Page 2 of Axel

“He cut you so deep. My goodness, I never…I’m assuming that the doctor knew what he was on about. He was, wasn’t he?” He told her who had done it. “Well, I’m going to have to talk to him about this. It’s not what I’d call pretty, is it?”

“It’s swollen right now. I loved it, don’t get me wrong, but doing all this extra stuff here is making it sore as well.” She gave him two naproxen sodium and told him to drink plenty of liquids. He was fine with that, but then she sent him to see his dad. Not that he minded, really, but Dad was asleep, napping was something that he often did of late—so he took the couch, lying down on it and took a nap himself. He rarely got to do something like this during the daylight hours.

~*~

Axel didn’t know what to think when Kahana stopped talking. He was sure that he’d missed a great deal after he said he’d had surgery to remove the mole and to have it tested. Looking around the room, he realized then that he’d missed a lot more than a few things. Everyone was crying.

“But you’re all right now.” Kahana nodded to Audon and told him that he was perfectly fine. “So you didn’t tell us…why?”

“I didn’t want anyone to worry.” Audon pointed out that they could have held his hand or something. “I’ve been told that I should have told all of you. And he was right. But at the time, Dad was just getting home from his stroke. Everyone was worried about him, and I didn’t want to stress anyone out. And before you ask, no I wouldn’t have told you at all after getting the results. I would have if it had been cancerous, but not the way the results came back to me.”

“You were being a selfish prick then.” Mom told him to watch his language. “I am. Trust me, Mom, I am. I’m mad, and I want him to understand that.”

“He’s fine now. And we’re all grateful for that, correct?” She looked at each one of them, and he could tell that she meant for that to happen. But he knew, too, that after they left their parents’ house, he was going to knock his brother around a bit so that he—” There will be no retaliation later either, Axel. From any of you. I mean it.”

They all nodded then she told them that she needed to hear their words. After telling her that they were all right with not beating the crap out of Kahana later wasn’t really want he wanted to do, but he loved his parents and wouldn’t go against their words to him no matter what.

After dinner, they all sat in the living room with Dad to watch some television. It hadn’t occurred to him how old his parents were until Dad had his stroke. It was a small one, they all had been told, but there was still some damage to his heart, and it had terrified each and every one of them.

“Do you work tomorrow?” Axel had to think, then told Kahana no, he was off the entire weekend, too. “My offices are closed due to some work that’s being done there, so do you wanna hit up some auctions with me?”

“Are there very many, or do you have one in mind?” Kahana handed him the listing that wasn’t too far from where they were now. “This is the old Heathers house, isn’t it? I thought that they’d already settled up where all the things were going to go.”

“They didn’t have a will, so it had to be in probate for about the last six months or so. The wife passed away while that was going on, and then they had to do the same for her. Figuring out who got what wasn’t an issue because they only had one son, and he’s in a nursing home. The money from this is supposed to go for his care there. I don’t believe they had any life insurance, either. Besides, I can’t really lift all that much so I thought you and I could get some stuff and you help me get it to my home. What I did today sent me into so much pain that I was nearly sick with it.”

“I’m sorry about that. I’m still mad at you, but I love you. I’m so glad that things turned out the way that they did. I don’t know what I’d do if anything were to happen to any of you.” He said that he felt the same way and took back the listing to point out a couple of things on it.

“There are all kinds of things listed for the household. Trunks, too, that haven’t been opened in decades, I heard. Also, there is a lawn mower that I’d like to look at. When I called to talk to the auctioneer, I was told that it only had about twenty-two miles on it.” He asked him what that meant. “I’m not being a smart ass about this, but I had to look it up as well. It means it’s only been driven for that amount of time. It was used on the flat ground around the house. I didn’t know what that meant either until I asked. I guess if you have someone mowing your lawn for you, you never really know that kind of stuff.

About six months ago, their mom had kicked all of them out of the house. She’d not been mean about it but just wanted them out on their own. He got himself a condo. The others, with the exception of Stamos, had gotten a condo as well. He told his brother that he wished he’d gone the house way instead of living with a bunch of people surrounding him.

“Living in the dorms at college taught me that I wasn’t going to be a good neighbor. The noise all the time and people just walking by my room talking. It was distracting all the time. Then there were the times that they got out of hand with their partying and had to have the police called.”

“You didn’t nark on them, did you?” He said it had been tempting but no, he’d not been the one that had called the police. “I know, too, that even to live off campus was crazy loud. I guess you would have thought that I’d have learned something from that. But I’m house hunting now. Not too much luck, but that’s what I’ve been doing in my spare time.”

In the end, they invited their mother to go with them. She didn’t want to leave Dad alone, but Dad told her that he needed some peace and the outdoors, too. So, the four of them decided to meet up at their parents’ home and then head to the auction. He was excited about that. Getting to spend time with his little brother and parents could be just what he needed to get himself out of the funk he’d been in the last couple of weeks.

Three weeks ago he’d broken it off with a woman that he’d been seeing for a few years. He had just grown bored with her constant whining about how much he worked. She was a partier as well. Nothing that he’d ever been a part of was the night life. But she’d taken it harder than he could have imagined and decided to sue him for breach of promise or something along those lines. He’d won the court case, which didn’t make her happy, and that was when he realized that he wasn’t as in love with her as he’d thought. She was…well, she was convenient. Someone that he could have hanging on his arm when going out and a sex partner when he needed that, too. However, now he was in a bit of a depression because he thought that he’d wasted several years with that woman, and he didn’t have shit to show for it.

Axel didn’t much care for his job either. He was working for a larger firm in the Columbus area and didn’t think that he’d go any further than he was right now. He was an attorney of some notoriety as getting the things done for the clients. But he figured out and should have known better that allthe people that he represented were scum balls and shits of the earth that once they were no longer considered in whatever brought them to court, then they would run out and do the same thing again. Christ, he hated people nowadays.

The next morning, he was up with the sunshine. He took a note from Kahana’s book and decided to not just find himself a house but his own business front. Last night, after getting home, not only did he scan the listing again, but he also put in his two weeks’ notice. Axel had enough personal time and vacation left that if they were to tell him that he wasn’t needed the last two weeks, he’d be fine until he found something else.

His college debt was paid off, thanks mostly to the job but that’s about all he had to show for that as well. Sure, he was good at it, but he didn’t care for having to pay his boss for allowing him to work for them. He wanted his own money from now on.

Going to his parents’ home, Mom was feeding Kahana a big breakfast, and he was just in time to get some of his own. He didn’t care for vendor food as a whole, and auction food was usually the worst. Not that everyone who catered to the auctions served terrible food. But he’d been sick a couple of times and was glad that he’d not have to suffer anything when he got home from it.

They were early as usual. It was his mom who liked to get to places early. He supposed that they’d all gotten that from her. She would arrive at some place they needed to be about thirty minutes earlier than it called for.

His parents liked biding on the box lots. They were, like they would be at any auction, spread out over the yard. He saw a couple of things that he wanted and asked his parents to let him know when they were coming up. He and Kahana went to where the tractors, seven of them, were being shown how well they were running by a few farmers that he knew. One of them was Hamilton Fitzpatrick.

About a year or so ago, Hamilton had defaulted on his loan with his own farm equipment. There were a great many people around who had tried to help the elderly farmer, but he wasn’t having it. In the end, Axel had to serve papers to him and then wait around while the bank reposed not just his home and land but all his fancy tractors as well. He didn’t know what he did nowadays, but he knew just how to get the bigger tractors started up and keep them running. Perhaps he worked for the auction house that was out and about today.

“Mr. Hathaway.” He nodded at the man and his wife. “Have you thrown any more old people out of their homes of late?” Before he could answer, not even sure what he’d say to the man, the auctioneer stepped between the two of them with his back facing him and Kahana.

“I told you before I don’t want any trouble, Mr. Fitzpatrick. I also told you that if you were nasty to anyone, you might as well get your gear and get on home. I’ll not have you pissing people off when they were only doing their job. You should have listened to these good people when they tried to help you. Everyone in town knows that. This is your second warning about this, and I won’t have it. Go home.”

“Damned lawyers.” Fitzpatrick stomped away, nearly dragging his poor wife with him. The man was going to cause more trouble if he didn’t miss his bet, and he would have to keep an eye on him. He and Kahana moved out of the area, no more interested in the bigger tractors than he was in his job. They were approached by Mr. Lundon when they went into the house, surprised at how much was in there with all the stuff on the lawn.

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