"The Doom Statues" - Chapter 4
The return trip southwest, to their hometown of Jenson, NC, takes right at an hour. This region one of those odd pits devoid of interstates, between the two points, a drive involving state routes and country roads between countless towns only slightly larger than Stokely. Jenson is the most sizable of these, though still not much, boasting but a population of about 3000, with two elementary schools feeding into a single junior and then senior high.
Jeremy drops Kay off first, followed by his girlfriend, before swinging over to the ice cream shop that his parents, Ben and Lois Ado, have owned and operated for the past 13 years. Up until about a week and a half ago, that is, when they could no longer deny the inevitable and were forced to shut the place down, in the face of mounting debt, though this is still the late stages of summer. They can’t even claim some slick corporate competitor swooped into town, unless you count a few Dairy Queens and other mom and pop chains, some twenty miles south in Charlotte. No, though they are conscientious owners who take their craft seriously, doling out fairly impressive and popular fare for an operation like this, watching food costs and adjusting prices accordingly...the reality is, there just isn’t population enough in this declining town to keep even one small ice cream stand afloat. There are but two national fast food franchises here in Jenson, for example, and both of these are struggling, too.
As Jeremy enters, he finds his parents in their expected states, harried, bummed out, and packing boxes. Ben Ado donated whatever tallness gene Jeremy might have inherited, though at a good six foot six he didn’t quite pass on all of that to his son, and towers a good half foot above Jeremy. He’s also wiry strong, despite the years and relative thinness, and looks like he could probably still win a boxing match against his offspring if so inclined. Jeremy likes to think that this is why his dad’s unchanging crew cut through the years has also displayed nothing but a pure, premature greyish-white for over a decade now, as some sort of cosmic scale balancing.
Ben has a Sharpie tucked behind one ear and a hammer hanging from his left pants pocket, behind the counter of this admittedly dingy ice cream parlor which went up somewhere in the mid-1970s. They have a number of cardboard boxes filled and staged along the food window behind, as Ben zips along with a marker labeling them. Grabs each box after doing so, spins and deposits it on the counter for Lois to run to the van.
“Here, ma, let me help,” Jeremy offers, jumping in to grab the next one arriving.
Despite her more modest height, Lois Ado has that brand of invisible strength obtained from a life spent working on one's feet. Therefore can shoulder what seems like an absurd load for a middle aged woman of such modest proportions.
It’s only when they are outside again that Jeremy risks asking what has been bothering him for weeks now. Whenever the subject is introduced, his dad, while relentlessly upbeat about the situation, is almost what one might term antagonistically positive, insisting everything will be alright. As though challenging someone to just go ahead and try suggesting they won’t come out smelling roses after this ice cream shop closure. So he’s leaving it up to his mother to answer a much more practical question: what are they going to do with themselves, now?
“I don’t know,” Lois admits with a dry, throaty cackle, the product of who knows how many pots of coffee, every day, all day, for most of her fifty plus years. “You’ve got some money saved, right?”
领英推荐
Jeremy, by virtue of living at home and his already having risen through the ranks of his grocery stocking position, to a low rung managerial level, has in fact both made decent money for quite some time now, and also managed to sock it away. Though paying for his car and insurance, his parents have generally not asked him for anything else, nor to move out on his own, even as he’s occasionally offered both since graduation. So he not only doesn’t mind the thought of chipping in and bailing them out if needed, but would be open to renting his own place to cut down on their expenses if needed.
“Sure,” he tells her, “I can help you guys out…”
“I’m kidding,” she says, as they’ve finished loading these boxes and are returning to the shop for more, “we’ll figure something out. We’re crafty. I’m not worried about it.”
They instinctively kill this topic once indoors again, however. Behind the counter, spinning around with the latest box in his hand, Ben’s eyes dart between the two of them, as though - not that this would take a major imaginative leap - plainly intuiting the subject matter covered outside. Even in picking up the Sharpie again, to write on this box after setting it on the counter, his face a picture of grim if cautious determination, his eyes don’t leave them as they approach.
Like the story so far? Pick up the entire tale from your favorite store below!
Paperback: https://jasonmcgathey.com/