Blindsided

At exactly eleven o’clock that night, Gerald Murphy told Gwen that he was going for a walk. He was only gone for fifteen minutes but it was the most momentous fifteen minutes of his life. He took a cheap cell phone from his pocket and looked at it for a moment. That simple cheap piece of plastic was the key to closing the door to his angst-filled past. He took a deep breath and for a moment he remembered the last time he had held his life in his hands. It had been almost ten years and it had been his pistol in his hand rather than a phone that he held but the situation was totally different today. With a simple press of the “Send” button and it was over. The future was now his and Gwen’s to grow with. A flick of his wrist sent the cheap phone into the dumpster next door and without looking back, Gerald walked back to their room a whole man once again.

Ten years before, Gerald was a broken man and he knew it. He had been raised in a typical middle class household and was taught to work hard, be patient, and that success would follow. His slow but successful journey into his thirties included marrying his high school sweetheart, beginning a promising career with a medium sized manufacturing company, and fathering two children that he adored. He was content and happy with his life.

Then in the matter of months, he had been blindsided. He had been stripped of his dignity, reputation, livelihood, family, and 65% of his assets by his divorce. His biggest problem was that he honestly didn’t understand what had happened to him. A few people could have told him but he was unlikely to understand. They would have told him that he was Mr. Loyalty, the eternal Boy Scout, and the guy who everyone relied on because he never let them down. They also could have told him that he was so focused on what he was doing that he seldom let people get close to him. He didn’t hang out with co-workers or go to many social events. The result was that he had made several relatively incompetent supervisors look very good but he had been passed over for promotion several times because he had never earned his membership in the good-old-boy club.

These noble qualities met their downfall because of one flagrant opportunist, his former boss. Gerald lost that battle when the divorce from his wife of ten years was finalized. She then took up with this arrogant but charismatic man whose reputation was littered with many reports of taking credit for other people’s work and treating these contributors like peasants. Their ensuing marriage and move for another job opportunity caused Gerald’s two young children to also move to a high-energy city almost 1000 miles away. Gerald was left alone in a small town with a job, a small house, his pickup truck, and no idea of how his life had gone from content satisfaction to the dumpster in less than a year. Then the economy took one of its frequent trips into the toilet and Gerald became an unemployed 35 year old with a small house, his pickup truck, and very little likelihood of finding another decent job in the foreseeable future.

The plant closing had been sudden but he did receive half of a year’s salary as severance and a good recommendation. A month later, he realized that if he did nothing, he would just slowly slip towards total bankruptcy and that he had to do something to stave off this inevitability. He managed to sell his house and got some money from that deal but most importantly, he had escaped the mortgage payment. He found a 5-acre plot of land 80 miles away for which he could pay cash followed by the purchase of a repossessed one-bedroom cabin, which he had installed on the property. At this point he now had a place to live that cost him little to maintain and he had a small amount money left to survive on. But that was it; his life had been reduced to a cabin on five acres and no tomorrow.

The turning point came one night as he was watching television. The opinionated commentator, who presented himself as a pseudo-journalist and who made more money in a year than most people made in a lifetime, had spent the better part of an hour rationalizing that people should simply quit complaining about the economy and get a job so that they could be successful like he was. He had also brought out three or four well-dressed, well-heeled “experts” to support his arguments. Just before the program ended, Gerald took out his .22 pistol and shot the offending television screen three times.

For a moment, Gerald considered turning the gun around and firing off one more round but that thought disappeared as he put the pistol back in the drawer. At that moment, Gerald had realized that he had to find a way to survive. He didn’t know what or how but there had to be a way to scratch out a living. He felt very alone and very unsure of how to once again find his place in life but he knew that he had no other option to pursue.

The next morning, he drove into town and bought a used garden tiller, some compost, and a variety of vegetable seeds and plants. For the next week, he worked from dawn until dark tilling an area not far from the cabin where he planted a garden. His plan was simple; he was going to make sure that he had food available to him even if it would only be a sparse pantry.

On his next trip to town, he saw a sign for an estate sale. Without much thought, he decided to stop and see if there was anything useful at the sale. Unfortunately, the sale was all but over and only a few odds and ends were left. While talking with the person who handled the sale, he discovered that the man who had died had left the place to his son who didn’t really want the property and was going to put it up for sale. The person in charge asked Gerald if he knew anyone locally who might be willing to haul off a lot of junk in the barn and also tear down a small shed that had seen better days. Without thinking, Gerald said that he would do it for $200. The man handed him $200 and asked if he could have it cleaned up within a week.

For the next week Gerald carefully tore down the shed and put the lumber in his truck to stack behind the cabin. When he started on the barn, he was surprised at what he found mixed in among the “junk.” It was obvious that the seller had not taken the time or interest to sort through the dirty pile of stuff in the barn. He had only been told to clear it all out and get rid of it. He had hauled the scrap to the dump and had made three more trips to the metal recycling center where loads of broken and bent metal had earned him another hundred and fifty dollars. Gerald finally surveyed the other “stuff” that he had salvaged. Besides the lumber from the shed, he had saved thirty metal fence poles, a 200-foot roll of fencing, and several worn but useful garden and hand tools. But his prized find was a 5′ by 8′ trailer buried under everything else. The tires were in poor shape but held air long enough for him to be able to get it home in one piece. Everything he had accumulated would need cleaning and repair to some extent but he now had some material to work with.

Since his television was now also occupying space at the dump, he relied on listening to music on the radio while he worked around the garden and restored the equipment he had accumulated. In the evenings, he listened to music and read. Over the next two months, the estate sale person had called him two more times to do the same thing at two other places. He readily accepted the jobs and happily took $200 for each of them. He also picked up some additional money from recycling the scrap metal. More importantly, he had added additional lumber, some siding, and metal roofing to his collection of building materials. He also picked up a lawn mower that he was told was dead. It proved to be very much alive after an oil change and a new spark plug were installed.

It was at this time that his garden began producing results. He discovered quickly that he needed to learn how to preserve some of his crops for later use. The local library supplied him with two books on canning and preserving vegetables and soon he was blanching and preparing his harvest for storage. His only problem became a lack of storage space. He solved that by using some of the lumber and materials that he had collected and built a strong storage building partially underground to act as a combination storm shelter, root cellar, and storage room. He built it into the side of a north-facing hill and it kept the interior surprisingly cool during the summer and dry during the rainy spring and fall.

He had evolved a schedule so that he worked six days then took the seventh day off to clean house, do laundry, and take care of any other chores that needed to be done. From another library book, he learned to make his own bread and baked a week’s supply on his day off.

The other thing that he did religiously was to write a letter to each of his children every week. He mailed them and they did not come back but he never knew if they had actually received them, as he never got a reply. Several months later, they started to come back marked “Moved, no forwarding address.” He continued to write the letters but no longer wasted the money on postage. He put them into two boxes, one for each child.

While in town one day, he discovered that there was a small farmer’s market open on Saturdays only. Saturday became his shopping day with the market his first stop. He was able to buy vegetables and other things that he hadn’t or couldn’t grow. He also discovered that several women baked a variety of breads and other items, which they sold at the market. After finding out the details about how to do this, he began baking ten loaves each week and taking them to the market to sell. The women tended to offer lighter things while he preferred the darker, heavier multi-grain and rye breads.

On his first day at the market, a woman approached him as he set up his table. “Hi. Are you new to the market?”

“Yes, I am new to the market and new to the area. My name is Gerald, Gerald Murphy.”

“Welcome Gerald, I am Donna and one of the founders of the market. I see that you are a baker. The people around here like really good bread; you should do well.”

“I hope so; I’ve never done this before.”

“If you don’t mind, let me make a couple of suggestions that will help. See if you can find one of these tent canopies. It helps provide some shade when the sun is hot. The other thing is to cut some small slices and offer them on a plate to let people try your bread. If they like it, they will buy it. After that, try out other recipes or products. Some weeks are slow and others are busy. You do better with several items rather than just one.”

“Thank you Donna, I appreciate the advice and will certainly try it out. Being new, I’m not sure what will work and what won’t.”

“The main thing is to just be you and be honest. People around here respond well to that. High pressure sales won’t work.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem; I don’t know how to be anything other than myself.” He smiled weakly and she returned her smile more generously.

“I can tell that you will do well around here. Welcome to the market and feel free to ask me any questions that might come up. Those of us who are regulars try to mentor newcomers. If the market grows, we all benefit.”

“I have never had a problem asking for help or advice; so you will probably get tired of me asking questions.”

She laughed again, “Never. Have a good market today, Gerald.”

That first weekend he tried, he sold six loaves at $5 each. After that first weekend, he sold every one of his loaves and was often asked to bring more. He changed his schedule and used Thursday and Friday as bread making days. He mixed the dough and set it out to rise on Thursday evening before baking all day on Friday. This method allowed him to increase his offerings to between 15 and 20 loaves a week. While the amount of money he made wasn’t huge by any means, it was enough to allow him to buy meat and other staples without dipping into his savings.

The other thing it allowed him to do, which ultimately turned into a greater blessing, was to meet many local people and become recognized as a member of the community. True to his word, he often asked Donna questions and she eagerly answered all of them. Since this wasn’t a high-pressure situation, the regulars and the customers quickly discovered his positive traits and found that while he was quiet, he did indeed have a charming personality even if it was subdued. The town ladies at the market became particularly fond of the quiet man who made such good rye bread.

When they also discovered that he was a gardener and a handy man, several of them asked him if he would build them raised-bed gardens to get them started with a garden. They tended to be older women who found gardening difficult to do directly in the ground. Most were retired widows or women with husbands who were unwilling or incapable of building even the simplest thing. Gerald agreed to all requests and began building raised bed boxes from his stock of lumber and delivering them to their homes. He invested in new tires for the trailer and had a welder repair part of the frame. With that, he found a source for bulk compost that was much less expensive than the individual bags from the garden center. Over the next two months, he built and installed twelve of these beds at $100 each, ready to plant.

While doing this, many of the women asked him to do other repair and maintenance projects around their houses. As a result, he usually left their house with between $100-150 in his pocket. This continued until the fall holiday season when things began to slow down. The slowdown gave him time to take care of some chores that he had been postponing and he was able to sit down and take stock of where he was. He was surprised to discover the results when he finished. After he had bought the land and cabin, he had about $10,000 left to live off of. When he added up everything, he now had $12,000 in his savings account. He had survived the first nine months of his new, simple life without a regular job and still added money to his bank account. This also didn’t take into account the supply of tools and other materials he had amassed to work with.

As he finished his assessment, he began to cry. His tears washed away his initial feelings of sorrow and became tears of thanks and joy that he had survived. It gave him some confidence that he could continue to survive but he was hesitant to become too confident because the fear of failure lingered heavily in his mind. He clearly remembered his father telling him, “Son, the first rule of living is survival. After that, everything else is growth. Wherever you are in this life, insure survival first before you spend a lot of time trying to grow.” Right now, he had survived for nine months and realized that it wasn’t time to start growing again.

As a Christmas present, he had an Internet line installed so he could access all of the information on the net. For the first time, he went into town and joined a community Christmas event for which he brought five loaves of bread to the festivities. People expressed pleasure that he showed up and introduced him to even more people. One of these people turned out to be his next-door neighbor. He had been aware that someone lived next door but had never seen them close up or made the effort to actually meet them.

“Them” turned out to be a mother about his age and her eight-year-old daughter. The woman was introduced as Gwen Lambert and her daughter, Cherilyn. As they talked, he discovered that she was a schoolteacher in town, which explained why he did not see them around during the day. Cherilyn proved to be quiet and almost shy, much like he was. Before they parted, they exchanged phone numbers and shared offers to call if they needed help.

Two days later, he got a call from Gwen. She explained that her brother and his wife were supposed to come for Christmas dinner but had to cancel because of an emergency. She said that she had far too much food prepared for the two of them and invited him to join them for dinner on Christmas Day. He fought back his initial inclination to decline the offer and accepted before asking if he could at least bring a loaf of bread or something. She accepted his offer and said that she was planning on dinner at one o’clock and that he was welcome at any time he arrived.

On Christmas morning, he took a shower and put on a clean pair of jeans and shirt before starting the walk towards her house shortly after noon with the loaf of bread under his arm. As he walked, he noticed what he thought was steam coming out of a window. When he realized that it was smoke, he broke into a run and burst through the door nearest the smoking window. He found Gwen sitting on the kitchen floor with tears pouring down her face. The stove was black and soaked with water and fire extinguisher residue.

“Are you and Cherilyn all right?” He asked in a trembling voice. Between sobs, Gwen nodded her head. “Come on; let’s get you out of here.” He helped her up and led her to the back porch and sat her in a lawn chair. He found Cherilyn cowering in fear in the living room. He led her out to the backyard and sat her next to her mother. Then he went back inside to look things over. The gas oven had obviously caught fire and spread to the stovetop. Everything was a mess. The wall behind the stove had suffered some smoke and water damage but for the most part, the rest of the kitchen was intact. He went outside and turned off the gas valve before he pulled the stove away from the wall. Overall, the mess could be cleaned up and the wallboard behind the stove could be easily replaced. The major item was the loss of the stove unit. He went back outside and sat down next to Gwen, who was finally bringing her sobbing under control.

“I’m sorry, Gerald; the turkey is in the grill over there staying warm but everything else is ruined.”

“Hey, both of you are all right and that is the important thing. The damage isn’t too bad but the stove is a total loss. We can just take the turkey to my place and finish the meal there, if you are up to it.”

“I can’t ask you to do that.”

“I don’t recall you asking for anything; I am offering it. My place is small but I think that the three of us can fit and still have a nice dinner.”

“All right, if you don’t mind. I’m not sure I am ready to face cleaning up that mess on Christmas Day.”

“We will clean it up tomorrow. I can replace some of the wall board and then we can see about replacing the stove.”

She smiled a thin smile that left something unsaid but nodded. They put the turkey on a large platter and drove Gwen’s car the short distance to Gerald’s cabin. As he led them inside, Gerald said to the young girl, “I’m sorry Cherilyn, I don’t have a television to watch. I listen to music most of the time but you can go on the computer and perhaps find something interesting.

She nodded nervously and said, “Thank you.”

Gwen surveyed the cabin and decided that it was neat, clean, and livable. With Gerald’s help, they opened several of the canned foods that he had put up and heated up a variety of vegetables for dinner. By the time they sat at the table, the kitchen smelled of fresh vegetables and turkey and everybody felt somewhat refreshed from the earlier tragedy. Both Gwen and her daughter commented on how good the vegetables and bread tasted while Gerald praised the turkey.

After dinner, Gerald showed Gwen around his garden and storage room. Cherilyn had found a number of websites on the computer and was lost in a child’s world of different things. Gwen and Gerald ended up sitting on his small porch where they each began to reveal some of their history while drinking a glass of iced tea.

Gwen told him that she and her husband had bought the house next door three years before with big plans to fix and update it. The economic downturn had cost him his job and the remodeling plans had come to a halt. He finally found a job two hundred miles away where he went to work at a lesser paying job while she stayed in the house with Cherilyn because of her job. Things were looking up until her husband failed to call as usual. When she was able to finally find out what happened, her life went into turmoil again. He had lost that job too and had gotten drunk. Then he tried to rob a convenience store and wounded the owner but the owner had also shot him. He survived but had been under arrest for the past several months. The court appointed lawyer had told her that he would probably have to go to prison for a couple of years for his crime. As a result, Gwen had to cut back on many things to make ends meet with only her income to rely on. One of those had been that she had to drop the homeowners insurance on the house. She didn’t know how or when she would be able to replace the stove.

Gerald listened to her tale and nodded. He then said that he understood her situation completely and that he would look at couple of places that he had found to see what he could do about a stove. She thanked him for helping her. She then asked about him and he told her his story or at least as much of it as he could as his understanding of events was still foggy in his mind. He did not say anything about his children because it was still too difficult for him to talk about them to anyone.

When they left, Gerald had made them agree to come over for breakfast in the morning before he and Gwen would begin the cleanup. Gwen agreed on the condition that she would bring the sausage and eggs. Gerald agreed and the breakfast details were settled.

They arrived just before eight in the morning and Gerald made fresh biscuits and sausage gravy while Gwen fixed the sausage and scrambled eggs. They worked together surprisingly well in the small kitchen but breakfast was a hit with everyone. Gerald provided her with some bell pepper and onion to mix in with the eggs. Both Gwen and Cherilyn liked the biscuits and sausage gravy, as it was something that they had seldom had except in restaurants.

They went to Gwen’s house shortly after nine and began the clean-up. The first thing he did was to wrestle the stove outside and load it into the bed of his truck. He would take it to the metal recycler the next day. He expected that he would get about $20 for the scrap as it was an old and heavy gas range. He and Gwen then cleaned and scrubbed the floor and cabinets. After she made sandwiches for lunch, Gerald began cutting and removing the old wallboard. He found several of the studs inside the wall had deteriorated and needed to be replaced along with some insulation.

The following morning after a stop at the metal recycler, he went to the building supply store and bought what he needed. By the time he stopped that evening, he had the studs repaired and the insulation installed. The wallboard would go back the next morning. Gwen and Cherilyn came to his house for breakfast and dinner each day and they had lunch at Gwen’s house while they worked.

After the wallboard had been installed, he told Gwen that he needed to run an errand and would be back in time for dinner. She smiled and told him to take care of what he needed to do. She would get the things for dinner and to not worry about it. Gerald drove 50 miles to a resale store that he had come across and found a gas stove that was only three years old. The previous owners had decided to remodel their kitchen and the white stove didn’t fit with their new color scheme; they donated the white one to the resale store, which supported a local charity. Gerald bought it for $100 and drove it home under a tarp as a light rain had started falling.

When he arrived home, Gwen was already busy in his kitchen preparing a roast and potatoes and other vegetables. The three of them shared another excellent meal made even better when Gerald put a loaf of bread into the oven. The warm bread and the lingering aroma made everything almost perfect.

The next morning, he backed his truck up to their door before they had come down for breakfast. After knocking and being greeted by Gwen, who was still in her robe, he unloaded the stove into the kitchen and had it installed in less than an hour. Gwen couldn’t believe that he had found one and put it in so easily. That morning, they cooked breakfast on the new stove and Gwen couldn’t have been happier with the new features included with the new unit. She faltered and almost cried when Gerald turned it on for the first time and it lit right up. She finally asked him how much she owed him for the stove. She couldn’t believe that he had bought it for only $100. She had expected to have to pay closer to $300 for one in worse condition. He told her to just pay him back at $20 a month, which was an offer she really appreciated and accepted.

After breakfast, Gwen casually mentioned that she had been invited to a New Year’s party at another teacher’s house but that she hadn’t been able to find a sitter for Cherilyn. Gerald suggested that he would be pleased to stay with Cherilyn at either house while she went to the party. After getting reassurances that he was really all right with that, she accepted his offer. After checking with Cherilyn, they decided that they would stay at Gerald’s cabin so she could use the computer. Gwen had a computer but had given up the Internet during her cutback.

Gwen dropped Cherilyn off at seven in the evening and went to her party. Cherilyn was thrilled when Gerald told her that they were going to make homemade pizzas for dinner. Together, they worked the dough before they each doctored their pizzas just the way they wanted them. While they ate, Gerald talked to her about school and things going on in her life. The major thing she said was that she missed her dad but knew that he wouldn’t be coming home for a long time. Gerald got a little misty thinking about his own children because he knew he probably wouldn’t see them for a long time but he hid it from the young girl. After dinner, they played some games and then he showed her where some games were on the computer. She began trying some of them out while he settled down to read.

Shortly before eleven, he heard a car drive up, which was a highly unusual event, as he seldom had visitors. As he opened the door, he saw Gwen coming up the walk carrying a bottle of wine. She smiled and said that she had enjoyed the party but had decided that she would bring in the New Year with them instead of waiting for another hour with her co-workers. They opened the wine and toasted each other. Cherilyn got a glass of grape juice and joined them in their toast. Midnight arrived and hugs were shared all around. Gwen and Cherilyn left shortly afterwards as Cherilyn was beginning to droop.