Roach

The coffee was cold and burnt.

A gritty drizzle of charcoal lingered at the bottom of the mug with “Worlds Greatest Dad.” in large red text on the side. Lenny’s lips cracked and flaked as he opened his mouth and emptied the bitter dregs onto his tongue. His large thumb flicked through the pages of the black notebook. Grey ash collected in the corners of his knuckles and joints of his fingers, glowing against his brown skin under the dimmed kitchen lamp. The pages ripped through the air one by one until the notebook closed for it’s 37th time.

“This’ll be worth 20 grand one day.”

Lenny spat out a sigh; warming his mouth and pushing out cold ghosts of mourning. The ghosts rolled onto the black notebook that lay on the kitchen table in front of him…

Taunting him.

“Put it away and come to bed Len,” Clarice sung as she shuffled from behinds towers of cardboard boxes at the doorway. Her voice was a soft warrior, fighting through the tight and damaged ridges of her throat every time she spoke. Wrapped in her thick pink dressing gown she walked towards Lenny, her heels heavy and dragging on the linoleum floor. She placed a small brown hand on the back of Lenny’s shoulder, rubbing the black cotton that hung loose over his wide back and with soft lips, she feathered a kiss on the top of his balding head. Lenny’s glared at the kitchen table, thoughts robbing his brown eyes of focus. Clarice’s eyes were sweet almonds, the deep lines in the outer corners pulled down her expression into a perpetual sadness. She shook her head, grey curls broke free from her silk bonnet, and took Lenny’s empty mug from the table and headed to the sink.

“Put the kettle on love,” Lenny yawned.

“No. It’s 2am,” The sink clanked as Clarice placed the large mug inside. She placed her hands up on either side of her face, thin middle fingers tracing a line from the edges of her brow to the corner of her lips. “You let that boy run you in death like he run you in life,”

Lenny chuckled.

“You can’t sleep Clarice?”

“I can but when I wake up, I forget what happened for a moment. Then I remember and I can’t do it again and again. Plus my hip hurt. I’m out of tablets. I’ll call the insurance company tomorrow,”

“Come sit.” Lenny pushed out the chair next to him with his foot and Clarice sat down. “I haven’t slept since that boy was born,”

They both laughed through old tired eyes.

“It’ll be healthy for us, to maybe go through Ashley’s things again and throw some stuff away, give it to charities. Let go. It would be good for us. Doesn’t have to be a lot, just a few items to help us let go. Maybe start with that book.”

“This’ll be worth 20 grand one day.”

Lenny held out his large chestnut hands and gripped the book a 38th time. The soft cover flexed and arched in his palm.

“Clarice. This is a nice nice notebook. When have you ever known Ash to spend good money on good things?”

Ashley burst into the kitchen bare feet slapping on the hard linoleum floor interrupting his parents. His afro wedged to the left, flattened by 10 hours graft against his pillow and a slight shadow of stubble littered his chin. Sun streamed through the windows bouncing off the clear beige counters and warmed the whole kitchen with June’s mighty palette.

In his boxers and the label of his T-shirt sticking out, Ashley charged by his father glancing around the kitchen, his eyes wide and his breath heavy.

“Good afternoon Ash,” Lenny said, the bass of his voice pushed up through his son’s bare heels.

“Sorry dad. Have you seen my notes? Dad? Is mum home?” Ash looked at his father learning up against the counter in his overalls, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. “Dad?”

Lenny lifted his eyes from off the page to glance at his son and then looked back down at the paper.

“Exam’s tomorrow. I can’t find my notes,”

Lenny sucked the air through the gaps of his teeth loud in a hissing screech and turned the page of the newspaper. Ashley moved to the stack on newspapers piled at the door, flicking through each one then edging himself around his father to check by the toaster. He went to sit at the kitchen table and flicked through the magazines. A scrap of lined paper fell out. Ashley clutched it and smiled before running out of the kitchen and upstairs.

Lenny followed his son through the soft glow of the hallway. Framed photograph of Lenny, Claurice and Ashley lined the walls. Slowly step by step, Lenny pulled his large weight up onto the last step and knocked on Ashley’s door before turning the handle and entering.

Ashley sat with his back against the pillows of his unmade bed and a laptop on his thighs, slapping the keys as his typed. Scraps of paper and post-it notes surrounded him on the bed, some fell on the floor and blew underneath it.

“You need to get more organised,”

“This works for me dad,”

“Really?”

“Really. I know what it looks like but it’s works. I know where everything is,”

“You do?”

“Yup,”

“What about that notebook over there. I thought you bought it for your schooling,”

Lenny pointed to the little black notebook on Ashley’s bedside table. Still in it’s plastic wrapping, the soft black cover glistened and guarded the white pages as if were skin on flesh. Ashley grinned, his straight teeth bright between his full brown lips.

“Nah Dad…. ya’ see, this is for something else,”

“What’s this something else?”

“It’s the future Dad, no more paper or cards, everything will be virtual,” Ashley tapped on his screen with the back of his hand, caressing it’s edges.

“Virtual? In a notebook. Bit low tech for you. Make sense please,”

“Ha! Even though all the magic happen here.” Ash pointed at his screen “There are lots of hackers so I keep all the important stuff offline here.” He placed the hand onto the notebook the plastic wrapper rustled under his touch.

“You young people. I’ll just stick to the bank me,”

“Nah dad! We, the people will be the bank! Look I’ll explain it to you later but let’s just say I predict that in a few short months, what I place in that notebook will be the key to what will be worth 20 grand,”

“Boy.” Lenny chuckled. “I would hope that your damn degree would be worth more than that for you to rather use this book for your study notes.”

“Fair play dad but it’s too long winded for me to explain now but i’ll...”

“..yeah sure, talk to me about it later. I have to get going for work now anyways. Good luck in your exam Ash.”

and with that Lenny closed the door on Ash’s room and into the dark kitchen where he sat with his wife Clarice. The wind outside gargled around the house and slammed against the door leading to their backyard. Cold, Clarice hugged her arms in her dressing gown and yawned.

“It’s just gibberish Lenny. Probably something to do with those games he used to play,”

“Nah Clarice. This is different,”

Lenny opened up the notebook onto the 5th page to a series of numbers and letters in thick black ink.

X H r u 3 8 @ j f 9 2 d h c j g3 - A u d ! h j ! h

“Ex. Haych. Are. You. Thirty-eight...What can it all mean? Look there’s even an email here. A Snark 8303 at safenetmail dot com,”

“That is not Ash’s email address, I know that. Probably a friend from his university,”

“You could email it,”

“You know I’m not good with computers,”

“I’m telling you. There is more to this. And all these words.” Lenny flipped the page and read “Cattle..Tone...Whistle...Lime...There’s 24 random words here,”

“Ash was very creative. Maybe these are ideas for a story that he thought he could publish and make money from,”

Lenny shook his head and groaned. The ink on the page danced, numbers and letters tumbled down the sheet, rearranging themselves into different formulations.

The sound of wood banging as Ash came in through the back kitchen door in his football kit. Ash slid his feet out of his muddy trainers and left them on the door mat before dumping his sports bag on the counter.

“I’ve told you before.” Lenny spoke, his voice a deep low bellow.

“Sorry dad,” Ash said taking his bag off the counter and putting in on the floor before joining his dad at the kitchen table. The smell of grass and mud formed a halo around him and raindrops glittered his thick afro curls.

“You move back home and treat this place like a pig sty,”

Ash smiled looking at his father. His eyes brown and soft. Lenny took his glasses off and looked back at his son.

“Yes?”

“He who holds the private key, hold the funds.”

“English please?”

“This’ll be worth 20 grand one day.”

The kitchen darkened in the still of night. Clarice rubbed her face. The skin on the back on her hand was thin and hung from the bone. She looked at Lenny flicking through the pages, staring at the long strings of letters and numbers.

“Come to bed. You need sleep,”

“I’m telling you! This is the type of book you put important stuff in. Something you pass onto generations. This was taped underneath his bed frame. This is not just random notes. He did not want anyone to know he had this,”

“And now our son is gone,”

“And now he’s gone,” Lenny sighed again “This is valuable Clarice. He got himself a lawyer and made himself a will, put this down as an asset. Our son did this. The same boy who always locked his keys in his car, forgot his wallet everyday? He got a lawyer at 23 years old? Nah this is valuable,”

“This’ll be worth 20 grand one day.”

Lenny looked at the notebook again. The ink on the pages broke at the joints, the crook of the T, the curve of the S and the slant of the dash. They broke and bleed as ink poured across the pages to reform into twisted shapes and warped hieroglyphics.

“I’ll speak to the lawyer tomorrow morning, see if we can meet earlier,” Clarice said as she stood up from the table.

“Psst! And you wanted to throw it away!”

“Look Lenny! We are all hurting but don’t take it out on me. A mother should not have to bury her son. It’s not right. Staying up at all hours trying to solve riddles is not good and will not bring him back. Come to bed soon. Please!”

Lenny look up and nodded at Clarice as she left the kitchen, leaving him underneath the warm glow of the single lamp. He closed the book, ink still twirling on the pages and placed it in the centre of the kitchen table. Standing in the garden, the daffodils stood tall, and bordered their lawn like sentries of gold. Small palms ran through Lenny’s full head of hair, tiny fingers twirling the soft coils of his afro.

“Silly daddy.” Ash screamed from atop of Lenny’s shoulder.

“This’ll be worth 20 grand one day.”