Dodo Eggs

Synopsis (In case you haven’t read the previous chapters) : A college journalism student named Tim is working on an article on the mysterious Roger Kiser.  Roger has been missing from the town of Buffalo Rind, North Dakota for years now and Tim is trying to track him down.  His source is a wild eccentric named Skechenko. 

Skechenko is retelling the story of Roger’s rejection by the Boykin family and his subsequent landing in Dakota Territory.  It is being told from Roger’s point of view.  Skechenko admits that portions of the story may be either fabricated or a bit exaggerated due to Roger’s extreme distaste for his former family.

It was the middle of the night, and the pain was becoming unbearable.  Roger rolled, adjusted his pillow, and tried to let his dreams again overtake him but the ache would not relent.  He had ignored the situation as long as he could.  Drinking indiscriminately had a price.  

“Uh… too much apple juice before bed.” 

Cool air swooped in as he tossed the blankets away from his body.  With reluctance, Kiser forced his feet to the floor’s chilly surface.  He was wearing an old pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt but that didn’t help his toes. 

The room was almost completely black.  The moonlight that pushed through the drawn shades into the room provided only a wispy gray outline of the furniture.  Roger felt like he was peering through a bottle of ink.  With arms outstretched, he felt his way towards the doorway’s general direction.

Roger placed his hand the room’s large dresser and used it as a guide; eyes locked on the doorway’s outline.  He began to walk with more confidence and a quicker step.  That’s when his big toe found the stock end of a nearby rifle.  The mishap caused the barrel to slide along the dresser’s wood facing.  Roger groped in vain to stop its fall, and then winced anticipating the frightful noise.  The firearm hit the hardwood with a loud smack but failed to discharge.

One of the sleeping brothers regained consciousness.  It sounded a little like Roscoe. “Shut up Oatmeal!  You stupid (unflattering utterance)!”

Roger hastened around the door and felt his way into the hallway.  He greeted the line of light pushing its way from underneath the bathroom door with annoyance.  Unless someone mistakenly left the light on, Roger would be forced to wait.  That’s when he noticed two sets of ankles supporting slouched bodies and his spirit sank further.

The next bad omen were the sounds of static and muddled voices coming from the other side of the door.  The father had the police scanner hooked up next to the toilet again.   

Roger threw his hands up in disgust.  He had to use the bathroom but was instead subjected to this tortuous wait! 

“Ouch!  Watch out!”  Wanda lowered her voice a bit but her tone remained belligerent.  “If you try pushing me again, I’ll (unladylike selection of words) your (harsh speech).  Dad said he might come out in a few minutes.”

The tall silhouette in front of the door turned.  It was Amos, “Only if you two keep your (syllables of evil) mouths shut.  He’s threatened to stay in there all night if we interrupt him and he misses something.”

A deep reservoir of frustration opened and escaped Roger’s control. “What! This again!  This is unbearable!  There are better ways for him to do this!  This is honestly crazy!” 

Right away, he knew he had made too much noise.  The siblings in the darkened hallway began shushing him then resorted to hitting him.

They heard their father’s gruff voice.  “Quiet!  I missed something!  (Blasphemy), if you have to go you’d better do it outside, cause I ain’t moving until I find out what just happened in Marianna!  Now quiet!”

Amos and Wanda were hitting Roger harder now.  If Kiser stayed long enough to apologize, they might begin drawing blood.  He rushed by them and into the kitchen. 

On this side of the house, illumination from the yard light made it much easier to navigate.  The windows were uncovered and allowed in the maximum amount of light.  White metal cabinets reflected a bit of light and seemed to have a weak glow of their own.  The linoleum floor was noticeably colder than the hardwood and in response Roger quickened his pace. 

The porch door was just ahead. There he hoped to find his boots and a jacket.  If not, he could borrow someone else’s.  The porch was a small room that was crammed with a deep freeze, washer, and a lifetime’s worth of canned goods.  Scattered about were several piles of outerwear grouped by size and stench. 

“I wouldn’t doubt Amos will have some special disaster planned for me tomorrow.”  He found the light bulb’s pull chain and gave it a frantic yank.  Being fashionably dressed for outhouse caught Roger as useless as well as time consuming so he wound up with a coat on inside out, a cap, and two different styles of boots.

Taking long steps to avoid stepping on the boot’s long laces, Kiser opened the door to the porch and flipped on the outside light.
 
He exited the porch, but neglected the closing screen door.  The result was a sharp crack that alerted most of the hostile animals sleeping through out the yard.   Not wanting to be delayed further, Roger launched into a tirade of various vulgarities.  The animals recognized their names and relaxed.

A cold gust forced Roger’s mouth shut.  It was cold for Arkansas, much colder than he could remember. 

“Maybe someday,“ he thought, “I’ll have a pet that responds to a normal name instead of what it hears most often.”  

Roger moved to the north side of the home. More cold air slid by as he removed the outhouse’s plywood door.   Quickly, he gulped as much clean air as his lungs could manage, stepped inside, and replaced the plywood.

The only thing he could see was a darkened circle.  Under these circumstances, the outline would be sufficient.  After all, this was an outhouse and aim was largely inconsequential.  Kiser found relief quickly.  He even found himself relaxed enough to gaze out one of the roof’s small holes and into the night’s starry expanse. 

The stars gave off a steady light and seemed unperturbed by the cold breezes.  Each joined its brothers and sisters in creating magnificent constellations, yet shown individually as perfect gems.

“And yet, I have a better chance of catching a star then finding any satisfaction here.  Even using the indoor bathroom is a matter of chance and luck.”

In retrospect, the restroom gave few reasons to stay for any extended duration.  The walls had shifted noticeably from ivory to a dull cream color.  The change was the result of excessive match lighting and tobacco usage.  Despite the fact that people invested heavy doses of time beside the paper dispenser no one seemed capable of properly installing the roll.  This rendered the twelve year old Spin-a-Scent cylinder meaningless.  The floor’s attractive purple checker pattern has been worn blank on the well-traveled areas, and was replaced by stains from localized floods. 

The true destruction of such a pitiable sanctuary was the police scanner delivered on the Father’s most recent birthday.

Roger closed his eyes and shook his head.  “Never before had that man been able to receive immediate reports on family happenings!  And for some reason, he enjoys listening to it in the bathroom!  Even if you know everyone, is there really such a thrill in eavesdropping on the police?”

At this point, Roger’s musings were interrupted by a gust that had pushed its way through the gaps in the outhouse wall.  “Well, I guess I should head back.  I’ll have to fight with Cecil to get my blanket back.” 

To Roger, the steady sound of gravel rearranging itself under his boots was a comforting sound.  Besides a tractor somewhere to the North, it was the only thing to be heard. 

He was headed home from another game of cards with Gran Boykin and home was the last place he wanted to go. 

A stiff breeze brought a chill to Roger’s brow.  He looked up and saw boy about six years his junior riding his bike.  As soon as the young man was within earshot he shouted, “Hey, Oatmeal!”  His calls grew in volume as he approached.

Roger scowled, kicked one of the larger rocks and yelled back, “My name’s Granola!  How does that sound?!”
 
The boy brought his bike to a stop only three feet in front of Roger.  The small cloud of dust that had followed the boy drifted on past Kilwein’s legs. “I ain’t calling you granola.  Whatever that is.”

The younger boy wore a dirty white long sleeved shirt and overalls.  The overall’s pockets seemed filled to busting.  Roger liked to imagine they were filled with rubber bands and small pebbles.  He knew better.  It was probably boxes of small caliber ammunition. Once his siblings advanced to pellet weapons, they would use nothing else, even on each other.

“I came to tell you to bring back a couple cans of wee-wees from Gran’s place.  All we got is smoked sausage and that isn’t good with beans.”

He turned his is bike around and placed his left foot on the forward pedal.  “Oh yea, you weren’t around when we called the shower so you’re last tonight.”  With that, the boy rode off in another quick cloud of dust. 

Roger turned and began marching back to Gran’s.  There was no doubt about it.  His adaptive family was a jalopy with more problems than could reasonably be fixed. 

“Let’s see, there’s assigning value to poly-resin figurines, homemade cigarettes, dumping everyone’s savings into fireworks, a TV that is on whether people are watching it or not…”   

The sky’s shade had slid from dim yellow to a deep orange.  It changed the lime green stripes on his grandmother’s trailer to a turquoise color.  In the shadows under the porch, Kiser perceived movement from some of the nocturnal animals.  The steady glow of a television could be seen from the right window.

Roger knocked and went inside but the old woman never entered the kitchen.  “My show’s on!  What you want?”
 
“I’ve been sent back for a couple cans of those little sausages.  Ok?”

The voice from the other room took on an even higher pitch than usual.  “Ah, now you want my wee-wees!  None before, but now you’ve got to have’m.”

There was no impetus for further conversation.  Roger grabbed the cans and left.  On his way out, a large dog chased him back to the road.  It was one of Gran’s part-time “pets.”  The fanged monster didn’t quit chasing him until he was half way back to his home. 

Roger knew this wasn’t how it was supposed to be for him. An unrefined farm family had adopted him not long before he started third grade.  His life beforehand was a mixed up mash of foster care assignments.  His Lexa family changed his legal name to Roger Boykin.  All his report cards and record papers had him listed as a Boykin but it was a name he never accepted. 

Kiser grew to near adulthood knowing that the humans claiming to be his “kin” were birds of an unlike feather.  With a slight mock to his tone, he even referred to his adoptive parents as “the Father” and “the Mother.”  

The Father set the household’s misguided priorities.   To him, memorabilia of his favorite race car driver took precedence over groceries. 

“Look kids, lottery tickets aren’t worth the money anymore.  But in a few years these things will be worth thousands.” 

Before a check was written for the propane bill, the Father would purchase the latest patriotic T-shirt.  His most recent shirt eloquently shouted, “Welcome to America!  We’ll shoot you if we have to.” 

One tragic afternoon, Roger returned from school to find the police in the middle of a raid.  Their target was his brother Bubba’s tree house.  After a brief standoff, with Bubba firing several rounds from his pellet gun, the officers overran the tree bound structure, and captured two fully functional stills. 

The bright headlights from a distant car brought Roger’s frustrated thinking back in line with reality.  His unexpected errand had taken so long that evening had fully fallen.  His pace had quickened now that night’s chill had ended his pondering.  The yard light from his family’s homestead was just ahead.

Once inside he managed to salvage some supper.  The Mother had found a deal on apple juice and snack crackers at the grocery store.  Roger poured himself an unusually large glass and found a half-eaten sleeve of crackers.  He then found a corner to practice one of his only two real forms of entertainment, origami. 

Months ago, he found an old magazine on the Japanese art of folding paper.  It was lying in the cellar mixed in with all the tabloid rags his parents read.  It seemed like an enjoyable distraction and he took up the hobby with gusto.  Paper was easy to find and if his siblings destroyed his work, he found joy in making another.

********************

The heavy plates hit the table’s surface with low clunk.  Lena had finished the usual and started returning to the kitchen for their drinks. 

A feeble thanks was all Tim managed to say before he inspected the food.  Short strips of meat with a brown gravy and whole wheat noodles.  He poked the meat with his fork.  It did smell delicious.

“Son, are you going to start asking your meal questions, are you?”  Skechenko already had sauce on the right side of his mouth. 

“Uh, is this what I think it might be?”  Tim constructed the question as delicately as he could. 

“Try some of it and you tell me.”

“I’ll get to it in just a minute.”  Tim edged the plate a little to one side.  “Can we finish on how your longtime friend arrived in Dakota?  That’s what I’ve been waiting to hear about but for some reason we haven’t got there.”

Skechenko skewered the piece of meat closest to him.  He then pointed it at the other man.  “It gets back to that metaphysical thing!  Now listen this time.  Roger Kiser would have contently spent his life working the graveyard shift at Lexa’s one convenience store had he not become a pawn in Fate’s cruel proposition.  The places he lived and the company he kept weren’t the root cause of his strange lot, but symptom thereof!” 

Gravy was dripping from Skechenko’s fork onto the table and he didn’t seem to care.

The trailer the woman lived in was ancient and largely unlit.  Dust played in the few beams of sunlight that pushed their way through the battered blinds.  The furniture was as out of date as the family pictures that crowed every surface.  A worn TV tray sat between Roger and Gran Boykin.  

The old woman plopped her cards onto the tray and pointed a skeletal finger in Roger’s direction.  Her voice had the pitch of an angry crow.  “You lose again Oatmeal.  Boy, if you can’t play a decent game of cards, what in the world can you do?  Huh?”
 
Roger didn’t care for their card games but they were usually better than life at home.  He pulled up his worn pair of blue jeans and sat back into one of the musty corduroy chairs.  He looked at the clock but it never displayed the right time.  The decreasing sunlight meant it was probably time to go.

“Oatmeal, you listen to me.”  Every time she spoke, Gran Boykin’s teeth would move unnaturally.  It was no wonder.  She used her late husband’s dentures.

Roger leaned forward.  “There it is!  Gran Boykin, you know I don’t like that name.  I’m not boring!  I’m interesting just not in ways the podunks around here can understand.”

“You ain’t proper kin and need to take what God’s given to us to give to you and that name is one of them.  Besides, it’s funny.  You don’t hear half of my grandkids complain when their called Bubba do you?”

“Are we finished playing here?”

Gran tried to sit up and failed.  “Look see, before I forget and if I die, I want you to take care of my plants.  I’ve always had a green thumb and I just won’t be able to stand leaving this earth unless my house plants are taken care of.” 
 
Roger groaned and closed his eyes.  “Gran, plants are not family heirlooms.  And you should quit watering them!  Their fake!  They were replaced with plastic look-a-likes years ago.”

Something whacked Roger in the face.  He had forgotten she was armed.  The old woman had hit him with the disgusting, old fly swatter that she never kept far from her. 

“Don’t roll your eyes at me Oatmeal.  A little watering makes even plastic look a little better.” 

Roger stood up and adjusted his pants again.  He had been forced to adjust them all day and was becoming frustrated.  Everything was second hand for him.  He used his free hand to reach for his sweatshirt.
 
“Wait, wait.”  Gran Boykin’s demeanor softened once she sensed Roger was ready to leave.  She left her chair and started to shuffle into the nearby kitchen. “Don’t be going not having a can of piggy wee-wees.”

This time Roger really did roll his eyes.  “Gran, look, those things are called Vienna sausages.  When you call them piggy wee-wees you make is sound like they are…owww.”   Lightning quick, she had turned and hit him with the fly swatter again.

“You keep that filthy mind to your own self!”  She squinted at him, and finished with, “TV is doing that to you doesn’t it?   Now c’mon.”
 
When they reached the kitchen, they turned toward different locations.  The old crow’s white top meandered to the cabinets.  Roger made a line to the porch door.

“Look Gran Boykin, I need to keep moving.  Thanks for the card game and everything.  I’ll come by tomorrow if I feel like life can’t get any worse.”  She never caught the implied meaning and Kiser never felt guilty saying it.
 
Roger closed the screen door and took in a lungful of clean air.  He continued purging his lungs until he reached the end of the gravel driveway.  It blended almost seamlessly with the gravel road that stretched in both directions.  The sun had started throwing red hues, as its path to the western horizon was not far from completion.  It was late December and the atmosphere had turned chilly, which always coincided with dormant swaths of brown in the fields. 

He had a good walk home before it became dark.  All in all, it was a perfect opportunity for some quiet thought.

********************

The doorbell rang but Skechenko did not move to answer it.  A few seconds later, Tim could hear the impatient sound of shaken keys.  Bolts gave way with a bit too much force then the door swung open to admit a woman of striking girth.  She wore loose fitting nursing scrubs and carried a large duffel bag.  Her hair was shoulder length and feathered back in the style of women who know their sex appeal is gone.

She gave both men a bland uninterested stare.  “Morning Mr. Skechenko.  Should I fix your usual before I get started cleaning the kitchen and bathroom?”

Skechenko had yet turn and face her.  “Yes Lena, that will be fine.  And fix a helping for this young man.  It looks like he will be staying for a while.”

“Ok, whatever.”  She tossed her bag onto a stack of newspapers and marched into the kitchen.  The sounds of pots clanging together was followed by, “Say, do you want that with guinea pig or without?”

“Woman!  I’m sure there’s still room for that big rear of yours back in Eastern Europe!  No doubt the crater from your last visit hasn’t been filled yet!”   The old man turned and shook his fist in the kitchen’s direction.  “You know full well that is prairie dog meat!  And you know how I like it!”

Tim recaptured Skechenko’s attention.  “Um, I think you were talking about Roger Kiser’s upbringing.”
 
“Are we still talking about him?!”  Skechenko covered his eyes with mumbled something unintelligible.  “Very well, Kiser dwelt in the delta region of the Mississippi River, just a few miles east of Lexa, Arkansas.  The view from his bedroom window was a landscape filled with ramshackle mobile homes, which by this point were mobile in name only, tin covered tobacco sheds, and ivy covered silos.  The northern horizon was usually obscured by the dust from a busy dirt road that separated his family’s farm from the usually lush fields of cotton and marijuana.“

Tim glanced over to make sure his tape recorder was still working.   “Sir, you have an incredible knack for detail.  How do you know all this?”

The old man just shrugged his shoulders.  “Well son, all you need are postcards and stereotypes and you can be an expert on any geographic location.  You should also know that everything I’m about to tell you is how it was relayed to me.  The story is one of extremes but Kiser would have it no other way.”

“So how much of this is going to be accurate?”
 
Skechenko shrugged again.  “There’s no real way of knowing.  But let me reiterate that when his family called him Oatmeal, they weren’t that far off.  He’s a guy who has an average build spread across the mean height for males of his age.  Dominant genes dictated his hair and eye color, and his choice of clothing was directed toward jeans, plaids, and solid, subdued earth tones. It’s a trend that he stubbornly continues regardless of the whims of fashion.
 
You see son, he didn’t want anything to do with the chaos everyone around here associates with him.   Roger viewed human beings as bumper cars in a rink that was too small.  They’re always forcefully bumping into each other, changing each other’s direction, and causing whiplash.”

Skechenko paused to let Tim finish his mad scribbling.  “So, uh, how did Roger Kilwein leave Arkansas and arrive in North Dakota?”

The old man delayed to gather his thoughts.  “Fine, he was walking home…”

Two men sat at a table staring at one another.  They were at opposite ends of life’s spectrum.  Tim was young, sadly jaded, and hard pressed to get the information he needed.  The other an older gentleman with a flair for life and a keen understanding.  The interview wasn’t going well. 

With the mysterious Roger Kiser as his journalistic summative, Tim could get his diploma but the old man was batting his questions around again. 

Skechenko leaned back in his chair aware of Tim’s frustration.  “Really, you want to know about Roger Kiser?  Let me tell you something kid, you can’t get to the sweet part of the nut without going through the shell.”

Tim spoke into his teeth.  “Well, you got the nut part right.”

“Wicked puns will not help your cause.”  Skechenko took a deep breath.  “Kiser was always there, condemned us, participated reluctantly, scratched up a few clouds of dandruff, and went home.” 

Tim’s hair had begun to thaw and the resulting moisture resembled perspiration.  Thoughtlessly, he wiped it away.  “C’mon sir!   This was a man who was an alternate belief system and three concubines away from starting his own cult!”  
 
Skechenko tightened his lips and widened his eyes.  “He would have done no such thing.  The second he had an opportunity to break his curse he disappeared like a mom at her son’s bachelor party!”
 
“A curse?  What does that mean?”  Tim’s attitude fringed on excitement.  “Are you telling me there’s some spooky aspect to Mr. Kiser’s disappearance?”

Skechenko’s tone continued to stiffened with his posture.  “Wouldn’t you rather hear about my exploits?”

This was Tim’s twelfth session with this eccentric.  He was tired of hearing the same point of view and being harshly rejected whenever Mr. Kiser was brought up too often. 

“Skechenko sir, I know about your activities.  You have already told me about your upbringing by professional hippies or whatever.  I’ve already written two papers regarding your strange fascination for the nutritional benefits of prairie dog meat and four C minus papers on all your other twisted stories.  My professor told me that if I do another story that involves you the only signature on my degree will be yours!

Please, tell me about Roger Kiser.”

Skechenko slapped the table with his left hand then pointed at the small tape recorder with his right.  “That reminds me.  Did I mention that I used to shave patterns on the prairie dogs I raised?  I would use the designs to tell each one apart.   It’s what gave me the idea to shave advertisements on the sides of male buffaloes.”
 
The old man was doing it again.  Ignoring the direct questions and discussing whatever came to misshapen mind.  Skechenko was like a dark well where no one ever achieved the bottom.  In this case, the bottom was the whereabouts of Roger Kiser. 

“Skechenko sir,” Tim bit at the end of his eraser and resolved to try one more time.  “Sir, we all appreciate the contributions you have made to the rich heritage here in Buffalo Rind, North Dakota.  We know about your book THE TOME and the hundreds of copies it sold in Canada.  I have heard how you have appeared on at least two nationally televised game shows.  We know about the late, great Minot and Oswego’s ruined life.  We’ve read about Winny, Hulio, Swaboda, Dvorak, Hovda, Pokorny, and the others.  Who we want to know about is the man named Roger Kiser.”

Skechenko looked as if he had swallowed a rancid lemon.  “Well kiss my cancer cells!  Fine!  I guess at this point it really doesn’t matter if you know something about him. But I cannot tell you where he is now.” 

The journalism student popped a new tape into the recorder and found a pencil with a new eraser.  “Well then, what else can I ask for?”  

“There isn’t a single interesting thing to say about Roger Kilwein so you are really wasting your time.”  Skechenko’s voice had taken on a calmer more narrative tone even though he still punctuated every sentence with a strong hand movement.  “Just picture a common mannequin.  Dress him in a plaid shirt and dirty jeans add a few ill-placed birthmarks on the right side of his head and that’s him.”

Tim was jotting notes furiously.  Many had tried and failed to track down the elusive Roger Kiser.  In fact, other than the few times his photo managed to make the Buffalo Rind Press, nothing was known about him, where he came from, or were he was now.  The only people who might know were Mr. Winny and Mr. Skechenko who never spoke about their longtime friend. 

“Sir, what was he like as a person?”

Skechenko slapped his face and pulled his aged facial features down.  “Son, do you remember what I said about the mannequin?  The same goes for his personality!  There is nothing of interest there!  All he wants is to be left alone.  Untouched by heartbreak, anxiety, ambition, anger, competition, and any other stress that comes with interacting with other flawed human beings.”
 
“Ok, well, what else can you tell me, especially regarding this curse.  That seems interesting.”

“You’re not listening!”  Skechenko paused briefly.  “You see, most people like Kilwein end up a certain way.  They grow up confused about their ultimate purpose and fail to find it in immediate pleasures.  They get hooked on the same vices that their forebears stumbled into.  By early middle age, they are spending their evenings staring at a television.  They ignore their problems and abandon their ambitions as impossible dreams of youth.  They die and are forgotten.”

Skechenko saw what the young man was writing and added, “Ok, wait, maybe that wasn’t Roger’s ultimate plan but it’s close. What he really wanted was contentment.  He wanted a simple life that didn’t involve any unnecessary drama.  All he wanted was a job of intermediate significance and a place to call his own.”

Tim picked up his pencil.  “Huh?  That doesn’t make any sense!  He was an intricate part of every odd plot that was hatched.  Chaos seemed to surround him as much as it did you!”

The old man propped his arms on the table and brought his palms together in a slow and deliberate motion.  “Son, do you believe in the metaphysical?” 

When Tim failed to answer, Skechenko continued.  “Here is the way I see things, extraordinary happenings are not easy to account for.   Some heathens use the word ‘weird’ but I take offense to that.  They secure humanity’s sanity and by extension its sense of surprise by making these visits somewhat infrequent.”

The young man’s pencil had ceased scribbling.  His face had gone blank.

Skechenko dropped his hands and straightened.  “Why are you looking at me like I’m babbling?  Maybe your limited thinking is keeping you from understanding.”

“Sir, I don’t see how this has anything to do with Roger Kiser.”

“Ok then, here’s my point.”  Skechenko gave a pained smile.  “What if the stranger aspects of this world grew impatient with always being held in wait?  What would happen if the outlandish were to overwhelm the commonplace?”

Tim reached over and turned off the tape recorder.  “Sir, if you weren’t going to say anything else about your old friend then just say so.  I’m working on my fourth battery here.”

“Fine, turn your stupid tape recorder back on!”  Skechenko replaced his stern look with a scowl.  “You apparently have no taste for philosophy.”

Tim reactivated the audio recorder, picked up his pencil, and found the end of the notes he had been taking. 

Skechenko scratched his nose.  “We’ll begin this story with the odd events surrounding Roger Kiser’s journey from Arkansas.”  A slight chuckle escaped.   “You see, that’s where Roger grew up.  When he was adopted his official name was changed to Roger Boykin.  That’s why you and the others cannot find his records.  They are all under Boykin.

Then I’ll fill you in on the trip to North Dakota where we greet each other with the encouragement, ‘Hey, at least we’re not Canadian.’  Ha!  That’s funny son, at least write that in the margin.  Ok, fine then, just listen…”        

A huddled figure raced to his destination under a heaven full of motionless stars.  They twinkled a bit, the only things moving in a town frozen into suspended animation.  It would be hours before the sun would rise on the tableland of western North Dakota even then it would stay cold enough to punish those planted here by fate. 
   
 “There’s n-no colder place in the galaxy than Buffalo Rind, North Dakota.”

One hard sniff followed another and then another.  This kind of weather made Tim’s nose run and run and run.  It was a clear indication that man was not designed to exist in such a frigid environment.  

But Tim was one of the smart ones.  Once he graduated, he would find money and warmer temperatures in Nebraska.

Tim stopped his thinking to sniff again.  He had forgotten to plug his block heater in last night and now he was stuck walking. 

He had text messaged a friend of his at We-Know-Pizza asking her to send a pizza to his address.  It wound up arriving a minute or two before he did.  He caught the pizza dude just as he was walking back to his van. 

Tim completely forgot to go back and plug in his block heater.

 “It didn’t matter.”  Anther sniff, his nose was driving him crazy.  “Morons put the wrong toppings on again!  I order Canadian bacon and those wonks put bacon on again.  Don’t they understand that Canadian bacon means ham!  Shouldn’t my local pizza professional know that?  What could possibly be in their employee handbook?!” 

He reached up to scratch his head and finally smiled.  When he rushed out the door that morning his hair had still been wet from the shower.  Now that it was frozen into place his scalp felt covered by a bed of frozen needles.
 
A block later, he left the sidewalk and approached a series of rather depressed looking apartments.  These living quarters were designed for purpose and cost efficiency, not for aesthetic appeal.  The dormant, bare shade trees and sparse shrubbery were planted to soften the obtrusively box-like shape.  They failed.  The shadows cast by streetlights and these sorrowful plants added the only variance to the long worn siding.  Most windows were dark or glowed with turquoise light of a television set left on because no one bothered to turn it off.

Before opening the door, Tim took the largest breath possible.  The smells inside were stale and reminded him of an existence without care.  People lived here desperate for their next distraction, their next anything. 
 
At least it was warm.  He advanced down the dim hallway to a door unmistakably marked with a hundred different postings and warnings.  Some were nailed, some taped, and one appeared to be super glued.  Many overlapped and obscured others.  The gist was clear; the occupant of this apartment wants nothing to do with you, your friend, your mother, or your puppy.

  The knock was a combination of sorts.  Tim struck with force twice, then softly three times, and verbally said, “knock, knock, knock” three times.  He could only guess that this elaborate announcement allowed Skechenko to create an aura of importance.  It was still pretty stupid.  

An odd voice both forceful and quick with an eager tone pushed its way through the door.  “What’s the magic mantra?”

Tim had done this before.  He took a deep breath and harshly whispered.  “Some people are only smart enough to breed.  This point I will concede.”

Several bolts were slid back before the door flew open. 

Skechenko was a tall and broad man his body seemed in denial of its age.  He wore polo shirt and blue jeans both name brand and expensive.  His nose was slightly bulbous and easily the most prominent feature on his face.  His head was crowned with amazing waves of naturally gray hair and his eyes had the look of an interested predator.      

He gave Tim the wide welcoming smile he had used flawlessly for years.  “Well, round mounds my son!  Come in.” 

“Sir, I’m still not sure what that’s supposed to mean.”

Skechenko gave the young man a pat on the back.  “To be honest with you Tim, I’m disappointed you care.”

The apartment was unchanged from Tim’s last visit.  There was a small living room that opened into a kitchen the size of a walk in closet.  A hallway opposite the kitchen led to the bedrooms and a small bathroom.  Between the countless boxes and plastic storage containers the carpeted areas were worn and dirty.  Newspapers were tacked to the wall along with sideways black and white photographs.  The only clear space was the old table and chairs set in a bumped out breakfast nook.        

Tim stepped in front of his host and walked to the table where he set down his satchel.  It only took Tim a few moments to set up his micro-tape recorder and lay out a large yellow legal pad filled with notes.  Most had been scratched out as useless.

Skechenko took the seat directly across from his interviewer.  For the past few weeks, Timothy Wojik had gathered information from Skechenko for a biographical paper but the old man knew the truth.  Both men understood that Tim was fishing for information about a local folk legend, a Mr. Roger Kiser. 

The disappearance of Mr. Kiser happened almost twenty years ago.  By now, it became something of a local mystery and the only two people that could possibly know his whereabouts were Skechenko and a loony named Mr. Samuel “Winny” Hamastead.  

Once both men had settled in, Time began. “Oooookkkk, last time we met we were discussing the ads you had taken out in several major papers.  These classifieds encouraged readers to send small amounts of money to your personal address to support a fictional tree planting foundation.”  Tim scanned his notes.  “Let’s see, the Money Tree Foundation.”

“Everyone knows I used 15% of the money raised to plant trees.  My overhead wasn’t that unusual for high profile charities.  You’ve got to pay to attract the best management.”

 “You were the only one on staff.”

 “Trees were planted.  It’s one of nature’s miracles.  Don’t you believe in miracles, Tim?” 

“Indeed I do, especially once you throw in your making peace with the IRS and the avoidance of jail time.  Would you like to elaborate on any of this?”

“No, not really.  I told you that last time you were here.”

Tim coughed and flipped a few pages further.  “Ah yes, a couple of days ago we discussed your scheme to hire sorority s as double agents.  Um, let’s see, the idea was to gather data about a particular female’s preferences and then feed that information to desperate guys eager for a conversational starter and the appearance of kismet.  In some instances their likes and dislikes were posted on line…let’s see, Date-with-a-headstart.com? ” 

Skechenko folded his hands and assumed a rather hammy look.  “That was Oswego’s idea.  I would never knowingly participate in such a retched, vile, and utterly ridiculous plot.” 

Tim nodded and tapped his pencil.  “I see.  Well then, maybe you can fill me in on what role Roger Kiser played?”

Note: Thanks for reading. Buffalo Rind will continue next Saturday.