Trailer Park Noir

machine. She’d called her cell phone, but it was turned off. Anna did not understand why Rose had a cell phone if she never turned it on.

Anna was dressed in a business-like blue-and-white suit and ready to go. She went inside and stood before Kendra, who was on the floor playing with Dexter with an old sock that had a knot tied in it.

“Sweetheart, I have to go,” Anna said. “Can you stand up for a second?”

Kendra got to her feet. “Don’t worry, Mommy. I’ll be fine.”

“I guess that’s my problem,” Anna whispered as she hugged Kendra. “I don’t like the idea that you don’t need me anymore.”

“Oh, Mommy,” Kendra said as she squeezed Anna. “I’ll always need you.”

They stood that way for a long moment, then Anna pulled away, pecked Kendra’s cheek, and said, “I’ve got to go.”

Out in the car, as she backed out of the carport, Anna noticed a man walking from the new trailer in unit five. He headed toward the Snodgrass house.

She stopped backing up for a moment, and watched him in the rearview mirror. There was something startlingly familiar about him. He had short dark hair, broad shoulders – he wasn’t that tall, but he was well built. And there was something about him… something. She frowned as she watched him in the mirror and tried to place him, tried to figure out where she’d seen him before. But she could not.

Anna drove out of the trailer park and headed for work at Redding Tractor and Lawn Mower.

* * * *

Muriel Snodgrass heard another knock at her front door. It was really more of a rattle, because someone had knocked on the metal edge of the loose screen door. That made three so far today. What did all these people want all of a sudden?

The first had been Audrey Marsh from unit nineteen, wanting some sugar, because she was baking cookies and had run out of sugar and couldn’t run to the store because there were cookies in the oven. Muriel had invited her in and given her the sugar. Why she wanted to do any baking in such miserable heat was beyond Muriel.

Then it had been that woman with the beautiful retarded daughter.

So, who was it this time?

“Hank, get the door!” Muriel shouted. She was washing dishes. There stood on one side of the sink several piles of filthy dishes which had accumulated there over the last couple weeks. Muriel let all the dishes pile up awhile before she washed them. She didn’t wash them until they ran out of clean ones. That way she didn’t have to do it as often.

“Dammit to hell,” she said as she threw the sponge into the sink and dropped a plate with a clattering splash. She rinsed the suds off her hands, dried them on a hand towel, tossed the towel onto the counter, picked up her drink, and left the kitchen.

In the hall, cats scattered before Muriel.

As she passed the living room to the right, she looked in and saw her husband Hank slumped in his recliner, big belly sticking up out of the chair, a big, round, snowy mountain in a white sleeveless undershirt. A nature program played on TV.

“Useless,” she shuffled in her slippers to the front door. “Hi.”

“Hello, there, Mrs. Snodgrass.”

“Who’re you?”

“You don’t remember me? I’m Steven Regent, your newest tenant.” He turned and pointed. “Over there, in unit five.”

“Oh, yeah. Step back a bit.” When he did, she pushed the screen door open and invited him inside.

When he came in, Muriel gave him a good once over. He was good-looking, this one. Not too tall, but handsome and strong-looking.

“What can I do you for, Steve?” she said.

“I’d like to pay my rent for three months in advance.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. I hope that’s not a problem.”

“Oh, no. But I’m curious, Steve, whatcha payin’ rent in advance for? Or is that none of my business?”

“Not at all. It’s just that I like to get it out of the way so I don’t have to worry about it every month for a while.”

“Oh. Sure. Okay. You wanna pay your rent in advance, that’s just fine by me.”

He reached fingers into the breast pocket of the unbuttoned short-sleeve blue chambray shirt he was wearing. He wore nothing underneath it. From the pocket, he removed a check.

“That should be the right amount,” he said as he handed the check to Muriel.

She took it, tilted her head back, and looked through her bifocals. “Yep, right on the money.”

“Could I get a receipt for that?” Regent said.

“A receipt?”

“Yes, please.” He was still smiling.

He was a looker, all right, in his mid-thirties. A genial fellow. But there was something else. There was something about that constant smile. Muriel did not trust people who smiled all the time. It wasn’t natural – and usually, it was downright fake. If Mr. Regent didn’t lose that smile pretty quick, Muriel was going to get rid of him pretty quick.

“C’mon in here,” she said, leading him down the hall to the kitchen. Once again, cats scattered before her. The house smelled of them.

“How many cats do you have?” Regent said.

“Eleven.” She put her drink on the counter, then went to a desk against the kitchen wall on the right. The desk was cluttered with papers and big envelopes and books and magazines and even a shoe box. Muriel shuffled things around until she found her receipt pad. It didn’t take her long to find it – the desk was a mess, but she knew where everything was.

Muriel put the pad on a stack of books, then felt around for a pen. She filled the receipt out, referring to the check for the right total. She tore his copy of the receipt from the book and handed it to Regent.

“Howzat?” she said.

He looked at it. “Perfect. Thank you.”

“You all settled in now?” Muriel said.

“Yes, I am. Everything’s unpacked and in its place. I didn’t procrastinate at all this time, I got all the unpacking done the first day.”

“Well-well, good for you. What kinda work you do, Steve?”

“I’ve got a few very successful – what am I saying, wildly successful websites.”

“Websites, huh? Pornography?”

“I prefer adult entertainment.”

“Yeah, that’s what they’re callin’ it these days, huh?” Muriel went over to the kitchen counter where a half-full whiskey bottle stood next to two glasses, Muriel’s almost full. By her glass was a pack of cigarettes, a red Bic lighter, and an ashtray full of butts. “Can I get you a drink?” she said as she shook out a cigarette, then lit up.

His smile fell away then. “Nothing for me, thank you.”

“I been spikin’ my ice tea this afternoon,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper. “So you got websites with lotsa neckid women on ‘em?”

“Yes, something like that.”

“You’n my husband Frank’ll get along just fine. He looks at them titty sights all the time. He don’t know how lucky he is to have a wife don’t mind him lookin’ at them titty sites. You ain’t gonna have a big parade of neckid women comin’ in and out of your trailer, are ya?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that at all. We do most of our work at my partner’s house, anyway. We’re very discreet, I promise.”

“Okay. That’s good. This is a family park. I can’t have no pornography goin’ on all over the place for the kids to