Last Chance

Obnoxious, she thought. It’s the most obnoxious sound on the planet.

The backup alarm of a dump truck on another gratingly sunny day harassed Mallory from her makeshift bed. Opening her left eye just enough to peer out from under her lashes, she observed for a moment the frenzied tango of dust motes writhing in the beam of sunlight that had wormed its way through the dirt and grime. The dance took place above a stage of aged laminate countertop, bubbling from exposure to rain making its way through rust holes in the roof, winding down trails in the folds of a series of tarps hung, one after another, a futile attempt to stop the intrusion. By the time the drops slid down through the last layer of frayed tarp, they’d collected rust and dirt enough to leave marks where they fell, creating a tie-dye pattern of ash and rust stains on a background of piss-yellow Formica. Like it or not, this was home.

The dilapidated camper had been dropped off somewhere around the same year she’d started school, she figured. It featured telltale goldenrod and olive accents in what was left of the interior and cabinets that were laid out in homage to the perennial family camper. There was still a peeled and faded label from when the original owner, or at least some proud caretaker along the way, had created a space just for “S’more stuff.”

Mallory threw herself sideways, working hard to angle her body just so, narrowly avoiding scraping her forearm on the edge of the counter. The metal trim had unceremoniously detached itself from the corner, bending and twisting into the air like a seedling seeking sun on a shady forest floor, twisting and turning to get a sliver of the sunlight and nourishment needed for survival. That’s what a highway wreck does to a camper, folding it into itself from the back like origami, manipulating the once- treasured portable home into the tin can it became. It had always been fated to be relegated to a distant corner of the recycling plant, Dead on Arrival, forgotten, given over for scrap.

The funny thing about scrap trailers is, they don’t just disappear. Tucked into forgotten corners, out of sight, out of mind, maybe. Only to be valued, sometime, by a creature in need. It could have been a stray dog, searching for shelter in a storm. Or a mangy kitten, freshly abandoned by its work-weary mother cat, on the run from a screeching hawk looking for its next meal. But no, this family vacation mecca had ended up- post insurance claim paperwork and a teary farewell from its family- inhabited by another forlorn creature in the form of a barely surviving woman.

“Mallory! Hey! Mal?” The chains binding the two halves of the rusty gate blocking the gravel road serving as the only path into her domain rattled and swayed at the hands of the first gruff visitor of the day. They created a tinkling sound far too light-hearted, given the gravity of the place they guarded. Glancing at the position of the sun in the sky, Mallory emerged one socked foot at a time through a curtain of formerly bright blue tarps and the remains of a canvas boat top, stepping carefully into her boots waiting on the other side of the threshold. She’d learned long ago that what was left of the trailer’s dignity must be jealously preserved, guarded from muddy boots and careless filth-ifying. What an asshole, she thought. He and I both know it’s not even 7 a.m. and he’s over here rattling that fence like I can’t tell time.

“Hold on,” Mallory instructed, injecting as much venom as she could into just two syllables. “You know I’m not open yet, so you’ll have to wait.” She busied herself rattling things about, keeping herself out of view behind vines and overgrowth but making enough rough-and-tumble sounds to encourage the assumption that she was busy, occupied with something of great import- greater, of course, than the needs of a bleeping dump truck and impatient demands of a very rude fellow. Power has to be seized when and where one sees the chance- and making men who were “too busy to wait,” wait, felt good every single time she did it. Serves him right, she thought, slamming the door to a rusty jalopy that hadn’t run in a quarter of a century just one more time for good measure. The crinkle of rust falling from the bottom of the door was a reminder that like everything else, the skeletal remains of the vehicle were not just slipping away towards ruin, but actively dispersing themselves into unrecognizable anthills of copper dust to be scattered by the will of the elements.

Shoulders slumped forward in pre-confrontation defeat, Mallory allowed herself the luxury of one last eye roll before heading for the gate to begin another day on the Ranch, as she unaffectionately referred to it. The chain link gates awaited her arrival, spun with a fresh batch of spider webs from the night before. She glanced up at the old sign, vestige as it was of times gone by. The metalwork arch connecting the two sides of the gate still proclaimed “Last Chance R,” having lost the wrought-iron “anch” in “Ranch” long ago. Someone had replaced it with a roughly-cut piece of plywood painted with “Recycling.” Mallory couldn’t remember the Ranch, even though she’d been present, in form at least, during the heyday of Last Chance Ranch. Her parents, having grown up in poverty, hadn’t understood what they were up against. When their lucky numbers came in that evening, Mallory still just a hint of rounding at her mother’s formerly trim waistline, they’d thought- known- that their struggles were over. They had no way of realizing.

There was no way for them, with no one to advise them, to plan for the future, to manage the dwindling account as it trickled away, receding from millions to hundreds of thousands, to the tens and finally far, far into the red. Last Chance Ranch was a vampire of a project, rooted in the very best of intentions. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, they’d said, to raise Mallory amongst the animals? We’ll be their last chance. We’ll take in the wounded, the old, the undesired. We’ll love them and feed them and let them see heaven before they leave their broken bodies. It was a noble cause, and for a short time, before Mallory’s memories were tangible to her, it was the idyllic place that her parents had dreamed of. She only knew what the beginning had looked like because of the dusty cigar box filled with photographs and newspaper clippings wrapped in Saran Wrap and Ziploc bags, tucked in the “S’mores” cabinet in the tin-can camper. The clippings told the story.

              “Local Lottery Winners Start Charity”

              “Last Chance Ranch: Heaven on Earth for Aging Animals”

              “Key to the City Awarded to Founding Family of Last Chance Ranch”

              “Trouble in Paradise: Last Chance Ranch Seeking Financial Help”

              “Legal Trouble for Last Chance Over Animal Rights”

              “Protest Leads to Shut-Down of Volunteer and Donation Programs at Last Chance”

              “Last Chance is Out of Chances: Animals Removed, Owners MIA”

Mallory only remembered the last few years as her parents frantically tried to afford to feed everyone, keep the grass cut, and avoid disconnected power without the donations of the fickle community. She seized her chance and left for college as soon as she could. Graduating high school a year early and packing her meager belongings, she took off and hoped for the best, yearning to live somewhere away from the dust, the tears, the stress, and the fear. She relished having a chance at something else. She was determined to never again step foot on Last Chance Ranch. College wasn’t her last chance- it was her only chance. It lasted a short time. Unceremoniously “released” from college for non-payment of tuition in late October, she made her way home, broken and world-weary before the age that most people even tasted freedom, chained to her history and resigned to her future. She prepared herself not for a loving welcome home, but simply the inevitable onslaught of chores from her parents and granted herself the luxury of one last eye roll as she swung open the creaky gates and approached the house, only to find charred timbers and melted siding where her childhood home had stood.

Her parents were nowhere to be found. Broke, alone, and with nowhere else to go, she explored the property. In the one remaining, half-standing shed, she sifted through records, receipts, and files, learning that her parents, in their abject defeat, had been accepting payment and allowing people to deposit unwanted goods on the property, in the guise of “recycling” them. They’d renamed the property too, Last Chance Recycling. Clever. Mallory started with the tin-can camper, recycling it into the only shelter she’d ever called her own. As days, months, and years passed by, Mallory gave up the innocent assumption that her parents might return one day; gave up the expectation that she might meet someone; gave up the glimmering hope that she could get off the godforsaken Ranch. She began to say simple prayers of thanks that no one seemed to care where she was or what she was doing. She thanked God or Gods that the land, purchased in an idealistic, childish flight of fancy by adults who should have known better, at least, didn’t reject her. Her subsistence was meager, but the money she collected as people came to bury her in the remnants of their luxury, goods that were purchased for way too much money, used for way too little benefit, and then cost them more to dispose of, was enough to buy her a few necessities.  It paid for a couple nights a month in the local dive motel for showers, complete with the absolute bliss of a television. She tiptoed along the line between absolute, undeniable homelessness and just “very close,” and the best part was that no one even knew, aside from the proprietor of the dilapidated site of her treasured nights away from the Tin Can Castle at Last Chance Ranch.

The sound of a blaring dump truck horn drew her towards the gate and her waiting customer. The beginning of another day serving the very people who had contributed to her family’s ruin, guessing which of her customers were part of the sign-toting throngs and which stood idly by, observing the dream-turned-nightmare, was upon her.

“Hey, honey! I was so worried I’d not get a glimpse of your fine ass today,” was the greeting she received as she carefully unchained the gates and lurched them, inch by inch, inward enough so that the wide truck would fit through it. Mack. Of course, she thought, It would be Mack.

Instead of driving through the gates and making his dusty way toward the dumping grounds before settling his bill on the way out like usual, Mack swung down from the spotless truck and approached, his custom gator-leather cowboy boots crunching across the worn and eroded gravel drive. He removed his hat, the sun glinting off the bits of his scalp visible underneath his thinning crown of dirt-colored hair. “I have a favor to ask, sweetie,” he continued.

Mallory’s hackles rose immediately. She’d become used to propositions; suggestions that her body and soul were up to be recycled, and that she was expected to take any chance offered. Any chance at all, to do anything at all. “Yeah, I bet you do,” she muttered under her breath.

Undeterred, Mack strode confidently toward her a few more steps before drawing himself up short, with a sudden shift of tone and confidence. “I don’t like to do this. You know, girlie, that I always follow the rules, right? I know I might be here a little too early sometimes, but I don’t mean any harm by it. You know that, right?”

A slight nod was the only concession Mallory made. She wasn’t in any mood to offer this man absolution for his sins against her.

“I know you’re not in the habit of taking electronics and stuff, but I don’t know where else to get rid of this.” Turning back to the truck, he gingerly retrieved a cardboard box. “And if you can use any of it, you could always keep it. I mean, you probably have a nice iPhone and all. I know. But there’s a decent laptop in here. I used to keep it at my office but, erm, we just- can’t keep it anymore. It’s been wiped clean. It’s almost like it’s new again. I just- ask that- if you don’t use it, can you make sure it gets taken care of? Um, thanks. I’ll leave this box of stuff here. I’m gonna go on down and dump the rest of this shit. I’ll be back to settle up after.”

Before she had the chance to confirm or deny her willingness to participate in whatever scheme he was running, he unceremoniously dumped the box, plunked his hat back on his head and swung himself back into the cab of the obviously-not-a-worktruck dumptruck, cranked it up, and rolled on down towards the dumping area.

Mallory set upon the box, dragging it towards the Tin Can like a rat with a newly found shiny treasure. She could see a laptop, cables, cords, and a printer. I can certainly sell this stuff, she thought, and it’ll be worth going out of town to do it. I bet this is worth a few hundred bucks. Mack’ll never know the difference.

She was ready to greet him with a wink and a smile when he came back. Quickly scanning the area, he seemed pleased to note that the box had disappeared in his absence. “Hey, thanks, babe,” he told her. “And here’s an extra fifty bucks for your trouble with that box.” Turning to leave, he paused for a beat before turning back to her. “I bet you see some crazy shit out here, don’t ya? What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever recycled, do ya think?”

“I don’t know,” Mallory mused, genuinely considering the query. She was prepared, for the first time in years, to engage in conversation, her mood having been sweetened by the promise of a couple hundred extra dollars. Enough, she figured, to get shampoo and conditioner. Maybe even a Snickers. “Probably the plastic bottles, to be honest. I collect all the bottles in one place, and then I sell them off to the plastic plants. They’ll make them into more bottles, or bags, or even shoes. Then I’ll recycle more of the same. Sometimes I wonder how many times I see the same pieces of plastic, you know? First it might be a Coke bottle, then it’s a grocery bag, then it’s a pot for a plant. It just never seems to end. Unless it ends up as a tire. That’s the last chance it gets. You don’t come back from that kind of beating.”

“Well, don’t ya?” asked Mack. “They make that stuff for playgrounds out of recycled tires, don’t they? Is there really any such thing as a very last chance?”

“I dunno. I guess I always just thought that once a thing got that dirty and beat, it was just beyond repair,” she mumbled as she made designs in the dirt with her foot.

“You know, a lot of us, around town and all, we feel real bad about what happened with your parents and all.”

Mallory caught her breath. She’d figured that people had forgotten her long ago, and that they didn’t see the resemblance between the weird, middle-aged recycling woman and the bright child that had learned to walk here amongst sway-back ponies and one-eyed goats. She couldn’t bring herself to respond.

“I see it’s time for me to go. I’ll see ya soon, honey.”

Upon her deflated return to the Tin Can, Mallory threw herself in front of the squeaky fan, the only thing standing between her and suffocation as she hid within the tarp-covered walls, fighting back the tears threatening to come. She thought she’d been in hiding, all these years. She thought she’d done enough to slip through her living nightmare unnoticed.

And yet, Mack knew. Had always known. She reached into the box and drew out a laptop. Opening it, she saw that it still had stickers on it, like the demo models she sometimes played with at Wal-Mart while she was there to enjoy a half hour of air conditioning before she got her milk and bread. The printer still had tape over the paper door. Something wasn’t right.

Mallory emptied out the box, retrieving new item after new item. At the bottom, a notebook. She opened it and inside was a note. “Write your story. Someone out there needs to hear it, and you never know when it might be your last chance. - Mack.”