by W.H. Harrod
The whole thing was becoming surreal. It was really starting to happen. The town was coming undone. The country was coming undone. These notions represented a mere smattering of the more restrained observations loitering at the forefront of my thinking muscle as I sat alone looking out the diner’s front window. By 2 p.m. on Saturdays, customers were usually in short supply. Myself, and three thirtyish looking men were the only people in the diner. More than once I wondered why these guys weren’t in a tavern getting hammered. That’s where I would have been back in the day. What the heck is wrong with this younger generation?
I glanced at my watch and saw barely ten minutes had passed since I last glanced at my uncooperative timepiece. I wanted to get out of the diner and back to my apartment so I could take off my shoes and kick back. A nagging weariness hovered over my existence of late. Everywhere I looked, things looked messed up. I tired of going over the list of local issues messing with my brain. My subconscious had also started to focus on national and world issues as well. Needless to say, when approaching those subjects you gazed into a bottomless pit.
For starters, I was surprised the country had lasted so long. Looking down at the note pad before me on the table, I saw listed several areas of concern in no particular order of importance. My list included: a contrived housing bubble melt down; extreme political partisanship on both sides; gas nearing $4.00 a gallon; the country’s increasing dependence on unfriendly foreign countries for diminishing oil supplies; corporations outsourcing manufacturing jobs to slave labor countries; wholesale redistribution of the nation’s wealth to the upper one percent via ridiculous tax laws; the destruction of the nation’s middle class; more saber rattling as Russia invaded the small country of Georgia in spite of the our empty threats; major financial institutions failing because of their insane lending practice of providing home loans to people with no jobs, no money, and bad credit; ignoring the growing evidence of global warming; wars in Iraq and Afghanistan looking as if they will continue in perpetuity; federal deficits increasing beyond sustainable levels; the dollar’s pending loss of reserve currency status; unsustainable world population growth; agricultural-corporations’ intentions of destroying the family farms; evangelical Christianity rising as a counter productive political force; and lastly, failure to maintain or upgrade our national transportation infrastructure. At that point, I got depressed and stopped.
See, this is what happens when you let yourself get involved in a bunch of people’s silly affairs. Long ago I determined the world existed as a very scary place. I believe at some point everything fails. Bridges fail, relationships fail, our health fails, peace treaties fail, governments fail, religions fail, economic and monetary systems fail, judicial systems fail, atomic power plants fail, tooth fillings fail, our brain cells fail, super glue fails, lifetime warranties fail— everything fails! It’s only a matter of time.
If there is one thing a citizen can depend upon it is a continued downward trajectory for the United States financial future. Taking a short position towards our nation’s present and long term economic viability would, I believe, pay dividends. I adhered to the old saw averring, “Things that can’t go on forever, don’t.” You can’t be that stupid as an individual, or a nation, and expect to survive. Evolution is not, as the religious zealots avow, an untested theory. It’s working as we live and speak. And it’s beginning to scream louder and clearer that we must get our act together or it’s going to be ashes and dust for us as our privileged way of life is ultimately relegated to the status of a historical footnote.
When is Carlton’s contact going to get in touch with me, damn it? The question came out of nowhere. That’s what was really bothering me. Why in the hell hadn’t I heard something? That’s what I wanted to know. Right then I made up my mind to give Carlton a call Monday morning, first thing. The Mayor kept bugging the crap out of me with his inquiries, while I became more paranoid by the hour. It seemed like I saw Big Bob everywhere, even in my sleep. I had no patience for this stuff. A long time ago I conspired with the best of them but not anymore. Now I needed things as straight up as possible.
Looking at my watch, I saw fifty-five minutes until the 3 p.m. closing time would mercifully arrive. Basically everything stood ready to go for Monday except for the frozen rolls that I would take out of the freezer on Sunday night. Once my three customers left, I could close out the register, lock the doors, deposit the receipts at the bank night deposit box, and head for my apartment. I figured I’d do the cash reconciliation sheets and record the sales break down later. Peeking in the direction of my malingering customers, I saw they still carried on their conversation at the same pace. My impatience with the slowness of the men may have been somewhat tempered by my suspicion that these guys probably discussed the developing story relating to the possible plant closing in Justice City. The local paper picked up on the story and reported the plant owner refused to comment on any aspect of the rampant rumors going around. I didn’t know these guys names, but I knew they were local, and more than likely, they had families, mortgages, medical expenses, and all the other obligations that go along with raising a family. As I thought about their predicament, I genuinely hoped things turned out well for them. I concluded my commiserations by lamenting the foolishness of our legislature for creating tax laws that rewarded large corporations with huge tax breaks for moving manufacturing jobs off shore.
It seemed as if someone ought to tell our legislature one more time that for a sovereign country to exist it needed to be able to support itself financially. Our country could not do that any longer, especially, if we sent every decent paying manufacturing job overseas. Our country no longer depended upon a large and productive manufacturing base. Instead, we had morphed into a consumer-based society. That’s kind of like putting the cart before the horse. We want to sell our citizens new homes, new cars (mostly made abroad), and vacations to the Bahamas without having an economic base that originates the funds to provide for this consumer spending. We exist, for the most part, upon borrowed money. We borrow from foreigners, from our children, from ourselves, from banks, from pawnshops, and sometimes I’ve been told when our government gets real needy, it simply prints the extra money. Our trade deficits were growing obscenely larger every single day.
Once the country stood proudly as the largest exporter of manufactured products in the world, but now our national brain trust thought it better to export the manufacturing know-how to low wage countries and ship the usually inferior and much cheaper products back to us so our former manufacturing workers, now unemployed, or underemployed, can hopefully save enough money from their lawn cutting, burger flipping, or house painting jobs to purchase all those now imported refrigerators, televisions, and golf clubs from the discount big box stores along the highways that replaced the local retailers who went out of business because they couldn’t compete against third world labor costs.
I reminded myself to forget about all the craziness trying to occupy my brain, as nothing would be done to stop an entire nation from going nuts. I truly felt sorry for the young folks, but unless they tried to better understand what was happening, come together as a unified group forsaking affiliations with the traditional political groups that were populated and directed by the elderly that claimed ownership to the greater part of all the tax revenues collected and spent by this failing former beacon of individual opportunity and egalitarian economic prosperity, then forget about it.
Feeling helpless and agitated, I determined to concern myself with matters closer to home— like how Junior Junior was coming along. No one had seen him except for Chief Barley who stopped by the house a couple times a day to check. The Chief usually called with updates each afternoon, and according to the latest report, Junior Junior was still out of commission. No one knew when to expect to see him again. It may very well be that our employer’s presence at the diner mattered little in a business sense, but to a person, I believed every employee and customer looked forward to the man’s return to health and
duty. We were all pulling for him to get well.
The only other matter occupying space in my brain not dealing with Junior Junior’s health or my eagerly awaiting the arrival of my contact, related to the reduction of chatter between the two ladies and myself these last couple of days. As best I could figure, we exchanged but few words not relating to the operation of the diner. Otherwise, we kept quiet and concentrated on our work. Since each of us knew exactly what to do and when to do it, there was little need for conversation. Nevertheless, things were sure different. As I somehow knew it must have been something I did or didn’t do, I expected it needed to be me who got things back to our usual noisy status— one more thing to add to my Monday morning to-do list.
Turning my attention to the present and my abiding desire to get out of the diner as soon as possible, I decided to prevent any late customers from coming in by going to the door and turning the Open/Closed sign around to the closed position. When my last three customers departed, I only needed to lock the door behind them. As I sauntered towards the door, I noticed movement out in the parking lot. A strange individual looked to be heading for the diner door. I did not recognize this character, and I say character because I could not tell if the human advancing towards the door wearing a dark hooded jacket was a local or a hitchhiker stopping by on the way through town. The hood was pulled up over the wearer’s head so I couldn’t tell if the person was male or female. This person does not look local.
My infatuation with this unexpected event froze me in place, and I neglected to get the open sign turned around. When the hooded figure advanced through the door and looked around until spotting me standing like a stump, he or she advanced in my direction until we stood toe-to-toe. The mysterious individual gazing directly into my eyes looked to be a slightly built male, wearing dark sunglasses. I couldn’t be sure of anything else because the hood allowed me only a partial view of his face. After more scrutiny, I suspected my reticent visitor to be an older white male. The last thing I noticed, before I took note of chairs being noisily pushed away from the table by my previously semi-somnolent customers as they scrambled for the door as if the diner had caught fire, was the wrapped package carried by the stranger. That’s when I knew. The strange looking person standing before me must be our mysterious local version of the Unabomber— Mr. UB2 himself.
We stood there facing one another for a long time. I could not even fathom what thoughts occupied my potential assailant’s cranium regarding my own person, but there was little doubt over where my thoughts resided. I must have glanced down towards the package he held securely to his side a dozen times. My earlier humorous thoughts regarding the local residents always worrying about the possibility of UB2’s ubiquitous package actually containing a bomb now seemed less preposterous.
My visitor made the first move. “I’m looking for a man by the name of Will Clayton.” That was it. No because or I’m from or anything else— just your average potential psychopathic mass murderer asking for information from a very nervous guy trying hard to stay calm.
“Will Clayton, did you say?” I responded somewhat tentatively, not nearly ready to admit ownership of a name to a person carrying a package suspected by many suddenly not so foolish people of containing a homemade device that might go booooom!
The hooded legend spoke again, “That’s correct, Will Clayton.”
My response time became noticeably tardy and my voice wavering, “And who may I say is seeking Mr. Clayton’s attention?” I surprised myself with my presence of mind to politely inquire just why a reputed assassin wanted to speak with such a soon to be very busy individual.
My slight, but determined, verbal sparing partner responded in due course with a question that may have put my delaying game in check. “Are you Will Clayton?” he asked in a quiet and inquisitive manner.
Nothing will kick malingering off line brain cells into gear like the immediate and completely unexpected prospect of sudden death. Every molecule in my body having anything to do with keeping me alive sprang into action. My home guard, oxygen carrying blood cells, may have been on holiday down in the lower extremities or wherever, but they all hustled back to the brain’s survival center. I mean ideas came rushing forward which surely at calmer moments would not have passed even basic muster. Like, for instance, the idea of screaming fire while running for the door or falling to my knees begging while proclaiming the Mayor made me do it or offering the guy Junior Junior’s money from the register. Anything just so he wouldn’t blow me up, too.
What I ended up doing lacked the spontaneity of my initial thoughts, but in the end probably made the most sense if I survived. “Yes, I am,” I said meekly casting my fate to the winds of fortune. As I said earlier, I have little stomach for scheming. The ongoing Byzantine affair with the Mayor had earlier consumed all my stored up duplicitous energies.
The next words out of my imagined assailant’s mouth floored me. “A mutual friend of ours called and requested I come and talk to you. Is now a good time for you?”
My brain told my lips to say something. “You…You...You,” my mouth mumbled until I regrouped to try again. “You are my Carlton contact?” I blurted out. Shocked came nowhere close to describing my state of mind. Before me stood absolutely the last human being in the world I might have expected to show up and inform me that he was sent by my old friend Carlton. “You are a lawyer?” I asked, immediately regretting it.
I detected a hint of a smile beginning to form around the edges of the mouth of my self-proclaimed contact right before he answered my part question, part unintended insult.
“May we sit down? I’m afraid my old legs are not as strong as they use to be,” asked the hooded figure.
This time I did detect a smile. Oh joy, I wasn’t going to die after all. “Of course, let’s sit over here,” I said pointing to a table far away from the windows. My visitor with his tightly clutched box followed me to the chosen table. Once there and in much better control of my faculties, I displayed better manners. “May I offer you a beverage? Coffee or ice tea?”
My visitor thought for a moment before requesting a glass of ice water. I retrieved the water while also swinging by to lock the front door. Finally settled in with one of the biggest surprises of my life, I found myself lacking the words to begin a conversation. Maybe it had something to do with Mr. UB2 still wearing his sunglasses with his hood still up. My puzzlement must have become apparent.
“Will, if I may call you Will?”
“Please do,” I hastily replied.
“Will, I hope you will not be put off by my attire nor uncovering myself even though we are safely inside. You see I have chosen to live my life as a private person and the mysterious persona I present to the ogling local public works very well for that purpose. I expect as soon as the word gets out that I’m in town all sorts of folks will be trying to get a better look. I would not be surprised to find people with high powered cameras trying to get shots from great distances at this very second.”
I glanced past my guest through the front windows and to the street out front, and sure enough, I could make out one individual climbing a tree a block over. It also seemed like more vehicles than normal cruised the main street, and not a single driver of a vehicle passing by failed to take a long look towards the diner.
“I can see you are surprised that the local mystery character is being referred to you by our mutual friend in Topeka. But again, let me assure you, it’s nothing more than a ruse to protect my privacy. I came to this area to enjoy the last years of my life in peace and solitude. I am pleased to be able to report that for the greater part I have been successful in doing that. Now I need to ask you to respect my desire for privacy and not reveal my secrets. Can I count on you, Will? My very old friend, Carlton, assures me I can, but I would like to hear it from you.”
I did not hesitate, “You can depend on me to keep your secret, but, I have to admit, I’m sitting here wondering what it is you can do to help? I expect you must
have had something to do with the law during your earlier career, but how can that help this community today? If even a small part of what these individuals are doing is criminal, how can a retired lawyer or judge help?”
My hooded guest observed me quietly before he answered, “A valid question, and I will have to ask you to place some faith in our friend who chose me as your contact in the first place. I can’t stay here long or our meeting will come under suspicion. But what I will do is review the files and information you have available, contact you by no later than midweek, and tell you if I concur with your belief that criminal behavior is provable regarding these individuals’ activities. If I discover evidence of criminal activity, I will, by then, have a plan in place, and I will instruct you as to how and where we can meet to make arrangements to have these persons prosecuted. This empty and loosely wrapped package, I carry around for no purpose beyond my desiring to live up to the locals’ self-created image of myself, as a reclusive mad bomber, will hold any information you have available for me. Please give it to me now so I can get back on the street to give the local folks something to talk about. By the way, my first name is Dom, and no one else knows that locally. So if you’re told someone on the phone named Dom wants to talk to you, please take the call.”
My surprise visitor soon went out the door toting his much maligned suspected bomb package containing all the documents previously provided to me by the Mayor. He also carried an additional sack containing two cinnamon rolls as a decoy to justify his stopping by the diner in the first place. Now all I had to do was wait patiently for Mr. Dom whatever to contact me by no later than midweek. When I no longer saw my fellow conspirator walking away from the diner towards the main highway leading to the middle of the town where he turned south heading towards his home, I fetched a glass of crushed ice and sat down in the same chair I’d occupied only minutes before, placing the cool glass to my forehead.
With the soothing coolness penetrating my overheated cranium, I began to relax and allow my thoughts to drift back in time to a place where I sat alone atop a picnic table resigned to going back to my hide out, an RV parked at the Texas coast, to escape from life— a place where my greatest concern dealt with the heat and humidity sucking the will to live out of all those not strong enough to endure south Texas summers without air conditioning. How easy that simple task seemed now!
Chapter Nineteen