Thunder and Lightening
Chapter 3
By
Lazlo Zalezac
Copyright (C) Lazlo Zalezac, 2004

Mike pulled into the parking spot next to the beat up old truck. 
Getting out, he noticed Jerry was underneath the rear examining 
the muffler. Going over to him, he bent down and said, "It's about 
time to open the store."

In a loud voice, Jerry answered, "Go ahead and open. Everything is 
ready for you."

Mike went in the back door and opened the store while Jerry 
continued his survey of the undercarriage of the truck. He hadn't 
seen a truck with a wooden bed in years and was struggling to 
figure out how to fix it. It looked simple enough, but he knew that 
looks could be deceiving. Satisfied that he had a good idea how to 
go about fixing it, he crawled out from under the truck and took 
stock of his clothes. He needed to change and two days without a 
shower was a day too many. 

Going into the store, he looked around and saw Mike was already 
dealing with a customer. Rather than interrupt, he went into his 
office and got a change of clothes and a towel. Wrapping the 
clothes in the towel, he set it on his desk. 

Returning to the counter, he watched as Mike finished taking care 
of the customer. When the customer was gone, he said, "I'm going 
to the Y to take a shower. Can you watch the store?"

"Sure," replied Mike as he turned back to the counter. He 
wondered if Jerry was serious about his wife coming to work in the 
store. 

Jerry returned three-quarters of an hour later wearing a fresh 
change of clothes. Entering the back of the store, he set his dirty 
clothes in a paper sack and carried it into his office. He called out, 
"Mike, I'm back."

He didn't wait for a reply as he closed the door. Today, he had to 
locate a place to live since living in the office was beginning to get 
a little old. While there, he noticed the pages he had gotten from 
the bank the previous day. He decided that maybe the first thing 
that he needed to do was resolve his financial situation.

Sitting at his desk, he started going over the record of the checks. It 
only took him a few minutes to get totally immersed in what he 
was doing. At first glance, it looked like he could take nine 
hundred dollars a month without impacting anyone except his 
wife's idle time. His concentration was interrupted when Mike 
knocked on the door. Looking up, he said, "Come in."

Mike slowly opened the door and peered into the office looking 
nervous. This was a very tough thing for him to do, but he needed 
to remind Jerry about the discussion concerning his wife. 
Apologetically, he said, "Karen is here to talk to you about the job 
you offered."

At the reminder of his conversation about hiring Mike's wife, he 
grinned over at Mike. He said, "Great. Send her in."

A few minutes later, Mike's wife entered the room just as Jerry 
finished clearing his personal papers from the desk. Jerry said, 
"Hello, Karen. Have a seat." 

Karen nervously took a seat opposite the big man. She knew that 
Jerry was a big man, but until now she had never really dealt with 
him one on one. Sitting this close to him, she could understand 
why Mike was terrified of him. Voice shaking a little, she said, 
"Mike told me something about a job."

"Yes. I was wondering if you would like to manage the inventory 
of the store. It is a part-time job, but has some nice benefits. You'll 
be able to come to work with Mike, take your lunches together, 
and work around your kid's school hours."

"I don't really know that much about auto parts," she answered 
nervously.

Jerry was quiet for a moment before he replied, "That might be a 
problem. Of course, you don't have to know what things do and 
most of the items have the names on the boxes. I'd teach you, but 
have recently come to the conclusion that I'm not a very good 
teacher. I don't have the patience for it, but I'm sure that Mike 
would be happy to help you out."

"I've been taking computer classes at the community college," said 
Karen hoping that it would be a good reason to hire her.

"We don't have a computer here, but I've been thinking it is time to 
change that. You could probably take charge of that effort since I 
have no clue about computers."

"Oh," replied Karen wondering if she were up to the job. Finally, 
she said, "I'm not sure that I can learn all that stuff."

"Bah! If I can learn it, so can you. The job pays $8.00 an hour to 
start. If you stay six months, it will go up to $9.00 an hour."

"Are you saying that you'll take a chance on me?"

"Yes. When can you start?"

"How about tomorrow?"

Jerry sat there for a moment considering the answer. Tomorrow 
would be good, but today would be better. Satisfied that she was 
going to come to work, he decided not to push his luck. He smiled 
and dug through the desk drawer for an application and a W-4 
form. Handing them to her, he said, "Why don't you fill this out? 
Mike has late lunch today, so maybe you will want to hang around 
and go to lunch with him."

Karen looked down at the forms he had handed her. They were 
standard forms and wouldn't take long to fill out. It was only 
eleven in the morning. She looked up and said, "Great. I'll fill them 
out now."

"Use my desk, I'll talk to Mike and see how things are going in the 
store."

Wandering out to the front of the store, he saw Mike waiting to 
hear the news. Split in his opinion as to whether his wife should 
work here, Mike didn't want to hear from her that she had been 
turned down. Even worse would be the possibility that Jerry would 
have him break the news to her. Seeing the look on Mike's face, 
Jerry said, "She's filling out the paperwork now and will start 
tomorrow. I'm going to head out for an early lunch. I'll be back in 
about an hour and a half. I have some errands to run."

Over lunch at the burger joint, Jerry examined the classified ads 
looking for a cheap place to live. He didn't need much, just enough 
room for a bed, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Wolfing down his 
burger, he circled a couple of places that were close by and seemed 
reasonably priced. As soon as he finished eating, he picked up the 
paper and headed out.

The neighborhood had seen better days and those days had been 
long ago. It had been taken over by the poor and elderly. The 
street, or what passed as a street, was filled with potholes and lined 
with old cars that belonged on the lot of that horrible used car 
place where he had bought his truck. The few teenagers he had 
seen, all of whom were black, looked angry. 

He parked in front of the house listed in the advertisement. A 
couple of windows were broken, the steps were half rotted, and the 
house needed painting. It was in bad enough shape that his truck 
looked new compared to it. Shaking his head, he debated what to 
do. Stepping out of the truck, he went up to the house. A teenager, 
perhaps fifteen, came over to where he stood and said, "Kinda 
white to be thinkin' of livin' here."

Without turning to look at the kid, Jerry replied, "Kinda young to 
be out of school."

"Shit, what's that got to do with anythin'." School didn't start for 
two weeks, so the insult didn't mean anything to the kid.

"Is this a safe neighborhood?"

The kid shrugged his shoulders and looked around before he 
answered, "Depends."

"Depends on what?" asked Jerry believing he knew the answer to 
his question.

"Whether you're black or white."

Jerry turned and stepped up to the kid. Putting his hands on his 
hips, he faced the kid directly letting him get a glimpse of his full 
size. Raising an eyebrow, he asked, "Do you think I'll have any 
trouble that I can't handle?"

Taking in the monster standing before him, the kid gulped and then 
replied, "Don't think so."

"Good. Tell me a reason to move here."

"You'll have me for a neighbor," replied the kid with a smirk.

Looking down at the boy, Jerry burst out laughing and said, "I 
think you've talked me into it. Where do I find the owner of this 
dump?"

"He's got the real estate office six blocks north of here," replied the 
kid wondering if this guy was serious about moving into the 
neighborhood. He'd be the only white within a half a mile. As a 
last resort, he asked, "Are you sure you want to live here? This is a 
slum if you haven't noticed."

"I noticed and don't care," replied Jerry. 

The two of them stood there for a moment in silence, Jerry stood 
examining the house while the kid examined Jerry. Coming to a 
decision, Jerry said, "I'm going to the real estate office. You say it 
is six blocks from here?"

"Yeah, take the street there to the left and you'll hit it. You can't 
miss the place. He's the only one with a fancy car in the whole 
area."

Jerry followed the directions and found the office without a 
problem. Parked out front of office building was a silver Lexus. 
Considering that he had driven past clunker after clunker on the 
way there, the presence of the Lexus was almost a shock to the 
system. The sign in front of the building said, "Robert Benson 
Property Management."

A pasty-faced little man with a very bad toupee was seated behind 
a desk talking on the telephone. Jerry hated him at first sight 
without being able to put a finger on why he reacted to the man in 
such a fashion. After the man hung up the telephone, he asked, 
"What can I do for you?"

"You have a property on Grayson Lane for rent."

"Yes, I do."

"I'd like to rent it."

"It's not in a very good neighborhood," replied Robert, surprised 
that a white man wanted to rent the house and unsure that he 
wanted to rent it to him. He much preferred to rent to folks who 
knew better than to screw with the landlord. Blacks and Mexicans 
knew that little lesson. If they hadn't learned it elsewhere, they 
learned it here.

"At two hundred a month, I like the price," replied Jerry.

"Okay. It'll be a two hundred dollar deposit with two months rent 
up front," answered the guy. With a sly look on his face, Robert 
asked, "Looking for a little out of the way place to bring your 
girlfriend, huh?"

Jerry shot a nasty look at the greasy little man. The guy didn't seem 
to care and just said, "I guess it is none of my business."

"Right," answered Jerry. He pulled out his wallet pocket and 
removed six hundred dollars. Handing it over to the man, he said, 
"I need a receipt and a lease."

The man bent down to fill out the lease. As he worked, Jerry asked, 
"You gonna fix the windows on the place?"

"You're renting it as is," replied Robert as he bent to his work. 

Jerry had expected that as an answer and knew that even if he 
made improvements to the house the guy would end up keeping 
the deposit. This guy was a slumlord, profiting off the poor. Jerry 
could feel the rage coming to the surface as he thought, 'I'm one of 
the poor and had better get used to it. I have to live off eight 
hundred a month. That's probably more than most of my new 
neighbors.' 

Robert handed him the lease and said, "Sign it."

Jerry took the time to read over the lease. It was the nastiest lease 
he had ever encountered. A week late with rent and the owner 
could change the locks on the door and confiscate everything 
inside the house. It was illegal, but who among the tenants could 
afford to contest it in court. Growling, he signed the lease. Before 
handing it back, he said, "Receipt for my six hundred."

"Oh, yeah," replied the man. He filled out two receipts, one for the 
deposit and one for two months rent. As he handed them over, he 
said, "You're gonna love living in that neighborhood. Lots of 
young black pussy there that'll fuck you for a few bucks. Hell, I bet 
some of them would appreciate the chance to fuck you instead of 
me for the rent."

The rage welled up in Jerry at the way the man talked about using 
people and his hands slowly curled up into a fist. Fighting back the 
rage, he handed over the crumpled lease and said, "The keys."

Robert handed him the keys and watched as Jerry stiffly walked 
out of the building. It was lucky he didn't know how close he had 
come to seeing a demonstration of Jerry's strength since Jerry had 
wanted to tear the man in half.

Jerry sat in the truck as the rage slowly retreated. Talking to the 
truck, he said, "I was hoping that I wouldn't feel that rage anymore. 
Maybe I'm wrong, but there was something different about it this 
time."

He started the truck and drove back to the house he had rented. 
Pulling up in front of the house, he looked over at it and said, 
"Thunder, this is your new home."

Getting out, he fished the keys to the house from his pocket. 
Unlocking the front door, he opened it and stepped back as a foul 
smell billowed out. Holding his breath, he went into the house and 
opened windows to let it air out. Two of the windows had broken 
panes and he left them closed. The place was filthy with trash piled 
up on the floor. Garbage that had been in the kitchen had turned 
into a science experiment. Coughing, he said, "I guess I'll be 
spending another night or two in the office until I get this place 
cleaned up."

Getting out of the house, the kid turned up and looked at him. 
Surprised at seeing the guy back, the kid said, "I thought you were 
fooling about renting this place."

Jerry frowned as he thought about it. He tended to be a rather 
literal guy who did what he said. He replied, "I don't fool about 
things."

The kid nodded his head, as he believed the guy was telling him 
the truth. After a minute he said, "I'm Abraham Lincoln Spencer."

"I'm Jerry Smith. Can I call you Abe?"

"Makes me sound old," answered the kid even though that was 
what everyone called him.

"Nothing wrong with that," replied Jerry as he looked over at the 
kid with a neutral expression. 

"Okay, if I can call you Jerry."

"Sure thing," answered Jerry as he stood back from the house. 
With a smile, he said, "You didn't tell me the owner was such a 
nice guy."

"Nice guy?" asked the kid incredulous. Everyone hated the 
landlord with a passion. In fact, he was surprised that no one had 
killed him yet. Stepping back, he challenged, "You whites all stick 
together."

"Yeah, we do. In the five minutes I was there, I felt like ripping off 
his head and shoving it up his ass."

Abe looked over at Jerry for a minute and said, "Oh, you don't like 
him."

"Right. That's one slimy asshole."

Abe didn't reply in any way except to smile a little more broadly. 
The more he talked to this guy, the more he liked him. It was going 
to be interesting to see how the other people in the neighborhood 
took to the guy. Of course, considering the size of Jerry it would be 
just as interesting to see how he would take to the people in the 
neighborhood.

Jerry said, "I'm heading back to the job."

"Aren't you going to lock up the house?"

"Why?"

"Someone might steal something," answered Abe looking over at 
the wide open door. It was just inviting anyone to come in and take 
whatever he or she wanted.

"I hope they do," replied Jerry. "There's nothing in there that I 
want."

"They'll take the fridge."

Jerry looked down at Abe and replied, "Just let people know that if 
they take the appliances, that I'll play basketball using their body 
as a ball."

That Jerry could carry out that threat was not lost on Abe. He'd 
spread the word knowing that it wouldn't do any good until more 
people saw the guy. Shaking his head, Abe answered, "They won't 
believe the threat until they see you."

Jerry laughed and said, "Then I expect they'll return them to me."

Abe stood there laughing as Jerry drove off in his truck. It was 
going to be fun having this guy as a next door neighbor. He was 
going to create quite a stir amongst the people here.

Jerry drove carefully down the street avoiding the potholes. The 
city probably wouldn't fix them, so he was just going to have to be 
careful driving around here. It was twelve blocks to the store and 
he made the trip in eight minutes. As he drove, he decided that if 
Abe was old enough and was willing, he could ride a bike to the 
store and work part-time as a stock boy. 

Entering the store, Mike and Karen were seated at the counter 
talking with each other. They didn't expect Jerry back for another 
thirty minutes, so they were talking about what she could expect 
working there. Jerry, not realizing they hadn't heard him, asked, 
"You guys ready for lunch?"

Mike turned in surprise and said, "Sure."

Karen couldn't believe how jumpy her husband was around Jerry, 
but then she had never seen Jerry angry. She answered, "Ready to 
go."

"Mike, I'll see you when you get back. Karen, I guess I'll see you 
in the morning after you get the kids off to school."

"Sure," replied Mike. At the same time, Karen replied, "Right."

Jerry watched as the pair left the store together, but drove off in 
separate cars. Jerry looked down at the receipts and saw they had a 
pretty good lunchtime crowd while he was out of the store. Most of 
their business was from auto repair houses around town and 
discounted, but the walk-in home-fixit crowd bought the high 
profit items. 

The next person to enter the store was the shipping company. It 
took him several trips with the dolly to unload the twenty boxes 
containing his orders from last week. He signed the bill of lading 
and watched as the man left to make his next delivery. Staring at 
the twenty boxes, he realized that he could have used Karen here 
today rather than tomorrow. Sighing, he went over and started to 
unpack them, putting each item on the shelves in the proper place. 

He was interrupted three times by customers as he worked, but he 
completed restocking the shelves by the time Mike returned from 
lunch. Mike noticed the empty boxes and said, "You could have 
waited until I returned."

"Nah. I enjoyed the effort."

Mike just shrugged and went behind the counter. Curious, he 
examined the schedule and saw that he was scheduled to work 
Saturday. Without thinking about the possible consequences of his 
statement, he said, "I see you have me down for Saturday on the 
schedule."

Jerry walked over and scratched Mike's name off the schedule as 
he said, "Sorry. I didn't make the change."

"I didn't mean it like that," replied Mike.

"That's okay. Relax, you're too tense."

Mike looked at the schedule and said, "You don't have me down 
for Monday."

Jerry looked over at the schedule and nodded his agreement. He 
said, "That's right."

"Do you want me to work Monday?"

The question surprised Jerry and he was almost ready to answer 
that he could have that day off as well when he realized that Karen 
would be working Monday.  Smiling he said, "I'll tell you what. 
Why don't you start working Mondays and taking off Saturdays 
from now on?"

"Are you sure?"

"Well, I figure your wife will be working weekdays. You might 
want to work those same days and have the same days off."

Mike looked at Jerry and said, "Okay. Sounds good to me."

"Great. I'm thinking about hiring a stock boy. Do you think you 
can train him?"

"I suppose. It's not hard. You sure we need one? Sammy usually 
does that."

"I think Sammy is about ready to start working the counter all of 
the time. I figure the new guy can take care of some of the things 
around the store in addition to the putting up stock," replied Jerry. 

Mike shook his head and said, "We still need two full time 
people."

Jerry smiled as he thought about the neighborhood into which he 
had just moved. Somewhere around there, someone had to want a 
job. Working for him had to be better than fucking the landlord. He 
replied, "Don't worry about that."

The hours passed. Sammy came into work and joined Mike at the 
counter. Jerry went into the back and finished going through the 
records of his checking account. He calculated how much money 
was required to pay the household bills. Frowning, he realized that 
less than a quarter of his money was going to pay bills. Not quite 
able to believe the numbers, he checked a second and a third time. 
The house payment was low since he had bought the house twenty 
years ago when he was just a salesclerk at the store.

He added together how much money his wife was spending on 
herself. She was spending almost three thousand on her hobbies 
and personal interests. He split the three thousand into four parts. 
He was left with eight hundred for himself. Smiling, he realized 
that the lifestyle of his wife was going to take a major turn for the 
worse. 

Deciding it was time to start weaning his wife off his money tit, 
Jerry picked up the telephone and called his bank. After a few 
minutes he was put in touch with the bank manager. It took some 
time for him to make clear what he wanted to do, but the bank 
manager was unable to help him. Instead, he suggested that Jerry 
contact a lawyer. 

Jerry didn't have a lawyer and didn't even know how to go about 
getting one. Frowning, he decided to put it off for another day. He 
didn't even know what credit cards his wife was using that had his 
name on them, but they had to be stopped before she realized he 
was done with paying her way through life. 

Walking out of his office, he was surprised to find Mike and 
Sammy closing up the store. Sammy turned to Jerry and said, 
"Time to go home."

Jerry realized he had a home to which he could go, at least for a 
little while this evening. When the other two left the store, he 
locked up and went out the back to his truck. Getting in, he drove 
by the burger place and had another burger. From there, he went to 
the local grocery store and bought a hundred dollars worth of 
cleaning supplies. He wondered if it was enough, but didn't let the 
thought hold him back. 

Driving down the street keeping a sharp eye out for potholes, he 
made it to his house in ten minutes. As he parked the truck along 
the curb, he looked around the neighborhood taking it in all. There 
were two dozen kids running around and riding on bikes. Adults 
were out in the yards talking to each other. A group of teenage 
boys were leaning against a car watching him get out of his truck 
with interest. Jerry got out before he spotted Abe sitting on the 
porch next door. Abe's head was turning from one group of people 
to the next hoping to catch their reactions.

One of the teenage boys stepped away from the car and sauntered 
over to Jerry. Frowning, he looked at the large man as though 
assessing him. Jerry reached out offering to shake hands. The 
teenager looked down at the hand for a second and then grabbed it 
squeezing as hard as he could. Jerry's hand closed around the kid's 
hand appearing to swallow it in the process. The kid said, "I heard 
a strong white man was moving into the neighborhood. Not sure if 
I like that, if you catch my drift."

Jerry looked down and noticed that his front tire was right against 
the curb. Reaching down to the bumper, he lifted the truck and 
pulled the front a few inches from the curb before setting the truck 
down. Turning to look at the teenager, he said, "We'll have to talk 
about it someday after we've gotten to know each other a little 
better. First impressions are important, but not all that important."

The kid looked at Jerry and then stared at the truck. It was a small 
truck, built in the mid-fifties and not as heavy as most modern cars. 
Still the demonstration was effective. The other teenagers who had 
stayed back by the car across the street shifted nervously and 
whispered to each other. The kid nodded, "You're strong. I'll give 
you that."

Jerry didn't respond, but went to the passenger door of the truck 
and pulled out the cleaning supplies he had purchased. As he lifted 
the bags, he said, "The name is Jerry Smith."

"I'm Martin Luther Spencer," replied the black kid. 

Nodding to indicate that he had heard Martin, Jerry started to walk 
up the path to the front door. As he went, he said, "You must be 
the older brother of Abe."

Intrigued, Martin followed and asked, "How do you know my 
brother?"

"He's half the reason I moved here," replied Jerry as he climbed the 
steps to the porch. The steps creaked as he stepped on them and it 
was clear they wouldn't support his weight if he carried anything 
heavy. 

"Why?"

"I like him," replied Jerry as he looked into the house. If anything, 
it was dirtier than it had been when he had walked through it 
earlier. Newspapers were spread all over the floor, old towels, 
broken toys, and other debris left by who ever had been the 
previous occupant were scattered about the floor. A number of 
people had trooped through the house while he had been gone. Abe 
had warned him it would happen, so he wasn't surprised.

Martin froze with narrowed eyes staring at Jerry's back. Suspicious 
of the white man, he asked, "Are you a faggot?"

"Nope. Are you?"

"Fuck you, man. You're the one saying you like my little brother."

Jerry turned and looked at Martin. Shaking his head at how his 
statement had been misunderstood, he replied, "Your little brother 
tried to talk me out of moving here. Honesty like that is pretty rare. 
He's a good kid. Someone ought to make sure he makes it to 
school every day."

Martin relaxed a little and looked back at his friends hanging 
around the car. He didn't know what to make of this guy moving 
into his neighborhood. Finally, he said, "Anyone that hurts him is 
going to have to answer to me."

Entering the house, Jerry dropped the cleaning supplies by the 
front door and pulled out the box of trash bags. As he pulled a bag 
out, he said, "Good for you. I think I like you too. Now go give 
your report to the kids hanging around that car across the street. 
I've got to start cleaning up before it gets too dark to work."

Martin stood there looking at Jerry as he opened a trash bag and 
started picking up the litter spread on the floor of the very small 
living room. Puzzled, he turned and went back across the street. A 
few minutes later, Jerry heard a noise behind him. Looking over 
his shoulder, he saw Abe standing at the door. "Hi, Abe. Met your 
brother. He's a nice guy."

"You mean that in the same way you talked about the landlord?"

"No. I mean I really like your brother. He cares about you and I 
can respect that," answered Jerry as he tied off the bag and went to 
get another one. 

"You sure confused him," replied Abe as he turned to watch his 
brother talking to his friends. He knew that half of them used drugs 
and hoped his brother wasn't involved with drugs, but that was 
highly unlikely. Everyone in the area smoked grass, but there were 
more than a few crack addicts in the area. Turning to look at Jerry, 
he said, "Some people think you are here to open a crack house."

"No. I'm here to live," replied Jerry wondering why they would 
think he would do that. 

Abe was quiet as he watched Jerry fill another bag with trash. 
After a few minutes, Abe said, "Only time whites come here is to 
take something from us."

"Sad that you believe that. Even sadder if that is true," remarked 
Jerry as he thought about it. The rage inside was very quiet.
