Chapter 7

March 16^th, Vail, Colorado

Larry Smith opened his eyes. Turning his head towards the large bay window in his second floor master bedroom, he estimated the time to be around 10:00 A.M.

'Why did I sleep so late?' was his first thought.

Normally he rose at 5:30 AM, every morning. It almost never varied more than a couple of minutes either earlier or later.

Lying there, he started his morning ritual of physically inventorying himself. He was cataloguing his aches and pains and checking to see if there were any new ones, or if any of the normal ones were worse, when he suddenly realized his vision was clear. In fact, his sight was better than the last time he had had the cataracts removed. He had been on his third and last cataract removal operation.

His ophthalmologists had told him, "No more."

He snorted, "Don't need you now, apparently."

He closed his eyes, and continued his mental daily body review. His eyes snapped back open in a few seconds. He felt no real pain, only a dull throb in his hip, and the knee on the same side.

'What in Sam Hill is going on? I didn't take any damn pain pills or muscle relaxers last night, ' he thought. 'In fact, I don't remember the last time I did take them!'

His sudden thirst overwhelmed any further thoughts concerning pain or lack of pain. The cat's screech when he stepped on her tail, just added to his discordant emotional state. The fucking cat was always under foot or under hand.

'Nope, I'll never be stupid enough to take in another stray, ' he thought as he reached the bathroom. Drinking down the second glass of water, his eyes finally made eye contact with his self in the mirror.

'Holy shit, ' he thought as he dropped the glass and stared at his reflection.

He didn't even notice that the glass had shattered, and splints of glass had hurtled throughout the bathroom and beyond, through the open door to the bedroom. Staring back at him, was someone at least thirty years younger than he should be.

"Larry, get a grip on yourself. This ain't México, and you haven't done peyote in fifty or sixty years. Calm yourself, boy. The doctor told you that at your age, you can't be flying off the handle, nor having temper tantrums like at that last town council meeting."

He turned and walked out of the bathroom. He went around the bed and stared out the bay window looking at the City of Vail. Vail, his city, or what he felt like was his city.

'Bastards on the town council want to open up another 1,500 lots for development. No-sirreee-Bob! Not while I'm still kicking, ' he thought.

Gazing out the window, his thoughts returned to 1962 when he had joined his first construction crew. He fondly remembered the good times and the bad times during the first couple of years. Sometimes your pay was late and sometimes it wasn't. There had been some financial problems at first, but that had been finally overcome.

The developers and owners, however, hadn't forgotten those that had stuck with them. Six months after starting work he had become a gang foreman. When times were tough, they had either just slept in their cars or one of the old Army WWII command tents that had been picked for very little cash.

In 1966, he was given a 20-acre plot at the junction of two of the creeks that fed off the mountain. Many people had laughed, as the property was a pain to get to. Well, he'd had the last laugh, after he and twenty of his friends had built the concrete crossover bridge. That connected his land to the main road leading into Vail proper. Larry snorted and laughed at that thought.

So far he had sold six and a half acres, for six million dollars. Four million alone for two and a half acres. The guys from the Hilton Group had really been anxious to get some property immediately. The other four acres had been sold to individuals that he had deemed worthy by their thoughts of the future of Vail and their thoughts on preservation of the area and its native wildlife.

In 1974, he was awarded a permanent appointment to the town council. The only drawback was that all the other members were elected and could become president of the council. By the charter, not being elected meant he could not hold office. Thinking back through the years, he realized he had become a thorn in the side to most of the council. His determination that Vail would not become an overly crowded tourist destination instead of a ski resort was just one of his passions.

His second passion was communications technology. Even if he had been kicked out of Rice University in Texas for majorly disrupting the football scoreboard [Rice 102, Texas 7] when Rice in reality had been tromped 62-0, he had become autodidactic in his pursuit of information and knowledge.

In 1976, he graduated second in his class in Communications Technology from the University of Colorado. He would have been first in his class, had his written exams not matched his verbal tendency to colorfully inject euphemisms that were not considered socially acceptable.

In 1980, he submitted a communications protocol that allowed governmental take-over of radio or TV stations upon a signaled demand sequence. As a result all local Army, Navy, Air Force, or Coast Guard facility had immediate access to, and control of, local radio, television, and other types of communications. Larry's check from the Treasury Department for $8.6 million, and a waiver to forgive any future tax obligations to the I.R.S. for ten years, was indeed gratifying. Larry smiled thinking about that.

Larry's smile slowly faded as his eyes focused on the town. There was nothing moving on the highway, nothing at all. Quickly, he scanned the streets down below. Again, nothing moved. Gore Creek Road should have been busy this time of the day.

"What the fuck?"

Turning around and heading back to the bathroom, Larry encountered the first shard of glass that had exploded from the dropped glass. Wincing, he grabbed the foot he had brought up only to encounter another on the foot he was hopping on.

"Jesus H. Christ!" he hollered as he hit the floor.

Lady Luck was not smiling, because his ass encountered a large shard, which promptly splintered and several pieces lodged in his right buttock.

"Oh, shit" was the only comment he made. Gingerly he placed his hands on both sides and cautiously felt for any more glass slivers. Encountering none, he rolled onto his left side and surveyed the immediate area. Not seeing anything immediately, he then carefully felt his butt and gingerly began picking bits of glass out. After several minutes of removing bits of glass he slowly felt his right cheek. There was nothing more left of glass, but his hand came away sticky with blood.

Larry finished rolling over to his left side and carefully placed both hands on the floor and crawled a few feet away. Lifting his feet, he saw one spot on each foot that was bleeding slowly. Gently he removed two more pieces of glass and brushed his feet off. Feeling nothing more, Larry wiped his bloody hand on the inside of his thigh. Looking around, he couldn't see anything in the immediate vicinity that he could use to wipe himself.

Laughing to himself, Larry thought, 'God damned good thing I ain't married no more. The bitch would be laughing herself silly, and then she'd be bitchin' at me to clean it up. Been nigh-onto forty years since I've had to kowtow to any filly. Wonder whatever happened to her. Run off with that suave smooth-talking lawyer fella. God almighty, but she did like her lovin', and damn well knew how to do it, too. Shit, I've got to get cleaned up and find out what the hell is going on around here.'

Putting that thought to action, he pulled himself upright by the door handle leading out into the hall. Larry crossed over the hall into the upstairs rear living room, he glanced out the almost room wide bay window, and came to a quick halt. A big ass buck and four doe were on the mountainside, grazing haphazardly, without an apparent care in the world.

Larry grinned at the sight, and went on over to the cleaning closet. He grabbed a couple of cotton flannel utility cloths. He wiped his hand really well and tried to cock his head around to see where to wipe his butt, but ended up just giving it a perfunctory wipe. Most all of the bleeding had stopped. It's hell trying to see your own ass.

Grabbing one of the wide suction nozzles for the 'whole-house-vacuum-system', he headed back to his main bedroom. Coming around the oversized L-shaped couch, he slipped his feet into his moccasins.

"These things ain't going to be much good. Danged soles are thinner than paper, only good for slopping around the house in. What the hell, better than nothing."

Turning into his bedroom, Larry shoved one of the two huge sofa style chairs away from the middle of the wall. Sliding open the vacuum port door, he grabbed the hose and twisted the side suction nozzle on. He flipped the switch to 'ON', and nothing happened. Flipping the switch again got the same action: nothing.

Now, more than a little pissed, he headed down to the basement level to check the fuse boxes and fuse plugs. It then dawned on him that the vacuum system wasn't going to work at all.

'Should have remembered that I disconnected it to put in a new control panel for the workshop, ' he thought. 'Well, what the hell, I'll just get some cardboard and lay over the glass. It'll do until I have time to put the circuit breakers back in that new accessory control panel.'

Grabbing five or six sheets of cardboard, Larry folded them over twice and then stuck them in the dumbwaiter and sent it up to the third floor. He was halfway up the wide stairs to the first floor level when he realized he'd just had a really bad case of the 'dumbs'.

"Jesus S. Christ, I've got to get my head outta my ass. I could have taken the cardboard and me up the damn elevator. What the hell, I'm halfway there now."