“It’s good the old architectural firm gave us our old jobs
back. I’m mean look at this. Did we ever take business trips when we
worked at the cabinet shop,” I was trying to convince Boomer that we made the
right move. Of course he knew we
did. There was some sort of crazy shit
going on over there at the cabinet shop.
In fact, it seemed like we were being followed to this day.
“Business trip? We’re
going to survey a slaughterhouse …”
“Please Boomer.
Slaughterhouse sounds so Je ne sais quoi. How about ‘Abbattoir’? Sounds French, n’est pas?”
"Oh yeah, I forgot. We’re
going to Perry. Might as well brush up
on the ol’ fran-say."
“Exactement!”
“Ferme la bouche!”
~~
Boomer and I had both taken French in High School. The school was in downtown Omaha. It had been the Douglas County Courthouse
before it became a school. It was a very
old building. The walls of the
classrooms were made of this concrete like material known as ‘Plaster’. Running along the length of all the walls at
about 4 feet from the wood floors was a trim made completely out of Oak or some
other hard wood. The wood was made
harder by the fact that it was about 1000 years old. The French teacher was a peculiar little
fellow by the name of “Monsieur Throne”.
I don’t know if M. Throne liked Boomer or not. I’m fairly certain that he spent his spare
time thinking about how much he despised me.
Boomer and I sat in the very back of the room, about 2 or 3
rows from each other. Leaning the desks
back against the wall, the backs of our heads were even with the oak trim. Boomer started it.
“Attention class. Voulez
vous , un deux trios, blah, blah blah …”
M. Throne was droning on about something in French. Then, due to the acoustic qualities of the
squarish plaster room, the source of the extraordinarily loud knocking sound
that interrupted M. Throne was difficult to determine (unless you were right
next to it like I was).
“Que’st que ce?” M. Throne asked. Silence.
Then with a shrug, M. Throne continued, “Alors, Petit fours, Salle de
bain, eau de toilette, blah blah blah …”
After a couple more minutes of the French talking teacher
guy, another loud knock. I had figured
out what had happened. Hitting the bone
part of the back of your head against the trim made an unbelievably loud
noise.
“D’accord. Maintenent
qu’il fait la,” Pardon M. Throne’s French.
It was 30 years ago. I didn’t
really listen then and even if I had, I wouldn’t remember what he said, let
alone the proper French grammar and everything.
For all of these reasons, M. Throne
was forced to transform into Mr. Throne and speak English.
“What is making that noise,” Came Mr. Throne’s high pitched
nasally query.
“Um, excuzay mwa Misher Throne,” I began.
“What is it, Cube?”
“I thought that high pitched nasally voice thing was just
for when you speak French,” I said to the great satisfaction of much of the
classroom, securing my spot at a local community college somewhere.
As I waited for Mr. Throne to finish deciding whether he was
going to have a sense of humor or be a dick, Boomer saved me. “Crack!” came another loud knock. Since Mr. Throne was looking directly at me
when it happened, he knew I had nothing to do with it, but he was now looking
at Boomer suspiciously. As he partially
squinted his left eye and paced about the front of the classroom, glaring at
Boomer, “Kaboom!” I think I dented the
wood on that one. Giggles all
around. That’s right ladies, I’m here
through Thursday.
So that was the reason that Boomer and I were so good at French. Shortly after we started back up at KMA, we
were told we were going to spend the week surveying the grounds of a
slaughterhouse near Des Moines, Iowa.
“Des Moines? Sounds French,” Boomer said.
“Of course it’s French.
It means ‘The Minuses’,” I thought it did anyway. I only passed French class as part of an
agreement I had with M. Throne to never take French again. That is absolutely 100% true.
“We’ll be perfect for the mission, chief,” Boomer explained,
“See Cube and I both took Fran-say in ‘lay – cole - oat’”
“Well don’t sweat it, garcons,” You’re not going to Des Moines. You’re going to Perry,” the boss said, 2
seconds before regretting it for the rest of his life (15 years, if you’re
wondering how long the rest of his life was).
“Ah Magnifique!”, both Boomer and I exclaimed. Paris is even better, we thought.
“J’ai jamias va a Paris,” I said in my nearly perfect French
accent, complete with high pitched nasallyness.
“Whatever boys”, the boss said, “We leave tomorrow at
6. Don’t be late or you don’t go.”
“A.M.?”, Boomer verified.
To us, there was only one way to be sure to not
oversleep. At 4:30 in the morning,
Boomer asked if I wanted any more coffee.
I was getting kind of shaky, thinking maybe a better idea might have
been to just set an alarm clock rather than the all-nighter route. “I don’t
know, man. You got any food or anything
in here?”
“Do I have food? Of
course I have …,” Boomer started
“I mean anything besides Peanut-Butter/Apple-Butter
sandwiches.”
“Oh. Uh. What's wrong with Peanut-Butter/Apple-Butter
sandwiches?”
~~
“They no work here again still yet,” Renaud was explaining
to Marilyn and Burt.
“Do you have any idea where they might have gone. It is vitally important that we get in touch
with them,” Burt said, hoping the Haitian could understand.
“They say they like Zombie Bar. But Renaud not remember what name it,”
“Zombie bar,” Marilyn and Burt exchanged a confused glance.
“Not real zombies.
Renaud try to explain real zombies, but then break end before my story,”
Marilyn and Burt exchanged a confused glance.
“You see it all start when Renaud was a happy little boy in
Haiti …” Renaud began, but when he said ‘Haiti’
It sounded like he was saying Hi-80.
Marilyn jumped in, “We really want to hear about your
childhood in Haiti, Renaud. But right
now we have lost something and BoomCube can help us find it. Is there anything else you can tell us?”
“Oh Renaud,” Renaud said, remembering the Plaque, “Sometimes
you mindless like real Zombie. Maybe
because Renaud almost turned into zombie by uncle-he, Renaud’s brain slow
sometimes. Cube was working on something
to give zombie bar owner, Chico.”
“Chico’s? Of
course. We’ll find them at Chico’s. Thanks Renaud. We will come back some time for that
childhood story. We swear,” They lied as
they bolted for Marilyn’s car. Marilyn
liked to drive her man around. It
pleased her to have full control while Burt enjoyed a bracing jigger of Gin.
~~
“Nasty, Boomer,” I was disgusted by the horrible smell
engulfing the crew truck.
“It wasn’t me,” Boomer said all innocent-like. But I knew better. An all nighter of Coffee and PBAB sandwiches
had done their dirty work. I was sure of
it.
“It sure as fuckin’ shit I smell was you, mother fucker,” I
mean I was really irritable. Cubey needs his rest.
“Pipe down back there,” shouted the crew chief. He was such an asshole. “That ain’t Boomer you smell. That’s Perry.”
“Don’t you hate Perry’s wife,” I said, quoting my favorite
line from Arthur.
“It means we’re about 10 clicks out. You don’t like the smell now? Wait ‘til we get there. Hahahahahahahahahaha,” I mean I really hated
the crew chief.
“Yeah, that was me,” Boomer admitted to me in a whisper. Then we both laughed uncontrollably because
the smell just kept getting worse as we approached the plant. Also, we were hallucinating from sleep
deprivation.
“Hey you got ‘Burt’,” I asked Boomer. I had lost my lighter and I thought maybe a
smoke would cover the smell of the rancid pig shit still 10 miles away. Boomer handed me his dad’s lighter and I saw
the date on the bottom. As an Elvis
fan, I recognized it instantly. “Hey,
did you see this Boomer,” I asked.
“Yeah. The King’s
Birthday in like 400 years from now,” He said.
“What’s it mean?” I
asked.
“I dunno. I asked
dad, but he says it’s not his lighter.
Maybe Elvis didn’t die. Maybe he
just went into the future.” Boomer
theorized
“I can buy that,” I said, exhaling the relatively tasty
tobacco from my pig shit odor riddled lungs.
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