This is the fourth chapter of a story that will run all week.

When the alarm went off Thursday morning, Prudence hit the snooze button, rolled over, and glanced at Chad.  He was wide awake, staring at the ceiling.  Something was obviously on his mind, and it wasn’t what was usually on his mind when he first woke up.  It didn’t look like he’d slept all night.  “You okay?”

“Sure.”  That’s all he said.  He threw back the covers, got out of bed and dragged himself to the shower.  About then the boys started screaming down the hall and Prudence had to tend to the chaos.  She didn’t think much more about Chad being in a fog; there was a fog of her own rolling in that wouldn’t stop until the kids went to bed that night.

Chad got out of the shower, put on whatever clothes were hanging at the end of his closet, walked down stairs, and headed to the front door.  “See ya,” he said as he left.  No hugs for the boys.  No pretence of romance aimed in Prudence’s direction.  And most unusual, no stop at the coffee pot to fill up his Piggly Wiggly thermal mug.  It was the one he’d received for ten years of service that had the pig on the front.  It was a ritual to fill it up with Folgers before he went anywhere.  Prudence had a mind to fill it up for him and chase after him so he could be sure and have it for the drive to work.  But right about then one of the boys was attempting to see how far he could shove a Cheerios up his nose and she had to tend to that before he set the world record.

Out in the driveway, the turd brown Dodge Aries with its bashed in front end looked like it was mocking him.  “If an automobile could be a metaphor for life,” Chad thought to himself, “this one sums up mine.”  When he put the key in the electronic ignition, the familiar whine of the MoPar starter sounded more like the dying whimpers of a wounded armadillo.  In these situations, Chad had always found it helpful to cuss.  Not just the routine kind, but the major ones.  At full volume.  It worked and the Dodge finally came to life.

About a mile from his home in Morningwood Manor, the Dodge lurched and then chugged.  He got it off to the side of the road before it sputtered and died.  He thought back to the day before and Rusty telling him to put his big boy panties on.  It dawned on him that he never really cared much for Rusty.  He got out and started walking.  Sometimes the clean, crisp morning air clears a man’s head.  This wasn’t one of those times.

He barely noticed when Lucinda pulled up next to him in the new Bronco.  She had to roll down the power window on the passenger side to get his attention.  “Hey Stranger!  Need a lift?”

Chad got into the Bronco, nodded his head in thanks and looked straight ahead.  Lucinda could tell he was a man who was beaten.  She was wise enough where men were concerned to let silence be the answer rather than an inane set of misdirected questions.  When they pulled into the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly, she finally spoke.  “I saw the Dodge back there.  Looks like it may be down for the count.  I still have the ol’ Jeep Gladiator.  Haven’t been able to bring myself to sell it.  It’s yours as long as you need it.”

Chad looked at her for the first time.  He wanted to tell her that he felt like a man who was sinking in quicksand and couldn’t crawl out of it.  That his life had become unrecognizable from what he thought it would be.  He wanted to tell her that the passion had drained from his marriage, he was up to his eyeballs in debt on things they’d purchased to try to make it better, and that none of it had worked.  He wanted to admit that this would probably be his last day at Piggly Wiggly because of the disaster brought about by his own stupidity in putting the Dodge in gear and letting it crash into the Dr. Pepper truck.  

He wanted to admit that he had spent $500 he didn’t have on a box of perfumes and soaps and a massage and given it to a woman his mother’s age out of spite for his wife.  That he did most of the work at the store and got none of the credit.  That his wife had no idea just how hard it was to provide for her and the two kids.  That it never seemed like it was enough.

He almost told her that the only relief he got from the despair that closed in on him daily were the breaks he took from work and walking over to the Grounds for Divorce to drink Folgers with other guys and admire Lucinda from afar.  He very nearly admitted that all she would have to do is ask and he would gladly run away with her to some place where they couldn’t be found.  That it was her arms he wanted to be in, not her Gladiator.

Instead, he opened the passenger door, got out, and said “Thanks.”

He walked into the front door of the Piggly Wiggly, expecting to see the Manager with the already completed termination paperwork faxed over from the Corporate Office tightly grasped in his little pork sausage fingers. Chad figured the act would take place in front of all the employees and whatever customers happened to be in the store, just to set an example. A lesson to others. “Make better life choices, or this could be you!” He looked around to see if the reporter from the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch might be there to cover it, as a lesson to the youth of Fort Stockton published in the newspaper of record.

But there was only Mrs. Drury on Register 4.  “Morning, Honey,” she said.  He wasn’t sure how she could sound so chipper when the damn world was falling apart right outside the front door.  She left her perch on the stool, walked over to him, and whispered into his ear, “Can’t even thank you enough for that massage.  Always wanted one, but could never bring myself to splurge.  My last luxury was the Plymouth Fury Brougham!”  Chad didn’t know quite what to say.  

“Anyway, do you know they have you strip right down to the buff before they start working their magic? Only a towel covering your naughty bits.  I haven’t been in front of anybody in my birthday suit since Mr. Drury got the cancer and crossed the bridge over to the great beyond!”

So there was a husband at some point, Chad thought to himself.  He made a note to relay that information to the group at the Grounds for Divorce so they could check off that box on the Fort Stockton Bingo card.

“And let me tell you, Honey,” Mrs. Drury continued, “that Raul over at the massage place worked out knots and kinks I didn’t even know I had.  Sittin’ on that stool all day had done things, let me tell you.  And speaking of doin’ things, Raul took me places not even Mr. Drury had ever taken me!”  She winked at Chad.  “Can’t thank you enough, Honey.”

Chad tried as hard as he could to erase the mental image from his mind.  “Is the Manager here?”

“Hadn’t seen him today.”  Mrs. Drury looked more relaxed and happy than he’d ever seen her before. And she smelled like a garden bouquet.  “You probably ought to call the fire department and have them come out and hose off that parking lot, though.  It’s like a barrel of honey mixed with a whole crop of okra gumbo out there.  We don’t want anyone else takin’ a tumble.  And there’s still a few cars covered in caramel like an apple from the State Fair.  They oughta hose those down, as well.  They can start with the Brougham.”

Chad figured the Manager was still working out the details of his termination with Corporate, he may as well put himself to good use.  Go out with a bang, not a whimper.  He got on the horn and called the FSFD.  “Chief?  Chad here.  Assistant Manager down at the Piggly Wiggly.”  He had to wait while the laughter on the other end of the line died down so he could continue speaking.  “Yeah.  Quite a day.  Anyway, the parking lot is still stickier than the floor of the Lap Dance Room at the Scuttlebutt Strip Club.  Any chance you could could send a fire truck over and hose the thing down.  It’s a public hazard as it is.  Yep, it sure was a mess.  Need to spray down a few cars, too.  Yeah, I’ll be sure and have a cold Dr. Pepper for each of the boys.”

He hung up as the Fire Chief laughed like he was at a Mel Brooks movie.  Mrs. Drury patted him on the back, like he just came in from taking out the trash.

It wasn’t fifteen minutes later that Engine 14 showed up with a full crew.  Chad and Mrs. Drury watched from just inside the store as they went to work.

“I do believe that this is the crew that posed for the 2024 Firefighters of Fort Stockton Calendar,” Mrs. Drury commented as she watched them launch into action.  “Would ya look at how they handle that hose?”

Several stray dogs and cats that remained from the day before were picked up by the firemen and gently cleaned with a bucket of warm water and Blue Dawn Dish Soap that Mrs. Drury had taken out front. The photographer from the Telegram-Dispatch snapped shots that would be above the fold in the Friday edition of the paper.  

As Chad watched them out the window, he couldn’t help but glance at his own reflection that was staring back at him.  There isn’t a calendar of Piggly Wiggly Assistant Managers, but as he checked himself out in the mirror, he realized he wouldn’t be in it if there was.  All those trips for fast food and buffet lines because Prudence was too exhausted to cook had migrated to his waistline.  He noted that the only thing that remained thin on the reflection looking back at him was his hairline.

He happened to gaze across the parking lot, over towards the Ground for Divorce.  Lucinda was at the window watching the same scene play out.  Because of the heat (and attention) several of the firemen had taken off their shirts.  He caught her licking her lips as she stared out over the scene.  It dawned on him that the only thing that would lick its lips seeing him without a shirt on would be a bear.  And it would have to be a damn hungry bear, at that.

Tad Crosby, the Lieutenant of Engine 14, finished toweling off the last of the kittens and handed it to one of the growing number of housewives that had gathered on the edge of the parking lot.  In fact, there seemed to be a large number of women all gathered around the whole parking lot. Several were parking over at the Ben Franklin and walking over to watch. Lieutenant Crosby sauntered over to the back of the truck towards the big brass nozzle.  It was obvious to Chad the Lieutenant was just putting on a show at that point. Mrs. Drury gasped audibly as Crosby grabbed the bulbous nozzle, drug the long thick hose over to the Plymouth Fury Brougham sedan and gave the signal.  The blast from the nozzle hit the Brougham at full force and peeled the vinyl top right off the Plymouth like a banana.

“Oh my,” Mrs. Drury said.  “He skinned that vinyl top off quicker than Raul did my towel.”  A tear seemed to come to her eye.  Chad thought it was because of the damage to the Fury Brougham and turned around and walked back to the break room.  It was actually from biting her lower lip.

Mrs. Drury eventually made her way back to the break room. She brought Chad a cold Dr. Pepper. In hindsight, that probably wasn’t the best choice. She offered him a KOOL menthol, which he politely turned down. She talked to him about meeting challenges head on. Not letting things pile up to the point that they were unbearable, talked about “slaying the dragon”. It was basically the same speech Rusty had given him about putting on his big-boy panties, but she made it sound a whole lot more soothing.

They left the break room together and made the most of the rest of the day. There seemed to be more shoppers than usual so the time went by quickly. By the time four o’clock rolled around, he was ready to call it a day. He thought he’d get home a little early and surprise Prudence. Maybe get some time in with the boys. Lucinda and Delgado had gone to her place and retrieved her old Gladiator and it was sitting outside waiting for him, keys under the floor mat. He knew that the ultimate reckoning would probably come tomorrow, when the Manager got back. But today could have been worse.

As he rounded the corner into the Morningwood subdivision and made a left on Chaparral Court, he noticed there was a car in his driveway he didn’t recognize. Odd, he thought. A Corvette of all things.

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