Fresh Daily

Ken Graham Jr. was a hardworking man with the motivation only growing up poor can bring.  Work and responsibility; that was his life: always a demand, a need to be met.  Few things where only his.  But there where a few things that where off limits to everyone but Ken.

He’d always had a sports car.  It was never too flamboyant or flashy.  Not a Ferrari or ‘pop your eyes out’ exotic.  He usually had an older Porsche.  In ’84 he had a classic 911, meticulously cared for.  Nobody drove that car.  His only son, Matt would back it out of the garage into the drive to wash it, but he didn’t dare so much as drive it around the block to dry it off.  

His other sacred object was unusual and I never fully understood it.  But you could feel it must have been symbolic, metaphorically the center of his universe; a tidy bow that held his whole world together.  The object?  It was a large ball of twine, kept in the garage on a shelf with nothing else but a large pair of sheers.  

Maybe it was because every drawer in the Graham house was a junk drawer, packed with unused and unimportant clutter, pressed in tightly with no more purpose but to be out of sight.  For thirteen years, there was never a pen to be found, only dried out Marvy Markers you would have to lick to write down a phone number.

            It wasn’t an orderly house, but it was a perfectly orderly ball of twine.  Away from the clutter and junk drawers, safely in the garage next to his prized red Porsche.  

Everyone had chores, especially Matt.  But when it came time to taking the old newspapers and tying them in neat bundles to be recycled, Mr. Graham did that.  There where three or four inches of twine sticking out of the top, like an apple’s stem.  And you could pull two or three feet of twine from the center of the melon-sized ball without a tangle or snarl.  Snip.  It was done and it was immaculate.  

The Grahams where old fashioned and one of the last families in the neighborhood to have their milk dropped off in plastic bags every morning. The milk man would deposit two bags of milk in a small wooden box just outside the garage door and outside the precious car and the celebrated twine.  

One morning, things where a little different.  One morning Ken’s younger daughter Sara stepped outside to get the milk, only to find the bags slouching against the side of the box.  She didn’t think too much about it as she took the milk into the kitchen.  

But, the next morning as Sara saw the milk resting outside the box her her curiosity was piqued.  She lifted the lid, peering inside to find poop in the milk box!  Several smallish turds, maybe the size of big dogs?  

“Dad, somebody threw poo in the milkbox!”

“They did what?”

“Go look.  There’s poop in our milkbox.  Matt probably did it, the little shit.  He’s always whining about scooping K.C.’s poop all the time”.  

“Take it easy” he said to Sara as he went to investigate.  Sure enough, there lay three little dumps.  

Matt was a mischievous kid, but he was terrified of his father’s wrath—a salty old Marine who built a lumber empire from pure sweat.  

“Matt!  Front and center.  Get that crap out of the milkbox, now!”  

Grumbling his innocence, Matt walked the box over to K.C.s dog pen and shook the poo onto the cedar shavings, then hosed out the box.  

“I cleaned it dad, but I didn’t put it in there”.  Ken gave him a careful scowl and knew his son was telling him the truth.  

The next morning, Ken swung the porch door open, arms crossed, staring down the steps at two bags of milk leaning against his milkbox.  He grabbed the milk and took a quick peek to see a brand new crap inside of the white wooden box marked “Alpenglow – Fresh Daily”.  

            “Shit”!

He thought about it all day.  “What kind of sick bastard would put shit in my milkbox”?  And he thought about it on his way home.  As he pulled into the driveway, Jeffrey Seavers appeared from the walkway between the garage and the porch.  Mr. Graham didn’t need to spend any time scratching his head to connect the dots.  You see, Jeff was a special kid.  It wasn’t clear whether he was retarded, but he sure as hell wasn’t right.  

He once hung upside down from the monkey bars at Duniway Elementary, nine feet off the deck, and he let go.  You’ve never seen a knot like that one.  It looked like a tumor the size of a tangerine, more an appendage than a bump.  When the school counselor asked him what happened he replied, “I just wanted to see what would happen”.  The kid was off.

 

Ken picked up the phone:

 

    “Yeah Mitch, Ken Graham here.  I’m not quite sure how to say this Mitch, but I think Jeff has been going to the bathroom in my milkbox… number two”.

    “Geez, Ken; are you sure”?

“Well, I’m not positive.  I didn’t actually see him do it, but we’ve been having these little surprises for the last couple mornings and I saw him walking out from the side of the garage, not fifteen minutes ago and there’s a fresh one in there”.  

“Uhhhh…  Ah, Ken I’m really sorry.  I don’t know what we’re gonna do with him.  Let me come over and take care of it and…. Well, we’ll talk to him”.  

Given, Jeffrey was a little old to be working on potty training, but a milkbox does resemble a little kids potty and if your wiring is a little different… maybe it made sense to him?  

 

The phone rings:

 

“Yeah Ken, Mitch.  We talked to him and I think we’ve got your problem solved.  Gosh, I’m really sorry.  I don’t know what else to say.  Let me know if there’s anything I can do”.  

Ken felt badly, because he knew it wasn’t easy for Mitch and Marcy.  But at least their milkman wouldn’t be traumatized anymore.  

The next day, no problems—right in the box where it oughta be, and the next day, and the next.  Things where back to normal.  

Then, on Saturday, after a few hours in the office, Ken pulled up to the driveway, squinting, hoping he wasn’t really seeing what lay before him.  He turned off his engine and walked up the gently sloping drive and stood in disbelief.  

In the middle of the driveway there was a wet circle, only semi-moist at the edges, telling of how long ago someone had peed there.  Just a few feet away, there was a fairly fresh crap.  And around the poop there where three circles of twine which continued to encircle the pee three times, a taunting ‘infiniti’ symbol that continued down the drive.  

Ken was mortified, panic-stricken.  It wasn’t necessarily his twine, but who’s could it be?  

He followed the strand down the drive to the sidewalk.  At his feet lay three strands. Ken looked to the right, then to the left, his eyes tracing each strand disappearing around the corner. Checking. Making sure he was seeing the truth, before he acquiesced—accepted that Jeffrey Seavers had tucked that grand ball of twine under his arm and dispensed it one tug at a time, three loops for the pee, three loops for the poo and three loops all the way around the block. It was a thousand tugs, and a single pluck of the bow-string—the keystone of Ken Graham’s world.