by Nic Saint
He gnashed his teeth, another habit he’d developed since the fast.
“You know, Johnny? I’ll be glad when all this is over and we can hand that stupid bird back to the mayor. Good riddance.”
“Same here, Jer. I really don’t like this bird.”
Moe, as if he understood they were talking about him, cocked his head, stared at them with his beady eyes, and announced, “Dumb-ass! Dumb-ass! Dumb-ass!”
He had a point, Jerry thought.
Chapter 28
“So. What’s it gonna be, boys? We do this thing or we do this thing?” Sarge Ryan eyed the six-man team under his command, and grinned. Standing before them wide-legged, he felt himself being propelled back in time to his drill sergeant days at the academy.
“Sir, yes, sir!” thundered the men in unison.
“Check every nook and cranny of this place, boys, and if you see anything out of the ordinary, report back to me on the double!”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
“All right. Fall out, men, and make me proud.”
The six men shuffled out of the director’s office, located in the power plant’s administrative building, and he watched them with a steely glint in his eye. Not that he expected trouble in this plant, which was as well-run as any under his jurisdiction, but he enjoyed the process.
He dropped his bulk into a chair, which creaked under the strain, and smoothed his straying wisps of gray hair. Seb ‘Sarge’ Ryan was a large man, though the years had turned his muscles into fat, and the barrel-chested drill sergeant he’d been had turned into a potbellied bureaucrat. Not that he minded. His was a cushy job, and as long as he didn’t have to exert himself, and could order others around, he was a happy camper.
“Do you think they’ll find something?” the weaselly little man seated across from him at the desk asked nervously.
“Oh, they’ll find something all right. A rat, dead behind some scalding hot piping, chipped-off paint, displaced tools, bolts not securely fastened… Apart from that? Nothing to worry about, Dean.”
“How can you be so sure?” the other asked, shifty-eyed and flushed.
Dean Chambers, director of this power plant, was a smallish man, with a tuft of hair beneath his nose the color of mustard, and eyes that were far too large for his small head. In his childhood he’d been bullied mercilessly for this aspect of his anatomy, and the nickname Bambi had stuck with him ever since.
“Listen, Dean. You run a tight ship here, and I’m sure your men would have reported anything out of the ordinary a long time ago.”
“Well, one man did. Mark Stokely,” said the director quietly, clasping and unclasping his hands.
“Good man?”
“As good as they come. His wife is Mayor MacDonald’s personal secretary.”
Sarge nodded. He knew the type. The nervous kind, just like the director himself. Probably had seen some piece of concrete crumbling, and like a real scaredy-cat had gone running to mama for help. “Look, Dean, you know as well as I do that concrete degrades over time. But this plant has definitely not reached its expiration date. Concrete like this—” He stomped the floor with his foot. “—will stand the test of time. Give it another decade or so, and we’re gonna start seeing concrete rot. Which needs to be monitored closely. But not quite yet.”
The director licked his lips nervously. “Mark said he saw several cracks. All over the cooling towers. Said he told his supervisor and the idiot did nothing.”
“Who’s this supervisor?”
“Man named Jamie Mason. He’s new. Fresh out of college, in fact. Came to us highly recommended.”
“So why didn’t he raise the alarm? Because there was no reason to raise the alarm.”
“I hope you’re right, Sarge. I really do. Because if this structure is compromised—”
“Which it isn’t.”
“—there will be hell to pay if we didn’t catch it on time.”
Sarge smiled, and picked a cigar from his pocket. “You worry too much. Let my men do their job, and the moment I file my report, you’ll know that I was right, and so was Jamie Mason.”
Dean blinked. “This is a no-smoking building, Sarge. You know that, right?”
“I know,” confirmed Sarge amiably, lighting his cigar, then taking a long puff. “So what are you gonna do about this Mark Stokely?”
Dean lifted his bony shoulders, then dropped them. The sallow tone of his skin deepened when the strong aroma of Sarge’s cigar drifted across the desk and reached his nostrils. “He’s on an extended leave of absence. Mason wasn’t happy that he went over his head.”
“As well he shouldn’t. Soldiers need to respect the chain of command.”
“God, Sarge, this isn’t the army.”
Sarge shrugged. He seemed to feel it was. “If one of my men wrote to my superiors I would fry him. No one breaks the chain of command, Dean. No one. If I were you I would can this Stokely. And sue his whistleblowing ass for good measure. Set an example for the others.”
Dean coughed. “Can’t do that. He’s the mayor’s secretary’s husband, for crying out loud. If I fire him, I’ll have Ted MacDonald to deal with. Play nice with the locals, Sarge, you know how it is.”
Sarge nodded. He did know how it was, though that didn’t mean he had to like it. “Why don’t you let me handle this Stokely fellow?”
Dean’s eyes widened. The prospect didn’t hold much appeal to him. “I think not,” he managed between two coughing spells. “Why, what did you have in mind?”
“I’ll strike the fear of God in the fellow, that’s what I have in mind. Give him a piece of my mind.”
“Just leave him alone. It’s bad enough he’s home right now, just for voicing what he thought was a righteous concern.” He pointed a feeble finger at his visitor. “And I want to see that report before I believe you, Sarge. Mark Stokely is one of the best men I’ve got. And if he says something’s wrong with the concrete, I’m not sure he’s not right.”
Sarge frowned. Double negatives had never managed not to confuse him. “Very well,” he finally said agreeably. Play nice with the locals was a credo he adhered to as much as Dean did, and though he would have loved to kick this traitor’s bony behind, he knew he had to tread carefully. He was a civilian, and civilians played by different rules than the military. Unfortunately. Then his radio crackled, and he excused himself to the director, and put the thing to his ear.
When he heard what the other person had to say, he almost spat out his cigar. “Say what?!”
Chapter 29
Glossy magazines. How she loved the glossy magazines. Mabel let her finger slide along the cover, where a picture of a skinny model was printed, and wished not for the first time that she was half the woman she was—maybe then she wouldn’t be in this predicament.
She couldn’t imagine anyone accusing these skinny models of doing anything wrong. On the contrary. People loved them. All people, even mayors of small towns like Happy Bays. As she traced her finger along the contours of the model’s bony frame, she wondered what her life would have been like if she’d never accepted that job at Town Hall, if she’d never married Mark Stokely, if she’d been a model instead, strutting her stuff on the catwalk and posing for the top photographers in the business.
What if she’d been discovered by Anna Wintour, and had been allowed to carve out a career for herself? Could she have been a Gisele Bündchen, a Heidi Klum, a Cara Delevingne?
She’d been thin once, and pretty, and she’d even modeled some for one of the local boutiques, at the annual fashion show. And everyone had raved about her looks, her sense of style, and her photogenicity.
And then she’d met Mark. Oh, how handsome he was. Classic features, easy smile, big and strong. He’d just returned from overseas, where he’d spent a couple of years touring Europe with his parents, who’d been in the movie business. Stokely Senior was a film director, and took his wife and son wherever he went.
Having tired of the peripatetic lifes
tyle, however, Mark had returned shortly after his eighteenth birthday, wanting to go to college in his own country, and had stayed with an aunt in New York City that first year, then moved with her to Happy Bays, where the Stokelys originated from.
She met Mark ice skating, when she’d almost fallen on her tush, and he just happened to catch her and break the fall. They both tumbled to the ice, and laughed off the incident. He offered her a hot cocoa to warm up her frozen limbs, and the two of them hit it off. Mark had gone on to study engineering at Columbia, and Mabel had dabbled in modeling, but then soon had given up that pipe dream in exchange for a steady job as a junior secretary in Town Hall.
The work was exciting at first, though mainly because she and Mark had become an item, and she’d quickly risen through the ranks to become the mayor’s right-hand woman, quite an achievement in those days.
And then Mark, shortly after graduation, found employ at the local power plant, and the rest, as they say, was history.
Mark proposed, and soon they settled down, and saw their family quickly expand with a baby girl, Natalie.
She sat back and placed the magazine on the coffee table. This was not her style, she knew. She never thought about what could have been. She was a woman happy and content with her lot in life, and never one to complain or reminisce. So what had happened?
Perhaps it was simply time. Time to make a change. After all, she’d worked the same job for thirty years, and so had Mark. Maybe they needed a change of scenery? Even, perhaps, a change of venue? They had savings, they owned their own house, they had options. It wasn’t as if this was the end of the world as they knew it. In fact, why not consider it the beginning of something exciting? A fresh start, for the both of them. They could start life anew, in search of a challenge.
Let the mayor’s wife accuse her of kidnapping that silly parrot, and let those ignoramuses at the power plant accuse Mark of being a liar. They could simply take their Moes and cracks and—
“Honey, have you seen my paisley tie? The burgundy one?”
She looked up as her husband entered, looking as handsome as ever in a white shirt and charcoal slacks. His brown hair had turned gray, but he still had a full head of it, and those crow’s feet around his eyes had even added to his appeal.
“Where are you off to at this time of night?”
“Oh, just something I’ve gotta do,” he said evasively.
“You’re not thinking about going back to the plant, are you, honey?”
“Well…”
“Mark, they don’t want you there anymore. Don’t grovel.”
“It’s not groveling, really,” he said tentatively. “I just figured I’d have another word with Dean. See if we can’t clear this up.”
She shook her head. “Don’t. If they don’t want you, that’s their loss.”
“But, honey, I love my work, you know I do.”
“I know. And I used to love mine. But don’t you think it’s time we had a change of scenery? That the universe is trying to tell us something?”
“Like what?”
“That it’s time to move on. You’ve been stuck in the same job for thirty years, same as me. Perhaps it’s time we make a change.”
He stared at her, not comprehending. “What change? Working at the power plant is all I know.”
“And being a secretary is all I know. Maybe we need to expand our horizons. Try something different. Take a chance.” She lifted her hand to touch his cheek. “You know, live a little. Before we’re old and stuck.”
He pondered this, a frown marring his brow. “You mean…apply for another job?”
“Think bigger. Why not move away from Happy Bays?”
His jaw dropped. “Move away? But Happy Bays is our home.”
She waved her hands. “Well, maybe it’s time to find a new home. Remember how you traveled Europe as a teen?”
He took a seat on the edge of the black leather couch. “Of course.”
“Has it never occurred to you that I might want to see something of the world as well?” She cast him a beseeching look. “Honey, Natalie has flown the nest, our jobs are gone, maybe it’s time we finally travel the world, like we always said we would.”
He pondered this, rubbing his smoothly shaven chin. “It is an opportunity. I mean, I’m still getting paid—”
“You are, so money is not an object.”
“But what about your job? Don’t you want to keep on working at Town Hall? You always said that job is your life.”
She raised her chin. “And now I’m thinking that maybe I was wrong. Maybe there’s more to life than working for Ted MacDonald.”
He studied her for a moment, then grinned. “We always said we’d take that European cruise once Natalie was out of the house.”
“Yes, we did! So why don’t we just, you know, do it?” Enthusiasm was making her cheeks flush. “And you can finally show me Rome, London, Paris, Berlin…”
He swept in, and placed his hands on her shoulders, fixing her with a loving look. “Maybe this ordeal at the plant will prove to be the best thing that ever happened to us, honey.”
“Maybe it will,” she agreed softly, and closed her eyes when he kissed her tenderly. Even after all these years, she still loved this dashing handsome man of hers. “Just maybe it will.”
Chapter 30
Moe eyed his captors critically. He didn’t like them. For one thing, they didn’t know the first thing about grooming. They’d given him the worst snip he’d ever gotten. And for another, they were nasty. Nothing like Ted at all. Ted treated him like a king, always ready with a smile and a compliment and a tickle under the beak.
And then there was Eve, who just loved to teach him new words. She was the one who taught him his latest mantra ‘dumb-ass’. She said they were expecting a visitor, some mayor from a neighboring town she didn’t like, and even showed him a picture. She was right. The guy looked like a dumb-ass. Nothing compared to these bozos, however.
Jerry and Johnny were probably the biggest losers he’d ever met. And they didn’t even give him the good stuff. Just some generic birdseed from the supermarket. If he kept eating this junk he’d grow fat, he just knew he would, and his feathers would start to lose their gloss.
He was a pampered bird, and these idiots didn’t know the first thing about pampering.
“Dumb-ass!” he scratched. “Dumb-ass! Dumb-ass! Dumb-ass!”
It seemed to irritate the small guy most of all. He was growing thinner and nastier by the hour. Good. Served him right for kidnapping the pride and joy of Happy Bays. He was the town mascot, for crying out loud. How can you expect to kidnap a mascot and get away with it? He hoped they would rot in jail for the rest of their miserable lives.
For some reason he hadn’t managed to get under the skin of the fat one. He seemed even dumber than his partner, but that was fine. He usually liked stupid people. They were easier to manipulate. But this guy…he still hadn’t found his button. Dumb-ass didn’t seem to do it, probably because he was too dumb to understand he was being insulted.
He decided to try a different tack, and dropped a dropping on the cage floor, and squawked, “Moe doo-doo! Moe doo-doo! Moe doo-doo!”
The big guy looked up from the comic book he’d been pretending to read, and eyed him with interest. “Hey, Jer. Did you hear that? The little guy said something new!”
Jerry, who sat watching a cooking show on the small TV set in the corner, muttered something that didn’t sound very nice.
“Moe doo-doo! Moe doo-doo! Moe doo-doo!”
Johnny waddled up, his face a question mark. The world of parrots was obviously a mystery to him. “What’s wrong, little guy?” he cooed. “Do you need to go to the bathroom? Huh? Is that it?”
“Birds don’t go to the bathroom!” Jerry cried out.
“Oh? So what do they do when they need to do doo-doo?”
“They do their doo-doo on the floor, you moron.”
Johnny’s eyes took in the floor of
the cage, where a newspaper had been put, the face of a presidential candidate now full of poo.
“Oh, I guess you’re right,” he muttered, then shook his head. “That’s just not right, is it, little man? You want to poo just like the grown-ups do? Huh? That it?”
Moe let out an affirmative croak, and Johnny nodded seriously, his face a frown of understanding. “You know what I’ll do? I’ll teach you how to poop like a big bird.” And with these words, he opened the cage, and put his hand inside, inviting the parrot to hop onto his outstretched finger.
Moe eyed the finger with cocked head. He had to resist a strong urge to sink his beak into it. It would have given him a great deal of pleasure. But he knew he needed to focus on the bigger picture here, so he hopped onto the finger, and allowed Johnny to take him out of the cage.
“What the hell are you doing?” lamented Jerry.
“I’m teaching our feathered friend a lesson in personal hygiene,” Johnny explained, as he carried Moe to the bathroom.
He opened the lid, and set the bird down on the toilet seat.
“This is the toilet,” he explained. “And this—” He pointed to the puddle of water at the heart of the thing. “—is where you do doo-doo, see? You do the doo-doo, and then we flush.”
“And don’t forget to wipe his tush!” Jerry snarled.
“Don’t listen to him,” Johnny advised. “He’s just upset because he’s not allowed to eat.”
Moe stared down at the toilet for a moment. This was the moment he’d been waiting for. So he directed a doo-doo straight into the bowl, and Johnny clapped his hands happily. Then he gave a squawk, and flew out through the bathroom window.
And as he flapped through the night air, he ignored Johnny’s pained cries to ‘come back!’ He was free—free at last!