Monday, July 25, 2011

Condos A Fire part 10

Digby walked into Banana’s about 11:00. He figured he would grab a beer before the Elder showed up. As he saddled up to the bar, he checked out the clientele. In one corner were two liquor sales representatives having lunch. At the table near the big window was a women and man. Digby had seen the women before. He walked over to say hi.
“Well hello Ms Swench, how have you been?”
“Hi Digby, I’m good, nice to see you again. This is my friend, Monte Spinker, he is in town for some business.”
Monte stood up to shake hands, he was a tall, well built man who obviously worked out some. His hair was neat and just starting to turn gray around the edges. His handshake was firm and deliberate.
“Nice to meet you Digby, have you know Ms. Swench long?”
“Yea, it’s been a few years now, I’ll leave you two alone, I am expecting someone my self.”
Digby went back to his stool and climbed up. He noticed from the speakers was coming,
“,,,,we’ll ask the lord to forgive us for all our sins,, then we’ll look at the latest in gold-plated firing pins,,,,,”. “Gun Sale at the Church” by The Beat Farmers.
“Hey Digby, need a beer? Where’s Waffle”
“Yea to the beer, Waffle is in love, kinda busy right now.”
As the barkeep slid the beer to Digby, he said, “You know them folks over there?”
“I know her, just met him, why?”
“They been being all gooey and mushy since they been in here. Must be a first date?”
“Maybe you should be a pal and put on some more romantic music.”
“True, true.” Barkeep began to rifle through his i-pod controls. He stopped when some Roy Orbison came up.
“There, that may help.”
The Elder walked in right at noon and sat next to Digby and ordered a beer as well.
“You up for this Digby? Where’s Waffle?”
“Waffle is busy entertaining your cast offs, by the way, did you know there was 3 of them?”
“Yea, actually I heard there may be 5 all total.”
“Great, yes, I’m up for this, you ready to go?”
“Lets roll.”
They climbed into Lucille and began heading south. They arrived at the site where the dump trucks had been spending the daylight hours idle. They pulled into some bush to hide the van and quietly got out. They snuck around the edge of some buildings and crawled under a fence. All the trucks were lined up like sleeping dogs. They all seemed to have a full load of dirt in them as well.
“Gimme a boost.” Elder told Digby. As he was boosted up he pulled his self up on the edge of the dump bed. The nylon cover was in place and he lifted it up. Underneath was a pile of dirt,, or was it. He poked a finger into it. It was not dirt but a plaster fake pile of dirt vel-crowed to the sides of the bed to give the impression the truck was full!
He lifted the edge, gave Digby a look like ‘watch out for us, I’m going in’. With that he dropped into the empty truck bed. He hit the cold steel floor and pulled out his mini-mag lite. Shinning the light around, he saw there was no dirt anywhere. He found a 55 gal drum in the front. He lifted the lid and peaked inside. It was full of a slimy mixture he didn’t recognize. He pulled out a film container and scooped up a sample, returned the lid and climbed back out. Once back out he told Digby what he had seen and said, “let’s get out of here, I got to analyze this stuff.” They all but ran back to Lucille and hi-tailed it out of there.
Bouncing back up the road, the Elder was deep in concentration. You could tell he was just itching to learn what this substance was.
They pulled back into Banana’s parking lot and the Elder said goodbye as he hurriedly made his way home. Digby went back into the bar for a beer.
“Barkeep, how ‘bout another beer?”
“Sure, what you guys been up to?”
“Oh man, its turning into cloak and dagger shit, I don’t know if I’m cut out for it”
“You’ll be alright with the Elder around, I think.”
The couple in the corner were even closer now and there was an impressive stack of wine bottles growing. At the point they got up to leave. On their way past Digby, Ms Swench says, “see ya around Digby, we are going back to Monte’s room at Tortoise Inn for a night cap.”
“nite cap, it’s 2;15?”
She just smiled and they went on down the stairs.
Digby spun back around on his stool, “What the fuck, every body is getting laid but me. Got dam Waffle has 3 babes, I got,, shit that’s what.’
Barkeep slid him another beer, “Here’s one on me.”

As Cris Rea’s tune, “Road to Hell” was playing, Digby hung his head and began to have second thoughts,, about everything,,,,,,,,



The Elder opened the door to the storage area above his kitchen cabinet.
He pushed away the Rival crock-pot, the box for set of knives, some miscellaneous items he has not seen in years, and found what he was after. A plain brown box about the size of a shoebox. He carefully took the box and stepped off the chair he was standing on.
He took the box to the computer work area and removed the lid. He took out a large wad of bubble wrap and began un-wrapping it. He got down to the item inside. It was cobalt gray, the size of Sony walkman. On the top of the item, printed in gold letters was the name,
“Substance analyzer 4000 by Spectron Labs” serial # 003. He untied the USB cord and plugged it into an unused USB port on the front of the computer. Setting the analyzer in the stand provided, he pushed the ‘power’ button. The unit whirred to life and slide out its tray similar to a cd drive. He took the film canister of sample and swabbed a tiny bit onto a glass slide. Then laying the slide on the tray, the unit retracted the tray shut. A screen popped up on the 32inch monitor. He typed in a password and then clicked the “analyze” button.
The screen started to scroll through lots of items to fast to read. It offered the warning,
“This could take a few minutes.”
There were only 4 of these devices made by Spectron Labs and this was #3. The others were used at Nasa, the C.I.A. and the Library for common studies in Botswana. The other 3 have obvious needs, but how did Botswana get one?
So, he sat back to wait.


Digby walked up the beach from Banana’s and turned in at the container. He noticed the Yamaha was back together and appeared ready to go. He caught a whiff of a familiar scent as he made his way across the sand. He reached the deck area and saw Waffle standing by the picnic table with his back to the beach. He was wearing a chef’s hat, an apron, and flip-flops. You could see his white, hairy, ass with the apron strings tied just above it. The apron had a saying on the front, “check out the cook’s sausage” He was checking something on the George Foreman grill. At that minute the girls, all three of them, came from the container, giggling as usual.
“Hey Digby, you want some chow? I got Spam and pineapple done here, smells great.”
The girls were already lined up with plates in their hands.
“Yea, save me a piece or two, it does smell good. Have you washed your hands lately Waffle?”
“Huh? Oh, yea, not long ago,, need a beer? The truck from Walton’s made a delivery today. Caught me with my pants down, so to speak.”
“Yea, beer me.”

1 comment:

aroundthecorner said...

I set on the edge of the chair waiting for each new installment....."GO WAFFLE" might be my new motto!