UPDATED: last and WORST chapter

UPDATED UPDATE! COMMENTS ARE BACK! GO COMMENT! REMEMBER - IF YOU SUPRESS IT,IT WILL ONLY CAUSE PROBLEMS LATER, YOU KNOW.

UPDATE: BEAST, DANATOR, HENDRIX...blogger printed your comments at the end of the previous post. I just changed the settings again and apparently this was too much for the poor thing. but they're there.
now you have to read this aaaaaaaaaall over again.

AERIAL VIEW OF ODDIE'S HOUSE AND PROPERTY, HARRISON HILL:

as god saw it.......


I cut Eldest Brother off the regular stuff around August, and I dropped pretty much all pretense of working on the house regularly in order to find an apartment and a job. Of course, this meant returning every evening to Meadows having a conniption fit but fuck him and the horse he rode in on. I still worked on the place; I just did it when it was convenient for me.

Meadows, the self-designated 'brains of the operation', was used to getting his way in all things without question and took this badly. In August he embarked on a campaign of 'running a tighter ship' . His version of running a tight ship meant showing up at random times for about an hour to micromanage everything without the vaguest clue as to what was going on. It was like having Homer Simpson around, only not handsome or smart like Homer Simpson. We ignored him.
Except when he set things on fire.

Now, Eldest Brother was a marvel-the guy could do anything...automotive, electrical, carpentry, plumbing; you name it - and do it right the first time too.
This was not a hereditary trait.
From the moment Meadows walked through the door he burnt out power tools, fell out windows, put on doors backwards, broke mouldings, dumped paint cans, set wiring on fire, fell partway through the ceiling, poured joint compound down the sink, spilled thinner, collapsed wooden ladders...and then he'd have a cow when you offered to help.

His finest moment came when he plugged an industrial air compressor he'd rented into the household current and set the fusebox in the basement on fire.

Now that's bad enough...but you see, even though the place got upgraded wiring, it was only run upstairs, where the inspectors would see it, or so the sneaky 'brains of the operation' reasoned. Down in the basement he cheaped out. The fusebox was vintage 1945, meaning it still ran on glass fuses.
Except Meadows was also too cheap to buy fuses. So all the contacts were made with pennies.

It was a great fire, too; I mean, he did THAT right. Full on, flames shooting up, cloth wrapped wiring burning along the walls like dynamite fuses, sparks, black smoke boiling up out of the basement stairwell, floating strands of melted crud drifting around. The fire department showed up. Meadows ran up and down the stairs screaming 'Don't use the hose! Don't use the hose! You'll burn the place down!'
They ignored him.

They also slapped a 'stop work' order on the door.

I went full steam ahead on project 'Get The Fuck Out Of Dodge'.
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I'd moved all my everyday things up to the remodel as soon as there were utilities. Right after the stop work order was issued I started finding money missing out of my wallet. Or my wallet missing altogether. My clothes moved. My shoes hidden.

Meadows took me aside one day..."You know, if you leave those boys wont' work on that house at all. I know you've been around...you understand what I mean. We're adults. You're the only reason they go up there . So don't leave until we're done, OK? Is there anything you need? Can I, uh, buy you anything to sweeten the deal? Can I take you out to a nice dinner sometime? Or, har har, drinks maybe?"

Yeah, my little heart was going pitty pat. My pyloric was spasming, too.
Boy 'S'????
You utter fucking ass cabbage. Despite what your diseased imaginings might have suggested...or your diseased son Kelvin for that matter...there was MOST EMPHATICALLY no 'S' going on. Unlike you, dickcheese, I draw the line at sex acts outside my own species.

And how about him throwing his disgusting, married, misogynistic self into the bargain like a cherry on top, huh?

'Lissen-we both know you're a whore, so I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your snatch up here in the abandoned house long enough for the place to get finished, OK? And how bout I buy you a hamburger at the Eagles Lodge? Maybe I'll let ya blow me in the parking lot too! Whaddya say??'

That was August.
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The first weekend of September was my last one in Milwaukie.
Oh, what a weekend that was, my darlings.

Hang on to something.
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The remodel was nearly finished , and the place was actually looking pretty good, considering Meadows had gone hind tit on all the materials. There was even an actual toilet! It looked so out of place!
There was a lingering ghost of dog that rose whenever it rained, but we figured that a coat of paint and a new floor would take care of that.
Paint? Check. But Fido remained.
Now the only task that remained inside the place was to refinish the floors.

Mr. Meadows handed me a scrub brush, a bucket and a box of Spic and Span.
" You want me to wax the linoleum after it dries or is it coming up?" I asked.
" All the linoleum's gone. You and Eldest already did the kitchen, remember?" he said.
I shrugged and set off.
All throughout the house the floors were a uniform sheet of mottled black and grey with kind of a burnished shine, except where foot traffic had worn a lighter trail. I thought it was an odd choice of linoleum for a house but I'd seen worse and gave it no thought. God knew it was filthy, though, and I was all for getting to work on that.
I set the bucket down and started . The dirt turned into curds under the scrub brush. I worked on that one spot for ages and was beginning to worry that the linoleum itself had deteriorated and I was scrubbing right through it. Better tell Meadows.
I picked up the bucket to go dump it out.
It stuck.
I gave it a yank. It came away with something sticking to the bottom. I went to flick it off and happened to look down at the floor.

Quartersawn oak.
What. The. Fuck.

I washed the bucket off in the sink. The crud on bottom slowly melted away under the blasting hot water. The smell that rose was enough to choke a buzzard. The drain clogged, and the sink filled with hair and rehydrated fragments.
It was dogshit, kids.

_________________________________________

I left the house, walked down to Sonnyboy's place, sat on his couch and cried.
My defences just split from top to bottom. They just collapsed. I'd reached my limit.
I'd been living in that.
And grateful.
__________________________________________

THE ABANDONED HOUSE/THE REMODEL/ODDIE'S HOUSE
NOTE: It's only a floor plan. Please don't cry.



I was sap enough to continue to do household chores and help out, though. That was why I was in the kitchen of the homestead doing dishes that evening when Sunflower came pattering out of the shower in a bathrobe. "Look! It's a miniskirt!' she chirped, twirling around. OK, nutjob, good for you. I kept washing dishes. The boys were still sitting at the table.
She came up behind me and bumped me with her ass.
I kind of chuckled and kept washing dishes.
So she threw me a hipcheck and I dropped a glass, which broke in the dishwater.
As I tried to pick the broken pieces out, she continued to bump me. She bumped me around the kitchen until she bumped me into a corner.
Then she started rubbing her ass on me.
I sidestepped out of the kitchen while she laughed. "Oh Sunflower," said Meadows fondly.

A few minutes later I went to make a slice of toast. I passed her in the dinette, still in her robe, sitting up on the back of a kitchen chair yakking on the phone. She twinkled her fingers at me and grinned. Yeah, hi you fucking basket case. I waved back and looked for the bread.
The next time I turned around she was giggling. I was looking right at her.

And she spread her legs.


Yes she did.
Yes, she did.

__________________________________________

I spent that night at Sonnyboy's. If his mother had come to the door I'd have slapped her across the face. AND spit on her neck.
This was Saturday.
_________________________________________


Why was I at the remodel Sunday morning? Because I'd said I would be.
Because I was a sap. A sap with a bucket of hot ammonia and a paint scraper.

For some reason the whole Meadows gang decided to make an inspection tour that day. In they trooped, still dressed in their church clothes (yes, I know. I know.) Sunflower sashayed through the place peering at things and opening cabinets like she had a clue. Fields and the boys trailed after. They all ended up in my back bedroom, standing around the bed and chatting.
When suddenly Sunflower leaned over, yanked all the covers off the bed and threw them into a corner.
As she was bending down to sniff the bottom sheet I walked out.

Hand this to Eldest, he came after me.
____________________________________________

That evening.
Sonnyboy and I show up to grab Eldest Brother and go party.
As we were leaving, out of nowhere Sunflower suddenly chirps " When are you buying her a ring, Eldest honey?"

WHAAAAAAAT?

" Well,' she continued as I stared at her in horror "You're getting married, aren't' you?"
" NO!" I blurted.
" Oh yes you aaaaaare" she sang.
"I can't afford a ring right now, mom" added Eldest Brother.

WHAT?

WHAT??
____________________________________________________


I was gone by Monday noon.

___________________________________________________




I did end up in a shithole and I did end up living on brown rice. In fact the shithole was so shitty they didn't ask for a cleaning deposit and weren't really insistent about first and last months rent either; which was good because I didn't have it. Nor did I find a job right away. By the time I did I was down to returning bottles for change like a wino.
And that was fine.

Recently I tried Googling them, but not a trace exists. The wife had an odd enough name that you'd think it would pop up, but it didn't.
And that's fine too.
I really hope they all went back to their home dimension.
Except for Sunflower, whom I hope is headfirst in a pile of shit in Hell.