Chapter 54

It’s amazing how a person’s emotions can change in the matter of a few seconds. For the most part, I try to stay sort of even, not too high or too low. I like the highs a lot better than the lows, of course, but do not like the rollercoaster ride of ups and downs.

Just a few seconds earlier, I was almost ecstatic. My broker, Elliott Lancaster, just informed me that we had an offer to purchase The Langford Review. The price was $25,000 less than I was asking for, but it still wasn’t bad.

At least it wasn’t bad until Elliott dropped a little bombshell.

“They want you to run the paper,” he said.

I really didn’t want to hear those words. Running the Review for somebody else was not a good idea, as far as I was concerned. The salary these chains pay the editor of small locals is an insult for the most part.

“I’ll have to think about it,” I said.

There was a silence from the other end for a few seconds. “Is it the money part?”

“That’s part of it,” I lied. I would take that money in a heartbeat. “I’m not real crazy about running the Review for them.”

“Hey now, this is a really good organization to work for! They have a 409K and a…”

“Don’t you mean a 401K?”

“Whatever, I get a little confused at times. Plus, they even offer medical insurance.”

“What about the salary?”

There was a much longer silence, this time. “Uh, probably somewhere around twenty thousand a year.”

He said that last sentence real quick, almost like the faster it was said, the more apt I was to let it slide by.

“Ugh,” I said. That would put me back about ten years as far as the old salary goes.

“That’s negotiable!”

Everything is, I guess. “I’ll think about it.”

“I’ll need to know something pretty quick! There are several other newspapers they are looking at.”

“I’ll let you know by this afternoon.”

I hung up the phone and walked up on the porch. I sat down in the swing and started going back and forth, sticking my legs out to hit the wall and send me back. This was how I used to do it as a kid. In the front yard, M.J. and Psycho were still playing. Mule and my mother seemed to enjoy it. Squiggy seemed a little concerned.

“Hey boy, take it easy on my dog,” he said.

“Your dog is fine,” Mom said.

Squiggy took a quick glance at my mother, then back at his dog. He wanted to say something else, but didn’t dare argue with her. She might not feed him again. For a single male, any home cooked meal is one to savor, especially if that male is somebody with the manners of Squiggy.

Mule came up and sat down in the swing next to me.

“You look upset,” he said. “I’m sorry I lost my job after one hour.”

I looked at him. Surely he didn’t think that was bothering me. I was surprised he even took a job.

“That’s okay, Mule,” I said. “That’s not what’s wrong.”

“You can tell me.”

“It’s nothing.”

“You wanna tell Squiggy?” he asked.

“No, it’s just I got an offer to sell the newspaper.”

“How come you’d wanna do that?”

“I planned on going back to Tulsa. It would pay off the debt and help out.”

Mule had to think about this for a few seconds. “I thought we was friends?”

I patted him on the back. “We are friends, Mule.”

“Then how come you’d leave us?”

“I have friends in Tulsa, too.”

He nodded. It almost looked like he was about to cry. “But do they ride around and drink with you?”

No, but that is not a negative for them. “Not like you guys.”

“I hope you stay. You’re the smartest fellow I know, other than the Squigster.”

That was supposed to be a compliment, I guess. “There’s a lot more to it than that.”

“Then you best stop. I can’t think of more than one thing at a time or I gets confused. Plus I gotta hangover that feels like somebody’s ringin a bell upside my head.”

“C’mon Mule, we’s leavin!” Squiggy hollered. He was obviously upset. Psycho had a new friend. “Let’s go Psycho!”

The dog ignored Squiggy, something all of us wished we could do.

“It’s okay, the puppy can stay with us,” M.J. offered. I couldn’t tell who was more upset, my mother or Squiggy.

“Psycho can’t stay with you! She’s my dog!”

“Psycho needs to go with Mister Squiggy,” Mom said.

Mister Squiggy? He smiled after hearing that. M.J. nodded his head.

“Can she come back and see me?” he asked.

“Uh, maybe,” Squiggy said.

Mule got up from the swing and started walking away. He stopped and looked at me. “I hope you stay.”

I nodded. Squiggy had to grab Psycho by the collar and haul him to the truck. M.J. stood next to my mother and waved.

Mule hustled out to the truck and got in. Psycho was watching M.J. the whole time and was crying. She turned around and looked out the rear window as they drove off, slinging slobber all over the glass.

I needed to sleep but couldn’t. I decided to go down to the paper for a while and try to get some work done, hoping that would help clear my head.

I took a shower and got dressed. Mom drove me down to the office. M.J. sang some kid song all the way. They let me out at the front door. I walked in and saw Nancy at her desk, working as I expected. There was a woman standing at her desk with her back to me.

“Good morning,” I said. Nancy smiled at me, but not the same way she did yesterday. Apparently, seeing me with Sandy had dimmed her affections for me. But that was fine. The other woman turned around. It was Theresa, but not the one that was here just a few days earlier.

Her hair was all done up. She had roughly twenty dollars of makeup caked on her face. The tan skirt was way too short, barely covering up her rear. Her blouse was tight and a little short also, revealing a small layer of skin that hung over the skirt. I saw her bellybutton and some stretchmarks that I could have done without seeing this early in the morning.

She had a low-cut shirt on, revealing the beginnings of what appeared to be two thermonuclear missiles. Those weren’t breasts anymore, they almost looked like those orange cones that highway workers set up on the road. Theresa stood sideways so we could observe her new weapons.

I saw there were rings on every finger except the wedding finger. She had several bracelets on each arm. There were fake fingernails on each finger, the longest ones I had ever seen. At least she shouldn’t have any problem picking her nose. After thinking about it for a few seconds, I realized she was a walking example for white trash.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“I think it’s time to get to work,” I said.

She looked a little disturbed. “No, silly, about my new look?”

“It’s definitely different.”

“Good, I’m glad you like it!”

I didn’t actually say that, but I let it go. I walked over to my father’s desk and sat down. There were a couple of messages, asking me to return calls. The one that caught my eye was from Allen Woodard, old helmet head, complete with a return number. Nancy used to always leave a smiley face on all her messages. It was missing on this one, along with the others.

“I need to tell you guys something,” Theresa said. She moved over so she would be standing approximately halfway between us. “I've filed for divorce!”

I nodded and went back to looking at my desk. That wasn’t a surprise. She had a new look and had already found a new guy or was in the hunt for one.

“Please, don’t be upset,” she said and looked at each of us to gauge our reaction. I was looking at the front page of the Poteau paper. Nancy was filing away at her nails. “This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”

But she waited for her husband to pay for her new breasts first, of course.

“I’ll be okay,” she added. “I’m going to start a new…Don’t you guys want to hear this?”

I looked at Nancy, who was looking back at me. She shook her head, so did I.

“Maybe later,” I said. “There are a lot of things that need to be done.”

Theresa looked crushed, almost the same way I was after finding out the prospective owners of the Review wanted me to stay on and manage the paper.

I grabbed the phone and dialed the bank’s number. Mr. Woodard would be with me in just a second, the secretary promised. That second stretched into several minutes. I got to hear several ads touting the bank and how concerned they were about meeting the community’s banking needs. Finally, Woodard picked up the phone.

“Mister Woodard here,” he said. I cringed. Anytime somebody calls themself “Mister”, there was something wrong.

“Yes Allen,” I said, putting a little emphasis on the “Allen” part. “This is Michael Hunt.”

He was quiet for a second.

“You there?” I asked.

“Why yes, of course. What can I do for you?”

Leave me alone, I wanted to say. “I’m returning your call.”

“Oh yes! I was just wanting to let you know how concerned everybody at the bank is with what happened last night.”

That almost sounded sincere. I had almost forgotten all the things that had happened in the last day.

“Thank you for your concern,” I said. Maybe he wasn’t a totally terrible guy after all.

“Also, the board met yesterday and decided to call the loan on the newspaper and your mother’s house.”

Delete that last thought. “Do what?”

“The bank’s board met yesterday and decided to call the note. You have thirty days to pay this off or we will begin foreclosure procedures.”

“I got the note current,” I said. I was talking too loudly and could see Nancy and Theresa staring at me.

“Yes, I know that and appreciate it. But this loan has been classified by our loan review and frankly, I don’t think you can save it. This is a sinking ship you have jumped on.”

“You told me that if I got this caught up, you would give me time.”

“I am giving you time.”

“Thirty days isn’t enough time to do this.”

“Well, that’s what we decided.”

“You are a…Hello?”

He hung up on me before I could toss out an insult. The pig. I disconnected the call and tossed the phone on the desk. I leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. The phone rang and Nancy jumped all over it. I had never seen anybody who answered a phone so quick. It was almost a sin if the phone rang twice.

“Phone’s for you,” she said and put the caller on hold. I grabbed the phone and answered it.

“Hello, this is Michael,” I said. All I could hear was the caller breathing for several seconds. Was somebody giving me an obscene call?

Finally, the silence was broken. “Mister Hunt, your time is up.”

I sat up straight in the chair. The man’s voice was almost chilling. “What do you mean?”

“Your days here need to come to an end.”

“Who is this?”

“Last night, you talked with a man named Orville Lane. Mr. Lane wound up dead in your parking lot. After that, you went for a ride with a woman named Sandy. You shared a sunrise at Cedar Lake this morning. Quite touching, I must say. Her boyfriend, Trevor, is not pleased with you. He knows all about it thanks to a phone call this morning. Also this morning, you had breakfast with your mother and the little boy. Your friends Squiggy and Mule dropped by. Now, you are at your desk and wondering how I know this. Am I correct?”

This was bad. Whoever the caller was, he knew everything about me. Where I went and who I was with.

“Yes, what do you want?” I asked.

“Sell the newspaper and leave town. You have no choice. The bank is breathing down your neck and all you want to do is save your mother’s house, right?”

How the heck did he know all this? He knew stuff I had not told anybody.

“I can’t do all that,” I said. “The offer we have to sell the newspaper stipulates that I stay here and run the paper.”

He actually didn’t seem to know that. The man was quiet for a few seconds. “I’ll be in touch.”

The man hung up. I hit the talk button and stared at the phone. This was not good.

I tried to turn my attention to work, but my brain was overloaded. There was the absence of sleep, along with the two conversations this morning. One was telling me I had thirty days or we would lose most of my mother’s assets. The second caller seemed to indicate we would lose more than financial goodies if we didn’t do as he requested.

I got up from the chair and left. I walked around the decaying downtown and tried to come up with some kind of a game plan. Everywhere I turned, there seemed to be a wall blocking my way. I was convinced now that if necessary, I could make this newspaper work, as long as I wasn’t dead, that is.

But now, I wouldn’t have enough time to do it. My cell phone rang. I was tired of bad calls this morning and slowly opened the flipper to see who the caller was. It was my mother, so I felt a little better.

“Michael, can you go by the post office and get the mail,” she requested. I was walking in that direction so it was fine with me. “I’m expecting your father’s death certificate.”

“Okay, I’ll go by and see.”

“If it’s there, please take one by the insurance office.”

“Will do.”

I hung up and continued my walk. I crossed the street and passed in front of The Bank of Langford. It still seemed fairly deserted. There was a rock on the sidewalk that I thought about picking up and throwing through the window. Yes, that would be childish, but satisfying.

I walked the final two blocks and made my way to the post office, an older facility at the edge of downtown. I got my mother’s mail and sat it down on a table to go through it. There was a lot of junk mail, three credit card applications, the envelope with the death certificates along with a letter from the bank dated two days ago.

It had my mother’s name on it, but I opened it anyway.

The letter was from Woodard. The basic gist was the same message he gave me this morning. But it was dated two days ago. Woodard told me they talked about it yesterday and decided to call the note. He sent this letter before the board met, the same day that I got everything current.

This just made me angrier, something I did not need at the moment. There were also at least eight bills in the mail and I wondered how Mom was going to pay them. I left the post office and walked over to the only insurance agent downtown. He was on the phone so I placed the death certificate on his desk.

He cupped the phone and said, “Thanks, we’ll get this taken care of.”

I had no idea what he planned to take care of. There were too many other things to worry about. As I left the office, I started to cross the street and noticed two trucks at the opposite end of the block. There was a person sitting in both of them. Since this street was pretty much vacant, that struck me as odd.

The phone rang again and I opened it up. There was a number on the Caller ID that I didn’t recognize.

“Yeah,” I said. Pretty poor etiquette but I was past the point of caring.

“Mister Hunt!” the caller said. “This is Elliott.”

He didn’t waste any time. I told him that I would let him know later, but I meant in the afternoon.

“What can I do for you?” I asked.

“The strangest thing just happened,” he said. I doubted it was stranger than some of the things I had been through.

“What’s that?”

“I just got off the phone with a gentleman who wants to buy the Review.’

“Good, did he make an offer?”

“Yes, but again, this was a little different. He asked how much we were wanting. I told him the price and he said that was fine.”

Full price? That wasn’t fine, it was great.

“Good,” I said.

“He wanted to give me a check and get it done.”

“That isn’t how it's done, is it?”

“Not normally,” he said.

“No stipulations or due diligence?”

“No due diligence, only one stipulation.”

I expected nothing but bad news here. “What is it?”

He told me and the bad feeling I had just got worse.

Chapter 55