Chef's House (Alternate Take)

One afternoon Wes was in the yard pulling weeds when Chef drove up in front of the house. He opened the door of his car and left the car running. Wes had stopped on his knees with his fists full of weeds staring at Chef’s off yellow Buick- the piss boat they called it. Chef sat in the driver’s seat with one leg hanging out of the car. He finally pulled himself out after what seemed forever. Wes rose from the earth, his knees soiled in what kept his mind clean- kept his heart dry. They met in the middle of the yard and they took a look into each other’s lives. Chef parted his lips and then drew them closed again.
Nervous eye met nervous eye.
“ ‘Bout the house I reckon” said Wes
“Mhhm” Chef confirmed his thoughts in mere body language.
“Suppose you’ll be selling?” said Wes
“Mum’s going the sweet bye and bye” he muttered under his breath,
“If you want the house you can have it. I’ll be selling it cheap on account of I got to get home quick. Mum needs me.”

That was that. Chef moved a week later and we bought the house for everything we had. Chef wrote us from Northern Wisconsin where he had grown up as a kid. He told us that he grew up on a farm until his dad left his mom and two brothers at the age of twelve. Chef was the oldest brother of three. His mom moved to Madison when they were fifteen and made a living as a waitress in a roadside diner. It was 1976 when Chef was twenty years old and working for the United Trucking Co. Wes and I had just met at the University of Illinois. We all had our lives in front of us, but now where were we with everything so far behind?

A month later Chef wrote us that his mother had died and then the letters stopped. We all knew what had happened to Chef. He had stopped going to his don’t drink meetings and was 900 miles from the only friend who could truly convince him otherwise. Life moved on and I got a job at the post office. I was Eureka’s finest post-woman. When news arrived that Chef had died of a perforated liver we both cried. Chef had left us the house. We had been paying it off at a monthly rate. Wes and I had the house a good sum of money but everything else had evaporated over the years. Our kids were gone. Chef was gone. We had everything in front of us but no one to share any of it. The only thing that kept us company was the memory of a troubled past.

Wes came home drunk and one night and the following morning was gone. I knew if he ever let himself drink again he would be gone. It was no surprise to find the note on the sofa that read: “Darlin’ there are no more shots at what we had or who we were. We are who we are and we have two choices: To accept, bow my head, and quietly leave, or to deny and stand on buckling knees as the world reels”. Wes left to where I will never know. I went to work, removed my ring, and delivered the news I knew that people so desperately needed.