New Addition.

New Addition.

“Hey! You! Sir! Can you come over here a second?” yells the uniformed officer standing at the foot of my driveway. The June heat wave has forced him to remove the hat from his head. He wipes the sweat from his brow while waving me over with a free arm. Carefully I choose my steps toward the armed lawman. While I’m motioning forward, Kenny keeps working on the roof. “Sir, do you have permits for this construction? I’ve gotten some complaints about the noise level. Can you have him stop that work up there? We need to talk for a minute.” I wave an arm at Ken. The electric saw stops.

Mitch is standing in the driveway with a cop. Damn! This can’t be good. Well it can’t be as bad as… Nothing could have been worst than that. All that blood. The delicate insides of a human body scattered across the living room. Wall to wall flesh. Interiors covered in teeny tiny chunks of bones and gunk. No way was that coming out. Ask me why she did it. I can’t say. There wasn’t a day that went by when she wasn’t happy. Honestly I don’t remember her being sad or angry. Mitch didn’t understand. We both knew this couldn’t be… Shit! Damn it he’s waving me to stop. Something is up.

“Permits?” says the cop. I nod and pull out the paperwork. The side Ell of the house is a new addition. Actually the house originates from the turn of the century and the floor plan included an Ell that burned down. But the house hadn’t been renovated since the 1950s. Marie wanted to restore the house to its original. You might call it her pet project. We’d been working on it for a few months now. The right wing of the new addition was to house a gallery for Marie’s collection of arts and antiquities. The left wing was possibly housing the nursery. She hadn’t decided. That was one of the…“Sir!” I must have drifted away. The officer’s tone is stern. I blink and register eye contact.

Mitch isn’t altogether there about this. I can see him drifting away while he’s talking to the cop. Just standing there and then he’s in a zone. Eyes wandering off. Can’t say I blame him. We’ve been up for two days now working around the clock. These pieces don’t just fall into place on their own. The extra dry wall and work to re-wire the rear frame took nearly one day. It was a miracle the front and side framing didn’t completely separate from the sheer magnitude of the blow. Not to mention the side of the house. The exterior wall must have been reinforced with steel. Nearly two days have passed and we are exactly in the same place we were before it happened. Aside from the body parts, the structure is pretty much the same.

“So… You’re restoring the Johnson Mansion? This old place used to be an estate house with an acre of cherry trees. And my grandma used to say there was an on-site graveyard and…” Yes, officer, what was his name, is rambling on about my house. These are tedious little bits of information that I already know about. Marie gave me the low down when we bought the place. Old houses keep secrets. This one held a few family heirlooms locked beneath the floor boards and extra panels in bedroom closets. It even seems that the old house used to have slave quarters and somewhere there’s a hidden entrance. That’s how she did it. Kept them hidden until that last…

Mitch kept the demolition until last. And obviously for good reason. This wouldn’t have cleaned up if it had happened a month ago. There was the one wall that had to go before the Ell could connect directly to the house. Marie had invited a few friends over to celebrate the event. A wall breaking instead of a ground breaking. She felt it would christen the new wing of the house. There we were setting the charges among these people in their Sunday best. No one could have seen it coming. Not in a million years. Marie didn’t… oh but she did.

“This looks alright, definitely all in order, but you need to try and keep the noise level down. Your neighbors are complaining.” He hands back the papers and nods. Just the like the building inspector did. That first day before we started the construction on the site. Before that happened. What she did. The blood and sheer force of the blast came and went in an instant. The bodies and pieces were embedded in the linings of the plastic lined room. Guests decimated into a thousand pieces and scattered throughout the living room. Marie was standing in the corner behind a second detonator laughing. Explosives were hidden in the walls, under the floors, in the French countryside paneling near the fireplace. All the décor needed to go, but why did the guests? We’d talked about gutting the remaining rooms after the Ell was complete, but this destruction was unprecedented.

“Sounds good. Will do about the noise. We’re almost done here. Shouldn’t be much longer. You have a nice day, officer.” I wave off the officer with a feeling of relief. Wiping his brow, he turns around and starts to walk away. What would the neighbors think? And the newspapers for that matter? Wife of local building contractor murders 5 party guests in a premeditated explosion. This could never get out. Kenny and I’d spent too much effort to get this back in order. Especially since it meant locking Marie away until it was finished. Those ungodly screams for release. Nails tearing at the cellar door to get out. Today was much better, she’d only been crying at the door.

Mitch is heading back. Thank goodness. It’s time we wrapped up and moved any remaining bits of flesh to the incinerator. Now that the walls are nearly complete and brick around the fireplace is almost set, we won’t need any of that. Only a little more room to fill in here and there. Wait. The cop’s coming back. “MITCH!”

Kenny’s whooping at me. What the hell can he want… “Sir! Look I hate to trouble you. But see, damn I shouldn’t ask this. Is there any way I can take a look around your place? I’ve always wanted to see the inside of the Mansion and you said it yourself, it was nearly finished.”

“Certainly officer. Only if you’re handy with a hammer though. See we could use all the help we can get.” The lawman smiles and nods eagerly like a kid in a candy store shopping for free. Cop should have kept going. Any other day wouldn’t have been a problem. Hopefully there’s still a little give.  I wave up to the roof. “Kenny, we got another one here! Is there room?”

New story. New arrival, New endeavor. The last one for the month is now on hold for just a smidge. It was leading to a pet project of mine, which I still plan on doing, but for now it needs to, um I need to work on it. I will share it soon. I need help from others to do it. My family and friends first, then everyone else. For tonight, new story since the last few days have been about new things that have surprised me and have taken up my time. Apparently if you’re out enjoying life, you don’t have time to write about it! And I haven’t had much time to myself in a couple days now. New story, lots of fun, right? It has me reminiscing about a design project in a Mansion from a few years back. Not lots of fun on the project. But the house had a lot of secret passages and a hot pink bedroom. That’s another story though…

My new arrival is a puppy. A little no named mutt, cause I haven’t thought of a name. He is a very sweet little guy and almost never stops moving. It’s a lot of fun to have a little thing in the house again. We’ll have to see how he travels though. My last one didn’t enjoy it. My new endeavor. Where and why? A couple days ago, I did something that I always do for others, usually my family/friends, but this time I did it for a stranger. I gave a few words of encouragement. Nothing more. It made a difference though. And I’m glad I was in exactly the right place at the right time to be able to do it. I’ve always been able to encourage others, push them to forward and build them back up when they are down. Other people can’t always do that for themselves. I discovered that this giving was rewarding. I would like to find volunteer work and have initiated that process. Anyhow, hope the story is appreciated. Enjoy life and the story! kisses. m.