The Second Doublewide on the Right
I’m Fixin’ To Present part one of The Second Doublewide on the Right.
There wasn’t much to Apt-To-Miss, Ga. About the only commendable aspect of it was that it was aptly named. There weren’t any signs announcing the entrance to it or the exit from it. It was just a cross roads at the intersection of Georgia Hwy. 43 and Ocmulgee County Road 86, that folks referred to as Apt-To-Miss.
There was a little broken down strip mall on the northwest corner of the intersection, which housed Granny’s Kitchen, the only restaurant within several miles, and a tiny beauty shop called Marthalene’s. Once again, there were no signs, they were just the names by which the two struggling businesses were known.
There was a third shop in the drab building which most recently had been a small engine repair shop that had gone out of business, just as a series of other businesses had before it. So the owner of the little strip mall, and unofficial mayor of Apt-To-Miss, Leon Walker, had set himself up an office in it.
Leon also owned a trailer park that was only about a hundred yards back behind the mall, on Hwy. 84, known as the Shady Grove Mobile Home Park. He had two doublewides on the first two lots and he resided in the first one. The second one was currently unoccupied, but the eight singlewides back behind them were all rented out.
The trailer park was the reason Leon had decided to set himself up an office in the mall after he had evicted the owner of the small engine repair shop. He had told Marthalene, while she was painting her toenails, that he was just sick and doggone tired of his tenants knocking on his doublewide door at ungodly hours to complain about window air conditioner units not working, leaks in roofs and begging for extensions on their rent.
So as soon as he had gotten rid of the small engine guy, he had put a hand printed sign on the side of his doublewide reading: “Please Inquire At Office In The Mall Concerning Any Park Issues.”
After he had duct taped the sign between his picture window and his front door he had stood back and thought, “Now won’t none of these sorry, shiftless, no accounts be bothering me at home no more.”
It wasn’t that easy, but after a few confrontations the word got around the park that Leon would only discuss park issues in his office, and also only during office hours.
It was almost noon on Thursday, and no one had been in to complain or ask for an extension on their rent payment all morning.
Leon had taken advantage of the lax time to arrange a lease for an ice machine outside his office. He felt very entrepreneurial after he concluded the deal and hung up the phone. They were coming to install the machine one day next week and he would begin collecting a hundred dollars a month on it.
He got up from his desk and tucked in his shirt because he intended to step over to Granny’s Kitchen. He didn’t feel very hungry, but he did yearn to set his eyes on Candy Sue Collins, the lovely proprietress of the tiny restaurant.
Besides being a beauty, Candy Sue could cook just like grandma used to. Since it was Thursday, Leon knew the menu would offer a choice of a pork chop or chicken fried steak with two choices of four different vegetables. He also knew it would come with a slice of her corn bread, a quart fruit jar of sweet iced tea and a dish of cobbler.
Before he departed Leon stepped into his dingy little restroom, slicked his thinning hair down and splashed a little Aqua Velva aftershave on his face.
He didn’t bother to lock his office door because there wasn’t anything inside worth stealing. He kept his big roll of cash in his left pocket and his little pistol in his right one. He had bought the weapon off of Jimmy Ray Hurd, a worthless little no-account known thief who rented the next-to-last trailer, way back in the rear of the trailer park.
Leon figured the pistol was probably stolen since he had bought it from Jimmy Ray. But what the heck, for fifty bucks he could throw it away if he had to. At the time of the transaction Jimmy Ray had quipped, “It may be little, but up close it’ll work just as good as a big ‘un.”
The sound of car tires crunching on gravel caused Leon to look down toward the other end of the mall, where he observed a vehicle pulling up in front of Candy Sue’s. He cursed under his breath when he saw it was a bright purple 1992 Buick LaSabre with shiny wheel covers that kept spinning after the tires stopped turning.