The Second Doublewide on the Right, part 29

I’m Fixin’ To Present Part 29 of The Second Doublewide on the Right:

Leon Walker had never aspired to be the landlord of a ramshackle trailer park and a rundown strip mall. It had all just fallen into his lap one day about seven years ago after he had retired from 30 years service in the U.S. Army Infantry. He had enlisted when he was 17 years old and got discharged when he was 47, and his pension wasn’t much because he had never risen past the rank of staff sergeant. The other bad part was that he hadn’t specialized and had no skill. He discovered real quick that there was no market for a 47 year old grunt in the real world.

So Leon was living in a cheap one-bedroom apartment on the wrong side of the tracks in Birmingham, drinking cheap liquor and eating a lot of stuff out of cans while he was wondering what to do with his life when the registered letter came. It was from a law firm in Georgia, and he just about fell out of his ragged old chair when he read it.

It concerned an aunt on his momma’s side of the family, whom he had never known to exist until the letter arrived. The only person he remembered in his family was his mother. The last time he had seen her was inside the dank little trailer they rented just before he had packed up what little stuff he had and left, lied about his age and joined the Army. He remembered she had died several years later, but he had been in South Korea at the time, and didn’t even know where she was buried.

As it turned out she had had a sister over in Georgia named Earlene, and now Aunt Earlene was dead, too. And now he was the proud owner of a trailer park and a shopping center. She hadn’t willed it to him, but the Court had tracked him down as her only living relative, and now it was all his.

All his life he had been able to pack up everything he owned in one bag, and the next morning was no exception when he departed Birmingham, headed to some place called Apt-To-Miss, Georgia.

During the long drive along Interstate 20, he daydreamed about the trailer park with manicured landscaping and graceful weeping willow trees, and right up the road a shopping center with gleaming chrome business signs, with rent money pouring in.

Leon arrived at the law office about 30 miles east of Atlanta, right on time. He had to sign a boatload of papers, all the while licking his lips in anticipation. When the lawyer had gotten to the part about the cash money left in his aunt’s account, he started thinking about switching to Crown Royal instead of Canadian Mist. But then he silently cursed when the lawyer cited the back property taxes and the legal fees that had to be paid.

But he gladly accepted the check made out to him for a little over $14,000, along with a folder of papers containing deeds and other documents, along with a note page with directions on how to get to Apt-To Miss.

He got back on I-20 and two exits down he spotted the exit sign marked Hwy. 86, and made his exit. It sure was pretty country, he thought as he watched the miles click off on his speedometer. He was getting close and his heart hammered inside his chest.

Then there it was. At first he hoped he had made a wrong turn, but in his heart he knew he was in the right place when he pulled into the parking lot full of pot holes in front of a small strip of three connected building with weeds growing from the cracks. A rundown look of neglect loomed over the building as well as the property it rested on.

He just sat there in his truck for a little while, soaking it all in, while he realized the place was symbolic of his life—cheap and undesirable. Then he remembered the trailer park and his spirits became alive again with hope.

He cut through the parking lot and took a right on County Road 43 and almost immediately saw the rickety sign proclaiming the place to be Shady Grove Mobile Home Park. He turned onto the gravel road leading into the park and drove the length of it and saw that they all looked the same, ragged trailers surrounded by bare yards with rusty and wrecked vehicles parked in them.. He turned around and drove back to the front of the park and realized the first two trailers were doublewides, and were in pretty good condition.

Leon pulled up to the first double wide and realized he was fixin’ to be home.