He had just lost his job as a clown. It wasn't his dream job, just another in a string of jobs that had filled his days over the past few years. He hadn't been very good at it actually, but overall the experience had been positive, meeting new people, going to different places, usually free cake. It was good for the few months it lasted. But as the summer wore on the complaints began to increase. The kids said he smelled. And he did. A sour, putrid, thick smell and it was hard to figure exactly if it was he himself or something he'd gotten into. He actually smelled how you would think a man called Ogre would smell.
Ogre was his nickname for as long as he could remember. Thick curly black hair covered his head, his chest and his back but it was his hands that were most ogre-like. Enormous hands, fingers round as quarters. Dry cracked cuticles that came to sharp points around his thick nails. The skin was thick, like each finger was its own callous. Even before his years as a mechanic the thickness of the skin was remarkable. Now, after years of working on cars the cracks and creases on Ogres hands were stained black. A constant reminder of a past life that he could never go back to.
When he was a kid, long before he was known as Ogre (that name was given to him freshman year of high school, when his size and hair and the lumbering way he carried himself around the high school hallways earned him that name) he went by Billy. He would work on the neighbor's cars after school and all summer learning about transmissions, catalytic converters, and how to rebuild an engine block. He had a real knack for understanding how things worked and although his big hands made working in tight spaces tricky, he had found his passion. And even through the blurry teenage years, when he was given the moniker Ogre, he knew he would own his own garage one day.
And he did. For 18 years.
Holding the curly, coarse red clown wig in his hand down by his side, he stood with the sun in his face and looked across the parking lot from the backdoor of the office where he was no longer employed. It was warm and a little windy and his baggy shiny blue pants made a noise like a flag in the breeze. He hadn't changed into his work shoes yet, so beneath the shiny pants were a pair of old black velcro shoes, not quite sneakers, not quite a dress shoe. They were comfortable and easy to get on and off. With his furry belly in the way tying shoes had lost its ease and appeal many years before.
His face, under heavy white paint and facing the sun grew warm quickly. He blankly stared across the parking lot. A few rows of cars on gravel with the railroad line behind them and acres of woods beyond that. He had lost track of how many odd jobs he'd had over the years. He was so tired.
The breeze felt nice. Cooled him everywhere except his face. He walked down 4 steps and the crunch of the gravel under his feet seemed unusually loud. It brought him back to a time years before when that same sound would be the first clue on a dark night that something was horribly wrong.
Married with a family and owning his own shop since he was 19 often meant working late nights, which also often meant drinking some bourbon or on occasion alot of bourbon. His son was 4 at the time and the kid loved his dad. He would hang out at the shop and hand his dad tools. Of course he was 4 and his attention span wasn't great so often he'd leave the garage and its diesel fumes an play in the gravel parking lot. Rarely did he throw rocks. He knew better, but he loved to hear the loud crunch of the gravel when he slid across it. In the warmer months his legs were covered in scabs and his toe nails were encased in a pale grey dust.
The garage had been robbed a few times over the years and so Ogre kept a pistol in the office for nights when he worked late. Even though the it was on the same lot as the house, the garage sat closer to the main road and the house was set way back, the occasional late night good-for-nothing would break the windows, steal tools, or perhaps drunk decide it would be fun to knock over the airpumps. Vandalism mostly, a costly irritating nuisance.
That night when he heard the gravel he had been drinking but it was no bender. A few shots of bourbon and couple of beers.
The gravel crunched in the darkness among the noise of the crickets and frogs and at a distance that at first Ogre did not notice it. It was 10:37 and he was going over the books. It was ok, not great but overall things were good. The gravel crunching moved closer and this time it caught his ear and he lowered the radio and put his hand on the gun. The gravel sound increased as it grew closer and he held the gun in his hand and looked out the window in the dark night. Fireflies.
Sobbing mixed with the sound of gravel now. He left the small office and went outside. It was pitch black except for the small light coming outside of his office window and the front porch light of his house in the distance. Out of the darkness came the small, wet face of his son. Tears did not describe it. His face was wet. As if tears that were too big for such a small boy had fallen from his brown eyes. Feet bare, grey and dusty, train pajamas -- his favorite with the red bottoms. And he couldn't get the words out. Ogre scooped him up in his arms and ran towards the house. The child never spoke, just sobbed the whole way.
The front door was open. The light over the kitchen sink was on. He yelled for his wife Danielle. The boy cried harder and then wet himself down the front of his pajamas and all on Ogre's side. There was no answer. He put the boy down and ran upstairs and it was there in the hallway he could see in the gentle glow of the train night light into the bathroom at the end of the hall. He could only see her hair. Just the long auburn hair that she had chosen to wear down on the last minute on their wedding day. As he entered the bathroom the scene it its entirety became clear. The ceramic tub was full of red water. Her arms and body submerged. Her nightgown floated about her knees. Her face white and her soft lips blue.
The boy had quieted but was still crying downstairs. And Ogre, heartbroken, angry and confused sat in silence indian-style next to the tub holding his wifes cold, wet hand till the sun came up.
His big, thick, black hand pruny from being submerged in the water all night finally released Danielle's fingers just as the first of the morning birds began to sing their song. Her hand fell beneath the surface with a gentle splash.
At some point his son had fallen asleep on the hardwood floor at the base of the stairs in his urine soaked pjs and he slept soundly still as Ogre stepped over him, walked outside, got in his car and drove away. He never went back. It was all too much for him.
Now he was lying down, sun so bright and hot that he had to close his eyes. He was so tired. The metal was hot and his shiny pants felt hot too even to his thick skinned finger tips. It really was very fast. The train blew its whistle in desperation but Ogre, lying there face painted, eyes closed, velcro-shoed feet up on the opposite rail was tired. He could hear his own heart beat in his ears and it drowned out everything, much in the same way Danielle could likely hear her own beat as her ears sunk below the surface of the bloody water and the life drained out of her.
The train barreled over him. For an instant a searing heat ran through him. And then it was done.
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