Peeled Paint by Lindsay Thorimbert

Peeled Paint by Lindsay Thorimbert

Jake dropped his tool belt and ran through the improvised parking lot between two construction sites. The sun-cooked earth clung to his boots, billowing motes into the heat-distorted air. “No. Get out of there.” He shoved the man rummaging through the box of his truck. “Dude, I know you heard me.”

The guy turned and shrugged, cans jangling in the garbage bag slung over his shoulder. “Sorry, thought it was mine.” His red hands were swollen, lined black where the skin creased. He was coated in dust and showed a missing tooth when he smiled. “You got a couple bucks? For the bus?”

“No.” Jake pushed him again.

“I was only looking for cans.” The guy wiped his palm down the front of his stained t-shirt. “It’s hard times out here.” He limped toward the street, looking over his shoulder at Jake. “I’m getting by without hurting nobody. It’s not easy.”

“Go rob someone else.” Jake unlocked the truck, the door handle hot on his fingertips. “Or get a job, maybe.” The man didn’t seem to hear. Jake gathered his tool belt into the cab, put his key in the ignition and relished the roar of the engine. Classic, American steel.

His commute was a highlight of his day normally but it was ruined this afternoon. He grumbled, sweat beading across his forehead. This town used to be safe. Kids used to wander alone downtown, no problem. Not anymore. Junkies were popping up everywhere now, littering syringes that anyone could get stuck with. Jake flexed his grip on the steering wheel and squealed out of the parking lot. These days, all kids saw when they went outside were homeless folks wheeling around on stolen bikes, jabbering at nothing or passed out in the street.

Jake stopped at a red light and stared down a skinny woman leaning against her shopping cart, oblivious to the baking sun above. Her cart was piled with tools, bicycle wheels, a huge spool of copper wire and other detritus. Jake shouted to her through his closed window, but she didn’t notice. Her eyes were glazed and lost in space. Jake fumed, his anger grinding, the temperature in the truck ticking up.

The police didn’t do a thing about these people. They could have packed the prisons and herded the addicts into treatment, but they didn’t. Instead, they pumped the junkies full of ‘safe’ drugs – whatever that meant – and left them to do as they pleased, leaving people like Jake to pay for it.

He wished he could snap his fingers and the junkies would vanish, not killed necessarily, but moved somewhere he didn’t have to see them, where they didn’t mess with his stuff.

He pushed the woman from his mind as he accelerated through the intersection, watching the city passing through the windshield. Grocery stores and parking lots. Gas station signs showed prices had jumped again, reminding Jake he couldn’t afford to keep the truck running.

Dark thoughts flowed through him like molten rock. He punched the passenger seat headrest. Their hands were always down his pockets. The addicts robbed him first and the government did him a second time, all so they could pour his money down the drain. There was no room for honest, hard-working folks anymore. Jake pulled off the highway, panting in the hot truck, too stubborn to roll down the window which might help his anger fade.

He and Debra would’ve renewed their mortgage this month. Would’ve. She’d wanted to go back to work when they’d first got into trouble. He shook his head, remembering their argument, how she had stalked from the room when he said nobody would pay her anything, not after fifteen years at home.

He pulled onto the quiet avenue where they’d lived, stopped outside their split-level bungalow and let the truck idle. It was a good house and he’d been proud of it, even if the paint was peeling. He and Debra had been lucky. They’d bought early and never missed a payment, not until everything went crazy.

The realtor’s face grinned at Jake from the for-sale sign staked into the lawn, foreclosure in white letters above her head. They’d tried to hold on but it wasn’t enough. Regret stoked Jake’s anger. He steeped in the mixture until he finally put the truck in gear and pulled away.

He found Debra in the grocery store parking lot, wearing her uniform, black slacks, a lime-green golf shirt. She smiled, leaning against a pedal bike. Jake frowned at the sight, parked and helped her load the bike into the truck box.

“Do you like it?” She climbed into the passenger seat. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph it’s hot in here. Open a window for Christ sakes.”

They drove to their new apartment in silence, Jake’s anger slackening at Debra’s smile, dissipating out her open window. He parked on the street outside their building.

“Is that him?” Debra said. “He’s walking over.”

They exited and Jake heaved the bicycle from the back of the truck.

“Is the bike included?” The guy laughed and rolled his shoulders back. He was young, fit and well-dressed, with wavy, gelled hair and expensive sunglasses resting on his forehead.

“No,” Jake said.

The man slid past him to examine the truck, took the key from Jake’s hand, started the engine and took it for a spin around the block.

Debra reached for Jake’s hand as they waited. “It’ll be okay,” she said.

He wanted to believe her. He straddled the bike and smiled for her benefit as he rested his steel-toe on a pedal. “Everyone’ll think I was caught driving drunk.”

“It’s not bad,” the man said when he returned. “I’ll give you two thousand.”

Jake leaned into the open window, knuckles white on the door panel, anger biting at the low-ball offer. “Three.”

The man rolled his eyes. “Twenty-two hundred. That’s all I got.”

“You’re robbing me blind.” Anger frothed and bubbled. Jake imagined his hands around the man’s neck, but he glanced at Debora whose soft expression balanced against the man’s smirk. Jake tightened his grip on the truck, his pride battling against good sense. He reached through the open window.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Lindsay Thorimbert 2025