Read Online A Brilliant Death by Robin Yocum - Free Book Online
Authors: Robin Yocum
Tags: USA
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nodded.
“Holy smoke. What the hell happened to him?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere along the line he decided that fat and insufferable was preferable to trim and happy.”
For several more moments, he squatted on the rafters, the image of his mother disappearing with the fading beam of his light. I was happy for Travis. He had found the first clue in his quest. The letters and the diary would, I hoped, supply some of the answers he sought.
I only wished he could have enjoyed the moment longer; unfortunately, the silence was broken by the unmistakable grind of the downshifting of Big Frank’s Kenworth as he pulled it onto the gravel at the back of the property. For a moment we stared at each other, frozen, praying the grind was a figment of our collective imaginations. Then, our collective imaginations heard the air brakes release. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. It’s Big Frank,” Travis yelped, walking a rafter like a tightrope to the opening. “He’ll kill me if he catches us up here.”
“You said he was going out of town,” I yelled in a whisper.
“Well, that’s what he said. I don’t know why he’s back. Quick, help me down.”
I snagged Travis’s wrists and helped lower him through the opening. I started to follow. “No. Christ, I’m not supposed to have anyone in the house. Stay up there ’til he leaves. He probably just forgot something and will be gone in a minute.”
There was no time to argue. I slid the plywood cover over the hatch and listened as Travis shoved the stepladder under the bed and slammed the closet door. With the last of the dwindling light from my flashlight, I maneuvered away from the hatch and stood straddling two rafters. When my light faded, I was left in darkness, with only slivers of faint light filtering through the vent at the rear of the house. The front door slammed and I strained to hear the conversation between Big Frank and Travis. Unfortunately, the conversation was becoming clearer by the second. The steps groaned as Big Frank started upstairs. His shipment hadn’t been ready and wouldn’t be ready until later in the afternoon.
It is astounding how still and quiet one can be when one thinks that the slightest move might result in immediate death. I could hear them talking and walking into the bedroom, following each creak of the floorboards, when I clearly heard Big Frank say, “I’m going to sack out for a while, so don’t be makin’ a bunch of goddamn noise.”
It had been a good life, I suppose, for someone who had yet to see his fifteenth birthday. Besides never having had sex or gotten drunk, I don’t know that I missed all that much, although sex is obviously a big thing to die without, I would think. It was, however, too late to remedy that, as I figured my death was imminent. After all, I was straddling the rafters over the bed of a napping Frank Baron. Big, mean, paranoid, hateful, sleep-with-a-.45-caliber-semiautomatic-pistol-on-his-nightstand Frank Baron.
I did the only thing I could do in such a situation, which was nothing. I straddled the rafters and looked straight ahead, concentrating on breathing through my nose and staring at the ventilation grate on the far wall. I remembered reading about prisoners of war who helped save their sanity and pass the time by building houses, brick-by-brick, in their minds. I tried that, but it failed. I didn’t know how to build a house, and I couldn’t get past the first few bricks before the mental image of rotund Frank Baron snoring in his boxer shorts crept back into my mind. If sheer fear wasn’t bad enough, I was suddenly suffering from sensory overload. Parts of my body that had never itched in my life were screaming to be scratched. My bladder, I was sure, was close to rupture. And I wanted to sneeze, fart, cough, and belch. I was fighting the release of a bodily function cacophony that would literally shake the rafters. Scattered at my feet were Big Frank’s porn magazines. I stared at them
“Holy smoke. What the hell happened to him?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere along the line he decided that fat and insufferable was preferable to trim and happy.”
For several more moments, he squatted on the rafters, the image of his mother disappearing with the fading beam of his light. I was happy for Travis. He had found the first clue in his quest. The letters and the diary would, I hoped, supply some of the answers he sought.
I only wished he could have enjoyed the moment longer; unfortunately, the silence was broken by the unmistakable grind of the downshifting of Big Frank’s Kenworth as he pulled it onto the gravel at the back of the property. For a moment we stared at each other, frozen, praying the grind was a figment of our collective imaginations. Then, our collective imaginations heard the air brakes release. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. It’s Big Frank,” Travis yelped, walking a rafter like a tightrope to the opening. “He’ll kill me if he catches us up here.”
“You said he was going out of town,” I yelled in a whisper.
“Well, that’s what he said. I don’t know why he’s back. Quick, help me down.”
I snagged Travis’s wrists and helped lower him through the opening. I started to follow. “No. Christ, I’m not supposed to have anyone in the house. Stay up there ’til he leaves. He probably just forgot something and will be gone in a minute.”
There was no time to argue. I slid the plywood cover over the hatch and listened as Travis shoved the stepladder under the bed and slammed the closet door. With the last of the dwindling light from my flashlight, I maneuvered away from the hatch and stood straddling two rafters. When my light faded, I was left in darkness, with only slivers of faint light filtering through the vent at the rear of the house. The front door slammed and I strained to hear the conversation between Big Frank and Travis. Unfortunately, the conversation was becoming clearer by the second. The steps groaned as Big Frank started upstairs. His shipment hadn’t been ready and wouldn’t be ready until later in the afternoon.
It is astounding how still and quiet one can be when one thinks that the slightest move might result in immediate death. I could hear them talking and walking into the bedroom, following each creak of the floorboards, when I clearly heard Big Frank say, “I’m going to sack out for a while, so don’t be makin’ a bunch of goddamn noise.”
It had been a good life, I suppose, for someone who had yet to see his fifteenth birthday. Besides never having had sex or gotten drunk, I don’t know that I missed all that much, although sex is obviously a big thing to die without, I would think. It was, however, too late to remedy that, as I figured my death was imminent. After all, I was straddling the rafters over the bed of a napping Frank Baron. Big, mean, paranoid, hateful, sleep-with-a-.45-caliber-semiautomatic-pistol-on-his-nightstand Frank Baron.
I did the only thing I could do in such a situation, which was nothing. I straddled the rafters and looked straight ahead, concentrating on breathing through my nose and staring at the ventilation grate on the far wall. I remembered reading about prisoners of war who helped save their sanity and pass the time by building houses, brick-by-brick, in their minds. I tried that, but it failed. I didn’t know how to build a house, and I couldn’t get past the first few bricks before the mental image of rotund Frank Baron snoring in his boxer shorts crept back into my mind. If sheer fear wasn’t bad enough, I was suddenly suffering from sensory overload. Parts of my body that had never itched in my life were screaming to be scratched. My bladder, I was sure, was close to rupture. And I wanted to sneeze, fart, cough, and belch. I was fighting the release of a bodily function cacophony that would literally shake the rafters. Scattered at my feet were Big Frank’s porn magazines. I stared at them
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