Caterpillar

1

A married couple live in Troutmann, Montana in a two bed, one bath, tangerine colored house located five minutes west of Bozeman and right next to a boarded up hardware store. This is where the Greens have lived for twenty-two years.

After four years at Troutmann High, James Sutton Green Jr. was undecided on whether or not to enroll in college. Four years of subpar grades and not taking school seriously caught up to he and his friends, who all began veering towards trade school. James chose construction because his father worked construction. To him, it seemed like a respectable way to make a decent living and James Sr. always had the best stories to tell about his crew when he got home. Some of them died on the job or had debilitating, lifelong injuries but that wasn’t brought up. Sr. worked with a crew of rough and tumble early-twenties to late-fifties guys that lacked a good deal of common sense but made up for it with a strong work ethic and ability to always get the job done no matter what.

On the first day of his job as a construction worker, the foreman, Mr. Davis Levon, called the nineteen year old son of Sr., Jumbo, for his portly figure and the bright blue block letters spelling JUMBO on the lid of the Tupperware that housed his daily lunch consisting of a tuna, mustard and chive sandwich on white bread. Some folks called him other names based off his elongated and slow mountain slang speech, wraparound facial hair covering a sizable second chin and thick jowls drooped around his mouth; coot, neckbeard and ham-hock respectively. Jumbo was the only nickname that really stuck and he was ok with Jumbo because his father was already James and he didn’t want any confusion. From then on, James Jr. was Jumbo Green to foreman Davis and soon the rest of Troutmann.

Lorraine Tuttle was enrolled at Montana State University with a focus in civil engineering. Her father claimed to be a retired architect that built fantastic structures of all shapes and sizes across Northern California and she wanted to follow in his footsteps while also carving her own niche. Jumbo met Lorraine at a local coffee shop in Bozeman while he was in town for work and was immediately struck by her tattered flannel, long brown hair draped in front over her right shoulder and down to her breasts and squinted, hazel eyes filtered through orange-lensed tortoiseshell glasses. He bought her a second cup of coffee, fumbled his way through asking for her number and scurried out of the coffee shop as fast he could with head down and spirits high.

Jumbo and Lorraine went on a few dates and the two quickly fell in love. They would lay under the stars, dream about their future together and where they would go outside of Montana.

Jumbo would laugh and say something like ‘Bozeman’s the greatest city on Earth, I don’t understand why you would ever want to leave’ and they would laugh and kiss the way new lovers do.

Lorraine wanted to move back to Modesto to build new bridges and modernize the city. Jumbo dreamt of trying his hand in Chicago to work on exciting new developments in the architecture heart of America.

After her father’s tragic and unexpected passing in 1989, Lorraine became depressed and lost interest in most things aside from her relationship with Jumbo. She opted for a less challenging pivot to education to finish her degree quickly and not have to think of her father during her studies. Jumbo continued to work construction in and around Bozeman and after two years of dating, Jumbo proposed later that summer with an immaculate diamond ring he spent every dime he had on. The two were wed in Bozeman on April 1, 1990 and honeymooned in Chicago. The following month, Lorraine finished her teaching degree and the two excitedly planned their postgrad futures together.

Twenty-two years later, Jumbo Green works at Fast Action Construction under foreman Davis Edward Levon II. Davis Sr. died several years ago and his son, Dave, formed a new business that was more or less the exact same as Levon Construction. Dave called it Fast Action, claiming his team would always finish projects ahead of time, which destroyed Jumbo’s health but the pay was good enough.

Lorraine Green got her Bachelor’s Degree in Education and went to work immediately at Troutmann Elementary. Her and Jumbo never entertained the idea of having children because after her first year teaching, Lorraine decided she preferred to not be around kids as much as she could. Mrs. Green was not well liked.

“Hey hon, you mind getting me a soda while you’re in there?” “In a second,” Lorraine called from the kitchen table.

Lorraine sat at the kitchen table massaging her temple, grading a thick stack of papers and scribbling half-assed smiles in red ink on each one. The students that couldn’t spell correctly still got a correction and polite smile from Mrs. Green. A sizable crocodile tear fell from her powdered and swollen face, sinking into Jacqueline Jeromey’s spelling assignment categorizing a four-legged canine as a dig. Lorraine’s salty tear soaked into the fresh ink, smudging and warping her freshly penned smile.

It wasn’t necessarily Jumbo’s fault that things ended up this way but it also wasn’t not his fault. Divorce wasn’t on the table but it was always close by. Divorce was a bill from an undisclosed but important sounding party that neither wanted to open, address or think about. Divorce sat at the bottom of a stack of other more pressing things but both of them knew the stack would eventually dwindle down to that bill. Lorraine had been emailing with her mother in Modesto and like kismet, a pop-up reminder on her phone indicated her mother was waiting for several days on Lorraine's decision to move in to her spare bedroom. She took a deep breath and stood in the archway between the living room and the kitchen.

“You alright?”

“James. I’m really not. Do you remember what we talked about? Six or so months ago?” Lorraine asked.

“Ah,” Jumbo scratched his chin beard, “about the Seattle trip?”

“The other thing.”

“Eh,” Jumbo squinted, “yeah.”

“I think it’s time.”

Jumbo placed his hands on the arm of the chair to raise himself up but Lorraine put a hand up to stop him. At a sixty degree angle, Jumbo’s hand moved towards his lower back as he remained in a slanted position trying to quell the new ache he picked up from work last week.

“I know I haven’t brought it up within the last few months. I try and be accommodating and keep the peace but I don’t like this,” she said, gesturing broad strokes with her hands at everything in their general vicinity, “any of this. I’m not happy and can’t afford medication, we don’t do anything anymore, you’re falling apart from your work and I was supposed to be an engineer for Chrissake! I teach fourth graders how to spell dog now! How do fourth graders not know how to spell dog!”

“I don’t know, honey. The public education system in Montana has never been stellar. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she said, wiping another tear from her eyes, “we’ve talked about this before, James. I want to focus on me and I want you to focus on you. I know you aren’t happy either so let’s just…”

“Lorraine, hey, don’t you think this is a little rash? Can’t we talk about this for a minute?”

“No, we can’t. I’ve wasted too much time here and I’m going home.” Lorraine caught James’s twinkling puppy dog eyes as soon as the word ‘waste’ exited her pursed lips. “I don’t mean our marriage was wasted James, I just… I think I’m going to put my two weeks in tomorrow.”

“What about Seattle? That was something we were going to do! We’re going in a month!”

“We just went last year! What else are we going to do in Seattle! God, I don’t even know if a teacher can put in two weeks,” Lorraine said, stroking her temples. “I need some time alone and I think you do too.”

“Was it the soda? Honestly, just forget I asked. Don’t even want it. Don’t need it either! Been thinking about getting back in the gym. Huh? How’s that sound? What if we start going to the gym? That’s something.”

An awkward silence emerged between them. Jumbo remained angled and stared up at his wife, trying to look strong and supportive in his sideways V-shape from the couch.

“I love you,” Jumbo muttered.

“Goodnight, James.”

Lorraine walked towards their bedroom down the hall and locked the door.

Jumbo rose from his chair, some unpleasant sound creaking out from his lower back, removed his Fast Action cap and rubbed the prickled patch of crisped, frayed hair above his ear. Jumbo got his soda and lay flat on their couch, the dull static of some never-ending reality show buzzing in his ear. His actively dissolving marriage was all he could think about. Unbothered by thirty-four milligrams of caffeine and aspartame, Jumbo stared up at their popcorn ceiling until he fell asleep with his big mouth wide open.

The blues riff alarm tone from Jumbo’s phone rang out loudly at six a.m. He rose from the couch to brew his own coffee and make a breakfast fit for one. He cracked two eggs into a sizzling cast iron pan and added a slice of bacon while keeping an eye on the rising pot of coffee that needed, at the very least, a rinse. Jumbo added a couple drops of the local hot sauce they had on hand to his breakfast and he sat at their kitchen table alone.

“Lorraine?” he called down the hall.

“Made coffee if you want some,” he shouted. No sound returned outside of the air conditioning unit outside whirring to life. Her boots, tennis shoes and loafers were all gone from the closet next to the door and her thick wool coat was gone too. In the middle of summer, no less.

After breakfast, Jumbo headed into the bedroom closet to don his denim jacket adorned with embroidered Fast Action logo on one side and Jumbo in white cursive on the other. Jumbo took a long look at himself in the mirror and lifted his sagging and visible belly through his work wear. He’d put more than a couple pounds on since he last had what Lorraine called a ‘Jumbo inspection’ and his facial hair was patchier than usual. Forty-one hadn’t been a kind age to Jumbo Green so far. He left the house and headed to work in his bright red truck he bought twenty-some odd years ago with a sinking feeling word had already gotten out that Lorraine was leaving him.

The site these past few weeks was a new apartment complex located directly behind a strip mall housing a few fast-food chains and an IV clinic that the locals were over the moon about. All thirty units had already been spoken for and Fast Action promised the new tenants they’d be able to move in a month early. Dave Levon stood in front of their work in progress in a striped blue and white button down and plain slacks the color of his tanned, leathery skin freckled with visible melanomas from overuse of his much younger wife’s tanning bed. Dave smoked a long, unfiltered cigarette and pointed a pristine, manicured fingernail to where the electrical outlets should be placed to save the most money. A crew of balding, slouched men in three piece navy suits surrounded he and the blueprints and nodded to one another. Dave looked over at Jumbo’s idling truck and gave the old time signal to roll down the window. Jumbo noticed an unfamiliar logo pinned to his shirt that Dave removed and put into his pocket.

“Can we talk real quick?” Dave asked, tilting his head up to face Jumbo. The black sunglasses couldn’t mask his intense, sunken-in eyes underneath.

“I guess so. What’s going on?”

“I heard about you and Lorraine.”

“From who?”

“It doesn’t matter. You know how word travels around here, Jumbo. I’ve got a task for you.”

“Look, I’d really—”

“Just hear me out. There’s a big project going on down in Daniels. I mean really big,” Dave said, speaking physically with his spindly, unworked hands. “Now, I just heard back from the main supervisor out there and I recommended you specifically for this big project. If you want to get away from here for a bit, I’ll get you down there for work, pay for travel, hotel, whatever and get this whole thing off your mind.”

“What kind of project?”

“Well, it’s a tunnel. There’s a big tunnel this client is wanting to construct that’s about a half mile long. Shouldn’t take but a week or so with these new machines but I’m telling you Jumbo, the pay is incredible. Whoever’s behind this thing has some serious cashola.”

“Dave, I—I don’t know what to say. Where exactly is Daniels?”

“Well, it’s down south.”

Jumbo closed his eyes and thought for a few seconds to determine if this was a good idea. Before he could run hypothetical scenarios upstairs, he made his mind up. This was the new Jumbo. The new Jumbo took risks and was spontaneous. The new Jumbo didn’t concern himself with asking why, he just did.

“I’ll do it,” Jumbo said, cranking up his truck again, “what’s the address?”

“You’re going to drive down to Tennessee?”

“Tennessee? I thought you meant down south… here. In Montana. You want me to go to Tennessee?”

“Yes sir.”

“Well. I guess that’s fine,” Jumbo said, shrugging his shoulders.

“That’s what I like to hear! Now, I talked with Reynolds, he’s the foreman out there, real no-nonsense kind of guy. You’ll like him. He told me you’ll be paired up with a guy named Scratch. I do not know why he is called Scratch and I did not ask but Reynolds says he’s a local. He could probably help you get acclimated and show you around. He’s gonna pick you up from Memphis. Reynolds said he drives a red convertible, so look for that.”

“When do I need to be there?”

“Well if you’re up for it there’s a red eye headed out at 11.”

“Tonight?”

“Mhm. All paid for courtesy of yours truly. Whatcha think of that?”

“I always liked you, Dave,” Jumbo said with a smile.

“I know that isn’t true but I appreciate the kind words. Go ahead and take the day off, get your shit together and I’ll see you when I see you. Also, here’s the guy’s number if you can’t find him or something happens or what have you.”

Dave’s outstretched arm displayed a crumbled, yellow sticky note with a phone number scribbled on it. Jumbo stuffed it into his pants pocket and awkwardly clambered out of his truck. He gave Dave a big hug that lasted a touch too long. He smelled like an old make of candle he and Lorraine used to buy at the farmer’s market in Bozeman.

“Thank you. Really,” Jumbo said.

“Don’t mention it, amigo,” Dave said, patting Jumbo’s shoulder and gently shoving him off, “get going now.”

Jumbo put the truck in reverse and pulled out of the gravel parking lot. He took off for 715 Oak Place with the windows rolled down, feeling on top of the world and trying to bury his sadness through loud music and the balmy summer air burning his face.

He pulled into the empty driveway, half-expecting Lorraine to apologize and take him back but alas, there was nothing here.

Jumbo walked inside and his footsteps rang out as he shuffled down the hallway. In the bedroom, he clambered into their shared closet and packed one single suitcase full of travel clothes he was planning on bringing to Seattle. Seven pairs of underwear, five white undershirts, five jeans, five socks, five almost matching black work shirts he could wear and his ‘fun shirt’ on top to prevent wrinkles. His trusty Phillips head that Lorraine got him for his birthday last year with JSG engraved into the thin ream of plastic coating on the handle slotted firmly in the side pocket next to a toothbrush and deodorant worn to a nub.

The flight didn’t leave for a few hours and Dave overestimated the amount of time it took Jumbo Green to prepare. He sat outside with his suitcase for several hours and listened to the sounds of chirping bugs and local moneybags milling about and exchanging cards during another showing of the boarded up hardware store next door.

At eight p.m. he headed for the airport, went through the nearly nonexistent security who, to Jumbo’s surprise, did not have an issue with the Phillips head when he told them it was sentimental and that he had to have it. Jumbo ate one crusty and slightly sour donut, had one cup of coffee with cream, no sugar, and sat on a yellow pleather seat right next to a snoring grandma. Jumbo was watching a kid he presumed to be eight or nine poke his sleeping grandmother and locked eyes with the only other person here who would give him any attention.

“Do you have a sucker?” the boy whispered.

“A sucker?”

“Yeah. I want one.”

“No,” Jumbo fiddled in his pocket, “I do have this though.”

“I don’t want that. I want a sucker.”

“You sure?” Jumbo unwrapped the peppermint and held it in his hand, “it seems like it’d be pretty good.”

Jumbo looked up to find the boy’s grandmother, now awake, watching this strange man offer an unwrapped peppermint to her grandson. She shook her head and took him away to another seat. Jumbo frowned, ate the peppermint and watched the planes take off outside.

He boarded his flight to Memphis at eleven p.m. where this stranger that went by Scratch would take him to his new job.

After twenty minutes in the air, Jumbo dozed off and dreamt of Lorraine. Maybe she was on a plane out to Modesto now. Maybe she came back home, wondering where her husband went. An endless stream of maybe’s and what-if’s drifted across Jumbo’s big, round head.

After a brief layover in Denver, Jumbo’s plane made its early arrival in Memphis. Today was the first day to acclimate and familiarize himself with his new, temporary home. Daniels was another two and a half hours east from Memphis and Dave said to be on the lookout for a red convertible.

His one suitcase propped next to him, he waited outside for a red convertible in the A lot. He waited for a brief amount of time but long enough to take in his surroundings. A family of three loading into a taxi, an old man hobbling towards his vehicle in the parking garage in the distance and what looked like a set of twins darting across the lot in a hurry. After ten or fifteen minutes of casual observation, a red convertible careened around the corner. Behind the wheel was a thin, middle-aged man wearing an undershirt with skin stretched taut across his jagged face and wiry, veiny arms. A green trucker hat concealing what could only be a sizable bald spot sat atop his head.

“Mr. Jumbo, I presume?”

“Yeah. Are you Scratch?”

“I am. You can just throw your suitcase in the backseat.”

Scratch scanned Jumbo from head to toe as he squatted into the convertible. He didn’t expect the lumbering oaf-like man to have such a soft voice.

“You just brought the one thing of luggage?”

“I did.”

Jumbo tossed his suitcase in the backseat and climbed into the tight passenger seat. Scratch revved the engine and the two started their trek towards Daniels. Scratch punched the directions into a manual screen GPS hung loosely onto a thin rod stuck to the dashboard. Two and a half hours of car time. Jumbo hadn’t experienced this in a while. It reeked of cigarettes and the stack of ten or so green trees hanging from the rearview didn’t change that.

The two remained quiet for a while and listened to the sound of the radio, crackly tunes interjected with the morning zoo crew barking back and forth at one another through erratic bursts of noise. The trees out here made Jumbo claustrophobic. Tall and vibrant stalks ran parallel along the highway for miles and miles and miles. They didn’t turn and there wasn’t any traffic on the road.

“So… uhh, you do construction too?”

“Yeah. Well, I work for Fast Action Construction in Montana. That’s where I’m from. I… uh. I don’t know, never been to Tennessee,” Jumbo said. “Lots of trees here.”

“Right. We moved here from Iowa when I was little and I’ve come to like this place quite a bit. Daniels is a charming little town and we all get along good,” Scratch said.

“I guess Troutmann’s the same way, really. We’re pretty tight-knit too,” Jumbo said, “in a way.”

“Uh-huh. How’d you hear about the job?”

“Oh man… I,” Jumbo chuckled an emotionless chuckle, “I don’t know if I want to get into it.”

“Well sir, we have been in the car a whopping five minutes and you’re going to be seeing a lot of me so we can just go ahead and skip the formalities. You can tell me or don’t, I don’t give a shit.”

“So. My wife and I separated yesterday and—”

“Yesterday! Like yesterday, yesterday? And now you’re here?”

“I guess so,” Jumbo said, grimacing.

“Man, oh, man,” Scratch said. The two looked ahead at the endless rows of trees on both sides of the highway, Jumbo feeling trapped already. Scratch’s folksy tone that bordered on parody was already driving him insane.

“So how long were you two married?”

“Twenty-two years but I—I really don’t want to dwell on it. Still fresh in my mind, you know? You got anyone? A partner?”

“Whew, that is a long time, my friend. I do not have a lady at the moment, no. Always busy with work. Always looking for new opportunities. This tunnel is gonna bring a lot of new traffic to Daniels. A lotta money too.”

“Well, to answer your question my supervisor told me it was a good paying gig but that’s the beginning and end of it. Now I’m here and don’t think the wife stuff I told you is going to distract me or anything. Because it’s not,” Jumbo laughed awkwardly, “at all.”

Scratch looked forward with a blank expression. The sizable cold sore on his lip matched the exterior color of the car.

“I’ve lived here my whole life and I don’t know what’s happening on the other side of that tunnel. I signed an NDA but couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Swear to God,” Scratch said, raising his hands off the wheel for a second, “no idea what this is.”

“You don’t think it’s like the mob or anything funding this do you? Some old Tennessee mafia guys?”

Scratch contorted his small mouth to stifle a laugh. They sped past a maroon blur, a van broken down on the side of the road. How fast was he driving?

“We ain’t got nothing like that. A couple old moonshiners is the closest you’ll get to any organized crime out here. I think you oughta temper your expectations, it’s a small place.”

“How small are we talking?”

“Well, I’ll lay out our little town for ya. We’ve got roughly three hundred and thirty-five residents in Daniels, most of them live out in the woods or off the grid so we don’t really see them and that makes it feel smaller. Not much to do there but there’s The Dive, that’s the local watering hole. Nice enough place. It’s a little dim but most of the folks in there are just the old fellas still here drinking their screwdrivers. It’s over there by the town hotel, owned by Mr. Singh. Let’s see,” Scratch tapped the steering wheel with an antsy index finger, “there’s Shu’s and I’ll let you guess what that is.”

“Restaurant?”

“Bingo! Only decent breakfast in town, hope you like bacon and eggs because that’s about all old Shu knows how to make. If he likes you, he might throw a little slice of cheese on the eggs but anything else is pushing it.”

“We don’t have much in Troutmann either. We moved away from Bozeman years and years ago and I don’t miss the chains and strip malls and everything else, you know? We’ve been going to the Stay-Up Diner and the Olde Mann in Troutmann for years now. If you ever find your way up there, definitely check those two out. Man, I’m getting hungry now.”

“I like you, Jumbo. Most of the guys we’re getting sent just whine and bitch about ‘I’m bored’ or ‘there ain’t nothing to do’ or whatever else but if you’ve got some good company and maybe some bacon and eggs—what else do we really need, you know?”

“Amen to that,” Jumbo said, smiling. “How many workers have gotten sent over to Daniels?”

“Just a few newbies for this project. Maybe ten, fifteen or so.

Bunch a slackers, seems like,” Scratch said, his tone clearly changed from the put-on tough Southerner thirty minutes prior. He removed his sunglasses to reveal two big brown eyes bugging out like a cartoon character. This was a strange looking man but the more Jumbo engaged with him, the more he adjusted to his odd appearance.

The two continued to talk the remainder of the two hours down to Daniels, not running out of topics the entire way there. Do you go to church? Do you watch the news? Where’s your favorite place to travel? What do you like to read? Do you read? What’s your favorite kind of car? Jumbo and Scratch became fast friends with conversation that flowed as if they’d known each other for years.

The seemingly endless rows of trees provided a feeling of safety the longer Jumbo was surrounded by them. After two hours of driving and talking, the trees began to thin out and were replaced by tiny Appalachian peaks in the distance, far to the east crested with sprigs of green all the way up. Scratch’s convertible veered to the right towards their exit.

Now entering Hunnam County. Daniels, five miles ahead.