expect the unexpected

Live and let live. And don't take sides in other people's battles. Dare to not just dream, but to lead. Leaders often admit when misinformation has lead them to the wrong conclusions. The bigger man admits the mistakes, rectifies, and moves on. If there is a cage match going on, don't jump into the cage!

29 August, 2013.

yet another story of a different man unsure of the consequences of what had happened to him. This one is from a collection of stories called Midnight Laundry.

excerpt from Midnight Laundry

On his way to Richmond, on account of a truck pickup, it was the day of the accident. And Digger, God Rest his Soul, was driving on the beltway, near by the riverbridge that got struck by the cement truck and knocked off of it's foundations. The span that connected to it dropped into the river and then Digger, who was on the span at that time, trying to give the finger to the trucker in the cement truck for driving too damn fast, drove right down the span which now had one end still attached, above, and the bottom part just leading down into the river.

How things happen at times like this? you go floating off, is what it must be, huh? But who really knows what you would do until your time comes. So let's get one and explain what happened to Digger.

His truck did not sink, but floated down that river. Sticks. tree limbs, the county to Susquanhanna all in a whirlpool swirling down into a vortex. "That is curious." he notes, as he just floats on past (like he is part of some different sequence, in an alternative time-zone, with an altered internal clock. Do clocks still tick in Heaven? No one had ever given him an answer to that question and maybe that is how he could know it if he ever gets there?

At some point, and this is the reason he spent the extra money and got the better truck (it was all deductible) he came upon a sandy place at a bend where he was able to catch the riverbed, and, popping it into gear, he rolled up enough to get trackton to pull himself out of the river with his rig. He drives right up it past a stunned fisherman and his dog, who is barking, shimmying, tail wagging, like he is just so glad to see him. But he doesn't know them so he just drives up the bank.

At the end of the bank it's a guy with a ranger hat who is screaming at him but then he tells the guy that he survived a bridge collapse and that shut him up and changed it all for him. Suddenly Digger was being given the VIP treatment and he could have a free night at the resort which is a reproduction of some colonial, or other-wise, town. It was strange, all in period costume but he couldn't quite tell what the period was.

After he gets his room he asks them if there is a laundry he can use. They just widen their eyes and they say 'washboards are provided in the rooms'. So he is supposed to carry it down to the river and wash his stuff like that. "Isn't there anywhere I can wash the stains out of my shirt, clean the grime from my socks?"

"No." says a kind of jittery commedian who was also a bellhop of sorts, dressed like someone from the 1860's. The kid points him to a door, askew. From the open door light floods out, like a still shot from an old engraving, with different color inks. It all seems unreal to Digger, but he kind of has figured that something must have gotten into his thermos before he drank it all.

"You know, I'd pay you to do this for me." Digger says "Because I have to plan for the day tomorrow."

"Will you even be here tomorrow?" says the snarky boy. (the word snarky hadn't been invented yet)

"What, are you the local stand-up?"

"you talk funny, mister." the boy says. So Digger figures maybe the guy is simple.

"OK, there, cowboy."

When he gets through the door there is a back porch. down the stairs of the back porch there is a path at the bottom. That path leads down through some gardens, down a long stair that is made from fieldstones laid out. The hill ends at a place where there is a natural bend in the river, some ledges, a place that would be good for swimming. But here is where people wash their clothes.

"I must have gone back in time." Digger thinks. And then he is convinced of it when he sees a man dressed as Lincoln washing his clothes too!

"Mr. President!" Digger says.

"Oh, ya, come on!" says the guy. "They pay me 70 dollars a day for this internship and I have to do my own laundry in a period authentic way. Stupid. It's 2013, for crying out loud."

"So this is a theme park?"

"Well, ya."

"And I didn't drown in the river yesterday when the bridge collapsed."

"No. Unless you are a zombie." says the man dressed like Abe.

"And you? Are you a zombie?"

The man, who just thinks this is ridiculous, suddenly lifts his hands, mocking a zombie. "I'm here to eat you. Bwallllaaah" And then he laughs. "Just how much crack have you been smoking?" he then blurts. "Ya, I'm a zombie! But seriously, you survived the bridge collapse?"

"Ya, I guess I did. I wasn't sure until just a few minutes ago."

"Are you even sure now?" Lincoln asks, trying to scrub red stains from a white shirt.

"Does it matter?" Digger says.

Lincoln just keeps scrubbing, doesn't respond. After a while he says "Look. lookit out there, in the center of the stream. Can you see them rising?"

And sure enough, out in the river, there were fish that kept hitting at the junebugs that would land in the flow.

"If I had my rod with me, I could get me one of them and eat well tonight." says Lincoln.

"I've got my rod." says Digger. "But I don't have a license to fish in this state."

"Well I can bring you to where you can get one." Says the man. "And I can buy a cheep rod."

"By the time we get back the fish won't be hitting. I've got to get to Richmond by 3:30 or I miss the weeklies and won't get paid next week."

"I spent 4 years trying to get to Richmond." says Lincoln "And then Wilkes Booth killed me before I could ever get there to show them that we welcome them back."

"Really?" says Digger, with a quizzing look, eyebrow raised, like he does, as if he wasn't really sure.

"No. Of course not. I'm in character." says Lincoln.

"Ya, of course."

"It's my day off."

"Your day off? Then why are you dressed like that?"

"All the rest of my clothes were dirty, this was the only thing I had to wear."

"Oh."

"If I bring you bring me to the convenience store we can hang some clothes off the bed of your truck and dry them quicker like that."

"I guess we could."

"Ya, no. I'm kidding."

"Lincoln, you really are a kidder."

"no joke."

"What is your real name?"

"Cory."

"Cory."

"Yup."

"you're a tall dude"

"Ya I am."

what say ye oh milkman-popup sprite?

"got anything? I got nothing."

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