Chapter Four

Riley parked his truck and sat in his driveway for a few minutes. He lived a lot better than Sully but he also worked hard even though everyone thought that everything he owned had just been handed to him. Sometimes he hated living on Cobb Hill for the way everyone just assumed things about him. If only he could take away all the bullshit and just have the beauty of the land, then everything else would be bearable…

He allowed his head to fall back against the headrest as he made up his mind on how he was going to get the money to hold him over until he could get another job.

Jobs weren’t easy to come by on the mountain. You had to go down to Ravenna or Irvine, and still the pickings were small, especially once Kroger had closed. Carhartt was where most families found a way to pay their bills—at least legitimately. But once the weather grew bad, driving up and down the hill each day was no walk in the park. And while there was work on Cobb Hill he needed to bring in more than the pittance that he would earn at the local grocery store.

With a sigh, he thought about the off he’d received for the last two years to rent out the neat little cottage that sat next to the main house. He’d dismissed the offer a year ago when things were going good. He valued his privacy, but beyond that having to rent out part of your home was a reminder of the lean times from back when he was a child and his parents had to do it to make ends meet.

But property taxes were coming due and unless he wanted to sell meth with his cousins he was going to have to do something.

Nobody on Cobb Hill had much money but Riley’s family had even less. He had been raised on hand-me-downs from the church’s collection box and there had been times when he’d gone to school wearing things that the other kids recognized as being too worn out for even their use.

For generations his kin had been bootleggers and now meth dealers that were too poor and ignorant to do more than try to make themselves feel better at the expense of others.

The Prangers gave a bad reputation to the people on Cobb Hill who were far from rich, but who--for the most part--lived decently and treated people fairly. Riley had always known this about his family, which is why he had never taken to looking down his nose at anybody else. Hell, his family was even too po’ dunk to be accepted into the Ku Klux Klan.

 He’d turned to football, not thinking that it would be his way out. It had just been a way for him to play with his siblings and cousins—people who couldn’t judge him because they were just like him. But then he’d gotten so good that folks wanted him to play high school ball. It was something that he’d excelled at and it made him feel good when he could smash those hoity-toity assholes from Irving and Ravenna that thought they were so much better than him.

He was even more proud when he’d gotten a full ride to Eastern. But he hadn’t just relied on the football program. He’d studied so that he could get that college degree that no one in his family had ever attained. College had made a change in Riley Pranger. No one at the university knew what the Pranger name meant and he was judged on his abilities and not on the people that had come before him. The world opened for him and for the first time in his life he realized that he had unlimited possibilities.

A proximal tibia fracture is not words that a twenty-year old man should learn while laid up in a hospital in excruciating pain as a surgeon explains that the bone at the tip of your knee has been broken and that you will never play football again; and not just college or professional ball, but not even for your own pleasure.

Riley had come home knowing that he was here to stay, and all the possibilities that he’d once dreamed of disappeared.

He sat in the truck staring at the big house and the small little house that sat beside it like a fancy, displaced garage. The gingerbread house. Grandpa and daddy had built the little cottage for granny and grandpa right next to the main house so that Daddy could give mama more space without the extended family. Mama hadn’t been raised on the Hill but down in Ravenna and wasn’t used to living with family all crowded together in one house.

Granny hadn’t been too fond of his mother’s desire to displace her and grandpa and had complained that she’d raised five kids while living in the house. But she couldn’t deny that the cottage was perfect and never complained about it once her and grandpa had moved into it. People always stopped to look at it because grandpa had made it look almost exactly like a gingerbread house just to please granny. People on Cobb Hill took pride in the things they did. His daddy and grandpa had been artisans.

The cottage was what people now called open concept with one bedroom on the main floor and a loft that was often used as a second bedroom. The kitchen was spacious and even had a working 1940s Chambers stove and an actual Frigidaire. The appliances had given him his love of tinkering with old parts just to keep them both in working order.

During lean times mama and daddy had rented out the cottage, forcing Bobby to give up his bedroom and double up with Riley. Granny knew that it was necessary and never complained but he’d once heard her say that it was a damn shame that she couldn’t even count on the pillow beneath her head being hers and hers alone. It was the only time that he’d ever heard her show discontent about being poor.

The cottage was mostly rented out to people coming up to Cobb Hill for the holidays. No one liked travelling up and down the mountain during bad weather, especially at night when back then there had been no streetlights. Cobb Hill was notorious for its winding roads and sharp drops.

Life hadn’t turned out as planned. His grandparents had never really gotten to enjoy their old age in the cottage. His grandpa had died before that could happen and grandma’s dementia had gotten too bad for her to live in the little house alone. Daddy had died and then mama, and a year ago he’d had to place granny in an assisted living facility. Now the property was the responsibility of Riley and at the age of twenty-seven he was still astonished at how fast it had all come to this. He remembered just like it was yesterday their home filled with noise and crowded with people. Now it felt like an abandoned house even though he still lived there.

Bobby and Mae who both had families had scoffed at the idea of moving back on the Hill. And one of the few coherent words that granny had spoken was that she didn’t want Sully, Mandy, Angel or any of her many other grand children moving in with their bastard children. That she’d said it right in front of them had resulted in the reason that Riley was basically the only person that visited her in the old folks home.

With another sigh he finally went inside, tossing his keys on the mantle. He suddenly realized that he’d left his lunch pail in Bodie’s refrigerator, which only served to irk him once again at being fired over something that had absolutely nothing to do with him. It was like Sully said, the bastard was hot headed and just wanted to punish him because he represented an America that most liberals despised. Would it have made any difference to Bodie to know that he’d voted for Obama? Why should it be anybody’s business what his political affiliations were? He kept them to himself. He certainly wasn’t going to share them with Sully who thought Obama was a monkey.

The point was that now he was stuck with a hefty debt that had no way of being reduced. The utilities were manageable and there was money in the bank to cover the bi-annual property taxes. But then there was granny’s housing cost at the assisted living facility. His brother and sister helped but more and more they found reasons to be late with their share of the payment. Granny had enough grandchildren that it shouldn’t be a burden on any one person…but she had alienated most of them when she had referred to them as a bunch of meth heads and their illegitimate children as bastards.

Besides that he had his own medical bills—to the tune of thirty-seven thousand dollars.

He didn’t blame the university for not picking up the added costs after his injury. It was him that wouldn’t believe the doctors when they told him that he wouldn’t be able to play football anymore. He had added on more and more rehab, pushing his body until he’d probably done more harm than good.

He could have defaulted on the bill and none of his people would have thought any less of him. But that was mainly because most of his kin didn’t have a pot to piss in. Out of anger or spite or just plain bull-headedness, Riley had made a monthly payment to the hospital without fail.

Reluctantly he searched his desk for the letter that the woman from Cincinnati had sent weeks ago. He’d shoved it there instead of depositing it into the trash like the letter he’d received from her last year.

Her persistence had unsettled him so he had kept it, maybe for evidence. He wasn’t sure. He found it squished into the back behind some yellowed receipts that looked like they were ten years old. He removed the letter from the envelope and re-read it.

 

Dear Mr. Pranger.

I am writing you again in hopes that you will reconsider my offer to spend the summer in your gingerbread cottage. There was an article about it in our local paper and the pictures were amazing. It said that you and your family occasionally rented it out. If you recall, I wrote to you last spring in the hopes that you would allow my son and I to spend part of our summer break there. My understanding is that not only is the cottage a beauty but so is Cobb Hill.

We are, what you might call, city-folk. And as I have no family in the south it is up to me to give my son the experience that so many kids growing up in the urban areas rarely get. Cobb Hill is one of the most beautiful places in Kentucky and it’s just a few hours from us.

Of course, we would not inconvenience you in any way. I understand that it has been renovated but still has the same character. We would bring our own supplies, including cleaning and bedding.

School lets out the last week of May and we would like to spend the month of June on Cobb Hill. I’m willing to pay you one thousand dollars for the use of your cottage, if that is acceptable. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Stella Burton

 

 

The letter had been written in perfect script and had contained her address, but no phone number. He was a bit uneasy about allowing a single lady and her kid to stay in his cottage.

Besides, Cobb Hill wasn’t some campground. There were copperhead snakes everywhere and the Internet was shitty. Everyone had to have a satellite dish in order to watch even regular television.

She sounded like a tree hugger so maybe she would like the rustic life. Well he would make sure that she understood that the deal was non-refundable.

Besides a grand would replenish his savings once he paid the taxes so he shoved the letter into his back pocket and headed out the door to the post office.

 

 

Riley got out of his truck, pocketing his keys and walked up the stairs to the post office.

An older black woman was exiting the small building. She used to do the laundry down at the Suds-N-Tan before retiring. His mama had worked there for a while before she got too sick. Riley thought her name was Miss Mabel. He opened the door and she quickly averted her eyes before he could twist his lips to say good morning. His mouth snapped shut and his eyes became hooded as he waited for her to move out of his way so that he could go inside.

Mr. Frank and Mr. Dennis were sitting in wooden chairs chewing the fat with Old man Connors that ran the post office. As far back as he could remember, Riley recalled some old bag of bones sitting in the wooden chairs playing checkers, drinking Coca Cola in the summer and mugs of coffee in the winter. This decade it was Mr. Frank and Mr. Dennis.

They greeted him in surprise.

“Heya Riley,” said Old man Connors. “You in here bright and early. Ain’t you supposed to be at Bodie’s?”

He frowned at the nosey old peckerwood. “I need a stamp.” And then he remembered that he hadn’t bothered to bring anything to write on or with. His face reddened. “And I need some stationary…and an ink pen.”

Old man Connors pushed his spectacles up on his nose and moved from his position where he had been leaning against the counter chit chatting with the two old bag of bones.

“Well do you want a book of stamps or just one?”

“I just need the one,” Riley said while slapping a dollar bill on the counter.

“Of course I can sell you an envelope with a stamp already on it and I can give you a sheet of paper but it won’t be all flowery like real stationary.”

Riley nodded. “I’d appreciate that Mr. Connors.”

Mr. Connors passed him the items and then his change. “Only sixty-one cents. The mail don’t run for another hour and a half if’n you want to take your time with your letter.”

Riley moved across the room to the far counter. “This won’t take long.” He jotted a quick note to Miss Stella Burton hoping that it wasn’t too late. It was already the second of June.

 

Dear Miss Burton,

Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your two requests to rent my cottage. As long as you understand that the cottage is rustic living with no Internet, Satellite or Cable TV, then it is yours to rent for the dates that you requested. The payment of one thousand dollars is acceptable and is non-refundable. I would require it in full on the day of arrival.

The cottage is in excellent condition with a recently remodeled bathroom. There is a window air conditioning unit in the living room along with ceiling fans in the loft and bedroom, which keeps the home comfortably cool even during the hottest days of summer.

The kitchen has an old-fashioned stove and refrigerator but no washing machine or dryer. Feel free to use the ones in the main house with no restrictions. If you are agreeable with my terms then I will see you both soon.

Sincerely,

Riley Pranger

 

 

Riley dug the envelope from his back pocket and carefully copied down the woman’s address.  He then handed it over to Mr. Connors who glanced at the name and address before dropping it in a bin to be picked up by the mail truck. Riley wondered if he would reach in the bin and rip open the envelope as soon as he walked out the door.

Well he could snoop as much as he wanted as long as it kept his nose out of his and Bodie’s business—not that the news of his firing wasn’t probably already making the rounds.

He felt his annoyance begin to once again rise. No. It was more than annoyance. He’d liked Bodie. It hurt that the man would treat him with so little regard--all because of a man that was in the country illegally in the first place.

He left the post office and then because he didn’t have anything better to do he decided to go over to Stubby’s where he knew the guys would be despite the fact that it was the middle of a workday. But none of them had jobs so that didn’t matter.