The Squatter

by Andy Henion

……….. Pullman bakes cookies for strangers. This night he shows up at a woman’s trailer with a torn earlobe, freshly stitched and iodine yellow, causing her a terrible moment of pause. But then she sees the oatmeal raisins in his hand and the faintly familiar smile on his face and opens the screen door.
….. “The man,” she says, “from the clubhouse.”
….. “Evening, Missus Svoboda.” He learned long ago that widows prefer Missus no matter how many years had passed.
….. “And what do you do?” she says, stepping aside.
….. “Sheriff’s deputy,” he says. “Laid off a year now.”
….. She purses her lips and nods in understanding. Every family’s been touched by the downturn in one way or another. Pullman sets the plate on the kitchen table and looks over at her son, kicked back in a battered recliner with a can of beer in hand. Meaty kid, minus a leg, watching television as if in a trance.
….. “What happened here?” She taps an earlobe.
….. “Hazard of the new job,” says Pullman. “Imagine a cop working construction.” But it’s not true. Even if he could work a nailgun, nothing is being built in this state.
….. They take seats at the table. The widow makes a sour face and shakes her head.
….. “If they sent you for money,” she says, “you’re gonna be disappointed.”
….. “It’s not like that,” says Pullman, though he really has no idea. “A simple welcome is all.”
….. “I just came the once. My husband, you know, he loved that place. Love those little tassel hats. I just wanted to go back … for him.”
….. “I understand completely,” Pullman says, with appropriate conviction. “He was a good man.”
….. She relaxes with this, leaning back in her chair and eyeing the oatmeal raisins, plump and golden brown. Pullman take pride in his cookies, does the job right, from the fresh ingredients to the lavender ribbon adorning the plate.
….. “Don’t tell me you baked these yourself. No help from a wife? A daughter, maybe?”
….. “No kids,” he says. “My wife left me for a hand surgeon.”
….. “You’re very direct,” says Missus Svoboda. “Dirty laundry and all.”
….. “It is what it is,” Pullman says. But it isn’t, actually. Nothing he says or does has made sense in quite some time.
….. On the television a man with a British accent is extolling the savage nature of the polar bear, the only animal to hunt a human for food. Pullman has always appreciated this fact, and the kid does too, judging from his curled lip.
….. “You know,” the widow says, leaning forward, “a good looking young man like you should have no problem finding a nice gal. There are plenty of shrimp in the sea.”
….. Pullman smiles and winks, his chest filling with warmth. She puts her hand on his and pats, the way he imagines a grandmother would do, and Pullman closes his eyes and breathes in the scene. Although he’d never admit it, this is why he comes. Why he does what he does.
….. “Well,” she says. “How about a cookie? Milo?”
….. The kid responds with a snort and a chug of beer. The widow’s hand stops halfway to the plate. She sighs and looks an apology at Pullman.
….. “He just hasn’t been himself,” she says quietly, “since he came back from that place.”
….. Pullman lifts the cellophane and pulls out two cookies.
….. “May I?”
….. Missus Svoboda clasps her hands together. “Oh, that would be wonderful. He just needs a friend.” She rises, sweeping crumbs into a palm. “I’ll just finish up in the kitchen.”
….. When her back is turned, Pullman drops a cookie in the kid’s lap and grabs his last beer off the coffee table. Plops down in the loveseat. Milo brings the cookie to his nose, sniffs, takes a big bite. Cocks a brow at Pullman, then returns his attention to the TV.
….. “If I was a fuckin’ polar bear,” he says, and Pullman raises his beer.

***

….. Pullman used to a have a family. Many families, in fact. He would barely get to know one set of foster parents before he was shipped off to the next. The longest he spent in one household was six months, in his eighth grade year, until one day the police came for the foster dad. Something to do with a female intern at the accounting firm where he worked.
….. When the cops came, the foster dad was working in his den and Pullman was watching a John Hughes movie and eating Doritos with his foster mother. They were laughing at the comic angst of Molly Ringwald, pointing at the screen with bright orange fingers, and young Pullman knew that despite the tension everything would work out in the end, another happy ending for a celluloid family.
….. She had been a good egg, his foster mom, sweet and auburn-haired and deserving of far better than a numbers-crunching perv, Pullman thinks now, standing at Milo’s bedside at two-fifteen in the morning.
….. “Orange fingers,” Pullman says aloud, grinning at the memory, and the kid jerks awake and instinctively goes for the intruder. Pullman grabs his throat and drives him back onto the bed. Milo works at the intruder’s wrist until he realizes who it is standing above him, then goes slack.
….. “I do those hand grips,” Pullman says, flexing his fingers. “Could you tell? Five hundred a day.”
….. The kid rubs at his neck and stares up, perplexed. He sleeps in grungy boxers on top of the covers. A red and black cannon spews fire on his shoulder; the pale nub of his leg twitches as if it has a mind of its own. Pullman guesses the kid at twenty-five, twenty-eight tops.
….. “You say …” Milo coughs and then tries it again. “You say orange fingers?”
….. “From the Dorito dust.” Pullman sits on the edge of the mattress and picks a prosthetic leg off the floor. “Long story, chief.”
….. He draws a finger over the hard pink plastic.
….. “If you think I’m gonna blow you-”
….. “Don’t be crass,” says Pullman. “Your old lady said you needed a friend. And here I am.”
….. “Is that right? And what are we gonna do now, bake cookies?”
….. Pullman hands him the leg. “I’m going to show you,” he says, “how the other half lives.”

***

….. Pullman went to the state university, studied criminal justice. Got a free ride, in fact, courtesy of the government. The problem: foster kids have nowhere to go when the dorms shut down, and so Pullman had to find his own place to stay during spring break and holidays. He hit the shoddy student apartments at first, eventually moving on to more upscale accommodations, the condos of snowbirds. But no matter where he stayed, he was always tidy, always disciplined.
….. Then came Carmen, a fellow foster alum. They met at the co-op, spent their first night together at the house of a distinguished psychology professor, Carmen’s adviser, who she knew to be in Sarasota. After Pullman picked the back locks, she raided the fridge, drank two bottles of his vintage wine and fucked Pullman on the old man’s king-sized bed.
….. After, she told him about the years of abuse at the hands of her foster parents, how she couldn’t come without it rough, and could Pullman tie her up? He did what he was told. Did it again. But he came to understand something. It takes a different kind of man to hurt a woman, and Pullman wasn’t one of them.
….. Within six weeks Carmen was out of his life, and Pullman would only occasionally wonder what had become of her. Truth was, he was relieved to be on his own again, sleeping in the homes of strangers but being respectful along the way. Wiping out the microwave. Using a coaster. Picking his pubes out of the soap bar.

***

….. “If you’re a cop, I’m Warren Buffett,” Milo says. They’re sipping hundred-dollar scotch in a hot tub bigger than the widow’s kitchen. The mansion’s owners are in France for the summer. The way Milo is kicked back in the tub, Pullman can tell he’s in his element. He imagines the kid as a greedy-eyed private roaming an abandoned Iraqi palace, savoring the opulence, moments before the bomb goes off underfoot.
….. “Not a cop, no,” Pullman says. “More of a security consultant.”
….. “Not in Dad’s club either, I’ll bet.”
….. “They welcome visitors of all stripes. Great place to meet new friends.”
….. “Why my mother?”
….. “Why what? She’s a gentle soul.” Pullman wags a finger at the kid. “Treasure that woman while you have her.”
….. “Right,” says Milo. “And your wife? She really leave you for a heart surgeon?”
….. “Hand surgeon,” Pullman says. “But really, what does all this matter?”
….. “Just wanna know who I’m dealin’ with.”
….. “Maybe she’s buried in the woods,” Pullman says and lets loose with bark-like laugh. “Listen, kid, there’s nothing wrong with a little mystery in life. You ever hear the phrase ‘familiarity breeds contempt’?”
….. Pullman is moving closer, waving his hands as he talks.
….. “Really, now. Imagine you had no back-story. That every one of your relationships was fresh. Unburdened. That every waking day of your life was a new movie, with all new scenes. All new characters.”
….. “Sounds like one corker of a midlife crisis,” says Milo.
….. “Not a crisis,” says Pullman, coming out of the water, eyes wide, spittle flying. “I’m talking about variety. Adventure. The drama of the unknown.”
….. “Drama of the unknown,” the kid repeats, easing away as subtly as he dares. “Huh.”
….. Pullman watches the kid cower and drops his arms to his side. He knows the kid doesn’t get it. Milo takes a drink with a quivering hand.
….. “So,” the kid says after a few moments. “Is this where you baked the cookies? Do you even have a home?”
….. Pullman sighs and shakes his head, clearly disappointed in his understudy.
….. “Sorry: mystery,” Milo says, and looks around the massive play den for the twentieth time.
….. “Can you believe these motherfuckers have a boxing ring?”

***

….. Two nights earlier Pullman encountered a handyman as he, Pullman, vacated the shitter doing his handgrips. The handyman carried a clipboard in one hand and a pair of wire snips in the other.
….. Pullman’s thought process: Who the hell schedules a handyman when they’re away for the summer, unless they really know that person, in which case there’s no way I’m bullshitting my way out of this.
….. When the handyman’s expression confirmed this, Pullman dropped the handgrips, grabbed him around the neck and slammed him against the wall. Except the handyman came up lickety-split with the wire snips and snipped through Pullman’s earlobe. Pullman elbowed him hard in the face, shattering bone, and the handyman fell to the floor unconscious.
….. As the blood from his ear drained onto his shoulder, Pullman knew he should vacate the premises for a hotel ten towns away, but he had a good thing going here. Never before had he baked his cookies in a stainless steel kitchen. Or eaten his Doritos while watching Sixteen Candles on a projection TV. Or played Galaga, his favorite, without burning through a pocketful of quarters.
….. He looked down at the handyman-about Pullman’s age, forty-two, but bald as a cue and stork-skinny, no wedding ring-and figured he had at least a few days before someone noticed him missing. He retrieved the wire snips and dropped to a knee. The handyman’s nose was disjointed and Pullman reached down and pulled it back into place, a simple matter of dignity.
….. The handyman stirred, groggily at first, then with venom. Pullman pinned his skinny ass to the floor and went about protecting his way of life.

***

….. “It’s a way of life,” Pullman tells the kid now. “We’re not ‘fuckin’ bums,’ as you so eloquently put it. We’re professional squatters.”
….. They’re sitting on stools in opposite corners of the ring as the kid straps on his leg. Each wearing boxing trunks, high-tops laced to the calves, but not the headgear. Fuck the headgear.
….. Pullman is laying it out for him. There’s a network of folks like him across the country who keep each other informed. Who look out for one another. Realtors, security pros, meter readers, carpet cleaners, even some cops. Most of them have been laid off, he says, and who does it hurt if they occupy a little space in a foreclosed home or, god help us, a castle like this that sits empty for the summer?
….. The key, Pullman explains, is to leave things pretty much as you found them. To drink only an inch or two from the scotch bottle. Eat only the canned ravioli and peas. Take only half the change from the jar, loose bills if you’re lucky, but never the valuables. That’s the first thing they’ll notice.
….. Milo knows he’s being recruited, although an official offer has yet to be extended. This Pullman character is gauging his mettle. Talking some wild shit. Fuck it. Whatever. The kid finishes strapping on the leg and slips on the gloves.
….. “Ding ding,” Pullman says, and they start circling one another. The kid moves pretty well with the fake leg. He’s an inch or two shorter than Pullman, but thicker through the chest and shoulders with the start of a potbelly. Pullman studies Milo’s gray eyes, but the kid’s a hard read. Could be an asset, could be a dud. Pullman will deal with it either way.
….. He darts in and snaps off a couple jabs. The kid gets his arms up just in time.
….. “Nice,” Pullman says, and dances away. “Tell me, what are you going to do with your life? Surely not sit around feeling sorry for yourself.”
….. But the kid has his own questions. “What do you do for money? If you don’t sack the houses?”
….. Pullman lands a jab, then an uppercut, sending the kid wobbling back on his fake leg.
….. “Watch him now.” He backs off to let the kid recover. “You get more than you might think”-he smiles and nods at a black duffel bag in the corner-“and I’m good at saving.”
….. Milo tries him, throwing a wild roundhouse. Pullman ducks it easily and the kid spins around and nearly falls on his ass. He spits in embarrassment as Pullman laughs.
….. “S’okay, s’okay,” Pullman says, moving in. “Listen, I appreciate what you did over there. The sacrifice you made. It’s a damn shame you can’t find work, but I think I can help you out.”
….. “What sacrifice?” says Milo, dodging another blow, getting the hang of it.
….. “The war,” says Pullman, deflecting a shot from the kid. “What was it, a landmine?”
….. “War?” says the kid. “I wasn’t in the war.”
….. Pullman hesitates, lowering his gloves, and this all the kid needs. He drops the squatter with a shot to the chin.
….. “Wha ..” Pullman says from his hands and knees. He looks up to see Milo flip off his gloves. The kid steps forward and drills him bare-knuckled in the jaw. Pullman goes face-first onto the canvas.
….. Tasting blood, he fights to keep his brain functioning, his eyes open. He rolls to his side and there’s the kid, sitting next to him, removing his prosthesis. Pullman knows he should get up, but he’s seriously dazed, rubber-limbed.
….. “Your old lady,” he manages, spitting out a tooth. “Said you weren’t right … since you came back from that place.”
….. “She meant the eighth floor, genius.”
….. Eighth floor? Pullman thinks. Then he gets it: the psych ward.
….. “I was a cutter,” the kid says. “Cut so much I got gangrene, they had to take it off.”
….. The kid has the prosthesis off and now he rises to one knee, using his stub for balance. Holding the leg over his shoulder like an ax, he says, “How do I get a hold of these people? In this network of yours?”
….. “Little black book in the duffel. But it won’t work-they don’t know you.”
….. “Bullshit,” says Milo. “They don’t know you either. It’s not like you’re havin’ fuckin’ dinner parties, am I right? What do you, text each other? Use code words?”
….. Pullman begins to rise, the ropes spinning around him like a kaleidoscope. If only he could get to the duffel bag, and the nickel-plated .45 inside … now that’s a piece, one of the few valuables he’s lifted from his travels. He remembers how it was tucked away on a shelf in a furnace room, wrapped in ratty old T-shirt, definitely worth the chance …
….. “Pay attention!” Milo shoves him back down and Pullman’s shattered jaw hits the canvas, sending a shockwave through his skull. The kid is asking how the compensation works-“Let me guess, leave a Benjamin behind for the meter-reader?”-but Pullman is done with this twit, he’s made a bad read, kid’s got about as much dignity as a shit-throwing monkey.
….. Milo Svoboda will never honor the network, never respect home and property, never bake cookies for strangers …
….. Pullman comes up, last-ditch, but he’s too damaged, too slow, and he’s met with the kid’s maniacal grin, and the prosthetic leg, arcing up, and then down, and the kid is grunting now, growling in rage as he hammers away, turning the squatter’s head to mush.
….. Pullman’s final thoughts: This movie will not end well. But then, not all of them do.

####

Andy Henion’s fiction has appeared twice before in Plots with Guns, as well as in Word Riot, Pindeldyboz, Beat to a Pulp, Storyglossia and Thieves Jargon, where one of his stories was short-listed for a Derringer. A former newspaper reporter, he’s lived in many houses, in many towns, from Michigan to Tennessee to Texas.