Chapter 4: Pest Control

We finished out the evening and Homer started to put his old Gibson in its case. I told him, "Homer, old buddy, if I was you I'd lock your git box in Walt's office. I don't know what shit we got coming but I do not think your musical instrument would make it through a good fight." A couple of good old boys came up and told me while we were taking a break and said as how there was a whole bunch of weirdoes hanging around the parking lot. So I warned Homer.

Now I really got Homer's attention right off the bat. The one thing he prized above all else in his life was his Gibson. He bought it from the pawnshop in Humper. He made payments on the son of a bitch for a little over a year to get it paid off. Homer is not a coward. But let's face it. What use is a guy in a fight when every time he starts to throw a punch he always hesitates and pulls back because he doesn't want to hurt his hands?

He asked, "What'll we do, Wilbur?"

Now me on the other hand, I don't worry about my hands because they are already fucked up from getting smashed and banged and stomped on. "Well, I'll go out first and start the truck, Then Connie and then Em follow and you grab the sawed off baseball bat behind the' bar and follow last. At the first sign of trouble, hit whatever moves and apologize tomorrow if it turns out to be somebody's grandma.

"Those fuckers out there just might be crazier'n your Aunt Martha." I was sure as hell certain they weren't fans of ours, not by a long shot.

Well, my great plan fell flat on its ass just as soon as we were out the back door. Someone had knocked out the big floodlights which usually went on at dark and off again at sunup. "Oh shit." I said and stepped down off the rear loading dock. It was darker than your ex-mother in law's heart out there. The moon was hiding behind a big cloud and all we could see were faint shadows and outlines. I was spooked like never before in my life.

"I got one." I heard as somebody got me from behind. I was grabbed around the chest in a bear hug. Then there was a screech in my ear and whoever had me let go.

I heard Connie say, "I cut the son of a bitch's ear off. Go get the truck. I'm right behind you." I tell you, Connie had more uses than Bill Clinton's dick in a Girl's Club weekend outing...

I ran to the truck and hit the open button on the side of the door. People who tried to force their way in to my old Reo never quite made it because the key lock in the door is a dummy. I had to press a hidden push button to get the door unlocked. Anyway, I hit the button and snatched the door open and I heard a scuffle behind me. I turned and saw two of the bastards grab Connie and start to drag her off. I grabbed my tire iron from under the seat and in two big jumps was on top of them. One smack each and they were down and out.

Connie stomped on one guy's head and said to him, "That's for pinching my nipple. It really hurt." Then she stomped the other one twice in the head. "And that's for sticking your finger up my ass uninvited." Connie does have a mean streak in her sometimes.

She climbed up into the truck; I piled in after her and started the engine. I turned on the lights and pulled up to the back door. Homer had his hands full with more of those nuts. "Watch this," I yelled and turned on the hydraulics. I used the front forks as grabbers and squeezed three of those pecker heads at once. I pulled the lifter control and raised them up and over the truck cab and dropped them in the back bin.

"I was tempted to start the compactor and make the miserable bastards into jelly. But I didn't. I'm just too soft and gentle at times. Homer laid two more out with the sawed off ball bat he had snagged from the bartender and I scooped the pair of them up and dumped them with their buddies.

Homer escorted Emily to the passenger side and they got in. I took off as soon as everyone was in and seated. I drove back to the first two who were still lying where Connie and I had downed them and dumped them in the back. Then I saw a shadowy figure go staggering down the driveway holding the side of his head. I figured he had to be the son of a bitch who Connie cut the ear off of. I grabbed him up and back he went with the others.

"There's another one, get him. Get his sorry ass. Kill the mother fucker dead," my delicate and gentle Emily screeched in a tone of voice I never heard her use before. I mean she sounded like a power saw with a dull blade cutting through a sheet metal roof. It was that goofy Essmer Hogben, the self appointed "Representative of God and Keeper of the Public Morals." Well, that's what it said on his cheap business cards. He had to be the one behind all the trouble tonight. This was going to be a pleasure.

He took one look at our big old garbage truck bearing down on him and did just what I thought he would do. He took off running and broke right. Perfect. I used the side grabber, which usually is for the smaller round trashcans I would snatch up off of the sidewalks. I grabbed him up on the fly and just held on to him and let his feet barely drag the ground. Then I took off and cranked the old truck up as fast as it would go. I mean to tell you the old boy was screaming his hurts at the top of his lungs. One thing you should never do is piss off the trash man. He has some nasty weapons.

Just as we were half way home I heard a siren and there were red lights flashing in the side view mirrors. Some state cop was flashing his bubblegum lights at us. I pulled over and turned on all the lights all the way around the truck. I did a lot of night pick-ups in the country where you brought your own light with you or you didn't have any.

Two staties got out of their cruiser. One had a shotgun. He stayed back and the other came up on my side and asked what the hurry is. Just then goofy old Essmer called in a weak voice, "Help me. They're trying to kill me."

"What's that?" the cop asked.

"Well, it must be my old pal Essmer. He just tried to put the hurts on a woman almost eight months pregnant and I argued with him about it. I sort of have him under a citizen's arrest, you might say."

"Let me see your driver's license, registration and proof of insurance, please." He thought a minute and said, "Oh yes, and let the man go."

Hell, the nice officer said to turn him loose so I did. I lifted one nutty preacher about ten feet in the air and opened the grabbers. He dropped and broke a leg, as we found out later.

The state cop got pissed and I told him, "I just did what you said, officer."

Then Connie got out and told the cop what happened. Now when I told him, he got pissed at me. When Connie told him what happened he got pissed at Essmer and his band of roving idiots. Connie popped one of her fine tits out of the sweater she was wearing and said, "See where he pinched my nipple?"

His partner handed him the shotgun and told Connie, "You come on back here; you just might need some first aid on that little owie." He led her back to the cruiser.

The goofy trooper handed the shotgun to me and said, "Here, hold this." and took off after Connie and his partner.

A few minutes later Connie came back and grinned. "I held the transmit button down on the radio in their prowl car and let dispatch and every swinging dick in the county with a police scanner hear everything. Let's go home, I need to shower."

As we headed home I realized I still had the cops' shotgun. Homer laughed and said, "Gomer wasn't the' dumbest cop in Oklahoma. We just met two more who beat him all hollow." We laughed all the way home.

Nobody wanted to do anything but sleep so we all decided to turn in. I figured all this was just getting to be too god damned much for anyone. I was going to have to put a stop to this shit before Emily got her sweet and delicate self badly hurt. Homer and Connie crawled into bed with Emily and I grabbed a cold beer and sat outside in the padded porch swing I salvaged from some place or other. There was one of the things about trash hauling I was going to miss. People threw out some of the nicest things.

To give you an idea of what kind of sleeper I am, I dozed off laying flat on my back in the swing, a sixteen-ounce can of beer balanced on my chest with my right hand holding it in place. I woke up in the same position, the can still in place, nothing spilled. I took a swig, swallowed and frowned. The damned stuff got warm and went flat during the night.

I took the beer can over to the porch rail to dump it over the side when I heard these weird whining noises coming from the trash truck. All at once it dawned on me I had completely forgot all about the religious nuts who tried to do us in the night before. They had spent the whole night in the back. I started to laugh and Homer came out, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and asked what was so funny.

"Homer, we left all those nuts who were with Essmer Hogben in the trash truck last night." I started laughing again.

"So? Fuck 'em." He couldn't care less.

"Maybe I better take 'em down to the police station and turn 'em over to the cops.

"Humper City ain't got the jurisdiction," You better turn 'em over to the state cops. Besides, we still got the one horny idiot's shot gun." He grinned as he remembered Connie's antics the night before. "How about how Connie broadcast those two cops doing her all over the radio last night?"

"You think she did it accidental like, or was it on purpose, her keying down on the mike like that?"

Homer looked at me like I was an idiot or something and said, "Get real. The only accidental thing ever happened to Connie in her life was when she found a dollar bill on the sidewalk once. She keyed the mike because those two guys were acting like ass holes. Hell, she'd have taken a movie of it if she could. She has a real evil mean streak in her sometimes."

I thought back to her cutting the guy's ear off and nodded agreement. She knew how to show how pissed off she really was when she wanted to. All the time we were talking the whining noises kept getting louder. "Come on, Homer, let's take those flakes to the state police and get em off our hands."

"Why you want me along? I had other plans for this morning," he griped.

"Homer, you know and I know your plans included taking advantage of our pregnant wife and possibly giving our unborn child a concussion what with all the pounding you been doing inside of Emily lately. You also planned on doing very nasty things with your lawfully unwedded ex-wife. I know you Homer."

"Aw shit. You done found me out," he told me with a grin. "But I'll tell you what, take Connie with you and we'll sort things out when you get back.

About then Connie came out on the porch naked and I said to her, "Better get dressed if you're gonna be riding with me. She went inside and came back out in less than two minutes wearing a miniskirt and a see through blouse. She slipped mocs on her feet and we were ready. I still had my jeans on from the night before so all I did was to grab a tee shirt and put on my cowboy boots.

As we got in the truck and I started it up the noise in back got worse. "Those bastards still back there?" Connie asked.

I looked at her kind of sheepish and admitted, "Yeah, I forgot all about 'em."

She grinned her crocodile smile and said, "Good. Serves the sons of bitches right." Connie was and is a very vindictive soul when she is put out.

I pulled out on the county road running past our place and headed to the state police barracks. As soon as we pulled in, I stopped right in front of the office and asked where I could unload some prisoners and let someone else take care of them.

The trooper, a corporal, asked me, "What prisoners?"

Just then they started whining and calling for help. I nodded my head toward the back of the truck and said, "Them prisoners."

"Wait one," he said and brought back a sergeant who asked how we happened to have prisoners of our very own. According to him most people just don't drive around with a load of prisoners in a garbage truck.

"Well, if you're going to be sarcastic with me, I can always give them to the' sheriff if y'all don't want 'em." I made like I was going to get back in the truck.

"No, no, no, it's' all right. Just please explain why you have taken people prisoner and are driving around with them in a garbage truck. You have to admit it is not something you see every day."

Well, that was about as close to an apology you'll ever get from a cop so I explained. "Nutty Essmer Hogben which we turned over to your two men last night had this bunch of idiot followers of his try to kidnap my almost innocent wife Emily and this clean living young lady here Connie Vail." Connie had taken back her maiden name after the divorce.

"Ah, ah, ah yes. Well, it seems our two troopers let Mister Hogben go last night. An ambulance took him to the emergency room. There was a problem of corroboration. They were ah indisposed and unable to..."

"What you mean is those two retards with badges were humping me last night and weren't taking care of business." Connie can be blunt, sometimes.

"There has been no proof offered to back up your allegations. The matter is being looked into."

"

Horse shit. Those two needle dicks had sex with me while my ex husband and my current lover man waited. It took less than five minutes for both of 'em and I keyed the mike so all the other radios in the county tuned to your frequency heard every earth shattering dribble of an orgasm by those two and none on my part. Then they let the man go who tried to kidnap me and maul a woman pregnant with her first baby."