Chapter Eight

Hephaestus had been polishing up the parts he’d cast for about an hour and a half when he heard Scroat’s motorcycle pull into the driveway. He heard the bike rumble, idling, for a moment and then shut down.

He heard Scroat say, “After you,” to someone, and a woman giggled. Hep checked his watch and marveled at how quickly Scroat had returned. It was a forty minute drive to the new dollar store, if Scroat went to the one Hep thought he was talking about. That meant Scroat had spent ten minutes in the store before he left with a girl.

“Scroat knows his target market better than I thought,” Hep muttered to himself, and went back to polishing the piston he had been working on.

Seconds later, he heard a huge crash from inside the house. Hep dropped the piston, shut down the grinder and hurried out of his shop to find out if everyone was ok. There was another huge crash, followed by a series of thumps, and somebody whooped for joy. Somebody female.

The racket in the house continued, and since Hep didn’t hear anyone screaming for help he went back out to the shop, picked the piston up off the floor and got back to work.

Several hours later, after he had polished every casting he’d made, remelted the scrap parts and cast them into ingots and re-organized his tool drawers twice, the noises coming from the house stopped. Shortly after that, he heard the screen door on the back of the house open and slam shut, and moments later a very sweaty and excessively happy-looking Scroat poked his head into Hep’s workshop.

“I’m inviting her to live with us,” Scroat said. “I’ve never met anybody like her. She has to stay. I can’t ever let her leave this house.”

“What? No!” Hep exclaimed. He imagined several years of living with someone who would willingly have sex with Scroat – and enjoy it, apparently – and then had to stop thinking about it. It would be hell.

“You don’t understand,” Scroat said. “We have a fucking connection, man. There’s never been anyone like this ever.”

“She can’t stay here,” Hep said.

Scroat thought for a minute, looked hopeful and said, “She has friends, Hep.”

“She absolutely can not stay here, Scroat,” Hep said.

“Hep, she has friends – who share. Do you dig me?” Scroat said.

“She can stay many places. Many wonderful places. Places you’d like too. But she can not stay here,” Hephaestus said.

“Well, why the fuck not?” Scroat asked.

Hep thought about the racket coming from the house earlier, and the enormous mess he knew was waiting inside, and decided on a tactful answer.

“I just don’t think you are ready for the level of responsibility needed to keep a pet human,” Hep said.

Scroat looked insulted, and said, “Aw, fuck you Hep.”

He went back in the house, and seconds later there was a war cry and another booming crash.

Hep picked up a broom and started sweeping the harder-to-reach areas of the shop. Shortly, he realized he was going to be in the workshop for the rest of the night, so he set about replacing the burnt pistons in his motor.

Moments later Hep was entirely engrossed in his work, and the hours slipped by. He didn’t notice the horrendous sounds coming from the house. If he had noticed them, he would most likely have dug out his hearing protectors to block it out. It was bad. Instead, he steadily worked on reassembling the motor.

A little bit after midnight, he had the bike back together and running strong. Since the noises emanating from the house had yet to decrease in intensity, he decided it would be a good time to take his motorcycle out for a shakedown cruise.

Hep rolled the bike out of his shop, loaded a few essential tools into the sidecar (just in case), shut all the doors to his workshop and locked them, then hopped on the bike and set out to explore some of the less-driven roads nearby.

When he returned home, sometime after three o’clock in the morning, he saw that Scroat’s motorcycle was gone. Hep opened up the garage and rolled his motorcycle inside, then went into the house to assess the damage.

The house was, to be polite, destroyed. Hep was reasonably certain that, in the history of fucking, nothing like this had ever been witnessed. Hopefully, it would never happen again, either.

The kitchen table lay on the floor, with all four legs splayed out. It looked like someone had taken a flying leap and landed perfectly on top of it. The cushions from the couch were strewn about the room, and most of them had new tears in the upholstery. The TV laid on the floor facing the ceiling, remarkably unbroken, playing a movie Hep was mildly surprised didn’t offend Scroat.

The bathtub was indeed full of baked beans, and the walls were caked with beans and sauce. There was a large, beany smear where someone had slapped his or her hand against the wall and dragged it down to the floor.

Thankfully, Hep’s room was untouched. Let it never be said that Scroat didn’t know his limits.

Hep heard the distinctive rumble and rattle of Scroat’s motorcycle pull into the driveway. He waited, and shortly Scroat came inside, alone.

“She can’t ever come back here, Scroat,” Hep said before Scroat could even open his mouth.

Scroat started to object, and Hep interrupted, with his arms spread to emphasize the mess their house was in.

“Not ever. Do you dig me?” Hep asked.

Scroat looked at Hep, then nodded.

“And you are entirely in charge of cleaning this shit up,” Hep said. “Good night.”

Hep went to his room, shut the door, and went to sleep.

Scroat looked around at the chaos he and his new lady friend had left behind. He sat down on the only chair still upright.

“I think I might be in love,” Scroat said.