Chris Simpson walked out of the diner without eating, leaving his wife behind. The look on Ellie’s face when he left her had been priceless, he thought to himself as he climbed behind the wheel of his truck. Why, he thought to himself, should a woman be surprised when her husband gives her a big old kiss and walks away? He maneuvered through the light traffic of early afternoon Goldsboro, singing softly along with the radio, and stopped the truck in front of Gregson’s Hardware. He sat in silence with his hand on the door, his good feeling draining away. The truck must be burning more oil, he thought, sniffing a burnt smell from under the hood. His hand dropped from the door handle. Have to take it in someday soon and pay more money to the guys in the shop. Then the doubts swept in: I may not have the frame planned right, the wood could be all wrong, the foundation was off, the money was tight, her mother was probably right about us after all. Without ever getting out of his truck, Chris drove out of Gregson’s parking lot and ended up, as usual, in front of Hank "Pop" Peterson’s combination trailer and auto shop. Pop sat on the front steps, white forearms on skinny knees, baggy work shirt tucked into scuffed jeans. A black hose snaked through the front yard where Pop had replaced the front lawn with a gravel drive-up for his customers. The old man sat as if he expected someone at any moment. Chris almost kept driving. Instead, he killed the engine and walked up to the thin older man waiting on his steps. "Pop." Chris leaned against the shaky metal railing next to the steps and looked out over the rest of the trailer park. Next door, where Chris and Ellie’s trailer used to be, stood a fifty-footer with a broken window and a lawn full of faded kids’ toys. The view made him want to clear his throat. Pop grunted, rubbed his bare arms in a sudden jerky motion, then was still again. Chris nodded and studied the sky. The old guy was moody as hell, but he knew all he had to do was wait, and Pop would talk so much he would wish he’d never encouraged him to start. "He took off this morning," Pop said finally in his slow, deliberate voice. "Took the truck, the good one" — Pop’s back yard contained the remains of five derelict pickups — "and he didn’t even tell me he’d be gone." Chris shook his head for Pop’s benefit. This sort of thing was happening more and more lately. Joey would leave a while, and Pop would panic, preparing himself for the worst. When Joey came back, usually from a distant parts store, Pop would yell a while, then relax into his old recliner and pick up where he’d left off complaining about his back. Chris had never seen Pop work on a single car at their late-night auto shop. "Way I see it, he’s out with a woman," Pop said. "It’s only natural, a guy his age, chasing a little tail. He could find someone who won’t hold anything against him, like him for who he is, all that crap." "Sure," Chris ventured. They watched two cars pass without waving at the drivers. The story with Joey was vague, something about a run-in with a girl a long time ago who claimed he took liberties with her while she was getting her car serviced here. Joey must have been doing all the work even back then, too. Pop continued talking, complaining about how bad business had been, and Chris nodded and murmured along with him. It always helped hearing about someone else’s troubles. He had made it a point to be friends with the Peterson men when he and Ellie, six months pregnant, moved in next door. He didn’t know the exact details about what happened with Joey and the girl, and he never asked. When Pop finished, Chris took a quick breath and said, "I’m framing the house this week." It felt good to say it, made it one step closer to actually happening. With Ellie at the diner earlier that afternoon, he hadn’t dared say anything about it. The look on her face warned him not to talk about buying wood. "Beer?" Pop said, standing already, his hand on the knob to the screen door. "Thought you’d never ask, you old worry-ass." Chris followed him into the cluttered living room, holding his breath, but the smell always slipped in: old man and sweat and cigarettes. He waded through scattered newspapers and automotive magazines on the floor, almost knocking over the rickety coffee table. "Meet you on the deck," Chris said, exhaling. He jiggled the sliding glass door until it let him out onto the narrow wooden ledge with railings that they called a deck. "So the house is underway, huh?" Pop said, handing Chris a can of Pabst. "Finally. I figured since those numbnuts on the work crew outside town won’t hire me on I’d get some of my own work done. I’m going to start on it tomorrow. Buy some wood at Gregson’s, get down to business." "Um-hmm," Pop said, sipping his beer. Chris caught him glancing through the trailer windows at the road. To keep the older man’s attention, Chris started talking. He went back to the very beginning, to the months just after Jen was born, and he realized they’d need more space than their second-hand trailer. He told Pop about how he had set up the layout of each room of the new house himself, how he and Ellie argued about every square foot until they came to a grudging compromise, and how they were going to use the upstairs for bedrooms for all their children, though Jen was now nine, and Ellie never talked about having any more. "But it’s not from a lack of trying on your part, huh, Simpson?" Pop said. He leaned forward in his plastic yard chair, rubbing his lower back under his loose workshirt. Caught up in his own story, Chris had no idea what Pop meant. "Trying what?" Pop laughed, a hiccuping sound. "Trying to have kids. You know. Young guy like yourself must be trying all the time to make babies, ‘specially with a pretty wife like yours." "Yeah. But she’s been pissed at me lately. For about two years now." Pop leaned closer, his eyebrows raised, waiting for more details. Chris drained his beer and looked at the trucks scattered across the lot’s back yard. The neighbors on all three sides had erected some sort of fence, as if attempting to keep Pop’s clutter from spreading onto their own small lawns. He thought about Ellie that afternoon at the end of her shift, turned sideways to him on the other side of the counter as she counted her tips, shaking her head as he talked about how much the wood was going to cost. Chris crumpled his can. "Don’t you have to get to work soon, old man?" "Already told you business is slow. Plus Joey should be here any minute." Pop stared off across his lot as he spoke. Chris wondered if he saw the same thing as he did. He realized he didn’t know much about Pop, but it felt like he had told Pop just about everything he could tell about himself. Maybe all of his telling put him at a disadvantage with Pop. They sat in silence. The sky was growing dark, and when he glanced at his watch, it was almost five. He’d have to get home soon. "Where does he go?" Pop said suddenly. He was gripping the arms of his plastic chair, working himself into another miserable and angry state. "Maybe he just goes driving," Chris offered. Driving the winding back roads alone in his pickup, taking Jen with him when Ellie worked late, had gotten him through his daughter’s first colicky months. Those were the darker times, he thought now. That was back when he was trying to decide, without ever admitting it, whether or not he should abandon his family and start out new somewhere else. He went inside and grabbed two more beers from the almost empty refrigerator. On his way out a thought struck him: I could’ve been just like Pop’s wife, Joey’s mother. It would’ve been the exact same thing. Pop took the can of beer, opened it, then set it down without taking a drink. "Driving," he said under his breath. With a grunt he stood up, his hand on his back, and walked down the steps to the first worn-out pickup truck. It was a rusted brown shell, no windshield, its seats spilling out their stuffing. Pop threw open the hood, leaned over the motor, and began pulling wires and disconnecting hoses from the dusty engine parts. He worked quickly, dismantling everything he could with his bare hands, then he moved to the second truck. Chris remained on the deck, hoping that Joey would return home before Pop finished the last truck and moved on to Chris’s own truck. Pop’s actions made a strange sort of sense to him, reminding him of the house he had talked about building for years. It was entirely possible that the house would never get built, that he would be stuck with the foundation he had poured last summer in the hard dirt behind their trailer. There was a kind of momentum in not working on it that led him to sleep late on weekdays or go visit Ellie at the diner. A cracked spark plug landed at his feet, and Chris kicked it into the grass below. A plan began to form in his head as he watched Pop at work, the old man’s left hand dripping blood and grease. He had to take control, just like he had with Ellie this afternoon, kissing her in the diner on his way out before she could say something or stop him. Maybe all of his life had turned on some twist of fate he hadn’t known about, and it was up to him to turn it back around. If Joey gets back before this crazy shit gets done ripping apart those trucks, Chris thought to himself, I swear I’ll go home and start working on the house every day until it’s done. The thought suddenly made Chris feel foolish. He stood up, beer in hand, ready to take Pop by the arms and bring him inside and go back home to Ellie and Jen. But he didn’t get to his feet. Pop moved to the last truck slowly, rubbing his hand on his shirt, leaving a brownish-red smear. Chris sat in silence and watched. Lights were being turned on in the trailers around them, and Pop was a shadow in the fading daylight. I should stop him before he hurts himself, Chris thought, but he wanted to see what would happen first — Joey’s return or Pop’s utter destruction of everything in his path. Maybe, once he was done here, he could get Pop to come over to his place and tear up the foundation rotting away in his back yard. If Joey didn’t get home first. He sat on the top step of the back deck of the Peterson’s trailer and remembered the shocked look on his wife’s face in the diner when he let go of her after their kiss. Had she been smiling, just the tiniest bit, a trace of that old smile she used to share with him? Chris waited in the growing darkness. It was out of his hands what would happen next, and he opened himself up to the possibilities in a world that surely had to favor him, just this once.

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An Iowa native, Michael J. Jasper now lives in Raleigh, NC and can't get over how good sweet tea tastes. He writes fiction early in the morning and software manuals during the day. His wife Elizabeth hopes he finishes his first novel soon so she can spend some more time with him.

Little does she know he already has made plans for a second...