Chapter 39

Will Rogers used to say he never met a man he didn't like.

Now, I'm no Will Rogers, not nearly as famous or witty, but I share that belief. I pretty much like every man and don't hate any of them. There are some I like a lot more than others, but I don’t dislike anybody.

I have found it is a waste of time. If you don’t get along with somebody, stay away from them as much as possible. There have been people in my life that didn’t see eye-to-eye with me and I avoided them whenever I could.

So I didn’t like them as much as some others, but I didn’t want something bad to happen to the person. As I sat in the office of Allen Woodard on this Monday morning, Squiggy and Mule were not liked as much today as they were yesterday.

They got me drunk and I made a rear out of myself. Heck, I didn’t even hate R.D., who gave me this shiner everybody kept staring at. Again, I didn’t like him a lot, but I didn’t want him to die. He had paid the price last night, thanks to Mule.

But I could tell one Allen Woodard didn’t feel the same way about people. He leaned back in his chair and looked down at me above his glasses. I just couldn’t feel the love. He was all business. It was all about the profit to this guy, nothing else mattered.

His cheeks were a little red this morning and the hair was combed forward again, nary a hair out of place. He had some papers in his hand, looking at them until finding what he was looking for. Woodard tossed the papers on his spotless desk and stared back at me with those thoughtless eyes.

I don’t know if he was trying to intimidate me or if this was how Woodard greeted everybody.

“I understand that you are managing the paper’s affairs,” he stated, without bothering to say hello or even comment on how stupid it was for a person of my age to get in a bar fight.

“Yes, I am,” I answered, but got cut off before I could say anything else.

“The paper’s DDA account had three checks presented as insufficient today.”

All right! Now that’s just what I wanted to hear. In addition to being behind on everything, the account was overdrawn. I pulled out my pocket notebook and pen to write this down.

“How much?” I asked.

“Four thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars,” he reported.

“That much came in today?”

He picked up his papers and checked on the account.

“No, only thirty four hundred of it came in today. The rest was already overdrawn.”

Would the good news never stop?

“Okay, can you cover those checks?” I asked.

Woodard stared at me for a few seconds before he snorted. The man snorted! He didn’t say no, shake his head or anything.

“I don’t think so,” he finally replied after too long. “You’ll need a deposit of that amount by ten thirty or those checks will be returned.”

He leaned forward in his chair, still looking at me over his glasses.

“You don’t want that to happen,” he added.

Really, I don’t? Gosh, how did he know that? That intelligent comment must be from all his years of playing banker. My word, how could such wisdom be stored up in one person?

“I don’t know what to do,” I admitted. Darn, I just didn’t quite have that much money to deposit.

He seized the moment. It was almost like he enjoyed a customer having difficulty.

“I’d try to get some money together to cover the checks,” he suggested. Such brilliance! Man, if only I had thought about that.

“Okay, how far behind is the loan on the paper?” I asked.

“And your mother’s house,” he tossed in. It was a beanball, one that sailed right at my head. I wanted to charge the mound, grab his outie and stick it in his mouth or some other body orifice.

Woodard turned to his computer and typed something in. Then, he typed something else in. Finally, after what seemed like it took way too much time, Woodard seemed to have found what he was looking for.

“The loan is almost three payments late,” he announced. It was like he was reading off a menu, showing no emotion. “The total due is three thousand, nine hundred fifty dollars. Plus late charges.”

Oh yeah, don’t want to forget about them, do we?

“How quickly does that need to be paid?” I asked.

“Today, would be nice,” he replied. “Our attorney is sending out a letter this morning demanding payment within thirty days.”

“Who will the letter go to?”

“The remaining person on the loan.”

It was my mother. She didn’t need to get that.

“Can you give me a couple of days to get the payments in?” I asked.

“I’ll give you until the end of business of Wednesday,” he countered. Wow, that was a little over fifty hours.

“What’s the collateral on that note?” I asked. He looked at me with scorn. That would mean getting up from his desk and getting the file, wherever it is kept. The gall!

“I’ll have to go get it,” Woodard declared. He got up from his chair slowly and started walking out of the office. I’ve seen old people with walkers move faster. I wanted to tell him to get his rear in gear, time was a wasting.

I looked around the office. He had several pictures of himself, like that was a surprise. In most of the pictures, he was with a woman with big hair and a big smile. She was truly hideous in appearance, looking like Cruella DeVille in 101 Dalmations. Woodard failed to smile in any of the pictures. I probably wouldn’t either, if that was my wife.

He was talking to a secretary behind me. I turned around to look at him, then saw something really bad. I jerked my head back around, hoping I wasn’t seen.

It was relatively quiet for a few seconds. Then, the silence was broken.

“How’s it goin, helmethead?” I heard from behind me.

“Pardon me?” Woodard replied.

It was Squiggy. Who else would call the bank’s president “helmethead”?

“Hey, what’s up wif that hair?” Squiggy asked.

““Excuse me?” Woodard responded.

“Ya ain’t foolin nobody combin yer hair like that. We’s all know yer slick as a baby’s butt up there. Just let it happen. If the Good Lord wanted ya to have hair on yer head, He woulda given it to ya.”

This couldn’t be happening. Squiggy was giving the bank’s president grooming tips.

“Who do you need to see?” Woodard asked.

“Him,” Squiggy answered. I knew who the “him” was he was referring to. I tried to hide, but knew it was no good.

“Sir, we are in the middle of a meeting!”

Like that would stop Squiggy. He walked into Woodard’s office and sat down beside me. I hoped that if I didn’t acknowledge him, he would go away.

“He called me ‘sir’,” Squiggy related, laughing. “Lemme see that eye!”

“No.”

“C’mon!”

“No! What’re you doing here?” I asked.

“Just checkin up on ya.”

“How’d you find me?”

“That girl at yer office, the one wif the disco doo.”

I would have to remember to thank Nancy.

“She said you was comin to de bank,” he added.

“Squiggy, you need to leave.”

“Naw, it’s okay. I ain’t goin fishin wif Lefty till noon.”

“Who’s Lefty?” I foolishly asked.

“His real name’s a Bob, or something. I just calls him ‘Lefty’?”

“Why? Is he left handed?”

“Nope, it’s cuz he don’t got one.”

“Doesn’t have one of what?” I asked.

“A left hand,” Squiggy replied, holding up his hand. “Got it cut off right above the wrist at the saw mill last winter.”

I’m sure the man really liked that nickname.

"Where's Mule?" I asked.

"Jail," he said, chewed on a fingernail then spit it out on the floor.

"Why's he in jail?"

"Assault'n a battery."

"For what?" I asked.

"Fer hitting that little cowboy feller in that fight you started," Squiggy said, got another nail, but spit this one on the president's desk. I wiped it off on the floor.

"I didn't start the fight."

"Yep, if'n you hadn't been hittin on that cowboy's ugly wife, none of that woulda happened."

I couldn't believe Mule was in jail. He did beat the snot out of R.D., but this was Langford. It was expected to have fights.

"Go tell R.D. that if he doesn't drop the charges, I'll file on him," I told Squiggy, who was about through biting the nails and spitting them out.

"Good idear, I'll call him after we get through here."

“You really need to leave,” I told him. “This is serious.”

“Is it bout yer dad’s money problems?” he asked.

“How’d you know about that?”

“I know everthing,” Squiggy replied. “That’s what I do.”

“Okay, but I need to talk with him in private.”

“Do ya need some money?”

“Yeah, a lot.”

Squiggy considered that for a second.

“I could hep ya out, ya know?”

“Really?” I perked up. Squiggy had money? “How much?”

“I got thirty dollars on me.”

“Thanks, Squiggy, that’s not enough.”

“I got six more out in the truck.”

Woodard was coming back into the office. He was staring at Squiggy with disgust. The whole “helmethead” remark had gotten them off on the wrong track.

“Sir, you need to wait in the lobby,” Woodard remarked.

Squiggy looked at me and laughed.

“Old helmethead called me ‘sir’ again!”

“Go, Squiggy.”

“I’ll be in the lobby starin at the fish in case ya need me.”

There was a large fish tank in the lobby. I hoped Squiggy didn’t stick his hand in and try and catch them.

Woodard waited until Squiggy left to sit down.

“Friend of yours?” he asked.

“Sort of,” I answered.

Woodard opened the file and started paging through it. Every couple of pages, he stopped and looked at me and my eye.

“Here it is,” he announced. “The collateral on the note is the newspaper building, all furniture and fixtures, receivables and the personal residence.”

“What would it take to pay off the house?” I asked.

He snorted again.

“The only way I’ll release the house is if the loan is paid in full,” Woodard said.

“You don’t give any value to the office and the newspaper?”

“Not really.”

I let that comment hang in the air for a few seconds. My father had thought enough of it that it ruined him.

“Who were the checks to that came in today?” I asked.

He turned back to the computer and played with it for a few minutes. Apparently, that didn’t work so he got on the phone and called somebody and relayed my question.

“The checks were to some printing company and somebody named Teresa and Nancy,” he said.

That meant the checks were to the company that printed the newspaper along with payroll checks. They didn’t need to be sent back.

“Is there any way I could borrow the money?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Do you actually have a job?”

I actually had a job before getting thrown in this mess.

“Yes, I do,” I tried to sound sarcastic but it would up sounding pathetic.

“That’s always a plus,” Woodard said, and actually tried to smile. But his lips could only go so far before it was like there was some kind of block to prevent them from breaking into a full smile.

I guess that meant that it helped for a person to have income coming in to borrow money. This Woodard was one sharp tack.

He pulled out a stack of papers. Woodard handed me a couple of things to sign. I looked them over to see what they were.

“Just sign them,” he said. “Those papers don’t mean anything.”

I guess that was why I was signing them. They seemed harmless enough, just giving the bank permission to pull my credit and telling me that I was not required to purchase insurance through the bank if it was required.

“Do you have any photo identification?” he asked.

I dug out my wallet, found my driver’s license and tossed it to him. He filled out all the information.

“This says here that you live at some number,” Woodard stated. “Do you live in an apartment?”

“Yeah, I do.”

He apparently didn’t like that. Or that I didn’t have any assets other than money stashed in retirement accounts.

Woodard pulled my credit and looked mildly surprised.

“You have really good credit,” he remarked.

He meant it as a compliment, but it still got on my nerves.

“But we can’t extend any credit to you at this time,” he announced.

“Why?” The good credit didn’t carry much weight, after all.

“You don’t have enough collateral.”

“What about my truck?”

“We need something a little stronger than a Ford Ranger.”

“I’ve never been late on a payment in my life.”

“Not that I can see,” Woodard added. “But you just don’t have the financial statement that we require.”

“Well, excuse the crap out of me.”

He sat back in his chair. Apparently, that wasn’t the response he wanted to hear.

“There’s no reason to lose your temper, Mister Hunt,” Woodard said.

Actually, there were a lot of reasons. He had just added several to the list.

“I’ll pay you off somehow,” I told him, realizing this was a person that even I probably did not like. “You won’t touch my mother’s house.”

He nodded. Woodard looked a little worried, like I was going to hurdle the desk and start pounding on him.

“Okay, just get the money in within an hour.”

I nodded, got up and started to walk out.

“Say, we’re selling ads for a memorial to my father,” I said. “Want size would you like?”

He got all puckered up.

“How much does it cost?” he acted like it would come out of his account.

I hit him with top dollar, the price reserved for banks and attorneys.

He looked like something was caught in his throat, but Woodard nodded.

I walked through the lobby. Squiggy caught up with me as I walked out the door.

“Ya look a little hacked,” Squiggy said. I told him what had happened and what was going to happen. He studied this for a little bit, then smiled. “I know how you can git outta this.”

“How?” I asked.

“We’re goin to see my boys,” he added.

I didn’t have a clue who his boys were or what his plan was, but it wasn’t like I had many choices.

All I knew was it was a good thing Will Rogers never met Allen Woodard. That quote would be a lie.

Chapter 40