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No Way Home	By : Flagg1991 Category: +G through L > The Loud House Views: 2161 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Loud House nor will I profit in any way from this story

Chapter List
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It was fifteen after six when Lemy stepped off the number 12 at the Lark and Armory stop, his jacket damp and his socks squelching inside his sodden boots. Like everyday, the bus was overcrowded and standing room only, so he rode all twenty-five blocks with his nose nestled in some fat woman’s armpit and gripping the same metal handhold as three other people. He fucking hated public transport, but he didn’t have the money for a car, so it was either that or walk.

Bending against the driving rain, people rushing around him on either side and holding briefcases and newspapers over their heads, Lemy hurried down Armory, passing a haji mart and a group of homeless people sitting around the stoop. One tried to get his attention with a soft, pleading “Excuse me, sir,” that turned into a hateful, “Fuck you,” when Lemy ignored him. He hated coming this way because every time he did, bums mobbed him. You got a cigarette? Can I get a dollar? What’cha got in the bag? Anything to eat? Oh, paper towels? Can I have them? When he first moved to the city, he felt bad for them and kept spare pocket change aside, but after a couple months, he was done; like any newbie city dweller, they broke him in and made him hard. If you can give him a dollar you can give me one too, one once said to him, his voice rising and falling in indignation. Excuse me, asshole?

It was even worse at night - because in addition to the bums, the pushers, pimps, and prostitutes came out. In this part of town, you could have anything you wanted: Crack, meth, weed, pussy, dick, you name it. Someone even once tried to sell him three packs of Sargento cheese from a plastic bag.

Lemy grew up in a boring small town where the hottest thing going was an arcade filled with thirty year old game cabinets; he used to idolize places like this. Everything was right there, something was always happening, and best of all, you couldn’t help finding a good time if you just looked hard enough.

Now?

He fucking hated the city and everyone in it.

Past Lynch Street, the buildings flanking the cracked sidewalk turned residential, tall, ancient brownstones with wide stoops and foreboding facades. He turned right onto James, passed a vacant, weed-choked lot, a tumbledown Sunoco with a weathered plywood board in place of the front window, and arrived at his building, a wide brick three story box with black window panes up and down the front. WRFK 106.7 read the sign out front. When he picked chicks up at the bar, he told them he worked at a radio station. It wasn’t a lie...but it wasn’t true either, hahahaha.

He went to go in through the front door, but it wouldn’t budge.

Shit.

Locked.

He pressed his face to the glass, and someone shoved it open from the inside, knocking him back, tears springing to his eyes when the pane slammed his nose.

There was only one person in the world rude enough to do that.

And there she was, filling the frame, a short, fat black woman in black pants and a white button up uniform shirt, a bronze, Cracker-Jack badge pinned to her left breast.

Elsie.

She arched her brow and pursed her lips, her brown eyes burning with mega-bitch intensity. Lemy steeled himself for what was about to come.

“You late,” she said.

He mustered as much patience as he could and nodded. “I know, I’m sorry, I missed the bus.”

Elsie looked him up and down as though he were a particularly disgusting bug. 5’8? I didn’t know they stacked shit that high. “You always missin’ that bus. You don’t know what time it come?”

“My clock is slow.”

“Fix it.”

Lemy started to argue, but she had him there. He kept meaning to, but then he’d get drunk or stoned and forget.

Elsie hummed. “Umhm. I already called Sean.”

Aw, fuck, really??? So he was a little late, did she really have to go fucking complain to his boss??? “You was supposed to be here an hour ago, and I got things to do, you holdin’ me up and I’m gettin’ real sick of it.” She moved aside so he could enter, and he brushed past, his stomach in knots. Sean was going to be pissed; Lemy would probably get a call later. What’s goin’ on down there? Elise, Elsie is what’s going on down here. The bitch won’t cut me any slack.

The lobby was cast in shadows, a desk to his right and a waiting area to his left, potted plants, chairs, and end tables stacked with old magazines. One time, for a laugh, he slipped a Hustler in between a People and a Seventeen. He checked on it every night for a month before it finally disappeared. Hahaha.

A long hall ran the length of the building, office doors opening on either side. As he went down it, he could feel Elsie’s eyes steady on his back like the laser sights of a rifle. If she could shoot him with just a look, he would have died five times over by now.

Another hall met the first in a T-shaped junction. He went left, pulled out his keys, and unlocked a door marked JANITOR. Inside was a tiny room with cracked concrete floors, block walls, and a mop sink to one side. He pulled out his janitor cart, slipped out of his jacket, and tossed it aside. He grabbed the mop bucket from the front of the cart, took it over to the sink, and filled it up. He picked up a bottle of cleaning chemicals from the floor, but it was empty. Damn, that’s right, he’d been meaning to text Sean a supply list. He was low on small trash bags, large trash bags, paper towels, toilet paper, metal polish, and...everything, really.

He should text him now.

Ehhh...nah, he’d do it later. Right now he just wanted to get started - he had another building two blocks over, and if he hurried, he could just make the last bus back to West.

Guess the floor’s getting mopped with just water.

Again.

Wow, he needed a drink. His mouth was already dry and his throat tacky. Did he have enough money to get a bottle on his way to the other building? He didn’t think so. He’d check in a minute, though.

Making sure he had everything he needed, he pushed the cart back to the lobby, stabbed the up button flanking the elevator, and waited as the car came down from the third floor. Elsie sat behind the desk talking into her phone...loudly...abrasively...like she did everything.

When the doors slid open, he wheeled the cart in and jabbed the 3 button.

The WRFK building was a cakewalk - the studios on the third floor only needed trash removal, a quick vacuum in the common area, and a mop. He wasn’t allowed into the production booth or the actual studio itself because ugh expensive equipment, ugh, the dumb cleaner might fuck it up or steal it, so he was usually done up here in twenty minutes tops.

He left the cart in the lobby and went to another closet, this one unlocked. Inside was his vacuum, a blue backpack model with black straps and a black accordian hose attached to a metal wand. He grabbed it, dragged it out (it was full...he should empty it...eh, that takes time and he didn’t have time if he wanted to make that bus), then went back to the cart and realized he forgot small trash bags. Fuck. That meant running back downstairs and grabbing some.

Not wanting to wait for the elevator, he went down the stair well, came out in the lobby, and hurried to the closet; Elsie rolled her eyes and shook her head. Fuck you, bitch.

Back on the third floor, he snatched a microfiber cloth from the cart and went into the women’s room.

Man, he needed a drink.

Inside, he threw the cloth into one of the sinks, wetted it, then wiped down the sink top, pausing long enough to splash water on the mirror and to run a paper towel over it. He gave the toilets a cursory wipe, emptied the bags in the little sanitary disposal boxes (you’re supposed to throw them out when there’s something in there, but he never did...too much work), then returned them.

Done, we went over to the men’s room, the tip of his tongue swiping across his bottom lip.

When he was finished in there, he tossed the wet cloth onto his shoulder and did his rounds, changing the trash in four offices and the kitchenette at the end of the hall. He never vacuumed in here because it was too far away from an outlet and it was never all that messy. Instead, he got down on his hands and knees and picked up the biggest crumbs he could find, leaving the rest. Someone spilled coffee on the floor; it was dried now, like old blood. He wiped it with his cloth, then hit the counters and sink.

Next, he shrugged into the vacuum, plugged in the tangled, knotted cord (if Sean saw how bad it was he’d freak), and quickly vacuumed, neglecting to hit the corners or along the baseboard. He’d do that another day when he had time.

The day hell froze over.

He snorted.

Lastly, he mopped, flinging the sopping mop head across the floor in a zigzag pattern that left wide patches dry. He put the mop in the bucket, pushed the cart back into the elevator, then tossed the vacuum in.

Any detail work?

He did a quick walkthrough: Cobwebs danced in corners and thick layers of dust coated computers, shelves, phones, keyboards, and the edges of the floor.

Nope. All good here.

The second floor was a little harder and required more time: It was one massive room dominated by a sea of cubicles and lined with offices. Lemy had been working this building for a year and knew where to vacuum and where not to: Cubicles, to him, were synonymous with boring monotony, so it really wasn’t a surprise that the same people made the same messes every single day. Of all fifty-eight cubicles, he only had to vacuum twenty - just like yesterday and the day before and the day before that.

At the end of one of the rows, he rolled his eyes. The lady who sat here was named Stephanie. He knew because there was a certificate with her name tacked above the computer. He imagined her as hot, since he’d never seen her, but she was such a fucking slob. Her trash can was literally two inches from her chair and half the shit she threw away missed and wound up on the floor.

In the kitchen, he mopped and paused at the counter to snake a doughnut from a box, which he quickly ate. One good thing about this job, free food. He typically stuck to snacks like this, but a couple times, when he was drunk, he raided the fridge and ate someone’s lunch. Sean asked him about it once. They’re sayin’ they got food goin’ missin’. You doin’ that?

No, not me. I’m rail thin, man, I don’t eat.

Second floor done, he moved to the first, his absolute favorite - like she did every night, Elsie followed him around, pointing out every little flaw she could find. “What that over there?” she asked and pointed.

“Loose carpet thread,” Lemy said tightly. She knew damn well what it was; she asked about it each night.

“You gon’ cut it?”

“I dont have a knife,” he said.

In the lobby, she nodded to the fern sitting in front of the window. “That plant over there got dust on it.”

Lemy bit his lip against a comment about her old, fat pussy having dust on it, and dusted the damn plant. It was full dark night and he was getting antsy - if he didn’t hurry, he’d miss the bus, and he really didn’t feel like walking twenty-five blocks home through the ghetto. He couldn’t half ass the first floor, though; Elsie wouldn’t let him.

When he was finally done twenty minutes later, he shoved all his shit into the closet, not bothering to empty the brown, scummy water from the mop bucket, ran the vacuum upstairs, then hurried into the damp night. “Don’t be late tomorrow,” Elsie called after him.

“I won’t,” he said, even though he figured he probably would be.

His second building, 16 Park Street, was bigger, six floors and home to suites occupied by lawyers, the state mental health association, a telemarketing call center, officers for Planned Parenthood, and a bunch of others. He didn’t clean all of them, just most.

Luckily, the people in this building were a little cleaner than the ones at the radio station; he blasted through the first three floors in an hour, and was on number 3 emptying a trash can in yet another field of cubicles when the suite door opened. Lemy looked up, and his heart skipped a beat.

Sean.

His boss.

A short, stocky man with close-cropped salt and pepper hair, faded blue eyes, and the beginnings of a beard, Sean wore a green shirt with CITIJAN over the left breast in gold, shorts, and black tennis shoes. Lemy knew in an instant that there was a problem, since Sean was like Al Sharpton: The only time you ever saw him was when something bad happened.

Nodding curtly, Sean greeted him with a mumbled, “Hey, Lemy.”

Stupid Elsie, Lemy thought. “Hey, how’s it going?” he asked.

“Alright,” Sean said and looked around. “We got some complaints.”

Lemy did his best not to sigh. “Where?” he asked.

“Everywhere,” Sean said, accusation creeping into his voice. “The sixth floor women’s room is out of toilet paper, I just checked, and three stalls are low. The PP office says you haven’t vacuumed in a week -”

“It didn’t need it.”

Sean blinked. “Oh, yeah? I walked across their kitchen floor just now and stuff was crunching under my feet. Didja dust?”

Things were looking bad. Better lie. “Yeah. I dust every night.”

Sean swiped one finger across the top of a cubical wall and held it up; coated in dust. “Really?” he pressed.

“I dusted in here last Thursday,” Lemy said; when Sean trained him in this building, he told him to dust once a week, and that’s what Lemy did. Well, at this point it was more like once a month, but potayto potahto.

“No, you didn’t,” Sean said flatly. Lemy started to reply, but the older man cut him off. “You don’t dust here, you don’t dust at 450 James, you barely vacuum, your supply closet’s running dry -”

“I meant to text you a list.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t. You always wait ‘til the last minute. You didn’t empty the mop bucket, you missed a bunch of stuff on the third floor, you missed trash -”

Okay, that was bullshit, there was no way he could have missed a trash can. “Where?” he asked challengingly.

“The office with the mini fridge.”

Lemy binked. “No one’s been in that office in six months.”

“Yeah, well, someone’s in it now.”

Damn it. He should have checked. He did periodically, but of course someone would move in on a day he didn’t. See what he meant about the universe constantly fucking him over?

“I got Connley on my ass here, I got Wilson on my ass at James, you’re not doing what you’re supposed to and if it keeps up, we’re gonna lose these accounts, and you’re gonna lose your job.” The timbre of Sean’s voice rose as his irritation grew, a self-feeding fire getting higher and brighter. All Lemy could do was hang his head and take it like a bitch. God, he needed a drink. “I want this whole building dusted tonight, and I want those bathrooms to sparkle.”

“Alright,” Lemy said.

“I dropped off some supplies at James and I put some in your closet here. You need to keep up on what you have and tell me what you need. You also need to organize that closet, it’s a mess in there.”

Lemy nodded - he was going to miss the bus for sure. Goddamn it. “Alright.”

“Good. You gotta shape up. Your buildings have the most complaints of any, and Connley says he’s already looking at other cleaning companies. The only reason he hasn’t tossed us out on our ass is because we’ve been doing this place for twenty years. He’s patient, but not that patient.”

Yeah. Okay.

After Sean left, Lemy flashed in anger and threw the trash can across the room. Fuck this job. He hated these buildings - the ones he used to do didn’t piss and moan the way these did. It was always fucking something.

Sighing, he went about the rest of his night, a seething mass of rage stalking through the halls and dusting, wiping, vacuuming as though his life depended on it. Every time he caught sight of a clock, he checked the time and got steadily angier as he saw his chances of catching the bus fade. Every night he was up against the clock in a frantic race to the finish, and tonight he was going to lose all because of Connley and Wilson. Fuck those assholes. These buildings wouldn’t be so bad if their tenants weren’t fucking pigs.

It was after one when he finally finished and walked home through the hookers, druggies, and hobos up and down Central. The night was cold and damp, and by the time he reached his building, his teeth chattered and his feet ached. A bunch of junk sat on the curb, which meant someone got kicked out. Lol. Happened all the time; they’d come home to their door locked and all their worldly possession soaked in the rain. Poor bastards.

Inside, he went up the stairs, thinking of the beer in the fridge and the Hungry Man in the freezer. As he approached his door, he whipped out his keys, then stopped and frowned when he spotted a note taped over the eyehole.

He read it, and his heart sank.

EVICTED.

Oh no.

Suddenly flushed and starting to tremble, he tried his key in the lock, but it wouldn’t fit.

That’s when it hit him.

That jumbled pile of shit...wet and dirty with rainwater...was everything he owned.

Fury burst in his chest like a bomb, and he threw a reflexive punch at the door, denting it. He can’t fucking do this, it’s illegal!

He snatched his phone out just as it rang. That was probably him, Abdul the slumlord terrorist Arab fuck who thought he could just throw someone on the street without a thirty day notice. Lemy stabbed the TALK button and held the phone to his ear. “Yeah?” he asked tightly.

“Lemy,” a firm, non Muslim voice said, “it’s Sean.”

Goddamn it, what did this asshole want? “Hey,” Lemy said, trying but failing to soften his tone. “What’s up?”

“We have a big problem at 16 Park.”

Lemy’s heart sank. What was it this time? What could it be? He did everything! And he did it right!

“You left the lobby door unlocked,” Sean said, his voice dripping with content, “and all the lobby lights on.”

Fuck. Did he? He tried to remember leaving Park Street, but couldn’t; he was flustered, in a rush, and just wanted his goddamn drink...which, by the way, Abdul probably stole.

“You’re lucky I found it and not Connley. We’d be out so fast our heads would spin.”

Lemy sighed. “Look, I’m sorry, I just got home and -”

“Don’t bother showing up tomorrow. You’re fired.”

Lemy froze. Fired??? “Dude, wait, no, I’m sorry, I -”

“You can pick up your last check tomorrow. You’re gone. Goodbye.”

The line went dead, and Lemy was alone in a dim, dirty hallway, his life in shambles around him: No job, no place to live, and twenty bucks in his pocket.

He wasn’t an overly emotional person, at all, but tears welled in his eyes as he dragged himself to the stairwell and sat heavily on the top step. What was he going to do? It was cold, he had nowhere to go, no money, nothing.

Inexplicably, he flashed back to the phone call that afternoon from his father. He called him a loser, didn’t he? If so, he was right, he was a fucking loser. And a drunk too. The only thing he had going for him was that he wasn’t addicted to anything and he wasn’t a pedo.

He should sign that paperwork.

That thought struck him like a shot in the dark.

He didn’t want to.

Even now, years later, he wanted things to be okay, to be normal, but they never would be.

And it was all his fault.

Going out there...at least he’d have a place to stay for a day. And maybe...maybe he could move back and be close to everyone. He’d have to keep his distance to spare everyone his fucked up curse, but he could see them at least, and be there for things.

He sighed.

Shortly after two, he got up and aimlessly walked the slick, empty streets, meeting only the occasional junkie or hooker; at one corner, an old woman stood beside a shopping cart piled with aluminum cans and rummaged through a pile of garbage.

At first, Lemy didn’t know where he was going, but soon realized he was heading toward Regina, the check cashing place on Central. There was a Western Union there.

At 6am, as the first faint light of day crept across the rooftops, Lemy took out his phone and made a call.

Dad answered on the third ring. “Lemy,” he said sourly.

In his state, hearing disgust in his own father’s voice - disgust directed firmly at him - made him want to cry. Life doesn’t have a reset button, but in that moment, Lemy sorely wished that it did, that he could go back to the beginning and try again. “Hey,” he said, “I, uh, I thought about it and...I’m gonna come out and sign those papers.” Those words tasted foul in his mouth, and he wanted to cry even more.

Dad let out a relieved breath. At least someone was happy about this. “Good. How are you getting here?”

“Greyhound,” Lemy said, “I just...I need some money.”

Lincoln Loud hit the red END button and laid the cordless phone on the nightstand; the lamp cast the bed in warm, amber light and held shadows at bay like a lantern in the dark. He laid back down and laced his hands over his chest. Next to him, Lori’s eyes were opened to tired slits, the ilummmination sparkling in them and reminding him of muky tide pools. “Lemy?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Lincoln said and stared up at the ceiling. “He’s coming out.”

Her lips twitched into a ghostly smile. “Good. We can finally get this behind us.” She closed her lids, and within moments her breathing was even, rhythmic, asleep like a woman freed from a burdensome worry at last.

In a way, she was; for years this matter hung over them like a dark cloud. In his more introspective moments, Lincoln realized that perhaps he was making a bigger deal of it than he should, but he was old and set in his ways. He believed certain things and liked tasks done in a particular manner. We are all, every one of us, shaped by our own unique life experiences, thus no two people are quite the same. The bricklaying unionist’s son was steeped in a different culture than the rich venture capitalist’s daughter. Everything that happens to us, every fallback, every victory, every lesson is another ingredient in the stew of life, and once you reach a certain age, it all congeals to form your outlook and your beliefs. Lincoln grew up lower middle class in a bedroom community of Detroit; his parents were happily married and provided for their children; he finished high school and went to college even with so many children of his own to worry about; there were days he wanted to break down, crawl into a hole, and die, but he held on, because that’s what a man does. No matter how bad things get at home, in war, or on the job, he hangs on and doesn’t let go. If he does, it’s because he’s weak and not a man at all.

Unfortunately, Lemy was no man

He was an overgrown child. Were he a simpleton, Lincoln would accept it, but he wasn’t - he was bright and always had been. He knew better than to do the things he did, but he did them anyway. That made him so much worse in Lincoln’s eyes than others like him. That Sondra girl he was seeing, for instance. She was dumber than a box of rocks and you couldn’t hold but the most superficial conversation with her. Lemy, on the other hand, was witty, engaging, and widely-knowledgeable. He wasn’t particularly deep in any one subject beyond mechanics, but he could touch upon almost any topic in an intelligent and thoughtful manner. He had so much going for him, but he threw it all away.

Lincoln sighed, swung his legs out from under the covers, and sat up, his hand going to the back of his neck; stiff like every morning. He got up, snapped the light off, and went into the master bath, where he stripped out of his pajamas and got into the shower. As he bathed, he thought of Lemy. He’d have to tell the others he was coming, and someone would have to pick him up in Detroit. He wasn’t going to do it, and he doubted Lori would either. Maybe Leni - even after Lemy chose his fate, Leni remained close with him. Leni was a very nurturing woman, but she’d always preferred boys over girls for some reason, and being the only male child, she was drawn instinctively to Lemy from the time he was a baby. Lincoln often wondered if she weren’t grooming him for something in the future, but as far as he knew, her love for him was soft, warm, and familial, not fiery and perverted.

Yeah, he’d get her to do it.

Done, he got out, toweled off, and then went into the bedroom; feeble fingers of sunlight crept through the blinds like ivy, and Lori stirred under the blankets. It was 6:30, and he always left the house at seven no matter where he was going; Lori, like clockwork, was there in her robe to peck his cheek and see him off. Reliable, faithful. Like the revolutions of a celestial body, you could count on her.

And Lincoln had come to love her for that more even than her beauty or her well-hidden tender heart.

At the dresser, he selected a pair of black slacks and a pair of underwear, in which he dressed. He went to the closet, took out a plaid short sleeved button up, then put it on and tucked it into his pants. After putting his shoes and socks on, he left the room and went downstairs; the hall was still, dark, and silent at this hour. Not very many souls occupied 1216 Franklin Ave these days...far fewer than any time in the past forty years, come to think of it. Generations, like the seasons, come and go, but the house itself remained. Thanks in part to Lana and her love of home restoration - it took her over a decade of weekends and evenings, but she transformed it from ready-to-collapse to good-for-another-twenty years.

Speaking of Lana, he found her in the kitchen, leaning back against the counter and sipping coffee from a mug. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a bun and covered by a dark blue cap with ROYAL WOODS RAPTORS across the front in gold; despite the chill she must surely know the day would hold, she wore a pair of denim cutoffs that reached almost to her knees and a dark blue T-shirt with LOUD HOME IMPROVEMENT over the left breast.

Lana had always been one of the more industrial and entrepreneurial of his sisters - a trait she shared with Lola. The latter owned a beauty salon in town and the former started Loud Home Improvement when she was in her twenties, a one woman outfit specializing in roofs, siding, and seamless gutters. She brought Lincoln aborard as a partner fifteen years ago (at his insistence), and today they employed ten men and turned a respectable profit. Lincoln handled the business side of things - taxes, payroll, licensing, and advertising - while Lana worked on site.

Usually, Lincoln didn’t go to jobs, but today he wanted to look into a few complaints from the customer, namely that one of their men was coming in late, leaving early, and walking around more than he actually worked.

His name was Chris and he was twenty-four. He reminded Lincoln a lot of Lemy, and for that reason, Lincoln had never liked him. He was a good worker, but he was lazy and got burned out fast. Two days running he and another boy were the only ones on the ground, siding the west wall of a new house, and those days, being nominally in charge, Chris decided to call it a day at 2pm after starting at 10.

That was unacceptable. The house, high on a hill overlooking Route 10, was fairly large, two stories, but installing siding and gutters, which is what they were contracted to do, shouldn’t take more than two weeks.

They’d been there three, and the siding wasn’t even done.

Needless to say, Lincoln wasn’t happy and neither was Lana.

“Hey, Linc,” she said and took a sip of coffee.

“Morning,” Lincoln said. He grabbed a mug from the cabinet over the sink and poured some in. He took a drink and sighed. “You almost ready?”

Lana nodded. “Yeah, just let me hit the bathroom.”

While she went off to use the toilet, Lincoln sipped his coffee and thought of Lemy - apparently that’s all that would be on his mind today. The bus ride from the city to Detroit would take a day, so this time tomorrow, maybe later, he’d be back after two years. Lincoln couldn’t say he outright dreaded seeing his son again, but he was not particularly looking forward to it either. He did not want to set sight on the shattered and pitiful creature Lemy had become, and he also didn’t want to do something stupid like inviting him back to the house; if he did that, things would surely go back to the way they were before...and that, like Chris shucking work, was unacceptable. He couldn’t have Lemy’s...trash...around his family.

He refused.

Even so, he already knew deep in his heart that he would sound him out...and offer him a chance if he promised to clean up his act. Yesterday, he told him they would talk about him moving back to Royal Woods but not into my house, but if Lemy got his shit together...Lincoln just might let him stay here. He was hard on his son, maybe even harsh, but at the end of the day, he still loved him, and love makes people do stupid things.

At the door, he pulled on his jacket and placed a chaste kiss on Lori’s lips. “Have a good day,” she said.

“You too.”

Outside, the day was blustery and cold; Lana shivered as she crossed the front lawn to her silver Ford F-550 at the curb. She slipped in behind the wheel and Lincoln slid into the passenger side, pulling the door closed behind him and buckling his seatbelt across his lap. Razor knives, screwdrivers, ratchet straps, plastic containers of nails, tape measures, and other things crowded the dash. “I need to stop at Western Union on the way,” he said.

“What for?” Lana asked nonchalantly and threw the truck into drive. They pulled away from the curb and fell in behind a minivan.

Lincoln took a deep breath. She was not going to be happy. “Lemy,” he said, looking straight ahead. In his periphery, she whipped her head around and furrowed her brows. “He’s coming out to sign that paperwork.”

He glanced at her, and her disdain was tempered with something else.

Relief.

“Well, that’s good,” she said, her mouth puckering as though she’d just sucked a lemon; she was only forty-five, but already, deep frown lines radiated from her mouth like lightning, and that gesture served only to exaggerate them. “It’s about time. He asked for money?”

Lincoln nodded. “For a bus ticket,” he said.

Lana hummed. “Watch him put it up his nose.”

That was one of Lincoln’s concerns when Lemy mentioned needing the money for a ticket - it wouldn’t be the first time he lied to get money. He was just going to have to trust him, though, which was no easy feat. If it the matter to which this pertained wasn’t so important, Lincoln would have told him to either hitchhike or piss off, but it was; he just wanted this over.

Lana turned onto Main Street. The Western Union office was ahead, wedged between a corner convenience store and a barber shop. “Is he staying at the house?” she asked as she navigated the truck to the curb.

“I imagine for at least one night,” Lincoln said, “you might not like him but he’s still -”

“I know,” Lana said sharply and lifted a forestalling hand, “I just don’t want anything to do with him while he’s here, and I want him gone as soon as possible.”

Lana was one of the few people in the family who had an honest excuse to dislike Lemy, Lincoln understood that and could even respect it, but when she talked like that, he couldn’t help feeling hurt and insulted.

Flushing, he threw the door open, jumped out, and went inside; there was a line at the counter, and he crossed his arms, trying to ignore all the blacks and Puerto Ricans ahead of him. As he waited, he called Lemy. “I’m here now.”

“Alright, I’ll be at mine in a few minutes, I had to walk away because they said I was loitering.”

When his turn at the window finally came, a fat Mexican woman with curly pink hair and a lip ring took down his information and the information Lemy recited into the phone. It took a few tries to go through for some reason, but finally it did. “Do you have it in your hand?” Lincoln asked before leaving the counter.

“Yeah,” Lemy said, “they’re giving it to me right now.”

“Good,” Lincoln said. He hesitated, then: “Don’t drink it up, please.”

“I won’t,” Lemy said, and the low, shameful quality of his voice made Lincoln inwardly flinch. Everything wrong with Lemy, he brought on himself, but if a man can hear pain in his son’s voice and not feel something, he’s bigger than Lincoln Loud.

He started to say something, anything, to soften to blow, but stopped himself. Tough love is best love, and tough is exactly what Lemy needed. In fact, if he had a little more toughness growing up, he might have straightened out. Lincoln considered sending him off to military school at one point, but Luna fought him tooth and nail. You’re not sending my son to that fucking place, she spat. You go to military school. Sigh. That was Luna for you. Lemy was her baby boy and he never did wrong in her eyes; it was always someone else’s fault.

That’s where he got it, his mother. Best thing Luna could have done for him was fuck off years before she actually did; without her he might have stood a fighting chance.

As it happened, he didn’t; she coddled him and now he was what he was.

“Alright,” Lincoln said gruffly as he walked out the door and into an icy blast of wind. The words I love you welled in his throat, and he swallowed them. “Keep me updated.”

Lana knelt by the passenger tire picking rocks out of the treads and Lincoln rolled his eyes. Lana was the type of woman who couldn’t sit still; she had to be doing something at all times. She wouldn’t even relax on the couch and watch a movie or a TV show - within minutes she’d be up and making busy work for herself. Lincoln thought she had ADHD; maybe she did, maybe she didn’t, no one knew because in addition to her perpetual restlessness, she also nursed a pathological aversion to going to the doctor’s.

She looked over her shoulder when he walked up, her eyes squinting against the glare of the morning sun.

“Okay, I will,” Lemy said, then hung up.

And that was that. In a day, maybe a day and a half, Lemy would be here and...and he didn’t know, he just didn’t. When he was a very young man, Lincoln ordered his life to the minutest detail. Everything had a place, everything was in its place, and his routine rarely changed. He liked knowing what the day held and was not fond of surprises. At all.

Lemy, however, was a wild card, and had been nothing but a surprise. In a way...and this shamed Lincoln...he hoped Lemy came out, signed the paperwork, then left so that everyone could move on with their lives.

His stomach rumbled with indigestion. He snapped the phone closed and slipped it into his jacket pocket while Lana got to her feet and slapped dust from her knees. “You do it?” she asked.

“No,” Lincoln said sourly, “I sent it to Santa Claus instead.” He didn’t want to hear Lana’s shit no matter how justified it may be, and he didn’t even want to think about this anymore. He brushed rudely past her, opened the door, and climbed into the truck. Lana sneered at him, then drew a deep, angry breath and went around the front end, getting in behind the wheel and slamming the door behind her.

She didn’t speak the rest of the way to the job, the atmosphere between the dark and heavy with tension. Lincoln ignored her sidelong glances and stared absently out the window. The nauseousness in his stomach increased until he reached into the glovebox, grabbed a bottle of Tums, and tossed a handful into his mouth, chewing them and grimacing at the dry, chalky flavor.

Outside of town, Main Street turned into Route 29 and wound through hilly woodland for several miles before the trees dropped away from the sides of the highway; Lincoln turned and spotted the house high on its hill, the facade covered in Tyvek paper fluttering in the breeze. The yard was dirt, and clouds kicked up as a white utility truck appeared from around back and started down the driveway. That was the electrician; Lincoln could have sworn he was supposed to come tomorrow.

Lana slowed and turned into the driveway, passing the electrician on the way up; the road was rutted and narrow, the terrain sloping down on the right hand side. At the top, she pulled around the side. Chris sat on a cooler smoking a cigarette; a tall, lanky kid with black hair and a goatee, he reminded Lincoln of a goat for some reason, even though he didn’t particularly look like one. The metal brake and the saw table were set up behind him, and scrap panels of siding, nails, and pieces of white aluminum littered the soft dirt. Charlie, the foreman, stood on the scaffolding fifty feet up, cutting a notch a corner post with snips; he wore a florescent yellow LOUD HOME IMPROVEMENT shirt with the sleeves cut off, his fat rolls bulging against the fabric and spilling out in places. His hair was shaved close to his scalp and sunglasses covered his eyes.

The staging consisted of two tall metal poles affixed to the roof with a long metal platform between them. Lincoln had never been up on it and never would; he never admitted out loud, but heights bothered him.

Charlie glanced at them as they parked, and Chris took a drag of his smoke; he moved with the sedate leisure of a man who wasn’t on the clock. Lincoln saw so much of Lemy in him it made him sick.

Lana killed the engine and they got out. “Hey, Lana,” Charlie called from the staging.

Lana leaned her head back and shielded her eyes with her hand, looking like a little girl clumsily saluting a fallen hero. “Hey, Charlie. Gettin’ ‘er done?”

“We’re gettin’ there,” he said noncommittally. Charlie had back problems and hadn’t been on the job since a few days after they started. Lana called him in today because she needed someone who wouldn’t knock off and go home after two hours of walking around looking stupid.

Lincoln glared at Chris; the boy took a drag and blew out a bluish haze that hung around his head like dragon’s breath. Look at him, Lincoln thought, fucking bum, freeloader, sitting there like a sack of shit on my dime, eating my food, using my power, bringing his asshole friends into my house…

When he realized he was thinking about Lemy again, he took a deep breath, walked over, and stood next to Lana before he said or did something rash.

“...should have this wall done by…” Charlie ticked his head from side to side in thought, “probably noon, then we’ll move the staging around front. I wanna get most of that done before we leave.”

Lana nodded. “Alright, that sounds good. If we can get out of here by Thursday, I’ll be a happy girl.”

“We’ll try our best,” he said with practiced patience.

Lincoln glanced at Chris: The boy flung his cigarette to the ground, got to his feet, and stretched. Your best isn’t good enough, he thought.

Putting her hands on her hips, Lana turned to the slacker and nodded for him to approach. “Come here.”

Chris, in the middle of slipping his tool belt around his waist, froze for a second, then hurriedly strapped in on and came over, his head hanging contritely. He knew what was coming, and why. “What’s with this coming in late and leaving early stuff?” she asked. “You left at two yesterday?”

Chris nodded. “Yeah, I’m sorry, I really needed to go, I had things to do.”

Things to do, huh? Lincoln had heard that one a million times before; always an excuse, never owning up.

“What things?” Lana asked incredulously.

“I had to see my probation officer.”

Lincoln rolled his eyes and shook his head; Chirs nervously darted his gaze to him then back to Lana.

“Yeah, well, if you gotta do something like that, you need to let me know in advance so I can do something else. Frank’s pissed that we’re taking so long and if he stops giving me work, I stop giving you work.”

Chris nodded jerkily. “Okay. Sorry. I won’t do it again.”

That’s another thing Lincoln had heard a million times before. Sorry, Dad, I promise I won’t do it again. I’ll change. Honest. Only he never did change; he got worse and worse until he was sitting drunk in his own piss with needles hanging out of his arms while…

Burning anger ignited in Lincoln’s chest, and he closed that thought out. He never laid his hands on his son, but the day he found him like that, he almost strangled him. Not metaphorically...not I could have choked him, lol...he came close to literally wrapping his hands around his throat and squeezing.

Fucking scumbag.

He was getting carried away again, like he always did when he thought too much about Lemy. Shame spread across the back of his neck and he took deep, calming breath. Lemy wasn’t a scumbag, he was just...he was mixed up and..and he wasn’t innocent, but it wasn’t all his fault either.

It was Luna’s.

Lincoln’s jaw set and his eyes narrowed. Sometimes he wished he beat her when he had the chance; drunk, scummy, cheating bitch.

“And when you’re on one of my jobs, I expect you to work, not wander around like you’re Moses,” Lana was saying, “got it?”

Chris nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” His voice was a low, chastised mumble.

With a glance up at Charlie, Lana turned and got into the truck; Lincoln followed, fighting the urge to reach out and grab Chris by his stupid face. Get it together while you can, dumbass. In his seat, his pulled his belt on as Lana threw it into reverse. “If he fucks up again, he’s gone,” she said irritably.

“Maybe that’ll wake him up,” Lincoln said.

“Doubt it.”

Honestly, so did he: Lemy was fired from a dozen jobs over the years, including this one: He lasted three months before Lana went behind Lincoln’s back and canned him. Lincoln wasn’t happy about it, but he let it happen because Lemy deserved it - he kept showing up drunk and high, and the day Lana went off on him, he and another guy were carrying one of the staging poles when Lemy stumbled and sent the end crashing through a window. The day before that, he sided a whole wall crooked; they had to tear it down and start all over again.

From what he’d heard, he was no better now. He was working at a cleaning company and had been for a while, but it was only a matter of time until he got himself fired.

He wondered if Lana would let him come back to work...if he was committed to changing.

Probably not.
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