Chapter 8: The Bubble Machine

Electricity is so much fun.

When Bill was 10, his dad asked him to hold a wire so they could check for spark on a car that wouldn't start.

"Here, Bill. Hold this wire about an eighth of an inch from the block and tell me if there's a spark."

There was spark, alright. Bill was holding onto the copper end and not the rubber coating. There wasn't any spark from the wire, but there was spark from Bill's little finger to the block ... about 40 thousand volts from the K-Mart one size fits all coil. Shocking.

Once didn't seem to do it for Bill, because Pop seemed to get Bill to grab that wire pretty much once or twice a year until he left home.

Then there was the time when his 'friends' double dog dared him to pee on an electric fence. A double dog dare is a test of maleness. Manhood is being put in question. He did it ... and couldn't stop peeing. It was just a little 12 volt fence ... but it was one of those good ones that shock ... pause ... shock ... pause ... shock's the living daylights out of a cow ... and Bill.

Some few years later, Bill was twenty feet up in an apple tree and had to pee. So he did. There was a cheap, continuous run electric fence set up the keep the cow ... yeah ... a single cow ... away from the orchard ... three apple trees and one cherry.

The electricity ran up his pee and knocked Bill off the branch and headfirst into a barrel of rotten apples. To this day, the smell of rotten apples gives me ... him ... the shakes.

Bill woke up in the morning with a runny nose, tired, achy, stuffy sinus, feverish and generally miserable, feeling illish ... but he had to get the Dodge out of the street or the city would tow it.

So ... feeling like a baked shit pie, Bill inched his yesterday's too tight and mostly dry, bloody legged jeans over his just now scabbing shin. He had to button and zip them first so he could wiggle his ass into the seat of the Levi's. After he had shuddered his butt into the damp fabric, he went downstairs, heading to the kitchen, when he remembered the pamphlets from the Clinic.

He had to pop the button out and unzip to get them down far enough to get the papers loose and out of the pocket.

He poured a cuppa from the Bunn Automatic and sat down at the table with Mina.

"Mornin' Mina."

"Mornin' Bill."

"What ya reading, Mina?"

"The Sears Flyer."

"Oh?"

"They're having a big sale."

"Going shopping?"

"Yup."

"What for?"

"Washer."

"We need a new washer?"

"Yup."

"What's the matter with the one we got?"

Mina looked up from the paper and squinted at him.

In a calm, offhand and disinterested manner, she snapped the paper and buried her nose it it and said, "Someone, who shall remain nameless, but his initials are William George Sutherland, used shampoo instead of detergent in the washer we used to have and burned out the motor, timer and transmission. Do you suppose that nameless person could be sitting here at the table with me?" She pointedly looked at his coffee. "That same person who is drinking the last cup ... DD's cup ... of coffee. The person who didn't make a new pot?"

"Coffee," DD called mournfully. "I need coffee ... afore I die."

She staggered into the kitchen and sat down in the chair next to Bill. Bill slid his cup over to her. "Sorry, DD ... last cup. I only took a sip."

"Eww, used coffee." She shuddered, "I suppose I can make do ... or maybe not." She looked down her nose at Bill. "How's your cooties, Bill? Let me see your lip."

"Lip?"

"Just checking?"

"Checking for what?"

"Cold sores."

"Cold sores?"

"Yeah, Herpes Simplex. Mina? What do you think? Can I drink this coffee?"

"If it was me, I'd use my left hand and drink from the other side."

"Good idea," she switched hands and sipped from the side Bill hadn't. "What you reading, Mina?"

Bill got up, changed the filter on the Bunn and started a new batch.