The Treasure Hunt Club

by Michael Scott Clifton

  “You’re a loser and a screw-up, Hollister,” he said. “Always have been, always will be. If you ever finish anything you start, please let me know so I can personally witness that miracle.” Snickering, he walked off.

  The ball game was finally over.

  Chapter 3

  After the game, Mark and Steve had helped Nick to his car. Humiliated and still hurting, he had declined their offer to go somewhere for a cold drink. Besides, he had to go to work. He worked as a forklift operator at a Home Depot distribution center, and he had just enough time to grab a quick shower and drive to work before his shift began.

  Nick carefully folded himself into the ‘88 Chevy Sprint that he drove. The precursor of the Geo, the car was tiny and was only a three cylinder with an eight-gallon fuel tank. Steve had modified the front seat for him so that it scooted back far enough that he could get his six feet three-inch frame into it. At one time, the Sprint had been robin’s egg blue, but now the paint was chipped and faded, and the front wheel section was a darker blue, the result of being replaced because of an accident by the previous owner. Nick had bought the car for a song, and although it used oil, it got close to forty miles per gallon. With gas prices so high and Nick chronically short of cash, he could overlook the Sprint’s shortcomings.

  Nick considered going to his girlfriend Lisa’s apartment on the east side of town to shower and change for work but decided his place was closer.

  Nick had met Lisa at the Pleasant Mountain bowling alley two years ago. She worked as a hair dresser at Hair Creations in town, and they hit it off almost immediately. Their relationship had become more serious over time, and six months ago, he had moved some of his things into Lisa’s apartment, and he lived there off and on. Their intention was to eventually get married as soon as Nick could settle on a steady, good-paying job. Unfortunately, that goal seemed to be as elusive now as it had always been in Nick’s life. In fact, lately, it seemed Nick’s inability to hold and keep a job was wearing thin on Lisa. She didn’t seem herself around him, and he was beginning to sense a subtle yet still fundamental change in her attitude toward him. When a position at Home Depot had opened up, he had leaped at the opportunity and had worked there for the past several months. Compared to the length of time Nick had worked at other jobs, he had worked practically a lifetime at the distribution center.

  Nick’s place was located out in the country, five miles from town. Ten minutes later, he pulled off the paved farm-to-market road and onto a dirt road. Pines and sweet gums grew thickly alongside the road as Nick carefully negotiated the Sprint around ruts and potholes.

  Finally, he pulled into a grass and weed-choked clearing and parked the car under a rusty awning. A twenty-five-foot Airstream trailer was located adjacent to the car awning. Electricity was provided to the trailer by a nearby utility pole stuck into the ground with a meter attached to it.

  A ninety-by-fifty-foot prefab workshop was located just north of the trailer. Two of the buildings’ large sliding doors stood ajar, providing a glimpse of the interior. Surplus oil field pipe had been used in framing the workshop, and the metal ribs of the pipe nearest the doors gleamed dully as sunlight reflected off of its rusty surface.

  Nick stirred up a small army of grasshoppers and crickets that hopped and flew madly through the air as he strode through the overgrown grass from his car to the trailer. Stopping before the trailer, he stepped up onto a broken cinder block he used for a step and unlocked the trailer’s door. Opening the door, he ducked and stepped inside. Like the Sprint Nick drove, everything about the trailer was cramped. The bed loft was located on the right side of the trailer, and when Nick slept in the trailer, he did so with his knees folded up to his chest. The tiny shower was on the other side of the trailer and barely accommodated Nick’s frame. In fact, he had been forced to install a flex-a-shower hose on the shower head because there was no turning around in the shower. The only way to reach his back was with the hose. A small box refrigerator and two-burner electric stove were located on the west side of the trailer. On the east side was a small padded couch, which folded up or down, and in front of it was a square wooden table attached to a three-inch diameter metal pole. The pole fit into a bracket in the floor, and like the padded seat, the pole could be pulled from the bracket, the table folded, and both table and pole stored. Finally, a diminutive window unit air conditioner was set in a window above the table. Cranking it up to high, Nick attempted to cool the stifling interior of the trailer.

  Flinging off his sweaty clothes, Nick stepped into the shower. Not bothering to turn the hot water on, Nick turned the cold-water faucet to its highest setting. As the water sluiced over him, he let his mind drift.

  He had, by default, inherited the workshop and thirty acres of land when his mother had moved to Dallas to be closer to his sister and her family. His sister, Susan, was five years older than him and was married to a pharmacist. They had two children, and his niece and nephew were ten and seven. His mother had claimed her reason for moving was that she couldn’t keep up with the land or buildings on it, but Nick knew the real reason: his father had left when Nick was thirteen years old. From that moment on, the home place had become an uncomfortable and alien environment to her.

  As Nick recalled, there had been no warning, no signals from his father that he was unhappy with his marriage. His daddy, an electrician, had apparently met a woman, some twenty years younger than him, when he had gone on a job call to the woman’s apartment to repair an electrical outlet. Two months later, Nick’s mother came home from her job as a nurse at the local hospital to find all of Nick’s father’s belongings gone and a brief note explaining that he loved another woman. There was no other explanation, no further elaboration, nothing but the note to show for over twenty years of marriage.

  His father now lived in Lubbock, married to the woman he ran off with. The only contact Nick had had with him since was an occasional card on his birth- day or at Christmas, and even those had stopped a few years ago. That was just fine, as far as Nick was concerned, because he had no desire to see his father ever again.

  Nick’s parents’ divorce had almost destroyed his mother. She had loved his father deeply and had truly never seen it coming. Although she had repeatedly denied it when he had asked her, Nick knew she blamed herself for the divorce and his father running off with a woman young enough to be his daughter. His mother, a normally evocative and effervescent woman, had become withdrawn and sluggish. He had watched her age years in the span of mere months after the divorce was final.

  Nick’s father, eager for a quickie divorce so he could marry his young honey, gave Nick’s mother the shop, the doublewide trailer they had been living in, and the acreage it sat on. She had waited until Nick had graduated from high school and then moved to Dallas, telling him the land, the trailer, the shop—everything— was his. Although she had never directly told him why, he knew it was because the place held too many painful memories. The sooner that part of her life was behind her, the sooner she could get on with the rest of her life.

  Nick found that without his mother living there, the old double- wide trailer was too empty, and its very presence evoked memories he too would just as soon put behind him. Therefore, he had sold the doublewide and moved into the Airstream shortly after his mother had left. He had gone from a spacious trailer to a cramped one, but he found he now slept much better at night, and he had never regretted the move.

  Shaking his head, Nick quickly finished showering. Exiting the shower, he found the air in the trailer was only marginally cooler. Dressing in front of the air conditioner, he pulled on a pair of jeans and boots and tucked his Home Depot work shirt in. Grabbing his wallet and keys, he exited the trailer, locked the door, and headed for his car.

  The huge Home Depot distribution center was located on a spur just off the interstate highway. Covering some fifty acres, the parking lot, loading docks, and warehouse occupied an enormous amount of land. As Nick exited the interstate onto the
service road leading to the main gates of the distribution center, he found himself behind a line of eighteen-wheelers waiting to enter the facility and unload at the warehouse. Night and day, there was a constant stream of them as they disgorged the contents of their trailers into the distribution center’s warehouse. It was Nick’s job to load and unload each of the trailers and place their contents in the proper location within the warehouse. Hour after hour, he and his trusty forklift worked at this tedious task. As with all his previous jobs, Nick didn’t see himself working at this job one second longer than necessary until he found the job or calling he really wanted to do! Trouble was, at thirty-three years old, Nick still didn’t know what that was!

  Nick parked his car in the cavernous employee parking lot and walked back to the warehouse. Entering the building, he was just about to clock in when one of the secretaries working in the glassed-in administrative center poked her head out of a door and called out to Nick.

  “Hey, Nick! Roger wants to see you!”

  Puzzled, Nick put his time card back into its slot and walked back to the door the secretary had used. Roger Smith was the foreman of his crew, and Nick had liked him from his first day on the job. He was friendly, personable, and seemed to have an endless stream of jokes that made the repetitive job of loading and unloading the eighteen-wheelers seem to go by faster. What could he possibly want to speak to him about?

  The door to Roger’s small office was open, and as Nick entered, one look at Roger told him he was in for some kind of bad news. Roger normally wore a carefree grin on his face, but now his expression was a mixture of both serious and sad.

  “Sit down, Nick,” Roger said, indicating with his hand a chair in front of his desk.

  As Nick took a seat in the chair, he asked apprehensively, “What’s going on, Roger?”

  Sighing, Roger stood up and walked from behind his desk and sat on the front of the desk next to Nick.

  “We have to lay you off, Nick,” he said sadly.

  Stunned, Nick’s mouth opened and closed several times like a fish before he was finally able to say, “What? Why? I’ve worked hard, never been late—” Nick stopped as Roger raised his hand, interrupting him.

  “It has nothing to do with your job performance, Nick, because you’re right, you’re a good worker. Unfortunately, the company’s quarterly earnings report just came out, and they weren’t as rosy as expected. Therefore, he company bigwigs decided that a three percent reduction in employees was needed to fix it.

  “You know the drill, Nick, ‘Last hired, first fired,’” Roger said as he placed his hand sorrowfully on Nick’s shoulder.

  Nick’s mind raced as he considered the implications of losing his job. It couldn’t have come at a worse time! Lisa would kill him! How would he explain it to her?

  “Roger, listen, I have to have this job!” he said desperately. “I’ll work straight graveyard shifts! I’ll do any of the grunt jobs that nobody else wants to do! I’ll—”

  Roger raised his hand again to forestall any further protests from Nick.

  “It’s out of my hands, Nick. I truly am sorry. I did manage to get you two-weeks severance pay, and I promise you that if and when we begin hiring again, your name will be at the top of the list.” With that, Roger handed Nick an envelope. Dully, Nick opened the envelope. Inside was his severance check for $350.23. A short time later, Nick found himself trudging zombie-like back to his car. The same thought kept going through his mind over and over again.

  How was he going to explain this to Lisa?

  Chapter 4

  Lost in thought, Nick almost missed the exit off the interstate to Pleasant Mountain. The job he had just lost was the best paying one he had had since meeting Lisa. She was going to flip! Even though it wasn’t his fault, he was sure she wouldn’t see it that way. He had lost or quit too many other jobs since he had met her, and he could just see her nodding her head as she told herself she had heard this all before. No, what he needed was a plan, something to soften the bad news before she blew her top. He snapped his fingers as an idea came to him. A gift! A peace offering of sorts was what was needed! That ought to do the trick! But what kind of a gift? Candy or flowers were too blasé, and besides, they were expensive. What he needed was a gift that would hit a home run for him yet still stay within his modest means to pay. Thinking hard, he remembered a new store that had opened recently in downtown Pleasant Mountain. It sold odds and ends, antiques, and garage sale stuff, but he just might find something unique there. More importantly, whatever he found, it was likely to be cheap! With that, he turned on the next road that led to the business route through the city.

  Five minutes later, Nick parked in front of the new store. The freshly painted sign above it said “Harper’s Hidden Treasures: Knickknacks and Antiques.” It occupied one of the old, two-storydowntown buildings. The front of the store consisted mostly of huge plate glass windows, the old-fashioned kind you only saw in old buildings anymore. The rest of the building’s exterior was composed of glazed orange brick, so typical of the Americana of fifty to a hundred years earlier. As had happened in so many small and medium-sized towns in Texas, the down- town merchants of Pleasant Mountain had gone out of business one by one, unable to compete with Walmart and other large chain stores. However, the city fathers of Pleasant Mountain had made a concerted effort to restore and refurbish the downtown area, and it had experienced a rebirth of sorts. This had included keeping as much of the original architecture as possible. Now, although there were still too many boarded up buildings, most of the downtown businesses had tenants that ranged from small cafés to gift shops.

  Stepping to the curb, Nick saw a three-wheeled motorcycle parked in the alley next to the store. Looking closer, Nick saw the bike was a Harley, and it was painted a metallic purple. A black helmet, festooned with small stickers from all over the U.S., rested in the motorcycle’s black leather seat, while polished chrome handlebars, backrest, and exhaust pipes glinted in the sun. All in all, it was an impressive ride! Tearing his eyes from the trike, Nick entered the store.

  A bell located on the door tinkled pleasantly as Nick opened it. Looking around, he saw that unopened boxes and crates were scattered here and there throughout the store. Apparently, the store’s merchandise had not yet all been unpacked and set on display. A broad stairway with a gleaming, dark-wood railing was directly in front of him and led up to the second story. A scarred, hardwood floor ran the length of the store, while the ceiling was made of old-fashioned, white ceramic tile. The store itself was much longer in length than width, and displays of everything from antique furniture to old quilts had been artfully arranged to fit the store’s contours. As Nick continued his visual inspection, a baritone, masculine voice called to him from somewhere in the back of the store.

  “Hold on! Be there in a minute!”

  A moment or two later, the source of the voice walked from behind a stack of crates, wiping his hands on a well-used dust rag. Nick’s eyes opened wide in surprise as he saw that the “man” was only about three feet tall! He was a dwarf—a midget! Thick, black hair was pulled back in a long ponytail that fell past the midget’s shoulders, and both ears sported a trio of earrings, each with a tiny red, white, and blue feather dangling from them. He was wearing black jeans with black boots, and a black T-shirt was tucked into the jeans. A thick, gold chain dangled from around his neck. A broad smile creased his smooth, unlined face, and the age of the dwarf-sized man could have been anywhere from mid-thirties to late forties. Twinkling blue eyes looked up at Nick.

  “I apologize for the mess,” the dwarf said with a warm smile on his face. “We have been open for a week now, but I still haven’t unpacked everything. By the way, my name is Hank, Hank Harper.” With that, he extended his hand to Nick.

  For a split second, Nick stood in frozen surprise before his brain registered Hank’s greeting. Before he could stop himself, the question of What kind of name was Hank for a midget anyway? ran fleetingly through his m
ind as he shook hands with him.

  “My … my name is N … Nick,” he finally managed to stammer.

  Hank apprised Nick with a wry look before saying, “Pleased to meet you, Nick. Is there something wrong? You have a funny expression on your face.”

  “No!” Nick said a bit too quickly. “No, there is nothing wrong!”

  “Say, you’re not one of those people who has a problem with height-challenged people, are you?” Hank asked Nick as he fixed him with an accusing stare.

  “What? No, of course not!” Nick blurted out as his face turned red in embarrassment. “I don’t have any problems with midg … I mean height-challenged people!”

  “You said it! You said the ‘m’ word!” Hank shouted as he stabbed his finger at Nick.

  “Huh? Listen, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to say … “ Nick stopped suddenly as he saw Hank laughing so hard, tears were streaming down his cheeks. His mouth open in amazement, Nick waited until Hank could stop laughing long enough to catch his breath.

  “Sor … sorry about that, Nick,” Hank finally managed to gasp. “It’s just, well, you should have seen the expression on your face!” With that, Hank reached up and clapped Nick good-naturedly on the back. Seeing the shocked and puzzled expression on Nick’s face, Hank motioned for Nick to have a seat in a chair located by the stairway.

  “It’s just an icebreaker, Nick,” he explained. “You see, so many times when I’m around customers for the first time, they behave as if they don’t know how to act around me. First, it’s the staring, then the looking at me furtively out of the corner of their eyes, and when they talk to me, it’s like they can’t carry on a ‘normal’ conversation. In other words, since I’m a midget, they feel they have to treat me differently for some reason.” Hank saw Nick’s eyes widen slightly as he said the word midget.

  Chuckling, Hank said, “Yes, you heard me right. I said ‘midget.’ I’ve never been much of a PC person, so the word doesn’t bother me. God made me the way I am, and I have never thought any less of myself than an individual of normal height. But to finish my explanation, I decided long ago that I’d put folks at ease as soon as possible around me. Therefore, I came up with the ‘offended midget’ act.” As Hank’s eyes sparkled merrily at Nick, he found he took an instant liking to Hank.