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Saturday, October 15, 2011

Story Telling For You - Chapter Six c- Gene's right, she always is...

“Look I know what went down, that’s
not the point; I’m still tryin’ to get my mind
around what it means.’  We were back at
my house; my humble abode, actually it
wasn’t so humble, it was a nice little brick
house on the edge of town, and I liked living
on the dead end street.  But where I was when
saying these things wasn’t the issue at all,
the issue had to get settled, we, Gene and I,
were into a mess, deep, and it appeared the
only way we were going to get out was with
a lot of money, and no small amount of luck.

She picked up on my silence,  “what it means,
Chuck is that we have now made even more
trouble for ourselves, and I didn’t think that
was possible.”
“You had the right idea Gene, it just didn’t
happen like we thought.”
“You’re talking like it’s going to work out?”
“How else can I talk?”
“Chuck can you just, for one minute talk
real here- and quit with the dreamy “it
will work out,” non sense?”
“What if it’s not non sense Gene?’
“But it is Chuck, that’s the point.”
“So you say, but what if?”
“See there you go again, I can’t get you
to see how unreal your ideas are?”
“OK Gene I’ll give you that it’s odd, and
that not everybody thinks of such things,”
“No they sure don’t…”
“But that doesn’t mean they aren’t possible,
it may mean, that folks who are living day
to day, just working their way through life
don’t ever get to think that there might be
something different.”
“Chuck, when you first brought this up,
I thought you were crazy, then when I
heard these guys talking about the welding
that they did on the rigs, to keep water from
getting up into the rig, suddenly something
clicked and I saw your idea.  But after all this
Chuck, I think we’re in somewhere where we
shouldn’t be, and I don’t think we ought to
continue to move forward with this.”

She leaned forward on the table, folding her
hands together, her point was a final one.
When she did that, it was her way of saying
that she’d said what she had to say and that
was that.  Usually I went along with that, but
this time, it just wasn’t going to happen.
“Gene let’s back up and think amounts, so that
we understand the real deal, we’re talking more
millions than we’ll ever see, ever.”
“The millions make sense some, I have to admit
that the money would be incredible…”
“Uh huh-“
“But we’re not these kinds of people Chuck.”
“Uh huh-“
“Chuck why do I get the feeling you ain’ listenin’ to me?”
“Uh huh-“
“And so they gave me a thousand dollars
just to dis you, so I’m leavin’ alright…”
“Uh huh- hey, wait a sec, do I get some
of them bucks too?”
She reached across the table and punched my arm.
“Chuckles you got to get serious about this man,
it ain’ goin away now, it’s on us, we brought it,
and I feel scared of those dudes, they are weird?”
“See when you say that to me, it makes me feel
all warm inside, cause I thought I was weird?”
“You are, that’s not the point, they are weird
in their own little “gangster with guns” sort of
way, and I just ain’ used to nothin even close to that.”
Her point was a really good one, one I couldn’t
and wouldn’t argue with, yeah; right.
“What do you want to do?”
“Whoa there cowboy, you tryin’ to put
this on me?  This wasn’t my idea-“
“Goin to see them was-“
“And you said it sounded good, remember?”
“You apparently aren’t going to let me forget-“
“I’m just sayin’,” by now I knew Gene as going
to let the hammer down, it was just a matter
of time, and I figured I knew where she was
going to land it at. “We started down your
path, your idea, your craziness, we didn’t
need the money-“

“Yes we did-“
“No, Chuckles, we didn’t, that was in your
mind, I’ve never bugged you about
money, it’s not an issue to me and
you know it, if it were I would have
left you like those others who left
Jeff holding the bag-“
“Hey, Smadge is a good guy-“
“That’s what I mean, bad deal for
him, but worse deal for them, they
lost a good guy, but babe, I’m not
about the bucks, never have been.”
“So how come you always like to
go downtown and get new stuff?”
“Ah c’mon man, that’s just ladylike,
what, you don’t want me to be
ladylike?”
“Oh yeah, it’s real ladylike getting
us into a shooting match with hoods.”
“Chuck, we might’ve needed what they
were talking about they could do.”
“I hate relationships based on need,
don’t you?”
“Apparently not-“

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Story Telling For You - Chapter Six-b - Magic time

Gene was giving me that look, you know the one,     
she could’ve tapped her foot with it, that look.
“They had guns Gene, guns, these people are criminals.”
“So you thought you could do crime and that
you wouldn’t deal with criminals?  This whole
stealing thing wasn’t our idea Chuckles.”
“Gene’s right man, it’s not what we wanted,”
this wasn’t the time I wanted smadge chimin’
in.  “Guns people, this is serious.” I’m not even sure
what I meant by that?

“Well, la dee dah, man, I’m glad you let us
in on that Chuck with all your considerable
skills.  What’d you come up with, huh, a
rumor, an idea?  Not even an idea, you
overheard some security, no not even
security, former security guy(!) talking about
something he thought he’d seen, and off
you went into lah lah land with us.” 
As much as I thought of smadge, this was
not what I wanted to hear.  “OK. I’ll admit
I got a little heavy handed.”  Evidently what
I’d just said didn’t sit well with Gene?
“Heavy handed?  You don’t remember saying
to me that we didn’t have any guts?”
“I remember.”
“Well isn’t that grand, he remembers Jeff,
great, that’s just great, do you also remember
saying that if we didn’t at least try to back your
play on this, your play Chuck, that we just weren’t
even family?”
“Yeah I did…”
“How could you say that to smadge, I get being
pissed at me, I really do, but smadge?  Chuck,
no smadge no you, remember, out there in the
140 degree sand, in everything you tell me, in the
beans even, and how it stunk like urine constantly
in that damn bio-hazard coffin, what’d you call
them…”
“Green heat,,,”
“Yeah, green heat, that was it, how people threw
up in ‘em, start of the shift, but couldn’t take the
mask off ‘til all clear, how that mine had gone off
and then the fire, and how no smadge draggin
your sorry butt out, and you ain’ here?”
“Yeah I do…”
“So what did you expect Jeff to do, let them
get to me?”
“That’s not the point Gene…”
“Oh, oh great,” she gestured to Jeff, “that’s
not the point?” I remembered a scene out of
a movie – it was a lawyer who was drunk and
he was carrying on about how if he did what he was
supposed to do he’d end up teaching something like
how to take care of typewriters at a Federal Prison?
Don’t know why such stuff pops into my head but I
love movies…guess that’s why?

“Gene you’re goin’ off on me about the something
that turned out wrong, it just turned
out wrong, you said you were going to go
out there and follow up on what you thought
you heard those guys talking about.  When I
said I was goin,  you insisted that it would be
better for me to keep up appearances and just
go to work.  Then I get out of the truck, and
what do I catch, this call?  I think all things
considered, I’m doin’ pretty well?
Pretty well always got under Smadge’s’ skin.

“Pretty well,” Smadge had always hated half baked,
“you think you’re doin’ pretty well?  Chuck I do
really wonder about you sometimes,” he
slanted his face toward me, “what’cha think this
is Chuck, war paint?”  I shook my head no, so he
wouldn’t hit me, “they cut me man, they were ready
to shoot, me, Gene, whatever, they aren’t wrapped
tight, get it, while you’re doin’ pretty well?”
It had all gone south so fast that Gene and Jeff were
caught in a situation that nobody anticipated, we’d
walked into real criminals, and without knowing it, and
now; they weren’t, apparently, just going to let bygones
be bygones- at least that’s what Smithy was getting at
when they found us at the ER.

Alan and Smithy, wow, now there was a pair, but the
question was, of what? 
“We don’t want to have trouble follow us around,
we know we shouldn’t have acted like we did.”  And it
was impossible not to believe Alan, he had those
kind of deep blue eyes that made lying from them
hard to fathom?  “We followed you over here to
see if we could help pay for what we did when
we cut your man there?”
I wasn’t concerned about money- I was, but not
really, know what I mean?  Money wasn’t the
issue, Jeff’s face being cut on, was.
“It ain’ the money.”
“We kinda figured that is why we’re here.”
Gene stepped back saying, “any other reason
you might be here?”  What did she suspect?
“We –“ and Alan stopped, Smithy gestured
toward a cop car pulling into the ER space.
“We are not looking for trouble here dude.”
“Yeah I got that, us neither, let’s just be cool.”
“Works for me,  Al?”
“We might oughta split man?”  He looked at me
like I’d know if that was the right thing to
do?  I cooperated with his head – “well,
walk past ‘em, we’re sayin’ it was a fishin’
accident, they got nothin’ to say.”
That’s what he did, but it was also
obvious, we were gonna see ‘em again.