c. 2026 Rod Ice
All rights reserved
(3-26)
After the revelation about salacious content on Southern Charms, Townshend Lincoln sat on his wooden bench, alone. Staring into the void, and brooding over his liquor jug. He did not doubt the veracity of his neighbor from a foreign land. And yet the images displayed online had been frighteningly real. They were unsettling to contemplate. If his Russian companion had somehow been exploited by a scammer, then what remedy could right that wrong? He felt powerless, and slightly bitter. But, determined to solve the riddle.
In the morning, he woke to the sound of birds in a tree by his back door, chirping wildly for their mother. Spring had arrived after a hard winter season, and he was ready to celebrate. But that festive mood was now muted by disbelief and uncertainty. He wanted to comfort Mockbina with words and deeds. Yet she had been distant and cold upon seeing the handiwork of an AI creation that upset her world. So, he excused himself politely, and returned home. Now however, that move left him with an empty heart, and an edgy burden of guilt on his brain. Perhaps he should have been more responsive to her emotional advances? If for no other purpose, than to provide some sort of counsel about living in America. That notion raised his pulse. He was flushed red, and jittery, throughout the morning. Finally, he decided to sit on his porch with a mug of coffee, and warm himself against the chill of an early hour.
But from the vantage point of his bench, came a revelation he did not welcome.
The tan and brown singlewide where his curvy friend resided appeared to have been abandoned. The windows were all bare. Decorative items that dotted the lawn had disappeared. The driveway sat empty. No lights burned in the boxcar hovel.
He knew her daily routine well enough to realize that by now, perhaps she had left for a work shift at the cheese factory, in Middlefield. Though usually, her departure came a bit later. Yet an odd vibe of termination hung over her lot. He could feel that she was no longer connected with the rural community. Some defensive impulse had caused her to sever ties with the trailer enclave. No words were necessary to express that shift. He sensed those negative vibrations, in the air.
When enough hours had passed, he visited the park office, and Dana Alvarez, their property manager. Information about other inhabitants of the development was kept secret, by design. But he wanted to know if the immigrant dame would be returning to her spot across the street, or had dumped the home, and its meager contents, for good.
“Ma’am, I know yer bound by procedures and laws, and such. But I’ve grown kinda fond of our plump neighbor from overseas. Something gave me the willies this morning. It looks like she might’ve jumped off the ship. Do ya have any inkling of what she did?”
The ownership representative had been smoking a menthol cigarette. Her black hair was tied with a red bandana.
“Ayyyy! You know better than to ask me this question! It is nobody’s business. I have to be quiet about you, me, and everybody here. I don’t wanna get fired!”
Lincoln was gruff in response. He still had stains of beer and whiskey on his T-shirt.
“Right, I get ya. She won’t answer her phone though. I don’t know what happened. We’ve been in touch almost every day, fer weeks and weeks now...”
Dana reached out to pat his trembling hand with her own.
“Look, this is between you ‘n me. Don’t tell nobody else, comprende? She left her keys in the drop box. I found ‘em here when I opened up today. No note, no nothing. Just a check for what she owed last month. I hope maybe she will call me, I can’t stand if we lose a good tenant. She do the rent-to-own thing, I figure with her job, the bills will be paid. A good risk to take!”
The reclusive hermit stroked his gray beard, nervously.
“it’s a gawdamn mystery. We ought to have talked things out. Maybe I could’ve made a difference. Oren from the front corner has been giving her a lot of shit. He needed an ass whipping! But I’m too slow fer action...”
The park manager nodded and spit tobacco smoke.
“I hate that piece of mierda! But you know, he always pay the lot rent on time. What can I do? he also keep things tidy around his barn. His truck is clean...”
Lincoln growled in silence. He bowed reflectively while listening.
“This is a business, ma’am. I get yer inclination not to stir the pot. But the truth is, I’d like to bust his teeth with one of my canes!”
Dana widened her eyes. She dug her long nails into his skin.
“YOU DON’T DO IT! I HAVE TO CALL THE POLICIA, LINK! NOT A THING TO DO, BUT IT IS MY JOB, OKAY? I LIKE PEACE HERE. I LIKE QUIET. I LIKE NO PROBLEMS AND EVERYBODY PAY THEIR BILL!”
The old hobo dismissed himself without arguing the point, and trudged home with both implements pounding the pavement. Changes in the weather pattern had aggravated his arthritis. He needed to be sitting on his bench with a drink glass, and a cold brew. Not struggling along the crumbling boulevard.
With a clattering of diesel exhaust, Oren Kronk appeared noisily, in his lifted pickup truck. Unlike the alcoholic bum from Lot 13, he was oddly cheerful and carefree. Upon pausing to peer at the abandoned home, where Mockbina had been, he began to howl gleefully, and palm the steering wheel. Toots of his horn echoed across the landscape.
“Heyyyy, that fat bitch bugged out, huh? Well, whatta ya know? I never thought she fit in with us. Who the hell sold her that shack, anyway? It’s been fallin’ apart fer years! Y’all gotta think she got ripped off, not that I give a frig about it! That effed-up manager must’ve fooled her into thinkin’ it was an American palace. What’d she know, comin’ here from a turd country like hers? Damn Russia to hell! Those people swig their mashed-up potato peels and eat bread made outta dirt! Screw ‘em, I say! Screw ‘em all!”
Lincoln could think of only two things. A jug of Kentucky bourbon waiting in his kitchen cupboard, and the Ithaca Model 37 shotgun, in his bedroom closet. He hoped that retrieving the first of those would cancel out a burning desire to avail himself of the second. With a visit to his irritant neighbor happening, as a result.
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