Brokenhearted in Bakersfield

 

11 - IF IT AIN’T NAILED DOWN

I woke up in a familiar position, under my mobile home and hungover.

Slowly I un-wedged myself from between my coach’s left tire and a cinderblock support, and I backed my butt out.  After brushing dirt and sand from outta my eyes and hair, I looked around in the bright daylight and discerned two shapes fast approaching.  I recognized Hippie Mary and Edna Peevy headed my way.

“Eat this,” Hippie Mary pushed a paper plate of beans with a brown wrinkled weenie at me.  No paper towel this time.  “It’ll make you feel better,” she said.  “I suppose you know you missed the Tenants Meeting?”

I didn’t defend myself; I just stood my ground.  Or more accurately, I just sat on my ground while sopping bun in soggy bean juice to get some more flavor to the dog.

Hippie Mary pursed her lips.  “Not that you missed much.  It was a total freak show, like always.  Only thing different about this year’s meeting was how you volunteer beer-testers were absent from the debate.”

I wiped dripping bean juice from my lips before finally defending myself.  “Is this the thanks I get for my volunteering to check for defective beer?”  Before she could say anything back I asked, “And besides, what debate?”

I noticed Edna fondling a pint hidden in her bathrobe pocket, and I was about to ask her the favor of some hair-of-dog when Hippie Mary scolded, “The debate at the Tenants Meeting.  The Tenants Meeting you missed because you and your friends passed out after drinking all the beer that was supposed to be for the Tenants Meeting.”

I shut my eyes and motioned for Hippie Mary to lower her voice in consideration of my delicate state.  Reopening my eyes I caught a vision of Edna’s robe flapping in the wind, and her slippers trailing dust as she shuffled back to her coach and selfishly took her pint with her.

Hippie Mary resumed in a slightly quieter tone, “Okay, I’ll tell you what you missed.  Pigs Al and Perro were the two mystery guests, as we all expected, and they introduced Ferris and Rosa, like we didn’t know who they were, and after that dog-and-pony show we had the annual debate over geraniums versus cleaning out the septic tank.  When it came to a vote, geraniums won 72-2, and the 2 we suspect were the two Twains.  Then Clem Diddler asked about Ol’ Jack Philpot’s stealing of the improvement funds and poor Lorleen’s Huffy, and that got everyone going.  It was generally agreed Ol’ Jack was a common turd in the fruit bowl of life.  We ranted like villagers with torches and pitchforks about how to bring Ol’ Jack to justice while Pig Al and Pig Perro fingered their firearms.  Doreen Brewster suggested a jury trial and then lynching Ol’ Jack, but nobody wanted to spend gas money to try and go find him.”  Hippie Mary paused then added, “That’s when they dropped the big one.”

I raised an eyebrow, “What big one?”

“In his first official act as co-Park Manager, Ferris informed us Ol’ Jack’s managerial contract allowed him to have access to, and I’m quoting him, ‘anything that was not nailed down.’  And technically speaking, the improvement funds were never nailed down.  But Ferris said it was the legal position of Broken Heart Park that Ol’ Jack was not entitled to steal the improvement funds despite these legalistic details.”

I tipped my head and shoveled back the last of the baked beans.  While chewing and talking with my mouth full, I commiserated with Hippie Mary.  “It sure gets a feller down.  We have been wronged, and we know it.  And all we want is a little old-fashioned vigilante justice for Ol’ Jack, and now we are screwed by all this fancy legal talk about contracts.”  I tossed the empty paper plate under my coach.  “Ain’t it always the way?”

I thought back on my earlier encounter with Mr. Abel Chase, the attorney who’d rode on out the other day wanting us to sue the pants off Ol’ Jack’s corporate sponsors, assuming we couldn’t get back at Ol’ Jack himself.  I figured Mr. Chase would be back to enlist us in a mutual call for class action vengeance, so there was no point in me mentioning it.  Besides it wasn’t like me to be leading no posse or getting involved in a legalistic catfight.  I knew my neighbors, and I knew what was going on inside their heads.  They didn’t really give a shit that someone stole the pie; what really pissed 'em off was that they didn’t get none of it for themselves.  My neighbors more'n likely begrudged an unspoken admiration for Ol’ Jack’s finesse.

Then I heard a lot of hammering noises that set to resonate in my hungover brain.  I carefully propped myself up on one knee, then the other, until I could slowly hoist myself up.  (My head ached, my knees cracked, and my joints twinged.  I tell you, I don’t recover as quick as I did back in the day.)

“Sorry, Mary, I gotta go,” I apologized as much for suddenly leaving her as for a few beans making a noisy if unscheduled departure.  I headed in the direction of the racket to see what it was all about.  I found Cliff Hawkins hammering away like John Henry nailing aluminum pie plates to his picnic table.

I heard some other banging starting up behind my place.  Then off to the other side another pounding noise started up.  I wondered what in the hell was going on when Wally Gomez walked over and tapped me on the shoulder, “You wouldn’t happen to have that hammer I loaned you last month, would you?”  I waved him off telling him Chet Baker had borrowed it from me some time ago, and he’d need to get it from Chet.  Wondering why Wally was looking for his hammer, I asked, “What do you need your hammer for?  And what’s all this uproar about?”

Wally hollered back as he left, “It’s the new Park Managers.  They signed a contract just like Ol’ Jack.  If you got anything you give a shit about, you’d better nail it down right now.”

Well, that made sense.

In the middle of this din and disturbance who should walk by but my hemp business pal, Chet.  “Hey, Chet, was your ears just burning?”

He looked at me kind of sheepish, “If you ever try to nail down major appliances, you gotta remember to unplug ‘em first.”

I distinctly caught a whiff of what stunk like burning rubber bands behind him.  “What I mean is, me and Wally Gomez was just talking about you.”

“Why was you and Wally talking about me?”

“Wally says he’s looking for his hammer.”

“His hammer?  Possession is nine-tenths of the law, as I see it.  And besides, if it is his, then how come it has got my initials carved on the handle?”

“Chet, you should’a been a lawyer.”