CENSUS_What Lurks Beneath Page 14

  Dave hoisted the post hole digger and turned his back to Bill as he walked farther down the fence line to the next rotten post in need of replacement. “Not much to report Bill. Did you run out of cans to shoot?”

  Bill smiled and walked slowly along behind Dave. “No, I have plenty of targets left.” He paused for effect and made the unnatural effort to show concern on his face. “The noise doesn’t bother you, does it?”

  Dave dropped the digger down and turned back in Bill’s direction to the nearby pile of posts perched in the front-end loader bucket of his tractor.

  As he passed Bill to reach for a post he responded, “No, there’s nothing better than twelve straight hours of unrelenting gunfire.” Dave walked past Bill and dumped the new post next to the post hole digger.

  From previous experience, Dave found that ignoring Bill sped up the pace of these interactions as it allowed him to more quickly get to what- ever offensive topic of the day he wished to share. Today proved that point, and Bill dove right in with, “Boy, you sure did get the short end of the stick when they divided up this property.”

  Insulting someone’s land in Texas is akin to insulting their mother’s honor, and as Dave picked the post hole digger back up, he thought long and hard about how much time he’d serve for planting the business end deep in Bill’s chest. If anyone on the jury had ever met Bill he felt certain the only thing he’d receive was praise, and perhaps a small plaque in recognition of the community service he’d performed. Unfortunately, while he would gladly trade barbs with Bill, there was no longtime ad- vantage in openly declaring war. This bi-monthly interaction initiated by Bill, apparently allowed him to vent his venom toward his neighbors, particularly weekenders from the Big City, with no actual harm done (minus an uptick to Dave’s blood pressure).

  Per usual, a lack of response had no impact on Bill’s monologue, and he continued. “I mean you got these power lines, which I’m sure glad run on this side of the road, Willis and his disaster next door, and whatever mess you inherited from that shut-in oil well and the trash pit that came after it.”

  Dave had largely tuned Bill out as he removed the remains of the crumbly old post and began digging the new hole, but he couldn’t help himself on the topic of the shut-in well. He knew that the area had been drilled and worked over back in the 80’s, but he’d never been able to figure out if an oil well had been dug on his small property.

  “What’s this about the shut-in well Bill?”

  Bill smiled, knowing that he’d hooked Dave into a conversation. Bill gestured back toward the upper pond and the woods below it. “Back behind the upper pond, where you had the second pond dug. Your dozer driver didn’t say anything about running across the old casing? Guess it might’ve been hard to find under all of that trash.”

  Dave knew that Bill invited himself over whenever he wished, and wasn’t surprised that he’d nosed around when the dozer work was being done for the second pond. He cringed internally at just how much money had gone into creating that second pond, his favorite place on the property, when the trash removal project had evolved into a full-scale pond excava- tion. One of the prior owners had found that hauling trash to the county dump was too much trouble—particularly when he could just dump it in the extensive cleared area behind the pond. When Dave tried to remedy the eyesore he’d quickly learned that the huge amount of garbage was going to cost a fortune to remove—but on the plus side the work would go most of the way toward the creation of a large, deep pond.

  Bill continued. “Yeah, my land was part of the pool but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let them drill on my place.” He turned a little and spat a large dollop of brown saliva into the grass as his cheek worked over the lump of chew perched against his gums on the left side of his mouth.

  Bill absently wiped at the residue on his chin with the cuff of his shirt. “I paid off my place with the proceeds, and then some.” Bill smiled and optimistically twisted a potential knife. “They’re putting another pool together and are going to rework the field next year—but I guess that doesn’t matter to you since you don’t have any mineral rights, right?”

  Dave was only too familiar with the fact that sellers had largely stopped conveying mineral rights about five years before his quest for property began. In situations where the rights were available, the overly optimistic sellers often wanted more for them than they did for the land.

  “No, Bill, I just have surface control.”

  Bill smiled again. “Ah, you’re probably fine on that front. Nobody wants to drill on this portion anyway. They shut down this well when that sour gas came up.”

  Dave had another go with the post hole digger and winced at the pain in his head. “Sour gas?”

  Bill walked closer and spat again. The brown juice landed within inches of Dave’s feet. “Guess you city people ain’t that inquisitive about the property you buy. Yeah, they had a problem with H2S, and since it had just been a few months since the pipeline explosion, they didn’t want the PR headache.”

  Dave turned and looked hard at Bill, who grinned widely in return, bits of tobacco clinging to his yellow teeth. Dave had heard about the pipe- line explosion but he knew it had happened elsewhere in the county— though the blast had been felt in towns over fifty miles away. H2S, how- ever, was new to him.

  “You got me Bill—what’s H2S?”

  “Hydrogen sulfide. Smells like the devil himself, and when’s not corrod- ing the shit out of everything in its path, it also likes to explode.”

  Dave internalized this latest round of good news. “So the rig they were using here blew up?”

  Bill spat again, and it again landed right next to Dave. “Nope. They caught it just before it went sky-high, but they didn’t waste any time moving off to another location.” Bill smiled again, his teeth brown with tobacco juice, “You didn’t get anything on this when you bought it huh?”

  Dave turned away from Bill and let his eyes track the path of the power lines, stopping at the point where they hung suspended over the second pond. He’d mentally turned the corner on no longer thinking of the

  pond as the former trash pit. He could now add the effort of blocking out the vision of a plume of explosive, putrid sulfuric gas, just waiting to burst through whatever amount of concrete had been used to plug the well.

  “No Bill, I didn’t. Just lucky I guess.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Rasberry

  Crazy…

  A couple of days later Dave’s cell rang via the earbuds perched in his ears. He hit the “answer” button on the phone without taking his eyes from the road—a valuable skill considering the amount of driving he was forced to do.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, it’s Mark. Were you eating sugar cookies over this thing or what?”

  Dave’s mind whirled through its internal rolodex, and he realized that this Mark was his friend with the computer consulting practice. Dave had dropped the ruined laptop off at his place during his rounds last week.

  “Actually, it was a big slice of pie that your Mom made me.”

  “Nice one. Now I’ve gotta run around all day picturing my mother feed- ing you pie. Naked.”

  “Who’s naked in the picture—me or your mom?”

  “Shit. Now I’m never going to get that out of my head.” The momentary silence was filled with the sound of a long gulp on the part of Mark, who drank more coffee in a day than Dave did in a week. “In all seriousness, your laptop is now a paperweight.”

  “Ants?”

  “Yep.” Another long gulp. “Rasberry crazy ants. They are damn near taking over. I have a client that just lost their server to the little bastards.”

  “Does your client know that you’re the one who put the ants in there to begin with?”

  “You’re pretty funny for a guy who just lost a laptop. And these ants don’t need any help. They came here from Brazil or something but are now spreading out all over southeast Texas.”

  “Why are they called Rasberry
ants?”

  “Rasberry crazy ants, and I haven’t a clue. I do know that you should get an exterminator to come blast your castle of solitude with a lethal dose of their strongest stuff. These ants apparently keep coming, and they’ll wipe out quite a bit more than just your laptop.”

  “It’s fortress of solitude.” Dave didn’t know why he’s volunteered this correction. He had no particular allegiance to the Superman films of the ’80’s.

  “What?”

  “You said castle, but it’s fortress.” “Whatever the fuck it is, it has a lot of ants.”

  Dave smiles at Mark’s curt, but accurate assessment. The smile faded as quickly as it came as he pondered the myriad of difficulties in getting an exterminator out to his country place. He was rudely brought back to reality by a honk from the sedan in the next lane, into which he had un- consciously drifted. He waived absently at the car and received a middle finger in response.

  “You want me to recycle the old girl?”

  What Lurks Beneath

  Dave put on his blinker as he made his way to the exit that led to the farm. “Yeah, might as well. Just make sure you wash your hands after you touch the keyboard.”

  “Nice. Thanks for that. When are you going to make it up to me by having another guys’ night out at the ranch?”

  Dave downshifted in reaction to the car in front of him, which had come to a complete stop at the end of the exit ramp in a futile effort to cut across the three lanes of feeder road and enter a car dealership’s lot. “I think every night at the ranch might be guys’ night pretty soon.”

  Dave, now stopped behind the optimistic car, checked his rear-view mir- ror to see a line of other cars behind him also coming to abrupt stops.

  “Are you moving out there?”

  Multiple cars behind him began honking. Dave’s truck concealed the stopped car in front of him, and he was receiving the lion’s share of the blame from those behind him. He used the small amount of space left between him and the car in front of him to ease over to the left, so those behind could see that he was not the problem—to no avail. The honking continued, and his phone began chirping to alert him to another call. He held the phone up to see who it was, and the caller ID listed the main number of yet another client.

  “I don’t know, man. Things aren’t good at home. They aren’t great out there either.” The honking continued, competing with the second ring that only he could hear. “Thanks a lot for looking at the laptop. I gotta run but I’ll buzz you tomorrow OK?”

  “Dave, don’t hang up yet. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Dave hit ignore on the incoming call and spun his wheel farther to the left, just missing the bumper of the stopped car in front of him. He bounced over the curb and drove over the grass to escape the impasse, and

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  the honking. “I’ll figure it out. Just a lot going on, and it’s all happening at once. You know how it goes.”

  “That I do ’migo. And let me know when you want to come by and get a used laptop out of my collection.”

  Dave was too busy thinking about the call he’d just ignored, the ditch he was driving through, whether or not he was going to get stuck in this ditch, and of course, if these ants really tasted like raspberries.

  “Hello? Are you there?”

  Dave snapped back once again. “Sorry, yeah, I’m here.”

  The typing in the background stopped. “Take a deep breath and call me when you can. I’m a little worried about you.”

  Dave bounced back across the curb onto the clear space of the feeder road. “Will do. And thank you.”

  Dave ended the call and stared in his rear-view at the mess behind him. To no one in particular he added, “I’m a little worried about me too.”

  In response, Dave’s phone rang. It was the same client he’d just ignored.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Regional

  Medical

  He had passed the regional medical center on dozens of occasions on his way to and from meetings with clients in the area. Unlike medical facilities in big cities, which often go out of their way in attempts to impress, the primary building—the hospital—was largely unremarkable in terms of its architecture, it’s color scheme, or its size. It featured three floors, and was surrounded by smaller, one story structures that housed doctor’s offices, pharmacies and related facilities.

  What caught his eye this particular day in early October was the large new sign mounted on posts out by the main road announcing the avail- ability of MRI services on site. Dave mulled over this development as he continued on his way out of town, gently rubbing the spot on his head just above his right ear.

  His low grade, but ever-present headache was now distracting him from his work. Juggling two or three disparate financial concepts in an attempt to ultimately tie them together for those listening was hard enough. Try- ing to do so as his brain repeatedly reminded him that it was in pain was something else altogether.

  Dave glanced at the small clock within the dashboard. 2:15 p.m. If he continued on he’d make it back to The Woodlands just in time for the daily traffic jam. If he delayed his return by an hour or so, he’d likely get

  home at exactly the same time, but with that much less time stuck in his truck. He rubbed his head again as he slowed to pull into the parking lot of a feed store coming up on the right, where he could turn around and head back to the medical center.

  A few minutes later he strode up to the front desk of the hospital with his laptop bag in his right hand (he’d trained himself to bring it along wherever he went, as he’d heard one too many stories about computers being stolen out of parked, unattended vehicles). One good thing about 2:30 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon in a small regional hospital was that there was no line. He set what he jokingly referred to as his man-purse down on the counter and smiled at the woman on the other side, perched between a computer monitor and a phone. She eventually looked up with a bland, bored expression from whatever she’d been staring at on the monitor. “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, I see you folks are now offering MRIs. I’d like to get one.”

  An odd look replaced the bored expression. “I’m sorry. Do you have the prescription from your doctor?”

  It was now Dave’s turn for the odd look. “Prescription? For an MRI?”

  “Yes sir.” She turned back to her monitor and began pecking away at her keyboard. “There’s quite a backlog already and MRI services are only provided on Wednesdays and Saturdays.”

  This did not compute. “What happens with the machines the rest of the time?”

  “The MRI machines are mobile, Sir. The truck comes every Wednesday and Saturday morning.”

  Dave rubbed his head again. His spur of the moment idea was quickly unraveling. “And I need a prescription?”

  The woman looked back at him briefly, and then mentally washed her hands of what was obviously a waste of time. The man in front of her was dressed well, and at first glance had seemed respectable, but now she saw something odd, unsettling, in his face. The sooner he was gone the happier she’d be.

  Still looking at her screen, she replied. “Yes, Sir. A prescription from your doctor and we’ll then need to schedule it. We’ll also need to verify coverage with your insurance company and will probably need to charge your credit card upfront unless you’ve already met your deductible.”

  Dave slowly processed all this information. He didn’t know exactly why he decided to lie, but he did know that he’d hoped getting an MRI out here in the sticks would provide some anonymity. He also wasn’t sure exactly why he wanted to do this off the radar, but he did.

  “I actually don’t have insurance right now—starting a new job soon— and I don’t have a regular doctor either. If I were to just pay cash would that help move things along?”

  Dave saw her squint a bit as if his questions, and his presence, were now actually giving her a headache. “The hospital definitely accepts cash, but an out-of-town check requires five busines
s days to clear, and you’ll still need a prescription from a doctor that works with our hospital.”

  “Understood. Can you tell me which of the doctor’s offices over here could help me with a prescription?”

  She looked up and eyed him warily. “I can’t recommend a specific doctor, Sir.”

  “Sure, but there must be several doctors in the complex that I could go to?”

  She reached for the top page in a stack of identical forms which provided a rudimentary map of the entire medical center. She stood and laid the

  form on the counter in front of Dave, using a pen to circle a large number of offices in one of the satellite buildings. “Any of the doctors located in this building should be able to help.”

  She smiled a smile that screamed it was time for him to go, and then sat back down to stare intently at the monitor.

  Dave mumbled thanks as he picked up the page and tried to reconcile the location she’d circled versus where he now stood. He figured that it was likely a waste of time, but since he was already here he might as well try to see a doctor.

  A few minutes later, still toting his man-purse, he opened the door of the first doctor’s office within the circled area on the sheet of paper, and let his eyes adjust to the fluorescent lighting and the assortment of old people, some of whom sported crutches and bandages in addition to the universal look of sadness that enveloped the room. Several of the patients looked up to appraise him. The senior citizen with his arm in a brace in the chair nearest the door frowned at him. “Shut the door. You’re letting all the heat in.”

  Dave had long since become accustomed to the fact that anytime you exited the sweltering heat that dominated the outdoors most of the year you had to prepare yourself for the equally shocking blast of cold from the over-air-conditioned building you entered. He wasn’t sure why the grumpy old man with an aversion to heat had chosen to sit next to the door, but he nodded in response and let the door shut behind him as he walked to the closed frosted-glass windows perched above the counter which separated the staff from those in the waiting room.