“Damn, Gary, that can’t be good. It’s bound to have had some kinds of physical effects on you. Did you get nauseous or light-headed?”
“Not really. It was just a nasty stink, mostly — my eyes got okay. It’s just those damn ate-up gloves, man. That’s some toxic shit. Poison.”
Gary’s utter lack of concern beyond the stupid gloves frustrated Yoder to no end. Gary had taken the same blasé attitude when Yoder had questioned him about Agent Orange, years earlier. It wasn’t no big deal, Gary had said, they used it all the time.
“It was a big deal,” Yoder said now, under his breath.
That afternoon, while Misty flitted about the place clicking chime images and Gary lazed on the hanging bed in one of the screened-in porches on the outbuilding, Yoder drove into Foley, to the public library, and began sifting through the reference section.
The septic system was to be installed on October 1, but the existing tank and lines had to be yanked before that. Due to scheduling there would be lag time, so they would have to make do with a porta-potty in between. Ironically, the Elite Septic System folks scheduled the euthanasia of the tank for September 19, the very same date that the Deepwater Horizon well was declared “effectively dead” by the national incident commander, some admiral or other. And it was on that exact date that Yoder began to move from suspicion to decision about one Misty Smith.
She had, indeed, created a website, an attractive one, featuring pictures of the wind chimes and some of the paintings on plywood, inflating prices, “just to see if they’ll bite,” she said. And even though Yoder couldn’t argue with that, he was incrementally taking more and more offense to her intrusive, bossy ways. “You need to at least post something personal on your page,” was one of the many you-need-to remarks he got from her.
“That’s your job, isn’t it? You’re the administrator.”
“Yes, but if you personalize it more, cultivate some fans, we’ll add a Facebook page. The Facebook page is really where you’ll find your numbers.”
“Fans? Facebook? What the hell? Sounds like you want me to be somebody that doesn’t even resemble me. Back off.”
“Sure, I’m a pit bull,” she allowed, “but you need a pit bull, somebody who will lock their jaws down hard for you — it’s for you, after all!”
And Yoder would let it be. Gary seemed happy enough, though over the weeks his demeanor gradually became tinged with apathy. “She ain’t so easy to live with,” he conceded. “Kinda high strung, you know. But she’s driven. Them kinds of folks — folks that’s driven — tend to be high strung is what I think.”
“So is it worth it, the sex?”
Gary smirked. “Always, man.”
In the meantime, Yoder’s library research into the benzene component of oil, and into the Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527 used in the cleanup, was causing him to filter government conspiracies through his brain. The toxic brew of Corexit was banned in the United Kingdom, he discovered, and health professionals in general were definitely not fans. Why would the US be willing to put such a chemical into the already-poisonous soup that was the Gulf of Mexico? Did President Obama give the okay? If not, then who? Was it not enough to sacrifice the marine flora and fauna on the altar of tourism? Shouldn’t someone calculate how many human lives were worth the salvaging of the sugar-white sands? It gave him a headache, the mulling of it.
Then, on the day of the septic tank killing, Misty rolled out some cockamamie idea about making Turkey Branch an incorporated entity, a move that would require a shared bank account, for business purposes, of course. “I can make this work,” she insisted. “I’ve done it time after time!”
“Like when? Like where?” Yoder pressed.
“What the hell?” she shrieked. “Are you questioning my legitimacy? Do you hear him, Gary? Nobody appreciates a goddamn thing I’m doing around here! You two are a couple of witless idiots — you wouldn’t even have a website if it wasn’t for me!” And she strode off into the afternoon. By now both men knew that the snit would last for a few hours, possibly a day, with plenty of passive-aggressive behavior to dish out until said snit subsided.
But this day, Yoder pushed back: “Exactly what do you actually know about this chick?”
“Man, I know she’s a great piece of ass. Which, I gotta tell you, I’m not looking to miss out on no nookie. What’s with you?”
“I’m not looking to have her putting her paws all over my money, that’s what.”
“She ain’t no thief. Come on, this is the first pussy I’ve had in years.”
“Jesus.”
“We’ll work it out, man,” Gary said. “I’ll talk to her.”
But for someone who was living it up with a great piece of tail, Yoder thought his friend didn’t have much fight in him. No, not much fight at all.
It made him wonder: Why had Misty insisted on meeting up with Gary over in Blountstown? Why had she pushed so hard for him to sign on for cleanup? What the hell was her angle?
October blew in and so did a flatbed truck carrying the brand-new, sure enough state-of-the-art septic system that turd wrestler Ronny was so excited to sell him. Forget a rusting metal tank; this concrete one would last at least forty years, probably much longer, long past Yoder’s life span.
Yoder set a folding lawn chair out near the work site, brought along a cooler of beer, plenty of smokes, and settled in. He was loath to allow any repairman of any stripe — electrical, carpentry, refrigerator, whatever — to work without being under his supervisory gaze; he trusted no one to do the job “right.”
He hollered at Gary, laid out on the hanging bed, to come out and join him.
“Naw, man,” came a faint response.
“Why the hell not? Nookie time?” he joked, expecting a laugh he didn’t get.
“No, Yodie — I’m lying down.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, man. Just feeling a little tired, like I’m running out of gas, that’s all.”
Misty joined him, though. She dragged an outdoor lounge chair up to his, and he offered her a beer. She declined, as she usually did. She rarely drank and never smoked and seemed to like the high moral ground it gave her, though she was never overt or verbal in her self-righteousness. Hell, Yoder thought, she was a goddamn braless, LSD-taking, marijuana-smoking hippie back in the seventies, when she first fucked Gary.
She didn’t waste a second. “I wish you wouldn’t be so stubborn about forming a real business. You need to look into it. Do some,” she enunciated, “research.”
“Not real thrilled with anybody who uses the words you need with me. You need to cut that shit out.”
“Well, I know what I know. And I know you love some research.”
“Just like Gary,” he said automatically, “a goddamn know-it-all,” certain she had just smugly tossed him some bait. He was baffled, but knew enough that he refused to take the minnow.
She pounced. “I have a limit, you know. I’ll only go so far for people who have no appreciation for me.”
“Does it count that you’re living at my place?”
“Fuck you!” she cried out, catching the attention of the septic crew. “Tell you what. You like to do stupid fucking research. The old-school kind of research. So why don’t you research this, for your friend, who’s not doing so great. Yeah, research this: black, tarry stool. Goddamn research that!” She executed her dramatic stride to her camper truck and gravel-slung her way down the driveway.