Chapter 2

Wrong. Lynn and Adam didn’t make a big stink and start whining or give Aaron any lip about canceling Christmas, but it became increasingly clear over the weekend that they weren’t the least bit happy about it. They sulked around the house with frowns on their faces and spoke to him in monosyllables.

When he saw they weren’t going to get over it, he relented. Sunday evening as he set a platter of spare ribs, sauerkraut and potatoes on the table and took his chair, he said, “Okay, guys, I get the picture. You can have your Christmas, but leave me out of it. I’ll give you twenty-five bucks each to buy presents for each other. If you want a tree, well you can hike up the mountain and cut one. But I ain’t buyin’ any presents and I don’t wanna see one under that tree with my name on it, ya hear! I mean it! If you try to sneak one in on me, it’s goin’ right back to the store for a refund.”

“Alright, alright!” Lynn snapped. “Have it your way, sourpuss! But I don’t see why you get so bent out of shape over the biggest holiday of the year.”

“Yeah,” Adam jumped in, “What happened? You get a piece of coal in your sock when you were little or somethin’? You’re as bad as Scrooge.”

Aaron put his fork down and sat back in his chair. “Look, this argument comes up every year, so how many times do I have to say it? I don’t believe in God and I don’t believe in Santa Clause. I’ve never seen a Christmas go by in this family that wasn’t punctuated by booze, drunks and hard feelings about somebody gettin’ somethin’ better than the other person. As far as I can see, Christmas is all about drunks gettin’ drunker, dopers gettin’ higher, and store owners gettin’ richer off of folks spendin’ way more money than they can afford so they don’t look like cheapskates. Now you two can do what you want, even though we’re barely makin’ ends meet, but just leave me be.”

Lynn looked at him and grinned.

He looked back and asked, “What’s so damned funny?”

“Punctuated? When did you start using words like punctuated in a sentence? I guess you’re not the back woods rube you try to make yourself out to be, are you? Must come from reading all those books.”

Adam swallowed a big mouthful and asked, “Um, can you drive us over to Walmart to look for presents? And I wanna buy some hard candy and some peppermint sticks if it’s alright. And are we gonna have somethin’ special for dinner on Christmas; maybe a turkey or ham or somethin’? And some apple or pumpkin pie?”

Aaron shook his head in frustration, knowing once again he’d failed to get his message across. He groused, “Yeah, okay, and if you insist, in that order. Now if you don’t mind, that’s about all the Christmas talk I can tolerate at one sitting. Everybody got their homework done?”

That Saturday morning, Aaron began clearing out his late mom’s room for his own use. He asked Lynn to pick through the clothes in the closet and the bureau for anything she thought she could use, then stuff the rest of the clothing into trash bags to take down to the Hands of Hope folks. He threw out a bunch of useless crap stuffed into the dresser drawers and cleaned a load of old prescriptions out of the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, flushing all the pills down the toilet.

As he was flipping the mattress on the queen-size bed, he spotted a small brown envelope lying right in the middle of the box spring. When he looked inside, all it contained was a weird-looking key. A number stamped on one side of the key and MCNB stamped on the other made him think it might be the key to a safety deposit box.

He thought to himself, “I know she doesn’t have an account there, so why would she have a safety deposit box? And what would she have that’s so valuable that she’d even need one? I guess I better drop by the bank Monday after school and check it out.”

He dropped the key back into the envelope, stuffed it into his back pocket and made up the bed with clean linens.

Aaron had never had a room of his own before. Adam was thrilled to have his very own room as well; so much so that as soon as Aaron moved his stuff out, he disassembled the top bunk and stored it in the shed. And as he was doing that, he grinned at the thought of waking up Aaron when he jerked off. He thought that was pretty funny.

On his way to the bank after school Monday afternoon, Aaron was still trying to make sense of the safety deposit box key. His (late) mom was so addle-brained and so financially irresponsible that the thought of her even walking into a bank was a joke.

But then he got to thinking, “But I bet Grandad wasn’t like that. I bet this was his key ‘cause it was his bed before we moved in. I don’t remember much about him other than he drank like a fish, but he was never broke. Seems like he always had money in his pocket. I wonder if he had anything worth keeping in a safety deposit box. But shit, it’s been eleven or twelve years since he died. Would they even hold a box for that long?”

As he parked across the street from the bank, Aaron had another thought. “Damn, I bet I’ll have to sign something to get into that box if there is one. What the hell was Grandad’s first name? Somethin’ like Arlen ... Arden ... Oren ... Orvill? Arvell! Yeah, that was it! Arvell! Weird damn name. Well, if I have to sign something, I’ll just fake it.”

As he stepped into the bank lobby, Aaron eyed the three tellers, hoping a young one wouldn’t remember anything about Arvell Hatter. There was one who appeared to be in her early twenties, so that’s the window he headed for. Of course young didn’t necessarily mean stupid, so his logic might be pure crap.

As he stepped up to the window, he pulled his baseball cap lower over his eyes, and trying to sound casual yet business-like, said, “Um, I need to get into a safety deposit box, please. It’s number 518.”

The young lady looked up and smiled. “Sure thing. Just a moment and I’ll get the card.”

She walked over to a file cabinet and Aaron wondered, “What card?”

She pushed an orange signature card through the window and said, “Just sign in and I’ll get the keys.”

He looked at the scrawled signatures on the lines and saw that they were indeed that of Arvell Hatter. He asked the teller for a pen and did his best to reproduce the signature without looking like he was drawing it instead of writing it. Next to the signature, he had to write in the date. He saw the date of the last sign-in was 11/30/2004. If the teller took note of that, she’d surely have questions.

But she didn’t. As he pushed it back through the window, the teller glanced at the signature and said, “Okay, Mr. Hatter, just follow me to the vault. Oh, and while your here, would you like me to print out a statement of your accounts for you?”

“Uh, sure, why not. Thanks.”

Accounts? As in more than one?

“Fine,” she said with a smile, “I’ll do that while you’re in the vault.”

She opened the door that led into the vault, found box 518 and inserted her key. He stood there looking at her until she said, “You need to put your key in as well, Mr. Hatter.”

Aaron felt like an idiot. “Oh, yeah. I’m sorry, I guess my brain was out of gear for a minute there.”

He pulled the key out of his pocket and put it into the slot, turned it and the door opened.

The teller said, “Just let me know when you’re done. Meanwhile, I’ll get that statement printed out for you.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

As she left the vault, he pulled the long, shallow box from the slot and set it on the pull-out shelf. His heart was pounding in anticipation as he unlatched the lid and flipped it up.

Papers. Several official looking papers. He looked through them and found a title to the trailer they lived in, a deed to the property it sat on, and a title to the S10 pickup. Old man Hatter must have bought them all new. His mom’s birth certificate was among the stack of documents.

And something else: There was a will. It was short, only a page and a half, so Aaron took the time to read through it. He had to read it twice to be sure of what it said. It stated in no uncertain terms that Aaron Hatter, grandson of Arvell Hatter, DOB 2/14/1999, was his only heir. The old man must have known his daughter would blow every penny he left on booze and dope. All properties and monies owned by his grandad would be his when he turned eighteen. SHIT! That was only two months off! He was gonna legally own the trailer and the pickup! And the property! Cool! Not that any of it was worth all that much, but still...

Feeling like he’d just won the lottery, Aaron stuffed everything except the will back into the box and shoved it into the slot. He locked it, pocketed the key and walked over to the teller’s window to tell her he was done. And thanks!

She smiled and said, “No problem, Mr. Hatter. We’re here to serve. Have a nice day.”

“Thanks. You too.”

He turned to leave, but she stopped him with, “Oh, here’s your statement, Mr. Hatter.”

“Oh yeah. Thanks.”

He took the two folded sheets of paper and left. He was sitting in the pickup across the street before he opened them up to see what was on them. And he damn near shit his underwear! There was six hundred forty-one dollars and change in a checking account, and seventy-three thousand, five hundred and thirteen dollars and eighty-three cents in the savings account!

“HOLY FUCK!” burst out of his mouth. For a long time, he sat staring at the statement not daring to believe it was true. But it was right there in black and white. His first inclination was to rush home and shout out the good news to Lynn and Adam. No more beans and hotdogs for supper! He cranked up the pickup and headed down the street, having to concentrate on what he was doing to keep his foot from mashing the gas pedal to the floor in his rush to share the good news.

About halfway home, a moment of sobriety set in and he pulled off the road to stop and think about what all this meant. The bank wasn’t just gonna hand over all that money without him having to prove who he was. He began to wonder if he should have called the sheriff when his mom died so there would be a death certificate, some proof that he was sole heir. Yeah, the teller assumed he was Arvell Hatter, but somebody with a little more savvy wasn’t gonna be so easy to get around.

But he was the legal heir, as far as he could tell from the will. Who would he have to show that will to to get the money? He’d need some time to figure all that out. Maybe it was best that he didn’t say anything to Lynn and Adam, at least not until he knew for sure how it was all gonna shake out.

He decided to keep his mouth shut for the time being. But damn, it was gonna be hard!

When Aaron got home, he hid the will and the bank statements under his mattress, and he was busy doing his calculus homework at the kitchen table when Lynn and Adam came in.

The first thing out of Adam’s mouth was, “Um, I know you don’t want to hear it, but Christmas is next Sunday. Me and Lynn need you to take us over to Walmart so we can do our shopping. And I don’t think it’s fair that we have to buy wrapping paper and stuff with the money you gave us. Could we have an extra ten for that?”