by W.H. Harrod
The two-hour drive presented no difficulty the following Wednesday morning as I drove Junior Junior’s truck straight down to I-70 and turned east for the 120-mile drive to the capitol city. I especially enjoyed the part of the trip that took me through the Flint Hills. These hills are a true geological anomaly. It reminded me of the faux hills of central and northern Missouri without the trees. I guessed someone must have discovered flint lying around somewhere to justify the name. It doesn’t sound especially scenic, but I still recall my initial amazement the first time I rolled out of Topeka heading west late one spring afternoon back in the late ‘60s and first saw the sun drenched, treeless, rolling, prairie grass-covered landscape stretching out before me for what seemed forever. This is especially true when you get to the area between the Junction City and Manhattan turnoffs. It’s there where tens of thousands of acres of natural prairie grass still exists as it did before civilization decided to bless the region with its destructive presence.
For most of the rest of the trip I spent my time recalling the many years I had lived and worked in the area. How I, for so long, tried to blame my discontent on what I considered the drabness of the region. To me it wasn’t truly flat and it wasn’t hilly, nor mostly hot nor mostly cold, rural or urban, the natives were neither country bumpkins nor city slickers. The whole thing sat right in the middle. I believed at the time that the place existed as a refuge for the undecided and uncommitted folks too afraid of taking a chance. They once called this place the frontier, a place where adventuresome individuals came to grab life by the ass and bend it into their will, but not anymore. The frontier left here a long time ago, headed for the coast.
Viewing life through the much wider lens acquired by most humans as a gift for having lived long enough, I now saw things differently. It’s just a place. It can be whatever a person wants it to be. But don’t expect it not to change. Everything changes. Rocks, trees, mountains, creatures, beliefs, they all change. It’s happening every second, every minute, and every hour of the day. Often the change is imperceptible on a daily or even a yearly basis. Nevertheless, change is inevitable and constant.
“Let’s hope that’s true in this instance, also,” I said aloud as recollection of my current mission crashed into my daydreaming. I approached the western part of the capitol city and needed to get my game plan together. I’d found out my old friend Carlton still maintained his office downtown in the same old four story, red brick building. Once the stately structure must have been looked upon as evidence of the city’s prosperity, but now, a century later, it existed as an outdated architectural oddity lacking an elevator.
I arrived straight up at 9 a.m. as promised. Carlton told me his schedule was very tight, but he would tell Gloria, his longtime loyal and trusted secretary/bookkeeper to make room for me. I knew this was pure bullshit. Carlton never wore off the previous evenings libations until noon. I never saw the man drunk or even tipsy, but he usually required a few hours of daylight to get all the squirrels up and running in his brain. The good thing about it was they were very smart squirrels.
As I expected, Gloria, his secretary and one of the truly nicest people I’ve ever met, did not let me pass into the inner sanctum until she hugged me several times and solicited from me a complete accounting of my whereabouts for these last many years. Finally satisfied that she knew all she needed to know for the time being, she took me by the arm and led me towards my old friend’s office.
“I hope you’re not in a hurry,” she warned me as we stood for a moment before knocking on the heavy wooden door allowing entrance to her longtime employer’s office. “He’s been inclined to get a bit long winded with his thoughts these last couple of years. The brain’s still working, it’s just that it takes a mite longer to get there. So please be patient. I know he will be glad to see you. He’s mentioned on several occasions how much he missed playing golf with you at the club. By the way, I never believed his story about you getting your Johnson shot off down in Argentina!”
Without further ado, my escort tapped on the door and proceeded to open it prior to receiving an acknowledgement from within. I stepped inside the expansive, high ceiling, knee-deep high piles of legal folders everywhere office I recalled from an earlier life. Sitting across the room from me behind a large wooden desk undoubtedly rescued from a late nineteenth century office furniture museum sat Carlton C. Prescott, Esq., Attorney at Law. My eyes labored to focus. Possibly because the morning sun pouring through the two floor-to-ceiling window openings in the wall located behind the huge desk partially blinded me. The white Panama suit Carlton sported added to my difficulty.
Carlton didn’t wait for me to get my bearings before he started in. “Who the hell are you? You’re not Wes Clayton! The Web Clayton I know is a great big fat, bald headed guy who got his Johnson cut off down in Guatemala for messin’ with somebody’s senorita or maybe boyfriend. Hell, I can’t remember. You got a lot of nerve coming around here impersonating my good friend Walt. I loved old Wade like a brother. Just who the hell are you?”
Carlton, as I expected, was the same old jokester. He’d rather bullshit with his friends than do most anything, including making money. He enjoyed the respect of many good friends and golfing companions at the club and the admiration of the better part of the community including the power elite who didn’t ever want to get crossways with a guy who did not have a price and maintained an inclination to jump right dead into their underhanded corporate affairs, and more importantly, the brains to know money can’t always buy a man the important things in life.
“I’ll tell you who I am you prevaricating old hustler. I’m the guy you still owe the hundred bucks to from the last time we played golf. I beat you at that stupid bingo, bango, bongo bullshit golf scam you foisted on us the last time we played at your club. You said you would mail me a check the next day, but you never did. So I’m the guy who’s come to collect an old bet, plus some interest. Or do I have to let the local golfing community know about your stiffing me on a golf wager?”
“I hope you got that in writing,” he responded, “because most of the guys I played with back when you were still around are in jail, have run off to South America with their eighteen year old secretaries and their client’s trust fund, or are dead. So now what are you gonna do, smart guy? There ain’t nothing left around here anymore except a bunch of greedy young estate planners, alimony lawyers, and would-be politicians. Why you couldn’t get one of those pampered little pricks to wager on a round of golf if you gave them twenty strokes and tickets to see two naked Democrat politicians mud wrestle a pig.”
“Okay, I know when I’m licked. I’m never going to win out over an evil old SOB like you. Maybe you can use it to buy a new suit. The one you got on looks like the one Peter Lorry wore in one of those really bad movies made back in the ‘40s.”
“You’re a mean, mean person, Will Clayton! Why I wore this very suit today because I knew you’d probably be taking me out for a real nice lunch during which I might be inclined to help you find a way to deterge the small community you are presently residing in of the evil individuals whose propensities for various forms of graft and outright theft from the public coffers are presently having such a dilatory effect on the local town folks fiscal viability.”
We continued to bullshit there in his office for the next hour and a half about the old days, about golfing buddies most of who were no longer alive, and anything else that helps to dull the inevitability of growing old and dying. Eventually, we went to Carlton’s same old country club, the one he’d been a member of for over fifty years.
Although I am happy to report that I did not confront a single individual there that I ever had any business or personal associations with in the past, Carlton knew everyone. It took not one second less than thirty minutes for us to work our way through the lobby, then the bar area, and finally the large dining room where we settled in for a long lunch. Everyone wanted to say hello to Carlton. We both ordered steak, medium rare, at Carlton’s insi
stence no matter that all I wanted was a summer salad. He said he couldn’t be seen associating with a guy that ate that vegetarian swill. Real men ate stuff that bled, my old friend insisted. Although I could have argued about the nutritional value of the menu choice, I certainly couldn’t argue about the real men assertion. Carlton’s WWII record was well known to the community. He commanded a company of infantry and led men ashore on Omaha Beach on D Day for which the Army awarded him several medals for valor as well as a Purple Heart. The man was an honest-to-god war hero.
Later on the way back to Jonesboro, my mind kept spinning trying to recall all the different topics we covered during the almost six hours we spent together. We talked about old friends, local sports teams, the old days when we played golf together, people and politicians who left town or office in disgrace, the pathetic state of the nation, and the general absence of politicians with the balls to tell the truth, and finally, my little problem in Jonesboro.
Amazingly, we spent the least amount of time discussing the latter. Carlton had thought the matter over earlier and came to the conclusion someone needed to come over to Jonesboro and clean out that nest of varmints. I agreed heartily. My only question to Carlton was whom could we get to come all the way to Jonesboro to do the job? I, of course, being new to the town couldn’t recommend anyone. The same thing went for the Mayor who also had no idea of whom to trust. That’s why I had called Carlton. Did he know anyone who could help us at the state level? Surprisingly, he said no. That puzzled me, as I felt sure he had someone in mind, and I told him this. He had laughed at me then and asked me if I was one of those guys who routinely stood on the bank and threw the hook all the way to the other side of the pond? I thought about this for a minute and finally admitted to him that, “Yes, I am one of those guys. So what?”
“What I mean,” he said, “is why don’t you drop your hook four feet from the bank on the side where you are standing instead of throwing it four feet from a bank twenty yards away?”
“Who gives a crap why,” I said to him. “Besides you just said the town needs to bring someone in. If that someone is coming in, it’s from someplace away from Jonesboro, isn’t it?”
“That someone doesn’t have to come all the way from the other side of the pond,” he countered with his patented I must be talking to an imbecile expression.
“Are you saying you know of someone locally? Who? It can’t be someone from Jonesboro. Everyone there is too scared of the Bufords.”
“Maybe not, but I bet the person is closer than you think.”
This admission surprised me until I reminded myself I’d only resided in the community for a short time, and not everybody in that part of the county came into the diner. “Well, okay, who is it? How can we get in touch with that someone?”
“Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten the individual’s permission to pass their name along yet. So I’ll have to get back to you.”
That’s when a smile covered my face without the least bit of prompting. We had not talked about the small matter of the referral fee for Carlton. Jonesboro could not be classified as indigent so it stood to reason a consulting fee would be expected for my friend.
“I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m looking for a referral fee,” Carlton said with his patented I know what you’re thinking look. “Well, you’re right in a way. I do want something, and it’s only something you can give me. I want your promise to come to Topeka and play golf with me as my guest at my club once a month weather permitting for the next year. That’s my deal, take it or leave it. Almost all my old golfing companions are now dead or no longer in control of their bowel movements or are otherwise incapacitated. And these smart ass little know-it-alls that play golf today make my butt want to pucker. I truly get tired of taking their money. Why I’ve pissed away more common sense at a Saturday afternoon keg party then most of them will probably ever have in their dull, butt kissing lives.”
Carlton’s demand upon my free time both surprised and gratified me. Spending time on a golf course with this old friend would be a pleasure. I hurriedly said yes even before I remembered I didn’t have a set golf clubs with me in Jonesboro. Mine were stored away in my RV trailer in Texas but that problem could be cured quickly enough by dropping by one of the area’s large discount stores with a sports department. The sad state of my golf game, I felt, would not suffer if I played with a set of cheap discount store knockoffs made in some grass- roofed factory in the Orient.
Having resolved the issue by happily agreeing to his terms, only one last thing needed to be passed along to Carlton before we parted. His inquiries must be made as discretely as possible. Under no circumstances could he mention any name but mine. I really didn’t give a crap anymore about what the Bufords thought or what they might try to do to me. I’d realized while talking with Carlton that the greater part of my existence laid strewn alongside the long curving road leading to the ruins of my past, and I had no intentions of living the rest of my days, or years, in fear of the Buford clan.
Chapter Fifteen
