Jasper
Cracking open my second beer of the afternoon, I sink into my recliner. On TV, the Austin Ropers take the field to a roar of applause. They’re in Denver this week, and snow flurries almost obscure the yard lines. It’s gonna be a messy game.
My right leg aches—the bone-deep pain that keeps me up almost every night—and I drape an ice pack over my thigh.
Fuckin’ A, that burns like a sombitch.
I should be used to it by now. Eight weeks bouncing between the hospital and rehab, multiple surgeries, months of physical therapy, and a lifetime of chronic pain to look forward to. The PT released me with a good luck handshake and a warning not to “overdo it.”
My retirement party—if you can call the commander handing me a gold watch and saying, “See you around, Jas,” a party—left me without a job or a reason to get up in the morning.
The monotony is gonna do me in—especially now, as the days march toward winter. At least in summer, the blessed relief of baseball kept me busy. I spent a chunk of change on season tickets to the Austin Stars where I could sit out in the sun and forget I’m damaged goods.
The explosion that ended my career left me with an artificial hip, three pins in my femur, a rotator cuff that’s seen better days, a handful of scars decorating my right cheek, and only partial sight out of that same eye.
The Ropers gain thirty yards, and another swig of beer goes down easy. Too easy. I should switch to water. But…why? It only took me ten days to dump the pain pills. Seen too many guys get addicted to that shit and lose everything. But the alcohol? That’s manageable. At least for now.
Deep down, I know I have a problem. I’m going dry in the new year.
The phone rings, rattling on the side table. I set the bottle down and swipe across the screen. “Yeah?”
“Is this the super?” the quiet male voice asks. Tim. He knows damn well who he’s talking to, but he starts every call the same way.
“Yep. What broke this time, Tim?”
“The heater. It’s making this terrible noise and it stinks. Like something died in here.”
I stifle my groan as I push to my feet, limp into the kitchen, and toss the ice pack in the freezer. “I’ll be up in five minutes. Turn it off, okay?”
“Yes, sir.” The kid hangs up before I can tell him not to call me “sir.”
When the building owner, Rick, found out I’d been forced to retire from the Rangers, he took pity on me and offered me this job. Handle routine maintenance for the small, thirty-unit apartment complex, collect checks for him, and he knocks my rent down to five hundred a month. Not a bad gig. Normally, a two-bedroom place like mine in downtown Austin would be four or five times that. The building’s in decent condition, but it’s old, so something goes ass up at least three or four times a week.
Before I grab my toolbox, I make a pitstop in the bathroom for some mouthwash. Rick probably won’t care that I started drinking a little after 3:00 p.m. Tim either. But there’s no need to flaunt it.
Pride won’t let me take the elevator, so I climb two flights of stairs to the top floor and knock on the door of Unit 503.
The kid—hell, he’s got to be twenty-five, hardly a kid anymore—answers and hunches his shoulders. “Sorry for the bother, Mr. Blade.”
“This is my job. Unless you’ve been pouring concrete into the heating unit, we’re solid.” I try for a smile, but Tim doesn’t seem convinced because he darts out of my way like a scared jackrabbit.
He ain’t wrong about the stench. The whole apartment smells like the Louisiana Bayou in July, and it’s colder than all get out in here. “Just how long has this been goin’ on?”
“Um, three days?”
“Fuckin’ A. Next time don’t wait so damn long. You’re lucky you’re healthy. If your mama had been visitin’, she could have come down with pneumonia. Plus, smells to me like the whole unit’s toxic.” When I crouch down in front of the main vent, a gust of moldy air hits me square in the face, and I can’t stifle my grunt.
The beer isn’t doing me any favors. I land on my ass with a string of obscenities rarely heard from anyone but construction workers and long-haul truckers.
“Mr. Blade! You okay?” Tim approaches cautiously, but I wave him back.
“Fine,” I grit out. “But this whole unit’s FUBAR. We might have a couple extras in the basement. Got any old towels lying around?”
He nods, his blond hair so long, it brushes his shoulders with the motion, and by the time he returns with an armful, I’ve managed to loosen the brackets holding the unit in place.
Tim spreads towels over the floor, catching the brackish water dripping from the heater. Fuck. I have to call Rick. This apartment ain’t safe until we get a mold inspection done.
I wipe my hands on my jeans. Big mistake. They’re toxic now too.
