Jack arrived home late Friday night. He had stopped by the bank and deposited his paycheck. He had a feeling that it was going to be the last one he would get in a long while. The drywall job was done and they were putting off finishing the interior until the financial situation got better. He couldn't find a single place doing any construction. He had enough money in his account to pay his next mortgage, pay his food bill, and put some gas in his truck. He stopped at a convenience store and bought a big bottle of soda.
Arriving home, only four people were gathered in his garage eating dinner. There was always a lot of coming and going from the garage during the evening while people ate dinner, took care of a few errands, chatted, and shopped from the inventory of food kept there for breakfasts and lunches. He wondered what they would do when the weather got colder. It was a very different looking garage now. His lawn tools had been moved across the street. His workshop had been moved over to Bev's garage. Another dining table had been added so that ten people could eat at once.
There was a whiteboard with everyone's name on it tracking the number of hours that people worked for the benefit of the community. Everyone had already put in more hours than was required. After three weeks, he was up at 42 hours although that number kind of confused him. He couldn't recall working that much. Rich was just behind him with 41 hours of effort credited to him. Claire was at 39 hours of effort, but he was pretty sure that she wasn't getting credit for all of the time she was putting into the commune. Abby had just as many hours as Claire.
Rich, Dave, and he had spent one weekend doing lawns and assessing how much needed to be repaired in the houses owned by the elderly women. Short of money and lacking the skills to do the repairs themselves, there were a lot of little things that required fixing. Light fixtures, dripping faucets, toilets that ran all of the time, and leaky roofs were the most common problems. Every house could use a coat of paint on both the exterior and interior. He figured that he and Dave were going to be busy that whole weekend fixing the things that required parts that only cost a few dollars. It would be a while before they could go after the bigger cost items.
Rich was over at the table setting up something, but Jack couldn't see what he was doing. It took him a minute to realize that Rich was making sure that the heating pot under the chafing dish was functioning correctly. Jack said, "What's up, Rich?"
"Cheryl cooked dinner tonight. I just refilled the chafing dish and saw that the little pot here was low on alcohol," Rich answered.
"What's for dinner?" Jack asked looking over at the chafing dishes.
Opening up the cover to show the contents, Rich answered, "My wife's chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and green beans. She's got some real cream gravy that is out of this world."
"That sounds good," Jack said. Although he hadn't believed Abby when she had discussed food, the fact was that they were eating better now than ever before. Even when times were good, he wasn't getting home cooked meals like this. Of course, back then the quality of the meals depended upon his ability to cook.
Not quite looking at Jack, Rich said, "I never did thank you for that little conversation that night over at Sally's garage. You reminded me of some things that I had forgotten."
"No thanks are necessary," Jack said uncomfortable at the subject.
Shaking his head, Rich said, "I never would have thought it possible, but my life is a whole lot better now than ever. I come home from work and the house is clean, the laundry is done, and dinner is ready. The kids have done their homework. The little old ladies have been watching them after school giving my wife a chance to relax and get things straightened up."
"That's real nice," Jack said. "I know what you mean. I haven't washed clothes, cleaned the house, or cooked once since they started this commune. I do a bit more yard work and repairs, but I don't mind doing that."
"Your turn to cook will come," Rich said with a smile.
Frau Shultz entered the garage. Seeing Jack, she said, "Guten Abend."
"Guten Abend, Frau Shultz. Wie geht es Ihnen?" Jack asked.
"Ich bin feing. Wie geht es Ihnen?" Frau Shultz replied with a big grin. Jack didn't know much German, but he was learning.
"Ich bin feing," Jack answered.
"You understand that?" Rich asked. It seemed to him that Frau Shultz had adopted Jack. She followed him around like a puppy.
"I understand enough to be polite," Jack answered.
Frau Shultz looked at dinner and said, "Ah! American Schnitzel, gestampfte Kartoffeln, and gruen Bohnen."
"Ja," Jack said with a grin. It had taken some time, but he now recognized the German words for mashed potatoes.
She went over and fixed a plate with food. She handed the plate to Jack and said, "Essen Sie. Sie sind ein wachsender Junge."
"Danke," Jack said accepting the plate.
"What did she say?" Rich asked.
"I think she said I'm a wandering boy," Jack answered.
Ella entered the garage just in time to catch the last bit of the exchange. She laughed and said, "She said you were a growing boy."
"Oh. That makes a bit more sense," Jack said with a laugh.
Ella translated what Jack had understood to Frau Shultz. The old woman laughed while putting together a plate. She took it over to the table to eat with Jack. He rose when she approached the table. She smiled at him and took a seat while gesturing for him to sit down. Jack sat down and continued eating. She said, "Ich bevorzuge Weiner Schnitzel."
Ella sat down next to Jack and said, "She's not going to be happy until she gets a chance to cook Weiner Schnitzel."
"Schedule it with Claire," Jack said. They were having meat dishes like this one three nights a week. A pasta dish and a casserole filled in the two other week nights. One night was often vegetables with tuna salad or something along that line. Saturday night dinner was either hamburgers or hotdogs cooked over the grill. Sunday night was usually a smorgasbord of leftovers.
"Veal is expensive," Ella said with a sigh.
He had no idea how much veal cost, but he figured that it couldn't be that much more than beef. They were trying to keep the cost of dinners to less than three dollars a person. He figured that at most it would cost an extra ten or twenty dollars. Jack said, "I'll kick in a little extra."
"You don't need to do that," Ella said patting him on the shoulder. She appreciated his offer.
"She'd enjoy it so much," Jack said shrugging his shoulders.
Frau Shultz asked Ella about the conversation. Her eyes got moist when she heard what he had said. After the exchange, Ella said, "I'll talk to Claire."
"Talk to me about what?" Claire asked having just entered the garage.
Jack said, "Frau Shultz wants to cook some Weiner Schnitzel sometime."
"How about Tuesday?" Claire asked. She was feeling tired from all of the work with scheduling meals, keeping up with what everyone else was doing, and managing the money.
Ella translated to Frau Schultz. The little old lady got very excited. She nodded her head and repeated 'Danke' a dozen times. Jack smiled and said, "You made her day."
"Yeah," Claire said.
Jack looked over at Claire and asked, "Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm just tired," Claire said.
Jack said, "Why don't you take the evening off?"
"I have too much to do," Claire said.
Jack picked up a salt shaker and rapped the table with it. He shouted, "Listen up everyone. For the next twenty-four hours, no one bothers Claire."
When everyone shouted their agreement, Jack smiled and said, "See. That wasn't hard. You've got a day off. Now eat, go home, and get some rest."
"Thanks, Jack," Claire said laughing. She went over to fix a plate of food. The servings were a little large so she cut one of the cutlets in half. She noticed that Jack had no problem clearing his plate. She looked at the meal finding it hard to believe that they were providing such high quality meals while maintaining the budget.
Glad to see that Claire was going to take some care of herself, Ella asked about the other member who put in more hours that appeared on that chart, "Where's Abby?"
"I don't know," Jack answered. He had assumed that she was in the house.
"She's in the house," Claire said having talked to her less than five minutes before coming out here.
"Okay," Ella said.
After relaxing a few minutes from his meal, Jack went into the house finding that Abby was at the kitchen table with a pad of paper. She looked up when he came into the room. She asked, "Did you have enough to eat?"
"Yes," Jack answered rubbing his belly.
"That's good," Abby said turning her attention back to the paper.
"I gave Claire the next twenty-four hours off," Jack said lightly.
Looking up from her notes, Abby said, "I need her to help me with this."
"What is it?" Jack asked thinking that too many people were making demands on Claire's time.
"I'm going over the repairs that need to be made. We're going to have to put together a fund of some kind to cover the costs of making them," Abby said.
"So propose that at the meeting," Jack said thinking that too many people were making demands upon Claire's time. Claire may have announced the commune to the world, but it was Abby's idea. He felt that it was time for her to start moving into a leadership role.
Frowning at the idea of being the one to make the proposal, Abby said, "I'd rather have Claire make the proposal."
"She's exhausted," Jack said.
"You're right." Abby looked down at her pad. She wasn't sure how much to insist that people contribute to the repair fund. Asking people to chip in ten dollars a month would bring in a total of a hundred and fifty dollars for the fund. She said, "I don't know how much to ask people to contribute."
"It will need to be thirty dollars a month at the least," Jack answered. With thirteen people contributing, since he wasn't counting the two kids, they would have $390 a month they could spend on repairs.
"Why so much?" Abby asked surprised.
Jack said, "There are no cost benefits to buying hardware in bulk. The only thing we're saving is the cost of labor. I could get a discount if I register with a store as a contractor and purchase enough from the store, but it would need to be a lot more than we will require."
"Oh," Abby said looking down at her list. She decided that she was going to have to visit the web to see what kind of deals she could get on hardware.
Jack looked over the list and said, "We're going to have at least six thousand in basic repairs and that won't cover what breaks between now and when we finish fixing whatever is already broken."
"Six thousand dollars?" Abby asked. She had thought the total cost would be about half of that.
"There are five houses that haven't had any repairs for the past five years. It is going to take a bit of money to fix them. The garbage disposal alone will take over a hundred dollars worth of parts," Jack said. He knew that he could probably pick up a cheap disposal unit, but there were other parts that would be required to complete the job.
"I didn't realize," Abby said.
Jack said, "You can't just go out and buy cheap stuff either. We're talking about fixing up a house. There is an esthetic element to the stuff you put in a house."
"Oh my," Abby said scratching her idea of going to the web to find some cheap stuff.
"I see that we've got about six light fixtures to repair. Those will probably cost about a hundred dollars each by the time we get ones that look good and are well made," Jack said looking down the list.
"I didn't think about esthetics," Abby said.
"I didn't think so," Jack said. He looked down the list. A number of the repairs would be fairly inexpensive. He noticed one item and said, "It will cost a fortune to fix the roof."
"How much?" Abby asked. She had never dealt with the expenses of fixing a house.
"Ten thousand or so," Jack said.
Abby felt like she couldn't breathe. She swallowed and said, "That's a lot of money."
"It is going to have to get fixed before it causes more damage to the house. I imagine that we'll have to replace part of the ceiling where there's been some water damage," Jack said. He hadn't been the one to identify the problem. Dave and Rich had surveyed Emily's house.
"What are we going to tell Emily?" Abby asked with a worried expression on her face. She had already told Emily that they would try to get to it before it started raining a lot.
"I guess we'll have to climb up on the roof and check it out. We might be able to patch it for a lot less money," Jack said going over to the cabinet and retrieving a glass.
"Okay," Abby said.
Jack went over to the refrigerator and got out a big bottle of soda. He filled the glass with some ice from the ice maker. Taking the bottle with him, he went over to the kitchen table and sat down. Noticing Abby's frown, he said, "I'm sorry. I like soda."
"You could get the store brand. We've got six bottles in the garage," Abby said. They had been on sale and she picked up a bunch knowing that the young boys would appreciate it as treats.
"I like this brand," Jack said. It cost fifty cents more and he had splurged to get the bottle.
"Okay," Abby said.
He filled his glass watching the foam rise to the top of the glass. He looked over at Abby and asked, "Is this commune idea working out the way you thought it would?"
"We're eating a lot better than I expected," Abby answered.
"And?"
"It is a lot more work than I thought," Abby said with a sigh. She figured that she was putting in almost sixteen hours a week. A lot of that was driving people around on their errands.
"I kind of noticed that you, Claire, and Rich are putting in a lot of time," Jack said recalling the whiteboard in the garage.
"You've put in the most hours," Abby said.
"You and Claire haven't gotten credit for all of the time you've put in. I figure that you and she are closer to sixty hours than forty," Jack said.
"You're probably right," Abby said with a sigh. She did understand that she was gaining almost all of that time back by having others doing things for her. She didn't even have to clean up the house; Frau Shultz did that for them when they were at work. It was kind of nice coming home to a neat house every evening.
Jack took a sip of his soda and sighed in pleasure. He said, "I just realized that you and I don't talk very often."
"I know. We live in the same house, but most of the time that we see each other is out in the garage surrounded by a crowd," Abby said.
"Are you comfortable here?"
Nodding her head, Abby said, "More comfortable than I thought. It has been much nicer now that we have electricity, hot water, and music."
"I don't know how much longer that is going to last. My drywall job ended and I can't find anyone hiring," Jack said.
Something that Abby had heard at the nursing home tickled the back of her head. She couldn't recall the details, but she recalled something about some jobs up at the local college. She said, "Why don't you see if the college needs a maintenance man?"
"I'll check it out," Jack said. It would be nice to have a regular job while the economy was so bad.
"They've reinstalled the banking regulations," Abby said.
Shaking his head, Jack said, "That sucks."
"They have to use the time when the check electronically clears. That can be simultaneous with when you deposit the check rather than the five to ten days that was required," Abby said.
"That's a little better. Why are they screwing around with the banking system?" Jack asked.
"They just want to regulate every industry more than in the past. Congress blames the laize faire policies of the previous president for the economic crisis. I think the banking industry tried to rebel a little to let Congress know that they were going too far with all of the regulations. I also think that this was an attempt by the banks to force people to use electronic banking rather than old paper checks," Abby said.
"Well, we are the ones who are getting screwed," Jack said.
Abby said, "That reminds me. I was going to suggest that we take all of the little old ladies to the library to learn how to use the computer."
"Why?" Jack asked.
"Their medicines can be purchased at a cheaper price on the internet," Abby answered.
"So?" Jack asked.
Abby said, "A lot of them are spending nearly six hundred a month on medicines. Liz has dropped her blood pressure medicine because she can't afford it."
"That's criminal," Jack said shaking his head. It seemed to him that the elderly were hit the hardest with the changing economic times.
"I agree," Abby said. "From what Claire was telling me, it used to be worse."
Jack studied Abby for a moment. It dawned on him that normally she would have been out in the garage talking with everyone rather than sitting alone in the house. Although he didn't know her that well, it was pretty obvious to him that something was bothering her. He said, "You seem a little down."
"I guess you could say that," Abby said.
"What's the matter?" Jack asked.
Abby said, "I've got to get another job."
Thinking that she had lost her current job, he said, "I didn't realize they were cutting back at the nursing home."
"They aren't cutting back. I just can't take it anymore," Abby said. Part of it wasn't just the job, but the fact that she was surrounded by elderly people all day long. She had expected a younger crowd to be members of the commune. She hadn't expected that two thirds of the members would be retired.
"Is being surrounded by old folks all day that depressing?" Jack asked. She often mentioned that it was a depressing place to work.
Abby gave a bitter little laugh. She said, "I could handle the fact that most of them are just waiting to die. I just can't face changing another diaper."
"Oh," Jack said. He didn't even know how to reply to that comment. He knew there was a lot of difference between changing a baby's diaper and an adult's diaper.
Abby said, "I almost stopped at the massage parlor on the way home from work to see if they needed anyone."
"Oh," Jack said. He had a feeling that she wasn't talking about a regular spa or anything like that.
"There are times when I think that I'd rather give out handjobs than wipe shitty asses," Abby said. She rested her head between her hands with her elbows on the table.
"Oh," Jack said thinking she had talked about that before. He wondered if she was really considering doing it. There was no way that he was going to make any suggestions concerning that subject.
Abby sighed and stared at the kitchen table with dull eyes. She said, "I got into the massage therapy business because I wanted to make people feel better. Now I'm just keeping people clean while they are waiting to die. Half of them aren't even aware that I'm even there."
"That sucks," Jack said deciding that it would probably be better for him to shut up and listen than try to give any advice at the moment.
"I've thought that I would take the courses to become a physical therapist. I just can't afford it at the moment," Abby said.
"What does that involve?" Jack asked thinking this was a much safer topic to discuss.
"I'm not sure," Abby said. She had looked into the matter a little before taking the job at the nursing home, but hadn't really gone into it too much once she discovered the cost of the program.
"Why don't you go there and find out?" Jack asked.
Abby snorted. Jack was such a male. She wanted to bitch about her life and he was there trying to solve her problems. She said, "I don't really have time to do that."
"Send the little old ladies there," Jack suggested. He could imagine them on the campus searching for everything she needed to know. Odds were good that there wouldn't be a stone left unturned.
"Like they would want to do that," Abby said feeling a little irritated at the advice. All she really wanted to do was talk about her situation. She wasn't looking for solutions.
"Ask them," Jack suggested. There was a knock on the back door.
"Would you get that?" Abby said.
"Sure," Jack said rising from the table. He went to the backdoor and opened it. He found Ella standing there. He said, "Hello, Ella."
"Hello, Jack," Ella said. She looked over her shoulder at the garage for a second.
"What can I do for you?" Jack asked.
"Frau Shultz was wondering if you were okay," Ella said. Her mother-in-law had been pestering her to find out if Jack was upset about something.
"I was just talking to Abby," Jack replied with a smile. He could see the elderly lady in the garage watching them at the door. He waved to her.
"Oh," Ella said looking past Jack at the young woman seated at the kitchen table. She could see that Abby looked a little down. She put a hand on Jack's arm and said, "Let me talk to Abby for a minute or two."
"Uh, sure," Jack said. He turned to Abby and said, "Frau Shultz wants to talk to me a bit."
"Okay," Abby said.
Once Jack left, Ella sat down across from Abby. She said, "This commune is a very good idea. Frau Shultz and I were very afraid of the future until you and Claire recommended it."
"I'm glad," Abby said.
"You don't seem very happy," Ella said.
Abby said, "Let's just say that I am thinking that there must be an easier way to make a living."
"You aren't planning on doing anything stupid, are you?" Ella said looking across the table at Abby.
"Why would you ask me that?" Abby asked. The last thing she wanted for the little old ladies to decide that she was a tramp.
"Lots of young women do things for men to earn money," Ella said in a matter of fact tone of voice.
"What do you know about that?" Abby asked irritated at the suggestion that she was considering doing exactly what she was considering doing.
Ella said, "Frau Shultz did not have an easy life."
"So," Abby said. It was half question and half exclamation.
Ella said, "Tough times are hardest on young women. Sometimes they make choices that they have to live with for the rest of their lives. Frau Shultz learned a lot growing up in Germany."
"Like what?" Abby asked.
"Frau Shultz was sixteen when the American soldiers took over Berlin. Her father had been killed in the war and her mother was sick. There were jobs, but nothing for a young woman her age. She entertained the soldiers to earn enough money to feed herself and her mother," Ella said. The result of those times had been her husband.
"Oh," Abby said.
"Desperation can cause young women to do things that they wouldn't want to do. Just remember that things aren't all that desperate," Ella said.
"I know," Abby said with a sigh.
"Frau Shultz likes Jack. He's the only one who attempts to talk to her in German," Ella said.
"I know," Abby said with a smile.
"He's a good man. Maybe you don't have to look further than your own house to find what you really need," Ella said.