WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

CHAPTER TWO

The next day at Safeway, Ennis took right to the work running the fork-lift and was grateful that he had learned to use one out at Cole's place. He had the truck unloaded in record time and the items stacked exactly as he was told. His boss was impressed with his work and told him so. He ate the peanut butter sandwiches that he had packed for his lunch and the day sped by. The newspaper job didn't go as well. It took him three hours to finish all the paper throwing because he hadn't learned the route yet. His boss was not upset with him and explained that it often took a while before a new delivery person got the route memorized.

It was after seven when he pulled into the motel parking lot and got out. Jack opened the door for him and greeted him with a hug after it was closed and locked. "You got the job?" Ennis asked.

"How did you guess?" Jack asked.

"Cause you're grinnin' from ear to ear." Ennis caressed the side of Jack's face.

"I been goin' nuts waitin' for you to get here. I even thought of goin' over to Safeway but decided I'd better not."

"Have you eaten yet? I'm starved!" Ennis tossed his jacket and hat on the second bed that held all their belongings.

"Nope. I been waitin' on you. How about some of this stew tonight? It'd be fast and easy clean up."

"That sounds good. I'm beat." Ennis sat down on the bed and put his feet up.

"The job at Safeway pretty hard work?" Jack said as he worked the can opener.

"Nah. Spent most of the time ridin' around on the fork lift. Boss wanted to do a bunch of movin' stuff in the warehouse around so it would be easier to find things. The toughest job was the paper throwin'. But that was because I didn't know where any of the streets was."

"You could always quit that job if you want – now that I got me a job." Jack offered.

"No. I'll learn them streets. It shouldn't take too long. With gettin' off at Safeway at three – I wouldn't have nothin' to do the rest of the day. It's gonna be an easy enough job once I learn those streets and the extra money will come in handy. I'll probably be late the first week or two until I learn 'em."

"That won't be a problem. My hours are going to be ten to six thirty. So it looks like it's going to be whoever gets home first gets to fix dinner."

"That'll work." Ennis agreed as he washed the stew down with a can of beer.

"Oh, and I went and had the water wells in the area checked out and got good news there. It seems we're in a prime location in this county and there ain't never been a water well gone dry around here since they been keepin' records and that's been near eighty years now and no complaints about wells goin' bad."

"Good. I got a good feelin' about this place, Jack. I think it's the right place for us."

"Well I'm willin' to go along with whatever place you think is best but I ain't sleepin' in that place till we get the smell and the critters out."

"That won't take long, Jack. You'll see. Once we get in there and start cleanin' the place up you'll like it just fine."

"When you think we can get back over to the bank?"

"That little card Martha give us said the bank is opened Saturday morning. You wanna go then or do you work Saturday?"

"I work every other Saturday and then I get the next Monday off so I still get a two day weekend."

"Ok. We can work around that. So are you workin' this Saturday?"

"Uh huh but I don't go in until ten. Bank opens at nine so we can still go and I'll go to work after."

"Good. Things are workin' out just fine, Jack. I never expected to find a job so fast and one that pays as good as Safeway. And now you got yourself a job too."

"Yep. Before you know it, we'll be rollin' in dough."

"Don't think we'll ever be makin' that much. We gotta bank everything we can 'cause once we get that place; it'll be goin' out faster than it's comin' in."

"Yeah, I know. How much you think it will cost to fix up that house?"

"Don't know yet. First thing we'll need is some tools."

"There might be some in that old barn. I wish we had gotten a look inside."

"Maybe Martha has found the key to that padlock by now and we can check it out. But we're gonna need shovels, rakes, and a new burn barrel to get started. That old one they got out there is all rusted out."

"Yeah, I noticed that."

"Then once we get all that shit shoveled out, we need to replace those broken and cracked windows."

"You know how to do that?"

"I do. It ain't hard. We just gotta measure carefully and go buy them. Puttin' them in is easy."

"Ok. What about the holes in the floor?"

"Easy enough to fix with a little ply wood."

"And the smell? It'll be gone once we shovel the place out?"

"No, it takes more than that to get rid of the smell. Most of that old wall paper is moldy and that's the worst of the smell – the mold. We'll need to get some bleach and water and some scrub brushes and get to work on that."

"That'll kill the smell?"

"Yep."

"Then what do we need to do to kill the smell of the bleach?"

"Vinegar water. I ain't tryin' to make light of it, Jack. It'll be a lot of work but its work that's easy enough to do, and we'll have that house in shape before you know it."

"Them stairs didn't feel none too steady."

"That's a fact. We'll pick up some two-by-fours at the lumber yard and brace them up good."

"What about that front porch?"

"That needs to be tore off. Looks like the wind and rain has it about down anyway. Porch is easy enough to build back on. That won't be no problem after we trim that tree back."

"And you know how to do all this stuff?"

"I do. It's mostly just sweat work and there ain't no big trick to doin' it. You just have to get in there and do what needs to be done."

"I ain't afraid of hard work, Ennis. It just wasn't what I was expectin' or hopin' for us a place to live."

"I know, Jack. But if we can get this place for just the back taxes as down payment, we'll be a lot further ahead than if we took one of them other places."

"I ain't against that place, Cowboy. It was just the stench that I couldn't stand."

"Well, we'll take care of that right off – soon as we get the place shoveled out. We'll work at takin' all that moldy paper down and burn it then get to scrubbin'."

"We could even sleep in the barn for a while, if it ain't too bad. We got the campin' gear and stuff and we'd be out of the wind. We could probably even come up with a little heater or somethin'. It'll be winter before you know it."

"I won't let you freeze, Jack. I promise you that." Ennis said as they put the dishes away and snuggled down in the bed.

"As long as I get to sleep next to you every night, Cowboy, we can sleep anywhere you want!"

****
The next day when Ennis got home from work he found out that Jack had gone out and gotten another job at the newspaper place, same as his only throwing papers in the mornings and he was promised pay of between $30 and $40 a week for his route as it had more people on it than the evening route did. The rest of that first week was rough, learning their routes, but by the weekend, they were a lot surer of themselves when they showed up at the bank at nine o'clock sharp.

They told Martha that they had made their decision and they wanted the first property she had showed them and were ready to deal. She said she would put their request for the loan and the offer on the property before the loan committee and would have an answer in a few days. They were told to check back on Wednesday.

Ennis was working but Jack had finished his paper route and was at the bank when they opened the front doors Wednesday morning. Martha took him back to her office and explained the situation to him. She had put both offers in front of the committee and they agreed to the sale with one stipulation. They would have to wait for at least ninety days to make sure they both still had their jobs and then the loan on the truck and purchase of the property would be put through.

Ennis was disappointed about the wait when Jack told him that evening and made plans to visit Martha Saturday morning.

"Thank you for seein' us, Ma'am." Ennis started off. "I got an offer I'd like to discuss if you're interested." They all sat down in Martha's office.

"And what would that be, Mr. del Mar? Are you interested in a different property?"

"No Ma'am. Here's my offer. The bank owns that property right now and we want it. If you could get the electricity turned on, we could get started cleanin' it up. Now we want this place for sure and we both of us got two jobs each now and we aim on keepin' 'em.
We'd pay the electricity bill and if for some reason somethin' happened and the deal didn't go through in ninety days, then you'd have that property in much better shape than it is now. I can't see where the bank would be losin' anythin' by takin' my offer. We'd be willin' to pay whatever it costs, the deposit or somethin', to get the electricity turned on."

Martha sat and blinked her eyes a few times. "You mean you'd be willin' to tear that place down for us for free?"

"No Ma'am. I don't aim to tear it down. I aim to fix it up."

"Fix it up? I haven't ever been out to the place but our people said it needed tearin' down."

"Oh it's an all-mighty mess for sure but I'm pretty handy at fixin' things and I think I can get that place livable with a little hard work."

"That certainly is an interesting offer. Give me a few minutes and let me talk this over with my manager and see what he has to say about it." She pushed back her chair and left them alone.

"What do you think, Cowboy? You got any feel for what they're gonna do?"

"Yep. They're gonna let us have the place early. They got nothin' to lose on this deal. It's a win, win situation for them. Now that you got your bank account transferred up here from Texas and we both got good money comin' in, they'll have no call to refuse us."

Ennis tried to sound sure of himself but inside he was shaking and hoping that he was right.

Martha came back into the room smiling and with a handful of papers. "Looks like you boys have yourself a place." She sat down and started explaining the paperwork.

"These are the loan papers for the truck for ten thousand. I need you to sign here and here and here." She pointed out to Jack then handed each paper over to Ennis and showed him where to sign as co-signer on the note. "Now these are the papers for the property. It shows here that you are paying off the back taxes as your down payment on the place and this is what your monthly payment on the balance of the loan will be. We added this paragraph at the bottom that states that the loan for the property is pending and that ownership will not transfer to the two of you for ninety days from today but that possession of the property is being given to the two of you as of today."

They both read it in detail and signed all the copies in all the places she pointed out.

"The electricity will be turned on Monday morning."

"The deposit?" Ennis asked.

"The bank will take care of the electricity until ownership legally transfers to the two of you in ninety days – second week in February. Then you will have to go over to Sheridan Electric and make your deposit and the bills will start comin' to you." She handed them the keys and stood up. She reached out her hand to them, "Congratulations." She shook both their hands and they left, grinning from ear to ear.

"We did it, Cowboy! You did it! You got us the place without the ninety day wait."
Jack said as they climbed into the pickup.

"Uh huh. So now we got a mortgaged place, a mortgaged truck, and two loan payments to make."

"Yeah, but the payments don't start until the loan goes through in February and we can make them easy with what we make. We still got right at five grand between us to get started and I'll be gettin' commissions on whatever I sell and I already got a couple of good prospects. Two of them are comin' back today."

"That's great, Jack. Now you'd better get your sweet ass to work. I'm gonna stop at the store and pick up a few tools and head on out."

"Wish I was goin' out there with you." Jack said as he pulled the truck up into the motel parking.

"I do too, Jack, but you need to be at work. I'll get done what I can today. Did you pack your lunch yet?"

"No. But that'll only take me a minute. I'm kinda gettin' hooked on those peanut butter sandwiches. You know, they ain't half bad."

"I know. I love that stuff." Ennis agreed as they entered their room and began making sandwiches. "We need some more of this stuff. I'll bring some home Monday. You know, Safeway has this table in the back where they keep all the dented cans and busted open packages and stuff they can't sell. The employees can take what they want for free. I'm gonna start takin' some of that stuff. I seen cans of stuff there that nobody seems to be takin'."

"You seen any peanut butter there?" Jack asked as he placed his four sandwiches into a plastic grocery bag and rolled it up.

"Nope. But I did find out that employees get a ten percent discount. So if we shop there, we'll save money. Plus I'll check out those banged up cans and boxes in the back and see if there is anything there we can use."

"Sounds good. Gotta go." Jack gave him a quick kiss and a hug and hurried out the door.

Ennis finished his sandwiches, bagged them and put a pot of coffee on. Then he dug their five gallon water jug out of their pile on the bed and filled it. He found his thermos, rinsed it out and when the coffee was ready, he filled it. He grabbed an apple from their stash and headed out to the ranch after stopping to buy a tape measure, shovel, rake, broom and new burn barrel at the local hardware store.

It was a strange feeling driving up to that old house. It was a broken down mess, that was a fact, but it took on a whole new feeling for him now. It was his – his and Jack's. They had their own place! He knew in the back of is mind that it wouldn't be theirs legally for another ninety days but in his heart, it was already theirs. He was going to fix the place up for Jack and make it the best place he could.

He stepped around the hole in the porch and ducked under the broken beams and fallen down roof and unlocked the front door. The birds again were flapping like crazy and smaller varmints scattered. Ennis just stood there grinning. "This is my place now! You all had better find yourselves another place to stink up!" He called out to them.

He walked on through to the back door and pushed and shoved until he managed to get it opened as well. He let it stand wide open like the front door in hopes that some air blowing through would help with the smell.

First thing he did was measure the windows. Three were broken out and two others were cracked so five would need replacing. He measured them carefully and wrote the numbers down on a piece of the brown paper grocery bag he had his lunch in. Then he got out the burn barrel and set it up where the old one had been. He had shoved it off its brick foundation and set the new one up. Then he got out the shovel and rake and got busy.

By the time he stopped for lunch he had the place shoveled out, broom swept and the burn barrel was blazing. After lunch he drove into town and picked up the glass panes, and the caulk he would need for the windows and a few more tools. By mid afternoon the two down-stairs windows installed and he had the old front porch – what was left of it – torn down and set ablaze in the burn barrel.

He was tearing down the pieces of wall paper that were hanging and walking out with a double hand full towards the burn barrel when Jack drove up. "You here all ready, Jack? You didn't get fired, did you?"

Jack tackled him with a ferocious hug that made him drop the mess he was carrying.

"Nope! The owner had some family dinner he had to go to so we closed up early."

"Good. Now you can help me clean up this mess you made me drop." Ennis bent down and started picking the paper up.

"Ennis," Jack said as he bent down and started picking up papers, "I sold my first truck today. The biggest most expensive one we have on the lot. It's gonna mean a nice fat commission."

Ennis tossed the papers into the air and jumped him, knocking him to the ground. They rolled in the dirt, laughing and kissing. "I told you this was gonna work out for us, didn't I?" Ennis insisted.

"Uh huh, you did for a fact – after I badgered you for years and years into tryin' it!"

Ennis stood up and pulled Jack with him. "You was right, Jack, but I was right too. I had to stay with my girls until they were grown. I had to do right by them."

"You did, Cowboy. And now it's our turn."

"You ain't gonna believe all I got done, Jack. The place still stinks but not at bad as it did. Let's get this shit into the burn barrel and I'll show you."

"I see the porch is gone." Jack said as they once again gathered the scraps of wall paper and headed for the back.

"Yeah. I was hopin' to salvage some lumber from it but it was too far gone. There wasn't nothin' left of it worth savin so it's all in here." They dumped the paper scraps into the barrel.

"Hey, we can walk in here now without having to step over stuff. The floor looks pretty bad." Jack said as they came in the back door.

"Yeah. Just watch out for them holes. This old linoleum will need to be pulled up and hauled off to a dump soon as I find where the local dump is located. You can't burn this shit."

"I don't hear any birds flappin' around. You got rid of 'em?"

"They took off once I got here. I told 'em this was our house now and they'd have to find someplace else to live."

"You think that will work?"

"I fixed the down-stairs windows, Jack. The ones up-stairs are cracked but not broken so they can't get back in."

"You did?" Jack said as he whirled around and looked. "I didn't even notice." He walked over and took a closer look. "You did a good job – looks professional."

"It ain't all that hard to do, Jack."

"Well, I'm glad you know how to do it, 'cause I'd a hired it done."

"We will need to hire some stuff done, but most of this we can do ourselves."

"I stopped at the post office and got us a box and sent a card off to Lureen then I changed outta my work clothes. I figured you'd be puttin' me to work as soon as I got out here. What do you want me to do?"

"We only got about an hour of day light left. No sense in startin' anythin now. How about we try and get in that barn again. We're gonna need a ladder so I can clean out the chimney and replace those up-stairs windows but there might be one in the barn and it'd be a shame to go out and buy a ladder if we already have one."

None of the keys he was given worked in the padlock. They were about to give up when Ennis spotted a small piece of wire on the ground. He picked it up, inserted it into the lock and began wiggling it. In moments they heard the slight 'click'. He pulled and the lock came unlocked.

"Hey, how'd you do that?" Jack was impressed.

"A little somethin' I learned along the way. This one place where K.E. and me worked had this bad lock on the back door. The owner showed us how to open it with a piece of wire. He always kept some lying nearby so we could get in when we needed to."

They dragged the barn door open and went inside. The place was crammed full of stuff covered with canvas tarps. They made their way around the edge until they came to the back door. They lifted the beam from the latch and shoved it open – flooding the place with sunlight. The dust swirled and settled over everything and they began checking to see what all they had. "Here's a baler." Jack called out. "Mower over here." Assorted pieces of furniture in various stages of condition, were uncovered and in the middle of it all, a tractor.

"A tractor!" Ennis said with awe.

"That ain't a tractor, Cowboy. It's an antique that belongs in a museum somewhere."

"Shit! It's the same make my daddy used to have." Ennis said as he pulled the rest of the canvas off.

"That thing hasn't run in twenty or thirty years, Ennis. It'd probably blow up in your face if you tried to start it."

"Not if I take it apart and work it over first, it won't." Ennis was wrenching the hood open and checking the engine.

"We could buy a new one. Pay for it a little each month." Jack offered.

"We already got two bills to pay on each month, Jack. We won't be needin' it before spring anyway so give me some time and I'll see if I can get it workin'."

"Up to you. I just figured with holdin' down two jobs and re-doin' the house and all, that you had enough on your hands. You gonna have any time left over for me?"

Ennis came out from under the tractor hood, and brushed his hands off. "Jack, everythin' I do is for you – everythin'!"

"I don't know much about this kinda stuff, Ennis, but I wanna help. I don't want you out here workin' your ass off all by yourself."

Ennis rested both hands on Jack's shoulders. "Jack, I'm gonna need your help every step of the way. I couldn't do none of this without you."

"Yes you could." Jack brooded. "You know how to do all this stuff."

"Knowin' how and bein' able to do it all, is two different things. Most of the stuff is easy enough, it just takes time and some work. With the two of us doin' it, it will go a lot faster."

"You just tell me what to do and I'll do it – whatever you need."

"I'll tell you what I need right now is a shower and some dinner. Tomorrow's Sunday and we're both off. We can get an early start out here." They walked out of the barn after closing the back door. "I figured we'd leave scrubbin' the walls until we have runnin' water and we won't have that until the electricity is on to run the pump. So we may as well start on the floor."

"I can help with that. You think that's going to be much of a job? That linoleum looked like it will come up pretty easily."

"It might and it might not. That stuff is glued down. Some of the glue has deteriorated
enough so that it's pretty loose but the rest we'll have to scrape off. It ain't easy but we can do it. Once we get all that off, we can see how much ply wood we'll need to fix those holes."

"Is that gonna be much of a job?"

"You never know until you get into it." Ennis said as they locked up the house and headed back to the motel. "We need to find out where the county dump is and pick up some critter poison at the store. While we have the floor opened up we can throw some around under the house and get rid of anything else that has made a home under there."

"I like that idea. I don't care much for the creepy crawly things." Jack said with a shudder.

"Me neither. And they get in your pantry and mess up your food. We'll get that all taken care before we move in, Jack. I wouldn't move you into no place that was crawlin' with bugs."

"I appreciate that. I just can't stand the thought of bugs crawlin' around the food or in my bed."

"You don't have to worry none about that, Jack. I'm the only critter that's gonna be crawlin' around in your bed from now on."

Jack grinned and the two of them got in their trucks and headed back to the motel.

"I figured we'd be workin' into the night out there." Jack said as they got out of their trucks and Ennis unlocked the door to their room.

"Nah, not yet. Without no electricity we won't."

"I can't believe you got so much done out there all ready." Jack said as he slouched on the bed while Ennis opened some cans for dinner.

"I had all day out there, Jack. From now on, it's gonna improve a little more each day."

"It didn't even smell as bad as I remembered."

"That's 'cause I got all that shit out of there and left the front and back door wide open so the wind could blow some of the smell away. In the morning it will probably be pretty strong again after being closed up all night."

"How long do you think it will take to get rid of the smell entirely?"

"Depends on how much time we can spend out there. I was thinkin' if we could spend at least an hour out there each evening – that would help a lot. I figured we're both home by seven. If we have dinner and leave here by eight, we'd get there just about eight thirty, work till nine thirty and be back here for bed by ten."

"That sounds do-able but what can we get done in an hour?"

"Lots of stuff, Jack. I think we should concentrate on one room at a time and I think the first room should be the front room. I noticed, out in the barn, they had some of those long brushes that you use to clean out chimneys. I also saw a ladder. First thing tomorrow morning, I want to get working on getting that fireplace going and hauling some wood in."

"We gonna work by firelight?"

"Nah. Tomorrow we work from sun up till dark then we come back here and get ready for work Monday mornin'."

"I saw some lanterns out there. A couple in the barn and there was one on the mantle too."

"Yeah, I saw them. It wouldn't hurt to pick up some kerosene and some new wicks just in case we decide to work a little longer on the place."

"That's always good to have around anyway in case the electricity cuts off in a storm or somethin'."

"Your electricity go off a lot up in Lightnin' Flat?"

"Uh huh. Sometimes when it wasn't even stormin'. I remember it used to scare me a lot. Momma used to get the candles out and make a game out of it. Now that I think back on it, Pa probably just didn't pay the bill. I remember when I was little she used to yell at him a lot for spendin' money on whiskey. That was probably the money that was supposed to pay the electric bill."

"Times were tough back then. I don't think either of our Pas woulda won any medals. Mine drank too and got mean as the devil. We knew enough to stay outta sight when he come home smellin' like whiskey."

"I used to get drunk a lot down in Texas too but I never got mean. Lureen told me that one time. She said she didn't care that I drank and I could drink as much as I wanted 'cause I never was mean to her or Bobby and all I ever did was go into my study and close the door. I didn't never bother nobody and I never got drunk in town – always at home."

"You had a study, Jack?" Ennis asked as he sat down next to Jack on the edge of the bed and handed Jack one of the two plates he was carrying.

"Yeah. We was livin' in this big old house that used to belong to Lureen's grandmother. She got it five or six years ago when the old lady passed. She willed it to her along with a pile of money. It had lots of rooms. Up stairs I had my own room too. I picked the smallest one I could find and made it my own place. Lureen had the wall taken down between the two biggest rooms and made one huge room for her. She had it all done up fancy in silk and satin and lace and all that girly shit. She made the room next to it over into a closet for herself."

"She needed a whole room for a closet?" Ennis asked around bites of food.

"Yeah and it was filled with all her froo froo stuff."

"I never figured you to go for someone like that. I thought you said she was a rodeo gal?"

"She was when we first met. Dressed all the time in western shirts and boots and jeans but she passed out of that phase once Bobby was on the way and became this society gal. There wasn't a party thrown in Childress that she wasn't invited to and that meant a different outfit for each one. She was always buyin' me fancy stuff too but I never used most of it. I did though when we had to go to those shindigs at the club and they were just about every other week or so."

"Shit! I knew you had money, Jack, but I never thought you was part of the Country Club bunch."

"I didn't have money, Cowboy, Lureen did. She worked for her Pa and he paid her big money plus she had what she called an allowance her grandmother set up for her when she turned eighteen. She had charge accounts at 'bout every store in Childress and spent money like crazy. I never saw any of the bills. Either she took care of them or they went to her daddy. I don't know. I just know that whatever I made I was allowed to keep and I wasn't expected to pay no bills with it. I shoulda saved more of it, I guess. It just never seemed to matter none to me. I'd given up hope of you ever agreein' to us gettin' a place. So I spent it on fancy trucks every other year and campin' equipment and whiskey."

"It's Ok." Ennis reached over and caressed the back of Jack's neck. "I like it better this way. If we come together with you bringin' a bunch of cash into this, I'd feel like a kept man. This way, we're more or less equal."

"You are a kept man, Ennis del Mar. You're mine and I aim to keep you!" Jack grinned and leaned his head on Ennis' shoulder.

"I can live with that." Ennis mumbled as he blinked back the tears.