I am exhausted and sick as a dog and it's still 18 hours until the Derby. BUT I am at work tonight meaning ample time to get writing done!
"So this guy is sitting at the bar, right? And this other guy comes in and sits down and takes this little man that's about a foot tall out of his pocket, and the little man has a piano, and he starts playing it, right?"
"Who has a pocket big enough for something a foot tall and a piano?" Ralph asked. He'd only known Will Pauley for twenty minutes, but the Middletown native had way too much energy for him. Unfortunately, they were the only two at the beach, and Will hadn't seemed to take Ralph's intense examination of the local algae as a hint that he didn't want to be best friends.
"Just go with it, okay?" Will asked. "So anyway, the first man asks how he got the little piano guy. And the second man says, well, there's a genie across the street and he grants everyone a wish. The first man thinks that's pretty cool, so he heads over to see the genie. Genie says, what can I do for you? And the man says, well, mister Genie, I would like you to grant me a wish for a million bucks. The genie says okay, and presents the man with a million tiny ducks. Not ducks! Bucks! Sorry, Genie says, that was your one wish. So the guy goes back to the bar and says to the second man, that Genie is a fraud! I asked for a million bucks, and he gave me a million ducks instead!" Will stopped for breath. "And the man says, yeah, you think I asked for a twelve inch pianist?"
Genital humor. Ralph's favorite. He rolled his eyes and gave what he thought was an amused chuckle. "That's clever, Will."
The boy grinned. "My mom got a bit testy when I told her that one." He elbowed Ralph in the ribs. "Get it?"
"Hilarious." Ralph marked something in his notebook. "This seems like a fairly healthy beach."
"Uh…sure!" Will said with a smile. "We don't litter, and stuff. Local pride, and all that. But anyway, you wanna get out of here and go to a movie or something? There has to be a Star Wars or Avengers in theaters."
Ralph supposed it would be another way to get out of his own head. He supposed his research could wait until later – especially since he hadn't really decided what he was researching yet. "Yeah, sure."
"Great. Maybe you can tell me another joke on the way."
"Oh, I actually have another good one."
Ralph cringed inwardly. Why did I ask for this?
"So this businessman is in New York City, right? Oh!" He pointed in the city's general direction. "It's right over there, you and your granny should go on Friday with my mom and I! Anyway, so the businessman had a really unsuccessful trip, no money. He walks out and sees only one available cab, asks the cabbie to take him to the airport. Fifty bucks, cabbie says. I don't have fifty bucks, the man says, but I will pay you when I get home, I promise, I'll pay double even, please just help me out. Cabbie says no. Guy gets out and finds another way home. He comes back a few months later, and this time has a great, majorly successful business trip. He walks out to see a whole line of cabs. At the back is the guy who refused to take him to the airport months before. So he gets into the first cab. How much for the airport? He asks. Fifty bucks, says the cabbie. The man says, okay, if I pay you a hundred, will you give me a blow job?"
Ralph groaned inwardly.
"The cabbie is super upset, no, he says, get the hell out of my cab. So the guy goes to the next cab and asks the same thing. Gets kicked out. Does this all the way down the line until he gets to the last cab, which is driven by the guy who didn't do him a solid the last time. He gets in, how much to the airport? Fifty bucks, the cabbie says. Businessman says great, let's go." When Will stopped for breath again, Ralph wondered how he could say so many words on one. "The cab pulls out and slowly begins to drive past the line of other cabs. Guy rolls down the window and looks at them and does this." Will put an overly enthusiastic grin on his face and gave two thumbs up.
Ralph pressed his lips together to stop himself from laughing out loud. "Okay, that's actually a good one."
Will bowed. "Thank you." He glanced at his phone. "Aw, shit. My mom needs me at home. Raincheck on the movie?"
"Uh, sure."
Will flashed a smile. "Cool. See you around."
We didn't exchange numbers and you don't know my last name, I will probably never see you again as long as I live.
Ralph hopped on the bike his grandma had dragged out of the attic and made the long trek up the hill. He wasn't as winded today. Maybe he was getting to be what they call 'in shape'.
"You're home early," Veronica commented as he entered the kitchen.
"Waaay too much socialization," he said, eliciting a laugh from his grandma. "You know a kid called Will Pauley?"
"Oh yes. His mom works at the bar down the hill. He's a sophomore this year at the high school. Nice kid. Very dirty sense of humor."
"Yeah, I got that."
"You meet him today, then?"
No, Ralph thought, I just pulled the name Will Pauley out of my butt.
"They've had a rough time of it," Veronica said. "They couldn't afford to move far when he came out as transgender, but he started getting bullied at school, so his mom packed him up and moved him out here a little over a year ago. They're only twenty minutes from their old house, but it's a different school district, and the kids seem to be a bit nicer. His mom is great. She's had a hard time of it, especially being his only parent, but she's super protective of him, doesn't tolerate anyone using his old name, all that stuff. Hard worker, too. I'm glad you and Will have become friends."
"I don't know that I'd say friends. He's very…"
"Energetic?" Veronica said, laughing a bit. "He is. But he's the most enthusiastic kid you'll ever meet. You should hang out with him again. He has this way about him that makes you feel like everything is going to be fine. Great, even. He makes you feel like you worry too much. He even has a tattoo, you know, that saying from Lion King."
The thought of spending a prolonged amount of time with the human version of the Energizer Bunny just made Ralph want to take a nap, but while Ralph had never hung out with someone with so much get – up – and – go before, he wondered if maybe that type of person was exactly what he needed on this vacation. He had come to New Jersey for a change of scenery, after all.
"Yes, Mr. Duncan," Florence said, tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder so she could pull on the wagon with both hands. "I am outside of the facility. You said to call you for the door code."
"Yes, Ms. Tipton," Duncan replied. "I see you on our cameras. The door code is one zero one two zero. And I do want to say again how thankful Mr. Burgess and I are that you were able to come up with a solution to our problem so quickly."
"Well, it certainly seemed that time was of the essence," Florence said in a tone that she hoped was successfully channeling her inner Paige O'Brien. "And as Team Scorpion, my employer, is extremely invested in helping the environment, we are all on the same page about not wanting your chemicals to leak into the ground."
Duncan had told her in their meeting the previous week that a company specializing in environmental disaster cleanup had been unhelpful in providing preventative measures, likely in the hopes that they could make even more money if the leak actually happened. That absolutely disgusted him and Burgess, Duncan had told Florence, and she shared the sentiment. Common good always outweighed personal greed. It had to. Biologically, it didn't even make sense that humans as a species had survived evolution – they didn't have claws or fangs or spikes or any natural means of defense against predators. Ancient humans persevered because they helped each other and focused on what would benefit everyone, not just the strongest or the most likely to reproduce. Losing sight of why humans were different from most other animals was dangerous, and Florence didn't want anyone with that kind of greed to benefit.
She punched in the door code and the key pad lit up green as she heard the click of the lock deactivating. There were a few maintenance staff at the facility today, but it was most of Duncan & Burgess's day off, so their three dozen scientists weren't present. Neither were Duncan or Burgess themselves; they had to stay away so the rival group wouldn't suspect anything was up. "They play dirty, sometimes," Burgess had told Florence.
She pulled the wagon carrying her solution down the hall, following the map they had given her at the meeting. She didn't have it with her, but while she lacked the eidetic memory of Sylvester and Walter, both of them had given her tips as to how to commit images to memory, and the facility was simple enough.
She reached the door she was supposed to enter in and pushed it open, grunting in surprise at how heavy it was. Entering the room, she noticed the large vents over the underground portion of the building that prevented anyone from accidentally falling into the tanks. She pulled the first bucket off of the wagon and tipped it on its side, the liquid disappearing into the darkness. She moved to the next vent, tipping another bucket on its side, then on to the third and the fourth. Done. Duncan & Burgess' chemicals would not leak into the environment. The rival company had lost. She pressed the buttons to make the horizontal doors close over the vents. Sealed.
She picked her phone up from the wagon. "Duncan. All finished. Payment will be due by – "
"Ms. Tipton, I swear to God!"
"What?"
"I have been yelling at you for the past…seven minutes!"
"I had to put the phone down to work. What's the issue here?"
"Ms. Tipton," he said, sounding slightly stressed out, "we may have a problem."
"A problem?" She asked. "No problem here, sir."
"No, a problem!" His voice was rising in pitch. "There's a bomb in the building!"
"I'm sorry," Florence said, her heart beginning to pound, "what?"
"My colleague here just received word that we have, uh, a Benedict Arnold in our midst." Duncan was talking fast. "One of our maintenance employees registered as clocking out ten minutes ago, and the supervisor got an e-mail, and lordy, I don't know how to say this, but there's a bomb planted over the tanks. Seems he wanted to make sure that the tanks leaked to get a payout from…never mind that, you have to get out of there!"
Florence was staring at a corner of the room, one not visible to her unless she was facing the door she'd come in by. "Yeah, I see it."
The bomb was huge, but the most terrifying part about it was the large blinking digital countdown that switched from 1:00 to :59 the moment she laid eyes on it.
"Ms. Tipton!" Duncan shouted, his voice hoarse.
Florence darted for the door, turning to close it, knowing that wouldn't make much of a difference. A bomb that large was sure to destroy – obliterate – the entire building, to say nothing of the damage that would be caused outside. She doubted she had a snowball's chance in a microwave. But Duncan had her on camera. His company would give a detailed report to Team Scorpion. And Sylvester was not going to be told that she simply sat down and waited.
Florence ran like a bat out of Hell.