Andy wasn’t anyone’s idea of an Adonis. He was six-foot-three and exceedingly thin, and at the age of thirty-six it wasn’t surprising he also had a small paunch. His face was long and thin like his body. He had crooked teeth, a weak chin and bushy, black eyebrows.
He wasn’t ugly or even homely. If he’d had only one of these negative characteristics it could have been overlooked, but the combination of them tended to defeat any chance of the beauty of his eyes, the luster of his hair, the perfection of his nose, from shining through.
But his looks weren’t Andy’s biggest problem: he was a financial disaster. It wasn’t that he had screwball ideas. It was that he invested in other people’s screwball ideas. Any time he had gotten a little ahead and had some money in the bank, he’d meet someone who had a brilliant business plan, but just lacked the money to get it off the ground.
If Andy would finance it, they’d all be rolling in lucre soon. And there he soon was, back at the starting gate again.
He had a sister who was six years older. Their mother, Penny, had been ill-equipped to be a mother. At the age of six, Myrtle already had the mothering instincts Penny lacked. She fulfilled the dual roles of big sister and surrogate mother, watching over her baby brother, protecting him from all harm.
She kept him from venturing too far and getting lost, from trying too hard and failing, from running too fast and falling, from experimenting and learning. As he grew into adolescence, and then into manhood she didn’t relinquish her position.
One probable reason was that Myrtle, the natural mother, was infertile.
She had met and married Chester when she was twenty-six. He was the loan officer in the bank where she had an account. When she wanted to buy her first car she applied for a loan, although she had no credit and a low-paying job. But when Myrtle made up her mind that she wanted something, she found a way to get it. Nothing insurmountable ever stood in her way. Chester certainly wasn’t insurmountable.
Myrtle was a big-boned woman, tall like her brother, but with meat on her bones. Chester was a small, mild-mannered man, and was no match for Myrtle. She got her loan, her car and soon after, a husband.
Several years after they married a nationwide chain of banks consumed the bank Chester worked for and subsequently closed that branch. Chester didn’t know how to fight for anything, and was out of a job.
However, he luckily landed on his feet by getting a job with an insurance brokerage firm. He was good at showing potential clients why they sorely needed insurance and how they could afford the most expensive policy he offered. Slowly he moved up in the firm and prospered.
When Myrtle decided she wanted a house of their own, she also decided she wanted to live in an old, established part of their town, where the houses were large and substantial. The big, fenced-in backyard was ideal for children to play in, but it wasn’t many years after buying the house that it became clear there would never be any children. Thus they lived in a house much too large for the two of them, and with four bedrooms and an additional converted room in the attic.
Andy’s misadventures didn’t just often put him back to where he started. With time he kept getting farther back, until he was in danger of running afoul of the law. Myrtle came through again, deciding he should move in with them.
He could claim the room in the attic as his own, and she would invade it only on Mondays to clean it up and change the linens. He could have breakfast and dinner with them. She could buy readymade sandwiches for him when she shopped for the week’s groceries, or he could walk the two blocks from his workplace to a small Greek-run restaurant that was open only for breakfast and lunch.
Andy worked as a warehouse router, and was satisfactorily proficient at his job. He didn’t drink or use drugs. He was on time and was in good health so that he missed few days. He got along well with his coworkers, although he didn’t associate with any of them outside of work. His salary was steady and he seemed satisfied to stay right where he was, with no tries at promotion.
Myrtle had seen to it that Chester would handle all of Andy’s finances, basically allotting him an allowance. She worked together with Chester showing Andy how to balance his accounts and not dig himself into deeper holes. Chester was ten years older than Andy, and Andy treated him with the respect an older and wiser person deserved.
Every evening after dinner Andy would retreat to his room in the attic. The room was small and spare with a slanted ceiling which would have been fine for a shorter person, but which forced Andy to be careful not to bump his head.
It contained a bed, a chair and a dresser, on which sat the television. There was a small table beside the bed that held a lamp and the alarm clock. A closet had been constructed under the eaves and a braided rug was beside the bed. The bathroom was one floor down, but Andy had added a plastic bucket he could piss in at night to keep from having to go down the stairs every three or four hours. In the morning he’d carry it down and empty it when he went to shower and shave.
So life in the big, old house on Oak Street appeared to be as routine and normal as any of the other houses that lined the street, and so it was for the three years since Andy had moved in.
Myrtle had recently been experiencing difficulty sleeping. She shunned doctors as much as possible, and had begun medicating herself by taking a commercial sleeping aid ever few nights. One night they had retired for the night when Chester remembered Myrtle needed the car the next day.
He slipped out of bed and padded up the stairs to ask Andy if he’d mind dropping him off at work on the way to the warehouse. The door to Andy’s room had the unfortunate habit of popping open with the slightest breeze that found its way up the stairs.
As Chester reached the top of the stairs he heard the muted sound of the TV. He was reaching to knock on the door before entering when two things occurred simultaneously: he recognized the sounds from the TV as being those of people having sex, and through the slit in the open door he saw that Andy was masturbating.
It also registered that Andy’s dick was probably the longest dick he’d ever seen. He stood where he was for a good half minute, and then common sense kicked in and he quietly turned and went back down the stairs. He’d have to try to catch him in the morning before he left for work.