Furious with the twist of fate which put Paul in the driver's seat of the semi, he cursed as he looked around the big bedroom. They had flipped for it, with Paul winning the toss. Paul got to drive the semi; Paul got to die.
"This is shit city, Paul. I'm in way too deep here." Colin muttered.
He snatched up the robe he finally located, turned on his heel and strode down the hall. With a flick of his wrist, Colin tossed the garment over his shoulder before he picked Maria up from the floor by her shirt front. Covered in drying vomit, she stank. He took her by her upper arms, then puppet-walked her into the bathroom. He propped her up on the toilet as he took off her shoes, then her shirt. The jeans proved quite a bit more difficult to remove.
She slipped off the toilet, forcing Colin to let her lie on the floor. He squatted next to her while stripping off her pants. A glance at the bathtub shower combination caused him to shake his head. Colin decided against stuffing her in the tub and rinsing her off.
If he touched her intimately....no, he didn't dare. A washcloth dangled off the edge of the sink. He snagged it and wiped the worst of the muck from her hands and face. Colin rolled Maria to the side, shoved the robe beneath her and wrapped her up.
With his hands under her arms, he tried to balance her against the sink. Limp, it was almost impossible to get a grip on the woman. He finally managed to lift her into his arms. Colin carried Maria to the guest room where he put her to bed.
He planned to do some house cleaning, and she was going to have a cat fit. "Too damn bad!" Colin mumbled to himself as he as he walked back into the master bedroom.
One of them needed to stop wallowing in misery. Paul told him to look after her. What he was about to do was a positive step… he was pretty sure.
Gathering Paul's clothing into a mound, Colin took up an armload from the master bedroom floor. It took him three trips to get it all out into the yard. He opened the big overhead garage door and strode over to the hooks on the wall. Colin ripped Paul's coveralls off the hangers.
"Wallings, do you have any idea how much this hurts? How strong do you think I am? How the fuck could you do this to me, to her? Wallings, you bastard... I miss you, fucker!" He was shouting, as he flung the coveralls on top of the pile of clothing. Anything on Paul’s bench that would burn was added to the heap.
Colin pushed the bench over onto its side. His hand found the sledgehammer, and Colin swung at the bench until he panted for breath. They had built it too well. Turning, he reached for the chainsaw on the shelf, primed it, and then jerked the starter rope until the engine caught.
The bench leg closest to him gave way to the fury of the chainsaw and splinters flew everywhere. Colin used one booted foot to hold a leg down on the concrete floor as he put the bar of the saw against the top of the bench.
The chain screamed as it cut through the thin sheet of aluminum they had screwed to the top. Sparks and slivers of metal bounced off, some hitting his bare arms. Once he cut through the top, he went to work on the legs lying on the floor.
The chain saw bucked back toward him as it hit the concrete floor. Colin didn't care about anything but reducing the bench to pieces. His wrists ached when he turned off the saw and kicked it to one side.
With a piece of the bench in either hand, Colin tugged them across the floor. The pieces of wood left deep groves in the gravel as he dragged them over to the growing pile in the middle of the yard.
The other pieces followed the two halves of the bench out the garage before Colin went back for a five-gallon bucket of diesel fuel which had been used for parts cleaner. Some gasoline was mixed in with the diesel. He upended the can and poured the black fluid over the mound and then threw the empty can on top.
He tried to light the diesel-soaked pile with a match but got nowhere. A small propane torch sat at the edge of the scattered tools on the garage floor. He grabbed it, turned it on, and set it to high. With one hand shielding the flame, he strode over to the pile. An overhand toss put the small torch into a depression surrounded by clothing. The whole thing went up with a whoosh when the canister of propane exploded.
Colin put his hands on his hips as he watched the flames rise high above the roof of the garage. Belatedly, he realized it he would probably be seeing Turner again in a few minutes.
At the corner of the shop, he pulled the garden hose off the reel and turned on the water. Colin walked around the perimeter of the bonfire wetting down the gravel, just in case.
As expected, the lights of Turner's cruiser came barreling down the driveway within fifteen minutes. Colin walked around the side of the garage where he waited for Turner to pull up next to him.
"Morning would have been soon enough," Turner said mildly.
"I went to put her to bed. All his fuckin’ clothing was still there. I hadn't touched anything in the garage either. Once I got started, I couldn't stop. I took a chainsaw to his bench."
Colin motioned toward the fire with his chin. "It's on the top of the pile. I wet everything down around the outside. It's on gravel, so it's not likely to spread."
Colin heard Turner's radio squawk as he called dispatch. Ellis advised the dispatcher the fire was a controlled burn which wasn't going to get out of hand. He asked the dispatcher to call the local fire station, so they wouldn't worry about it.
"Thanks, Turner.” Without looking away from his makeshift pyre, he continued, “I'm probably going to get the both of us out of here for a while. We'll be heading down to the Lower 48 tomorrow, or the next day at the latest. There's stuff waiting to be picked up in Bellingham."
Colin finally turned to look at the trooper sitting in the car next to him. "If you get any strange calls from Maria about my destroying her property or getting rough with her, I'm not. I'm just gonna to do what Paul asked me to do. I doubt she is going to be too happy about it."
Turner turned the radio down. "I suspect you had to undress her to get her into bed. I take it you just got her clothing off, then wiped her down."
"Yeah. She still has her underwear on. I didn't throw her in the shower to rinse her off, so she’s not going to like the way she smells in the morning."
Turner nodded. "If I had to stage an intervention, I just might make sure all the house phones and someone's cell phone got disconnected. You have a recorder on the business phone. You can check for messages when you need to."
Colin regarded Turner silently for a minute. "Intervention? I guess that's what's going on here. I'll take it under advisement, Turner. Thanks again."
The trooper turned his car around and drove back out to the road, the reflection of the flames growing smaller in his rearview mirror. Turner was rooting for Colin. Sober, Maria Elena was a decent sort of person, but the woman was hell on wheels drunk, literally.
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