The Brickeaters

by The Residents

  Anyway, a couple of hours later we were freezing our asses off in my rental car, sitting outside the hospital. We obviously couldn’t sit there long… if I was going to make a move, this was the time, but first I had to get that phone number. I said, “Your mom seems like a really nice person, Patty, but… well, I don’t want to be rude or anything, but it kinda felt like she was on another planet. I guess she must’ve been pretty drugged up.” I paused for a moment, then waded in, “Oh, by the way, did you ever find out anything about that phone number? You know, the guy who called in the anonymous tip on the stiff.”

  “Oh, sorry… here it is.” She handed me a scrap of paper. “Sorry, I meant to give it to you earlier, but I’ve been a little distracted.”

  Jackpot! I took the paper, looked at it long enough to see a phone number, then stuck it my shirt pocket. Hmmm… Maybe things were gonna work out after all.

  “You know… I’ve been thinking about what a swell guy you are. I mean, I’m sure you’ve been pretty busy since you got here and the fact that you still found time to get that corypantha for my mom is really impressive, and gosh, you had to be bored silly sitting around that hospital room. I… I… I like you, Frank… I really do.”

  Man! I couldn’t believe it! A few hours earlier, it felt like I was striking out big-time, but now this cute chick was practically falling into my arms. Shit, I guess sometimes you do get lucky. Her eyes were glassing over. I think she was even starting to breathe hard. I reached over and put my arm around her.

  “You know what I like best about you, Frank?”

  “No, what’s that, Patty?”

  “You really remind me a lot of my dad.”

  HUH? What? Whoa? Let’s back up a little here. “What was that? What did you say?”

  “My dad. You remind me of my dad. Oh, he’s a little older than you but probably only a couple of years. He and my mom are divorced so I don’t see him as much as I would like, but I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. He… he’s sick and…” Unable to continue, Patty starting choking up.

  That open and clearly marked path to pussy was suddenly curving, cratered and filling with fog. “Um, what’s wrong with him?”

  Barely gaining her composure, Patty said, “They… they think he was exposed to sarin nerve gas in the first Gulf War. He… he…” At this point she totally lost it and turned her face into my shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably.

  What a weird fucking day! Starting with meeting the chick in the hick clothing store, seeing the spot where they found the stiff, followed by hole-in-the-throat Hazel, Farmer Brown, slayer of hogs, the cactus, visiting Patty’s zombie mom in the hospital and now this. I’m thinking I’m about to get laid and discover I remind the babe of her fucked-up father with Gulf War syndrome. Man, I thought the Midwest was supposed to be boring. I decided it was time to head back to my motel room. Tomorrow is another day and all that crap.

  “Gosh, Patty, I’m really sorry to hear about your dad. Uh, you know, it’s getting pretty cold in here. I’ll drop you off at your car and maybe we can talk about it some more tomorrow. What do you think?”

  Calming down, she agreed, “It’s been a long day. You’re right… thanks. You’re such a nice guy… you… you remind me so much of… my dad.” She broke down again.

  Jeez. “It’s okay, Patty, everything will be all right.” I reached around and gave her a little hug, then slowly removed her blubbering face from the shoulder of my Ben Davis coat. She was a sweet kid and all, but a guy can only take so much.”

  “Sure, Frank, sure. Thanks. I appreciate you being there for me.”

  I woke up the next morning with two things on my mind. I now had possession of the anonymous caller’s number so I had to check that out, but I also had to be careful. If it was just somebody who happened to see the body on the side of road and called it in, well, that was it—a dead end. But if it was Wilmer Graves’ accomplice, I had to play it cozy and get as much info as I could before he figured out I was on to him. And, if he was involved with Graves, at some point I had to let the cops know. If this story turned out to be as big as I hoped it was, I couldn’t afford to be seen as withholding evidence.

  But the other thing that kept coming back to me was Farmer Brown’s explosion. The fact that it happened right around the time that Graves’ body was found couldn’t be accidental. Okay, I guess it could be some kind of weird coincidence or maybe the old farmer was nuts, but I wasn’t buying it. The two had to be connected, but what was that explosion… and where did it happen? And, assuming I found it, what would be left? No one else had mentioned a big boom, but judging from the farmer’s reaction, something had happened… but what?

  Most people don’t know about it, but there’s a website called ResMap.com that gives access to real-time satellite imagery. I didn’t know exactly how it worked, but I figured a little time on the site would allow me to search the area surrounding the spot where Graves’ body was found. If there was an explosion remotely like the farmer’s description, then it had to leave some kind of crater or signs of destruction easily seen in satellite photos. It was worth investing a little time to learn the ResMap software.

  Meanwhile, I had to find out what I could get on the anonymous caller. If he did turn out to be Graves’ sidekick, I was off and running. I figured the guy was using a cell phone, so I used the number Patty gave me to check out some reverse number lookups, but they all looked like scams. Yeah, sure… I could risk ten or fifteen quankers, but no way was I going to give a credit card number to supercelsleuth.com.

  Finally, in frustration I just typed the number into Google and BINGO!… there it was. The search engine told me the guy’s name was Theodore Hendricks and his phone was a landline in Blue Springs, Missouri, a suburb of Kansas City. If this was the guy, he apparently drove back to KC and called the tip in on his home phone. Are we talking major doofus here or what—either that or maybe this wasn’t Graves’ henchman after all. Maybe this guy just spotted the body, drove home and made the call. Maybe…

  When in doubt—GOOGLE! I typed in “Theodore Hendricks” and “Blue Springs, MO” and there it was… BINGO! again. I was on a roll. The guy had a LinkedIn profile. Hendricks was listed as an “Internet Content Screener” working for Trusti-Tek, inc. Trusti-Tek was a provider of Data Purification Services, meaning that companies like YouTube, Facebook, Google, Vimeo, Twitter, Tumblr, etc., outsourced their censorship problems to Trusti-Tek and its competitors. In other words, if you collected all your girlfriend’s turds for six months, made a video of yourself eating them slathered in maple syrup, posted it on YouTube and some asshole flagged it as “inappropriate,” then Ted Hendricks or one of his colleagues would eventually wind up watching it… among other, less tasteful images and videos. It was not a pretty job.

  I had a decision to make. I could just call the number and see what I could get out of Hendricks, or I could drive up to Kansas City and talk to him in person. If he was the accomplice and I screwed up the phone call, that was probably it—clamarama! But… I had his address. What the fuck… I took off for KC.

  As I sat behind the wheel of my rented Chevy Sonic, the landscape blurred around the perimeter of my vision. It had begun to snow again and the swirling flakes smeared the air with fuzzy streaks like stranded hairs racing through the drab gray background, a backdrop reflecting my increasingly bleak mood.

  The drive back up to Kansas City had given me time to think, not a good thing since the subject poised to invade this unguarded moment was Louise. With nothing immediately pressing against my consciousness, my mind became a yo-yo, rappelling back and forth between opposing poles of anger and depression. I really loved her and thought she loved me. Shit! I knew she loved me, still loves me, but she wanted something I couldn’t give her. It was always about kids, at least as far as the fights went. She wanted them and I didn’t… the age-old she-he cliché, but somehow it had to be more than that. And the guy… Ed… the fucking insurance salesman. I mean where does someone eve
n meet an insurance salesman, much less get so involved they wind up hosing the asshole and leaving their life partner. The guy’s a piece of putty. Who wants to fuck putty? You think you know somebody, you spend a couple of years with them, having great times and shitty times but real times, and then they go off and fuck putty. How can that be?

  Even worse, when I wasn’t torturing myself with thoughts of Louise moaning under the mass of Mister Mush, which was practically all the fucking time, I found myself thinking about Patty. No shit, Patty… with the cute smile and the drugged-out, post-op zombie mom. The one who said I REMINDED HER OF HER GODDAM FATHER! I mean, could there possibly be a bigger turnoff than to be reminded of a chick’s father, a Gulf War burnout with post-traumatic stress disorder? But somehow, some inexplicable how, she and Louise were merging into the same person. It was like the Vulcan mind meld except the melding was them and the mind was mine, or whatever was left of it. But they were both these seemingly fragile little blondes, projecting the kind of vulnerability that gets me every time, but under the surface, they had this gritty, unyielding toughness. Like, man, you could jock them around and, yeah, they might break down and cry, and totally lose control, but don’t you believe it because when the shit came down, they would take care of business. High-functioning. And ultimately that’s what pissed me off about Louise, because underneath it all, she decided that I just wasn’t that together. Not high-functioning. That I was just a guy to have fun with and fuck, but not there for the long run. Not like the Putty Man. The Doughboy. The Jello Joe. And it wasn’t true! Goddammit! It wasn’t true! I was just as good as that pile of pudding. I was… I was… I was…

  And that’s the way it went, around and around, back and forth, over and over in my mind until I finally arrived in Blue Springs.

  That night I stayed at a Days Inn in Blue Springs formulating a plan to connect with Ted Hendricks. The Trusti-Tek offices were located in the Freight House district of Kansas City. I figured if I hung out near the entrance to the building around noon, it wouldn’t be too hard to spot Hendricks leaving for lunch. I had seen a photo of him on LinkedIn, and Hazel, the waitress with the crater in her throat, said Graves’ sidekick was a baby-faced white guy at least six-and-a-half feet tall. It should be a no-brainer. Of course, there was always the chance that this was a mondo dumbo wild goose chase and Ted Hendricks would turn out to be a transsexual midget, but I didn’t think so.

  The next morning I staked out a spot near the window in the Starbucks across the street from the Pendergast Building where Trusti-Tek had their offices. Sipping my double caramel macchiato, I went over my plan to engage Ted Hendricks in a conversation. The fact that he was employed as an “Internet content screener” was a real stroke of luck. It was an unpleasant but critical job established as a byproduct of user-created content in the digital age. The New York Times had done a major article on the mental health hazards of people with this particular job a few years ago. It was easy enough to tell Hendricks that I was doing a followup or a similar piece and see if I could get him talking.

  When I still hadn’t seen anyone answering Hendricks’ description by 2:30, I decided to go over and check out the building. Upon entering, I couldn’t miss an imposing African American guy sitting behind a security desk in the lobby. His name tag said “LEONARD” in all caps. With a voice rumbling like Barry White on steroids, Leonard was obviously no one to fuck with.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Uh, I’m looking for a Theodore Hendricks. I understand he works for Trusti-Tek on the, uh…” I looked over at the building directory. “…fourth floor. I’ll just go on up.” As I started walking toward the elevator, Leonard stood up. Thinking better, I paused.

  “Excuse me… do you have an appointment?”

  “Uh, not exactly, but I’m sure he’ll want to talk to me.”

  “You are no doubt correct, sir… but I’ll call up to make sure. What did you say his name is?”

  “Hendricks… Ted Hendricks.”

  “And you are…”

  “Franklin Blodgett… with the Wall Street Journal.”

  “Just a moment, Mr. Blood-Jet.” He picked up a phone on his desk and dialed. “Yes, this is Leonard at security down in the lobby. We got a guy here named Franklin Blood-Jet… says he’s from the Wall Street Journal and wants to talk to Ted Hendricks. Yeah, okay, I’ll hold.” Still wearing my Wranglers, Ben Davis coat and clodhoppers, I looked around the lobby as Leonard slowly sized me up. “I guess the Wall Street Journal doesn’t pay so well these days.”

  “Huh?” I looked down at my bumpkin costume. “Oh yeah, I’ve, uh, been interviewing some people over in Clinton. I, uh, got these clothes…”

  He held up his hand. “What’s that?… he says he doesn’t know anyone from the Wall Street Journal?… but he’s coming down, anyway… okay, thanks.” Looking up at me from his desk, the security guard casually remarked, “He’ll be down in a minute. Why don’t you wait over there.” He nodded toward a couple of chairs across the lobby.

  “Yeah, sure… thanks, Leonard.” I sat down, waited and looked around. Kansas City was not exactly Paris or Milan, but it wasn’t Clinton either and I was downtown… most guys had suits on. Oh yeah, there were hi-tech hipsters around, fashionably dressed down in their $300 “distressed jeans,” ’70s retro shirts and beanies, no doubt snickering at my Ben Davis hick gear… and I said I was from the Wall Street Journal. Oh well…

  The elevator door opened and there he was. Shit, he was six-foot-ten if he was an inch… and looked like he was about thirteen. Momentarily taken aback, I managed to regain my composure as Hendricks’ eyes darted up and down the lobby looking for someone who might be from the Wall Street Journal. With no one but yours truly and Big Leonard inhabiting the space, his gaze eventually settled on me. Hendricks’ face was a beacon of insecurity.

  I walked up, held out my hand and looked straight up. Man, was he tall. “Mr. Hendricks?”

  “Uh, do I, uh, know you?” He said in a voice that was reedy, strained and at least an octave too high. In addition, Hendricks either ignored or was unaware of my outstretched hand. He also seemed to be oblivious to my bumpkin attire. It didn’t take much to tell the young man was in distress.

  “Uh, no, I don’t think we’ve met, Mr. Hendricks. I’m Franklin Blodgett from the Wall Street Journal. I’ve come to ask you some…”

  “The… the Wall Street Journal? What would the Wall Street Journal want with me? I don’t understand.” Hendricks was getting more nervous by the second. I had to figure out a way to calm him down.

  “It’s not really you, exactly, that we’re interested in, Mr. Hendricks… may I call you Ted?” Hendricks ignored me again. “It’s really your job that we want to know about. I understand you are an…”

  “My job! My job! What about my job?” Glancing up from his magazine, a look of concern crossed Leonard’s large face as Hendricks’ voice began to rise. He was starting to lose it.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Hendricks… Ted. I understand you are an Internet content screener? Is that correct?”

  “Yes, but there’s nothing wrong with…”

  “Please, just give me a minute… the New York Times did a major article on people in your profession a couple of years ago and now the Journal has asked me to do a followup. I won’t take up much of your time. Please, just give me a few minutes…”

  “Oh… well, I really need to get back to work, but…”

  “Five minutes, Ted, just give me five to ten minutes. We can go over to Starbucks and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

  “Well… I guess so.” Hendricks was obviously uncertain, but it seemed like answering a few questions might be the easiest way to get rid of me.

  We walked back across the street with me marveling at how close Hendricks’ head came to the top of each doorway, always ducking at the last possible moment, without ever actually hitting one. We found a table with lots of legroom, then I ordered another macchiato for myself and a tall regular
coffee for Ted. The kid was incredibly nervous; something was bothering him.

  “So, uh, how did you hear about me?” he asked as I sat down with the drinks. Hendricks mostly kept his head down, only looking up occasionally. Making eye contact was obviously difficult—most of the time he just stared at this coffee. “There are lots of people in the office doing the same job as me. I don’t understand.”

  “Uh, it was your, uh, supervisor who recommended you, uh…”

  “Charley… uh, Mr. Warren? You spoke to Mr. Warren?”

  “Uh, no, my boss called him a few days ago and he mentioned you.”

  “Oh, but Mr. Warren has never said a word to…”

  “Could you just tell me a little about your job, Ted? It must be fascinating.”

  “Huh? Fascinating!?!… fascinating…” Hendricks seemed to ponder the word like it was a tiny alien doing breaststrokes in his cup of coffee. After a pause of several puzzled moments, he blurted out, “Do you like worm soup? I mean, if you like watching videos of some guy filling up a blender with worms and turning it on high, then, yeah, I guess it’s fascinating. That’s what I was doing when Leonard called and said you were in the lobby… yeah, fascinating… Yesterday there were all these pictures of a guy having sex with a tied-up goat… the goat was struggling and it had like a bondage hood on but you could see its eyes were open and staring in this desperate, pitiful helpless kind of way… and it had a ball gag in its mouth… a ball gag in a goat’s mouth… the… the guy must have taken fifty or sixty pictures with his cell phone while he was doing the goat… and he posted all of them… yeah, I guess it was fascinating… and then there was…”

  “I get it, Ted, I get it. You see a lot of disgusting stuff.” The kid was struggling to keep it together. I felt kind of sorry for him.