Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 108342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
He opened a red leather-bound book with blank pages, turned to a fresh sheet, grabbed a blue pen from atop a stack of mail, and jotted down a few notes about his home renovations.
Replaced flooring in three bedrooms on 4/13.
New coat of varnish on deck. 5/30.
Blacktop the driveway. TBD
Repaint both bathrooms. Use remaining paint to fix trim at the store. TBD
He wrote down his ideas, plans and strategies. He called the red book his book of whispers. The place where he recorded his goals for the future. Special secrets. Wishes and dreams. His mother had taught him and his brothers that if they meant something, and planned to do it, they should write it down. It would be like a silent oath. Promises to invisible entities. A guaranteed answer to a prayer.
The classical music faded, and a loud commercial about cars for sale crashed into his line of hearing, tearing him away from his home improvement thoughts and deliberations. He tossed his pen down and closed the book. Picking up the remote control, he placed the television on mute. The all too familiar jangling of the furnace could be heard now, too, sounding like someone shaking a shitload of loose change in a pocket. The old house sighed and complained like bored teenagers stuck at home with no Wi-Fi.
He ran his hand along his jaw, feeling the thick, dark hair of his goatee brush against his dry and cracked fingertips. The clanking in the basement grew louder. A growling mechanical stomach, churning with starvation. An inauspicious boom chased away the furnace’s subdued sigh. His jaw tightened, and a swell of trapped air filled his throat. Letting out an exhale, he snatched a baseball bat that rested between the refrigerator and the stove, and stormed to the basement.
He removed two rusty padlocks at record speed and swung open the heavy metal door. The smell of laundry bleach permeated the air, then a rush of heat, as well as the faint sound of rock music playing from a car driving by outside: ‘The Pretender,’ by the Foo Fighters. But all that was soon drowned by the grunts and bellows of a boiler that had gotten too hot and bothered. Sometimes, a good swift kick to the side or a hefty bang from the bat settled it down, but as he made way to take care of business, and the first step creaked from his weight, the problem took care of itself.
The boiler quieted down to a mere baby’s murmur. Satisfied, he left, locking the door, returning to his contemporary kitchen where fragrant chicken soup simmered on the stove and fresh bread was warming up in the oven. Carefully, he placed the bat back between the refrigerator and stove, then finished his beer.
I’ll replace the kitchen windows first. He settled back into his thoughts of home improvements. Opening up his red book, he took a hold of his pen and wrote that down.
Yeah, then the living room, and the flooring of the bedrooms should come after that. All the windows need replacing. Gotta start somewhere. Might as well start where I keep the beer…
Gossip was a twenty-four hour, seven-day-a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year sort of thing. Mouths stayed open all night in Portland like Saturday night bars in L.A. and New York City, even though many of the local shops were closed by 8:00 P.M. Bodies stopped moving in the streets, but gums kept flapping behind closed doors well into the midnight hour, in the place Porsche now called home. She stayed in an amazing condo on the Eastside in Munjoy Hill, restructured from an old house converted into elegant living spaces with high ceilings and crown molding. Word spread fast that an outsider was in town, especially at the police department. There was a gumshoe afoot.
Depending on what day of the week it was and who you asked, the residents either loved the men and women in blue or screamed from the highest rooftops that their rights were being trod upon by law enforcement. Portland was full of progressive, broad-minded folks who believed in the motto, ‘Live and let live,’ as well as conservative debaters who demanded to hold tight to their guns, and filled the pews during Sunday morning service.
Plenty of good people lived there. However, as in all barrels set aside for the next harvest to create sugary jams and rich wines, a few sour and spoiled grapes would attempt to ruin the whole bunch. Portland was wine and gems. It was fresh sea-air and beautiful boats. It was much like an old gold and bejeweled rock, half hidden on a clandestine beach… a precious, pretty piece of peace, unique and brilliant, if you will.
Yet like all things touched by nature, there were two sides to everything. The underside of the rock was murky and damp. Moss and strange things crawled beneath it, and sprouted from darkness. Smelling of rotting riddles and decaying mysteries, the place still pulled you in, bit by bit, and as many police departments would attest around the country, there was a dark and light side to that old gold and bejeweled rock, too. Some of the people on the force were vying for promotions and dabbling in politics. They certainly didn’t want a light shining upon that gloomy underside to reveal the blanched, blind worms never touched by an ounce of sun, and putrid carcasses of cases gone ice cold.