by W.H. Harrod
One whole week and not a word from anyone about anything, I thought as I departed the diner one week to the day following the meeting with the Brazzi brothers. The freight train barreling through my life of late had slowed to a crawl. It made me think of the old sailors’ stories about how they sometimes found themselves in the doldrums while at sea— a region near the equator where there is no wind. For days and days sailors drifted, waiting for the slightest breeze. That’s where I existed at the moment. I waited for one of the several storms surrounding various parts of my existence to reform and come crashing into my life.
I recounted the salient issues presently capable of attracting, and sometimes demanding, my attention. Of course, the Big Bob kickback/privatization matter claimed position number one. The excitement the plant employees exhibited over the interest the plant owner displayed towards my ESOP idea grew stronger daily. Junior Junior’s absence was also of growing concern. Preacher Roy had come to me only the day before concerned about some of his parishioners opting to attend the fast growing ‘your ass is going to burn in hell’ Evangelical Church that was meeting in the now closed and moved to Asia sewing factory building in Justice City. Carlton expected my presence in Topeka sometime during the month to play golf. Mary June planned to sneak back out to UB2’s farm to enjoy coffee and polite conversation relating to the finer things in life. Flo persisted with her suspicions regarding everything and everybody. The $4.00 gas price caused customers to act as if I was part of the problem. The housing market melt down had resulted in a twenty percent drop in the value of residential real estate across the country, as well as in Jones County, and although I had nothing to do with it, I figured someone would somehow hold me at least partly responsible.
Other issues also threatened the existence of our consumer driven lifestyle. Issues that crossed my mind from time to time generally considered too big to deal with at the local level. Issues mentioned regularly on the nationwide nightly news broadcasts. Such as: the financial market collapse along with the failure of several large financial institutions, illegal aliens, outsourcing jobs, blatant and destructive political partisanship, peak oil, the never ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our unsustainable and ever increasing national debt, deficit spending, global warming, corporate farming, a disappearing middle class, growing unemployment, devaluation of our currency abroad, the dollar’s inevitable loss of reserve currency status, NAFTA, budget busting senior entitlements, religious fanaticism at home, and religious fanaticism abroad to cite only a portion of a long list.
I wonder how many of those issues will be discussed at the Republican Convention this week in Minnesota? I asked myself as I started up the stairs to my apartment. I knew the answer long before I reached the top of the stairs. None. The Republicans were in charge for the last eight years, and arguably much of the blame for these numerous issues could be placed, in large part, in their laps. They dare not open that box of political and financial mismanagement. They most likely would end up emphasizing the always-reliable hot button social issues such as religion, allowing prayer in schools, criminalizing abortion, creeping socialism, and opposing gay marriage and homosexuality. Those were the issues sure to fire up the presently irate and disenchanted conservative base. I, forever, was amazed at how easy it became to redirect the attention of the majority of Americans away from the real issues like wars, jobs, homes, health care, and all the other actually important things going into creating and sustaining a home and family in a viable community.
Glad to be alone in my comfortable apartment above Junior Junior’s garage, I put my mental wanderings aside to slip down into the well-used, but still comfortable recliner I’d come to appreciate more and more of late. Comfortably seated, I decided to put all thoughts of politics and local issues away for the moment. I planned to pop a top on one of the cold grape sodas I kept in the fridge and then sit back and watch some reruns or an old movie. Or maybe… I would watch a Royals game. Or maybe I should think about that stupid debate I got bush wacked into agreeing to participate in.
Damn. I forgot about that. Mary June notified me right after I arrived at the diner that very morning about the “Great Debate,” as she referred to it now, going off one week from tomorrow. That made it the eleventh of September at 7 p.m. sharp. They were undecided on the venue. They first wanted to get an idea as to how many people might attend. Mary June went on record projecting the largest gathering since Councilman Deedlebush tried to get the rest of the city council to issue a proclamation proclaiming the citizens of Jonesboro were at least partly in agreement with those heathen’s Theory of Evolution. To wit: While all good Republicans were most certainly the children of Adam who was not only the first man but also the first Republican, the Democrats were indeed fathered by tree swinging, banana stealing monkeys! The proclamation did not pass, but not because the locals didn’t support it. A few later surmised that since all but Councilman Deedlebush attended the unholy halls of higher education at various out of state universities, those councilmen most likely were unknowingly brainwashed, or the CIA had implanted sensors in their brains whilst they were passed out after consuming health drinks spiked with mind-altering drugs provided by those sneaky liberals.
I wonder if they will still be giving me cookies after the debate? I thought as I sat sipping on my grape soda pop. I didn’t bother to answer the question. The answer was obvious. Whatever service I might provide to the community and receive acclaim for would not survive once the conversation drifted into the sphere of hot button social issues. Both parties’ efforts to gain control of the government blanketed the field of battle with victims that had succumbed to their vicious attacks. But this paled in comparison to the carnage created when the fight changed to one concerning God’s will. To those basing their arguments upon the belief that various ancient documents, of dubious repute, are in all cases inerrant, there is no middle ground. This battle for the minds and souls of all living humans in the name of the one who supposedly asks only for love and acceptance for all mankind was, ironically, for all the marbles.
After staring at the television for a time, I realized I did not have the slightest idea of what I watched. It served merely as background noise. I didn’t want to know what happened on the screen. I just wanted noise. It occurred to me that I might be intimidated by the quietness. Where once I existed mostly as an island, accustomed to long periods of quiet, I now was experiencing sensory depravation, and there was little that I could do about it. I asked myself if maybe I should read a book since earlier in life I had been know as a voracious reader. Then I recalled that the only reading material available was a stack of Junior Junior’s old shoot’em or hook’em magazines. I felt confident there would be little to learn there. You, either, put a worm on a hook and sat your butt down to wait or you snuck up on it and blowed the hell out of it while it chewed away on its last supper.
This presented a dilemma. Where I once relished being alone, I now wanted company, but whom? Not the Mayor, for sure! The poor guy had become a walking paranoiac with people telling of him hiding out on his farm with only his dogs. Mary June was probably enjoying tea out at Dom’s while admiring all the unboxed dishes. Junior Junior still had not been seen by anyone other than Chief Barley and the Doctor for weeks— not that Junior Junior constituted a viable choice of conversation partners. I figured Flo might tell me to shove it. I could call the Vietnam vet and invite him to the local tavern for a beer, but I didn’t drink alcohol, and who invites a person out so you can watch them drink? The Preacher would have to drive several miles into town and back. Plus, he might end up telling me more about those former members of his flock who turned towards the dark side of religion. I actually felt sorry for myself.
While I chewed on this, one of the television shrinks berated another complete idiot for not having the common sense to know he couldn’t get away with banging his wife’s half-sister while his wife was away at the liposuction clinic hoping to regain a figure she never owned in the first place. Fortunatel
y, a novel idea occurred to me. I decided I needed some air and what better way to get it than to take J3 for a walk around town. His free roaming days were limited of late. Possibly the result of too many townsfolk griping about piles of dog poop as big as cow piles showing up on their lawns, as well as one too many cats going missing. That’s what I decided to do. Get up and take J3 for a walk.
Very quickly I realized the error of my thinking. I soon discovered what it must have felt like to walk behind an old plow horse. J3 pulled me along like a sled dog pulling a fat fur hunter in the snowy Yukon. It was all I could do to keep him from running full out. Within three blocks my arms ached and the sweat began to pour off my brow. J3, on the other hand, was merely getting started. He took a big dump on the grade school principal’s immaculately trimmed front yard. I hadn’t thought about that possibility, of course. I tried as best I could with the use of distraught facial expressions and hand signals to express my great distress at J3’s rude behavior to the obviously highly agitated elderly woman staring at us through her front window as we walked off leaving J3’s smelly fly magnet behind. Needless to say, we headed for home as soon as I could coax J3 into making a turn. We arrived back at the diner parking lot with me sweating like I’d ran a 10K race and J3 ready for another lap. I also toted along two more bags of cookies given to me along the way by the grateful wives of plant workers who now, at least, maintained some slight hope of financial salvation.
Walking away from a safely penned up and vocally displeased J3, I looked forward to the comfort and privacy of my lofty abode. Don’t ever make a rash decision like that again, I admonished myself as I limped towards my nest wondering if I had any lotion to rub on my seriously aching back and arm muscles. Still, I did need something to occupy my time while alone in my loft apartment. Watching too much television would soon cause my brain to resemble one of those ossified, wrinkled surface, barely functioning organs residing in the top of the skulls of those sponge-brain, you are going to burn in hell evangelicals. I say sponge because the actions I’ve witnessed of more than a few callous individuals lately strongly suggested the presence of something more akin to a worn out sponge in place of a brain.
Getting back to the subject of my uncomfortable free time, I decided I needed to get a few good books and catch up on my reading. I would read some of those old classics I’d started earlier in life when I believed it a necessary sacrifice in order for me to be able to participate in polite, yet totally bullshit and boring, cocktail party conversations. I had read famous novels like “Ulysses,” “The Pickwick Papers,” and other great books such as Sigmund Freud’s “The Interpretation of Dreams,” and Charles Darwin’s “Origin of the Species.” The last one, most unfortunately, resulted in chipping my tooth after falling asleep while reading it and smashing my face upon the hard surface of a library table, not to mention my embarrassment over having jumped up from the table with a bleeding lip screaming vile expletives like a wounded banshee and finding myself surrounded by nuns escorting a visiting fifth grade class from the local Catholic school.
Right as I prepared myself for the painful assent of the stairs leading to my apartment, I became aware of the unmistakable sound of tires rolling across the gravel surface. Instinctively, I knew I had visitors. Someone needed or wanted something that only a certifiable lunatic with an obviously insatiable need to poke around in complete strangers’ pathetic lives could or would provide— someone like me.
Preparing myself for the worst, I turned to see Chief Barley rolling to a stop just short of the stairs where I stood hopelessly awaiting instructions or information regarding my next impossible mission.
“Afternoon, Will. Glad I caught you,” said the Chief after he exited his cruiser and walked around towards where I now stood awaiting more bad news. “Just thought I’d bring you up to speed on Junior Junior’s condition. Actually, there ain’t nothing new to report cause he’s still pretty much moping around like a whooped puppy. At least, he’s starting to eat more, and that’s a good sign, so the Doctor says. Looks like you guys aren’t missing a beat at the diner. I’m sure Junior Junior must be aware of that since all he has to do is look out the window to see the vehicles. Oh, one more thing before I forget. I got some cookies in the car the wife made for you. I suppose you must know by now how much we all appreciate your help to save the local folks’ jobs over at the plant. Anyway, let me get those cookies out of the cruiser so you can go on about your business.”
I stood there in a mild state of shock at not having had a new crisis placed in my lap. The Chief returned with a sack of homemade cookies. I thanked him with a smile and wished him a pleasant day as he returned to his appointed rounds. A good man, the Chief, I said to myself as I started up the stairs to find some lotion to apply in liberal quantities to my now aching muscles. At the top of the stairs, I turned around for some unknown reason to survey the strange new world I found myself now inhabiting.
Who would have guessed it? Who would ever have imagined that Will Clayton, the guy that went far out of his way to be distant and often elusive to the rest of the world, would ever allow himself to become involved with the affairs of so many people he didn’t even know?
“Absolutely no one,” I said aloud as I turned to seek the safety of my lofty aerie.
Chapter Twenty-Five