This Is Your Final Warning, People!

Do not read this free excerpt of The Trailer Park Rules unless you're willing to read the whole thing, because if you start it, you're probably going to want to read the rest

It’s me at a recent book-signing. (Photo by Michelle Teheux)

It’s odd that I haven’t done this yet! But I’m doing it now. This post contains a good long excerpt of my book, The Trailer Park Rules. I’ll leave this pinned to the top of my Substack for a long while so it’s easy for anyone to find. Tell your friends!

You’ll notice that every chapter is told from the point of view of a different character. They don’t always understand the whole story, but you, as reader, will. This is a novel, but you’ll notice the theme fits right in with my work here on income inequality. The tagline right on the cover gives it away:

All wealthy families are alike; each poor family is poor in its own way.
— Leo Tolstoy, if he had written about a trailer park

If you like it, you can buy the book or request your library stock it for everyone. The reviews are strong. It has a 4.7 rating on Amazon and a 4.3 rating on Goodreads. Click here to purchase.

If you want an overview, you can skip to the end of this piece.

Chapter 1 

Jonesy 

The bowling alley had been on fire for some time before anybody noticed, and flames were shooting through the curved roof when Jonesy got there. That would be considered a bad thing by everyone in town except Jonesy: Nothing photographed like a good fire.  

A lot of times, he’d get there after firefighters had already beaten back the flames. Especially if the fire broke out late at night, there was every chance he’d arrive too late to capture great photos. 

Not this time. He pulled out his camera as the flames brightened his face. 

He’d covered the Loire City Council meeting earlier that evening. After he finished writing the story, he stayed late to meet the quotas that wasted hours of his life every week. He always put off doing the required videos, photo galleries and social media posts as long as he could, but he knew the regional editor would have his ass if he didn’t post them tonight. The paper had already had a round of layoffs six months ago. If he wanted to delay his own eventual layoff, he understood, he had to meet the quotas.  

The paper’s website was glitchy as hell and it took him several tries to get his videos — a boring snippet from the council meeting, an even more boring bit from a Loire Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting ceremony — properly edited and posted. But he finally got everything done while eating his dinner, a bag of chips and some beef jerky from the vending machine. 

Exhausted and looking forward to a drink and a smoke and some sleep, he shut down his computer. He was getting too old to work these kinds of hours, running on junk food, spite toward the system and a fast-fading belief in journalism as his calling. 

But driving home, he had to pull over to let two fire engines pass. Part of him toyed with the idea of pretending he hadn’t seen them and just driving home — he had already put in a long day, much of which would be unpaid. Chances were good the fire would be much ado about nothing anyway. 

But he was old school, so he’d turned around and followed the fire trucks to the scene of the fire. Just in case. With any luck, it would be nothing and he could go to bed. Instead, he saw the flames from a block away.  

Instantly, excitement replaced his exhaustion and disillusionment. He started shooting while the fire crew was still setting up the scene.  

“Jonesy.” The fire chief nodded at him as he walked by.  

“Hey, Chief. Fancy meeting you here.” They’d just seen each other at the council meeting a few hours ago. Jonesy would talk to him more later. 

Jonesy knew how to stay out of the crew’s way while getting his pictures, and they all recognized and ignored him. They did their job and he did his. They hurried to extinguish the flames while Jonesy hurried to preserve them, if only digitally. 

The newspaper owned an old digital camera Jonesy carried everywhere but his own cheap phone actually took better pictures. The only reason Jonesy used the paper’s obsolete camera at all was to conserve his personal data plan, which he routinely exceeded and for which the paper refused to reimburse him. 

As soon as he knew he had his bread and butter fire shots — flames shooting through the roof, firefighter silhouettes seen against the brightness of the flames, a closeup of a firefighter aiming a spray of water, a shot of the department’s most expensive aerial truck streaming water from above — he stopped shooting long enough to post a few pictures to the paper’s social media. 

Next, he texted one to his editor, just to give him a heads up, although the bastard was probably sound asleep at this hour. Jonesy hoped the text woke him up.

The paper had finished printing hours ago, so it was far too late to make the morning edition. When Jonesy was younger, that would have meant he could get what he needed and go to bed, with plenty of time to craft a story in the morning.  

Not now. The paper’s website was a hungry beast that demanded to be fed 24/7. He got his pictures and then shot several videos. Fire videos always got lots of clicks, and that was all upper management cared about anymore. 

If clicks actually brought in any revenue, it’s not like any of it trickled down to the reporters. Although, now that he thought about it, the reporters did get a $25 bonus for Christmas last year. His bonus came to something like $19 and change after taxes.

Finally, images secured, he used his phone to look up the county property tax records to learn the property’s assessed valuation and owner. Charles Darby. Jonesy vaguely knew him as a local slumlord. Only then did he ask the fire chief a few questions.  

“Have a cause yet?”  

“Too early to tell. We’ll see what the fire marshal finds in the morning,” the chief said. “It’s a total loss, but I’m pretty sure you can see that.” He swept his arm dismissively at the ruined bowling alley.  

“Maybe you can add this into the story about the need for a budget increase. This makes my point, right? Check it out. It’s like the city manager doesn’t value the guys who are out here looking after the city while he’s sleeping. You can’t expect people to bust their asses all night for nothing, right?”  

Jonesy didn’t bother telling the chief that was exactly what he himself was doing. 

At the city council meeting both men had attended a few hours ago, the chief had requested more funding for equipment and salaries, money the city manager maintained could not be found. The firefighters received a cost of living increase every year, but the chief thought they deserved more. 

Jonesy agreed with him. He could see fighting a big fire like this was a strain on the department and he had plenty of sympathy for anybody who regularly lost sleep doing his job. There was always money in the city budget for the city manager’s annual raise even when there wasn’t much there for anything else, he’d noticed. 

Similarly, the CEO of the company he worked for pulled down millions even as many of the newsroom employees depended on things like their parents, a better-paid spouse, food stamps, or, in one case Jonesy knew of, a dominatrix side hustle to make it. That was the way of it everywhere, wasn’t it? But he kept his opinions out of his stories. Anyway, that story was done and now he needed quotes for this one. 

“How does the size of this fire compare to others this year?” He knew this was the biggest fire in Loire for at least a couple of years, but he wanted to hear the chief say it.  

“Pretty big,” the chief said. Jonesy sometimes wondered if he went out of his way to be as unquotable as possible.  

The department had called in everything it had for this one; it obviously was the biggest fire they’d had all year, by far, so would it have killed the chief to just say that? Jonesy had the uncomfortable feeling that the chief had already read his city council story online and was irritated that Jonesy hadn’t championed his effort to increase the fire department’s budget. 

Jonesy asked more questions, waiting for the chief to say something memorable he might be able to jazz things up with. The chief was done talking tonight though, so Jonesy scanned the scene, looking for someone else to interview. But there were few gawkers this time of night, and Darby wasn’t present, so he gave it up. That could wait for the next day’s follow-up. 

He was writing the story in his head as he drove back to the office, let himself in and booted his computer back up. It only took him a few minutes to write the story. It was brief; he’d flesh it out in the morning, when he might have more information about the damage estimate and cause. Or maybe he’d track down some sad bowlers who’d talk about all the good times they’d had there. 

Fire strikes Loire Lanes was the hed. Jonesy liked puns and he’d thought of this one as soon as he’d pulled up to the scene. “By Gilbert Jones” was the byline. He used his actual name for his byline and for signing legal documents, but never for anything else.  

“A major Loire landmark was not spared by a fire that broke out around 1 a.m. Tuesday morning” was his lede. He prided himself in using the old newspaper lingo, although the younger reporters tended to say “headline” and “lead.” You could always tell who was and who wasn’t in any club by whether they knew their slang.  

Jonesy had taken a year of conversational French in college, so during his interview he’d pronounced “Loire” properly, as little more than a soft breath of vowels. The French love to lard their words with unused letters they never bother to pronounce. 

But the editor interviewing him had corrected him immediately. “We pronounce it ‘Lori’ here, like the name,” he’d said.

Jonesy never got over feeling conflicted about that, and when he met an outsider, he’d say he worked in Loire, pronouncing it correctly, and then explaining the pronunciation the locals used. 

After posting his story, three videos and about thirty photos to the paper’s website, he shut down his computer again. Now he had way more videos and photo galleries than he was required to post each week, but if he hadn’t been here posting the throw-away stuff, he never would have known about the fire in time to get the good shots.  

He hated how important the online quotas were now — not to his editor, Carl, or to the readers, but to Dani, the chipper little twenty-something regional editor installed by the hedge fund that had bought the paper several years back. 

It didn’t matter if you were working on a stellar piece of investigative journalism that the wire services and TV stations would all pick up. It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d just won a goddamned Pulitzer Prize — God forbid you not post the required shitty videos every week.  

He’d seen the writing on the wall about newspapers a long time ago and had started applying first at business magazines and later for business organizations that needed copy churned out for their websites. But he learned fairly quickly that having years of experience as a reporter at small newspapers did not impress anybody except other newspaper reporters.  

So he pressed on, doing what he knew how to do. Sometimes he thought about jumping ship and just tending bar or something. He knew some former journalists had gone on to make good money doing communications in the corporate world, but he had no idea how they’d done it. He had applied for all those jobs and had never gotten a nibble. 

He knew far more ex-journalists who were delivering pizzas or working at nursing homes. Sooner or later, he knew, he’d be forced into doing the same. But for now, by working sometimes as many as sixty hours per week and posting tons of pointless content to social media, he was able to hang onto his job. 

He was paid for exactly forty hours per week. The company was very strict about not allowing any overtime, but was equally strict about requiring at least six stories per week, four social media posts per day, three videos per week and three photo galleries per week. There was no way to get it all done in forty hours, and it was seldom that anybody in the newsroom worked less than fifty.  

Complaints to Dani did not end well. “Use your time more wisely,” she’d chirped. “Think about whether journalism is the right career for you.”  

How the hell had she gotten that job? She had no meaningful experience. She’d never worked as a reporter. Her degree was in human resources. How did a dozen seasoned editors end up answering to somebody like her? 

“You’re thinking like a dinosaur, Gilbert,” Dani had said the last time Jonesy had offered some pushback. “You want to think like a digital native. Videos bring in the clicks. Have you been tracking your analytics? Compare the numbers for any one of Bob’s football videos with that lame video of the city comptroller you posted last week. You need to do better.” 

“That video did a pretty damned good job of explaining why property taxes are going up this year. Did you watch it? The city hasn’t properly funded its pension obligations for at least thirty years, and now that they have to catch up, ninety-five percent of all property taxes goes straight to police and fire pensions. There’s literally nothing left to run the city, unless they increase taxes.” 

“I watched the first fifteen seconds. It was boring, Gilbert. Look at the analytics. Your videos are too long. Your last one got like thirty views. Bob’s football videos are short and snappy and get thousands of views. You need to pick more interesting topics and you need to incorporate more B-roll. And for God’s sake, add some punchy background music.” 

Jonesy had stopped arguing then, because it was pointless. His city council videos were never going to get the same number of views as Bob’s sports videos, and he knew that even Dani understood that. She would eventually eliminate the city reporter position altogether. That used to be the meatiest beat in the newsroom. Now it was a target for the bean counters.  

He took off his smeared glasses to rub his eyes, which were red and watering from both the smoke and his nineteen-hour day. He’d be paid for eight. The chief cared about his crew’s working conditions and so did Jonesy’s editor, but Dani and the hedge funders did not. 

Then he raked his fingers through his graying brown hair, touching the spot on top where it felt noticeably thinner than it used to. It was nearly four in the morning now, and he’d have to be back at eight. Time to get some rest. 

He kept the windows of his car up and blasted the air conditioning and his music until he rolled into the trailer park. Then he turned off the radio so he wouldn’t disturb anybody, although his neighbor Darren, the guy in the first trailer on his street, was still up and playing old heavy metal that Jonesy could hear just fine through his car windows. Jonesy got along with everybody, and he and Darren shared a taste for vintage metal, but Jonesy had quickly learned Darren could drink him under the table. Darren didn’t have to get up early to work, but Jonesy did, so most of their interactions now were limited to a passing wave. 

Jonesy felt too wired to go right to bed when he got home. Instead, he sat on his front steps smoking a cigarette and drinking the last of his off-brand whiskey mixed with the last of a two-liter bottle of store-brand cola. 

His refrigerator’s ice maker had been broken when he moved in a year ago and he had forgotten to make any ice, so when he added the room-temperature booze to the flat cola, the whole drink was warm. 

Every sip tasted of disappointment. The unfulfilling drink was a perfect metaphor for his journalism career. This wasn’t the satisfying culmination to his day he’d been looking forward to. 

But the night’s last cigarette was good, replacing the particular reek of a burning building’s smoke with the more familiar tobacco stink. He would have to wash his clothes before he could wear them again, which was too bad because his work wardrobe was small and he hated spending time in the trailer park’s damp, mildewy laundry room. 

The cigarette was gone before the drink was, though he’d tried to get them to come out even. Darren’s lights and music at last went off, just as the lights came on in his next-door neighbor’s kitchen. Jonesy had considered himself the hardest-working guy in the trailer park, but Jimmy Jackson gave him a run for his money. Here it was — he glanced at his phone — four-thirty in the morning, and Jimmy was already heading to his factory job. 

Jonesy always meant to get to know his neighbors better, especially Jimmy, who could work like a sonofabitch. But as with Darren, his interactions with Jimmy seemed to be limited to friendly waves. At least one of them always seemed to be on his way to work.  

“Good morning,” Jimmy said, waving as he walked to his car. 

“Good night,” Jonesy called back. And then he went back inside and put his dirty glass in the sink. He headed down the hallway to his bedroom but then turned back. If he didn’t make the damned ice now, he wouldn’t have any tomorrow.  

He filled both plastic ice cube trays with water and carefully returned them to the freezer. Then he stripped off his smoky clothes and showered before going to bed, because if he didn’t, his sheets would smell like that until he got around to washing them. Anyway, it would mean he could skip showering in the morning. He was going to feel like death when his alarm went off at seven-thirty.  

He briefly toyed with the temptation of emailing his editor to explain he would come in a couple hours late because he’d been at the fire, but he knew that would never fly. 

Or, he could call in sick. He had plenty of sick days; he’d never used a single one. When he’d had the flu, he’d come in. When he’d had a bad toothache, he’d come in. When everybody in the whole newsroom had had the same crud last winter, they’d all come in. 

Coming in sick was part of the newsroom culture, and he didn’t have the stomach to be the one to deviate from it. If he didn’t come in, everybody else would suffer for it, and nobody wanted to be that guy. 

So he’d go to work on time, but he’d try to slip out after eight hours if possible and then go to bed just as soon as he got home.  

His last thought before he went to sleep was how much he was looking forward to the following night’s sleep. 

Chapter 2 

Kaitlin 

Kaitlin wasn’t a morning person, but she was in the shower every morning at six.  

By seven, she was all done up, light brown curls cascading past her shoulders and mascara focusing attention on her wide-set green eyes. 

She wasn’t a naturally neat person, but there were never dirty dishes in the sink in the morning. The throw pillows on the davenport were placed just so. The bed was made but neatly turned back. She didn’t have to be at the convenience store until much later. She’d told them when she took the job there that she couldn’t work early mornings because she had to babysit for her cousin. This was a lie, but it had the desired effect and she was only scheduled for afternoons and evenings. 

She had a whole story she rolled out whenever she needed to. Her cousin did have a kid, but Kaitlin had never been asked to take care of him. Her cousin was stuck up and took the kid to a daycare center that charged $300 per week.  

“I’ll do it for $250,” she’d offered. That had been a few years ago, before she had figured out how to make money. But Teri had said she wanted somebody licensed. As if anybody needed a license to change diapers. 

She heard the car roll up and checked her appearance in the mirror over the sofa before Nathan let himself in with his key. 

“Hey, honey,” she said, and gave him a big smile. Nathan smiled back, already removing his shoes and placing them neatly at the edge of the mat. She pretended she was delighted to see him, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. 

Then she took his hand and led him to her bedroom, where she let the silky robe fall to the floor. 

She and Nathan had this down to a science. He didn’t want to be late for work, and she wanted to make sure he was happy when he left, so the foreplay was minimal and all about him. She didn’t mind having sex with him, but she didn’t especially enjoy it, either. Still, she knew better than to let him know that. They kissed when he arrived, but after that it was all business.  

It’s not that there was really anything wrong with Nathan. For a guy past 50, he didn’t look half bad. He still had most of his hair and he was only a little overweight. But the guys she was actually attracted to were, like Kaitlin herself, less than half his age. 

She usually gave him a brief blowjob right off the bat, and that generally got him most of the way there. Then he’d enter her and she’d moan and let out little cries of pleasure until he was done. When he wanted her on top, she sometimes actually did reach orgasm, but his favorite position was doggy-style, and that never got her off. 

He didn’t know the difference, though, and she wasn’t about to tell him she found any part of this less than satisfying.  

The way Kaitlin looked at it, she could get real satisfaction elsewhere if she really wanted to. But he paid her $800 cash every month to pretend to be satisfied, and that money more than covered her rent and utilities. And frankly, it was easier than watching a kid all day. 

Sometimes, like when her phone screen cracked, or she had to pay her DUI lawyer, she’d ask if he could help her out, and he usually would. On those occasions, she didn’t even take him into the bedroom. He would open his pants and sit on the sofa, and she’d kneel in front of him and finish him that way. That was the deal. 

The $800 did not cover him coming in her mouth. That was extra. 

He always left happy, usually in less than half an hour. He took a brief shower right before he left, using the same exact soap his wife bought for him at home, so no unfamiliar scents would give him away. 

This was also why he forbade her to wear any perfume, ever, and why he also supplied her with his wife’s favored laundry detergent and fabric softeners for the sheets and towels. Kaitlin thought that was pretty smart. He had thought of everything. 

As to how he explained the half an hour of extra time, she never asked. His wife probably thought he went to work early, or maybe she thought he went to the gym, or maybe she didn’t care. 

And didn’t his wife ever notice the missing $800? Didn’t she ever ask him why they didn’t have more money? If Kaitlin were a wife, she’d want to know where every penny of her husband’s money went. She wouldn’t tolerate it going to some other chick. 

Nathan and Kaitlin had met at the strip club across the river where she had been dancing for a few years.  

She’d been ready for a change. Everybody said dancers could make a lot of money and sometimes you could. Sometimes you couldn’t. The first thing that surprised her was that the club didn’t pay her a dime; she paid them. You had to pay the house fee of $50, more on the weekends, and you had to tip the DJ.  

Sometimes she made a lot, but on some slow days she didn’t even make enough to pay the house fee. And keeping the hair on her head perfectly highlighted and her hoo-ha waxed and her nails done? Buying the high heels and the tiny outfits? 

All that added up. Being a dancer was expensive. 

But one day Nathan came in, and the two of them had hit it off. He was a good tipper and treated her well.  

Sapphire, who was in her 40s and had been doing this on and off for almost twenty-five years, clued her in.  

“That’s a man who is shopping for a sugar baby,” Sapphire had told her. “Play your cards right and you’ll be sitting pretty.” 

“How does that even work?” Kaitlin had asked.  

“You’ll have to have sex with him, but you’ll only have one dude to pretend to like instead of a roomful of them. Besides, dancing don’t pay like it used to. It’s getting harder to make the big bucks if you won’t give a few blowjobs in the VIP room.”  

Kaitlin had steadfastly refused to do that. Sapphire had no such qualms, and most of the girls would do it at least occasionally, especially if they had squandered their tips all month and had rent coming due.  

“You make sure you get him to agree to the money you want before you have sex with him. Don’t you do it even once until you get what you want. You still got all your bargaining power right now while he’s horny. Get as much as you can. What kind of job does he have?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Well, talk to him. Flirt with him. See what he does for a living. What does he spend his money on? Find out what kind of car he drives. See how much he can afford and if he’s gonna take you on trips. I had one until a few years ago that used to take me to Jamaica every winter.” 

“Why didn’t you keep seeing him?” 

“Oh, he finally died. He was old. Couldn’t hardly get it up anyways the last six months. But he still liked to try. This one is a lot younger and he’s not that bad looking. This could be a good thing for you.” 

It was a slow Tuesday night when Kaitlin and Nathan made their deal. She had given two lap dances earlier in the evening. That was forty bucks in her little tip box, still not enough to pay her expenses for the night. It wasn’t her turn to go on stage yet, and she was trying to look bright and approachable while feeling bored and irritated. Nothing was more exhausting. 

When Nathan walked in, she knew her night was saved. He would probably pay for time in the VIP room, and he’d have real conversations with her in between dances. And other than the first night they’d met, he’d never pressed her for oral sex or anything else. Just dances and talking.  

“Hey, it’s my favorite guy,” she said, truly happy to see him. 

“And it’s my favorite dancer,” he answered back. “Ann?” 

“Nope, not Ann. Karma.” It was a thing they did. He would try to get her to tell him her real name. 

“Barb.”  

“What am I, 50?” 

He looked her up and down, slowly and thoroughly. “Not 50. Not even 20, am I right, Cathy?” 

She had just turned 21, but knew better than to talk about her age. “Not Cathy. And how do I even know your real name is Nathan? Maybe that’s just your club name.” 

He smiled. “Maybe my real name is Xavier. And maybe your real name is Donna.” 

“Not Donna. Guess again, Xavier.” 

“E is a hard one. Evelyn?” 

Kaitlin had laughed. “Whoever heard of someone my age named Evelyn?” 

“I have a new theory,” Nathan said. “Your stage name is Karma. So I’m going to guess your real name also starts with a K. Kelly?” 

“Ha, no.” He put his hand on her bare knee and she looked at it and gave him an encouraging smile.  

“Karen?” 

“Nope. I’m going to charge you for guessing,” she said, joking but maybe not joking. 

He pulled some money from his wallet and formed it into a perfectly stacked rectangle on the table between them.  

“Here’s the game. Every time I guess, and I’m wrong, I take back the top bill. It’s a single on the top, but look.” He flipped over the stack. “There’s a hundred-dollar bill on the bottom. Maybe there are a lot of them. Maybe there is only one. Who knows? But when I guess your name, you get to keep whatever’s left of the stack. And once I know your name, we’ll have a real discussion about giving you a monthly allowance so you don’t have to work here anymore. You can just let me visit you every morning. How does that sound? 

It sounded good. He guessed Kirsten, Kylie, Kimberly, Khloe and Kayla. He’d already taken back three ones, a twenty and a fifty. “Kate?” 

“Um.” 

“It’s Kate?” 

“Almost.” 

The next bill showing was a hundred-dollar bill, and she had a feeling the rest of them were, too. She leaned against him, making sure he could feel her breasts pressing into him, and whispered breathily into his ear. “It’s Kaitlin.” 

“Well, Kaitlin, the rest is yours.” He handed the stack of money to her, and she slipped it into her tip box, noting that there were at least several hundred-dollar bills in the stack. She’d count them later.  

“I would like to make an arrangement with you. I’d like to see you for about half an hour every day before work. Do you understand what I’m looking for?”  

“I think so.” 

“How does $800 per month sound?” 

That would pay for her rent and utilities and then some. She remembered Sapphire telling her not to take the first offer. 

“Well, I mean, that won’t cover everything.” 

“No, it won’t. I’m not Elon Musk, Kaitlin. But I think you’ll find you’ll be happier if you have at least a part-time job in the afternoons. That way, nobody has any reason to suspect where your money is coming from. It can be your secret. It needs to be your secret. Just be available to me from around 7 to 7:30 in the morning. Every weekday morning. I’ll be gone in time to get to work by 8, and the rest of the day is yours. What do you say?” 

She knew Sapphire would tell her to ask for more, but what if she asked for more and he lost interest? There were lots of other girls in here who would jump at the chance. 

“OK.” He wasn’t bad looking, and he was nice. If she was going to do this, she’d rather have it be someone like Nathan, not a gross old wrinkly man, even if the gross old man might pay more. 

“You know I need you to be discreet, and I’ll explain all the rules about that later. But there’s just one more thing. You have to kiss me every time I see you.” 

That was a big no-no, and Kaitlin knew it. You didn’t kiss customers. You might do a lot of things in the VIP room, but you sure as hell never kissed. 

“You want me to kiss you?” It was puzzling. 

“Whores don’t kiss their clients. You’re not a whore, right? Now kiss me.” 

And Kaitlin did, and it hadn’t been that bad. Plus, now she could think of this as having a rich boyfriend. There was nothing wrong with having a rich boyfriend.  

Now all she had to do was look pretty and spend half an hour with Nathan every weekday morning. She didn’t need to maintain such an expensive grooming regimen, either. She could paint her own nails and shave her own bikini area, and she could be a little more lax on the hair appointments. It wasn’t a bad way to make a living. He never tried to see her on the weekends or after work. It was just a morning gig, and she felt lucky to have it. 

She used the word “boyfriend” when she referred to him, which was almost never. She didn’t talk about him at all if she could help it.  

When Nathan left every morning, she immediately cleaned herself out. That was what she called it. Her bathroom had one of those cheap plastic hand-held shower heads and she aimed the sprayer right between her legs to clean the one part of her that actually needed it, since the rest of her was still good from her pre-dawn shower. 

Then she got back into bed, crawling over the sex part of the bed and onto the uncontaminated area next to the wall. She was careful to fall asleep lying flat on her back so her hair and makeup would still look good when she’d get up for real. That, in her mind, was when her day actually began.  

When she woke up, she’d walk next door and hang out with Shirley for a while. Shirley could often be counted on for a ride to the convenience store where Kaitlin worked. Shirley thought she was better than everybody else, but she wasn’t. 

She still had a Lincoln, but it was old as shit, as was Shirley. 

The store was less than a mile away and Kaitlin could and often did walk to work. She’d applied for that job specifically because of its location after she lost her license. But Nathan had been good about helping her pay her attorney’s fees, and she’d get her license back eventually. In the meantime, she banked the money she’d otherwise spend on a car and cultivated her friendship with Shirley. 

Kaitlin scooped up a fresh pack of Winstons from a drawer and her own Virginia Slims and headed next door.  

“Hey, Shirley. I brought you a pack,” Kaitlin said.  

Shirley was impeccably dressed in a pair of white slacks, a silky button-up green blouse and matching emerald earrings. She had all that stuff from the old days. Her silvery hair always looked nice, for an old lady, because she had it done every single week. Your average stripper had her hair done less often than Shirley did. 

“Want a cup?” Shirley asked now, holding up her own cup of coffee before topping it off with more coffee, and then adding more cream and sugar to get it the exact shade she preferred. 

“Sure,” Kaitlin said. She preferred energy drinks but drank coffee when Shirley offered it, just to be sociable. Going along with another person’s preferences was a thing you did if you needed something someone else had. 

Kaitlin never put sugar or creamer into it; the coffee was equally unenjoyable either way, so why bother? Shirley handed her a cup of coffee in a souvenir mug from the Ozarks. She had a set of fancy cups she never used. Kaitlin had seen them in the cabinet. But they always drank out of mis-matched mugs that had cute sayings or business logos on them.  

The two women went outside to smoke. Shirley had the best outdoor furniture in the trailer park. She had had it in her backyard when she had a house, Kaitlin knew. She knew because Shirley talked about that a lot. Kaitlin felt if she were to be dropped into Shirley’s old house, she’d have no trouble finding her way around. 

It was a wrought iron table with curly grape vine embellishments and four matching chairs, but two chairs would have been enough. Nobody ever visited Shirley except Kaitlin. 

“Nancy told me somebody’s moving into that trailer on the corner tomorrow,” Shirley told her. Nancy was the bitch who ran the trailer park. 

“Oh yeah?” Kaitlin took a sip of her coffee. It wasn’t anything like the stuff they sold at work. Shirley didn’t seem to know that coffee could have flavors now.  

“Nancy says it’s a single mom and her daughter. I can’t imagine trying to raise a child here.” 

Kaitlin had lived in far worse places, but she just nodded. “I’m not having kids at all.”  

“You’ll change your mind someday,” Shirley said. “If you and your boyfriend get married, he might want kids. You never know.” 

Kaitlin always avoided talking about Nathan and took a long drink of coffee to avoid answering. 

“Although it doesn’t look like my boys are ever going to make me a grandmother.” 

Kaitlin had never met Shirley’s sons, but pictures of them growing up were all over Shirley’s living room walls. 

“The people across the street have two kids but I’ve never talked to them,” Kaitlin said. “I just know them from the Christmas card.” 

There were seven trailers on the cul de sac. As you turned in, there was the trailer that had been empty for a while, and then there was the black family. The Jacksons. Every one of them had a name that started with a J, and all of them except the dad had a weird spelling. Jimmy and Janiece, and their little girls, Jordynn and Jazzmyn.  

They knew the spellings because Janiece had dropped off a Christmas card at every trailer on the street last year. It was kind of nice of her, but she should have known it wasn’t that kind of a neighborhood.  

Next to the Jacksons was Gilbert Jones. He went by Jonesy. He was a reporter; she had seen his name in the newspaper Shirley read in the morning. They’d traded waves but had never spoken, and she’d never seen him come into either the convenience store or the club. 

And then at the very end of the street was Nancy Meyer. She was the one who decided who got to rent and who didn’t. Whose references were good enough and whose weren’t. Who would be given a little more time to come up with rent and who would be kicked out. You couldn’t trust her. And if you thought Shirley could put on some airs (and she could), you hadn’t seen anything until you saw Nancy.  

But Kaitlin knew how to treat Nancy. It was something she had learned in the club. She was as friendly and talkative to Nancy as she would be to a man with money in his hand. Except it was even more important to win over Nancy than to win over any man. Nancy ate it up. 

Last week, Kaitlin noticed Nancy had a new ugly-ass handbag, and she’d complimented her on it. When Nancy got a terrible haircut recently, she told her it was cute and she should take a selfie and use it for her profile picture online. It was too easy. 

Shirley lived right next door to Nancy and seemed to like her, so Kaitlin never let on to Shirley what she really thought of Nancy. It was best to pretend to be part of a friendly little club. 

Next to Shirley was Kaitlin’s trailer and then at the end was Darren Lewis. He was a creepy guy probably no older than Nathan but he looked like he’d had a hard life. He always seemed to have an ugly woman around. Nancy had cited him numerous times for playing his old-dude music too loud, but he kept doing it.  

There were dozens of other trailers besides the ones on the cul de sac, but Kaitlin only knew the people on her own street, and most of them she didn’t know well. In her case, it was really just Shirley and Nancy. And it wasn’t that she had anything against the black folks, either. But what would be the point? She needed to be nice to Nancy so she didn’t get kicked out and she needed to be nice to Shirley to get rides to work, but she couldn’t see the upside to hanging out with the rest of them. 

As they finished their first cigarettes, Kaitlin felt it was a good time to ask for a ride. 

“I gotta work at one,” she said. 

“Need a ride?” Shirley asked.  

“Wouldn’t mind one,” Kaitlin said. “Thanks.” This was why she occasionally gave Shirley a free pack of smokes. It was her way of paying. Nothing came for free, and Kaitlin was well aware of that. 

The morning passed pleasantly, but Kaitlin’s stomach was rumbling. She hadn’t eaten anything yet. Whenever possible, she would wait until she got to work and scrounge for hot dogs left too long on the rollers, or sandwiches that were past their sell-by date. 

Strictly speaking, none of that food was supposed to be eaten, but they all did it and if you were a good worker, that sort of thing was overlooked. What wouldn’t be overlooked was stealing cigarettes, but she was careful to make a big show of always paying for her Virginia Slims. Why would she be stealing Winstons? 

She knew where the security cameras were and how to get away with it, and she never stole more than one pack a week. Shirley, of course, didn’t know she stole them or she’d never accept them. 

“You ready to go?” Kaitlin asked. It was early, but she was hungry. 

“Let me just get my keys,” Shirley said. She went inside, got her purse, locked her front door and unlocked her car. 

Shirley’s ancient Lincoln Town Car was a trip. Shirley kept it very nice. It was old but luxurious and Kaitlin enjoyed riding in it. Once in a while, Shirley offered her a ride to the grocery store, which was cool, but Kaitlin never asked. That would be overstepping, she felt. And anyway, she could get most everything at the convenience store. It only took a few minutes to get there by car.  

“Thanks!” Kaitlin called out, and she went into work. 

“You’re early,” Naomi said. That was her supervisor. 

“Yeah, I had a ride,” Kaitlin said, tying on her smock. She didn’t mention that she was hoping to score lunch. 

“You can pick up trash first. Since you’re early.” 

That dashed her hopes for a free lunch. Naomi was probably onto her. Picking up trash from the lot was the worst. Well, after cleaning the men’s room. It sucked, running around the parking lot and behind the building, picking up food wrappers, cigarette butts and all the miscellaneous crap people threw around.  

Yeah, Naomi knew exactly why she was here early. But Kaitlin didn’t complain, just got a trash bag and went outside to do it. Sooner or later Naomi would go on break or leave for the day and she’d get her chance then. At the worst, she’d have to pay for a sandwich during her break. 

She was in luck today. After Kaitlin finished picking up trash and threw the bag into the dumpster out back, Naomi headed into the little office to do paperwork, leaving Kaitlin at the register. 

All she needed was thirty seconds in the kitchen to snitch a slice of American cheese and a piece of bread. She didn’t take time to put any mayo or anything else on it. She just rolled it into a tight cylinder and stuffed half of it into her mouth, chewing and swallowing it as fast as she could and then stuffing the other half in. Some things were tracked more closely than others, but a piece of cheese and a slice of bread wouldn’t be missed. 

Now she was thirsty, and she paid for an energy drink out of her own money. She drank up to four of these a day, making them one of her biggest monthly expenses, even with her employee discount. She was allowed to drink them during her shifts as long as she didn’t keep them right behind the counter. 

It could be stressful sometimes. You had to pay attention and watch the cars at the pumps, because if someone drove off, it would come out of your salary. It happened occasionally, but not at night, because at night people had to pre-pay. That took a load off her mind. 

But bantering with the regulars was sort of fun. She didn’t mind that part at all. A couple of times she’d recognized an old customer from the strip club, but she didn’t think any of them had ever recognized her without her club makeup on. 

At the end of her shift, she did her grocery shopping, taking no more than she could easily carry. A canister of sour cream and onion potato chips. A frozen enchilada dinner. An individually wrapped piece of string cheese. A cheap can of spaghetti, just like Mom used to make. Three energy drinks. Sure, things were more expensive here than at the grocery store, but with the employee discount, it all evened out, and without a car, this was just easier. 

She watched for her chance, and at the last minute, she added two stale strawberry Danishes and three dried up hotdogs that were supposed to be thrown away, hastily wrapping everything up in waxed paper and adding it to her bag but with the frozen enchilada dinner on top.  

Outside, she sat on the curb, lit a cigarette and texted her friend Tommy, asking him for a ride home. She just didn’t feel like walking, but if Tommy didn’t text back by the time she was done smoking, she would.  

But he did. He only lived five minutes away, just outside town in an old farmhouse that had been his grandma’s. He was always ready to do her a favor. She let him do just enough favors but not too many.  

“Hey, thanks,” she said, when he pulled up. “I had a long, hard day.” Anything over four hours was a long day to Kaitlin. 

“No problem,” he said. “What’s in the bag?” 

“Groceries,” she said. “I’m starving. She pulled out one of the Danishes and began eating. “Want one? I have two.” 

“No thanks. But I could go for a burger. You want one?” 

“Sure,” she said, re-wrapping the rest of the stale Danish for later. Tommy drove through and she got a cheeseburger, fries and a chocolate shake. Now she could save the hotdogs for tomorrow. She’d have to invite Tommy in, but after half an hour, she’d tell him she was tired. He was nice. He’d take that hint.  

“It was so nice of you to drive me home and give me dinner,” she said. “You want to come in for a while?” 

He did, of course. Tommy was always so hopeful. He used to work with her at the convenience store but had a better job now, working an early shift at a hospital laundry. That was convenient, because it meant he was never going to try to drop in on her in the morning, and he never wanted to stay too late, either. 

He followed her into the trailer and she put away her groceries while finishing off the last of the shake. When he was gone, she might have one of the hotdogs, maybe.  

Tommy was turning on her TV, flipping through channels with the remote. “You want to watch a movie?” he asked.  

It was too early to pretend she was too tired. “Sure,” she said, feigning enthusiasm. He was sitting on the sofa, and she took a chair. A quick look of disappointment flashed over his face and she knew he’d been hoping she would sit next to him on the sofa. He’d chosen an action movie. It was one she’d seen before but she didn’t care. She shifted herself into a comfy position, tucking her feet up under her, and let out a yawn. 

“You tired?” he asked. 

“It was kind of a tough day. You know what a bitch Naomi is. She put me on parking lot duty. It was gross. Somebody had thrown out a dirty diaper and I had to pick that up.” 

“I don’t know why you stay there. You could get a better job.” 

She had never told him about her DUI. She much preferred people to assume she was still saving up for a car.  

“It’s a convenient location. I just get tired of Naomi always pushing all the dirty work onto me.” 

“I could rub your shoulders,” he offered. Kaitlin knew this was a ploy but she didn’t care. It would be an unsuccessful one. 

Without a word, she sat on the floor in front of him. Her hair was already up in a clip and out of his way. He rubbed her shoulders for quite a while before he began the inevitable testing of her limits, reaching forward and over her shoulders toward the swell of her breasts and then wandering into side-boob territory. 

He probably had a hard-on, but she pretended not to notice anything. If he got too obvious, she’d have to notice it. But it actually felt really good to have someone lavishing attention on her, even though she knew exactly why he was doing it. 

“That’s so nice,” she said, offering a little encouragement. He kept rubbing and stroking, getting close to the line but not quite crossing it.  

Maybe Nathan would be in the mood to have her on top in the morning. It had been a while since she’d had an orgasm. Or maybe, the crazy thought came to her, she should just pull Tommy into the bedroom. 

But then he’d be around all the time, and she’d lose control over him. Sooner or later, he’d realize her arrangement with Nathan, and things would get ugly. Better to keep things as they were. Besides, she realized that he had leaned over a little and was actually smelling her hair. He was getting a little too excited back there. 

“I’m so tired, Tommy,” she said. “I think I should just go to bed early.” 

He quickly agreed. He really was a nice guy. She gave him a long, tight hug to thank him. Yep, he was excited. 

“Thanks for everything,” she said. And then she washed off her makeup, brushed her teeth and restored the throw pillows to their proper place. She wiped off the kitchen counters where there was a small puddle of melted shake and threw away the fast-food trash.  

Then she crawled over the sex part of the mattress and got comfy on the sleeping half. She set the alarm on her phone and was almost immediately asleep. 

About Michelle Teheux

I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here or on Medium. My new book is The Trailer Park Rules.

All wealthy families are alike; each poor family is poor in its own way.
— Leo Tolstoy, if he had written about a trailer park

For residents of the Loire Mobile Home Park, surviving means understanding which rules to follow and which to break. Each has landed in the trailer park for wildly different reasons.

Jonesy is a failed journalist with one dream left. Angel is the kind of irresponsible single mother society just shakes its head about, and her daughter Maya is the kid everybody overlooks. Jimmy and Janiece Jackson wanted to be the first in their families to achieve the American dream, but all the positive attitude in the world can’t solve their predicament. Darren is a disabled man trying to enjoy his life despite a dark past. Kaitlin is a former stripper with a sugar daddy, while Shirley is an older lady who has come down in the world and lives in denial. Nancy runs the park like a tyrant but finds out when a larger corporation takes over that she’s not different from the residents. 

When the new owners jack up the lot rent, the lives of everyone in the park shift dramatically and in some cases tragically.

Welcome to the Loire Mobile Home Park! Please observe all rules.