Chuck Logan - Homefront

Plus he could give Jimmy some responsibility. Jack him up.

Jimmy Klumpe. Gator shook his head, leaned back in his seat, and ran through Jimmy’s story. Like the regulars at Skeet’s Bar observed after a few beers: Jimmy Klumpe had won the Moose Lottery.

Jimmy’s money dilemma started when his mom and dad were driving home from the little casino near Thief River Falls, three years ago January. Icy roads and a ground fog were a contributing factor, Keith Nygard wrote in his report. They rounded a turn, possibly too fast. Old Tom was known to have a heavy foot and also was an authority on everything, including how fast to drive on slick back roads. What it turned out he wasn’t so smart about was the bull moose that trotted right through a barbed-wire fence and into the path of his old Bonneville. They died instantly, Ed Durning, the medical examiner, said. In an explosion of air bags, trailing barbed wire, entrails, and moose shit, Keith Nygard said. Took two hours with the jaws of life for the Fire and Rescue boys from Thief River Falls to free the antlers that had pinned the bodies in the front seat.

Jimmy, an only child, turned out to be the beneficiary on their life insurance policies, and found himself in possession of a million bucks. Up till then, Jimmy’s life had been all downhill since he was homecoming king to Cassie’s queen senior year. He always drank a little too much and stayed tangled in family apron strings, marking time as a driver at his dad’s garbage company. Now he had inherited his dad’s house on the lake and Klumpe Sanitation, which consisted of three trucks, a garage, the dump, and the county contract.

Nine years ago Cassie had married Jimmy. Which Gator thought was a dumb idea, knocked up or not. Marrying a garbage truck driver who likely as not ended Friday night facedown on Skeet’s bar. Five months later Teddy was born. Gator did admit that Cassie had cleaned up her act and was working as a receptionist at True North Realty in town. She was positioned to watch the lakefront boom start to take off.

They made their fresh start about the time Gator started his bit in Stillwater. They sold their rambler in town and moved into the vacant Klumpe family house on Big Glacier. After an initial spending spree-a new bathroom, a Jeep Cherokee, a snowmobile, a sixteen-foot Lund-Cassie settled on a plan. The lakefront on Big Glacier was sewn up, but Little Glacier, to the north, was still open.

Gator, hearing of the insurance windfall, suddenly transformed himself into an attentive letter writer and devoted brother-“Really, Cassie, you owe me something for that thing I did on your behalf a certain October in high school.” Cassie coughed up a modest investment so Gator could turn the garage on the old farm into a tractor restoration shop when he got out of prison.

Jimmy and Cassie got ahead of the real estate market and spent their windfall on three thousand feet of lakefront on Little Glacier, planning to divide it into ten lots. They hired an architect, settled on a set of plans, and went to the bank for a construction loan. They secured the loan and broke ground on a model lake home. Once the first house sold, they’d roll over the profit and build another until they had built on all ten lots.

Gator, the model prisoner, did his time and returned to Glacier County with a business plan to rehabilitate his criminal ass. He had a supportive parole officer, a new set of tools, an air compressor, and sixteen hot antique tractors sitting in the junkyard behind his shop.

Then came the fatal day that Cassie agreed to watch the neighbor’s three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Marci. Except she had an appointment at the spa in Bemidji to get a body wrap and her legs waxed. So she called their freaky cousin, Sandy, to watch Marci while she drove to Bemidji to soak in seaweed…

Dumb.

But the way Gator had worked it out was…well…nothing short of fucking brilliant.

For him, at least.

Gator wheeled up the drive of the dark house hooded with gables where old Tom Klumpe never used to give the kids candy on Halloween; where, in fact, Gator and Keith, twelve years old, had set a bag of cow pies on fire on Tom’s doormat one Halloween and rung the bell.

He parked the truck and trudged up the porch steps, heard the loud beat of voice-over aerobic music. Anticipating the bittersweet headache he’d have by the time he left, he rang the bell.

The music stopped, and a moment later Cassie opened the door. She still looked great on the outside, but her eyes gave away the inside; two empty blue holes screaming to be filled. She was barefoot, wearing these little red gym shorts that rode up, revealing the start of her rear end. Her white tube top was damp and clingy with sweat. She had her hair heaped in a wild pony spray, fastening by a silver headband. Seeing the tallowy perspiration on her throat and arms still could halt his breath.

“You must have the heat turned way up,” he said.

“What?” she said.

“That outfit.”

“I was doing an exercise tape. C’mon in,” she said, staring at his left hand. The way his fingers curled, holding something. Noting her attention, he withdrew the hand, put it behind his back. “Hey, don’t tease me, now,” she pouted, moving into his path, grabbing for his hand. They bumped torsos, then the sibling roughhouse got stuck hot at the hips. She reached around, trying to catch his hand.

“Hey, not so needy,” Gator danced to the side, grinning, leaning back, loving the unbridled covetousness surging in her eyes. “You’re starting to like this stuff way too much, probably should taper you off…”

“Gimme,” Cassie demanded, flinging both arms around him, grasping.

“Said you just wanted to lose some weight. Looks to me like you lost it,” Gator now held his hand straight in the air, making her go up on tiptoes. “Okay, you can have it if you promise me you’ll stop-”

“Christsake, Gator, stop playing games.”

“Promise me.”

“Okay, I promise,” she said, heaving her eyes.

Gator let the folded square of Reynold’s Wrap drop from his palm. It glittered between them and landed on the floor. She immediately stooped and snatched it up, and as she started back up, he placed a heavy hand on her shoulder, holding her face level with his belt buckle.

Then he removed his hand and stepped back. Serious now. “Don’t go smoking this stuff, you understand,” he said.

“Not me,” she said, making the packet disappear in the waistband of her shorts.

“So how’s Teddy doing?” Gator said, staring at her throat, feeling his temples start to throb.

“He’s okay, upstairs finishing his homework.”

“Jimmy?”

“In the basement, watching an old Vikes-Packer game on Teevo.”

“Get him,” Gator said with muted authority, not taking off his coat. “You both should hear this.”

Cassie padded off across the barnlike living room with the old brown leather chairs and couch she hated and called down the stairwell, “Jimmy, Gator’s here.” Then she hurried toward the kitchen, where Gator heard the door to the downstairs bathroom close.

While he waited, Gator looked over the living room, then the dining room with its lace curtains, framed duck stamps, and clubfooted oak table. No wonder she was half nuts, living in this museum with Jimmy, doing her Buns of Steel tapes.

She kept it clean, though. Wasn’t at all like Mom in that regard, except that she married a drunk.

Jimmy came up the stairs with a tall water glass of Jack Daniel’s. His eyes were a medium blur at 8:00 P.M. Little dots of crumbly yellow junk food were smeared on his T-shirt. Popcorn maybe. When Cassie walked back into the dining room, she was much improved.