Vaughn sat on his neighbor’s deck and sipped his craft brew. The kids screamed and giggled as they raked and then destroyed piles of desiccated, burnished fallen leaves. The wives were inside brewing hot cider, a tonic against the October chill. Vaughn set his icy beer on the table and rubbed his hands together. The children’s high-pitched bleating and screaming made his skin prickle and his muscles twitch. Parting his palms he slowly cracked each knuckle of his left hand with his thumb, an exercise he used to help him control his temper. He’d have all the kids cowering inside in front of the TV if he couldn’t get his raging thoughts under control.
“The kids get under your skin?” His neighbor, Adrian, grinned sideways at him, his goblindark eyes seemed to swallow the light from the setting sun. Vaughn shivered. How this man had ever managed to get married was beyond him.
“Lately, yeah. Work’s been stressful, financially we’re struggling… just wish I could turn them off sometimes. Stop the noise. It’s not fair, is it? How blissfully unaware they are? How happy we let them be? They don’t even realize the sacrifices…”
Adrian laughed, a sound unusually low pitched for a man of his withered stature. “Give life time, it’ll suck the joy out of them.”
The latch clicked on the sliding door and the warm scent of apples and cinnamon came wafting out into the cold. Adrian’s wife held a tray out to her husband.
“The adult recipe,” she winked, her red hair a fiery halo in the sunset. Vaughn tried not to look. He squinted and nodded dumbly as she moved over to him, eternally grateful for her turtleneck sweater.
“Thanks, Hellen.” He looked to his own wife, blonde, tiny, beautiful. But conquered territory. He knew every soft mound and wet valley, her velvet expanses he’d traveled again and again. She laughed with an open mouth as the kids mobbed her for cider. She was a great mom. A devoted wife. He shouldn’t be thinking about Hellen, but here he was, a typical man haunted by the lust for adventure. He looked back to Hellen, she absently waved a brand new ruby ring the size of a nickel in the air as she spoke. Vaughn’s gut twisted. The rest of the country was getting poorer, but somehow his goblin neighbor kept getting richer. He was in no discernible kind of business either. Whenever questioned he would mutter vague things about venture capitalism and crypto. Bullshit, Vaughn was certain.
The adults chatted as the daylight faded, and once the deep blue mantle of early evening settled in, the women hustled the kids inside to their respective beds.
“I’ll be over in just a bit, hon,” Vaughn kissed his wife’s forehead. “Adrian and I have some business to discuss.”
“Oh?” She smiled, “How mysterious.” She did this adorable thing with her hips when she was curious, but didn’t want to pry. She was probably too good for him, Vaughn thought, but then so was Hellen.
When the men were alone Adrian pulled a vial out of his pocket and held it up to the porch light. It looked like red Kool-Aid.
“What, you sell that stuff? What is it?” Vaughn took the vial to look more closely, little bits of a dark substance floated in the liquid.
“I don’t sell it, but I do make it. And I drank it, and then I got everything I ever wanted.”
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