Gatekeeper's Secret
Copyright© 2026 by Fick Suck
Chapter 13
Having mounted the circuit box and run the wires, Bettina slapped her sticker on the door of the box and dated it with a sharpie. She turned to Grady who was waiting impatiently at the door, “Can I stay here, tonight, Grady? I’ll cook dinner.”
“Why?”
Bettina dropped her hands from her hips. “Because I need respite from my family, and you need some trusted company. If either of us get blinding drunk, the other will get them to bed, and if we both get stupid drunk, no one will know but us. I love my family and I need my family, but I need space tonight. I need someone to cry with me and I ... choose ... you.”
“All I’ve got is beer,” Grady said. “I defrosted a rump roast and dumped it in the cast iron pot with a family size bag of carrots, peas, and corn.”
“Cream of celery?” she asked. “Potatoes?”
“Cream of mushroom,” Grady said with a shrug. “I’m a knuckle-dragging connoisseur when all is said and done. Gramma’s secret was two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. Her other secret was dumping a lot of them little itty-bitty potatoes in the pot to stretch out the meal. Potatoes,” he scoffed.
“Are you sure you’re a real man, Grady? You cook, you clean; you’re like a goddamn miracle,” Bettina said, shaking her head. “You used to be a stubborn little brat. Look at you now.”
“Yeah, tell that to Miss Laia at the register in the grocery,” Grady spit out. “She dumped me because her daddy said so.”
“I heard,” she said. “How fortunate for the two of us that I had the foresight to grab a bottle of JD when we left the house. We can toast her poor choices in life and drown our sorrows at the same time. “What was her problem?”
Grady held up his thumb, “Dinner.” He added his index finger, “Then drink. Only then would I be willing to entertain such questions of doom and despair. Fair enough?”
She nodded before she began collecting all the tools and equipment that were piled around the building, away from the crust of snow that had not melted earlier.
Not able to voice his frustration aloud, he allowed the two contrary desires, the storeroom and the offer of friendship, to bounce around his skull. One was necessary, and the other was necessary?” By the time Enrique and Chano pulled away and Bettina climbed in his truck, the decision had been made for him. He sorely missed the company.
They sorted their tools at the first shed. Grady backed the truck into the barn, wondering if he could make room in one of the sheds. The weather forecast ruled. Inside the house they took turns stripping, showering, and putting on bum-worthy clothes. The smell of the cooking roast filled the air with expectation. Handing out a beer from the fridge, he settled into one of the recliners in the family room while Bettina beached herself on the couch.
“Hey, Grady, this place feels a bit empty without your grandparents,” Bettina began. “Are you okay living here alone?”
“I’m never leaving this land, Bettina, unless they’re dragging out my cold, dead body,” Grady said with a nod of certainty. “I will need someone to share this place with me, but no one at eighteen years old should be in a hurry to get hitched.”
“That was my first mistake,” Bettina said. “I was in a hurry, and I didn’t want to stop. I was young, dumb, and full of myself. Yeah, don’t make that mistake.”
“Who was this ne’er-do-well who cunningly seduced you and carried you off to the big city?”
“Randell, call me Randy, Dunhoffer,” Bettina said. “We met at the tech school when I studied to be an electrician. I was smarter, faster and motivated, but he had a dick. He got the journeyman slot before I did. I had to wait. Life isn’t fair, Grady; it’s not even close.”
“What was he like?”
Bettina waved her beer bottle. “He seemed okay, always had a joke under his hat, liked a few beers after work, and drove an old muscle car he was restoring. Someday, he was restoring it. I thought he was ambitious, but instead, he was just a big talker.”
“I know the type,” Grady said. “What happened?”
Bettina stared at the ceiling “When I finished my apprenticeship and landed a commercial contract for a small office building, he got all bent out of shape. I wasn’t supposed to get better gigs, ones that paid more, than him. He got angry, a long, slow, burning anger that must have taken months to fan. We were fighting over chores, messes, and just about every little slight you can imagine. Then I was invited to bid with a senior master electrician for another commercial job, and he went ballistic.”
“Ballistic?”
“He slugged me,” Bettina said. “I mean, he blew me backwards. My stomach felt like it exploded in my gut. I was standing at the back of the other guy’s rig, which was open. I grabbed the first thing I found, which was a big-ass iron pipe wrench, and swung right back. First, I broke his forearm; then, I took out several ribs. I was about to lay in his jaw when my new partner caught my arm, telling me to slow down, that I had made my point.
“They called the police and the ambulance. I called a lawyer,” Bettina said, gesturing with her arms again. “He was in the hospital overnight and I was at the attorney’s office first thing the next day. After the lawyer was set, I was packing my crap and heading out of town in my twelve-year-old Ranger. He was served, and life goes on, crappy, crappy, crappy.”
She sat up. “I never thought I would let a man who would beat his wife get close to me. I was too smart for that. Well, I wasn’t, Grady.”
“He didn’t sue for damages?”
“Too many witnesses, knock on wood.” Bettina did with the bottom of her bottle on the coffee table. “I had to release the gig though. Losing good money on top of getting punched in the gut – is another punch in the gut. I should’ve taken out his jaw.”
“Proportional responses to violence are noted and weighed,” Grady said. “You got in two good hits that put him in the hospital. Justice is served.”
“Yeah, that’s what the family said,” Bettina said, holding up her empty bottle and shaking it like a small bell. “You want another one before dinner?”
“Nah, I’m good,” Grady said. “Are you going to work around here? Are there jobs?”
Bettina disappeared into the kitchen and re-emerged with a fresh bottle. “Yes and no. The Paramount Group with Mr. Jeffries does most of the building in the county. He’s a snake; Enrique already tangled with him. I own a truck when I need a rig, a panel van that locks.”
They made their way into the kitchen, confirming that the meat was pink in the middle and the gravy was thick enough to stick. Over dinner, they spoke of much of nothing. When the kitchen was clean, Grady made popcorn while Bettina made a pitcher of JD and coke. They did not finish the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but they made a valiant attempt.