by Paul Hawkins
Chapter 5: The 1990's
From Rosalind’s Journal: The Eurotrash
Blaise got out of prison in the 1990’s. He was kind of a basket case. He had fought with the guards a lot and with everybody else. Jude, he was a model prisoner and he got out early, but Blaise just could not stand it there. Everyone deserved a little payback - he got in fights.
When he was released he got dropped at the curb downtown one day with $20 and a cheap suit. Dale and Ray Jr. picked him up and drove him back to the sticks. Me, I was out of the state caring for a sick aunt at the time and was not able to help him, but it was just as well because Fashion Shots had gone under anyway. But Blaise was in good hands with Ray Jr. and Dale. Well, with Dale anyway. And his old Airstream and his dad’s old house were still there, and still in his possession (Ray Jr. having cared for them).. He spent the afternoon cleaning them up. And Dale had taken care of Bess in his absence.
When they drove past the bait shop Blaise saw there was now a filling station there. Sinclair Gasoline. Ray Jr. said yeah, the gasoline people had approached him and asked to add a filling station to the bait shop, and he let them do so provided that they not add a quikee mart – that would compete with his store – and they agreed, and Ray (the car-graveyard owner) let Ray Jr. run that too.
“Nice dinosaur,” Blaise said. Blaise had always admired Sinclair stations solely for their dinosaurs.
“Want to run it?”
“What?”
“Hell, you will need something to do. The gas station gets most its business from the fishermen between 4:00 AM and dawn. They built it out here for the future, for when things pick up, not for now. Hell, I don’t think things are ever going to pick up, but you need a job. You run it - and keep your nose clean. Everyone I’ve hired to run it so far has been trouble.”
Dale nodded. “Keep your nose clean, Blaise - good honest work.”
“And a big fiberglass dinosaur,” he added.
“Yes, there’s that,” Ray Jr. agreed. “You can guard it, too. Local kids come along with bolt cutters at night and try and steal it.”
Blaise puffed up. “Not on my watch.”
“See? There you go. That’s the spirit! Now you’ve got a raison d’être.”
Blaise shrugged. He sometimes got annoyed when Dale spoke French. He did not know what he was saying.
Still, it made Blaise feel good to have a purpose. He made them promise to order him some filling-station-gray coveralls with his named embroidered in red cursive letters.
“And Blaise?”
“Hmmm?”
“There’s doings going on at that old mansion on your acres. The one on Boheme. When you were in jail, you gave permission for some ‘relatives’ of your to move in there, didn’t you?”
“Well yes. They said they were related to us Bohrs from back in Germany - the German man who met my dad when he was overseas. They were kin - they needed a place.”
“Blaise, they said they were interested in completing my father’s experiments. You know that ain’t kind of thing good for you.”
“Okay, I’ll chase them off,” Blaise said.
“You better - you’re on the straight and narrow now. That stuff messes with your head. And Blaise? They’re Eurotrash.”
Ray Jr. turned around from the front seat and nodded at Blaise and said solemnly and ominously repeated the word. “Eu-ro-trash.”
Blaise had heard some Eurotrash music. All strobe lights and spandex and androgyny and blacklight. It made him shudder. He promised he would send them packing, and they dropped him off at the Airstream.
It turns out that sending the Eurotrash packing was not so easy. There was still a lot of anger in Blaise, and something reciprocally angry in them. And there was one pretty girl at the mansion.