37

Chapter 37

That evening, I limped home from an especially blasé day made up of emails to oil companies, conciliatory phone calls to creditors, and the beginning of a termination of one Josef Balderamo, an "employee" who hadn't shown up for work once after his orientation period. This short time in my employ had apparently allowed him enough time to make off with 14 pencils, an empty paper box, and a Scotch tape dispenser. He didn't return my numerous calls or respond to increasingly urgent emails from our secretary, Joan. I hate firing people, but I had a business to run and an environment to save. Josef will have to save himself.
Stepping up to the porch I let out a huge sigh--breathe out the bad, and breathe in the new--and remembered that Bufford and Edgar would be coming over tonight to share their best thinking with Ethyl. I decided to check the mail.

This is something I do infrequently. I suppose I just don't find much there of consequence, and apparently the "solicitor no-contact list" is as farcical as giant sewer alligators and is as useful as having 27 words for "ice" in LA.
That day, however, there was something unusual: a note from my sister in Oregon. I read it on the porch, a lone droplet of sweat from my forehead letting go and tapping against the salutation:


Brody-
On the hopeful assumption of your interest, things are going great for us. We're back from Puerto Vallarta last Monday. David is still dabbling in photography and immersed in being a stay-at-home inventor. It's a good thing that buy-out went through for us or we'd be miserably broke. Stephanie is closing in on 3 terrestrial years now, and Bracken is a feisty 7 months old. All are well and successfully adjusting to life in a quadratic formula.

I hope you're enjoying LA in the summer. I can only imagine. I truly hope to see you around sometime...more likely now that David and I are in-country for a while, if it is ever likely at all. The monsoons have effectively pushed us out of Camaroon for the season; no more trading to be done in the rain; they see it as bad luck. Anyway, feel free to drop by whenever for a lemonade and crumpet...or a beer, a cookie, and a push on the dangerous-but-Stephanie-just-had-to-have-one tree swing.

With love at a distance,
Cynthia

"...at a distance" versus "...from a distance"? It could mean so much. We hadn't seen one another since middle school, when she dropped out to pursue what would become a 10 year degree in finding a well-to-do  husband. I guess I was more partial to girls, one of the million things upon which we differed. Still, we were different but amiable, and I think she felt a sense of pride in keeping in contact with her poor, maladjusted brother out in California. (I didn't say it, she did. Or didn't, which is just as bad or worse). I folded the letter up again, stuffed it in my pocket, and went inside. Mom always liked her better.

There was a sound behind me. Bufford stood in the middle of my yard with a very serious look on his face. Can we just have a nice, normal day with no surprises?

"What's up, Bufford?"

The dog took off his head and dropped it on the porch with a thud. he held up a note. It was scrawled in purple Crayon, apparently from the unpolished hand of a pre-teen...or medical doctor.
"Read this".

I did:

"You no what this is about. You wil find your problem man on  the north beach of Ocho Rios at the Hotl Coyabo. He has paid through Tuesday of next wek. Do what you want. He has th money. You dont' know me."

I read it again.

"You no what this is about. You wil find your problem man on  the north beach of Ocho Rios at the Hotl Coyabo. He has paid through Tuesday of next wek. Do what you want. He has th money. You dont' know me."

Pursuing this was highly unusual, extremely suspect, and totally inadvisable. I said so.
"Bufford. This is highly unusual, extremely suspect, and totally inadvisable. Where did you find this thing?!"
"I decided to work a night shift at Iris and 10th to expand my potential customer base, and found it this morning pinned to the back of my outfit uniform. I'm still at a loss, really. Wha' do you think, man?"

"What do I think? I think selling waterbeds in a dog suit is probably a better alternative to fleeing the country on a vengeful mission sparked by some anonymous cryptic note rife with bad grammar and character spacing."

Bufford looked at me with glazed eyes, like a digital TV signal on pause. He seemed to be holding his breath. There was an urgency in his face and a lump building in his throat. I saw the value of repealing my blanket censure of the idea.
"Well, I suppose I can't really tell you what to do about this. I wasn't the one who lost a perfectly good job complete with advancement opportunities and a personal parking spot. You do what you need to do. Of course, there are things that must be completed before you leave."
"Like what?"
"Like the fact that you're a wanted man and extradition from Ocho Rios is no big deal, and you simply have to give two weeks' notice before quitting your job, to be fair. You don't want to become that which you hunt."
"Hmmm. Good point."
"Tell ya what. Let's you and I go down to the book store tomorrow. We'll do a little research."
"Research on what?"
"How to disappear completely", I said. "For now, you should get a shower and draft your letter of resignation."
And with that, he placed the dog head on the La-Z-Boy and was gone. I stood in silence for a while. Then I was drawn to the dog head. Its eyes stared at me with a look of foreboding. The tongue retracted into its mouth and I heard a low growl. What? My imagination. The pipes contracting in the bathroom shower. Then it spoke.
"Brody."
My adrenaline shot through the sheet rock like oil from a wild cat derrick. I stared at the dog head, apparently now blessed with the gift of speech.
"Brody."
"What?"
"You must support your friend's need for closure. This is important." Its eyes blinked.
"What do you mean? It's dangerous and ill-advised. He should let by-gones be by-gones, and allow the Universal System to take care of the rats in the ship."
"Buddy, I've been around a while and seen a lot. Trust me when I say this will all work out if you just let him do what he has to do. Truth is on his side. I may not look too much like an angel, but that's what I am, more or less. He will decide to pack me along on his trip, though it seems illogical. Encourage it. It's my job to take care of him when you're not around. And in case you were wondering, this is when you pass the mantle to me. Can you deal with that? Can you support your friend in this way?"
Suddenly, the eyes went darker. The energy in the room was gone, like a light had burned out or something. It was again just matted artificial hair and polyester. I came to the realization that I had been having a fairly lucid conversation, spiritual, even, with a dog costume. The Inevitable Question ran through my head, but I didn't feel crazy, just visited by something. Yes--an Important Visitation. And I couldn't shake the fact that Bufford now had a guardian angel in the most concrete way.

Oh, boy.