Dumb Luck

MURPHY

Copyright © 2016 Mark T. Murphy.

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ISBN: 978-1-4834-4980-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-4979-1 (e)

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 6/24/2016

I NSTEAD OF STOPPING FOR THE RED light,

Roberta Vagaline stepped on the accelerator and held her breath. The other motorists hit their brakes and honked horns as she sped between traffic, which was already congregating at the intersection.

Slow it down, Birdie!

She ignored her husband and turned up the radio.

A couple of minutes later, the 1967 Ford station wagon came skidding to a stop a few inches from a young man who was sweeping a parking lot. He threw down his broom, slammed a fist on the hood and glared at the odd-looking lady staring back at him.

It wasn’t Roberta’s fault she was born with an oversized head, her father’s Roman nose and mother’s small mouth, features, when combined with beady bird eyes, were reminiscent of a parrot.

By the third grade most of her classmates were calling her Birdie and, by the fourth, so was her mother.

Roberta’s behavior was as mixed-up as her facial features. When she was fifteen, a summer camp counselor wrote on the young lady’s evaluation that she was unable to control her impulses, had no interest in physical activities and added that she was always snacking on something.

Her thirty-seven-year-old husband, Ted, was a neurotic six-foot-four beanpole. His triangular ears and square face were as mismatched as two companions could be.

Piercing blue eyes, a narrow nose and furrowed brows gave him a perpetually determined expression, even when sleeping. Ted memorialized his Father by keeping his hair barbered in the same outdated flattop fashion.

After her husband got out of the car, Roberta tossed something out of her window. Before Ted could walk around and pick it up, she backed up and peeled out of the parking lot of the fast food restaurant where he was about to start his afternoon shift.

His two boys, eight-year-old Billy and four-year-old Douglas pressed their noses against the window and made funny faces at him as he waved goodbye.

After retrieving the paper hat and wiping dirt off of it, Ted used a side mirror on a truck that was parked in one of the spaces to make sure his hat was positioned exactly as illustrated in the Burger World employee handbook.

As soon as Ted saw his supervisor, he raised his hand in anticipation of the man’s high five ritual. It was the way his boss greeted him whenever he started his shift.

Damn, you’re tall! How come ya’ll never played professional basketball?

Sam, asked this same question every other week and, as always, came up a reason to excuse himself before Ted could answer the question.

In fact Ted might have made a career of the sport had he not had to quit junior varsity and leave school to help run their farm after his father’s passing.

His dad hadn’t been in the ground six months when the overly friendly owner of a neighboring concern started asking his mother to sell him a parcel with an offer that was close to insulting.

After repeatedly turning him down, the same man pressured the local bank to call a note that Ted’s father had obligated to a few years earlier in order to finance the construction of new sheds, a state-of-the-art fruit grader and sorting equipment.

This forced his mother to sell the parcel to the highest bidder, who happened to be the same man who had told the banker he would take his business elsewhere if he did not do as instructed.

Twenty-five acres of apple trees along with the buildings and equipment that had served as collateral for the debt were sold to pay off the loan.

This left his Mother with the house, five acres of Red Delicious orchards and enough cash for her to live on until retirement if she was careful.

To help support Ted’s sister in college, his mother eventually took seasonal work at the very sheds she used to own.

A year after the sale of the property, Ted decided it was time to go out into the world, so in the summer of 1975, with two thousand dollars that his mother had given him, he took a bus to Los Angeles.

Ted liked horses and remembered a cousin of his had worked in Hollywood Park. He applied for a position as groundskeeper’s assistant and got offered a job busing tables at the clubhouse.

He eventually worked his way up to assistant cook, establishing a reputation as an innovator when it came to preparing French fries and baked potatoes. Ted got his moniker when a bar back started calling him French Fry because of his lankiness and his creative use of potatoes.

A few years later, after the administrative offices had been relocated down the hall from the clubhouse, Ted met Roberta. Within ten minutes of meeting him, the file clerk insisted he take her to dinner and a movie. Three weeks later, Roberta was telling everyone that Ted was going to be her husband.

A food-services manager strongly advised Ted against getting involved with Roberta. He tried a couple of times to arrange a blind date with Ted and his youngest sister, who was seeking an eligible bachelor, but when Roberta found out, she cornered him in the men’s restroom and threw such a fit that he quickly abandoned the idea.

Ted’s view was that most things that happened were destiny and shouldn’t be fought. He believed that Roberta must have been chosen for him by his creator and that he should let the river of life take him to his intended destination.

They tied the knot on Thanksgiving Day at Chapel of the Flowers in Las Vegas. After the I dos, Ted stooped over and gave his five-feet-one, two-hundred-and-thirty-pound bride what the minister had later described to his wife as the most awkward kiss he had witnessed in all of his years as an officiant.

In ten months, they had saved enough to move out of her mother’s apartment and put a down payment on a twenty-two-year-old single-wide in a park called Heavenly Palms Mobile Village, which was a good thing because Robert’s mother was tired of dealing with her pregnant daughter’s extreme mood swings.

The same week they moved into their new home, a twenty-three-year-old who had no practical experience—the grandson of a senior board member of Hollywood Park—was hired as the restaurant’s new swing-shift manager after his predecessor retired.

Earl Butrid was a foul-mouthed Louisiana boy with slicked-back hair and a swagger. When he wasn’t instructing employees, he was in the manager’s office with feet on desk, thumbing through girlie magazines, listening to country music or snorting a substance called cocaine that a friend had recently introduced him to.

On nights when there were no races and business was slow, Earl would be boasting endlessly about his glory days as an LSU running back and of his family’s stature in the country’s greatest state.

In time, Earl started to complain about all things from California and took to mocking easy targets, which included Ted and a mentally challenged busboy with an acute stutter. The workers asked Earl to stop, but he either ignored their requests or threatened them with unemployment.

On one of those quiet nights, Earl was in his office drinking tequila and trying to forget his unreturned calls to a young lady he’d been dating for a while. It was just before midnight when the complaints and cursing from the manager’s office became loud enough to hear from the dining area.

The few customers there decided it was time to leave when the belligerent manager appeared with a white smudge under his nose.

Hey, French Fry, Earl yelled.

Ted ignored Earl.

How’s Bird brain?

The other employees winced. Earl had entered unchartered territory by insulting Ted’s wife.

The waitress stormed over and stood between her boss and Ted. Why don’t you chill? There’s no reason to—

Keep out-ta my beeswax, Dorothy! I’m talking to special Ted.

Ted continued wiping the grill, hoping his manager would settle down. The cook stepped out of the kitchen and confronted Earl.

You shouldn’t talk about his wife like that. It’s not—

Earl shot back in his Southern drawl.

Shut up, Javier, or you’ll be wrapping burritos at Taco Bell!

There was dead silence. Ted’s rag stopped moving and his body stiffened. Earl was on a roll and had no intention of stopping.

I heard a janitor saying how Birdie brain used to do it all the time with that retard stable boy!

Earl rested his hands on the counter by Ted.

Ha! Bet she and muck-out man was doing it ever-day like a cup-pa-la hogs in heat!

Earl howled with laughter at his own insult and repeated it.

Ted started shaking as the vile words looped in his head.

Hogs in heat…Hogs in heat…Hogs in heat.

As soon as the paramedic dressed his hand, Ted was cuffed and assisted into a patrol car. Earl had already been administered a tranquilizer and rushed off to the hospital.

At the station, Ted gave his version of events. He remembered he was cleaning the grill when Earl started saying things about his wife. After that, he became dizzy and had what he later described to the court-appointed psychiatrist as Flashing lights in my head and faraway voices yelling some things.

The surgeon told Earl he was most fortunate that the reservoir had been turned off ten minutes earlier or he would have died.

His disfigurement would be significant. The good news, though, was—because Earl closed his eyes when Ted grabbed the back of his neck and pushed his head into the hot oil—that he wasn’t blinded.

The judge rendered a verdict of simple assault based on the convincing evidence of Ted’s temporary insanity.

He said that after considering the doctor’s testimony and the testimony of witnesses, Earl’s own actions had precipitated the unfortunate chain of events.

At sentencing, the judge surprised everyone by admonishing Earl for his behavior and giving Ted only one year’s probation, along with the requirement that he take a six-month anger management course approved by the court. The final blow to the disfigured plaintiff and his attorney came when the judge asked if the burns on Ted’s hand were healing nicely.

The incident ended Earl’s career as manager. Only because of his grandfather was he provided continued employment at the park. Earl was given a job, created for him, as an assistant stable operations manager. A recently vacated trailer in a back lot where other employees lived would serve as his living quarters.

In time, Oily Earl as he became known, would find his only friends in the company of a groundskeeper who was prone to bizarre behavior and the alcoholic wife of a jockey who paid no mind to his appearance, so long as he kept her supplied with expensive Vodka and listened to her endless tales of woe.

A succession of plastic surgeries improved Earl’s appearance from grotesque to awful. His world, thereafter, was one in which he endured callous remarks and watched small children run to the safety of a parent after having had the misfortune of seeing his face.

Earl’s grandfather demanded Ted’s dismissal, which was how he ended up at a new Burger World franchise in Lawndale.

Spider Morgan flipped his hair back and turned to watch as the familiar car came down Road 8 and parked under the awning across the street. The back doors flew open and two boys scrambled up the stairs and into the house. Roberta got out and walked across the street where her neighbor was squatting next to his motorcycle.

Fixing the Harley again?

Yeah, carbs clogged. He made another adjustment with his screwdriver. We did a Victorville run over the weekend. He paused for a moment to concentrate on what he was doing and continued: Yeah, it was windier than shit. Damn near got knocked on my ass by a monster dust devil.

He looked up and put a hand to his forehead to block the sun. Hey, Bird, can you spare a brew?

That’s all you ever want. Yeah, let me get some things put away. As she walked back to her house, a jet flew over and drowned out the ever-present freeway noise.

Spider stood up and used a rag lying on his seat to wipe his hands before gingerly pulling a wrinkled Camel from his vest pocket. Halfway through the smoke, Roberta called for him to come inside.

Spider snuffed out the cigarette on his boot heel, put it in his pocket and fixed his graying hair into a ponytail with a rubber band.

Once inside, Roberta handed him a Bud and pointed to a recliner that was more duct tape than vinyl.

She pushed aside a pile of papers and slid into the nook seat at the table. Spider opened the can and took a healthy swig.

French on p.m. again?

As usual.

Roberta was pouring beer into her glass when Spider remembered something important.

Hey, you guys are coming to Garth’s on Sunday, right? He wiped sweat off of his brow with a forearm.

He’s having a luau with lots of food and drink. His cousin’s band will be there too.

Sure as hell, we are.

She changed the subject as she shook the last drops of suds into her mug. Where’s Deirdre? I ain’t seen her around.

Spider stiffened and took another gulp. It was a minute before he could answer. At her mom’s again. We…we had another fight. I’m not sure she’ll be back anytime soon.

Roberta’s brows arched. About?

You remember Trish? She’s stalking us again, leaving messages on the phone, calling in the middle of the night. Even showed up at Deirdre’s work saying nasty shit. I told that crazy bitch I didn’t want anything to do with her no more but…You remember what she was like. His voice trailed off.

Spider gulped down half the beer before pushing himself back into the recliner and closing his eyes.

He looked older than forty-two. Sixty pounds overweight with the tired face of someone in his sixties. Spider’s long hair and goatee hid some of his premature wrinkles, but it couldn’t hide eyes that spoke of a troubled past.

His real name was Scott, another messed-up childhood with an alcoholic father who flew into rages and gave beatings over little things. Running away at sixteen, followed by years of heavy drinking and a long stretch of meth addiction had been hard on his health.

Roberta changed the subject. Hey, did you hear that crash three nights ago?

His eyes opened. Yeah, early in the morning, I damn near fell out of bed. What happened?

Birdie yanked another can from one of the six packs. Some asshole barreled around a semi. The news said he was going about ninety, didn’t see the car change lanes in front of the truck, got side smacked and rolled till there was nothing left but a shredded can.

Ouch!

That’s not the worst. You know Mrs. Young down at the end?

Yeah, she’s the nutty lady always driving the golf cart with those bumper stickers all over it?

During the racket, she heard something hit her trailer.

What was it? Spider reclined forward.

The next day she goes to the office and tells Cliff, so he goes over, pokes around her yard and finds a guy’s leg in her petunia patch.

Roberta had Spider’s complete attention. He swore he tried to find something to cover it up and didn’t know she was watching him like a hawk from her porch. Well, she sees the thing and starts screeching like a cat with salt up its ass. Roberta took another swallow and reflected for a moment Took him all afternoon to calm her down.

Roberta’s comment about the cat was so funny to Spider, he almost inhaled his beer. It took several minutes of coughing before he caught his breath and asked another question. What happened to the dude’s leg?

Cliff called 911. Some guy from the coroner’s office came by and put it in a plastic bag.

Spider shared a thought which had both of them choking with laughter. I’ll bet she never thought somebody’s toes would sprout from her garden.

As soon as he took his earplugs out, Ted knew it was Sunday because there was less traffic noise. He sat on the edge of the bed, rubbed his head and looked at the clock. It was almost eight. Strange mechanical voices were coming from the living room. He peered through a gap in the accordion door. On the TV screen, giant she-bots in spiked bikinis with weird hairdos destroyed cars and buildings using laser beams that shot from their eyes.

Ted shook his head and thought how much things had changed since the days of Gilligan’s Island.

Roberta was on her back, snoring like a banshee. Ted watched his wife’s eyeballs darting around under her lids.

She mumbled something incoherent and turned toward the window. Ted closed the flimsy door behind him and maneuvered through a hall with boxes of old clothing and magazines piled along the wall.

Billy looked up at his father. What’s for breakfast? I’m hungry.

Doug parroted his older sibling. What’s fer bwakfast, Daddee? I’m hung wee too!

Their father surveyed a living room cluttered with toys, cans and pizza boxes. Like their car, the house was perpetually littered with debris of every sort. He was mystified at how Roberta and her friends could subsist by making beer and pizza such a large part of their diet. As always, the ashtrays were overflowing with cigarette butts. Ted opened the refrigerator. A bulb flickered as he summed up the possibilities, speaking loud enough for the boys to hear. Well…It looks like your Mom forgot to buy groceries again.

A cup of sour milk was all that was left in a gallon container.

Let’s see, two pieces of pizza, three beers, pancake batter from last week.

Other choices included a jar of herring someone had brought over a few weeks earlier, assorted sauces and dozens of mustard and ketchup packs Ted brought home from work, pickle spears, a package of rancid bologna, butter and a green wedge on a plate that had gone through a moldy pubescence a couple of days ago.

Ted picked up the batter and gave it the smell test.

Well, a little water ought to do it. Looks like pancakes again boys!

Ted found a greasy pan and wiped it as best he could before washing three of the dirty plates and some utensils taken from a stack of dishes in the sink. Their kitchen was a place where more often than not, things only got washed on an as-needed basis.

Halfway through the meal, the phone rang.

After the call, Ted swore under his breath before wolfing down another flapjack and rushing into the bedroom to dig his uniform out of the hamper. Another new hire had failed to show for his Sunday-morning shift, and he had been summoned.

Twenty minutes later a car pulled up. Windows rattled and walls thumped from subwoofers. The boys complained because they couldn’t hear the television. A few minutes later, the driver started honking his horn.

Roberta sat up and yawned. Where are you going?

Ted bent over and pecked her on the cheek. They need me at work.

Roberta was not happy.

For shit’s sake, French, that’s three Sundays in a row!

He buttoned his shirt and voiced his usual sentiments. These goddamn kids nowadays…they don’t give a rat’s ass about anything. They just want—

He was interrupted by more incessant honking from the seventeen-year-old who had been sent over to fetch him. In between the thumps, a neighbor could be heard yelling about the noise.

Ted reminded his wife: Don’t forget to bring my clothes. I’ll need clean things to wear after being stuck in these dirty things all day. I’m off at two. Ted grabbed a sweater and hurried out of the house.

A FTER DROPPING THE BOYS OFF AT her mom’s place near the airport, Roberta picked her husband up. They arrived at Garth’s around four. Birdie was wearing a plastic lei and a dress with pineapple and flower patterns she found at a secondhand store for two dollars. Ted had already given her an earful for forgetting to bring him a fresh change of clothes. A plastic badge dangling from his greasy shirt was emblazoned with large red letters: BURGER WORLD LOVES YOU Underneath it, in small black letters: Theodore P. Vagaline.

Ted, who had never cared for his formal name, had pleaded with the people in the human resources department let him use the shortened version but company policy required it. The only exception ever made was for an Indian boy with twenty-two letters in his first name.

Most of the vehicles parked on the lawn and along the street were motorcycles and pickup trucks.

From the back of the house, the spirited gathering could be heard. As Ted and Birdie walked up the driveway, they heard a girl’s high-pitched scream followed by people laughing. About thirty had already arrived. A few loitered near a smoking pit at the far end of the yard. Beyond that, some small boys were digging with spoons under a swing set. Garth grinned as soon as he caught sight of odd pair coming into his yard.

Damn, Birdie, you didn’t have to go and get all done up.

Roberta was surprised at Garth’s reaction until she realized that everybody else was sporting their usual biker regalia.

Spider said it was a luau and that everybody had to dress Hawaiian!

Don’t believe what that guy says, he laughed.

Spider and a jittery girl, who kept picking at her arm, came over.

Her neighbor, who had provided the misleading dress code, tried to act serious, though could not help from chuckling at how out of place Roberta looked with her bright garish dress, silver eye shadow and a puffy Samoan hairdo, botched by a trainee at Cuts R Us.

Roberta scowled and took a swipe at Spider, who moved back just in time. She started chasing him around the pit where the pig was cooking. Everybody thought it funny except Ted, who stood there with a puzzled expression.

A girl dowsed Spider with beer when he ran past her for a third time. Roberta finally gave up when he scrambled into the house for a towel.

Birdie turned to the girl. Thanks. He had it coming, telling me to dress like a Hawaiian!

Garth came over. Hey, Bird, Melva’s making strawberry daiquiris. French, go get yourself a soda, and if you’re already hungry, we got dogs and burgers all cooked. Garth pointed toward the patio.

As soon as Roberta went inside, Ted wandered over to a small group passing around a pipe and wasted no time to start in about Burger World’s mission of excellence.

It was a requirement that he and his coworkers stand like sardines in the manager’s office every week and watch the CEO’s latest video presentation. It was Ted’s favorite part of his job and he embraced the messages as seriously as a zealot might receive a preacher’s sermon.

One recurring theme was how important it was for every employee to advance the company message to any and all who would listen, promoting the best hamburgers in the world, and Ted was a true believer.

A skinny brunette interrupted. So they got like…good food and stuff?

He wondered why she had such an odd smile as he explained, Yes, and it’s a ladder for success. Ted grew increasingly animated. A worker’s incentive plan was started when…when—

Ted stammered as the stoned girl put her hands on his face and looked into his eyes. Don’t he remind you of Murray? Don’t he?

A big farm boy in overalls with bushy black hair pinched at his goatee and reflected on the comparison. Well, perhaps if he wasn’t so damn serious.

His comment caused the girl to start to giggle which soon graduated to uncontrollable laughter. As she continued in her hysterics, she plucked the cigarette from her boyfriend’s fingers, pivoted around on a toe and hurried off to the other side of the yard. Ted regained his train of thought and continued explaining the oath he had taken to make every hamburger with tender loving care and to treat every customer like family.

Inside, Birdie had joined three others who were taking turns bouncing quarters into a glass. An anorexic girl with frizzy hair and a ghost complexion brought her fist down on the rickety card table.

Objections followed.

Angie, don’t pound the damn table!

C’mon, Gretchen, down the hatch. You missed.

Her toothpick arm made the mug look heavy as she hoisted it to her mouth and drained it.

Roberta pulled her finger out of her nose and took the coin.

The pale girl shrieked. Damn you, Bird, don’t go picking your snout like that! I ain’t gonna touch that thing now! Does anybody have another quarter?

Birdie was defensive. It’s clean. I blew it out this morning. Don’t be such a prissy, miss!

Birdie bounced the quarter, which overshot the glass and rolled onto the floor. She took her mug and gulped down her beer.

Everybody stared at the thing that nobody wanted to touch. Gretchen started giggling. Soon they were all falling out of their seats. Garth walked by and asked what was so funny.

His girlfriend smiled. Pick up the quarter, babe.

Huh? Why?

Just pick it up and look at it.

Garth obliged and carefully examined the coin.

There were a couple of snickers.

Rub it.

Huh?

For luck babe. Rub the coin for luck. He massaged it between his fingers and put it on the table.

The host left amid much guffawing.

Birdie turned to Garth’s girlfriend. Melva, you got something stronger than beer and daiquiris?

Like what, Ms. Honolulu?

Like some stinking tequila or whiskey, that’s what!

The little blonde pointed toward the kitchen. I think there’s some rum left in a bottle on the fridge.

Birdie got out of her chair and headed to the kitchen. A minute later she was at the sliding door, hollering like the place was on fire.

French…HEY! HEY! Get over here!

She led him to the refrigerator. I can’t reach.

Ted was about to hand her the bottle but hesitated. You know the trouble we had the last time you got into someone’s hard stuff.

Birdie’s mood soured and soon she was chastising Ted. To those who knew her, this was nothing unusual. She always behaved this way when Ted wasn’t immediately giving her what she wanted. Roberta was throwing another one of her full-service temper tantrums with all the trimmings.

Some of Roberta’s behavior was attributed to her being an only child who grew up in a shack behind a bar in Long Beach. It was a neighborhood where brawls and other things of a sordid nature were constantly occurring.

Her father, a merchant marine, was an alcoholic of the severest sort who constantly argued with her mother.

The only periods of sustained calm had been those times her dad was away at sea or when her mom was working, part time at a Chinese Laundry. Rather than get upset and hide in her room, Birdie observed the scream fests the way most children watch puppet shows.

Garth looked through the sliding door to see what the commotion was about. While he felt a sorry for Ted, he imagined that an odd symbiosis had kept those two together. Roberta’s hands wobbled and her feet stomped. Then, as suddenly as it started, her tantrum stopped when she grabbed the bottle out of Ted’s hand and dashed off in a huff.

The party got louder as more people arrived. By eight o clock, chicken long rice and Kailua pork was being washed down with booze and soda.

An hour later, there were cheers and whistles all around as the evening’s entertainment appeared through a side gate. First to enter and carrying a kick drum was the drummer with his long dreadlocks and Amish beard. Close behind, and also lugging instruments, were three others who were littered with all kinds of tattoos and metal adornments. Tables and chairs were quickly taken away so that Ziggy and the Busters could set up their gear on the patio. A few minutes later, a shirtless man with an upper body that was covered with rings, belly hoops and other paraphernalia walked into the yard, rather slowly, while staring at something in the sky. His face was patterned with what looked like small rivets, and nail heads.

Ted was pleased to discover the lead singer as fully attentive to his hamburger message, so with great excitement, he recited excerpts from the employee handbook.

Unknown to Ted, the singer had ingested a fair quantity of peyote a couple of hours earlier. Ziggy was transfixed as the high priest of the Incas in a pulsating gold robe and animated mask, imparted ancient secrets to him.

After a sound check, the drummer sang lead as the band warmed up with a few familiar classics. An hour later, the singer was finally sober enough to join them. The volume was turned up, and they started performing their latest heavy metal composition.

At some point, Roberta rescued a grateful group from her husband’s proselytizing when she grabbed his arm and pulled her reluctant spouse through the crowd.

Ted had that deer-in-the-headlights expression as his wife led him to the front where the band was playing something Ziggy had composed called Rotten Dawg.

The sight of the short lady in the bright dress who was engaged in bizarre gyrations with her tall partner in the fast-food uniform had the few sober guests smiling and the musicians grinning as Birdie tried to manipulate her husband like a Gumby toy.

The only one unaffected by the spectacle was the lead singer who screamed his message as if it were a matter of life or death.

Ted’s badge flew off after Birdie tried a nifty dance move that involved giving her husband a bear hug from behind and jumping up and down. Ted’s chin bounced like a crash-test dummy as the singer hollered into the microphone. Rattindawg! Yer just a Rattindawg! Don’t give it no don’t you give it up yer just a Rattin! Rattin! Rattin! Rattin! RATTINDAWG!

Ziggy concluded his masterpiece by falling on the ground and writhing on his back in epileptic fashion.

Roberta grabbed her husband’s forearms and attempted another move that made her lose her footing, causing her and Ted to careen into some empty beer kegs. As she was being hoisted up by a couple of guys, Ted, who was already standing, was running around, panicking, looking for his badge until somebody handed it to him. Not wanting to be her victim a second time, Ted spent the rest of the night strategically avoiding Roberta’s field of vision.

A couple of hours after the band had left, the police arrived when neighbors had started calling in about everything—from shouting and breaking glass to some guy in a sombrero doing his business in the middle of the street. The first officers out of their car heard a couple arguing loudly between Garth’s and his next-door neighbor’s house.

Flashlights swirled as half a dozen officers walked through the yard telling everybody the party was over. One cop noticed a group standing around something. When he walked over, somebody stepped aside, giving him a view of a lady on her stomach in a child’s plastic pool, performing her rendition of the friendly mermaid.

The officer pointed the light on her face. What do you think you’re doing?

Roberta continued to flail her legs and arms as though she were swimming in slow motion. She turned her head sideways toward the voice and slurred her words: I’m the friendly mermaid. Friendly from the sea, I am.

The cop instructed her, in a sharp voice: Lady, you need to get up right now.

Birdie continued to make-believe she was a mermaid. She put her face in the pool. Her words gurgled through the water. The officer was losing his patience. I’m not going to say it again.

She turned her head back towards the officer. A rainbow of color dripped down her face. The bright light made her squint as she replied, I’m the fishes’ friendly mermaid; won’t you join me in the— She inhaled water and started coughing.

The officer grabbed her arm and started to pull her up. C’mon, get out.

Roberta was still coughing when she lost her balance and slipped back into the pool. Two female officers and another lady finally managed to get her out. When Roberta realized they were law enforcement, she stuck a knuckle in her mouth and started sobbing like a six-year-old.

Don’t…don’t arrest the friendly mermaid…I’m not a mean sea monster!

Roberta smelled like a distillery.

You’re not getting arrested.

He turned to the lady who had assisted Birdie out of the pool. Can you get her inside and clean her up?

She nodded and led the inconsolable mermaid away.

Three hours earlier, Ted had left the party after his wife had insisted that wild horses couldn’t drag her away until the the very last note of the very last song was played.

After finishing what was left of the rum on the refrigerator, Roberta happened to spot someone stash an unopened half pint of peppermint schnapps in a planter box. When the person went off to dance, she nonchalantly snatched the bottle, snuck off to a dark corner and gulped it down like lemonade. Thirty minutes later, Roberta staggered into one of the kid’s rooms where several children took advantage of her condition and painted her like a sea creature.

It was after two in the morning by the time everybody had left the party. All was quiet, except for the occasional sound of Roberta’s raspy voice singing something about a being a sea princess.

Two tired women who had spent nearly an hour wresting the uncooperative guest out of her wet clothes and cleaning her up, finally got her into a mangy old robe, which was normally used as bedding for Garth’s Rottweiler. After that, they maneuvered her onto a sofa where she immediately passed out.

A T 8:40 IN THE MORNING, A helicopter touched down in the middle of a large white circle on the roof of a 114-story building in Century City.

William Armhurst III grabbed his briefcase and nodded to the pilot. His protégé, Allan Nobel, mid-forties and with dark hair, hurried to open the door and assisted the CEO out of the craft. A wall of wind pushed at their backs as the helicopter ascended into the hazy Los Angeles sky and disappeared.

The two walked across a gray carpet under a green canopy that led to a gold door. Allan inserted a key into a lock and entered a four-digit code on the pad. Above, a camera trained itself on the two men. Somewhere in the building, a security guard watched as they entered the elevator.

The seventy-seven-year-old billionaire looked in the mirror and combed his thinning hair. Looking back was a gaunt face with his father’s bulbous Irish nose and his mother’s determined mouth and round chin. The brown eyes still had the same intense seriousness as they did when he was twelve.

William was fourteen when he decided he was going to be successful by doing whatever was required. Coming from a family that lost everything in the Great Depression and spending his childhood living in a shack next to train tracks only fueled his resolve.

It started with taking any odd job he could find and squirreling away every penny. While others his age were throwing dice or playing baseball, he was trading sweat for food and other necessities. When he wasn’t working or looking for work, he was spending hours at the nearest library, poring over the writings of economists like Keynes and Marx.

Armhurst never forget the years of sleeping in barns and railroad cars in order to save. On many occasions, and especially during inclement weather, he imagined others in their warm beds. He lost count of the number of times he would smell roasting meat while foraging for scraps behind eateries.

William had often been tempted to spend what he earned on such basic things, but then would remember the words of his hero, Jean Paul Getty, whose motto had been to watch your nickels and dimes, and the dollars would take care of themselves.

He worked and planned until luck, timing and opportunity converged; he had saved enough to take action when the right moment presented itself.

He recalled his first encounter with the stranger, the man’s explanation of how his dream had vanished in a single doctor’s visit.

When they had met, the disease was advancing into the second stage. William was almost twenty and the man no more than fifty. For reasons he couldn’t remember, he had elected to stay behind in the dusty little town.

Everyone was moving on. The season was over and the ranchers didn’t need any more help. Someone passed around a newspaper with a notice that farmers in Idaho were hiring laborers.

Like a swarm of locusts that suddenly leave one field for another, scores of men hitched rides, hopped trains or took buses out of town. In two days, a place that had been busy for the previous few months returned to its former sleepy self.

Armhurst had a strong feeling he should wait. Normally he would have been one of the first to leave. He told a fellow he’d made friends with while working at the double Bar T tat he would catch up with him later, but it was never to be. Instead, he found himself sitting on a bench in front of the courthouse when a disheveled stranger stopped and appraised him for several minutes.

He was still fresh in his memory, the educated man in dirty clothes of high-quality materials. Eli Pritchard had introduced himself as an engineer with a doctorate in geology and a master’s in chemistry and that after his wife of twenty-seven years left him, he had decided to pack his things and find oil where no one else was looking.

Pritchard recounted his grueling months in the baking sun and freezing rain, taking samples from over 150 square miles of snake-infested fields before finding what it was he had been looking for on 220 acres owned by a tired old rancher who was glad to sell it at a fair price.

All afternoon, Pritchard had explained things to William about soil compositions, minerals and other technical jargon he didn’t understand at the time. At one point, the man fought back tears, blaming his estranged wife for the cancer and other things that had gone wrong in his life. Now he had to sell what he had started and travel back to Connecticut. His time was short and he wanted to be with his two daughters and grandkids before he died.

The price Pritchard wanted was most of what William had saved. His skeptical nature had him thinking he should walk away as fast as his feet would take him when the geologist started describing a rich field worth a king’s fortune, far more than then what he was asking. The man said he only needed enough to go home and give his daughters money for the care he would soon require and, eventually, his burial expenses. Pritchard was emphatic about how he could sell for much more but would never approach the large oil companies because he