2

 

 

The Gulf of Maine stretches from Cape Cod to Cape Sable, its waters lapping the shores of three American states and two Canadian provinces.  Along the extensive coast, dozens of freshwater rivers feed a host of teeming estuaries.  On the Atlantic side, the cold Nova Scotian current pours in through a deep channel separating major fishing banks.  Over the years, the Gulf of Maine has been a very popular fishing hole.

 

The earliest known fishermen in coastal Maine were the Red Paint People, a long-extinct tribe that inhabited the area some 5,000 years ago.  They left a legacy of oyster shells, cod and swordfish remains, and stone fishing gear scattered up and down the coast.  Since the 1600’s, commercial fisheries have targeted cod, haddock, redfish, herring, shrimp, flounder, lobster, and numerous other species.  Sadly, modern fishing fleets are so efficient that they sometimes catch fish faster than fish can reproduce.  There are not as many cod or haddock or flounder in the Gulf of Maine as there used to be.

 

There are plenty of lobsters.  Lobsters have lived in the Gulf of Maine for a long time.  Two-hundred-and-fifty years ago, they were considered ocean vermin, spread like manure on farm fields and fed to prisoners.  In the mid-1800’s, they became trendy among upper-class Bostonians and stepped up with a new public image.  In short order, lobsters were being stuffed into cans and zipped all over the countryside on newly built railroads.  Today, lobsters routinely wander into a gazillion traps strewn up and down the Maine coast.

 

On a small boat not far off the coast, Norm was hauling lobster traps, just as he always did on Tuesday mornings.  Tom was hauling traps with him, just as he always did.

 

“I’m telling ya, Norm.”  Tom said.  “It’s about time someone went in there and cleaned house.  Seventeen of ‘em, Norm.  Seventeen of ‘em.”

 

Tom was raving about the latest pocket-lining scandal to hit Washington.  Norm was unimpressed.

 

“So they clean house?”  Norm countered.  “Who they gonna fill it back up with?  More of the same.  That’s who.  Six of one, half-dozen of the other.”

 

“Baloney.”  Tom said.  “If we can get this bunch of bandits out of there, we can get this country workin’ for the people again.”

 

“Hah.  You want to talk to me about baloney.”  Norm taunted.  “Washington has more baloney than Neptune has fish.  And let me tell you something, son.  It’s stacked on both sides of the aisle.”

 

Tom mumbled something about Norm being a jaded old fart.

 

Norm shrugged him off.

 

After the traps had been emptied and baited, Tom and Norm headed in for the day.  Norm pulled up close to the wharf so they could weigh in.  While he and Tom were taking care of business, Agent Starite dived overboard and swam to shore.

 

When Agent Starite reached land, he ducked into the back of an old blue pickup in the dirt parking lot.  Eventually, Tom got into the truck and drove to his house up near Prout’s Neck.  Agent Starite set off on foot from there.  He thought he had seen a city to the north and headed in that direction.  When nightfall came, he had not yet arrived at the city.  Summer foliage was thick and progress was slow.

 

And there was this business with the field kit.

 

 

3

 

 

 

A fresh burst of morning sunlight danced atop the choppy waves in Kingsport Harbor.  In the study of Winslow Taylor, a hazy copper beam splashed inward from the dusty window overlooking the harbor.  Winslow knew the drill.  He arose from his oaken desk to latch the old wooden blinds before the first rays crept onto his screen.  Winslow then sat back down to work and his fingers began to scamper madly across the keyboard.

 

***

 

Winslow Taylor learned to type on a manual Remington in his sophomore year at Kingsport High School, in the spring of 1976.  Typing class followed his lunch period on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  His teacher, Miss Bernier, was a feisty stump of a redhead who saw everybody and heard everything.  She was an imposing presence in the classroom, patrolling the aisles relentlessly and barking out commands with military precision.  Miss Bernier started on time.  Miss Bernier finished on time.  Miss Bernier covered her objectives.

 

(Of course, many women were Ms. Something-or-other in 1976.  Miss Bernier was not.  Nobody asked why.)

 

Miss Bernier did not approve of ditzery.  One day, after the class had advanced to electric typewriters, a girl accidentally hacked a wad of Juicy Fruit into the daisy wheel during a warm-up drill.  Miss Bernier made quite a show of it before assigning her to a new machine.  4 out of 5 dentists...

 

Miss Bernier liked Winslow.  Winslow kept to himself and typed well.  He was usually too stoned to do much else.  Click, click, click, click.  Ding.  Click, click, click, click.  Return.  Repeat.  Winslow found hypnotic solace banging away in Miss Bernier's Brigade, for an hour and twenty minutes, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, in 1976.

 

***

 

It was now early summer in 2006.  Winslow finished his morning e-mails, briefly scanned the news, and decided to walk down to Angel's Corner Store for a cup of coffee.  Along the way, he commenced with a linguistic exercise he had tinkered with ever since taking Miss Bernier's class.  It was, I suppose, what one might call typewalking, if one were inclined to call it anything at all.  Winslow was not.

 

The exercise went like this.  As any formally trained typist knows, every key on the standard keyboard is assigned to a specific finger on either the right or left hand.  When Winslow found himself walking any considerable distance, he often amused himself with this arrangement.  After establishing a rhythm in his walk, he passed words though his mind and converted them into footsteps.  For example, take your average word, selected at random from your average dictionary software.  That word is babble.

 

Babble is a great word.  It is both a left-starting word and a left-leaning word:

 

 B    A   B    B   L   E

(L) (L) (L) (L) (R) (L)

 

In formal typing, the letter B is always stricken with the first finger of the left hand.  Subsequently, the exercise begins when the left foot hits the ground, corresponding to the letter B in Winslow's mind.  In a word such as babble, wherein the second letter is also a left-hand letter, one must then allow the right foot to hit the ground without sending any messages to the alphabet center of the brain before striking the letter A on the second fall of the left foot.  Repeat as necessary.  Eventually, one encounters a right-hand letter, the letter L.  This allows one to achieve a three-step run of letters and complete the word on a spiffy roll.

 

Of course, Winslow ignored the shift key in these psycho-linguistic exercises for the simple reason that characters dependent upon the shift key require, by definition, the use of two hands.  He could not take both a right step and a left step at the same time, unless of course, he wanted to hop.  Faithful liberal that he was, he had not ruled this out for future exercises.

 

Winslow had naturally refined his taste in words during thirty years of typewalking.  Exclusively left or right-hand words, although the least expeditious, provided calm spaces between letters--heavenly half-step respites from every care in the world.  In the harried pace of modern society, Winslow cherished those moments even if they were short:

 

 R    E   A   D

(L) (L) (L) (L)

 

 P    L    O    N   K

(R) (R) (R) (R) (R)

 

Strictly speaking, from a time-and-motion perspective, those words consisting of alternating left and right-hand letters are the most efficient, although they do require a higher level of concentration.  Winslow preferred alternating L/R words that start with the left foot.  There were, of course, exceptions to the rule:

 

 R    U   S   H

(L) (R) (L) (R)

 

When Winslow was feeling especially creative, he might even wax poetic in the linguistic linguine, typically with alternating L/R words.  Over the years, he had also discovered that if he bent the spacebar rule a bit, he could create some rather masterful montages.  For example, assuming that spacebar keystrokes were executed by the thumb opposite the last letter of the preceding word, he could saunter down the street in style to something like this:

 

 P    R   O   T    O    Z   O   A   N        P    R   O   D    I    G   Y

(R) (L) (R) (L) (R) (L) (R) (L) (R) (L) (R) (L) (R) (L) (R) (L) (R)

 

A whale and six ducks

Slap me, naughty Mama

 

This had been his madness since 1976.

 

Word.

 

***

 

A new girl was working the counter at Angel's, currently reading Bukowski on a wooden three-legged stool by the cash register.  In smalltown USA, she stood out.  The regulars were lined up like pigs at the trough:  a balding, jellyrolled antique dealer; a building contractor in a Red Sox cap; a sun-darkened landscaper in heavy boots; and a couple of other guys.  They came early to snort over their morning coffee, trade news, and laugh at the same jokes they have laughed at since 1987.  In their world, this counts.

 

She was obviously not of their world--this new girl who read Bukowski--this new girl who stuck pins in her face--this new girl with pretty legs in cutoff jeans.  Winslow kept an eye on the scene while he mixed his coffee.  Something about her made the regulars squirm a bit.  It was much quieter than usual, and Winslow noted the strained glances shot back and forth amongst them.  He supposed they were tacitly shoring up their own supremacy, and drooling doggedly over her ass when they thought nobody was looking.

 

Winslow chatted with her for a minute while paying for his coffee.  Sharp and articulate.  College junior.  Art major.  He didn't imagine she would last long.

 

 T    I    G   H    T          T    U   S   H

(L) (R) (L) (R) (L) (R) (L) (R) (L) (R)

 

Word.

 

***

 

Do you know the crazy thing about human consciousness?  It has the capacity to wrap itself around whatever it encounters in the world, to be perverted by the most seemingly innocuous artifacts of a society.  Two thousand years ago, nobody would have been caught dead playing keyboard footsies along the Appian Way.  That would make no sense at all for another nineteen hundred years.  Not that it makes much sense now, mind you, but it would have made even less sense back then.

 

Word.

***

 

In 1911, a man by the name of Frederick Winslow Taylor published an influential article called The Principles of Scientific Management.  Scientific Management was a term he coined and which referred to a body of practices intended to maximize productivity in industrial workplace settings.  Frederick Winslow Taylor did things like hang around with a stopwatch and time workers in order to determine the most efficient way to complete each task in a manufacturing process.  He devised specialized tools and assembly lines that enabled significant increases in production.  He reorganized the roles of management and labor.  He was highly instrumental in the rise of the regimented workplace of the 20th Century--where time clocks, a strict division of labor, and an automated lockstep mentality ruled the land.  Frederick Winslow Taylor created a conceptual monster that ran amok.  To this day, he is hated by the proletariat in Hell.

 

Winslow was not related to Frederick Winslow Taylor, who descended from old American money; neither was he named for him.  Winslow's great-grandfather had immigrated from Russia in 1912 and a clerical error at Ellis Island had somehow left him with the name Taylor, rather than his birth name of Talyrnik.  He and his new name eventually settled in Exeter, NH, where Frederick Winslow Taylor had once attended the elite Philips Exeter Academy.  That was the closest brush the two families ever experienced.  Winslow came along three generations later, born in Kingsport, ME in 1960.  He had been named for the famous American painter, Winslow Homer.  His full name was Winslow Homer Taylor.  His parents had never even heard of Frederick Winslow Taylor.

 

Word.

 

 

4

 

 

Hugo slept.

 

*clink*

 

Hugo rolled over and slept some more.

 

*clink*

 

Hugo drank not from the prescient pool of vibrant symbols transcending time and space.  He reflected not upon the clink; nor upon his own being.  Then again, Hugo rarely did those sorts of things.  Hugo was a dog.  A right good dog too.  At least Heidi thought so.

 

In the book of Hugo, it was currently time to sleep.

 

That is the thing about a dog.  The repertoire is a bit limited, but it is very well-rehearsed.  Your average dog pretty much has it down in no time at all.  People expect too much of their dogs these days.  Dogs got along fine for thousands of years without pedigrees and papers, long before fetching slippers and newspapers and all that jazz came along.

 

Heidi picked up Hugo at a shelter in Portland a few years back, shortly after she won the infamous Sanford Spaghetti Case.  In that case, Anthony DuWop of Biddeford claimed to have been deeply traumatized after discovering that the Sanford Spaghetti Palace had passed off a cheap store brand imitation for Prince Spaghetti on a Wednesday afternoon.  He claimed he saw the empty boxes by the back door and demanded $8,000,000 for emotional pain and suffering.  When Heidi proved him a liar by dramatically waving at the jury with the exculpatory plastic wrap in which the spaghetti had actually been packaged, it made the front page all over New England.  Anthony DuWop swore that he would make her life a living tortellini.  Now she had this mystic from Bologna to contend with.  If she ever got through this case, she swore she would put her pasta behind her for good.

 

Now, where was I?  Oh yeah, Hugo.  It somehow came out during cross-examination that Anthony DuWop had been traumatized as an infant by a large neighborhood dog who often mistook his baby stroller for a fire hydrant.  In fact, dogs scared Anthony so bad that he peed his pants walking past the bomb-sniffing dog at the front door of the courthouse one day.  In the opinion of Heidi Goode, bringing Hugo into the fold was no-brainer.  Over the years, they had developed a good working relationship.  She fed him and picked up his poop; he growled at appropriate times.  He was also very large.

 

Heidi was currently in the shower in the master bath.

 

Hugo was asleep in the master bedroom.

 

*clink*

 

***

 

Agent Starite was standing on the sill outside the master bedroom window.  He had dropped his tool ring three times now.  His fingers were cold and he had to pee.

 

“Damn!” he grumbled to himself.  The Intergalactic Research and Development Council Supply Division had mistakenly issued him a 27-B Field Kit.  A 27-B!  No Alticruise!  No Stealth!  Top Secret missions were always supposed to get a 27-A.  Everybody knows that.  IRDC was definitely going to hear about this one.

 

He picked up his tool ring for the third time.  Finally, he held his grip long enough to shimmy the window up far enough to crawl inside.  He crouched for a moment on the sill for a careful reconnaissance before making a graceful drop onto Hugo’s right shoulder.  Agent Starite realized his mistake at once.

 

“Oops!”  He flirted briefly with a distant memory of his last eye exam.

 

Hugo sprang quickly into action, a move that sent Agent Starite careening down the length of the queen-sized footboard.  Agent Starite took the blow well, briefly assessed the situation, and proceeded directly into IRDC Life Preservation Mode.

 

Section 53, Paragraph 4:  Hostile Four–legged Creatures Larger Than Yourself

 

If his calculations were correct, Hugo would be on the scene momentarily.  Agent Starite rolled quickly onto his back and curled up like a potato bug with its butt to the heavens.    Hugo arrived right on schedule, and with little-to-no strategic planning, ventured his nose into the aforementioned anatomical region.  Agent Starite let him have it right in the schnozz with the old wazooklehorn.  Hugo backed off with a sharp yelp.

 

***

 

The wazooklehorn is unique to life on Tuscus, a small planet in one of the eastern galaxies.  It is one of those evolutionary things that goes way back.  Anthrogalactic specialists think that it probably evolved as a primary defense mechanism back when the Hairy Hoggle Humpers of the Planet Hiney invaded the galaxy in prehistoric times.

 

The wazooklehorn is located approximately one inch above the wazookle.  It is two inches long and retractable.  In his line of work, Agent Starite always kept his wazooklehorn on the ready with a careful diet and a diligent workout schedule.  A lot of folks had let it slide, though, and there was a booming market in miracle overnight wazooklehorn conditioners and all that sort of thing.  They never worked.

 

***

 

At any rate, Hugo was momentarily stunned, so Agent Starite made a dash for the open closet door.  Hugo quickly regrouped and pounced just as Agent Starite made a leap that would have made Evel Knievel proud.  He latched desperately onto the arm of a tan London Fog raincoat with both hands and tried to hoist himself up, but Hugo had him by the left pant leg and he couldn’t pull free.  Damn!  Now somebody was coming out of the bathroom.  The swinging door caught Hugo’s attention just long enough for Agent Starite to wiggle free and scamper up the raincoat. He ducked inside the collar and hung by one hand from the gray nylon hanger while Hugo dillyflopped around the closet door.

 

“Hugo,”  Heidi exclaimed, as she emerged from the bathroom in a royal red robe and slippers.  “What is the matter with you?"

 

Heidi had never seen Hugo in such a tither before.  The closet door was open, but there didn’t appear to be anybody inside.  Heidi trusted Hugo though, and backpedaled to the nightstand where she kept her Smith and Wesson.  Agent Starite hung tight and quiet as Heidi brushed the hangers back in her search of the closet.  It was a closer call than he wanted before breakfast.  He listened as Heidi gave a quick look around the place and put the gun back in the nightstand.  Hugo had calmed down a bit.

 

Bewildered, Heidi put Hugo out to the back yard.  Agent Starite nearly made his move then, but she returned right away to get dressed.  Heidi couldn’t decide which outfit to wear.  She changed twice.  She tried on a lot of different scarves.  Agent Starite hung inside the raincoat.  His arm was getting tired.  After a while, Heidi was satisfied and walked out in the back yard to get Hugo.  Agent Starite quickly scurried down the raincoat and out of the closet.  In a flash, he was on the sill.  He checked the coast more carefully than he had on the way in.  All clear.  When he heard Heidi come back inside with Hugo, he dropped to the ground, peed in the garden, and slipped around to the front of the house.

 

Immediately, Agent Starite had another decision to make.  On the eastern horizon, a woman in a peach jogging suit bounded gracefully his way.  She hadn’t seen him yet, but he had to act fast.  A nine-inch green guy in a jump suit with a torn leg stood out like a sore thumb in this neighborhood.  The ragtop of Heidi’s red BMW was wide open, so he scaled the rear bumper, rolled himself onto the trunk, and made a blind leap over the folded roof into the back seat.

 

“Damn!”  he muttered as he squeezed under the front passenger seat.  “I’m getting way too old for this stuff.”

 

Moments later, Heidi emerged for her morning commute to Portland.

 

***

 

Hugo made a note to himself that he had a score to settle with that little green guy.  Then he went back to sleep.

 

 

5

 

 

 

Heidi Goode hadn’t been paying close attention when the University of Bologna celebrated its 900^th Anniversary in 1988.  Heidi was only seventeen in 1988, and the milestone event had somehow eluded her.  Whilst scarlet-robed dignitaries from afar knelt humbly at the Great Bologna Stone, Heidi was probably watching Def Leppard or Dokken or somebody like that on MTV.  That was about the extent of her European cultural awareness in those days.

 

Ms. Goode did remember the University of Bologna from law school.  Widely considered to be the oldest university in Europe, the University of Bologna was seminal in the spread of civil law throughout the western world.  In addition, distinguished scholars of the arts and sciences have graced its halls for centuries.  Contrary to popular belief, many lawyers do actually know these sorts of things.  Heidi Goode is smart lawyer.

 

Heidi had never been up against an expert who listed a Bolognese Seminar among his credentials though.  At first, she thought it might be trouble.  After checking with the University of Bologna, she wasn’t quite so worried.  They had never heard of him, but suggested that she try the Cosmoversity of Bologna, a correspondence school in a strip mall a few kilometers down the road.  A recorded message at the Cosmoversity of Bologna informed Heidi that their office had closed for the day and would reopen in another fifteen hours.  Italian time.  Heidi made a note to get back to them first thing in the morning.

 

***

 

The Law Offices of Prauper and Goode are located on Hanson Street in Portland, in a small white two-story house with a nice in-town view.  There is a marble birdbath on the front lawn and lots of pretty flowers in the usual places.  A simple, but tasteful reception room is flanked by a waiting area, a kitchen, and a bath.   Beside the waiting area, a wooden staircase with a worn handrail leads to the second floor offices.

 

A young red-headed woman greets the clientele at Prauper and Goode.  Her name is Greta.  She has been with the firm for three years now and is very good with customers.  She is also very good with messages and files and things like that.  She is a jewel and Cindy and Heidi both know it.  This morning there were no clients to greet, so Greta was catching up on some bookkeeping.

 

On the second floor, Cynthia Prauper and Heidi Goode were discussing their latest case in Heidi’s office.  A cup of coffee and a few papers were scattered about the table near the window.  Heidi stood with her tush propped against the desk, sipping her own cup of coffee.  Cindy was seated at the table, currently reviewing the sole press statement addressing the incident, a short blurb in the Gazette last week.

 

Agent Starite was hiding in a storage closet in the hall.

 

***

 

Portland Gazette

June 19, 2006

 

Scuffle at Scruffy’s

 

Portland Police were dispatched to a barroom brawl at Scruffy McDougall’s on Fore Street shortly before midnight on Saturday.  Police arrested three local men in connection with the brawl.  Several others were evicted by the management.  McDougall estimated the damage to his bar to be in the neighborhood of $600.

 

Amid the ballyhoo, a spiritual consultant and masseuse from Portsmouth, NH by the name of Krystal Jinglehummer slipped on a piece of bologna that somehow ended up on the barroom floor.  Ms. Jinglehummer skidded out the front door on one foot waving her arms and collided with Father O’Doulihan of the Church of the Sacred Harpischord on Upton Street.  Father O’Doulihan had been on his way to a spiritual call at the Saucy Stone Pit next door at the time of the incident.  He reported no injuries.  Ms. Jinglehummer reported that her Cosmogalactic Interport was crinkled in the collision with Father O’Doulihan, and also by the slice of bologna that became wedged between two toes on her left foot.  Krystal Jinglehummer is “like a vegan,” according to an acquaintance at the scene.

 

A telephone call to the Jinglehummer residence on Sunday afternoon was answered by her attorney, who declined comment other than to say that his client had “suffered deeply and intends to file suit against the Church of the Sacred Harpsichord.”

 

***

 

“Not a whole lot to go on there.” Cindy said.  “What exactly is her claim again?”

 

Heidi picked up the letter and read from it.

 

“My client has suffered extreme emotional and spiritual distress as a result of this negligently manufactured meat product.  Ms. Jinglehummer is a Mounted Mistress of the Silent Siren Society and conducts much of her business in the Aurelian Cosmonosphere.  Please note the attached testimony of Johann Shimatsu, an accredited Bolognese Funneling Specialist who is currently in town to realign her Cosmogalactic Interport.  My client expects that her condition will improve enough to permit an intermediate level of Aurelian activity within a few weeks.  The planetary alignment required for the final treatment, however, will not occur again until August 23, 2017.

 

We are asking reasonable compensation for her loss of ability to conduct her business as a Mounted Mistress of the Silent Siren Society during this period.  Based upon her projected income in U.S. and Aurelian currencies, we have calculated that amount to be $27,000,000.  Plus a new pair of sandals.

 

Alternatively, my client is willing to settle for $5,000,000 if the Church of the Sacred Harpischord agrees to free their cows.  She is a woman of deep conscience.

 

Blah, blah, blah!”

 

***

 

Heidi put down the letter and glanced briefly out the window at a street performer juggling five pins on a unicycle.  “Not bad.”  she thought.  Once she dated a guy from Minnesota who could juggle three while he peed his name in the snow.

 

“So, why is the Queen of Bologna suing the Church of the Sacred Harpsichord?"  Cindy asked.  “Father O’Doulihan was on a public sidewalk when she ran into him.  She should be suing Scruffy McDougall’s, or the bologna company.  Why isn’t she suing Scruffy McDougall’s?”

 

“She can’t.  One of those cosmic in-group things.”  Heidi replied.  “It appears that Scruffy McDougall’s sister, Emma, has high standing in the Aurelian Cosmonosphere and often shares an astral plane with Krystal Jinglehummer on Tuesday afternoons.  Solidarity is usually extended to close family members as a courtesy.”

 

“Okay.”  Cindy was almost sorry she had asked.  “Then, why isn’t she suing the bologna company?”

 

“You’ll never believe it.” Heidi said,  “Follow the paper trail and it turns out that CSH Bologna is a community-based outreach program owned and operated by the Church of the Sacred Harpsichord.  Small world, eh?

 

“Get out of here!”  Cindy cried.  “The Church of the Sacred Harpischord is in the bologna business?  Now I’ve heard everything.  And that’s our client?”

 

“That would be correct.”

 

“Well,” said Cindy.  “I don’t think this will be a tough one.  I mean, how does the Queen of Bologna plan to make it stick to the Church of the Sacred Harpsichord?  All we have to do is point out that the bologna was never warranted to be slip-proof in the first place.  Who would want a piece of dry bologna?  In any event, the implied warranty or expectation of one was certainly voided once the bartender applied the mayonaisse.  Slam dunk.”

 

“I hope you’re right.”  Heidi replied, a bit hesitant.  She still had to make a phone call to Italy.  Perhaps she could relax a bit then.

 

***

 

Intergalactic Research and Development Council Field Journal

June 28, 2006

 

I arrived safely on Earth with no breaches in security.  Nobody knows I’m here.  I have established a surveillance operation at a central location.

 

It appears that I arrived at the outset of a conflict.

 

The Law Offices of Prauper and Goode are currently mounting a vigorous defense against the Queen of Bologna.

 

There is a massive stockpile of bologna in Washington.

 

I think I’m on to something big.

 

Agent Starite

 

***

 

Agent Starite deemed it wise to omit the skirmish with Hugo from the report.  No need to get IRDC involved on that one.  Start a paper trail and, well, you know…

 

 

6

 

A mile down the road from CSH Bologna in Sheep Falls, Maine sits an establishment known as Tuscahoonee Turkeys and Treasures, owned and operated by Tyrone Marmaduck of Tuscahoonee, Alabama.  A faded sign overlooks the long blacktop driveway snaking up to the central office, a small one-story modular.  In front of the office, the driveway forks.  Turn left and it leads to the Tuscahoonee Treasure Yard; turn right and it leads to the Tuscahoonee Turkey Farm.  Tyrone owns three such complexes: this one, another one in Nebraska, and the flagship operation back in Tuscahoonee.

 

Tuscahoonee Turkeys and Treasures is a family operation.  A couple of nephews and a brother-in-law hold positions of appointed royalty throughout the empire and Tyrone divides his time among them.  Tyrone’s nephew, Clete, is in charge of the Sheep Falls complex and lives on-site.  Clete is number than a fence post, but he understands the basic rules.  Turkeys and treasures out.  Cash in.

 

Tyrone Marmaduck is a businessman.  That’s his take on it.  There are others who think of him as more of a walking human and ecological disaster.  He doesn’t care.  He’s a nasty old hunchmeister.  Tyrone’s general philosophy of the world boils down to two basic principles.

 

1)      Exploit the planet and its inhabitants to full advantage whenever possible.

2)      The law is often a hindrance to the first principle and should be disregarded whenever possible.

 

Tyrone Marmaduck makes a comfortable living adhering to these principles.  He is a very busy man.  Over the years, a multitude of agencies has spent a multitude of time looking into his affairs.  Tyrone has grown quite proficient at dancing around a multitude of ordinances, regulatory commissions, and other official nuisances.  It is that way everywhere he operates.  He pays a lot of fines and makes a lot of donations to public awareness campaigns and still has money for a brand new Mercury each spring.  He has driven the latest Grand Marquis since 1983.

 

It is uncanny how Tyrone Marmaduck comes to know politicians and planning boards in all of the places he operates.  As a rule, they don’t like to have their pictures taken with him, but he is someone to be reckoned with.  Tyrone has a lot of tricks up his sleeve.

 

The Tuscahoonee Treasure Yard is a twenty-seven acre jumble of scrap metal, old tractors and autos, household appliances, lawn ornaments, furniture, piles of tires, vinyl siding, bricks, lumber, sheds full of rusty tools and building materials and paints, trailers full of surplus military gear, and a million other things.  The main dirt road leading in quickly disperses into a cryptic maze weaving in and about the vast salvage yard.  It is home to a lot of stuff.

 

In the hustle and bustle of everyday business, the management occasionally forgets to record certain transactions that occur on the periphery of the salvage yard.  From a strict regulatory perspective, Tyrone’s salvage yard sometimes harbors materials of a somewhat bothersome nature:  unstable ammunition, leaky batteries, foaming chemical drums--that sort of thing.  Tyrone doesn’t worry too much about it.  His boys have gloves.

 

Employees of Tuscahoonee Turkeys and Treasures live in a scatter of trailers and shacks on some acreage near the back of the complex.  They are Mexican and many traveled long distances in the backs of trucks to work for Tyrone.  He contracts a run to stop at all three locations every so often.  On a given Monday morning, he has a crew in the works.  He pays them squat.

 

The Tuscahoonee Turkey Farm is home to 80,000 turkeys, more around the holidays.  They live in large turkey hotels.  There are many turkey hotels on the farm.  There are many turkeys in each hotel.  Tyrone Marmaduck doesn’t name his turkeys.

 

The Tuscahoonee Turkey Farm is also home to a big pile of turkey poop.  It has been accumulating in various fields around the farm for about thirty years now.  It is quite deep in places.  Tyrone sells a truckload once in a while, but it doesn’t make a dent really.  When the wind is right, you can smell it all the way over at the bologna factory.

 

***

 

Agent Starite could smell it in the flowerbox outside the kitchen window of the bologna factory.  His head poked cautiously from a sea of foliage as he evesdropped on the conversation inside.

 

***

 

Cynthia Prauper could smell it in the kitchen.

 

The bologna factory wasn’t quite what she had expected.  It was located in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Sheep Falls.  Father O’Floonigan was showing her around and explaining the operation.  The kitchen was in the back of the house.  It was not a large room, but not a small one either.  In the center of the kitchen stood an oak island with a cutting board countertop and some cabinets below.  A hanging rack above the island held the secret bologna ingredients:  salt, pepper, MSG, garlic powder, onion powder, liquid smoke.  A small grinder sat on one corner of the island cutting board.  A large electric mixing bowl and an oven lined one wall.  Cindy could see they weren’t going to put Oscar Meyer out of business.

 

“Now what about the cows?” Cindy asked.  “The suit mentioned ‘freeing the cows’ as an option of partial settlement.”

 

“We don’t own any cows.”  lamented Father O’Flooningan.   “We order everything we need from the butcher out in Windham.  This operation evolved primarily as a way to keep wayward sinners off the streets of Sheep Falls.  Our production levels vary greatly according to how many wayward sinners happen to be in residence.  Today we have two.  They’ll be making the bologna later this afternoon, after they’ve finished the gardening.”

 

Father O’Floonigan continued.  “Over the years, the factory has also come to serve as a country retreat for the clergy.  They come here to meditate and commune with lay members.  By charter, clergy must allot three weeks per year to bologna production.  Additionally, there is a special council that meets every four years to inspect the quality of the bologna.”

 

“Does the Cardinal know about this?”  Cindy inquired.

 

“I don’t know.  The Church of the Sacred Harpischord branched off from the Order of Ovangeline back in 1971.  Around here, we answer to the Robin.  Robin Rule.  Ernest Rule is his full name.  I can give you his address if you want.  He lives in Augusta.”

 

Cindy took the information and gathered her things to leave.  On her way out, she finally had to ask, “By the way, Father.  I couldn’t help but noticing.  You know, the smell?”

 

“Oh, that.”  Father O’Floonigan said.  “It is quite noticeable today.  Lucky for us, the wind usually blows the other way.”

 

Father O’Floonigan escorted Cindy out to her car.  On the way, he gave her a brief rundown on Tuscahoonee Turkeys and Treasures.  Cindy commiserated.

“Oh Father,” Cindy begged as she slipped into the front seat of her Buick Park Avenue.  “One more thing.  Have you ever promised anybody that your bologna was slip-proof?  You know, just for the record.”

 

“Of course not.” replied Father O’Floonigan.  “Who would want a piece of dry bologna?”

 

***

 

A dozen or so people live in a small wooded village on the periphery of Tuscahoonee Turkeys and Treasures.  They are all Mexican and many are in the country illegally.  Some are single men; some have families back in Mexico.  As a rule, they stay only a few months or a year.  Employee accomodations consist of thinly insulated, drafty trailers and shacks with recurrent heat, water and sewage issues.  Tyrone has been promising to tackle a slew of repairs and projects for many years now.  Occasionally, an institutional prod moves him to a brief scurry of surface renovations, after which he quickly slides back into his preferred maintainence schedule, which is never.  Somehow, life goes on in the village.

 

In a small shack on the outskirts of the village, a candle sometimes flickers late into the night as Herndando Sanchez pores over the scant literature he owns:  some American history, some grammar, and a pamphlet he got from a labor organizer in Corpus Christi.  Hernando is one of the legal immigrants in Tyrone’s employ; he has an authentic green card.  Hernando found life in the turkey sheds to be a slap in the face.  Tyrone Marmaduck and Clete disgusted him.  He dreamed of a better life.

 

As he read, Hernando thought about the man in Corpus Christi who gave him the pamphlet.  The man had been preaching about La Raza and solidarity in a dirt parking lot where contractors pick up day laborers.  Some of the contractors didn’t like him and ran him off.  The pamphlet was about Mexican pride and history; it was also about corporate greeed.  It had glossy historic maps of New Spain and Mexico; it had not-so-pretty pictures of immigrant workers in America.  At the time he met the man in Corpus Christi, Hernando had only been in the U.S. for two days.  Hernando thanked the man for the pamphlet and put it in his pocket to be polite.  Then he forgot about it.  Hernando thought the man was crazy.

 

Hernando was a wiser man with six months of Tuscahoonee Turkeys and Treasures under his belt.  The man in Corpus Christi spoke the truth.  Hernando could find no justice in the regime of Tyrone Marmaduck.  He worked from dawn to dusk, with scarcely a day off.  He paid a large share of what he earned back to Tyrone for rent and utilities and taxes.  Another large share went toward purchases at the company store, the only store within twelve miles.  There wasn’t much left over.

 

Hernando had talked with his neighbors.  Some of them told him it was pretty much the same all over.  It was pretty much the same at the hog farm in Iowa.  It was pretty much the same at the insulation factory in South Carolina.  Some of them had been trucked around by contractors who supplied large retail chains with janitorial labor.  They also got paid squat.  Some of the undocumented workers had been roughed up.  Some on the job, some by vigilantes.  A lot of people roughed up illegal aliens.

 

The retail chain manager who hired the illegal aliens never got roughed up.  Neither did Tyrone Marmaduck or Clete.  It didn’t seem right.

 

***

 

Intergalactic Research and Development Council Field Journal

June 29, 2006  8:30 P.M.

 

I have been monitoring the activities of Prauper and Goode in the field.

 

The Irish have entered the conflict on the side of Prauper and Goode.  They are manufacturing bologna at an outpost in Sheep Falls.  I think they plan to use it as camouflage when the Bolognese attack.

 

Mexico also has an outpost in Sheep Falls.  I’m not sure whose side Mexico is on, but their outpost is a prison camp full of Turkeys.  There is a massive amount of Turkeys.

 

Agent Starite

 

7

 

 

E-mail Exchange of June 29, 2006

 

 

Winslow,

 

Is there any way you could swing by the office tomorrow afternoon?  I need someone in the field on this bologna thing.  It would be great if you could work the crowd at the New Planetary Arts Festival on Saturday.  See what you can find out about Krystal Jinglehummer.  Oh yeah, the cows too.  I need to know if this ‘free the cows’ thing is anything we have to worry about.

 

I hope Heidi is right about the Italian specialist.  Bolognese seminars are not to be taken lightly.  The oldest university in Europe is in Bologna, you know.

 

In any case, it should be an easy one if you’re interested.

 

4:30 okay?

 

Cin

 

***

 

Cindy,

 

Chill.  Even if they do roll out the big Italian guns, you can always fall back on the French ones.  They get all hopped up on phalluses and phallocentrism and that sort of thing.  That’s about it though.  A piece of bologna on a barroom floor doesn’t mean squat to those guys.  It doesn’t look anything like a phallus.  Now, if she had slipped on a hot dog, that would be a whole different story.  Bologna though?  They’ll explain this whole bologna thing away like a fart bubble in a French bath.

 

I don’t know what they charge, but you can bet your ass that a Frenchman with a good hot dog theory will sway the jury over an Italian with a bologna theory any day of the week.

 

That would be my advice.  Unless, of course, you've got something better in your bag of tricks.

 

See you at 4:30.

 

Winslow

 

***

 

Winnie,

 

What are you wearing right about now?

 

Cin

 

***

 

Intergalactic Research and Development Council Field Journal

June 29, 2006  11:15 P.M.

 

I cracked the computer code and am now monitoring the communications of Prauper and Goode.  I have found further evidence of an impending conflict.

 

The Bolognese Army is preparing to attack.  They have big Italian guns.  Prauper and Goode are sending an agent into the field to assess the magnitude of the threat.

 

The French have entered the conflict on the side of Prauper and Goode.  They are supplying the hot dogs that Prauper and Goode will use to trick the jury.

 

I’m not sure how the jury fits into the picture yet.

 

Agent Starite