Life is Warm and Buttery: Chapter 2

Mel Stotch loved the smell of cigar smoke in the morning. His teeth clamped the stogie steady and sucked out a few puffs as the bags of trash tumbled into his cart. Ember bristled and relaxed at the smoldering tip. A few ashes escaped and floated away in the freedom of the wind.

Mel sat the empty steel can back on the floor slowly so as to keep it quiet. The last thing he wanted to do was make noise and summon the nuns. He was hanging by a thread of their goodwill. Another unpleasant conflict and they'd forget about his discount and start having their trash collected by the city. Of course, this threat didn't prevent the old pain in the ass from smoking his stogies, the one thing they hated the most. Mel felt he had won that right.

After a recent falling out, it had been agreed Mel could smoke his cigars but he was not allowed inside the convent. The sisters made certain to leave all trash receptacles outside for Mel to collect. If God decided to make the skies precipitate, the receptacles would be stored in a group and placed outside the kitchen. Under this arrangement Mel was not allowed inside anymore, regardless if he was smoking, unless emergency. Mel couldn't think of an emergency that could cause him to demand entrance, but got the message just the same.

Mel knew he was a smelly, dirty, ill mannered, foul mouthed old man, but it still hurts to have nuns share such feelings about you. He also knew he had done plenty to accommodate their dislike. Normally, Mel wouldn't smoke while emptying cans. You never know what might be flammable inside the bags. There's no reason to take the chance of one of his proud burning embers landed on the wrong piece of garbage and igniting. But he felt the sisters had pushed him. So smoke he must.

With his bin full, the white haired devil shuffled back to his truck. Mel Stotch was 79 years old. He didn't care that he looked and smelled like garbage. He had owned his dump since his father passed it to him when he was 15. His father died at home, a lingering cancer that clawed and crawled. After he died the house didn't feel very inviting. Mel slept in the office until he saved enough money to put a trailer on the lot. It was just Mel anyway. His mother died long before his father. Mel never knew the entire story. His father didn't want to tell it.

Mel Stotch was a lonely man but he didn't know it. Solitary is the only way he ever lived. He didn't have any friends except some of the pub owners that hired him to pick up their trash. A couple of them had invited to stay for a drink over the years and he had accepted. But he never spent enough time there to consider anyone a friend. The relationship was strictly professional.

The end of the stogie crackled as it evaporated sending a a trail of tobacco odor to follow. A ball cap hung backwards over the old man's spotted head. It was a warm summer morning as good as any Mel had known. He passed two chattering sisters that paid him no mind. He crossed out of the courtyard and onto the brick sidewalk with his trash bin.

As he neared his truck, Mel saw a flock of sisters sitting on and around the stairwell in front of which he had parked. To avoid the group would require taking the trash bin over their grass which would be a definite confrontation. He would have to pass straight through the group. Mel braced himself for combat.

Mel Stotch didn't like to fight and was far from hateful. He developed some wit and a smart mouth dealing with the characters he encountered at his dump over the years. He had no ill against the nuns or their mission. He really had no experience with women at all. Not many ladies came to his junkyard. But rather than address their comments about improving his appearance and behavior like a gentleman, Mel chose to grunt and shout profanities like a hobo. Eventually, the sisters simply chose to dislike him. It seemed to be easiest for all.

The rumbling wheels of the trash bin on brick alerted the sisters to turn and observe the scratchy old buzzard. He slowed to ask permission to pass.
"Excuse me sisters, just gettin' to my truck," he smiled and waved, breaking the cigar halo rising above his head.

Most of the sisters stood or scooted, some with a scornful glare. One rose and spoke, not being the first time she had done it.
"Please, Mr. Stotch, pass us with your bin so that the garbage can mask the horrible odor of your cigar."
Mel nodded and wanted to keep his eyes down. Looking at this woman directly could cause him to say something he would regret. "Yes, Sister Fabish, I will move fast."

As he pushed the cart past, Sister Fabish cast one more stone. "How must a man's breath smell after keeping such a foul thing festering in his mouth all day?"
And Mel reverted to his ignorance of manners to answer, "It's probably quite the same as a woman's breath after talking a lot of shit."

Sister Fabish shrieked while the others just shook in disgust. Mel sped his shuffle to his truck. His trash bin wheels clanked and spun on the brick stairs almost getting out his grip in the haste. The old man made it to the parking lot and never looked back. He only heard Sister Fabish as she stormed off to tell a superior or priest.
"A man like you has no business here except to pray for forgiveness of the Lord!"

Mel shook it off as he rolled his cart around to the back of his truck to load. He had heard it before. The codger still moved his arthritic arms and hands faster than he normally did to unload the trash into his truck. Upsetting the geese gave him no issues, but he never liked to loiter after he did. Few things are less fun then having holes bore through you by a gaggle of angry, pious women. The extra heaves might make his back sore but he had lotion for that.

By the time he opened his truck door and jumped inside only half the nuns remained where he had passed. Most had returned to their texts but one or two still watched him. He turned the ignition and pressed the accelerator before he turned and found his surprise. An infant, a newborn, lie sleeping on the passenger side. Had Mel been drinking coffee he would have sat his cup on the child. The old man turned his head out the window to exhale the cigar smoke and spit out the butt.

The sisters still watching didn't appreciate the spit cigar on their parking lot. They began to squawk as the truck backed away. Mel hit the brakes at the sight of the infant. The nuns were forgotten as he picked up the note.

Mel had never been so close to a newborn. The situation expanded beyond his comprehension. The child stirred with the motion of the truck and the sudden stop.
"Happy," Mel said out loud, reading the boy's name. He looked down at the boy, expressionless from shock. "Hi Happy," came out as automatic as robot.

The nuns rose and came forward, shouting and waving their books. The catcalls broke Mel's focus and he looked through his windshield to see the maddening mob. Oblivious to the cigar still smoldering beside his tire, Mel figured the nuns weren't finished chastising his remark. They continued to approach the truck. Mel grew very nervous. The shock of the child and the domineering rebuttals from the sisters struck the old man like the flashing lights of a police car. He felt very scared and guilty and wanted to flee.

The tires of the truck spun as the pedal hit the floor. The truck lurched forward and the child slid against the seat. Mel's eyes widened with the force and slowed down. He steered the car out of the lot as the infant started to yell and cry. The truck pulled over into a gas station half a mile down the road.

Mel read the note over and over, trying to visualize who might have left this child. The truck sat idling in the parking lot long enough to burn through half a tank. Mel didn't know anything about children. Even as a child he didn't know them. The old man knew the right call would be to the police. But the old man also knew what it was to be an orphan. While there was a note signed by someone claiming to be his father, this child was exactly that.

Mel could make the child's life better than an orphanage. As a boy, he had been fortunate to inherit his father's dump. The livelihood kept him in his own control. Mel was old, not as strong as he once was. But he had built himself a life of leaving nothing behind. Perhaps this opportunity had arrived so Mel could leave behind that blessing of self control that he had received so long ago. This idea was one of a thousand that spinned through his mind.

Mel didn't call the police that night. He took home the child named Happy, back to his stained, crumbling trailer in the middle of tons of human garbage. He wrapped the boy in his cleanest blanket and struggled to feed him some milk from a spoon. The old man cursed himself for not thinking to buy some baby food. That night, Mel endured the crying and sleeplessness of a new parent.

The next day, Mel was at the market when they unlocked and opened. He spoke with a woman cashier who had children of her own. He bought baby food, diapers, formula, and other supplies essential to a new baby boy. Still unsure if he would or even could keep the boy, he at least wanted to make sure the child would be healthy until he made his decision.

"What's your boy's name?" the sharing cashier asked the old man.

"Happy," the old man answered with a cheer he wanted to repeat.