THE GAME (eBook)

DON WESTWOOD (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021 | 1. Auflage
278 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-1213-8 (ISBN)

Infos

THE GAME is a super-realistic novel intended for mature adult readers. Set in Las Vegas and New England, the central story line follows an ambitious prostitute's attempt to separate a middle-aged school bus driver from his presumably sizable inheritance. The principal characters' tenuous grip on reality is tested throughout, as shifting circumstances, expectations and relationships disrupt their efforts to maintain emotional equilibrium.

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THE GAME is a super-realistic novel intended for mature adult readers. Set in Las Vegas and New England, the central story line follows an ambitious prostitute's attempt to separate a middle-aged school bus driver from his presumably sizable inheritance. The principal characters' tenuous grip on reality is tested throughout the novel's ten episodes, as shifting circumstances, expectations and relationships disrupt their efforts to maintain emotional equilibrium. Psychological elements underscore the impact of childhood trauma on adult personality, reinforced by successive betrayals, real and imagined.

Textauszug

Episode 2

REACTION

The hotel breakfast room was packed with guests. Tom sat alone, eating variously from two plastic plates of factory-made hotel breakfast fare. Ted and Trish filled take-out cups at the coffee station. Ted looked disdainfully at the scene.

“I don’t feel like a plastic omelet this morning. We’ll ditch Tommy at the house and find a place that has a decent breakfast.”

Tom was sorting papers at the kitchen table in the Murphy home. He paid scant attention to the slow footsteps on the back stairs. A petit woman – elderly and wearing too much powder and rouge – entered without knocking. She held out her arms for an embrace.

“Teddy! My beautiful Teddy! How are you?!”

Tom’s impulse was to laugh. Hers was the wildly-accented, whiskey-baritone voice of Boston comedian Steve Sweeney, legendary for his routines mocking the Boston-area working-class.

“I’m not Ted. I’m Tom.”

“Little Tommy! My beautiful boy! Now a handsome man! How are you?!”

Tom stood but did not respond to the invitation to embrace. The woman lowered her arms.

“I’m okay. I didn’t hear you knock.”

“I don’t have to knock! I’m family! I’m you Aunt Gert. You remember me, don’t you… Tommy?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh, Tommy, I miss your mother! She was my best friend, not just my only sister. I miss her terribly!”

Gert saw the box on the TV.

“Is that her?! Oh, Mary, Mother of God, help us!”

Gert blessed herself.

“Did you love your mother?!”

“Aunt Gert, I have some things to do.”

“Did you love your mother?! If you did, you wouldn’t have burned her up. Our people bury their dead. We don’t burn them. That’s for God to decide, not you!”

“Cremation is what she wanted. She left a request. Aunt Gert, I really do have…”

“…things to do. I know. It’s alright. There are some items your mother wanted me to have. I’ll just walk around the house and pick those up. I’ll be out of your hair in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

“Aunt Gert, I’m not sure you should be going through…”

“She wanted me to have her car. Do you have the car keys?”

“No.”

“You can look for them while I get the other things.”

“Aunt Gert, you’ll have to wait. We haven’t found her important papers yet.”

“What does this have to do with papers? She was my sister. She told me what she wanted me to have. Now you just hop to it and find those car keys.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

Gert waited a few moments before responding.

“You ruined your mother’s life. You know that, don’t you? Do you hear me?! You ruined her life! It was because of you that your father left. He abandoned his family – all because of you!”

“He did not abandon his family.”

“Did he live here?”

“He stopped living here, but he took care of everything, including this house, for the whole time us kids were growing up.”

“He left because of you – because of the lies you told about your mother!”

“I did not tell lies.”

“Are you going to find those car keys, or not?”

“No.”

“Then I’m going to find them myself.”

“Gert, you’re going to leave now. We’ll be in touch if we find any mention of gifts for you.”

“So now you’re going to throw me down the stairs. I don’t know how you can treat your Aunt Gert this way, after all I’ve done for you, after all these years…”

“Oh, the years when you took every opportunity to tell my mother how bad off she was? Are those the years you’re talking about?”

Slow footsteps on the back stairs were followed by a tentative knock.

“Your mother wanted me to have her car, and her jewelry, and her cashmere sweaters, and…”

At Tom’s invitation, Bill Kelly entered. Gert immediately went into action.

“I’m his mother’s sister, Gertrude.”

“Hello, Gertrude. Nice to meet you.”

Gert was encouraged by the respect apparent in Bill’s voice.

“My sister wanted me to have her car. Do you know where the keys are?”

“Gert, please.”

“She didn’t have a car. She used to have a car, but she gave it away – last summer. She gave it to a kid from the neighborhood. He was going off to college. He needed a car so…”

“She gave away my car?!”

“You can look in the garage, if you want to. Nothing in there now but old tool boxes.”

“After all these years…!”

Bill turned to Tom.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s fine, Bill. Don’t worry about it. We’ll speak later, okay?”

Gert waited for Bill’s footsteps to fade away. Still, she spoke quietly.

“I don’t trust that man.”

“Gert, my mother gave the car away and that’s it.”

“You are just like your father – miserable! And you’re a liar! You ruined your whole family with your lies!”

“Gert, I did not lie. I was a kid. I came home from school and walked in on my mother, rolling around half-naked on the living room floor with a man I didn’t know. I’m sure you understand a child might be confused by that.”

“Liar! You’re a liar!”

“I asked my Dad who the man was. He said he didn’t know, but he would try to find out. There was some discussion between Mom and Dad, and Dad left that night after me and my brother went to bed.”

“Do you know how much that hurt your mother?! Being deserted like that! He left her high and dry.”

“My Dad didn’t leave anybody high and dry. He chose to stop living with a woman who betrayed him.”

“You think you’re so smart. There are lots of things you don’t know about. We are all sinners, Tommy, every one of us. In my day, we confessed our sins. We prayed to God and begged to be forgiven. And we were forgiven!”

“So you could sin again and be forgiven again, right?”

Gert left the house via the side door, trudged to the garage and looked through the window. Ted’s Lincoln pulled into the driveway. As Ted and Trish got out of the car, Gert hurried to meet them.

“Teddy! My beautiful Teddy!”

Ted greeted his aunt without enthusiasm.

“This is a surprise. Trish, my Aunt Gert.”

“Oh, Teddy, I’m so happy to see you! That brother of yours just threw me out of my sister’s house!”

“You been upstairs? What did you talk about, exactly?”

“No deep, dark family secrets, if that’s what you mean. Just about the things your mother wanted me to have. She told me I could have her jewelry, her cashmere sweaters, and her car. Now I find out the car is gone. Some old man showed up and said she gave it away. I think he took it. Anyway, you’re here now, and I can get my things.”

“We’ll have to see about that. But it won’t be today.”

“You and your brother. You don’t care what your mother wanted. Selfish – the both of you. Just like your father.”

Gert scurried away toward the bus stop at the corner. Trish watched her go.

“Well, now, there’s a character.”

“Self-righteous old whore. Never married. The official party line was she was such a knock-out back in the day that no man was good enough for her. Truth is, damn near any man was good enough for her. She broke up a few families, that bitch did.”

Tom was surprised, to say the least, when he entered the family dining room. It was now furnished as a bedroom. Wear patterns on the walls showed where dining room furniture once stood. The room was sparsely furnished with familiar items from the house – a twin bed with no headboard, a plain dresser with no mirror, an old-style wardrobe, a wooden kitchen chair and a tall stool supporting a gooseneck lamp. The only wall decoration was a simple wooden cross above the bed. Next to the bed were a walker and a portable commode.

Located in the center of the apartment, the room had no windows. The only natural light source was spill from the kitchen windows. Tom tried the ceiling light – not functioning. He opened and closed dresser drawers – empty except for a few clothing items. He looked in the wardrobe – empty except for a few hangers, a pair of worn slippers and a box of adult diapers.

At length, he sat on the bed and tried to imagine his mother’s life in her final years. He did not hear Ted and Trish enter the apartment. Ted called from the kitchen.

“Tommy!”

“In here! You’re not gonna believe this!”

Ted and Trish entered from the kitchen and remained near the door. Ted was the first to speak.

“So she made this into her bedroom.”

“Easier for her, I guess. Downstairs tenant said she never went out.”

“She must have been pretty well crippled up, huh?”

“Guess so. Anyway, there’s nothing much here – just some clothes.”

“Two crummy rooms and a TV set. No wonder she hated us.”

Trish went to the dresser and pulled out a sweat shirt – very large – with a faded Red Sox logo. She held it up for Ted to see.

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Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 10.7.2021
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
• ISBN-10: 1-0983-1213-9 / 1098312139
• ISBN-13: 978-1-0983-1213-8 / 9781098312138