Trailer Park Victory Chapter 3: Rage

 

c. 2024 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(12-24)

 

Judi Yonrak had been a realtor for long enough to know that the process of buying a home was one that affected people in different ways. Some met the pitfalls of this process with curiosity and unflagging optimism. While others fretted vocally over every detail and setback. Yet for her contrarian friend at Evergreen Estates, the yield of attempting to escape his downtrodden environment was more unpredictable in nature. She could not be sure of how he would react to the news that his best prospect in years for an exit from the park had just been taken off the market.

 

So with a bit of diplomacy in mind, and a measure self-defense intended, she placed a call rather than revisiting Lot 13 in person.

 

“Link, this your friend from the property office in Chardon. I’m sorry to say that the manufactured home we’ve been discussing has... been sold. It happened so quickly that my head is spinning. Please don’t think that I wasn’t on top of the details. The seller didn’t even give me a chance to negotiate a better deal. They just took the first offer! I could’ve done better, but there was no time to argue the point. I wasn’t officially on the case so there is no recourse for me as an agent. I hope you’ll understand! I don’t have anything else that is comparable in mind, but trust me, I will keep looking...”

 

T.C. Lincoln was silent when replaying the message on his cell phone, hours later. He sat with the morning air hovering at 19 degrees. A temperature that permeated every layer of clothing he wore. His coffee chilled quickly, almost before the mug could meet his chapped lips. There were hints of frost in his gray beard. But now, nothing mattered.

 

After putting the wireless device aside, he huddled over his knees. A swelling of rage filled his chest. He began to rock on the wooden bench, until it creaked and groaned with stress fatigue. Then, in a final surrender to emotion, he turned sideways, and faced the corner post that framed his inset cubicle.

 

BAMMMMM!

 

His fist shattered the frozen timber with a strike of uncontrolled anger. It made his knuckles bleed. A second hit loosened the trim around his doorway. And turned his hand bloody red. A third sent pine fragments scattering across the deck.

 

“MOTHERFUCKER! MOTHERFUCKER! MOTHERFUCKER!”

 

His caffeine vessel had disappeared, in the outburst of emotion. A slushy pool of cold coffee surrounded his work boots. From the yard, there was a yowl of protest. His porch companion, a stray feline with patchy colors in its fur, one that had visited sporadically for two or three years, ran for cover.

 

His right arm cocked for another surge of muscular energy. But this time, he simply shook off the tension, and slumped in place.

 

“I’ll never get out of here... never! They can bury me in the dirt. With a whiskey flask by my head!”

 

A wash of liquor soon calmed his mood, despite being too early on the clock dial for inebriation. As he crept toward oblivion, this gentle cloak of indifference made him feel safe. But a raucous noise from down the street interrupted the progression.

 

An combative, pudgy neighbor known as Linn Speck, had staked out a spot in the center of his yard. He held a bullhorn in one hand. With a bubbling bottle of champagne, in the other. 

 

“Victory party at my house! When we win this round at the ballot box, everyone is welcome to sit at my cinder-block fire pit. I’ve got pallets saved from a warehouse in Middlefield! Come one, come all! Make America Great Again! Make America Great!”

 

Lincoln had no vested interest in politics, or religion, of any kind. So, he and the fledgling, community activist knew no common ground. They were philosophical opposites. One eschewed the very concept of overarching authority, by nature. The other felt empowered by God to lead and direct a willing population of believers.

 

The reclusive hermit shouted an oath, though he was too distant to be heard.

 

“HEY SHITHEAD! KISS MY GAWDAMM ASS, OKAY? KISS IT TWO TIMES!”

 

In a drunken stupor, he replayed the message from Geauga Realty. Every word seared the cerebral matter in his skull. He mumbled along as if repeating lyrics from a song on the radio.

 

“I’m sorry to say that the manufactured home we’ve been discussing has... been sold. It happened so quickly that my head is spinning. Please don’t think that I wasn’t on top of the details...”

 

A fourth, violent burst made him punch at the wounded wall, until his wrist ached with a warning of broken bones. He crouched low in his seat, almost toppling onto the floorboards.

 

“Motherfucker!”

 

At the hovel occupied by Linn and Haki Speck, he could see other residents of the mobile village beginning to gather. They carried cases of Busch and Bud Light, beer and bags of Walmart snacks. A line formed at the driveway. Flames and a chemical stench of lighter fluid permeated the morning. A chant of loyalty echoed as the group grew to dozens of bodies, and more.

 

“MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! MAKE AMERICA GREAT!”

 

Teetering in a haze of alcohol, the cranky oldster realized that despite his standoffish reputation among the mainstream residents, he had become an accepted part of their social order. Someone who had willingly inhabited his narrow strip of earth for so long, that reeking of beer and brown spirits, and the odor of many days going unwashed, did not shock anyone. He was generally averse to contact with those who surrounded his boxcar hovel. Yet they knew of his prickly habits, and accepted him as one of their own.

 

He was a porcupine among the livestock. Better seen, when viewed from a distance.

 

With his eyes slamming shut, he played the voicemail record one last time. Just to be certain of his woeful position. The words hit his ears like a fiery brand of iron.

 

“The seller didn’t even give me a chance to negotiate a better deal. They just took the first offer! I could’ve done better, but there was no time to argue the point. I wasn’t officially on the case so there is no recourse for me as an agent. I hope you’ll understand! I don’t have anything else that is comparable in mind, but trust me, I will keep looking...”

 

Unconsciousness came in a merciful fog of negation, as he returned the phone to his hoodie pocket. He would sleep outside for over an hour, in defiance of the frosty climate. Eventually, his arthritic limbs would struggle enough to carry him through the open doorway, to the sofa. There, he would descend into a deep chasm of nothingness.

 

His home search was at an end. He would be a resident of the trashy trailer park, until death finally carried him to eternity.