Page 16 of Wasted Oil

“ Baby…” She rests her hand on my cheek as tears flow down her eyes. “There’s been an accident. Your father he’s gone” I breathe out a no, shaking my head with disbelief in what has been just said. “I'm sorry Rhett '' the officer who was leaning against our kitchen counters walked to stand behind me placing his hand on my shoulder.

“No he can’t be gone I don’t believe you.” I swipe his hand from my shoulder and stand. With a quick glance around the room I don’t say a word I just walk and throw the front door open heading to my truck slamming it shut and peeling out. I start falling through a black hole seeing nothing but my sister's red and puffy face’s. My mother’s voice cuts through me again.

“he’s gone.”

“No!” I woke up with sweat dripping from my forehead, my breathing heavy and tears in my eyes. It was the same dream, always the same one. The dream of when I got the news my pops was gone, when my world was turned upside down. It always started and ended the same: me coming home to see the police and me ending up in a black hole seeing nothing but my sisters and hearing my mother’s voice. I rub my hand down my face, taking some of the sweat off me. Looking at the clock on my nightstand it reads six in the morning and another sleepless night added to the books. I haven't been able to sleep much ever since pops passed away.

I groan and flip over to my stomach. I wasn't ready to get up, but going back to sleep after my dream was damn near impossible. I lay staring at the wall ahead of me. This past week has not only been hell at work with having to toss out drunk assholes at the bar but also fighting to keep my family's farm going. For five years I’ve been fighting off Andres Alvarez and his band of vultures from buying my family's farm.

When pops passed, Andres had started to come and make offers to buy our farm as we were barely making ends meet to keep it running. Everything started getting harder as the years went on and things at the farm started going south. Whether it be our animals dying from an “Animal Attack” or crops and gardens set on fire. It’s a fight everyday with that man and there was no way I was going to let him win.

The Parker Family Farm has been in this family for eighty years. No way will ever let that smug asshole with a fucking attitude problem who loves to throw his money at everything, come in and take our farm.

Granddad and Pops both worked for him and his father Javier. From what granddad told me before he passed was that Javier Alvarez was an old soul with a genuine heart but his son turned out for the worse. Never when pops or granddad were working for him had he come around harassing us, but that all changed when his father died. He took over and all hell broke loose. I tell ma there has to be a connection between pops death and why he’s been coming around but she doesn’t believe me at all. She says “I know you are having a hard time with your father’s death Rhett, but you can’t go around accusing a man of killing him, even if you believe it.” And I do, I believe that Andres had pops killed and he paid someone to drain his brake fluid.

I knew pops and when it came to him and his truck there was no way that he didn’t keep up with or always maintain upkeep to make sure it was in good shape to drive. If there was one thing that he loved sometimes more than his family, it was his 1985 Chevy pickup. Which is why I know for a fact that it was no accident that he was killed because of ‘brake failure’. The only problem with this is that I have absolutely no hard proof.

I look back at the clock and see an hour has gone by. I have a long day ahead of me on the farm and then my shift at Jansen's at five. With a grunt from my movement's I lift myself up from my comfortable position I was in and swing my legs over the bed hissing at the contact with the cold hardwood floor. I could already smell the bacon and eggs, ma must be up already. She's been the same as me when it comes to sleep, sometimes she doesn't sleep at all. When I get up she's already set to go for the day. I worry about her and while she swears that she is doing fine, I see different things.

I get up and shuffle over to the bathroom and turn on the shower till it's scalding hot. Waiting until the steam rises covering the mirror already. I strip out of my boxers jumping in letting the water hit my back muscles and relaxing them in the process. The stress and ache washing away little by little as I stand there. I go over a mental list of what needs to be done. With my crops down for a while there's nothing to do with them but wait.

Two months ago Sarah had called me in a panic after the fields were on fire. No one knew how it happened, Roxy said that she had left around noon and six hours later they were on fire and not just in one area. But three different directions of the fire were in full blaze. I had been begging my mom for years to put trail cams out there but she says there is no need for them, that it was nature just taking it course and we just have to learn to adapt. The police say it was probably someone who flicked a cigarette while driving and it was just dumb luck. To say that my stress was about the farm was an understatement.

After about ten minutes of my version of relaxing in the shower I reach for soap and lather my body, then reaching for my hair wash as I’m applying and scrubbing I add just a bit of pressure to my head to stop the oncoming headache. Just as I’m finishing up the water starts running cold so I shut it off and reach for a towel. I hear laughter down stairs and know Ma, and my older sister Sarah are down there setting the table for breakfast. My youngest sister Roxy has already left for work early before anyone has gotten up. I only know that because I heard her rustling around the house getting ready while I was in and out of sleep. God damn it I’m tired.

I was happy for her when she got a job working with my long time friend Alex, at The Den.

Roxy is one of a kind, she is as free spirited as a wild mustang. Emphasis on the wild part. She's the perfect mixture of our father and our mom. She has pop's mahogany brown hair and ma's deep blue eyes. Looking in the mirror on top of my dresser I see all qualities of my father. The same shared colored hair and green eyes. The anger lingering around my eyes is all me though. Pop's was never angry unless the Dallas Cowboys fumbled, got intercepted or lost. I miss him so much he should be here.

Shoving the dark cloud in my head away I lean down throwing on my Ariat jeans then when stepping into my boots and going to grab my cutoff high school baseball Tee. I pause in my steps at a flash of long onyx hair, olive tanned skin and eyes of silver clouding my mind. It’s a selfie of us on the Faris Wheel.

Melanie Alvarez was now nothing but a memory. I grimace at the thought of her name. I never got the chance to tell her how I felt before she left. When I went over the night to tell her about my dad she was already gone. She was my rock even though she never knew it, the one I needed most. She always knew when I needed to talk to someone or knew when I just needed someone to sit there without talking.

When I started dating Janelle, Melanie became distant but was never gone from my life. I never felt more angry and abandoned in my life when she left town; I was especially more alone than ever before. I had hoped she would have called or texted or even emailed me. Something. Anything. Nothing ever came through.

A year after she left I got the strength to looked her up on Facebook and saw she was living in Nashville playing gigs and living this whole new life.

I hear a knock on my door and a voice following it.

"Rhett? Are you dressed?” Sarah comes in with her eyes closed making her way through the door, her hand out in front of her like she may run into something. I give a chuckle and shake my head.

"Yes you goon, what’s up sis?” Peeking through her fingers she lets out a breath.

"Hey so a couple things. One we have a sprout in the fields on the northern side. Two, before work I really need you to take a look at my truck. I need to be able to get into town to drop the haul of honey for the farmers market and lastly and the most important— breakfast is ready. So, hurry up with whatever the hell you were doing and get your ass down cause I’m starving .” Sarah was the oldest by three years. Than there’s me, and Roxy the youngest by four years. She walks out with me right behind her.

“Mornin Ma.” I say walking up to and giving her a kiss on her head. She turns around with a plate of bacon and I can see that she had not gone to bed. The dark circles surrounding her deep blue eyes say it all, making them look gloomy and the wrinkles that seem to be more apparent than five years ago. She still has a hard time coming to the fact that pops is gone even if she waves off that she is ok. On days where it gets super hard for her like anniversaries, birthdays or the holidays I find her calling his phone just to hear his voice. Sometimes I also hear her talking back on the phone with no one on the other side.

I take my place at the table and wait for mom to start prayer.

“Okay my babies, let’s give thanks and eat.” The three of us bow our heads in prayer as Ma starts to give thanks.

After breakfast I made my way outside, it was barely March and already hot and humid. The sun warming my skin just standing there, the breeze warm making the green trees around us sway slightly from side to side. I look to my left at the fence that was built to keep the animals from roaming and see it’s been cut. “Fucking great.”Grunting I grab my tool box and my pops old WHU hat. The red orange color was now sun beaten from being worn in the sun almost 24/7.

I haul my ass over to the fence. I squat down picking up the two pieces inspecting both. Just like I thought, they were cut with bolt cutters and of course the cow tracks are fresh in the ground. It’s been one thing after another and I just want to catch a break.

Hours later, I’m fucking beat, with having to look over Sarah’s truck the herding the cows that got out, and the cherry on top was seeing that both the south and west side of the crops are not growing like I’d hoped. I couldn’t wait for a cold one, but the drink would have to wait until tonight when I get off from Jansen's and meet up with Alex and Johnny. Just then my phone starts to ring, I look at the screen and see Bangs (Alex) on the screen.

"Speak of the Devil What up Bangs?” I can practically hear her eyes roll on the other end.

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