PART FOUR
(published in 1999)
September rolled around and I had pretty much resigned myself to defeat. I stuffed my journal in my sock drawer and left it there.
Then one day I was over at my Aunt Ethel’s little house north of town, mowing the lawn for a little extra cash. Auntie Eth always tried to help me out when she knew I was low on funds. It was kind of a little game we played, where she knew I’d mow the lawn and wash the windows for nothing, but she’d always slip me some money anyway. And then I’d give it back to her and say, No, no that’s not necessary. Then she’d give it back to me, insisting, and I would put it in my pocket and give her a hug. I’d been thinking about pawning my stereo, but only a junkie would do that.
So anyway, I was out in back by Ethel’s withered, stunted corn crop, when I heard this voice coming from the middle of it: “Go—and they shall be there… Hell Lake is the center. Go and they shall be there….”
Well, I knew I wasn’t hallucinating, because I’d been straight for so long, so I kind of flipped out and went running out of there and got into my car and drove immediately to the office of the Tattler and walked right in on Bill Crocket as he was talking on the phone. I heard him say something about the paint on his BMW before he hung up and turned his attention to me. He smoothed down his off white, tropical weight suit with the palms of his hands. A big gold ring with a single diamond flashed on his left hand. He leaned back in his chair on wheels, put his right hand against his upper lip and eyed me warily.
I spilled my guts and my story to Crocket like a strung out crack addict trying to cop a plea to a hanging judge. I begged him for an advance, so I might make one last foray into Cheeseland. This time I would corner the followers of the horn-ed one; expose them to the penetrating light of investigative journalism. Elton Kirby had a mission.
Crocket looked at me like I’d been huffing Carbona and shook his head. “You haven’t written a goddamn thing that’s worth a shit all summer, Kirby,” he said, opening up his humidor and pulling out a foot long cigar. “That journal, or diary, or whatever the hell you call it, is kind of cute, but I need some real news. I need somebody’s balls on the table where I can crush them.”
“I think I’ve got something this time, chief. If I’m right, we’ll have an entire town by the nads. The mayor, the librarian, the sheriff… we’ll have them all. Please, this is big. Just a small advance….”
“The mayor, you say? The sheriff?” He waved the cigar in a big circle and his eyes grew moist. “That’s more like it, Kirby. I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’ll give you fifty bucks cash and twenty certificates from Sun Seekers—these things are worth at least fifteen bucks a crack.”
“Tanning certificates in fucking September, Bill? It’s still fucking summer for the Christ sake.”
“That doesn’t matter. Hey, find some chicks, some waitresses or something… they’ll trade’em for food or drinks. Tell’em how much of a shame it would be to lose that nice summer tan of theirs—that’ll get’em.” He turned away from me, grabbed a plastic lighter off his large antique desk and began shuffling some travel folders.
I took the money and the tanning certificates and left.
The day was sunny and breezy as I rolled onto the Johnny Blatnik High Bridge. Although my sinuses were a bit clogged up and my stomach was a little queasy, my spirits were high. I stopped at the Hammond Spur station for some of their chicken, my favorite fast food.
The rhythmic snapping of the red and blue plastic pennants on the fuel pump island bid me farewell as I dipped my fingers into the greasy meat and drove back out onto the street.
Soon I was traveling down Highway 2, rolling along with the sunny sky and the semis. Past the sweet corn sellers and the melon stands, the empty motels and the muddy Nemadji River. Past the rusted railroad bridge and the President’s Bar in decaying East Superior, and then on to the four-lane, Highway 53.
A few miles down the road I turned off at the Spooner exit and headed south. A more beautiful stretch of roadway, you would be hard pressed to find. It just begs you to speed, and I obliged.
Really moving now, I rolled past the Middle River, the inevitable piece of road construction and the Lake Nebagamon turn-off. Cattails like Havana cigars and multi-colored weeds swayed and waved in the ditches. The Jayhawks sang from the radio as I hurtled by the junkyard at Bennett. The roadside became a blur when I blew by Stone Chimney Road and Smithy’s Supper Club. Tires hummed on the warm pavement through Solon Springs and by the Village Pump and then the Douglas County forest—which resembles a telephone pole garden. Followed by the Poodle Inn, Gordon, Wascott, Two-Mile Lake, the Deer Farm Bar at the entrance to Walleye Land, the road to Dairyland, the Totogatic River and then Minong—the home of Link Brothers famous store and the highest rate of mobile homes per capita in the region. Back on the open road, I breezed across Stuntz Brook, the road to Lampson, The Little Silver Inn and a farmhouse made of stones.
The countryside began to change. Pines and sand gave way to rolling hills and hardwoods—I was in farm country.
(To be continued)
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