The House On Dale Street

Chapter 2

The next day we woke around ten. Bobby brewed a carafe of coffee in his tiny kitchen and the three of us sat outside on the stoop of Bobby's apartment to drink it, as there was hardly room inside. Hazel and I were going to set out to find a place to stay after waking up and having a few cups of coffee. We'd already pretty much decided we were going to stay at the Red Boiling Inn, but we were anxious to go ahead and get checked in and get settled.

As we sat out in the warm sun, watching the small stream of cars driving up and down the strip, Bobby told us about the new job he'd just secured at a plant in Lebanon, about forty-five miles away.

"I can get you on, if you want, the only thing is, you'll have to start off working third shift," he said, tilting back his mug and taking a gulp of coffee.

"Nah, I don't have a car and you work second, I don't know how I'd get there..."

"Yeah," he agreed, "that is true..could make it difficult.." Bobby drove a small Yugo. He'd paid a thousand dollars for it.

"The last time I was here when we were at that pool hall in town, I was talking to that guy Hector. Remember him? The Guatemalan? He said you could make fifty bucks a day cutting tobacco. You think that's true?" I said.

Bobby nodded, "Yup, you can, but cutting tobacco's not an easy job, you gotta work in the hot sun... it can be brutal...you think you're up for that kind of hard work?"

I didn't think it sounded too hard but I didn't say that. Bobby was muscle gone to fat, but I was still muscle. Bobby and I had been friends in junior high school and we'd both been athletic. I was still athletic but Bobby was a bit on the lazy side and he'd gained a good thirty pounds in the last couple of years. I had just come back from a Boys' Wilderness Camp. Before I'd left, Bobby had been muscular and played football but when we'd reconnected the year before, I found that in our time apart, Bobby had quit football and pretty much all sports and had gotten sort of fat. That was all well and good, I didn't care if he got fat, but it was sort of funny for him to be telling me about hard work and that cutting tobacco wasn't easy. And as for the hard work? Ha! I'd been working hard for the past two years straight! And for the most part, he didn't like to break a sweat and he liked his junk food. It was funny though, he still considered himself an athlete and was always boasting about his athletic abilities, even though he got winded walking to the mailbox.

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At the Red Boiling Inn, a thin lady dressed in a pink gown and a sheer orange kimono stood behind the counter. Her brown hair was curled in tight pin curls and silver clips held them in place in a sort of harried frenzy. She wore tons of jewelry; long necklaces and bangles on her arm. She didn't really stand behind the counter, but more, she leaned over the counter, held onto it- almost like it were keeping her up.

She looked us up and down suspiciously.

"You new in town?" she said. She smelt like alcohol. She reeked of alcohol. But, it didn't seem as though she was drunk at the moment, more like, the aroma seemed to be emanating from her pores.

"We got here yesterday," Hazel said, reaching for a pamphlet that sat stacked on the desk.

"You have family here?" the woman said suspiciously.

"No, but I have a job lined up," I lied.

She asked what kind of job.

"I'm going to be working in the tobacco fields."

To that, she perked up, "They pay pretty good," she slurred, "my nephew does it."

She told us her name was Bonnie and pointed to the room directly across the hall from the front desk.