Chapter 2- Interest
M yrtle Kainker had soured on the lemons life had given her years ago. She was always an exceptionally bright child, she never stood for the nonsense of being an awkward teenager who was not quite cute enough to be attractive. Her darker skin made her a target for fair-skinned kids in class with a better grade of hair, as well as made her what the boys believed was an easy ride in the back seat of their dad’s Buick. However, at a young age, Myrtle understood what knowledge meant and that her self-esteem wasn’t truly based on how she looked, but what was in her head.
Being born the same year on the same day that MTV launched the channel into the metaverse, she had developed an early love of music and how things worked. Her mother, who loved to dance as much as she loved to wear skintight leopard print pants, often held parties at the end of the month, charging a nominal fee for entry. As Myrtle grew and began to understand how to count past the number ten, her mother, Laney, put her in charge of the collected funds which were used to pay the rent. However, it never failed that once Laney got into her cups, the men at the party wanted a private audience with the door cashier.
“Mr. Johnnie, your daughter Latricia is in my class. I wonder how she would feel if I told her you are trying to get me in a dark corner, asking me to kiss you on the mouth? Do you think, while you’re at my Momma’s house that some man is at your house asking Latricia to kiss him on the mouth?” Myrtle asked, watching Johnnie Williams get the hell up and head home.
Soon, word spread that Myrtle wasn’t the girl to try out, but the boys at school didn’t get the notice. Several times she found herself surrounded when the other girls intentionally left her alone and in jeopardy from froggies feeling jumpy. Smart as a whip, she always talked herself out of the situation, but a day would come when she couldn’t. Instead of trying to prepare for the confrontation, Myrtle prepared for the now. The school bake sale was when she learned of her talent with chemistry.
The brownies, cooked to perfection with just the right amount of nuts and a shiny top which crinkled when you bit into the chocolate yumminess, were laced with a bit of leftover marijuana from Laney’s last rent party, along with a capful of Milk of Magnesia and melted chocolate flavored laxative. Myrtle had played it smart and baked two batches of brownies. The ones for sale were simple brownies, the freebies, in bite size increments, shared with the classmates in her homeroom. Myrtle knew that Mrs. Phillips, her favorite teacher, was diabetic, “Ma’am, with your diabetes, I wouldn’t want your blood sugar to bottom out, so don't eat these. Try the others where I used less sugar and chocolate.”
Therefore, Mrs. Phillips didn’t partake in the decadent delight. However, all the students in her class spent the remainder of the day racing to the toilets. Myrtle smiled, being the only student in her class to make it to the bake sale, selling out of the brownies within the hour.
Mrs. Phillips pulled her to the side. “Myrtle, did you put something in those brownies?”
“Yes, Ma’am, I made those brownies with extra baking chocolates and love. I think I may have gone too heavy on the love,” Myrtle said, offering a smile. “Is something wrong?”
“All the kids in your homeroom are sick,” Mrs. Phillips said.
“I don’t understand,” Myrtle said honestly. “I sold out of the brownies at the bake sale and no one is sick from those. Perhaps one of the kids brought in something else that everyone tried...you never know these days.”
Mrs. Phillips said no more about it, and the kids in the class seemed to back off harassing Myrtle in elementary school. The summer before Myrtle’s freshman year in high school, Laney’s rent party turned sour. A jealous woman accused Laney of sleeping with her husband, then called the police on the party. Although it wasn’t a Speak Easy per se, and Laney technically wasn’t selling liquor, nor was she selling illegal substances, the police deemed the living environment unfit for Myrtle to remain.
It was the last time she saw her mother when they placed Myrtle in the car with the social worker. She was taken into care that evening, and in the next two days, she was sent to Ohio to live with her Grandmother Evelyn, a quirky woman with a penchant for herbology. The farm she lived on bordered a stone house farm owned by James and Ella Neary, who had one daughter, Mary, who gave birth to three sons: Ezekiel, Gabriel, and Isaiah.
Myrtle didn’t trust the boys, although they were handsome young men, she learned to maintain a healthy distance. The middle son had dark eyes which kind of creeped her out, but he was gentle in his words. When he spoke to her, he never stood close, always far enough away that she didn’t feel threatened. He never spoke to her with his brothers around, or if she came to the house with her Grandmother Evelyn, he made a point of speaking with her in the presence of the adults. This approach built a trust between them, and when he’d return in the summers to spend time with his grandmother, whom he absolutely adored, they developed a friendship.
This friendship helped her get into college and helped Myrtle obtain scholarships and an internship with a chemistry lab at Langley. The Masters/PhD program she completed in chemistry earned her several accolades along with a few patents and side jobs working for a covert operation called The Company. The friend from her childhood siphoned her off to return to Ohio with a teaching gig at a local university with a private lab and a farmhouse nearby. Occasionally, per their collaborative agreement, Myrtle agreed to take in one or two young teens Gabriel was helping to find a new home or a new life.
“Would you like to keep the income flowing in Myrtle to work on private projects to continue funding your research?” Gabriel asked one evening.
“Of course; I would be a fool to say no,” she told him.
He spoke of anger. He spoke of anger needing a home and purpose. His pretty mouth talked about the greater good and being a part of something bigger. Then Gabriel said he needed her to make lemonade from the lemons she was handed.
“Lemons?”
“No, Lemon,” he said. “It will be your handle. We need specialized chemicals made. I have a friend, down in Arkansas who has the same specialization. Work with him to perfect the formulas and you have funding.”
“What’s with the lemon?”
“Your handle. Never tell him your name, just your handle, which is Lemon. He is Merge, a Direction,” Gabriel said. “In the Southeast region, each state is assigned a Technician to oversee special needs in the state. Some states have more than one, like Ohio has more than one. In the Southeast, they are the Directions whose handles are named after traffic signs. In the Great Lakes, there are the Fruits. You are a Fruit. Therefore, I deem you, Lemon.”
“You’re creepy,” she said. “Even as a kid, I thought you were creepy and grooming me. Silly me, thought you wanted to fuck me.”
“Honestly, I did have an interest,” Gabriel said. “I have always loved your mind, which made me love you, and I wanted us to be closer. Sex is too basic for our relationship, Myrtle, but I am a man. A man thinks of those things, but a man of purpose moves differently. I move differently.”
“So, that means a hearty fuck is off the table?”
“For now,” Gabriel said. “I would rather have your respect and loyalty, knowing you can trust me rather than a night in your arms as a lover.”
“Oh well,” she sighed, looking at the thick notebook in front of her. “What kind of shit are we making?”
“You’re perfecting a formula to break down a human body in less than 24 hours,” he said. “Include in the composition the breakdown for bones and teeth.”
“Ooh, I should be scared, but I want to know if I can do it!”
“I need you in Arkansas by the weekend,” he told her. “My friend has a farm. He’s a guy and you will be safe with him. Do the work, keep a low profile, and a bonus is waiting for you when you’re done.”
When they were done, she had enough to buy her own farm and set up her lab to continue her research on the benefits of snake venom to cure drug addictions. It was going well, and now a man she didn’t know had shown up and killed Frank and Larry, her babies. She was furious and the man needed to die. In her office was the perfect recipe she’d created with Mr. Merge, which went into a cup of hot tea. The formula took the sipper of the tea into a nice slumber, never to awaken. This dude was going to get a cup of tea with his breakfast.
It was then that she remembered the woman standing there who’d come to be trained by her.
“I’m Lemon,” Myrtle said. “These are my wards, Ayanna and Bria. I don’t know who this asshole is that came and killed Frank and Larry.”
When she said the names, Myrtle indicated the heads in the pickle jar.
Helen, her face expressionless, didn’t miss a beat. “I assume Larry was the cobra.”
“Yeah, how’d you figure that?” Myrtle asked.
“Because Frank is a name you give to a bad son-of-a-gun who looks cute but is deadly,” Helen said. “The Gaboon looks like a friendly little pet but is truly toxic, kind of like a mobster named Frank.”
“Exactly,” Lemon said. “I think I might like you. Him, I don’t like.”
“He was right to take them down versus allowing them to get away or find a dark spot to hide,” Helen said. “What if he’d bitten one of the girls or worse? Will it be possible for you to get more?”
Jared was watching the women closely. The one who arrived made him feel uneasy. Her eyes assessed everything and she was assessing him. He didn't like it in the least. It felt as if she were attempting to unravel his soul.
Helen watched the stranger with a mild interest. His eyes were scanning everything around him. Suddenly, the scanning stopped and his eyes fixed on an image. He reached for the pickle jar, snatching from Lemon’s hand. In one motion, he scooped up the carcasses from the ground, moving at a clip to the barn.
Helen turned to see what the stranger spotted, noticing the arrival of the squad car. When she turned back, the man was standing at a respectable distance from Lemon.
He spoke, barely moving his lips as the squad car approached, saying, “I’m Jared. Jared Bane.”
“Myrtle Kainker, Ph.D.,” Lemon added.
Helen said, “I'm cousin Helen McDaniel from Indiana.”
The squad car came to a stop. A Smokey the Bear hat came out of the vehicle first, followed by a burly man with a shock of ginger hair, a wide, bulbous tipped red nose, and mirrored glasses over a porn star mustache.
“Doc Myrtle,” the officer said.
“Sheriff Sparta,” she replied as the nosey man took in the new people who stood between him and wooing the woman he wanted in his bed.
“Tornado last night did some damage. We spotted a crumpled overturned truck in the field about five miles down the road, and this is the nearest farm. Figured if anyone made it out that vehicle alive more’n likely ended up here.”
“I survived and ended up here,” Jared said. “Not sure how my truck is faring, though.”
Sheriff Sparta didn’t like another cock being in the house with the hens he’d planned to take over. “You stayed here last night?”
“Yes, Doc Myrtle let me stay in the barn on a cot,” Jared said, maintaining eye contact with the officer.
His eyes went to Helen. “And you?”
“Just arrived,” Helen said. “I’m Myrtle’s cousin Helen from Indiana. My Ma still likes us girls to stay close.”
Jared drew the attention back to himself, diverting the shifty cop’s chances to probe deeper. “Officer, how bad is my truck?”
“Yeah, it’s gonna need some work for it to be to be roadworthy. I know a couple of tow places nearby,” the officer said, his eyes going to the girls. “You ladies made it in last night as well?”
“No Suh,” Bria, the oldest of the two said. “We were on an away volleyball game to Cincinnati. The bus dropped us off a little while ago at the school and we just drove home.”
Myrtle didn’t like Cletus Sparta. He was the worst kind of cop, overly fucking helpful to the point of being nosey and annoying. Several times he’d popped up on Myrtle while she was working and always when she was home alone. Thus far, he’d just been helpful, but she could tell he was always checking to see if there was a man about. She also didn’t like the way he looked at the girls, meaning she knew his type. If he worked his way into the door, he would end up spending the night in different beds. She had no use for a man like him. If the Jared fella was the same sort, he could get the hell on as well, and she’d pay his bus fare.
“You moving on once you get your truck?” Officer Sparta asked Jared.
It was the way he asked which raised the hackles on Jared’s back. His eyes went to the lady who seemed uncomfortable with the line of inquiry. He also noticed the tension in the girls, and the woman who’d just arrived, her body language also changed, registering the officer as a threat. He went into protector mode.
“Depends on how long it takes to repair the truck,” Jared said. “In the meantime, Doc Myrtle here has a lot of damage around here that I plan to clear out for her. I need to fix that roof, put in those missing windowpanes, and a few other things the storm damaged.”
Officer Sparta asked, seeming irritated for no apparent reason, “You’re hanging around?”
“I’m going to stay and take care of whatever Doc Myrtle and Ms. Helen need me to do around the place,” Jared said.
“Don’t like the idea of a drifter being here with these ladies; you got some ID?”
“Of course,” Jared said, slowly reaching into his front pocket and removing a military ID. He limped over, passing it to the officer. “I have three younger sisters myself who are my best friends on this planet. Wonderful, accomplished women, whom I absolutely treasure. It can be rough on a lady in this world. For Doc Myrtle’s kindness in giving me shelter last night, I plan to repay her with a bit of cleanup.”
Officer Sparta handed back the ID. He removed the glasses to stare directly into Jared’s eyes. His chest puffed up a bit, but Jared didn’t take the bait. “Mr. Bane, are ya headed somewhere in particular?”
“Yeah, I’m retiring soon and was headed towards Cleveland to see an old pal I served with when the tornado hit,” Jared said.
The officer’s eyes went to the girls. The eldest of the two began to smile at Helen, who returned the grin. Helen was impressed—they read the situation well and were moving accordingly, which meant there were stories here to learn and understand.
Bria asked, “Helen, please tell me you’re making Auntie's famous cookies!”
“No, but I do have her pound cake recipe,” Helen said, smiling back. “I think that, and if Myrtle here has some fresh cream, we can make vanilla ice cream to go with it, but man, I could really use some breakfast. Cuz, you hungry?”
“Sure am,” Lemon said, looking at the Sheriff. “Thanks for checking on us. We appreciate you. Mr. Bane, let’s get some coffee going, take a walk over the property to assess the damage, and get your vehicle here to give it a once over so we have a plan of action. However, first, we need to get a better look at the leg. You're going to have to come out of those pants.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Jared said, looking at the Officer. “Sir, do you have those tow companies we can call?”
“Yeah, let me get a phone number for you,” Officer Sparta said.
“Sure, but I’m not going to be able to make the calls,” Jared said.
“And why not?”
From his back pocket, he removed his phone. The crack in the screen of the device appeared as if the phone had been dropped from ten stories up and landed face down. He held out his hands as if in defeat. “Last night, this is how my body felt as well. Getting on that roof is going to be a challenge,” Jared added with a grimace on his face.
Officer Sparta went to the squad car, returning a moment or two later with a couple of business cards for local tow services. Jared thanked the man as he tipped his hat and climbed inside the cruiser. Just as he’d arrived, he left, more than likely with more questions than necessary.
“He’s going to be back,” Helen said.
Bria spoke up, “That’s part of the problem. Hopefully, if Mr. Jared is around for a minute, it might deter him. We don’t like how he looks at us. Dirty ole fox eyeing the chicks in the pen.”
Jared said, “I got that feeling too. He’s looking for an in, and when he finds one, he’s going to make everyone’s life a living hell.”
From his other back pocket, Jared removed a second phone. He punched in three numbers and a voice answered. In the line he said, “A tornado caught me and my truck, turned my life upside down. I’m, where am I?... Oxford, Ohio. Find who? Well, that is where I am, believe it or not, and there is a nosey Smoky sniffing around. There’s a lot of damage to the truck, so I'm going to need some assistance to make it roadworthy, or another truck, but it feels as if I may need to hang here for a bit. She has some storm damage and the Smoky has intentions for this family. Plus, I think she said her name is Cranberry, has arrived. Oh, really? Interesting. Roger that.”
They watched him as he ended the call and put the nice phone away. He wasn’t who he seemed, and all eyes were on him. He eased their fears with one sentence. “The Archangel wants me to stick around for a while.”