Mysterical-E

He Said, She Says

The Process Server

By Richard F. Corrigan

On Wednesday afternoon, the process server swaggered up the temporary, front steps of young George Swanson’s home to ring the doorbell. Everyone knew the Swanson’s bell didn’t work, not since last year when Uncle Lambert accidentally sprayed it while washing down the porch.

Normally, water in an electrical device would just trip the circuit breaker, or in the case of young George’s home, blow a fuse. But, when Grandpa Swanson needed to rewire the house a few years back, because if he pulled a permit a town inspector would scrutinize the whole building and see all the other improvements made without proper authority, he was easily convinced of Uncle Lambert’s electrical expertise.

“Why pay electrician’s rates,” Uncle Lambert said. “I can do it for the cost-a materials an’ no permit.”
But, Uncle Lambert wired only half of the residence through the fuse box. The rest was connected directly to the county power grid — no ground — just hot wires.

When the water hit the button, electricity shot out like a flame from a blowtorch. The oil-based paint on the doorjamb first boiled and then burst into flame; and the resulting exposed, bare wood burned a charcoal black, smelling up the living room. The discolored, white plastic, doorbell button that was continuously backlit day or night, melted into a black glob that hung down from the metal case and looked like a miniature stalactite clinging to the wall of a time-forgotten cave.

George jumped off the porch, and just after he did, the yellowing-plastic, bell box inside the house that contained the two metal chimes, blew off the living room wall, exploded through the front windows, and landed on the lawn in a smoldering mass. Following it like the blazing, dusty tail of a comet, were razor-sharp shards of glass that soared through the air and ripped into young George’s shirt, pants, and skin, spotting his clothes with blood. From that day on, young George never lingered long in front of windows.

When Grandpa Swanson learned that most of his house was incorrectly wired, he yelled at Uncle Lambert. “There’s no safety to prevent fire or electrocution, you idiot. What the hell were you thinking?”

    “Jus’ trying to save ya a little money, tha’s all,” Uncle Lambert responded, shrugging his shoulders and giving his head a shake.

    “You almost cost me my home, and family,” Grandpa Swanson yelled. He then cocked his arm and punched Uncle Lambert in the chest, knocking him to the ground.

Uncle Lambert got back up, brushed himself off, and said he would fix it, but he never did. And George Senior and Grandpa Swanson refused. So, the house stayed half wired correctly, but the other half was a ticking bomb. As a replacement for the doorbell button, young George’s mom wedged in a piece of shiny white paperboard from a Christmas present box.

It was surprising how long the doorbell actually survived since Uncle Lambert insisted on washing down the porch monthly. “This porch is filthy,” he would always say. “Ya’ll spend most a yer time on the porch, more than the livin’ room.” So, since the living room was clean, why shouldn’t the porch be clean?

Although, the living room was definitely not clean. Dust was everywhere, especially under the sofa and in the material of the seats and backs. Whenever we slapped the cushions, clouds of dust puffed into the air. It really showed when the sun shot through the windows.

Wherever there wasn’t a rug on the floor, there was dust visible. Dust drifted into all four corners of the room, sealing each joint. Dust was in every crack and crevice. You could smell it. And hundreds of dust devils congregated behind the large, eighteen-inch maple-wood console television.

Who knows why they kept that TV. It never worked, not since July’s severe electrical storm blew up the transformer that hung on the pole at the edge of the front lawn. Sparks shot down to the field alongside the house and ignited a haystack. The hay and cow-dung mixture burned for days. The stench made us gag.
The smoke blew across the porch and stunk up the chair cushions for weeks, although that didn’t stop young George from spending time out there. “After ya sit out there for a while, ya hardly notice the smell,” He’d say.

     Young George lived mostly on the porch. Sometimes he never went into the house after school. He’d plop onto the glider, do his homework, eat dinner, and rock back and forth on it until he fell asleep. One day, before the railings were rebuilt, while young George was rocking to and fro, he tipped over, crashed through the rotted railing, hit the ground, and almost rolled beneath the floor.

Grandpa Swanson told us never to crawl under the porch because it was too dangerous, although we couldn’t imagine what was so dangerous under there. All we ever saw crawl out were ants, beetles, slugs, and worms. But one day, when young George was sitting on the steps, he heard leaves rustling beneath the floor and smelled a foul, wild smell.

“There’s noise comin’ from under the porch,” he called out, “and it stinks.”

“What kind a noise? What kind a smell? ” Grandpa Swanson asked from inside the house.

“Like leaves bein’ crumpled,” young George said. “Road kill, it smells like road kill.”

Grandpa Swanson came outside, bent down alongside the steps, sniffed and listened. He then walked into the garage, grabbed a flashlight from of his car, walked to the side of the porch where the latticework was broken, crouched down and shone in his light.

    With the stern voice of a five-star general, he suddenly said, “Go sit in the truck.”

Young George jumped to his feet, leaving his baseball mitt on the steps, and ran to the truck that sat by the road on what used to be lawn, but, from years of the engine-dripping oil and grease, was now just dirt. He jumped into the cab and slammed shut the door. It closed with a clank. He cranked down the window to hear.
Grandpa Swanson raced back into the house, and then George Senior came out with the flashlight in his hand and Grandpa Swanson followed with a shotgun in his.

George Senior shone the light under the porch and suddenly, Grandpa Swanson said, “Hold it,” took aim, and fired. George jumped from the explosion of the shotgun.

Grandpa Swanson crawled under the porch and pulled out a ten-foot snake. Its head was gone, but its tail still twitched.

While young George waited inside the safety of the truck, Grandpa Swanson went back under the porch to make sure there were no more snakes. He came back out and called George over.

Now the road-kill smell was really strong, and the sight of the serpent dripping with blood from where its head had been, further turned George’s stomach. And although the business portion of the reptile was missing, a chill ran up young George’s spine that he relives to this day in the presence of small snakes, even.
Grandpa Swanson took the headless reptile to the field, dug a shallow grave, and buried it. Since then, anytime young George sees a freshly dug spot in a field, he wonders if there were a squirming snake buried there and walks around it as if it were a land mine in a battlefield.

    But George was back on the porch the very next day — Saturday — the day for staging Civil War battles. When the doorbell caught fire, the porch was the scene of the Battle of Nashville.

    Hood’s army, dug in four miles south of Nashville and waiting for reinforcements, was being held in abeyance by Union gunboats along the Mississippi. Thomas and his Union Blue Coats were testing Grant’s patience, refusing to initiate an attack against the omnipresent confederate army.

    Young George set Thomas’s left division in motion for a strike against Hood’s right flank. With Hood now pinned down, young George crushed Hood’s left flank with the cavalry and three Union infantries.

    But suddenly, there was a flash flood — Uncle Lambert’s hose — the Cumberland River breached its banks and the Civil War battalions were washed off the porch and onto the grass, falling dead atop each other, resulting in more casualties than the Battle of Franklin.

    But even after the flood and the ensuing doorbell-fire, young George continued to spend time on the porch. It was a place he felt most comfortable. Although, his first memory was not pleasant.

It was his first day of school. His mom dragged him, kicking and screaming, across the porch and down the gray-topped wooden steps to Grandpa’s Oldsmobile.

    The Swansons didn’t own a car. Grandpa Swanson’s Oldsmobile was a trade for his room and board. He was divorced, although none of us thought about that at all. But that’s why young George’s family used Grandpa Swanson’s car.

It had power windows, steering, and brakes, Overdrive, and was a forest green with whitewalls. But young George always had bad luck with the car. Once, while he was sticking his head out to see back down the road, his mom tried to close the window. She heard him gagging and stopped to see on what. It was then that she realized young George’s choking and her inability to close the window were connected. His neck was caught in it. She laughed for days. George never understood the joke and never stuck his head out a car window ever again.

Another time, his mom pulled away from the house, turned the corner and young George fell out the back door onto the muddy road. She ran around to pick him up, gave him a hug, scolded him for unlocking the door, he didn’t remember unlocking it, and lifted him back into the car. And although young George was covered from head to toe in mud, they continued on to the store.

    After shipping, when they returned to the car she said, “I’ve never been so humiliated.” Young George didn’t know what that meant, but by the tone of her voice, he knew it was bad. He chose to sit in the middle of the backseat and still always does. Years later, he understood what humiliation meant, but then he realized it was he who felt the embarrassment. He was like a pig covered in slop — one of uncle Lambert’s pigs.

Uncle Lambert owned a pig farm. Well, he called it a pig farm. The rest of the family called it a huge pigsty — his yard, barn, and house included. Periodically, young George walked over to Uncle Lambert’s house on a Friday night, stayed over, and worked in the field or the barn on Saturday. He had done that for years. Uncle Lambert paid him a little.

Uncle Lambert never remarried after Aunt Ariel died, and he never cleaned. But he always had women at his house. But they never cleaned either. They were all big-breasted women with wide hips and long messy hair. The rest of the family referred to Uncle Lambert’s female friends as “those types” — they meant prostitutes or whores.

After the first four girlfriends, young George didn’t bother trying to remember their names. By the time he got it right, he’d have to learn another; that is, until Louisa arrived.

At Uncle Lambert’s, young George slept on a straw-mattress, single bed in a wide-planked, wooden-floored room in the back of the house. In George’s room, there was a three-drawer, clothes chest, a cane-seat, wooden chair with sawed-off legs, and a narrow closet where Louisa kept some of her clothes.

    One evening, just after young George crawled into bed, Louisa walked into his room and asked if she could grab her nightgown. There was no time from when she asked and she was out of her blouse. Young George was stricken with awe and unable to look away as Louisa continued to take off her clothes, all the while talking to young George as if nothing unusual were happening.

“So, how are you doing in school?” she asked, slipping out of her bra.

“Fine,” gulped young George, his eyes fixed on Louisa’s naked breasts, his growing erection pushing up a bulge in the blanket. She left the room, and all George could do was smile.

One evening, Louisa, after she changed into her nightgown, came over, sat on the bed beside young George, and placed her hand right on his bulge. Young George nearly passed out. He concentrated on not twitching.

    “How old are you?” she asked.

“Thirteen, Ma’am,” he responded, breathing in her cheap, gardenia-fragrance perfume. She smiled, squeezed the bulge, almost popping George’s eyes, got up, and walked out of the room.

    Young George refused to hang out with the rest of us on Friday night in favor of going to Uncle Lambert’s. So, one Friday we sneaked up to the back window of the cabin to scare him.

    We gasped when we saw Louisa take off her clothes. Her breasts were beautifully round, and her nipples stuck out a half-an-inch. She walked over to young George and peeled off his covers, revealing his naked penis standing straight up in the air. Louisa bent down, kissed the tip, and then let him slide up into her mouth. Cousin Edward groaned. We shushed him.

After sucking young George a few strokes, she climbed onto the bed, straddled his hips, rose up onto her knees, and guided his penis up inside her. Young George grabbed each of her breasts, she clasped his hands, and then pumped him a couple of times until his whole body convulsed, and his arms fell limp at his sides.
Louisa eased herself off him, slipped on her nightgown, and walked out of the room.

We never gave George grief about Friday nights ever again. And we never told him what we saw, and that we spent Friday nights outside his window. But eventually, like everyone else, Louisa left Uncle Lambert, and so did young George to spend his evenings with the rest of us.

About that same time, young George began to despise Uncle Lambert because of his obsession with cleaning the porch. He would arrive without warning, walk right to the hose, and begin spraying. Anything on the porch, whether the newspaper, the cushions, a sandwich, or young George’s schoolwork would be washed off.

The first time young George explained to his teacher what happened to his homework, it was accepted. The second, he could see the reluctance in her eyes. The third got him detention and an additional assignment. From then on, young George never left anything on the porch. Neither did anyone else.

    The porch became a regular hangout as young George aged. Although the number of kids didn’t increase, everyone grew heavier. We never thought of how much weight the porch could support until one day when Henry, he was bigger than the rest of us, came over with his equally large sister. It probably would have been fine if it were just the two of them, but there were already fifteen other kids on the porch when Henry and his sister climbed the steps.

When they reached the top, there was this eerie creak. Everyone stopped talking, the porch shifted to the side and collapsed, ripping the posts out of the roof and throwing all of us, except Henry, onto the lawn. He was buried beneath the porch roof, and it took six of us to pull him out.

Young George’s father couldn’t believe it when he pulled into the driveway and saw the porch collapsed across the yard. He spent the evening until way past when young George went to bed, picking up the mess.

    Young George’s father was uninsured, and he didn’t have the money to pay for Henry’s medical bills or hire an attorney to stop the threatened lawsuit. Uncle Lambert told him to declare bankruptcy, but old George refused.

So it came to this: the process server, standing on just the temporary steps, pushed the cardboard doorbell.

Simultaneously, young George coincidentally stepped out of the garage and asked if he could help. The process server asked for young George’s father or mother. Young George told him his mother was out back, hanging clothes.

The stranger walked to the backyard, stayed only a minute, and then reappeared and said goodbye. Soon after, young George saw his mother sobbing and walk into the house clutching a piece of paper.

“Your father and I have been served,” she said. “We’re being sued.”

“What?” young George asked. His mother showed him the paper, but he couldn’t understand what the paper meant or what being sued meant. She referred to the man as a process server.

Carpenter ants and dry rot actually undermined the integrity of the porch. But that didn’t matter to Henry’s parents who insisted that Henry was permanently traumatized from feeling that the earth was falling from beneath him and then seeing his baby sister thrown onto the lawn like a toothpick.

Actually, Henry’s sister was always falling down, even on solid ground, just by turning around to look at something. And Henry was already a misfit. He was suspended from school more times than anyone else for weird stuff — like stuffing mud down little girls’ pants, putting live crickets in the cafeteria mashed potatoes, and always farting as loud and long as he could. He hated math, and so one day in front of the whole class, he threw his math book on the floor, unzipped his fly, and peed on it.

The gist of the matter was this: the porch was never rebuilt, Grandpa Swanson had to move, young George’s family lost use of Grandpa Swanson’s car, then, young George’s family moved. Young George’s whole world was turned upside down by that piece of paper.

We’ll never forget the wide grin on the process server’s face as he got into his car that day. That’s when young George began to hate process servers. All young George knew was that the process server made his mother cry, his father angry, and made them leave their home, cousins, and friends.

*    *    *

The sixtieth month visiting young George, was no less awkward than the first. Whether it was the waiting room’s one-inch thick, bulletproof glass, the iron bars, its starkness, or the words, “Madison County Penitentiary” over the door, we felt like foreigners trespassing in an alien land. We could smell the rusting of the metal chairs and the cement dust from the crumbling floor. We shivered from the cold. And everything echoed.

While waiting for young George to appear, we reminisced about the fun we all had together. We told stories about the tree fort and how we always went home with pine sap on our clothes and in our hair. We talked about the endless walks around the neighborhood and the games we played with our own made-up rules. We laughed about the snowball fights and the snow forts that, when our younger siblings crawled in, would always collapse.

We finally had the money to hire a good attorney and get George released on maybe a technicality in the death of a Florida process server. It took us five years to save enough, and today we were going to tell George we were hiring one of the best attorneys in the south, Abbot Marsh. We sat waiting for young George to appear through the narrow, prison hall door.

It opened. It was the warden.

“You are the Swansons?” he said with his cigarette voice. His clothes carried the smell into the room.

“Yes,” we all said, beaming with pride and self-satisfaction for the good news we brought.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news,” he began. “An hour ago, George was found in his cell, dead. He hanged himself.”

We walked out of the prison in a trance, although coherent enough to vow vengeance for young George’s death.

Cousin Edward said, “I wonder where Henry and his parents are living?”