5. Shiloh
Shiloh
They discharged me from the clinic the next day, gave me some pain meds and scheduled me for a check-up next week. I don’t know how I’ll afford any of this. I don’t have health insurance and I’m barely getting by at the inn.
But while I lay there in that hospital bed, staring at those awful fluorescent lights, I made a plan. There’s a reason I didn’t tell Tatum or Ledger Hayes that Grey did this. If I did, there would be a whole process I have no interest in going through.
I do want him to pay, but it will be my hand wielding justice. I had Tatum take a bunch of photos for me, though, just in case he tries it again.
I called Jenkins at the diner and he already knew what happened because Ledger was poking around.
I should have assumed he would. It doesn’t matter, though.
They said to take all the time I needed and let them know when I’m ready to come back.
Too bad for my bank account that will be tomorrow.
I called the Wooden Cowboy to tell them I needed a day off.
Big surprise, they already knew I was in the clinic too.
Thanks Greer. Sometimes this town is too damn small.
After I manage to ease myself into my car, I drive down to Ella’s Inn and nearly cry as I pay for another night so at least I’m covered tonight and tomorrow night. I don’t know what I’ll do from there, but at least I have a place to lay my head.
I shower and change and head to the general store to get what I need. It felt like half the town was there, staring at me. They probably knew too, but I don’t care. I have a one-track mind right now, and it’s Grey Kensington.
Today is Thursday, and he goes to his buddy Trent’s house to play poker. A friend picks him up because he gets shit-faced, and he always leaves at six at night with a six-pack in his hand, and usually doesn’t get back until one in the morning. Which gives me plenty of time.
I’m slow moving so it takes me a while to get my things and get to his house. I wanted to be there to watch him leave. Unfortunately, my 90s Wagoner is easy to spot since it’s so old, so I have to park down the street in the direction I know he won’t go.
It’s 5:50 pm and I lean back in my seat, watching the front door. His truck is still in the driveway.
Ten minutes later, he opens the front door with a six-pack in his hand, and his hair brushed back because he took a shower.
Like clockwork, a truck passes me and stops at the house.
Grey hops in, and they leave in the opposite direction.
I wait another ten minutes to make sure he didn’t forget anything.
If he comes back and catches me, I don’t think I’ll walk out of that trailer, and I don’t want that piece of shit to be my grave.
This time I came prepared, though. On my shopping spree, I bought myself a revolver. I tuck into the back of my pants as I drive up the street, parking only a couple of houses down, and get out with my bag of vengeance.
I look around and don’t see any of the normal kids playing, and no one is outside doing their thing as summer drops into fall.
Taking that as my sign, I get myself up his driveway and have to take a second to catch my breath before I climb the stairs.
Using my key, I push into the house and look around. It’s like nothing happened. He cleaned up, which I have to admit surprises me. He must have thought I’d call the cops. Joke is on him, not telling the cops anything gives me the advantage and a bit of safety. I hope.
I drop my stuff on the kitchen table and see a business card. Of course. This guy doesn’t know when to quit. Looks like the good lookin’ sheriff made a stop here. I know he knows, but I also know there’s nothing he can do if I don’t tell him anything.
No matter.
I grab my can of red spray paint and head into the living room first. Setting the can on the coffee table, I take his guitar off its stand next to the sofa.
It hurts like a bitch, but I swing that thing as if I’m at bat and about to hit a home run out of the park.
It cracks so I swing again and again; adrenaline zings through my veins and I hardly feel my ribs ache. Luckily, I just fractured three.
That’s okay, I’ll shatter his guitar instead.
The strings ting and twang as I smash it. When I’m satisfied, I toss it on the couch in pieces and grab my spray paint.
Last year, when Grey went on a hunting trip with his friends, he somehow got a six-point buck. I have never seen a man so proud of a typical buck. He got home and sent the head right to the taxidermist.
My father hunted as a way to put food on the table for us, but he never wanted to put a deer head in our house.
Grey was determined, and he didn’t care if I didn’t like it. Like his truck, it’s one of his prized possessions. It won’t be now.
I shake the can of spray paint, as directed, and start spraying over its eyes like a bandit, then its ears, and give it a red hairdo, and get the wood it’s mounted to.
When I’m satisfied, I cap the can and move on to my next thing. I open the cabinet he keeps a bag of tools, finding a drill and grab a long, skinny bit, then move outside.
He keeps a small and expensive trout boat, which he’s obsessed with, in the back next to the shed.
Circling the boat, I pick out my spots. Little places he won’t see until it’s too late.
Angling the drill into the side of the boat, I hit it so it can gain some grip and squeeze the trigger until it’s through the hull of the boat in a dark corner.
I find a couple of other places and checked them from the inside. Unless you’re looking for the holes, you won’t see it until water is already filling the interior. Perfect. I blow across the drill like I just fired a gun and smile to myself.
After I put the drill back, I pull all his TV dinners out, unwrap them, and toss them all into the sink where he’ll find the defrosted sludge.
When I’m done with that, I grab my box of snappers I played with as a kid.
We threw them on the street and they’d make a ‘pop’ sound like a mini firework.
A perfect size to put under a toilet seat.
So when he gets home, he’ll probably take a really long dump and hopefully, I’ll scare it right out of him.
I smile to myself, placing half the box strategically around the edge of the bowl, and put the seat back down because he never lifts it, and inspect my handy work.
Unless he’s really paying attention, he won’t know until it’s too late, and I doubt he will because he always comes back three sheets to the wind.
Finished with the inside, I grab my bag and head back outside for the finishing touches.
There’s a lot of things Grey loves; I thought for a time I was on that list. It doesn’t matter that I was wrong, but I sure as hell will make sure I ruin all the things on that list, and the last is that stupid truck.
He couldn’t wait to add upgrades to it. Now, he’ll have to tack on a new paint job and tires too.
I lock the door behind me, take my keys out of my purse, and walk along the side of the truck.
The awful sound of metal against metal fills my ears as I go all the way around.
I make sure to do three lines across each side and then draw a flower on the back tailgate.
Then I pull out my can of red spray paint and look around again.
I don’t see anyone, and if anyone is watching me out the window, oh well.
I shake the can and spray his rims, his windows, and where I keyed it.
Though it’s hard to reach, I angle the spray, so it blows back onto the windshield.
Eventually the can rattles empty, so I toss it and pull the knife out of my purse.
I stop and try to catch my breath for a minute.
My body is on fire, but I keep telling myself I can rest later. I have a job to do.
Opening my knife, I shove it into the tire.
When I pull it out, the air starts wheezing out of the rubber, and I move on to the next one.
For this one, I don’t simply put a hole in it, but I saw my way through the rubber.
I intentionally bought this knife with a sharp serrated blade to get through the tire.
When I finish with that one, it’s all I can do to put a hole in the other two.
Sweaty and out of breath, I smile at my handy work and walk back to my car, but another idea comes to me, and it feels almost poetic.
Because it’s his bat.
I toss my bags into the car and grab the baseball bat I took with me.
Going back to his truck, I take a deep breath and swing into the taillights. Then I move to the front and swing into each of those, and for good measure, and it hurts so bad my vision tunnels for a moment, I put sizable dents into the doors.
Sweat drips down my face, and the pain is about to bring me to my knees, but I smile at the art and head back to my car. Before I get in, I spot my old neighbor, Maise. She smiles and waves at me, and I wave back at her before driving away.
If only I could be there to see the look on his face when he gets home.