A sampling of Chapter One, Book 4 in the Harley Dodge Series:
When I was younger, I wanted an adventure. I wanted a mysterious man to be part of that adventure. And Chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate. My name is Harley Dodge and at present, my life is little the adventure I expected even though I do manage to find chocolate on a regular basis. But the mysterious men in my life are endless and complicated and leave little wiggle room for anything else. I guess that’s why I’m not happy that I found myself one Sunday afternoon in late December, standing against the cinderblock exterior of Lucky Lanes dodging snowflakes while listening to one of those men, outfitted to lime green sleeveless goose down, explain the finer points of ‘finder’s keeper’s’.
Miss Surelee seemed unfazed by the snow that clung to his fluorescent purple wig turning it into a party cone. He was much too preoccupied by what lay at our feet. He poked a booted toe at the bulging, generic, gallon-sized, zip-lock baggie as if it might spring to life. “Boy I’m sure glad I talked you into bowling today. It proved lucky. See here, we’re even at a place that’s called Lucky Lanes. If that ain’t luck telling us we hit the jackpot then I don’t know what.”
Mr. Willoughby nodded and grinned, dentures the showstopper, proud of his recent find.
I nervously glanced about, mind tumbling down a rabbit hole at super-sonic speed. The smell of my coat or the frosty weather didn’t have my mind reeling. What lay before us had and it was exactly what Miss Surelee seemed excited over. Now, I can get excited over a lot of things--chocolate, a steamy kiss, heck, even a pork chop smothered in gravy--but not this. This was a bag of pot, of the marijuana kind--way too much of it, in fact, to be anything else. I’m thinking someone, somewhere had lost it and that someone might be coming back for it. And I don’t know about you, but I didn’t want to be the one they found drooling above it when they decided to show up.
“That isn’t a lucky find, Miss Surelee,” I said.
“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that,” he said. “It’s your birthday week, after all!”
“How many times do I have to tell you I don’t want to celebrate my birthday?”
“I’m gonna pretend yous menstrual, Sweetness.”
I blew out a sigh. I pretended today was one big, fat joke and huddled deeper to my smelly coat that I borrowed the month previous from my brother, Rob-Bob, and contemplated a new beginning. But the smell of animal feces and urine overpowered my daydreams and kept me bound to this hillbilly life about the hills of holler. “How do you know it’s not’s rabbit food?”
“Go on then, Sweetness,” Miss Surelee continued, stormy grey eyes wide with excitement, “tell me that ain’t what I think it is. Tell me my eyes ain’t pranking me?”
I did a mental eye roll. This was Miss Surelee’s way of talking me into doing something that I know I’ll regret, like last month’s hair highlights or running off with smug-mug. Miss Surelee was twice my age, half my height and believed he walked around with a uterus. The best part about him was his colorful and stylish wigs. Still, he was the closest thing I had to normalcy in a friend.
That didn’t mean I would listen to him.
“This is ludicrous. I’m going back inside,” I said. Besides, my bowling alley pizza was getting cold. With a flap of my hand I added, “This snow is ridiculous, too.”
It was the kind of snow that fell straight down in big, wet, fat and lumpy flakes that bounces back up and never stops; the kind that gives you depressing thoughts and makes you wish you were lounging on a white sandy beach instead. The kind that makes you wish you had other thoughts than the ones currently focused on getting out of the snow or forgetting about why you wandered out into it in the first place. Only this was no ordinary snow because it started two weeks ago and hasn’t let up since.
“Never mind the snow, Sweetness,” Miss Surelee said on a whisper, manicured hands clutching well moisturized cheeks, well-paid-for, plastic nose pointed downward. “I think we just hit the mother-load!”
“Looks-it to me,” said Mr. Willoughby as he sucked at his dentures.
Mr. Willoughby is my Aunt Bertie’s nuttier companion. I share space with those two, my fourteen-going-on-thirty-year-old daughter and her cat Bandit at the Victorian I’m doomed to inherit one day. Most days I forget he even lives there. Most days, I wish I didn’t. But today Mr. Willoughby decided to have spirit to his aging bones for he was the one who’d wrangled Miss Surelee and I from our lame-brain game of bowling to have a look for ourselves at the alleyway between Lucky Lanes and a coin-operated laundry. He’s been known for his many finds during his daily walks. That baggie of drugs shouldn’t have been all too surprising. But it was.
“You’re both wrong. C’mon, we should get back to our game,” I said.
“I don’t know, Sweetness. I think Mister Wiggins here is right,” he said, attention locked on to that baggie. “It’s gotta be what I think my eyes are looking at. Tell me I ain’t hallucinating? Go on, Sweetness, tell me that ain’t what I think it is?”
Mr. Willoughby enthusiastically nodded.
I shook head, “It looks like oregano.”
“I thought you don’t cook, Sweetness,” Miss Surelee said, face all pouty and mistrusting.
“Nope,” I said. “Not a day to remember.”
“Then how yous know it ain’t what Mister Wiggins and I think it is?”
“Weed,” said Mr. Willoughby.
“Shush, keep it down, someone might hear you,” I said, nervously glancing about a second time, catching sight of the back parking lot of Assisted Living across the street. Thankfully no one was about. It was Sunday after all, and that space only filled up for Wednesday night bingo. And then I caught the glint of my cousin, Murray a.k.a., Meatloaf Mickovich’s Trans Am peel rubber around the corner and floor it in the opposite direction south. I wondered what he was up to seeing how I don’t think he had relatives who set up permanent residency at the old folk’s home. He was a slacker at best, a loser at worst and more times than not, gave that side of the Dodge tree a crooked name. At least he took the attention off me.
“Pot, weed, reefer, Maryjane, dope-smoke, giggle herb, mood enhancer or medicinal...it’s all the same,” said Miss Surelee, hands perched to miniscule hips, unabashedly proud. “But I knows when I see oregano and that ain’t no spice. That there is some grade-A, top-of-the-shelf bowl material.”
I put finger to twitchy eye while he and Mr. Willoughby rambled on about the identity of that baggie. I glanced in the direction of County, two blocks west of here instead. It was one of those knee-jerk reactions. If you squinted, you could just make out the HVAC system stacked to tarred rooftop of the five-floor hospital/medical clinic. I only thought of County because I remembered who was still under Wannabe guard on the fifth floor, you know, just in case the Giovanni’s came a-calling with a twenty-two. And the only reason my lousy, good-for-nothing ex, Dickie Trollop found himself slumbering at County is because he accidentally bounced off my loaner truck’s front grill a little over a month ago. For his efforts, he ended up in full body cast. Somehow, just knowing that slimy, smug-mug was over at County gave me reason to believe he might connect to this unlucky find.
“Should we all scoop it on up,” asked Mr. Willoughby, still watchful of the baggie at our feet.
“NO,” I cried, cutting Mr. Willoughby off from suggesting we roll it and smoke it. I shook my head. I was astonished that Mr. Willoughby had found his voice. Don’t misunderstand, he has an extensive vocabulary but most days, he chooses not to employ it. Sort of like when he decides when and where to turn on his satellite-dish-sized hearing aid. Today was one of those days for both hearing and speaking and it was the most he had said in weeks.
“I vote yes,” said Miss Surelee. “What say you Mister Wiggins? That’s two to one, Sweetness, looks like you lose.”
I did a mental head thunk. I was all out of excuses.
“What’s with the pouty face, Sweetness? Do you got the monthlies? Did yous break a toenail?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, I know yous ain’t getting none,” he said, adding to my grief. “That’ll give you frown lines for sure.”
This is true. I blew out a sigh and hung head.
“Looks to me like you could use a little hit of that, Sweetness,” he said, eyeballing the baggie.
I shook my head, no. I could use a lot of things these days, but dope wasn’t one of them.
“That stress yous carrying around ain’t good for your complexion and yous need good skin if you gonna entice a man to the boudoir,” he continued. “And look-e here? I know just the thing that’ll help.”
I eyeballed him with a pathetically, subpar stink eye. There isn’t enough chocolate in the world to bribe me into doing what he suggested.
Mr. Willoughby fondled the bag and grinned. Miss Surelee squealed his excitement.
“Mister Willoughby,” I shrieked, “It belongs to someone!” And no doubt, that someone was probably my ex smug-mug, Dickie. So, if that baggie was real, no telling who would come looking for it. And those criminals were nothing I wished to tangle with ever again.
“Give it up,” I said and made a grab for the bag, but Mr. Willoughby had yanked it clear of my grabby paws. Unfortunately, I miscalculated how slick the snow became and planted butt to pavement. I sat stunned for twenty seconds to the background of heckling before I noticed my right hand had latched onto a blotted bingo card. It was a loser, just like my life. I thought, since I was already down here, I might as well take stock of my so-called, pathetic, loser life.
I swiped soggy bangs from eyes and bit into lower lip. Nope, I’m not gonna cry.
Miss Surelee put hands to hips. “What’s happening with yous down there? Did you get a concussion and head off to OZ,” he asked, “Oooh, oooh, don’t tell me, you’re hearing voices and they’re telling yous to do the citizen’s arrest thing and confiscate that baggie.”
I glared up at him, contemplating commandeering something else.
“Help me up,” I cried, pocketing the bingo card.
After I got to my feet, Miss Surelee sized me up, decided that I was fine and redirected his focus back to that damned bag of trouble.
“Yous right, Sweetness,” said Miss Surelee, bobbing wigged head in emphasis. “We should divvy it up.”
“What—no, that’s not what I said,” I said, appalled. “I think we should just walk away...nice and slow...forget we ever saw it.”
“Huh,” began Miss Surelee. “I know you ain’t saying what I think yous saying, Sweetness. What do you think, Mister Wiggins? Yous think we outta do what Sweetness says and leave this to the rats to paw over or yous think we outta do our civic duty and keep it dry?”
I flashed a stink eye Mr. Willoughby’s way. He overlooked it and gave Miss Surelee a huge, full-set-of-denture-like smile.
Sheesh. Therefore, I did my civic duty, planted feet, slapped the baggie from Mr. Willoughby’s hands, cast a stink eye toward those two jokers and finally got out of the snow. Whatever they chose to do with that baggie after I was snug and dry inside Lucky Lanes was their business. I wanted no part of their idiocy.
Twenty minutes later, we finished our game of ten pins and headed out to our respective vehicles. Mr. Willoughby left by way of my Aunt Bertie’s antique, mint green Ford truck. I waved at my aunt before she shuttled her and her companion back up towards the Victorian. I however had no choice but to saddle up within the road-kill smelling, grease and food-stained interior of my new loaner, dusty Rusty. I thought I’d be rid of it by now. As it turns out, I’m not all that rich or competent at earning a living wage, so the truck fit nicely into my expense column. One of these days though, it won’t and when that day comes, I’ll be singing the good life in the Bahamas’s.
Miss Surelee settled onto passenger side and slammed door, hugging car-priced handbag to lap protectively. “Don’t think I ain’t gonna be pleased you talk Mister Wiggins outta that hash.”
I overlooked his need to get wacky and floored it east back through the stop-and-go intersections, toward his beauty salon. Traffic was non-existent and I considered blowing past one or two of those stop signs. I just might politely mention to the civil engineering group of duds over at county that maybe they overdid it with the stop signs. No one about Boolee, West Virginia needed the hassle of having to stop at every conceivable intersection, me included.
Ten minutes later we hustled boots inside SuperSnips, overlooking the gossipy patrons in the throes of getting their beautification on. I nodded my cousin, Ginger’s way and kept right on walking. There was no need to be the spark to gossipy fuel especially since I just spotted my high school nemesis, Barbarilla seated next to my Aunt Dolly Mickovich, huddled about hairdryers. Nope. No reason to linger.
“I don’t know about yous, Sweetness, but I’ve gots me a mind not to give yous my present. You rained out my parade today,” he said and bee-lined it for the stairs at the end of the hallway.
“I told you I can’t bowl,” I said, following him upstairs. I especially couldn’t bowl when I had no desire to get excited about bowling in the first place. “And you know how I feel about birthdays.”
“Sheet, I’m not talking about that,” he said, unlocking door to his loft apartment and setting handbag to sideboard. “Snuggles!” he said, snuggling up to his pug nosed, bulldog, Bridget. “Yous could of just looked the other way, Sweetness.”
Not in this lifetime. “That stuff is illegal.”
“Not in Cali, or Colorado, or even Michigan,” he said, hooking leash up to Bridget, who was sporting foam enhanced deer antlers and glittery green and red tutu. “It’s almost legal here too!”
No, it wasn’t. Boolee, West Virginia settled to the heel of the Appalachians. It wasn’t special and there was little to see and no one other than Jesse James Huntley has been able to purposely locate it on a map. So, unless you enjoy visiting the only grocer in town, annoying relation, shucking a shotgun, drinking beer or congratulating the latest member of your relation who spent a weekend vacay at the lock-U-up, then you have no business living here, let alone staking a claim that Boolee exists. Personally, I thought it was more like a ghost town where the ghosting inhabitants latched onto gossip like it was a seasonal sport. Then again, gossip was year-round and proved recreational, especially to the older generations. Most of who are related to me against my will. Related or not, no one was immune to the gossipy banter that floated on the pine-scented breeze. They didn’t tag Boolee the ‘hills of holler’ for nothing. So, if anyone had dared to dabble with something as illegal as Marijuana, it’d be front-page news of my Aunt Gladys’ tattling tabloid, the Redlight by now. Seeing as it wasn’t, I thought I had better set Miss Surelee on the straight and narrow path to virtue.
“We did the right thing, Miss Surelee,” I said, “A bag that size is only asking for trouble.”
“Huh, if yous says so, Sweetness.”
Thankfully for him, my cell phone rang out.
Miss Surelee was still eyeballing me when I hung up with my ex-boyfriend, Detective Brentwood Lewis Pine and had noticed right away that my muddy peepers were scoping out an escape route.
“Where’s you gotta go now?” he asked, hand to hip.
I sighed. Should I tell him? I mentally hung head. “The pokey, Brent’s having an aneurism.”
“For real?”