c. 2024 Rod Ice
All rights reserved
(1-24)
Note to Readers – Townshend Carr Lincoln is a descendant of our noted and beloved 16th American president, and appears in all twelve volumes of the ‘Trailer Park Militia’ series. He lives at Evergreen Estates, a rural enclave in northeastern Ohio. He is a hermitic misanthrope, and enjoys Tennessee whiskey and solitude, both in plentiful amounts. Neighbors consider him to be something of a mystery. But after more than two decades as a resident, he has become accepted as a fixture in the community.
When I awakened on Monday morning, there was just enough frosty precipitation on the ground to accurately say that it had snowed. Otherwise, the cover of winter white was little more than a nuisance. A blip on the radar, as February was approaching. I had been in and out of bed throughout the night, feeling restless after a weekend of televised sports events and high-calorie foodstuffs. Now, I felt groggy. A pot of coffee did little to clear away the cobwebs. So, I decided to start raiding my household stash of Tennessee whiskey again. It was the strategy once described by Lemmy Kilmister, core member of the boisterous and beloved Rock & Roll group, Motörhead.
“A kid once said to me ‘Do you get hangovers?’ I said, ‘To get hangovers, you have to stop drinking!’”
The hours seemed to drag along until that decisive moment. But once I took a first slug of Jack Daniel’s, straight from the bottle, my mood changed immediately. Worry over nagging details began to fade. I stumbled around the kitchen, making an improvised breakfast of canned sausages and eggs, fried in a cast-iron skillet. This bounty was served up with toast. It made me belch softly as I headed to the front porch with a measure of brown liquor poured discretely into a vessel from my cupboard.
A thermometer outside read 34 degrees. Yet I couldn’t feel much. My body responded quickly to the alcohol assault, once this ritual commenced. I had begun this familiar routine of self-abuse too early in the day. But it didn’t matter in the scheme of a life spent huddling inside of my prefabricated boxcar. Once I became a resident at Evergreen Estates, I stopped living in the traditional sense. It was more like existing in a cage or a cell. Tantamount to being a lost dog at the pound, or a vagrant incarcerated because of homelessness and poverty.
Staying drunk kept me sane. Sobriety was the only danger I tried to avoid.
I had managed to gulp half of my high-proof ration, from a vintage Tabasco rocks glass, when the cell phone rang in my hoodie pocket. I recognized the number as being one listed for a neighbor often likened to the cartoon character Velma Dinkley, from ‘Scooby Doo, Where Are You!’ She wore thick glasses, framed in black plastic. Her hair was a metallic shade of red, not wholly accurate to the nearsighted comic adventurer, but plausible enough to be accepted.
“Link! Can you hear the rumbling on our street? Another trailer is being pulled out of here! Those oddball jerks at Lot 22 really started something! It’s like people suddenly realized why they call these things ‘mobile homes’ in conversation!”
I was buzzed and swigging Miller High Life, to wash the booze burn out of my throat. The unexpected noise hadn’t gotten my attention. But then, I could hear our asphalt boulevard cracking and creaking under the weight of a home-in-motion. As I peered past the corner of her hovel, across the yard, a jutting corner of vinyl siding and shingles appeared. The weathered roof looked to have survived many seasons with hail, ice, and snow.
“Damn! I see it now! Somebody else wanted to jet out of this junkyard? I can’t say that it is a bad idea...”
Velma whistled over the wireless connection.
“These people got a permit and a professional company to do the move, unlike the losers who went first. They’ve been passing out business cards around the park. The price ain’t bad, actually. There is some kind of new development opening in Newton Falls, just down Route 534. We got an advertisement in the mail. Have you checked your postal slot lately?”
I reddened with embarrassment, though it would have been hard to see as my face had already flushed from inebriation.
“Nah, I wait to go down to the barn maybe once a week. Sometimes longer than that, if nothing important is on the way. All I get is junk! And bills I can’t pay, screw them all!”
My fellow resident hummed to herself with amusement.
“There’s another house already jacked up on wheels, one street over. I hear lots of people talking about trying to escape. Alveda our property manager says the company will sue people for breaking leases. But I wonder if that matters. Everybody here is broke!”
I nodded and emptied the artfully decorated glass. A dribble of spirits trickled into my beard.
“WHAT WOULD THEY TAKE? SOME RUSTY TRUCK FENDERS OR CAR PARTS? MAYBE A SHOTGUN THAT THE LOCAL PAWN SHOP WOULDN’T WANT? OR A 30-RACK OF NATTY LIGHT? SCREW THEM! I’D SAY LEGAL ACTION IS POINTLESS!”
She snorted and coughed and corrected herself, as I was getting to my feet for another serving of refreshment.
“Oh crap, I just got a text from Richelle who lives back by the woods, at the end of this avenue. She says there’s a line forming from her side of the place, to ours. Two other trailers are in a queue, behind the one passing your porch. And there are more waiting to leave, on other streets. It’s crazy dude! I never realized how many people were sick of this community! Don’t get your shorts in a bunch, but I figure it will be pretty empty around here in another month. Jinkies! What a show!”
My cheeks were on fire. I had started to get tipsy enough that walking to the refrigerator required a lot of patience and effort. What my quirky neighbor described reminded me of ‘Operation Exodus’ from the Gerry Anderson series, Space:1999. A plan invoked to liberate inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha from their lunar exile.
“It’s been building up for months and years. The bad water, the power grid always going down, the rent and fees increasing, the busted tarmac and crumbling foundations. There’s not much sunshine in this development. I’ve put up with it for so long that I can’t tell the difference anymore. This is strangely normal for me, now. I’d be better off renting a cabin from my friend by Lake Erie. I wish she would get released from the rehab facility!”
Velma snickered and opened her window. It provided a low-tech line of communication that superseded the phone connection.
“Sorry, I should have realized you were on your wooden bench. I called while looking at search results on the computer. Did you know that the MH Village website has information about moving a mobile shack? They’ve got listings from all over America. Damn, if this gets around our park, people will have ants in their pants! I bet there’s a traffic jam about to happen, by the main road. The flier we got says that this new property will pay $1000.00 on a relocation. They’re looking for tenants to lease spaces. What an opportunity! They call this project Breezeway Bluffs. It’s affiliated with the Dolans who own our Cleveland Guardians baseball team!”
Her catty report echoed over and over inside of my skull.
“GUARDIANS BASEBALL TEAM! GUARDIANS BASEBALL! GUARDIANS BASEBALL!”
Shock made my eyes go wide in the dim gray of morning. I was sitting in a muted glow of twilight, on the edge of my bed. The mask from my CPAP machine hissed gently. I shook off the dream state with a huff, and tried to stand up before reaching my canes. This sent me falling forward, onto the chest of drawers. I shuddered and stomped in place, while trying to find one of the walking sticks for support. Everything I had seen in the netherworld of REM sleep had been a figment of imagination. An unconscious trick played on my mind.
“I’m clean and clear-headed after all? Stone cold sober in the morning?”
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