Story that I am working

I AM LOOKING FOR FEEDBACK.  THIS IS JUST A LITTLE BIT OF A STORY I AM WORKING ON



The Trouble with Earnest



I can remember hearing the old tale about Earnest Witmiller, ever since I was a kid. The story of Earnest started long before I was born or even before my parents where born, in fact the story started in about 1955. That was when a very strange man, with a very strange looking cat moved to Steven Point Minnesota.

Now Steven Point was a small town in the middle of the state. Norman Rockwell could not have panted a more “American” town. The town was the hub of activate for the local farmers in the area. Main Street turned into a state high way about 2 miles out of town. We had the typical main street that ran east and west. Train services back in those days ran three times a day, and one train at night. In 1955 the town’s population was just shy of twenty three hundred. The war with Japan and Hitler’s Europe had depleted most of the males of ages 19 to 35, they  either been killed, injured or gone insane. Fact was about twenty one percent of the towns male population over the age of twenty one where either in the military services or in the reserves. By the end of the war over roughly half of the town’s male population will have been either killed or injured inaction.

But, on this hot summer day little Arthur Olson was not thinking of resent military conflicts but, rather examining some bugs he found on the bushes by his house. When he had noticed a large truck pulled up to the vacated house kiddy counter across the street. Arthur looked up with his short cropped red hair and dirty freckled face was sticking out of his white and blue stripped shirt, his tan short pants where covered in dirt and mud. Sticking out of the legs of the shorts where the whitest pair of legs stuffed in a pair of white hi top sneakers.



This was the most action that the neighborhood had seen since the Christmas holiday parties at the legion last winter. Some of the men folk got so wild that a large fight broke out and half the legion caught on fired. Arthur’s dad and Ned’s dad had to go to the hospital, and then to court the next day. Ned is Arthur’s best friend. .



Arthur lost interest in the insects and walked to the edge of the yard. Arthur had never seen such a large truck in all of his 12 years of existence. Always looking for new friends, Arthur watched the truck, waiting to see if any kids his age would climb down from the cab. Instead three great big men got out, two white and one black. Curiosity getting the better of him, Arthur started to adventure over to the other side of the street. Looking back towards the door, to see if he could see his mother, she was on the phone to Sherry. She was always talking to Sherry.  Between his mother and Sherry, they made up the lion’s share of the towns gossip vine.  Now there where really only about four to six ladies that made what Arthur and his pals called the gossip group.  His mother (Mildred, a tall red head),  Sherry  a stout Italian looking woman.  Who’s rumored to have been from a eastern socialite family back east  before the depression hit.  Olgia Strem, the stereo typical farmers wife.  The Strem’s lived about three miles outside of town.  Olgia had three sons and one daughter.  Rounding out the group was Mabel, she was the newest to the group.  Mable moved to Stevens Point from Stone Mountain Georgia with her husband about three years ago.  To Arthur’s dismay the ladies get together about twice a month.  Arthur’s dislike was not because of any one lady, or how the all talked at once when they did meet.  It was the fact that, when it came time for his mother to host the get to gather, he was expected to help. To Arthur it started the night before with cleaning the whole house with in an inch of its acceptances.  Then came the day of the big event, he would help by brining out the little sandwich's, deliver drinks, pour coffee, clearing tables of drink glasses  Arthur always got the funny feeling that he was being used as a type of mini-butler    Every month each one of the ladies would take turns hosting. Most of this was tolerable and even expectable compared to when the ladies would ask him if he would like to meet, their granddaughters.  The conversation went like this… “Arthur, My daughter Cindy had the cutest little girl just your age.  You might know her name is”  it did not matter what the name was because most likely he did go to the same school as she would , and learned early on when someone says “ she is the cutest thing”. that meant she was as cute as the south end of a north bound mule. 



But anyway Arthur had figured that the gossip vine was unofficially  divided into large sections of the city with each lady taking control of a area.  Like the big maps on those cop shows when they are trying to catch the bad guy.

From what Arthur could tell his mother had the most of the east side of the city.  Sherry had the downtown beat, the fact that her husband owned the bank, and had investments in a few other shops in town.  Meant that she would be would hear things about almost everyone in town.  You could always tell when she had a bit of good gossip.  She would strut around like the queen of England with the smuggest look on her face.  Olgia had the rural beat as it where.  Mabel had the west side of city.

  Now Arthur, after years of being brought to the unofficial meetings of the gossip line get together.  Fancied himself a bit of and expert on information.  As a whole the group hit a 75 to 80 percent average.    With the most best information coming form Olgia ,she did not always have the most news but what she did have was always correct,  witch always surprised Arthur.  The most incorrect  information came from that loud mouth Sherry.  She always had tons to say, and none of it correct.  Mable turned up with the best gossip, what security or single lady had to leave town for a while.  Witch bachelors where roommates.  One time when Arthur’s grandmother was visiting and his mom and her where talking.  His grandmother said you know back in my day we called it “using to much ice”.  This confused Arthur, he figured that this must be a grown up thing.





  But now as Arthur looked back, he could see in mother in the window, she would walk back and forth in the window with the phone in her hand, not noticing the outside world.



As he approached the house he could see that the men had started to move things into the house. When he was at the front of the big black truck, Arthur moved on to the sidewalk. He could not see the men but he could hear them talking.



When he reached the back and saw the men, Arthur could have peed his pants. One of the white guys was staring at him. Arthur had never or will ever see anyone so big in his whole life. The man was about seven feet tall and had arms like oak tree on him and his shoulders were huge, his over developed round shoulders muscles where being held in by the snuggest of whites tee shirt. Infarct the shirt was so tight you could see ever outline of muscle on the mans enormous frame. He had a head of tight curly blond hair cut short. His face was tan with tight skin, like that of over tanned leather. But what made Arthur almost wet him where the bright red eyes, the eyes where as red as two burring red hot embers, and where starring straight at Arthur. He felt as if the man was starring right into his sole. Arthur could swear that he could feel that something was being taking form inside his sole. Arthur was so scarred he could not move.



Within a few seconds of regaining his composure, Arthur turned on his heals and started to run He ran faster than he thought his little legs could carry him. Ran past his house, ran past the neighbors house, he kept running until he thought he could not go any further. Arthur found himself in downtown Steven Point. This consisted of about half a dozen roads. The two most important roads where Main street and in the middle of Main was an intersection where First street ran north and south. These two streets is where most of the business’ in town where on. If you owned a shop or a business you where located on either Main or First street.  Author had been running so fast his right side was hurting, and he was hunched over grasping his side. When Arthur looked up he noticed that he was standing next to Wally’s Drug Store and Soda Shop. Or as Arthur and his friends had been taking to talking in acronym the WDSS, which is where the big kids went after school and on weekends.



As Arthur stood there holding his side thinking of what he saw. Or was his imagination playing tricks on him. Was this all in his mind, like when he was eight he thought he would see “JAPS” outside his window at bed time after he would have spent the night listening to the radio. Or after listing to THE SHADOW, he saw evil figures every where in his room. Arthur had a very active imagination, maybe more so than most 12 year olds of his time.

As Arthur stood there in the heat of the day, he began to think of “what really did He see.” And the more he thought the more, Arthur started to convince himself that he not seen large man with red glowing eyes.



So he started to walk back in that hot, stale humid air of that late after noon in early July. As he was walking along ,he drank in the smells of the town. As he walked along he could smell the oil, gas smell that was coming from King’s Garage and gas station. That was built in the late thirties the construction was that of a sturdy wood frame wrapped in sheet metal a kind of art modern style. With KING’S Garage written in red and green neon rotation on a pole high above the two gas pumps also accented in red and green neon the over hang. Off to the left of the office/ store was a one car stall set up to work on customers cars. Walking along Arthur was now able to get the slightest hit of Sid’s Deli in the hot sticky air of the day. Sid’s Deli was one of the may stores fronts along the east side of main street. Sid was the true thing. He and his family had been butchers in Poland until the Germans invaded in 1939 escaped occupied Poland in winter of 1942.



The mixture of spice and smells wafting out from Sid’s Deli, as he walked Arthur thought he was the luckiest kid in the world to be living in that town. Except when he arrived at the end of the three block Main Street. He found himself standing in front of Tammy’s Beauty Shop; his mother would drag him there once a month to get her hair, finger nails, and a skin treatment (whatever that was). He had been forced to go every since he could remember. He had always found that the smells of the perfume, dies, locutions’ and any of the thousand products that could be used or bought there would make him sick. But, this month he had made a pitch to stay not to accompany his mom to Tammy’s, and much to his surprise she caved in. “Besides, mom, I am too old to be sitting in there waiting. All the old ladies try to pat me like some stray cat or worse yet pinch my cheeks. They all ask the same questions” “Boy! How big you are getting, I have just the right girl for you to meet. GIRLS MOM! GIRLS, you I mean they make it so if you hang out with them you can not do what you want…Gosh they take all the fun out of stuff. And, besides I have to sit in the chairs in front of the window. Where everyone and ANYONE can see you” To Arthur it was the combination between the being seen and the smells that he found hard to take. Infract the last time he smelled the “beauty shop” smell, will be some twenty years later standing over a nineteen year old kid that just had half his chest blown off in a rice paddy, in a country that no one know anything about and in the end we never would.



The fact was his mother had gotten tired of his fussing ever time she went to the Beauty Shop. He did have a point on sitting in the old chairs in the window, made people look a little like they where on display.



When Arthur stopped thinking about the Beauty Shop talk he had with his mother, he noticed that He had kept walking, and now he was standing on the sidewalk in front of the door to the house he had just ran away from. How much time had gone by? Arthur thought maybe not more then 10 minutes. Had he not just seen the moving men and there truck. But now they where gone, the truck was gone also. The door was standing wide open, he could clearly see that. The heavy wooden white door swing inwards it looked so inviting as to be calling anyone, someone maybe him inside.



Arthur started to walk words the door, when he noticed a small black and white kitten walking across the inter way, stopped, started towards the opening of the door. What happened next scarred Arthur as bad as he watched in horror he could not move.

The kitten started to grow, and grow. First, to the size of a small cat, then a large dog, then the size of a horse, As it was growing it was change also, its head went from a small round shape to the shape of a football, and it kept the shape of the football as it continued to grown. Then Arthur noticed that the eye sockets narrowed and started to pull back, the length of its face, as it was doing this Arthur noticed that the eyes stopped being eyes but rather two red slits. He watched as the slits filled up with a reddish liquid. Then the reddish stuff started dripping out if the sockets. It took a few seconds but Arthur could not be sure but he thought the liquid was blood, hot sticky blood. As the kitten was changing into this thing it’s fur went from a soft kittens fur black in color to a charcoal black almost a blue black, author could tell that it was not soft anymore thither a rough cores almost scale like fur sticking up allover this thing. Then the thing opened its mouth. A large black slit with red lips, dripping with the same reddish liquid as in the eyes. With all the furry of a winter blizzard it opened its mouth and made the worst sound Arthur ever heard. A cross between a screech and tearing metal, Just then the front door slammed shut and as it slammed shut. Blood shoot out of the sides of the door frame. Making it look like a geotactic water balloon had hit nine feet of the front of the house.



The next thing Arthur knew was he was standing in his front yard facing his home holding a small tea pot. When he looked around he noticed that the sun was starting to set. Arthur slowly became a where that he was holding something. When he looked at in his left hand he noticed the green on white tea pot. As he kept looking at the tea pot studying the light green rose painted on either side of it, he started to become vaguely aware of a voice calling his name. Arthur, Arthur!  Get in get in her, and why do you the tea pot?

　

　

Now that you've ridden in my Rocket '88,

I'll be around every night about eight.

You know it's great, don't be late,

everybody likes my Rocket '88.

Gals will ride in style,

Movin' all along………Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats Rocket 88





Arthur was standing facing his home from the driveway. Arthur’s family lived in an early thirties white stucco A frame home. All of sudden the front door ripped open, and a tall skinny lady dressed in a light yellow and blue dress, her outfit was furthered accented by her fire red hair. Arthur could see this ladies mouth moving but he was only vaguely a wear of her making any sounds. "Anther, Anther!" Anther was then shocked into the here and now. He saw his mom was still calling his name. Author stared to walk towards the front door. "Where have you been? And whose tea pot is that?" Arthur looked down in his left handle noticed he indeed have. A tea pot in it, His mother rapped fire questions and statements where still coming. Like do you know what time it is, and you almost missed dinner, and the best one of all, “wait until your father gets home“. Arthur did have to admit he wished he had answers for at less two of the questions. Could he tell his mother about the new neighbors, the very strange cat, and something about that door too? He could not remember what it was, in fact the whole late afternoon was becoming like a dream, and fading just as fast.



As Arthur walked into the house, he could smell dinner cooking. As he entered the doorway he looked over at his mother who was looking like she had not forget that she had asked a number of questions, and was looking for some answers. All that came to Arthur’s mind was to tell her that he had been over across the street at, looking to see if the new people had kids his age. “Well? Said his mother, “Do they?”

That was funny thought Arthur, he could not remember. He could remember some moving men, something about a car. But, he could not recall meting the new owners and nothing about kids his own age.



“NO, no. I did not see any kids, just the moving men”.



“Well that’s too bad, maybe when the owners move in things will be different” she said. A nagging thought of how right that statement would be kept neighing at him, but he could not know why.



As Arthur was thinking of the new neighbors and why he had odd thoughts. He climbed the stairs up to his room. When he got to the top and started down the hall towards his room, he noticed that he still had that silly tea pot in his hands. As he passed a small wooden table Arthur sat the pot down, and kept walking. What he failed to notice was the small puff of greenish and white power that came out of the spout. It was so fine it was as fine as face power; it twinkled momentarily in the rays of afternoon sun that was being let in though the single window at the top of the stairs, and then vanished.

When Arthur got to his room, he looked at the alarm clock on his dresser. It read about 4:15, he had been outside for the last four hours. How could that be, he should be sunburned all over he had been wearing short pants and his legs where not even red, and his face did not have that tight felling that you get when you burn you cheeks. Well he just dismissed the thought, and picked up the mad magazine that was on his bed, and flopped on his bed starting to read it.

Arthur did not remember just when he drifted off to sleep, but the next thing he knew. He was facing a tall very strange man was sitting in an oversized wicker chair on a nondescript porch. The man was dressed in all black, black pinstriped pants, black shirt, under his back pinstriped suit coat. Black wing tip style boots, and to finish off his outfit a black tie. Next to him sat that white and green tea pot Arthur had brought into the house. The man himself looked to be well over six feet tall and somewhere north of sixty years of age, had a long oval shaped face that was well tanned, with a short cropped white ring of hair on his other wise bald head. Next To him wads that same black and white cat that was in the doorway, and on the other side of the chair was that tea pot with a light green steam coming out the spout.  As Arthur started to walk up to the porch the man stood up to his full height of 6 feet 2 inches and, simultaneity the cat let out an earth shattering screech. Just then Arthur sat straight up in bed. I must have fallen a sleep said Arthur to nobody in general. As he looked around his dark room every thing looked ok, as he got out of bed Arthur could smell dinner . If Arthur had not been thinking about his odd dream he would not have missed the table where he placed the tea pot, and he might have noticed that it was missing. All except a small dusting of a light green power resting on the white light white tablecloth.

　

　









Chapter 2



Ya' ask me what kind of car am I drivin'?

Well, Uh...

I'm tellin' ya' baby it's a runnin' thing

I could reach a groove a'baby .. get a gear

I think I could take it a'right outta here __Josephine, George Thorogood





Mr. Olson was leaving his office in the county Courthouse on this late hot afternoon. The Courthouse was located on the corner of 12 Street and Vine.  The Courthouse was an old four story gothic structure built in the 1880’s with its sandstone and marble, the building squatted on the corner.

Mr. Olson, Arthur’s dad, had just locked his office which was located in the back of the building on the third floor.  As Mr. Olson was walking down the marble floors, he had his suit coat slung over his right shoulder.  In the other hand he held his brown valise loaded with papers and his brown fedora hat.  He still had work to get done today, but since the hour was getting late and the building did not have air conditioning and the small army of fans that were deployed throughout the courthouse, were sorely under powered to keep up with the demand he decided to head home.

As the result of the building’s exposure to the sun’s rays and heat all day, the building had turned into an oven.  The air was stuffy and stale and by the time Mr. Olson had arrived at the large staircase, he was starting to feel sticky.  His face had turned red and beads of sweat had started to form on his face.  As he made his way through the halls, he would stop and take a second or two to talk to this person or that.  The fact was this was the part of the job he loved, talking to co-workers or whoever was around. Even though the air inside was not moving and hot, he took time to talk to people.

The smell of the ancient building and the stale cigar and cigarette smoke surrounded him, the sound of the typewriters rattling away, and the undistinguishable chatter that always seemed to hang in the air.  He had always been a prosecutor, always fighting for the rights of the underdog, even when he joined the army.

The Army, now that was a different time, and a different place.  He could remember when he got the job of assistant to the assistant to the prosecutor after coming back from the war.  Mr. Olson thought, and rather correctly, he could not remember ever talking about his war days to anyone.  The closest was when his wife tried to have him open up on what he did over in Germany.  That always ended in a large fight, with him almost striking her.

When Mr. Olson exited the building, it was so bright he had to shield his eyes for a second, after putting the fedora on his head.  He started to walk over to his car, a 1951 Buick Road Master with the fireball straight eight, and dark green in color.  He had gone up to Minneapolis one Saturday morning and that afternoon came back home with the car.  It had nine miles on it when he drove it off the showroom floor.  He was able to pay cash for it.

Tim Olson was the county prosecutor, and had been since 1950.  Timothy Arthur Olson was forty three years old. Tall, skinny, around six feet tall and weighing about 180 pounds, with a face as round as an October pumpkin.  With a lightly tanned face, strikingly handsome features and the same short, red hair as Arthur, but styled in the fashion of the day.  Tim was thirty one when war broke out with Germany and Japan. He had just finished law school up state.

Tim was one of those lucky few people that had the means to go to college during the dirty thirties.  He was going to go into practice with one of his old college roommates, but December, 7 1941 put an end to that idea.  Like all of the men in town that week, he took the two hour train ride up to Minneapolis to sign up with the Army.  As he was standing in line with what had to be over a thousand men waiting their turn with the intake officer, Tim was recalling the now famous December 8th speech by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  When after about three and a half hours, he had reached the row of desks where the intake officers were trying their hardest to process and sort through the thousands of people that must have tried to join up that week.

The intake officer was dressed in a long sleeved, light brown shirt, brown pants, brown belt, tan face and short cropped black hair.  Looking all of about 24 years old, he talked with a southern drawl, firing off questions at a machine gun rate toward Tim. “Name, Date of Birth, how much schooling do you have, address, social security number if any, all medical illness you have had, etc.”  After the questioning he was given some papers to fill out and sent over to a desk behind the row of intake officers. As Tim walked over to the desks, he looked down at the paper and noticed that all of the questions were the very ones he was just asked, but on paper now.  The last page was a blank white sheet of paper with the “OK, for Possible Air Corp” stamp.

Tim found a desk and began to answer the questionnaire.  When he was done, he stood up and as he did, a very young man dressed in the exact same fashion as all of the other intake officers in the room were dressed walked over to him snatching the papers from his hand with his right hand.  He then looked them over, sighed and said in a local accent, “Follow me”.  They walked over to an officer in the back of the room.

Tim guessed that by the voice of this kid he could not have been more than twenty years old.  Inside the office there was a large wooden desk with about four people looking over mounds of paper that covered the top of the desk, and they were all talking at once.  When the kid stopped in the doorway, all four men looked up.  Tim could tell that two of the men were about the same age as the kid in the door, and the other two might have been around his age.  Immediately, they all stopped talking. “College boy,” said the kid in the doorway handing Tim’s papers over to one of the older men.  With that, he turned and walked back to the row of desks up front without saying a word.  The man with his papers looked them over and then said, “Be ready to ship out in a week, do not try to find us.  We have your address and we will find you.  Oh, and welcome to the Army.  The Lieutenant will get you the right forms to fill out and show you out,”

Tim had been engrossed in his thoughts of his induction into the Army and had drove home automatically not even needing to consciously think about what roads to take, where to turn or how fast to go.  Tim could not recall the drive home as he walked into the house.

As Arthur walked down the stairs he could hear his father coming into the house. It must be around 5:30, thought Arthur.  His father always came home from the office at 5:30, just like clockwork.

As Arthur was watching his dad put his hat away in the closet, his dad caught his eye and began to speak. “Hi, Sparky, how was your day? What did you do today?” asked Arthur’s dad.

“Nothing much, Ned is out of town visiting his aunt for the week,” said Arthur.

“I saw a moving truck heading this way from the office earlier today,” said Arthur’s father as he sat down at the kitchen table.  He pulled a novelty ash tray toward himself, and produced a pack of Camels.  Removing one from the pack and placing it in his mouth, while his other hand reached inside his suit coat pocket and produced a silver lighter.  Flicking open the top, he touched the flame to the cigarette. Arthur watched as his father expanded and then contracted his chest followed by smoke rolling out his nose.

As Arthur was watching this, his mother came into the kitchen, and as she started to set the table she said, “I know, they pulled up to that old vacant house across the street. Arthur went over to see if they had any boys his age.”

“Well?” asked his dad.

“Well, what?” Arthur asked as he moved his arms so his mother could place a plate and glass in front of him.

“Do they have any kids your age?” asked his father.　

“No, there wasn’t anyone home when I went over,” said Arthur trying to remember something, but for the life of him he could not remember a thing.

“That’s’ funny, you were over there for hours,” said his mother.

“If nobody was there, what were you doing that whole time?” his mother asked as she leaned over the table, putting the last of the roast beef dinner on the table.  As she sat down at the table she gave Arthur an inquiring glance.

Arthur could only look at his plate of food and wonder why he had been over at an empty house for hours and now could not remember why that had been the case.  As the thought over his actions of the day, he vaguely remembered being downtown for some reason.  Boy!  He wished Ned was home so he would have had someone to go and explore the vacant house. He thought that tomorrow he might see if Steve was around.  That did mean riding his bike to the other side of town though.  Even with that, it would beat out another day home alone, at the mercy of his mother.  He knew that she would not let him get out of helping around the house if he was just moping around.

After dinner, it was a family rule, well more like a law than a rule that you helped clean the table and wash dishes.  Now that Arthur was twelve, his job was the “washer”. He would fill the sink with steamy hot water and add the dish soap.  His mother always used Joy detergent in the liquid form.  He thought his mother used Joy dish detergent not because of how well it worked, but rather, because of how nice the advertisement had been in the magazines and on TV.  The fifties would become known for being the golden age of advertising and ad men.  Arthur found that hot water and elbow grease seemed to do the trick most of the time alright.  His mother would rinse the dishes and his father would dry. All of them would put them away.  It would be two decades before his parents would have or use an electric dishwasher, and they will be well into their golden ages by then.  But for now, Arthur liked the ritual of doing dishes, just the three of them. His baby sister was still two years off, and that would come as a surprise and shock to everyone.

After dinner and when the dishes were done the rest of the night would belong to Arthur, until school and homework started back up again.  This summer he would mainly hang out in the backyard and tinker with his kites.  His grandmother Grahm, his mother’s mother, had bought him a kite for his ninth birthday.  He could remember putting it together with his dad on the workshop bench in the basement.  The smell of the acidic model glue, the freshly cut and sanded balsam wood, and the feel of the thin cotton cloth that would be stretched over the skeleton of the kite were fresh in his mind. Then afterwards, running up the stairs, dashing out of the house, opening up the door to his father’s 1936 dodge and throwing himself into the passenger seat, he would wait for his father to come along.  Slowly, he would emerge from the house and climb into the old car and drive off to the football field at the high school.  Sometimes his mother would be along but for the most part it was just him and his father.

But today, Arthur was content with reading his comic books, and watching TV; Texaco Star Theater was his favorite.  It was a comedy variety show hosted by Milton Beryl.  It usually came on around eight o’ clock.  In the summer, this was not an issue, but during school season, that would be a whole other issue, as dishes had to be washed and homework had to be done and checked.  If it was English or history dad could look at it. He was very, very good at both topics, after all he was a lawyer.  If it was math or health homework, that was his mom’s department.

The golden rays of light in the sky became a dark blue and then dark with millions of white freckles as far as the eye could see.  A large, lumbering bright orange ball hung in the foreground.  Hanging like a piece of child’s artwork, handing like it was being held up by an invisible string.  The late evening has giving way to night.  This would not be any ordinary night for Arthur.

Back inside, the time had slipped away and it was going on nine o’clock.  “Time for bed Arthur,” his mother said from her chair.

Arthur looked back over his shoulder at his mother. He had been lying in front of the TV watching Milton, long ago abandoning his interest in the comic he had been looking at earlier.

“Really, mom,” said Arthur

“Art!” his dad’s voice said from the chair next to the one his mother was sitting in with only a table in between them.  The table was stacked with file papers and a few law books, and an overflowing ashtray.  “Do not do this.  It is late and you need to brush your teeth and get into bed now,” his father explained.

Looking at his father, Arthur saw that he had been reading law files; his head was hidden behind one now.  All Arthur saw was the outline of his father’s head, and his dad’s hands holding up the file, with occasional puffs of smoke rising up.

“Ok” said Arthur getting up.  He did not expect to be granted any extra time to stay up.  It was like looking inside pay phones for forgotten change, once in a while you got lucky.

As Arthur got up he looked back at his dad and started to go upstairs, and thought to himself, boy is he smoking a lot, lately.  But, lots of people smoked.  Even his own mother would smoke once in a while.  Almost all of his friends’ parents smoked. But not like this, he must be under some stress at work or something.  As Arthur entered the bathroom and started his nightly ritual of washing his face and brushing his teeth his mind switched topics and his father’s smoking habit flitted out of his mind.

Arthur ventured into his room to get his pajamas and went back into the bathroom to wash up.  He removed his dirt stained shirt along with his grass stained pants, tossing them into the wicker hamper in the far corner of the bathroom.  He then turned, facing the oval shaped mirror just over the sky blue, free standing sink.  Reaching over he set his soap in between the hot and cold faucets.  He then turned on the hot water and grabbed the ivory soap bar.  Looking at himself in the mirror he ran his hand with the soap under the water, and began to lather up the soap in his hands. Dropping the soap mindlessly into the sink he closed his eyes and began scrubbing up his face.  After a few minutes of washing his face, Arthur cupped his hands under the running water and splashed his face.  He repeated this process a few times, with his eyes closed he started to grope around the edge of the sink for the towel he had hung over the side.  He was franticly slapping his right hand around the edge of the sink looking for the towel, when “slap!” his fingers hit some dry power.  After a few more seconds of groping the edge of the sink, Arthur found the pink towel he had placed on his left side.  He then wiped off his face, turned off the water, pulled the white plastic stopper out of the sink and watched the water with great fascination as it swirled down the drain.

It was not until he went to hang up the towel that Arthur noticed the light green powder on his hands.  Not thinking anything of it, "must be from the soap,” he thought as he turned the faucet off.  As he turned to leave the bathroom, he noticed the tea pot on the back of the toilet.  It was the same light green one that his mother noticed in his hands when he walked in earlier.  The lid was off and sitting next to it.  A light green trail of the powder was trailing from the pot to the side of the sink.  Arthur walked over to the pot and placed the lid back on, "how did that get in here" he asked himself.  Befuddled, he walked out of the bathroom rubbing his hands together as he turned out the light.

Not noticing how tired he really was until he fell into his bed, Arthur had a ton of thoughts racing through his head.  But most of them led him to feel like the whole day had been an unusual dream.

The day had been a very hot one with temperatures reaching well into the 90’s and the humidity hung in the air like a wet burlap sack.  At times, it felt like you could not breathe because of the thickness in the air.  The weather had been hot and unbearable for the better part of the last two months.  A quick storm would pop up once in a while, but would not offer any real relief.  As Arthur drifted off to sleep, storm clouds were gathering off to the west of town, and would soon be opening up and producing lots of rain.

It was somewhere around two in the morning when the deafening crack of thunder followed by the blinding flash of a cloud to cloud lightning strike shook Arthur awake.  Arthur shot straight up in bed and looked around.  Another quick flash of lightning filled his room casting shadows along the wall for a split second then the sound of thunder rolled.  Arthur got out of bed to close the window next to his bed.  He reached up to close the window and stopped.  As he looked outside, down on the street, under the corner street light was a man leaning against a long black car looking up at him. Arthur quickly turned back towards his bed.  After a few seconds he looked back out the window, and the man and his car were in the driveway.  The man looked back up at him and with a wave of his hand beckoned Arthur to come over to him.  Arthur waved back automatically out of instinct if nothing else.  He knew that going out, was not an option that he should entertain.  But nevertheless, he felt this very strong urge to go outside. He could hear himself silently saying, “go out and talk to him, you have to do this, there is no other way.”  Well, Arthur thought that it was his voice that he heard but as he was pulling on his dungarees he could not be sure.

He was out on his front step quicker than he thought possible.  As he walked over to this stranger who was once again under the street light, he wondered what he was doing.  Arthur was then face to face with the man, who towered over poor Arthur who at the age of twelve was quite a bit smaller.  The fact was the man was about five feet seven inches tall.  He could see that this man must have been in his mid-thirties.  He had coal back hair, greased back and pulled into the style of a ducktail.  He had a baby face, the face of someone who did not have a care in the world, and at the same time there was an almost indescribable hardened, weathered look to him.  His eyes, Arthur noticed were set deep in his face; they looked to be dark green, almost black. They were eyes that had seen a great many thing in their time and most of it bad, thought Arthur.  There was something else, his skin; Arthur thought the man had an almost greenish tint to him, but this must have been a trick of the light.

The man was leaning on a jet black 1951 Oldsmobile custom; the man motioned with his head for Arthur to get in on the passenger side.

Now being like most twelve year old boys, Arthur was fascinated with hot rods. Whenever he could, he would buy the newest hot rod magazine or whatever other car book he could at the corner drug store.  He would read how guys out on the coast were building up pre-war Ford and Chevy’s, and racing them.  In 1953, hot rods and custom cars were a rather new thing.  Arthur was excellent at identifying makes and models of cars.

The first guys to really tinker with hot rods were guys that got back from world war two.  In the service, they were used to fixing trucks, tanks, planes and a thousand more type of vehicles.  So it was quite natural that when they got back home they would apply what they learned and come up with hot rods.  Arthur looked at the Olds, it was everything he read about, chopped, dropped, shaved, and he could imagine that there was a Fiesta V8 Engine under the hood.  Arthur could not believe his eyes as he walked around the front of the car and came to the passenger side door.  With a pop sound, the door sprung open, and Arthur got in.  With a metallic pop, the driver’s door opened and the man slid in behind the wheel.

I need to stop here and explain some terminology for those who are not custom car types. Chopped means that the roof was cut off and a certain number of inches were taken out and the roof reattached. This was done to give the car a more arrow dynamic and sharper look.  Dropped means you lower the car closer to the ground.  This is done in a number of ways today.  Custom car people do this to their vehicles merely for looks. This is one thing that caught on in the early years of NASCAR.  This was done to have the car closer to the ground, thereby reducing drag on the vehicle, resulting in increased horse power and speed.  Today, if you look at a professional NASCAR race car the body is almost on the ground.  Shaved means that the door handles were removed from the car.  Today, the doors would open using a remote key fab, but back in the 50’s if a person “shaved” the doors, he might have a hidden button on the car somewhere.  You would push the button and the doors would spring open. There were a number of ways that guys would set up their hidden buttons. 　

As Arthur sat in the car, he looked around and even in the dim light of the street lamp he could not believe his eyes.  The interior was a black and white stripped pattern on the seats, with a black leather headlining.  The dash was two toned, the top part was jet black, with the bottom portion was a smooth, pearl white.  The smell was something unusual too, a cross between an old barn and new leather mixed in with the smell of old spice aftershave lotion.

As Arthur was looking at the chrome that covered the middle portion of the dash, and housed the heating controls, the man started the car up.  With a thunderous explosion the Olds 88 came to life, simultaneously the car shot away from the curb like a rocket.  Arthur grabbed ahold of the dash, both trying to brace himself and pull himself forward at the same time.







Chapter 3

I wanna do it in double time

When I take a ride in my car

I let 'er roll

Hear me, I said I let 'er roll

I like to feel that wind in my face

Nice and cold

If you chicks are timid

You just better turn back

'Cause when I take a ride in my car

It's gotta be action packed

Action Packed…..Ronnie Dee