How Bizarre, How Random, How.....

Chapter VI-- Everybody but me...

Why he couldn’t say. Just the feeling, just the feeling. As sure as his name was Art Flaherty, he was sure little Charlie McGraw was part of it. Now, if only he could prove it. Now he could prove it if he was careful about his every move, his every sentence uttered. If he could in some way observe him unobstructed, in plain view, he could get the answer out, he was sure, and the answer would definitely point to Charlie the Hillbilly part of some major devious scheme.

That left his buddy Wallace Graham. To be sure, Wallace Graham did look like he might be a much better candidate for being these sorts of secret-society members he had in his mind. Secret societies liked the very sorts of people who behaved like Graham Wallace—quiet, reserved, calculating, family-oriented, oh, what more could a conspiracy that aimed to keep itself under wraps want out of a member but a tendency towards perfect silence, perfect secrecy?

Well, yes, Wallace Graham would fit right in, into a dark room where everyone was suited and wore black sunglasses, where by a big TV screen at one end of the room they watched and plotted the fate of the world. Possibly they’d have members in every continent, in every city and town and these members would all be quiet, unassuming types like his friend Graham. They’d all go about their daily lives with perfect congruity with their elements, raise no ruffle, cause no fuss, cause no one to question their perfect fit with their environment. Then, as the midnight hour came, they’d arise from their sleeping positions, check around to see if everything was all right, pat their unsuspecting wives on their cheeks, give them a dainty kiss or two, and then…..quietly slip away. In their padded feet, they’d make no noise, and the door they’d open without a sound, and then off they’d go to the basement, to the trapdoor that lay underneath even the basement, and into their little unknown cubicles they’d descend, into a room unadorned by anything save what looked like an entire communications kit. This would come equipped with the obligatory computer, and there’d be a little mike protruding out, and after they switched it on and the blips and pulses greeted them, they’d tap on the mike once or twice, to test it, so that no cranky feedback erupted, though of course, that would already have been care of, by means of soundproofing the room, but they’d test nevertheless, for these conspiratorial sorts are also paranoid sorts, jittery to the bone, always wondering if this or that thing they did would not lead to their eventual arrests, and after checking and finding out that everything was okay they’d clear their throats a little, this in happiness, and then they’d proceed to work.

They’d address their fellow agents all over the world, but in code, and so they’d check to see how Country Fish was doing in his part of the world, namely, Perth, Western Australia where there’s country behind and fish ahead, and Country Fish would reply fine.

And that line of work was what Wallace Graham was ideally suited for, he was the perfect plant, tidy enough to fit in perfectly in the Brownville Police Department, and as he was thinking of these thoughts, Graham happened to look at him, and that look Flaherty thought was very enigmatic and probing indeed, as if Graham had already sensed that Flaherty had sensed what he had been up to all this time, and Flaherty gave him a bit of a probe too, and Graham said nothing but gave a little smile, that too mysterious, and turned his head away.

And the kid, wrapped in towels and bedspreads and up to then quit in his unconsciousness suddenly got up and began to raise a ruckus. So loud was he that Charlie McGraw was temporarily confounded and almost lost his footing and almost made straight into the row of trees on one side of him. What’s more, there was a car beside them that almost ran straight into them.

Almost, almost, too many almosts, and that dear boy, Flaherty told himself in his best county Mayo approximation, isn’t a good thing at all.

The driver of the car and his bombshell of a blonde girlfriend got out of the car angrily and the gloriously legged babe, who was dressed in a very short frilled skirt doused her anger by means of resting beside her car and dragging her skirt even higher up. One long well nailed finger she sank slowly in her mouth, her lower lip gloriously bulging outward. Flaherty saw a tooth or two, gloriously white and he imagined her mouth to be smelling gloriously good too.

Sure as hell was boiling, fiery, bubbling hell, gloriously gorgeous babes like her didn’t sprout out of cars everywhere. Everything was adding to his suspicions.

And her angry boyfriend raised his hands up in characteristic rage, and threatened this and that, and out of his coat pocket he took out a card which showed him to be a lawyer, Georgetown graduated, and if this wasn’t enough to impress all the riffraff gathered around, for people who climbed out of eighteen wheelers could be assumed in general never to have heard of a Georgetown, so he produced for their benefit, oh no he didn’t, he whistled, and his bedazzling babe of a girlfriend reached into her bra, gave all and sundry ample view of ample cleavage and from there plucked out a little silver case. Then she walked over towards them, making sure to set her hips in tantalizing two and fro motion, and when she came over, she with one flick of her hand opened the case, and gently pushed that to Flaherty’s face.

Oh yes, she smelt very good, Flaherty thought and as her palm came closer and closer to his face, he almost had a devious urge to run his nose along that smooth white arm, but he resisted. And looked at what she had to show him.

Her boyfriend with a local politician; a really strongman type local politician. He looked just for two or three seconds before the girl had closed it with a clatter, pushed it into her chest, given him another look at her fabulous constructs, and pulled the zipper, and they disappeared from view altogether. Then in the manner she had come to him, she retreated. No, she didn’t give him a look back.

Her boyfriend, or whoever he was, had in that while taken the time to light a cigarette and put on his sunglasses, and when the girl had finished, he came towards Flaherty, patted him on the shoulder, and went back to his car. The matter of his near fatality was obviously solved, and Flaherty, rather than Little Charlie McGraw had seen to it that it was. Then the duo waved to them and pulled away and were gone.

Flaherty looked around to see no one beside him. In panic, he thought of the truck as having left him alone, but that was not the case. The door was open and he made his way up slowly.

“Hey, why did you climb back in and leave me there?”

“Coz I didn’t want to interrupt your lovely moments with that beautiful lady there.”

“Well, she was smoking all right, but….tell me, what’s going on here McGraw?”

“I beg…?”

“Everything seems somehow tied to me. Why? And all of a sudden, too.”

And then he was led to jump by something so horrendous that for a second he didn’t know what it was, and then saw to some relief that it was only a voice, it was only the kid screaming; however, the relief vanished a moment later because it was so loud, so darn loud and he had to shut his ears.

Charlie McGraw had not shut his ears, but he’d jumped over the seat and had come to the side of the kid. How much worse must the noise have been so close. Then he pushed one hand against the kid’s mouth. Flaherty saw the kid’s eyes turn into little fireballs and he could barely help laughing. Wallace apparently had more sense than him, and instead of wasting time laughing he’d gone to get help, and had come back with a towel. The two of them then, McGraw holding the head up, Wallace getting the towel around aimed to set him shut for a long time.

And left the kid writhing and trying to kick his way out.

“Man, this kid’s got some energy, let me tell you.”

“Don’t tell me. I can see. He’s got a lot of energy, a lot.”

“Some tell me he’s gonna break out of that and come chargin’ after us.”

“In that case, lets just pick him up and throw him out,” said Wallace, sniggering, and the kid made a strange face at that. Did he want to get thrown out? Didn’t he? Hard to know, unless he said what was on his mind, but nobody wanted to hear him talk any more.

“Kids one of a kind,” said McGraw, shaking his head.

The kid made some muffled sound, whether in appreciation or in anger, it was hard to say.

“I mean, he was quiet all the way when you were outside, then you come in and all of a sudden, bam he goes. Bam.”

“Yes, its me again,” said Flaherty, wearily. “Me, me, me, this whole things about me. Wish I could figure out why.”

He sat down on the couch equally wearily and rested his head on his palm and by extension his leg.

“ I know, ‘tis a major conspiracy,” said he, “and you’re all in it, every last one of you.”

This pronouncement, the latter part which he did not intend to say out aloud, caused much uproar, with even Wallace Graham joining in. It wasn’t as loud as the kid’s whining screams, but they were loud enough that Flaherty was caused once again to shut his ears.

Wallace Graham pointed to his nose.

“You mean I’m involved too? Me?”

“Hell yes,” said Flaherty, “ I think you, and you, and this little douche here are all involved. As were those two we saw, that lawyer and his godly girl…….”

And at the thought of the glorious babe, his eyes turned a little misty again, but he brought himself out of the reverie by a shake of his head.

“Yes, yes boy, I can see why you’re in that state, all angry with all of us,” said Little Charlie McGraw, with a touch of amusement in his tone.

“Get away from me,” said Flaherty, “ all of you, get away.”

“But what have we done to you,” asked Graham, “and especially,” and he pointed to his nose again, “what have I done? C’mon Flaherty, look at me, look, its Wallace here, Wally, Wally Graham, you remember me, little old Wally from the…..”

“Yes, yes, I know who you are. Its just that….”

“Its just what?” asked Wally, now clearly not the quiet old Wally from past memory. This Wally was a new one, a pushy Wally, a pushy Wally who pushed with his nose and who was coming ever and ever closer to him.

“Now, now you get away,” said Flaherty angrily. “Go, get away, or don’t go, but just keep away from me. Don’t come any closer to me than you’ve come for God’s sakes. Hey, that’s not right. You can’t come closer than that. No, I demand that you withdraw from my side, from my turf, right now. Graham, little Wally Graham, I will not tolerate you coming any closer than you already have, Graham, now, I demand, no, no, no more closer, that’s it, that’s it, I can feel your breath already, and…..oh, damn you don’t you even brush your teeth?”

“What?” asked Graham, scandalized, and his voice sounded like a tire leaking. “What did you just say? That I don’t brush. No, you implied more. You asked me didn’t I even brush? So what else don’t you think I do? And as regards my teeth, let me tell you, a finer set was never seen anywhere. I smell, you say? Well, let me tell you, I brush twice every day, in earnest, making sure that the toothbrush has reached every part of my mouth, and after that, I take great pains to see for myself every bit of my mouth. I open it wide, and pull out my tongue with my fingers and say yaaah, and then I twist and turn so that the insides can be seen from every angle. Lastly, I get a flashlight and use it to see even more clearly what’s inside, and after that’s all done, I floss thoroughly, and even after that I look once more, so you’ve no right, absolutely no right to ask me whether I brush my teeth or not, because as sure as day’s day and night’s night, I do, and as sure as day’s day, I brush during the day, and sure as night’s night, I brush during the night, and often I even brush during the afternoon, but of late that, I feel isn’t quite so necessary.”

“You must have some disease then,” snapped Flaherty, “and really man, I don’t know how I didn’t find out all this time. Its terrible. You can’t be a cop and have such bad breath. How many times did you give parking tickets and have the guy receiving it go okay officer, here’s my money if that’s what you want, here’s all my goddamn money, if that’s what you want, but please, for the love of God, don’t push that in my face. How many times have you heard someone say, please Officer, I’ll do anything, I’ll perform monkey tricks for you, but get away…..”

“I smell that bad?” asked Graham, and tested to see if that was true by blowing into a cupped hand and opening that near his nose.

“No,” he said, “ I don’t smell that bad. I smell okay. You’re lying.”

“For God’s sakes, you don’t smell bad to yourself. That’s because you’re used to yourself by now. But for the rest of us here. Ask McGraw here. McGraw, care to smell his mouth and tell me what you think?”

“Uh, no thanks. It ain’t my business going around smelling other people’s mouths to see if they use toothpaste or not .I ain’t some kind of cleanliness po-lice, you know. Ain’t my business to ask everybody I meet on the street open their mouths wide so I can poke my nose inside. Further, ain’t no business mine to grow a long fingernail and use that to extricate bits and pieces of meat out of folks’ mouths and lick it to see what exactly they ate that day and offer the required bit of punishment, further, no business at all…..”

They all looked to the source of the sound that came, a gurgling kind of sound…

“I think the kid here’s thrown up all he’s eaten today,” offered an unperturbed Charlie McGraw.

“Well, all thanks to you, and you’d better open that thing and let him puke in earnest or he’s going to choke.”

“Aw, there’s gone be puke all over my truck,” said McGraw as he proceeded to do what he’d been told to do.