hand as if to strike him, I thought I was seeing things. But then it happened. A stranger brought his fist down on my ten-year-old boy.

I calmly reached down under the desk and pulled out my baseball bat. It was my insurance. Occasionally people didn’t want to pay or felt they had been cheated. This was my way of making them pay. Only once before this had I ever had to use it, and it was to stop a robbery attempt. Most people see it, decide it isn’t worth it so simply pay and leave. Today the insurance was coming out for round two. Looking back, I’m surprised at how little I was thinking. Everything seemed to be slow but fast, no time to think just time to act. 

With the bat in my hand I hopped the counter and burst through the door, leaving Nicole in the shop. I only remember taking two steps across the parking lot, I felt like I was flying. The bat was cocked back over my shoulder and before the man noticed me, before he could even turn around, the bat was connecting with his head which caved in as if he were made of soft clay. He dropped to his knees then to his chest. Blackness pouring out of where his head used to be. I expected red, I expected blood, that’s not what I got.

I grabbed Vince by the arm and pulled him up, I checked his face, it was red but he looked fine. Must not have been hit very hard. He was a tough kid. I remember telling him to get inside the shop and to lock the door behind him, which he did.

I looked at the bat and noticed that it had black on it. Black from inside the man. My eyes went from the bat to the man and back again. What exactly was I looking at? Slowly the man’s insides flowed out of the hole I’d created in his head and ran across the parking lot to the sewer drain. The black tar moved slow and my heart beat quick. The amount of blackness running out of him as extraordinary. 

What the fuck was I looking at?