The cute, little Jeep Liberty pulled into the loop at the end of the drive late in the evening. The young woman who was driving only saw an older couple, so she piloted the vehicle over to them, stopped and put it into park.
A young man exited the passenger side and walked enthusiastically up to the old man and said “Uncle Roger. It is great to be here!!!” His manner was reminiscent of Salesmen world-round.
Sig looked at the young man and asked “And who are you?”
It took a few minutes to sort out the whys and where-fores. Joshua was the son of one of Copperhead Cove’s far-flung alumni. The driver of the vehicle was his girlfriend Darcy. Given the lateness of the hour and the fact that every adult in Copperhead Cove had just put in a 14 hour work-day, Sig decided to put Joshua in the now-vacant van next to Gregor's and to park Darcy in the spare bedroom.
They would sort things out in the morning.
***
As was his habit, Gregor showed up in his mother’s kitchen first thing in the morning for a cup of coffee.
“How did you sleep?” Ellie asked. Moms can tell when their children are at their best.
“Not worth a lick” Gregor muttered.
That got Sig’s attention. Gregor had worked as hard as anybody the day before and he should have slept like a log.
“Why is that?” Sig asked.
“I bet that if you look into the room where you told the girl to sleep, you will see that she isn’t there” Gregor answered, obliquely.
A half minute later, Ellie popped back into the kitchen. “Sure enough, she ain’t there.”
Gregor nodded and took a long pull from his steaming mug of coffee. “She was in the van next to mine making them springs squeak.”
Sig’s eyebrows lifted like thunder-clouds. “She what?”
“She and that young man were having sex” Gregor said, speaking plainly.
Sig started to stand up. He was a man who dealt with problems head-on.
Both Ellie and Gregor suggested that he not charge off, half-cocked. There are times when a bit of planning is worth the time invested.
***
A half-hour later, Sig knocked on the metal door on the side of the van.
“Go away” the man inside commanded the person knocking.
Sig pounded harder.
“I told you, ‘Go the Fuck Away!” the man’s voice yelled. “It's the middle of the fucking night!’
Sig threw the door open.
Sure enough, the man and the woman were sprawled out on the mattress and neither one of them were wearing a stitch of clothing.
“You have five minutes to leave the property” Sig informed them.
The woman smirked and shook her shoulders, making her boobs jiggle. Joshua had told her that his kin were fundamentalists and she liked putting prigs like that on the defensive.
“You can’t make us leave” she taunted him. “We have a lease.”
“Nobody signed no leases. You can either leave easy or we can help you” Sig asserted.
“Judge don’t know if there was or wasn’t a lease” Darcy rubbed Sig’s nose in the fact. “It will take at least six months to get a ruling. So you just better get used to us being here” she crowed
Sig looked at his wristwatch. He had seen plenty of boobs in his time, admittedly most of them were on the bottoms of cows. A part of him wondered about the utility of piercings and hardware inserted through the nipples but that was neither here-nor-there. “You have 4 minutes and 30 seconds.”
“Shut the door, old man. We have better things to do than to listen to you talk shit” Darcy said and then she leaned over and put a smokin’ hot kiss on Joshua’s lips.
“Okey-dokey” Sig said. “You made your choice."
In all fairness, it took over six minutes for Gregor to hook the tow-chain to the front of the Jeep. He had to make sure it was snug or he would lose it on the hair-pin turns in the drive.
A 5500 pound truck in 4WD-Low can drag a 3000 pound vehicle downhill any day of the week, especially when “Park” only engaged the front two wheels.
Gregor realized that he had a problem when he reached the public road. He couldn’t just dump it on the road. There were no shoulders and it would be a major traffic hazard. Not having a better plan, he kept dragging it and headed toward the old cemetery.
He goosed the gas pedal figuring that as long as he didn’t stop moving, the rubber of the Jeep's front tires would liquefy and lubricate the movement. Looking through his outside, rear-view mirrors he saw smoke boiling off the front tires.
As the cemetery hove into view, he realized that he had another problem. He could not pull the Jeep completely off the road without tearing up the turf of the cemetery. He eased as much of the Jeep off of the pavement as he could and then paused to consider his options.
After stowing the tow-strap, he parked behind the Jeep and turned on his hazard flashers. Then he called 9-1-1. “I wanna report an abandoned vehicle that is a traffic hazard” he told the operator.
A half hour later, Officer Rosa Canina pulled up behind Gregor’s truck and lit up her flashers. Stepping out, she walked over to Gregor, who was leisurly smoking a cigar and asked “Are you the one who called in?”
“Yes, officer. I am” Gregor answered. He decided to answer as much of what the officer asked as seemed prudent.
A quick glance informed him that Officer Canina did not have any rings on her fingers.
Looking at the skid-mark leading up to the disabled vehicle, Officer Canina asked “So you just happened to be driving along and saw this vehicle?”
“Yes officer. Looks like they had a wheel-bearing lock up” Gregor offered. In fact, it did look like that could have been what happened.
“Any idea where the owner of the vehicle is?” she asked.
“Nope” Gregor said. Heck, they could have been walking this way or still in the van or having breakfast in Roger’s house or out in the woods looking for mushrooms for all he knew.
Officer Canina sighed. “Thanks for calling it in. I would rather sit here waiting for a tow-truck to show up than to have to be pulling bodies out of a wreck.”
Waiting for the tow truck to wend its way from Dayton, Gregor and Rosa made small-talk. Gregor learned that Rosa liked to fish for catfish in the Tennessee river and even had a boat. Rosa learned that Gregor had recently returned to be with his family and didn’t have a girlfriend.
As the tow-truck was dragging the Jeep onto the flatbed, Gregor had an inspiration. He called his buddy in town and asked, “Hey Conner. Do you still know any repo-men?”
In fact, Conner still did.
“I just had an intuition. I seen Snider’s Towing in Dayton pick up a 2002 Jeep Liberty, Tennesse plates, number KMG-8279. I don’t suppose anybody is looking for that vehicle. Iffen they are, they can call Snider’s and figure out where they took it” Gregor told his buddy.
Typos-
ReplyDelete“It (is) the middle of the fucking night.”
…neither (was) wearing a stitch of clothing. (Neither is singular. And, yes, I had to look that up.)
“Okey-dokey” Sig said. “You made your choice.(“)
…had another problem. He could (not) pull the Jeep..
did.
“I just have an intuition. I seen Snider’s (T)owing in Dayton pick up…”
You develop some interesting characters, Joe. This is fun.
Aha! It looks like one of the residents of the Cove is about to attract the "attention" of law enforcement...
ReplyDeleteChemistry. It is real.
DeleteCanina doesn't have a very large pool of potential suitors to fish from. It looks like it might have expanded a bit.
Oh boy, might get a tad ugly now.
ReplyDeleteChuckling interesting and realistic side trips :-)
ReplyDeleteUseless and worse disruptive people showing up at your chaos homestead is a Real Problem.
Evictions can cause internal troubles if so and so's daughter brings a scumbag with her to the retreat.
Scumbags are like ticks; they dig in and the longer you leave them the worse it gets.
DeleteAny readers have a better way then hauling their cargo out to the curb and leaving it out in the rain?
S S S
DeleteLock them into the van. Lock them out of everything else. While they are in the van . . . did I remember somebody saying there were steep hills around?
ReplyDelete"Expulsion over rehabilitation."
ReplyDeleteWhen the first student activists showed up having them excorted off campus - forcibly if necessary - would have been easy; once there are a couple hundred of them in tents on the quad getting DoorDash deliveries it's not at all the same problem.
The Cove is at Stage Two with Joshua and Darcy, having allowed Stage One to complete. Sig, backed up by several members of the Cove community, needs to put what gear they have in a vehicle - which includes the clothes they are not wearing at the moment - and explaining that said vehicle, with the same Cove members accompanying, will be leaving for the nearest town in 10 minutes and they need to be in it offers them Option One because in The Cove they will not receive food of any type and transgressions to obtain food will be dealt with more severely than they would like.
Option Two is a single unmarked grave in a location where it will never be found. It might be mentioned that such grave doesn't need to be double-deep because Darcy could be a Marketable Commodity, and there are Marketing Options available.
(It may be considered a "tactical error" removing their Escape Pod - the Jeep - but fuel-driven wheels can go away and come back. delivered elsewhere the limitation of the Ankle Express pose increased difficulty for any return to the Cove. And, in the process, a FAFO lesson is delivered.)
Post-event, a plan to deal with "Arrivals" needs to be formulated for the Cove to employ; Joshua and Darcy won't be the only ones who show up to impose on familial grace.
We haven’t heard what the call to the repo-man reveals. There might well be felony arrests in the couple’s future.
DeleteThere are all kinds of evictions. It seems likely to me that these two wastrels have never done anything the hard way. They’re dealing with people who, generally speaking, opt to do most things the hard— but correct— way.
Anon a mouse I'm pretty sure the Cove ISN'T in the market to run a pimp game.
DeleteSo what OTHER "Marketable Commedity" did you suggest for pierced nipple Darcy?
Reading comprehension: " It might be mentionedthat such grave doesn't need to be double-deep because Darcy could be a Marketable Commodity,.."
Delete"It might be mentioned" constitutes a threat of more severe retribution should J & D return. "It might be mentioned that such grave doesn't need to be double-deep because Darcy could be a Marketable Commodity," does not constitute an active plan. Coupled with "we know some people..." reinforces the potentiality of a threat but does not denote an active plan to be executed.
Should push come to shove, could Sig & Co. "execute an active plan" such as the threat might portray? I dunno, that's up to ERJ to tell us. But, I'd wager Sig's demonstrated use of cellular technology hints at Possible Connections Of Which We Are Unaware.
I notice Anon a mouse replied BUT Avoided ANSWERING the question of what "Marketable Commodity" of Darcy the pierced nipple troublemaker.
DeletePlease explain her Marketable Commodity.
As ER Joe is showing us unwanted visitors is a real problem. Pretending that you're some sort of cold-hearted murderer or slave warlord isn't valid at the Cove. Sig ISN'T Jim Jones.
Personally Joe, I would have AFTER talking to the Member who kid was involved, done the SHUNNING, No Support, No Food and protect the Cove people from theft and establish a more secure driveway gate. I suspect limiting Darcy and Co's ability to visit by a walk up the driveway would have weakened their grifting a tad, especially after I'd MENTION we've had their Jeep towed and they might want to get it out of the yard.
"Please explain her Marketable Commodity."
DeleteModerately attractive, or at least non-ugly, human females can be sold or gifted to human traffickers. Their value will vary with attractiveness, and the attitude problems will go with the merchandise. Sufficient resistance simply means "more drugs to make them compliant."
Is that illegal and immoral? Certainly. So is putting Josh in a single-occupant subterranean residence.
Would Sig & Co do that to Darcy? Based on what I've read about Sig so far, it would be so far out of his consideration as to Sig never even having the thought, but it's possible another CC resident might have the idea. Whether or not it would ever get mentioned is improbable, but part of the story's ongoing mystery.
Anon a mouse, I don't suppose Moral High Ground has any meaning to you, eh?
Delete“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”
― Friedrich W. Nietzsche
Aside from that as this isn't a first-person videogame Sig and Co has to interact with the other folks in the Cove, potential law enforcement and other professional busybodies.
Sig requires willing consensus to be an effective leader.
Selling someone into sexual slavery is apt not to go over well with the rest of the Cove's inhabitants.
So Anon a mouse if human trafficking is a remote possibility you'd mention, why not discuss the Nutritional Value of
DeleteLONG PIG, the other white meat?
Thus, why I mentioned Nietzsche, is survival a reason to become monsters?
The risk of publicly putting "return to base" information out there - one never knows precisely whom will show up.
ReplyDeleteIt does indeed appear that a more robust plan will need to be put in place. If things are truly going downhill, more will come.
That has been the rub with me, too. How much grace to extend. One stint as a camp counselor taught me being a stickler at the beginning usually delivers an easier time during the week.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be handy to have a "half way" location where you could find out the proclivities of the hopefuls. A month or so of residency to see if they fit.
Strikes me that Amira was the exact opposite of these two.
So two naked ne'erdowells stuck in a van body, no wheels no how, where do they wind up? How do you get rid of skunks without fouling your home? How to make them think it's better off to be somewhere / anywhere else? Hmmmmm.......
IF they have a phone and a credit card then they can always find a ride.
DeleteAs the tow-truck was dragging the Jeep onto the flatbed
ReplyDeleteI think you mean van as that is what Gregor towed off the property
Nope. He towed the Jeep that they showed up in.
DeleteIf they had locked up the van with them in it and towed it they would have been guilty of kidnapping or endangerment.
Besides, some of the wheels/tires from the van are on Sally's trailer and it is up on blocks -and- they would have to wiggle it out of the hoop-house.
Wait, a girl who shoots, catfish's AND has a boat? Sounds like love to me.
ReplyDeleteSend picture of boat and motor...
DeleteIt is kind of simple. No one feeds them. They have to leave.
ReplyDeleteI am reminded of an incident involving one of my father's neighbors scumbag son, who had a penchant for parking in front of our mailbox upon returning from his late night carousing. The mail man would not deliver the mail. My father asked nicely for the scumbag son to park elsewhere; there was plenty of room. However he received a rude response which made him very cross. When apprised of this situation, I showed up at my dad's house early the next Saturday morning, before breakfast time, and sure enough, scumbag son's car was parked dead in front of our mailbox facing downhill with the front wheels turned out.
ReplyDeleteI borrowed my Dad's floor jack, lifted the rear tires off the pavement, and let it roll downhill until it was sitting smack in the middle of the downhill lane, and dropped it there.
My father, somewhat bemused, commented that he didn't think that was a good idea, as the car was now a traffic hazard. I did not reply as I was on my way inside with the jack and when my Dad caught up with me, I was on the phone with the local police department telling them about a vehicle abandoned in the middle of the road.
Scumbag son responded after the tow truck had his car hooked up, but was evidently still somewhat the worse for wear, and I was told later that the police officer was even less impressed than my father with the language scumbag son used. There was also some questioning regarding when he was drinking, at which point the scumbag remembered his 5th amendment rights and resigned himself to a walk to the tow yard.
He never parked in front of my Dad's mailbox again.
the point of my vignette is that scumbags push and take advantage until you push back, harder. Step 1 is done- now for step 2. Containment is in order, and I favor pepper spray as a non-lethal method of subduing miscreants. Shrink wrap and a dead skunk might also come in handy. Presumably trains are still running?
DeleteThey are clearly trouble and must be dealt with immediately.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that they quoted the gist of the law regarding a tenancy agreement and that it would take the residents at least 6 months to evict them via the courts, what are you going to do about it? is as clear an indication that they have done this before and that they know how to work the system. Their behaviour shows that the normal rules of decency and the community don't apply to them is another clear and obvious sign of impending trouble.
Their attitude that the world owes them a living and that they are going to take what they want, when they want means that they will simply steal food, uproot crops etc. Ostracising them and refusing them food won't work. If any force is used against them, they'll run to the Police - they now how to work the system and will appear plausible. It is attention and trouble that the residents can do without.
One way of doing it would be to give them an overdose of fenatyl, easily obtained from the town. With their obvious indications of a - how shall I put it? - non mainstream lifestyle and tendencies, then they can be "discovered" after they have died and the Police called. I doubt that the police or the coroner would investigate much beyond "another druggie death".
We'll see what we'll see I suppose!
Phil B
Interesting twist to the plot.
ReplyDeleteDarcy and Joshua don’t realize they’ve entered a new world wit new rules. The appearance of the Deputy as a potential mate for some lucky CC fellow complicates things: whatever precedent is set with Darcy and Joshua will likely govern subsequent new arrivals. Tough situation.
For Darcy & Joshua the Old Testament rule on adultery might apply: stoning. Or a lesser version: scourging, or public humiliation in the stocks. Exile or ostracism might bring unwanted attention from outside CC. Grifter tend toward narcissism. That all seems to point toward the harshest remedy.
Stoning adulterers sets a hard line that Sig and the youngsters will have to live with.
Y'all are having discussions on morality and such when a simpler solution is easily at hand.
ReplyDeleteStep one was accomplished. Remove their "fast transport" option(s). Now you need step two. CC has some well-running vehicles at this point. Hog-tie the pair and put them in the backseat. Naked. Let them keep each other warm. Transport them with one set of clothing each plus whatever they had in their pockets to a nice, largish place far more than an easy walk away. Find a reasonably safe location, until them and dump them and their crap on the side of the road. By the time you return, the remaining residents have thoroughly burned anything that was left behind.
No one is hurt by your hand and they aren't pushing up daises or sold into White slavery. They have some resources, and a lesson in why they never want to come back. Although SSS is a lot easier...
There was an old Discover series called “The Colony”, it was a reality show where a group of people were attempting to survive after a fiction pandemic. Role players interacted with the group in order to drive the narrative and force certain objectives upon the group. The show also brought in subject matter experts to discuss various things about the ongoing efforts. One of them discussed that a critical task of any group was determining the process by which new members were allowed to join the group and more importantly why and how existing members were expelled from the group. It is one of the few reality shows worth watching, it is available for streaming on Discovery (which can be done during the free week trial). Elements of Tuckman’s Stages for Group Development, can be seen in may of the Cumberland Saga stories.
ReplyDelete