Tools
by Steven J. McDermott
Corey watched Leann's ass wiggle while she buttered the toast; it reminded him of why he was there. The little bastards were out of control, as usual. Her two boys, Tommy and Timmy, seven and eight, couldn't eat without slopping cereal on themselves and the table. They fidgeted and squirmed as they ate, hyper. Tommy kneeled on the chair, trying to get a spoonful of Cheerios into his mouth, spilling it, finally, down his t-shirt. He clamped the spoon between his teeth while he wiped his hands on his shirt, laughing. Timmy, bent over, face practically in the bowl, was clanking the spoon against the glass and slurping and giggling. Leann seemed content with this cacophony as she prattled on about something that didn't quite register with Corey as he simmered amid Tommy's and Timmy's peals of laughter. Corey focused on Leann's ass in those tight 501s and retreated to his imagination for the silence he craved. He imagined how her ass had felt in his hands before the little bastards started pounding on the bedroom door this morning. He tried to feel once again each firm butt cheek in his hand as she rode him, tried to feel those long nipples on his lips, between his teeth. Corey tried to remember what he was there for, but Tommy and Timmy were playing their cereal bowls as if they were drums and Corey lost his focus.
--Shut the fuck up!
The drumming stopped. The little bastards lowered their heads, and Corey could see them trying to suppress their giggles. Leann turned from the toast and glared at him. She raised the butter knife and pointed it at Corey.
--I told you never to do that again.
--I just want some peace and quiet while I drink my coffee, Corey said. Is that too much to ask?
Leann grabbed another piece of toast and returned to buttering. Corey looked at the little bastards and mouthed, "Fuck you, fuck you," at each of them. They thought that was hilarious. To Corey it seemed they took perverse pleasure in his backing down, as if they knew the only reason he was there was to get a piece of their mother's ass.
Corey took a long drink of his coffee, filled his mouth, swished it around, savoring the aftertaste before swallowing. He wondered what was wrong with himself. Why couldn't he live this life? Why couldn't he be Leann's husband, Tommy and Timmy's father? And not just theirs, but anyone's? Was there a gene he was missing? A screw loose? Something that made him detest taking on the husband and father roles? He wondered whether he was a worse person because he wouldn't subject himself to that kind of life, or because Leann was not the only one he was doing this with. There was Rachel. There was Jaycee. Corey put his hand in his pocket and fingered his keys. They were all there, Leann's, Rachel's, Jaycee's.
At times like this Corey justified things for himself by remembering that he was entitled to have his needs met. Besides, it wasn't like he coerced them--all three voluntarily gave him their keys, their bodies, and more. More was where things got messy. They were never content with a day here and there, the occasional weekend. No, they always had to have more. Corey's biggest challenge at such times was to not trip over his excuses, because, of course, none of them knew about the others.
He met Leann in a brew pub where he was trying to pick up her friend who wasn't having any of it. Leann didn't seem bothered that she wasn't his first choice; she was all over him on the dance floor, moving his hands from the small of her back to her ass. Telling him there was more where that came from. They'd gone to his truck, smoked a joint, taken hits from the bottle of McNaughten's he kept in the glove box, and then she'd given him an incredible blow job right there in the parking lot. And now three months later he found himself in her kitchen having breakfast with the little bastards. Corey knew he did not want to be a father to Leann's, or anyone else's, kids.
Most of the time he didn't need to justify things to himself. Most of the time he was proud of his situations, as he called them. Leann had the best ass, Rachel was the tit queen, and Jaycee, well, Jaycee was a stripper and she knew how to pull out all the stops. That was how Corey described things to the young punks working on the construction site. He was twenty-nine, could frame circles around them, and he was dicking three women at the same time. Even better, one of the women, Jaycee, was their general contractor's wife. They thought Corey was crazy, but they also idolized him. He played it up, bragging of his exploits and that he didn't have a place of his own--just went from girlfriend's place to girlfriend's place. He liked the idolatry because it made him feel like he'd accomplished something with his life.
Leann put the plate of toast on the table. She placed her hand on Corey's back while she poured him fresh coffee. The little bastards fought over who would get the crust. Corey's cell phone rang, and he felt every nerve pinging with the rush of adrenaline. He looked at the phone's display; it read Jack. That meant the north end job site and he knew he'd be out of there quick and clean, no excuses this time. He answered on the second ring.
--Jack, buddy, how's it hanging?
Fifteen minutes later Corey was in Leann's garage gathering up his tools. He checked the canvas bag, making sure everything was there: hammers, chisels, metal rulers, hand saws, yankee drill, spirit level's, the pint of McNaughten's, the bag of weed, and the box of condoms. He was zipping the bag shut when Leann came into the garage.
--What's going on, Corey?
--Just getting my tools for the job.
--I thought you said this job was up in the north end.
--That's right, it is, he said and stood up.
--You never take your tools for north end work, you always use the one's you keep at Jack's.
--Well I need some of these this time.
They stared at each other for a moment; then she said:
--You're not coming back are you? You're skipping out?
He didn't say anything. He'd seen this scene before and just waited to see which way she would go with it.
--It's the kids, isn't it? She said and crossed her arms under her breasts.
--I thought you were going to be different. Thought you meant it when you said you just wanted to have some fun and to get laid on a regular basis. But you're just like the others, looking for a daddy for your kids. Least you could do is be honest about it.
--So you could turn tail like every other guy? What in the hell are you so afraid of?
--Maybe all those guys aren't running from your kids, but from you. Did you ever think of that, Leann?
--You're not running from me, Corey. You're running from yourself.
--Hardly, he said and started laughing. You really want to know what I'm running from? Well, I'll tell you. You're losing it, Leann. Your prized possessions, your tits, they're sagging. And your once tight ass--
Her open hand smacked hard against his left cheek before he had a chance to react.
--Just get out of here, you son-of-a-bitch; get out of here!
Her eyes were black, bulging in their sockets, and her teeth were bared as she moved towards him with both arms raised. He stepped around her as she screamed at him over and over to get out. He threw the canvas bag of tools up onto his shoulder and made for the door.
--Say goodbye to the little bastards for me, he said and walked out.
Corey got in his truck and peeled rubber out of Leann's driveway much the same way he had left his parents driveway when he was seventeen. He'd gotten into a fistfight with his father over drug and alcohol usage. After picking himself up off the kitchen floor, Corey had gone into his bedroom, stuffed some clothes into his backpack, and then laid rubber from the rear slicks of his Firebird on the driveway. He hadn't been back home, or to Cleveland, or to Ohio, or even east of the Mississippi since then. A cousin was building condominiums in Colorado Springs so Corey headed west. He'd worked construction the previous summer and had a knack for framing. It was boom time in the west and over the next dozen years he'd worked in every western state but Arizona. From Colorado Springs to Jackson Hole, Albuquerque to Palm Springs, Las Vegas to Park City, Missoula to Boise, finally from Bend to Seattle, where he hooked up with Jack.
He'd stayed in Seattle longer than anywhere, almost two years. There was plenty of easy going work, none of the breakneck pace of the other construction booms he'd worked. Finding Jack was part of that. Corey met Jack the same way he landed most of his jobs. Someone knew someone who knew a builder that needed framers. Jack built high-end homes for high-tech executives and programmers dripping cash. No square framed boxes for these guys; every house had impossible angles and rooflines. Jack was greedy, a greed that manifested itself by hiring teenage framers he could pay cheap. When he hired Corey he confided that he hadn't made any money on the last three houses, one of which had to be reframed after it failed inspection. Since then they'd built three houses together. Corey kept Jack in the game and Jack knew it.
Corey was not in any hurry to get to Jack's job site, so he bypassed the freeway and took the slow route from the south end of town through to the north end. He smiled at the realization that at least one hundred stoplights were between where he was and Jack's job site. Let him sweat, Corey thought. Then he had a better idea. He called Jack on his cell phone.
--Jack, buddy, how's it hanging?
--Where are you?
--Still in the south end, bud. Looks like I'm going to be awhile.
--Be here by noon. That's when we raise the roof trusses.
--No problemo. Give me time to stop by your place to grab some tools.
--Okay, I'll give Jaycee a call and let her know you're on your way.
--Thanks.
--But you've got the key to garage, right?
--Yeah.
--Then you're set even if she's not there. So get your butt over here soon as you can. These punks don't know jack-shit.
They both laughed at his word play.
--No, problemo, bud.
--Hey, bring some.
--What?
--Bud.
Corey clicked off the call, thinking weed, knowing that Jack meant beer. Couple of tokes would set this mood just right, he thought and fired up a joint at the next stoplight. From Corey's point of view, Jack was an idiot. Because he hired mostly inexperienced punks so that he was forced to stay on the job site all day supervising. And he pretty much let Corey come and go as he pleased, a generosity Corey was only too happy to abuse. Not to mention that Jack let his wife strip at DeeDee's four nights a week. Given all that, Corey felt entirely justified getting some mid-morning action from Jack's wife. He stored tools at Jack's house just for that reason, and if Jack was too stupid to figure that one out, well, he deserved what he got.
With the weed settling deep into his brain, Corey drifted with the traffic from light to light, the steady low-end throb of grunge rock filling the cab of his truck. He rolled down the window, lit a cigarette, took a deep drag and flicked the ash out the window. It began to drizzle and Corey felt even less inclined to work. He drove by an apartment building that he and his friend Andy had framed the summer before. In the winter Andy had split for Arizona where construction was booming and there was plenty of work in the winter; and no rain. Andy had tried to get Corey to come down and join him in Arizona. But at the time Corey had a sweet thing going with a couple of big-titted blondes so he begged off. Andy hadn't come back to Seattle during the summer because there was too much work down there in the desert. And now, with fall's gloom descending and the ever-present rain sweeping in, the prospect of a another soggy winter working in raingear made Corey think that, just maybe, Andy was on to something down there in the Valley of the Sun.
He stopped at another light and realized Rachel's house was only ten blocks away. Usually she was off to work by now, but he decided to swing by just in case. He started getting hard as he thought about how she held her breasts up and squeezed them together as he thrust back and forth between them. She'd tell him to come like a freight train, and he would.
He parked the truck in her driveway and went to the front door and knocked. Rick, her German Shepherd, started barking inside the house. Shut up, you stupid bastard, Corey said out loud. It's just me. The barking continued steady for fifteen seconds or so and then became more intermittent. Corey didn't knock again. He waited about a minute, but Rachel didn't answer.
The rain started pelting down harder so Corey went back to his truck and got inside. He grabbed the bottle of McNaughten's from the paper bag inside the glove box and took a long pull. He leaned his head back against the headrest, let the whiskey flame his brain, his throat, and finally his belly. He sat like that for a few minutes with his eyes closed, lamenting that he wasn't going to be able to throw one into Rachel. He let out a long sigh that added more mist to the steamed windows and put the bottle back in the glove box. He left the truck, went up to Rachel's garage door and unlocked it with his key. He sought out the canvas bag with his tools. The bag was right where he'd left it. He unzipped the bag, checked the contents to make sure everything was there: hammers, chisels, metal rulers, hand saws, yankee drill, spirit level's, the pint of McNaughten's, the bag of weed, and the box of condoms. He slung the bag of tools back over his shoulder, took them out to his truck, and then returned to the garage and picked up the cardboard box containing Rachel's brand new Teac stereo system and carried it out to his truck. She'd bought it a couple of days ago and had been waiting for Corey to help her set it up and run the wiring and the speakers into the bedrooms and the kitchen and the den. Corey closed the lid on his canopy, hopped behind the wheel and drove off.
By the time that Corey arrived at Jack's house the rain had let up, leaving a thick gray shroud of clouds that settled in like fog. He parked in the driveway and honked. Jaycee met him at the front door, and after he went in she shut the door and pushed him up against it.
--So Corey, babe, she said, it's a good thing you need your tools because I need your tool. She grabbed his crotch. That's my ready, Freddy, she said and kissed him.
--You know what I want to do? he said after she let him breathe.
--No, what do you want? she said and rubbed her hand up and down his button-fly.
--I want to tit-fuck you.
--Mmmm. Eat me first. I've been dying for it ever since Jack called.
Corey pushed the button on the garage door opener and watched the door climb up the rail, arch back, and reveal his truck. Looks like shit, he thought. Time was he used to have the truck detailed after every job. Kept it looking like new, his pride and joy. Not any more. The bug guard attached to the hood was cracked. The chrome grill was rusting everywhere it was chipped. You could barely tell that the paint was red through the mud and the dust and the road grease. Now's the time to spruce it up, he thought, so he could make a good first impression.
His canvas bag of tools was sitting on top of Jack's workbench, right where he left it last week. He unzipped the bag and surveyed the contents: hammers, chisels, metal rulers, hand saws, yankee drill, spirit level's, the pint of McNaughten's, the bag of weed, and the box of condoms. He heard the phone ringing inside the house. He zipped the bag shut and carried it outside. He went around to the back of his truck and raised the canopy, threw the bag of tools in with the others and closed the lid. He walked around to the front of the truck and was met by Jaycee. She handed him a six-pack of Budweiser.
--Jack says to bring it with you. They're going ahead with the trusses so he's wondering where you are. I told him you were sharpening your tool.
--Did not.
--No, your tool is plenty sharp.
Corey opened the door to the truck and put the six-pack of beer on the passenger seat.
--You coming back for dinner tonight?
--Maybe, he said. If Jack asks me.
The next door neighbor's garage door started to go up so that saved Corey from an affectionate goodbye.
--Okay, see you later, she said and blew him a covert kiss. Corey got in the truck, closed the door, and started the engine. Jaycee was walking into the garage. He backed out of the driveway. As he was driving off he looked back and watched the garage door going down until it was closed.
Four hours later, as Corey crossed over the Columbia River from Washington into Oregon, he felt something give way inside himself, felt like he was both coming and going at the same time. He left the freeway at the first Oregon exit and immediately started looking for a car wash. A mile or so off the freeway he spotted a BP station with a self-service car wash and he turned and parked in a stall. After converting a five-dollar bill to quarters at the change machine, Corey started spraying down his truck. He soaped it into a thick lather and scrubbed at the grime until the paint was once again a lustrous crimson and the unrusted chrome shone. He drove forward to the vacuums and spent another ten minutes removing garbage from the cab and vacuuming the seats and the carpets. When the interior looked presentable, he drove away from the vacuums and parked. He opened one of Jack's Budweisers and drank half of it down. By now they'd be wondering what had happened to him. Jack would be pretty pissed, trying to get those trusses set in place without Corey's help to keep those young punks in line. Corey knew that Jack would be cussing him for the right bastard that he was. He looked at the cell phone on the seat beside him and thought about calling Jack. But that had never been his style. He looked back through the cab window into the bed of his truck and saw the backpack full of his clothes and Rachel's stereo. He stared at the three canvas bags of tools for a long time. He wondered how many of them he would need in Arizona. Most of the houses down there were built with stone or stucco and Corey was pretty sure he'd need new tools.
Copyright © 2006 Steven J. McDermott
Steven J. McDermott is the editor of Storyglossia. His stories have appeared in Aethlon: The Journal of Sports Literature, Anthology, Carve, Passages North, Red Wheelbarrow, The Rockford Review, Timbercreek Review, and Westview. His story "Oxygen" received Honorable Mention in the Passages North 2002 Wassmode Ficton Contest. Two of his stories -- "Enter Wheelchair Man" and "Blue Jeans and Black Leather" -- were nominated for Pushcart Prizes. "Blue Jeans and Black Leather" was also produced as a short film and shown at several film festivals. His story collection Winter of Different Directions is due out in 2006.