I thought about that. Said he knew me, and had known me from way back, that he worked with me...or implied that he had worked with me. He knew my name.
But did you recognize him?
No.
What about your inner alarm system? Did he trigger it? Were you on guard?
Quite the opposite, I wrote. If anything, I felt at peace.
There was a long delay, then finally, Fang's words appeared in the IM chat box:
Unless I'm mistaken, Moon Dance, I believe you just met your guardian angel.
Chapter Five
Charlie lived in a single-wide trailer.
Although the trailer looked old, it appeared well-enough maintained. As I approached the door in the late evening, I realized that I had never been inside a single-wide trailer.
Somehow, I controlled my excitement.
The exterior was composed of metal siding, and there was a lot of junk piled around the house. Controlled junk, as it was mostly on old tables and shelving. Lawn mower parts, fan belts, engine parts, and just about everything else that belonged in a garage, except the mobile home didn't have a garage.
The front door was, in fact, a sliding glass door. Charlie, apparently, used the mobile home's rear door as his front door. A quick glance around the home explained why: the front door had no steps leading up to it.
Leading up to the sliding glass door was a small wooden deck, which I used now. I peered inside. It was the living room, and where the exterior had controlled mayhem, the interior was a straight-up mess. Charlie Anderson, it appeared, was a hoarder. The shelving theme from outside was extended to the inside. Shelves lined the walls, packed with plastic containers, themselves filled with computer parts, cables, and other electronic doodads. Interestingly, not a single book lined his book shelves. The floor was stacked with newspapers and speakers and car radios and old computer towers in various stages of disarray. Boxes were piled everywhere. And not neatly. Dog toys and old bones littered the floor. A huge TV sat in the far corner of the room, draped in a blanket, while a much smaller TV sat next to it, currently showing something science-fictiony. Zombies or robots, or both.
I was just about to knock on the glass door when a fat little white terrier sprang from the couch and charged me, barking furiously. All teeth and chub. But at the door, it suddenly pulled up, stopped barking, and looked at me curiously. I looked back at it. It cocked its head to one side. I didn't cock my head.
Then it whimpered and dashed off.
As it did so, I heard more movement...the sound of someone getting out of a recliner, followed by Charlie Anderson's happy-go-lucky, round face.
He let me in, asking if I'd found the place okay. I assured him I had. Once inside, I could fully appreciate just how much crap Charlie had. And yet...I had a sneaking suspicion that Charlie knew exactly where all his junk was.
"Nice place you have here." I was speaking facetiously, and a little in awe, too.
But Charlie took it as a real compliment, bless his heart.
"Thanks, but it's just home. I used to worry about cleaning and stuff like that, but I figured what's the point? My friends call me a hoarder, but I just like junk. I think there's a difference."
"Sure," I said.
He looked at me eagerly. "So, you agree there's a difference?"
I could tell he wanted me to agree, to confirm that he didn't have a hoarding problem, that he was just another guy with thousands of glass jars stacked on a long shelf over his kitchen table. The jars, as far as I could tell, were filled with every conceivable nut and bolt known to man. Thank God they weren't filled with human hearts. I leaned over. The jar cloest to me was filled with - and I had to do a double take here - bent nails.
"Yes," I said. "There's a huge difference."
Charlie exhaled, relieved. I think we might have just bonded a little. "I think so, too," he said, nodding enthusiastically. "Would you like a Diet Pepsi?"
"I'm okay."
"Water?"
"I'm fine. Maybe you can show me where you kept the safe, Charlie?"
"Oh, yes. Right this way."