Chapter Forty-Six
Blinded by the Light
After getting loose, I staggered around a bit in circles until I got my feet under me. I put on my shirt and went over to the far corner to answer nature’s extremely urgent call. Bread followed and lifted his leg in the same spot to affirm his alpha dog status. All I could do was hug him and tell him that he truly was a wonder. His sandpaper tongue licks helped me reestablish my equilibrium. I focused on one clear goal as I headed for the door of the burned out control room. Kill that witch, Dusty.
As I opened the door, Bread shot through like a rocket and was gone into the night. Somehow my Timex was still on my wrist and was still functioning. If it wasn’t such an awful pun, I would say that it truly took a licking and kept on – well – you know. It showed two o’clock which I assumed was a.m. given the pitch blackness around me. It also showed it was Sunday. That means I was only trussed up for about twenty-five hours. It seemed like weeks.
I went off in search of life and civilization. Of course, now that I wanted to find someone, there was no one to be found. I seemed to have managed to crush the life out of my cell phone with all my rolling around. Why doesn’t Timex make a cell phone? Oh, well. I found Dream On right where I had parked her. Man, I needed a shower bad. And I think a Dream On fumigation was also on the near term agenda. Not knowing exactly what else to do, I headed for home. I thought about waking Diddy, but he seemed so comfortable. As I passed the Administration building, a flash of light caught the very periphery of my peripheral vision. The last flash of light I investigated cost me twenty-five bladder busting hours I’ll not soon forget. But, never the less, I slowed and looked back to check it out. I saw another flash coming from a third floor window. The third flash confirmed that it was coming from Chuck’s office. What the hey?
I whipped Dream On back into the parking lot entered the building. A wiser man probably would have gone to get Diddy or called someone from one of the offices. But, no, not me. Maybe that’s why I was always asked to play the donkey in the plant’s live nativity scene. I quickly bounded up the stairs to the third floor.
Chuck’s office was about halfway down the hall on the right. I’m sure I looked like something out of a cheesy horror movie as I limped toward the flashes coming from under his door. Personally, I was too emotionally drained and bone weary to think about being scared or to think about much at all. I got to his door and noticed, between flashes, his office was dark. I could hear some sort of unidentifiable sounds. I proceeded to administer a healthy dose of crazed knocking.
“Charles, it’s Mick. Are you in there? Are you OK? We need to talk ASAP. Something funny is going on. Charles?”
The flashing stopped and all went quiet. As I started to reach for the handle, his office lights popped on and the door flew open. I have been around the old block a few times and I don’t stun easily. But what stood in that doorway facing me threw me into a near catatonic stupor. Talk about shock and awe.
Dusty looked up at me wearing a wry smile on her face and nothing else. I mean literally, nothing else. As in naked, nude, birthday suit. My brain had a nuclear grade meltdown. Was I hallucinating? Was I still back on the control room floor in a comatose state? No, this was too real. My first totally irrational thought was that Earl owed me five bucks. She had no tan lines just as I had wagered. She was taut, toned and, well, stun inducing. I somehow found my voice and uttered, “Uhhh.”
“Well, well, well. What a surprise. They just don’t make adhesive products like they used to.”
“Am I, am I, uh, interrupting something?”
Through an act of sheer iron will, I managed to take one eye off the perfect vision in front of me and gaze past Dusty into the office. I saw Chuck seated behind his desk with no shirt on. The desk thankfully blocked any view of what his attire further south was or wasn’t. His eyes were glassy, his head lolled to one side and his tongue hung loosely out of his mouth.
“My God, Dusty. What have you done to Chuck?”
“Something that I would rather have done to you, Mick.”
With that, she grabbed my right wrist, flung herself back onto the desktop and pulled me in on top of her. Chuck’s head flopped to his other shoulder but his expression did not otherwise change.
“Man, do you stink.”
“Well, this isn’t exactly the way I fantasized this moment either.”
Against all of my male natural instincts, I stood and pulled Dusty to an upright position.
“Get dressed. You have a lot of explaining to do.”
Just when I thought this night could not get any more bizarrely awful, I found out differently. A hard cold rod poked me in the neck followed by a chillingly familiar voice.
“I don’t think you’ll be giving any orders about now, Mick. Why don’t you place your hands on top of your head, move away from Dusty and slowly, I mean slowly, turn around. And if you are wondering what is tickling the back of your neck, wonder no more. It’s the business end of a nine millimeter with no identifying characteristics. I believe we used to call them Saturday Night Specials in my day. One wrong move and your brain matter will be mixed with Charles’s graying chest hair.
As these words were being said, Dusty smoothly ducked out from in front of me and joined the voice behind me. The voice that I suddenly recognized. It was the voice of The Shareholder.
MBA - Moron$ Ba$ and A$ PG Version Page 47
