The Bad Weather Friend

Two freight workers arrive at Talmadge Clerkenwell’s warehouse in Florida to pick up a crate for air freight transport. Clerkenwell is an old man sporting a white three-piece suit, a large mustache, and a goatee. The crate weighs over 3,000 pounds. Though Clerkenwell claims that it contains books, the workers suspect that it may contain something illegal. However, Clerkenwell has such an air of kindness and trustworthiness that they accept the job.

While driving the crate to the airport and loading it onto the plane, they debate the contents. One insists that Clerkenwell is eccentric but harmless, so the contents of the crate must be safe. That night, he dreams about Clerkenwell. In the dream, Clerkenwell urges him to forget about the crate, and when he awakens, he has.

Benny Catspaw is a 23-year-old real-estate agent with Surfside Realty in Orange County, California, and today, he decides that someone is out to get him. He has worked for his boss, Hanson “Handy” Duroc, for three years, but now Handy calls Benny into his office and fires him. Handy says that he does not like being told what to do, but he cares about money and will not jeopardize that. It takes Benny a moment to realize that Handy is firing him on someone else’s orders. Handy assures Benny that he did nothing wrong and insists that the decision is beyond his control. Benny, who believes that it is never worth his time to be angry, reacts with confused acceptance and leaves without complaint.

The narrator interjects to directly assure the reader that although Benny will face enormous unfairness and even “a few moments of almost unendurable terror,” he is “too nice and sweet-tempered to be undone by it” (19).

Benny arrives at Papa Bear’s, a local diner, to meet his friend Robert Jericho, a retired police officer who now works as a private investigator and insists on being called “Fat Bob.” While a pretty waitress named Harper takes their order, Benny tells Bob about being fired. Benny thinks that someone forced Handy to do this, and Bob offers to find out who. As an investigator, Bob takes pride in helping the innocent fight unjust circumstances. He jokes that Benny’s propensity for niceness, “even to those who spit on [him]” (24), makes him a target. Benny turns down Bob’s offer.

Benny recalls a time when he was seven years old and his father returned home from a bar. They lived in a cockroach-infested bungalow, and his father often came home drunk and belligerent. On this day, he walked into the kitchen while Benny sat at the table, playing with LEGOs. Benny’s father bragged about the bar fight he won. Then, a man walked in and shot him in the back. The man decided not to kill Benny, who went to the bedroom of his mother, Naomi. She had not moved, though she must have heard the gunshot. He told her that no one would hurt her now and closed the door.

The crate from Florida arrives at LAX, where the facility manager, Felix, decides to inspect it. He inserts a small fiberscope into a drilled hole to inspect the contents but sees only blackness, “as if the sun [has] been extinguished” (32). Suddenly, he finds himself lying on a gurney with an EMT standing over him. The EMT tells him that he was found unconscious two hours ago; they believe that he had a heart attack. Confused, Felix says he feels fine and remembers nothing.

Benny arrives home, grateful for his house and his girlfriend, Jill Swift, to whom he soon plans to propose. He walks through his spotlessly clean house, which features minimalist Swedish furniture. He thinks that after spending his childhood in cockroach-infested rentals, it is better to embrace antiseptic minimalism. Just then, a delivery woman arrives with a package from Florida. The sender is Talmadge Clerkenwell.

The narrator interjects to state that although the reader may feel some unease about this name, Benny has never heard it before and therefore feels nothing.

At the freight facility, a forklift operator named Tyler is thinking about his side gig as a piano player and singer for a local blues band when he finds Felix’s fiberscope in the trash. He takes the fiberscope to another worker, and they speculate about why it was in the trash. It is unlikely that Felix would put it there just before he collapsed and was taken to the hospital. They decide to find out which shipment Felix was inspecting.

Benny opens the package and finds a small device with a screen. A video begins, displaying an old man who introduces himself as Talmadge Clerkenwell, the half-brother of Benny’s grandmother. Benny recalls his grandmother Cosima Springbok with fear because he knows that she likely killed her two husbands. As if on cue, Clerkenwell relates the same information in the video.

Clerkenwell explains that although he and Benny have never met, he learned of Benny’s difficult childhood and felt that they had similar experiences. Therefore, he is sending an inheritance to Benny by freight, which Benny must keep secret. Clerkenwell assures Benny that what he is about to receive “will transform [his] life” (44), though it may initially frighten him. Then, the video ends. Benny thinks that Clerkenwell is likely lying, but he decides that it will be a funny story to tell his children someday, once he and Jill are married.

Tyler and another freight worker, Gordie, find the crate. Tyler moves to inspect it, and Gordie, who only has one eye and wears an eye patch, warns him to be careful. He points out that after Felix looked inside, he walked away, tossed his fiberscope in the trash, and had a “stroke or whatever” (47). Gordie adds that as he was moving the crate earlier, for a moment he could see with both eyes. Whatever is in the crate, he wants it gone.