Casey

Brandon Fick

The day I met Casey Reynolds it was raining.

I remember the summer of 1993 containing two awful heat waves, but on the day I met Casey there was persistent drizzle. Mr. Hoback had been instructing me on the finer points of changing a light bulb when the glass broke free of the thread. “Damn cheap bulbs,” he cursed. “Don’t make ‘em like they used to. Go to the garage and get pliers.” I did not say that the fixture was fifty years old, I simply complied, threw on my coat, trudged into the grey. I found pliers at the top of a toolbox and came out of the garage to see a girl walking up the driveway.

She stopped and looked at me. “This Alvin Hoback’s house?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you his grandson?” She peeled her hood back and trotted up the ramp.

“No, I work for him.”

She stopped, a certain apprehension in her voice. “You work for him? My mom just talked to his nephew and he said he was desperate for someone to do house and yardwork.”

“Well, I’ve been doing it for two months. But he’ll let you know what he wants.” This had to be a mistake, the sooner cleared up the better. I opened the door and led the girl in.

“I’m Casey, by the way.”

“David,” I mumbled.

Mr. Hoback was beneath the dining room chandelier, peering through the squint of his good eye, rocking the haunches of his wheelchair. A once robust man reduced to a stoop and a vague leer to his lip. But his skin was smooth and not the colour of death, with white hair strands slicked back by a comb. His favourite pose was to form a tent with his hands and kick his legs.

He noticed us and did a double take. “Who’s this?”

I let Casey explain. As she did, I got my first good look at her. Mid-length brunette hair frizzy from the rain, a round baby-like chin, freckled cheeks, blue eyes, and a small mouth. I pegged her as five-foot six, but the long rain slicker made her seem taller. Nothing extraordinary about her, except that I’d never seen her before. And Burgess was no metropolis.

“Look, mister,” Casey was saying, “I see you have help, but four hands will get more done. I don’t mind vacuuming, washing clothes, or cutting grass. You see, my mom and I moved here a few weeks ago and our landlord is being a real jerk about rent…”

“Do you cook?” he said. “Microwave meals are shit compared to what Louisa cooked.”

“Yeah! I mean, yeah, all the time. Nothing fancy, of course.”

“If you can cook a steak and peel potatoes, you’re hired.”

“Oh, thank you. I mean it. I’ve been looking, but all the jobs in town are taken.”

“Wait a second,” I said abruptly. “Shouldn’t you talk to your nephew?”

Mr. Hoback grunted. “Sounds like this is what the city-slicker wanted. Less chores and less visiting for him. So be it. He’s paying for all this.” He turned in his wheelchair, banging the china cabinet. “Have to use the can. Take your coat off, girlie. David will show you around, maybe you can teach him how to change a bulb.”

~

I was nineteen going on twenty that summer, halfway through an English degree, and had reluctantly answered Mr. Hoback’s call for someone to manage his massive yard and moulting brown bungalow. When his wife Louisa died three months earlier, talk spread in Burgess that he might soon follow, having little use of his legs and being unacquainted with domestic duties. My dad urged me to help him out; he remembered when Mr. Hoback was the town’s resident handyman, and glorious days fishing with him and Grandpa Gene. In essence, I was guilted into working. Dad was a proponent of physical labour and took pity on the old man.

By July, I was grudgingly comfortable with the labour and situation. There’s an undeniably pleasing aura about the smell of fresh cut grass, the look of swept sidewalk, scrubbed washroom tile. A flushed feeling, exertion, one doesn’t get from composing words. I was thrown by Casey’s sudden appearance though. Was she willing to get her hands dirty? Would she be disgusted by pubic hair and dribble on the toilet seat?

Well, my worries were in vain. Casey was just as capable, if not more than me. When she worked, it was as though she was ironing out kinks that personally irked her. Her face was determined. She rarely complained. Mr. Hoback took an immediate liking to her, especially the chicken lasagna she occasionally made him. As for division of work, we developed a schedule where we both worked Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays and one of us had the middle of the week off. My salary decreased, but I was careful not to say a word. Being an only child, I wasn’t starved for money like some whose parents had to put multiple kids through university.

Two weeks after she started, Casey and I had our first in-depth conversation. One Friday evening at sunset, I found her on the back-porch railing, staring at the half-acre of grass she’d cut that afternoon, golden wheat fields beyond the alley and the speckled white fence. Her head was turned to the right and shadows almost hid the streak running down her cheek. She rubbed her eye and I pushed open the screen door. I didn’t say: What’s wrong? Instead, I said: “Beautiful evening.”

Casey didn’t flinch, just brushed a hair out of her face. “You never tire of all this space?”

“Living your whole life somewhere, you get used to it.”

“Must be nice knowing the same people for years. I get so sick of the same questions everywhere we go. ‘Oh, where did you come from? What do your parents do?’” She paused. “I think there’s a correlation between popularity and being an asshole.”

“Don’t mistake me as Mr. Popular. But there are more than a few assholes here.”

“Great. I was so looking forward to grade twelve.” She shook her head. “Are you going to sit or just stare at my ass?” I stammered and Casey laughed, a surprisingly infectious laugh that tickled my spine. “Sorry, just seeing what kind of guy you are. Apparently decent.”

“You think?” I said, swinging my legs over the railing.

“As far as I can tell.” She grinned and I was struck by her blue irises. Then we were silent, taking in the expiring day.

“I hope you don’t think I was trying to take your job,” Casey said. “But I, we, really need the money.” I watched her carefully, but avoided direct eye contact. “You had a good gig going.”

“Not that good. Mr. Hoback’s not exactly a ray of sunshine. Though, he’s taken to you.”

“I know, I’m so amazing, right?” I scratched the back of my head, then we both laughed. The awkward distance disappeared and the sliver of sun kissed the horizon and slipped beyond the veil; the yard was still aside from a whistling robin in the half-dead crab apple tree.

“Everything’s cleaned?” Casey asked. “Dishes? Dirty underwear?”

“I believe. As you know, he’s no night owl. We can go.”

“For a former carpenter, he’s sort of helpless.” She jumped down.

“At least we don’t have to tuck him into bed.” I jumped too, landing with a grunt.

“Nice,” she said, causing me to redden. “You live on McArthur Street, right?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“We live across the way, in the apartments.”

“Oh, okay.” Those apartments were notorious eyesores, even for a potholed, thousand-head town with barely any new infrastructure. Not many people lived there, or at least not many reputable people. The tenants ran the gamut from rowdy young miners to suspected drug dealers. “Guess we’ll head the same way,” I said. “Didn’t have my car today.”

“Well,” Casey said, soft and low, “it’s a beautiful evening.”

It took fifteen minutes to cross town, but it felt longer. The last time I walked with a girl at night I was probably eleven, coming back from the school playground with some chatterbox cousin. To say my female knowledge was limited was an understatement. I didn’t have any illusions about what this was, but that didn’t make it any less uncomfortable. There was no moon and Main Street was the only one lit by the halos of streetlamps; Casey and I walked in semi-darkness. Conversation largely dried up, but she did ask what I was taking in university. I told her, but didn’t go on about my “pipe-dream” of becoming some kind of writer. “Couple thousand dollars a year on a pipe-dream when you could be working with me,” was Dad’s opinion. Working for a construction company might have sounded sensible to locals, but elicited no interest in me. Let’s just say I guarded my aspirations in Burgess.

We came to McArthur and Casey stared across the street at her apartment. I was about to say goodnight when she blurted out: “Want to come in?”

My mind reeled over the implications. What were her intentions? What did I actually know about this girl?

“Are your parents home?” I said.

“Mom’s out of town, won’t be back till later. Dad’s not around. We could, you know, hang out some more.”

“Yeah, um…” I couldn’t manufacture a decent excuse. Perhaps because there was a louder than usual voice in my head telling me to say yes. There was something about her, an allure I didn’t fully recognize in that moment. But I would be taking a leap of faith. One where there was no assurance of landing gracefully.

“It’s okay,” she muttered, backing away, “no problem, catch you Monday.”

“Okay, goodnight.”

We parted and I remember feeling like I shattered the moment into a million pieces. 

~

“Never been fishing, have you David?”

The temperature had been pushing thirty-five Celsius for a week, and the three of us were gathered in the stuffy living room, curtains half-drawn, crappy electric fan spinning out humid air. Mr. Hoback was flicking through channels and Casey and I were boiling on the loveseat. There wasn’t much we could do in this weather, not much we’d want to do. In hindsight, the two of us were more companions than caretakers, but the old man would never admit that.

“No, I haven’t,” I answered for the third time.

Mr. Hoback kicked his leg out. “Imagine, grandson of Gene Cauley never been fishing. Every man’s gotta.” He caught Casey’s eye. “Girls too. Everybody.” He pointed the remote at the TV. “But this don’t do it justice.” The fisherman reeling in something disappeared. “Back in fifty-eight, Gene and I caught thirty-five perch in one day. One day. That was living. Dore Lake was a damn fine place. Course Louisa always complained about the smell afterwards.”

The TV landed on a commercial for Bon Jovi, coming to the city in December.

“Who the hell’d listen to that?” Mr. Hoback grumbled.

“Oh, I love them!” Casey whispered, slapping her sweaty hand down on mine. She took it away immediately. “Don’t you?”

“I’m more of a Nirvana guy.”

“Really?” She was trying not to smile.

“What?”

“You’re clean-cut and smell alright. And where’s your flannel?”

Though I thought he paid no attention to what we said to each other, Mr. Hoback must have been watching, because he said: “What’s so funny?”

“Oh nothing,” Casey said. “Can we go downstairs? Maybe we can sort those boxes?”

“Fine by me. Mind those stairs. Loose buggers.” As I went by, Mr. Hoback quipped: “Behave yourself, David.” He either winked or his bad eye twitched.

Cold air enveloped us as we descended to the basement, consisting of a washroom and furnace area, a storage room, semi-living space, and rumpus room. Casey immediately went to the washroom and I reluctantly went to the storage room. There were boxes filled with junk on a shelf, coats and dresses on a rack, shoes, fishing gear, tools, and photo albums in assorted piles. I leafed through a heavy album labeled: Fishing. It didn’t take long to find Grandpa Gene, his pictures were everywhere. The one that stood out was him on the back of a boat, lofting two heavy-looking perch on each arm, smirking under the shadow of his sailor cap. I ran my finger around the picture’s edge and studied it as though I’d never seen what he looked like.

“Who’s that?” I heard Casey’s breathing, sensed her peering over my shoulder.

“My grandpa.”

“Sure looks like a character.”

“From everything I’ve heard. Died before I was born.”

“That’s too bad.” She swept her hair behind her shoulder. I thought I smelled perfume and wondered if she’d freshened up in the washroom. “Come to the other room,” she said.

The rumpus room was echoey and L-shaped, adorned in faux-mahogany paneling and atrocious orange carpet; there was a pull-out couch and stackable chairs at one end, a modest bar and four stools at the other. Mr. Hoback said he and Louisa used to host “the occasional shaker” down here. Casey went behind the bar and pulled out a whiskey bottle. “Found this the other day when I was looking for the record player. Tucked way at the back. What do you say?”

“I’m not much of a drinker.” In fact, I’d never had whiskey before, only sporadic beers, unlike my binge-prone peers. “How old is that?”

“Hard to say, but it shouldn’t matter. You think Alvin’s going to mind? Come on David, live a little, let’s have a shot.”

“Alright, one.” We pulled up to the bar, Casey opened the Jack Daniels, and poured us liberal shots.

“Here’s to us,” she said, voice shaking.

We didn’t clink glasses, but we swallowed at the same time. Within seconds we were coughing and shaking our heads. Casey’s face turned bright red, as if she’d been slapped, while fiery flames singed my throat.

“Whoa! Man, that’s strong. You okay?”

“Yeah.” She fanned her face, ruffled her V-neck. “That was dumb. I thought…”

“What?”

“Never mind.” She frowned and gripped the bar while jutting her chin out. There was something kind of cute about this pose, even though she was disappointed. While the burning in my throat subsided, my stomach continued to churn.

Casey was mumbling to herself as she stowed the bottle away.

“What was that?”

“No wonder I don’t have friends! Shit like this!”

My tongue struggled for words. “It’s not a big deal. We haven’t, I mean I haven’t…”

“No, it’s that…” Now she was fighting tears and I felt totally blindsided. “I’m not some new girl, I’m the new girl, wherever I go. I’ve always been the girl who tries too hard. We’ve lived in three towns and two cities in ten years. Mom’s had all these jobs since Dad left, and she tries, working overtime, every fucking shift at the Co-op. She always said she felt comforted marrying a social worker. How could he run out on us, knowing what he knew? Well, she wasn’t the last to fall for his bullshit. Long as I can remember it’s money this, money that.”

I should have said: It’s okay. Touched her hand. Something. Not that I didn’t empathize, but I was baffled by this outburst. I didn’t know if my words would make things better or worse. At least when you write you can go back and make it better.

“You must think I’m a…”

“Human?”

“I was going to say schizo-bitch, but that’s kind of you to say.”

Awkwardness, which had eroded away over the past month, now pumped through my veins. Casey rubbed her shoulder and huffed; I cleared my throat and spoke more candidly than usual. “If we’re confessing, I’ve never had many friends. Sometimes it bothers me. But sometimes I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

“You must think about getting out of here, don’t you? Somewhere better? People like us, we’re told something better’s around the corner, but what if it’s not?”

Casey was looking at me, into me, intensity conveyed by pursed lips and a crinkled brow. I ignored her questions, tried to avert this penetrating gaze, but strayed only as far as a strand of brunette hair plastered to her cheek.

“Well, hey,” I said, gulping, “at least your face is better now. The redness, I mean. It’s a better looking face than mine, that’s for sure.”

“You’re just saying that. My mascara is probably a mess.”

“Ah, well, there’s nobody here but me.”

Casey smiled then; not her normal smile, a sheepish parting of the mouth, a delicate invitation. Somehow, I leaned forward, and so did she. Our faces were inches apart, tentative, when I stopped. What am I doing? I retreated, but in a fluid motion Casey seized my face and pressed hot, whisky-flavoured lips to mine, a sweet elixir that lasted seconds. My hands blindly groped the air instead of her back or face.

I was the first to pull away, flushed and confused.

“David?”

I said nothing.

“David?”

I slipped off the stool and didn’t look at Casey. Sweaty, aroused, I ran my hand over the bar and felt like an imposter. The kiss stirred my body to awareness of itself, but how was one to proceed? There was no playbook for this strange situation. Casey pushed off her stool and ran out of the room. It took me a moment to react.

“Wait! Casey, I’m sorry!”

She paused on the top step, which groaned like it might collapse. Her voice a rage-pain vibrato. “You don’t have to be sorry. I understand.”

~

The work, watering grass, preparing meals, washing dishes, vacuuming, unnecessary paint jobs, all of it continued, yet Casey and I became icier towards one another. It was worse than when she started, as at least then we could chuckle about Mr. Hoback’s rants against property tax and socialism; now we’d go a day without talking unless required. Sometimes I sensed Casey glancing across the room at me, but I tried to ignore it. I wanted her to be upfront about why she kissed me, what she wanted. But other times I’d reprimand myself. Why should you expect her to be upfront? You aren’t.

I was intrigued by Casey, but I had no experience to draw upon, no model for what moves to make. This lack of experience also made me question her motives. Did she actually like me, or was she just desperate to fit in? Did she think I’d be her ticket to acceptance? That thought gave me pause, seeing as I was trying to escape the stifling sameness of Burgess.

And what I truly felt was hard to pin down. Sometimes when I looked at Casey working, I’d be filled with admiration, almost jealousy for her efficiency. Familial warmth gripped me when I saw Casey and Mr. Hoback sharing jokes. Other times, in natural light, glistening with sweat, she would move in a particular way, somehow look sexy and innocent, and a wave of desire would surge through my blood. I couldn’t project myself into Casey’s mind, but looking back, I wonder if she was as baffled by me as I was by her. Usually, I think not. I must have come across as largely uncomplicated; a remote and privileged flake. For she lived through strife I couldn’t relate to: divorced parents, constant moving, female shunning. Casey wanted to connect, wanted friends, and her determination to fit into Burgess became all too apparent.

August 27, 1993. Last Friday of the month, last day on the job. Mr. Hoback let us take it easy, but in late afternoon, after using the washroom, he noticed we’d neglected it for a week and asked me to “throw some elbow grease into it.” I was annoyed but not surprised he selected me. Ploddingly, I cleaned the mirror, wiped the counter, threw water in the tub, scrubbed the floor.

The worst was around the base of the toilet. Curly grey hairs swam in tiny pools of piss. The old man could stand long enough to relieve himself, but drizzled all over the place. Visceral revulsion prickled my skin. “Dirty fucker,” I growled.

“I didn’t know you swore.” Casey had entered the washroom, but my back was turned and I kept it that way.

“When nobody’s around.”

“I guess I’m nobody, eh?” A half-hearted attempt at a joke, but neither of us laughed. “I won’t bother you long. Just wanted to say there’s a party tonight at Ryan McNeil’s and Denise Simpson and her boyfriend are going. Said I should come along, bring somebody if I want.”

“How do you know Denise?” Denise was an obnoxious girl with a reputation, inserted herself amongst the crowd of guys I tried to avoid throughout high school.

“I just do. I’m not a total shut-in.” That felt like a personal dig. “You want to come?”

I stopped scrubbing and turned around. “With you?”

“Well, yeah, who else?” Casey looked assured, hand on hip.

“I’ll… I’ll think about it.”

“Okay, it starts around ten, so I’ll be leaving around nine-thirty.”

She left and I continued scrubbing. Supper rolled around and Mr. Hoback was more effusive in his praise of the chicken lasagna than ever before. Afterwards, a final cleaning, we played crazy eights, “Louisa’s favourite,” and suddenly that was it: four months of work was at an end. At the door, Mr. Hoback got teary as he hugged Casey. It was a strange sight, as I’d only seen him tear up when describing his wife’s final weeks.

“You’ve been like a granddaughter,” Mr. Hoback whispered.

I felt a pang of resentment, but beat it back. She was definitely the better, more willing worker. All Mr. Hoback said to me was: “You tell me if you get fishing, David. I want to know how many you get and I expect proof!” We shook hands.

As we walked to the driveway, Casey said: “Based on your enthusiasm this evening, I assume you don’t want to come?”

We stopped in front of my car as I hemmed and hawed. “It’s alright,” she said, “I can catch a ride with Denise.”

I looked at my car, Casey, my car. I almost said: Do you really want me to come? But I stopped myself, realizing how pathetic that sounded. “I have nothing against you, it’s…”

“You’re a university student who doesn’t want to party with a bunch of rednecks. A brooding English man?” She offered a forced smile. “I get it.” Was she justifying it to herself? Or for both of us?

I shuffled my feet. “Well, it’s past nine.”

“Yeah. Time to go.”

I stuck my hand out like a stiff in a suit. “Great working with you, better than I thought.”

Casey made a nasally, closed-mouth sound. “Likewise, Mr. Cauley.” She shook and patted me on the shoulder. “Seriously though, loosen your bowtie. You’re only young once.”

I started my car. “I know. It’s hard to express…” The engine muffled my voice. “Hey, at least let me drive you to your place.”

“No, I can walk.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll see you around, David. I hope.”

“See you.”

I pulled out of the driveway, the wheels kicking out specks of gravel. I gave a wave to the hunched form of Mr. Hoback at his front door, the epitome of manhood shriveled by the accruement of years and grief. I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw Casey walking, head down, hair caressed by a gentle breeze, coming towards me but fast receding.

~

That Saturday I slept past noon as was common in those days. I was awakened by my mom, who was flustered and urgent. “David. David, wake up.” I rolled over and batted open my eyes. “David, I was at the store and talking to Martha Burns, from the hospital, she was there this morning. There was an accident, north of town, near Currie’s, a truck flipped and… someone was ejected. A girl. She said it was Casey Reynolds.”

My head felt like some massive, hardened obelisk. Too heavy to lift. “How?” I croaked. “How do they know?”

“The mother. Martha saw her mother at the hospital.”

“Is she…”

Mom couldn’t say it, confirmed it with her eyes. She tried to touch my head, but I rolled away. She said a few more things, lingered in the room, then walked out, sniffling. Broken up for a girl she’d never met. Why? For me. She must have intuited from my limited words that Casey meant something, something, to me.

I remained immobilized in bed for another couple hours. I didn’t move but adrenaline fired my heart. What was there to be excited about? What could I do? I tell you, it’s a horrible, helpless sensation to receive news like that in bed. Not even our personal cocoons can protect us from the universe’s random cruelness. I hope. When I got up I was numb and sick and knew Casey was dead.

The week flashed by, news of the tragedy spread, the town gossiped, charges were laid, none of it mattered. Casey was dead. Nothing could be helped. Casey had been the only fatality in a packed truck piloted by a shit-faced eighteen-year-old, pressured into a joyride home by “friends” from a party that meant nothing, nothing at all. I missed the first day of classes to go to the funeral. It was horror, absolute horror for her poor mom, until then a faceless fact in my mind. I went up to her and Casey’s dad. I said a few things. That was that.

I didn’t cry at the funeral. I didn’t cry at the grave. A few weeks later, I drove out to the spot, that vile earth-abrasion where the truck slammed down and Casey smashed through the windshield into the grass and thistles, and I didn’t cry there. I stood in the grass, an overbearing late-September day, and listened. Tranquil places disguise violence as if it never existed.

That same day I stopped at Mr. Hoback’s. He looked strained, older, which I didn’t know was possible. “Mr. Hoback. I don’t know why I’m here.”

“First, enough mister bullshit. It’s Alvin. Now, come in.”

We sat in his living room, not saying anything. He gave me a beer of which I only had a sip. I simply came to wallow. Casey’s presence still lingered here in a way that she no longer did in my mind or anywhere else in Burgess. After an hour, I had to use the washroom. I splashed water on my face as I conjured the last day. Goddamnit, why didn’t you go? Why didn’t you drive her? Why were you so afraid?

“Grief’s a bugger.” Alvin had wheeled to the door, eyes red and misty. “But you can’t avoid it if you live a life worth living.”

I looked in the mirror, then at Alvin. “I didn’t know her.”

“You’ll have to live with that,” he said. “I saw the way you two looked at each other.” He noticed my disbelief. “Yeah, not out to pasture yet. I’ll say this. You two gave an old man a little something to look forward to.”

Struggling for breath and dazed by the sun, I ended up wandering the streets of Burgess, as if exercise could purge the summer from existence. But it couldn’t. Looks, phrases, those last words. I’ve lived with them longer than Casey was alive.

All I could do was drift past staid houses, beneath drooping elms, wishing, begging, for rain.