25

Be Thou Bumble

I wandered around Southdale until about eleven o’clock. I refused to go back home, confident that Grace would be watching out of her window for me to come slinking back. I had no money, no credit cards, and the cold was only getting stronger. I thought about going to another member’s home and asking for shelter. But I figured word of Noah’s and my disagreement had already been properly spread around. I didn’t think anyone would agree to shelter a known miscreant.

At 11:30 I finally gave in and decided to do the one thing I had been avoiding all night. I made my way over to Leonard Vastly’s Bio-Doom. I knew that Leonard didn’t have an extra bed, but he did have a vacant couch, and I had remembered his home being warmer than the naked outdoors.

I walked quietly through the posh neighborhood surrounding Leonard’s bubble house. Then I approached the plastic-covered monstrosity and tapped lightly on the window that I believed was closest to where Leonard slept. I was worried about making him mad by awakening him from his fatigue prevention, but I was now tired enough not to really care.

I tapped louder.

Nothing. I walked around to the bay window and knocked some more.

“Psst! Leonard, it’s me, Trust.”

No answer. I walked back and down to the master bedroom window and tried rapping there, thinking that perhaps he was taking a late bath in his water supply. Not a single sound came from within. I looked around at the dark night and decided that now would be a perfect time to break the law. I snuck over to where Leonard had let me in before. Then I dropped to the ground and crawled under the plastic covering and beneath the mobile home skirting.

It was pitch black below. I tried to feel my way around, finding cans and buckets blocking almost every way. Eventually I felt the trap door and pushed up and into Leonard’s kitchen. It was almost as dark inside as underneath. I located the couch and sat down. Then I called out Leonard’s name a few times, hoping he would answer.

I would have walked around and searched the house for him, but I guess I was too tired. The thought occurred to me that he may have been balled up in his oven hideout. If that was the case, I could wait until morning to find out. I leaned back on the grain-filled couch and fell asleep.

What seemed like only moments later, but in reality must have been a couple of hours, I was awakened by the sound of the hinged linoleum swinging open. My eyes were adjusted enough to the dark to see that it was Leonard. He came up through the floor pulling what looked to be a couple of grocery bags. Then he closed the floor and opened the refrigerator door. Light flooded the room, silhouetting Leonard as he stood in front of the fridge looking in. From this perspective, I could tell that he had put on a few pounds while living off his low fat fruit bars. I was also surprised to see that his refrigerator had electricity. According to Leonard, he had shut off all current so as to not be a servant to energy.

Brother Vastly began to unload groceries into the refrigerator. Then he shut the refrigerator door and walked right past me. He picked up a huge cardboard box to reveal a TV set. He turned it on and backed up toward me to take a seat on his couch.

“Hey,” I warned as he bent to sit.

“Whoaaa!” he screamed, throwing the soda he had in his hand into the air and jumping on top of the bags of flour lying on the floor. In the light of the TV, I watched him scramble frantically for something.

“Brother—”

Before I could finish my sentence, gunshots began to ring out wildly. I slid off of my seat and pushed my back up against the base of the grain-filled couch, thinking about what an absolutely pathetic way to die this was. I could see the headlines already: “Local boy buried by bullets and barley.” After a couple of seconds, however, I realized that I was still alive. I looked up just as Leonard threw something across the room at me. I jumped up, running out of the way and knocking Leonard into a huge bag of flour. The bag ripped and exploded all over the two of us and the TV. Brother Vastly slipped away from me and fell to the floor. He folded into a fetal position mumbling something like, “Must protect the soft innards.” I rolled him over and stared at him.

“Brother Vastly, it’s me, Trust.”

He slowly opened his eyes and gazed at me in astonishment.

“Trust?” he asked as bits of flour continued to flutter to the floor.

“Yes,” I said with great relief.

“What the heck are you doing in my dome?” he whined, straightening himself and sitting up. Then he leaned over and pressed the stop button on his home stereo. The sound of gunshots ceased.

“Clever,” I observed, indicating his method of home security.

“I never much cared for guns,” Leonard said, embarrassed.

“I won’t tell a soul,” I promised.

“So, what are you doing here?” he cleared his throat, trying to act tough.

“I had no place to go, so I came here. When you didn’t answer I crawled in the way you showed me. I’m so sorry.”

“‘Sorry’ is nothing but a lower form of flattery,” he said, leaning over and pushing himself up.

“Well,” I tried, “I didn’t mean to break into your beautiful palace.”

“Thank you,” Leonard nodded.

I stood up straight and dusted myself off.

“So why can’t you just go to your home?” Leonard asked.

“Grace and I sort of got into a disagreement, and . . .”

“Say no more,” Leonard insisted. “We’ve all been there.”

Falling flour shimmered under the light of the infomercial now showing.

“I’m sorry about the mess,” I apologized. “I didn’t think you’d react so hastily.”

“I’m a pro at reacting,” he pointed out.

“What about your neighbors?” I questioned. “I’m sure they heard the fake shots. Won’t they call the police?”

“Don’t worry about the police,” he piffed. “I’ve been through this before.”

About two minutes later, as we were picking things up, we heard a car pull up outside Leonard’s home. There was a loud rap on the front door.

“Leonard,” a male voice called out.

Leonard unlocked the front door and pushed it open as far as the plastic covering would allow. Through the four open inches I could see flashing red and blue lights, as well as the blurry profile of a big man. Leonard flipped on an inside light, once again giving away his current power connection to the local electric company.

“What seems to be the problem, officer?” Leonard yelled.

“Could I come in for a moment?” the cop asked.

“It’s best that we don’t corrupt the bubble,” Leonard insisted.

“Leonard,” the cop seemed to pleadingly whine.

“Everything’s okay,” Leonard comforted. “I thought there was an intruder. Turns out it was just someone from my church.”

Even in the dark outside I could see the cop shake his head.

“It was only a recording,” Leonard added.

“We went over all this before, Leonard,” he said mournfully. “We can’t have you waking up the neighborhood every time a noise worries you.”

“I know, I know,” Leonard said, bothered. “But aside from some scattered wheat flour things are in order.”

“Leonard,” the cop begged.

“Sam,” Leonard whined, apparently more familiar with this lawman than he had let on.

“Just no more noise. Promise me?”

“I promise,” Leonard said begrudgingly.

“And finger crossing doesn’t count this time,” the cop said, frustrated.

I looked down at Leonard’s hands just as he was uncrossing his fingers.

“All right,” he consented.

Leonard shut the door and turned to me.

“Sam was married to my sister Tina for a couple years. They broke up when Tina and my two older sisters went into business together. The business went bust about three months into it. People just aren’t interested in competitive hopscotch or the gear that goes along with it. Anyhow, now Tina won’t talk to either Nina or Linda. My younger brother Fidel did manage to get us all together for a family picture, but I’d be a dishonest man if I didn’t admit that Tina’s smile looks a little strained.” Leonard pointed to a big family photo hanging on the wall behind him.

“You sure have got a lot of family,” I commented.

“Mother loved children,” he said solemnly.

“Well,” I sighed. “I’ve caused enough trouble for one night. I should probably just leave.”

“Nonsense,” Leonard huffed, the flour on his skin making him look like a frosted cookie. “You’re in need, and I’m an enabler. I’ve got a spare couch with your name on it.”

I looked over at the empty couch he was referring to. It was covered with flour and sagged above the floor like an exhausted sumo wrestler.

“We’ll throw a blanket over it and it will be as good as new,” Leonard said optimistically.

We both worked for a few minutes cleaning the place up to the point of being sleepable. Leonard then retrieved a couple of blankets from the back room and handed me two of them. I spread mine out over the couch and then lay down. Leonard reclined on his sacks of flour eating ice cream out of a small carton and watching some TV show with an elderly detective who was able to see into the future. I probably would have drifted off if it had not been for him constantly interjecting, criticizing, and picking apart the show he was watching:

“That’s impossible.”

“A real detective would never leave his gun lying around.”

“Oh, how convenient.”

“Who wrote this drivel? I could have written a script ten times this good. In fact, I just might. Where’s my pencil?”

I wanted to fall asleep so that I could wake up and have this night be ended, but Leonard was just too vocal. I had never seen a grown man get so worked up over a TV show. Except for maybe when the locals in Thelma’s Way would watch Days of Our Lives and argue over story lines and plot closures. After listening to Leonard complain for a while, I sat up and gave in.

“Not tired, huh?” Leonard asked.

“I guess not.”

“Grace worrying you?” he questioned.

“A little.”

“Women,” he spat, sending flecks of ice cream across the room and onto the TV screen.

The store-bought ice cream he was eating reminded me that Leonard had not been around when I arrived. I decided to stick my nose into his business.

“So where were you earlier?” I asked. “I thought you never left the dome.”

“What do you mean?” he asked back.

“When I got here you were out.”

“I must have just been in the back room,” he said defensively.

“I saw you come up from the floor with groceries,” I laughed. “I helped you put the last of them away.”

“Trust,” he said calmly. “A lot of people are counting on me. You wouldn’t want to be the one to let them down, would you?”

“I’m not going to tell anyone that you went out.”

Leonard Whhheeewwwed. “I appreciate that,” he said. “You’re thinking of the greater good.”

“If you don’t want to stay in here then why don’t you just quit?”

“And look stupid?”

I bit my tongue.

“Noah Taylor would have a heyday if I gave up,” Leonard continued. “He’s just looking for a chance to make me look bad.”

“Noah Taylor is a fake,” I added.

Brother Vastly looked at me with pride. “You’ve really turned out to be a fine young man.”

“Seriously,” I ignored him. “The whole reason I’m here now is because of him. He told me in confidence that this December seventeenth thing was all just a big scam. And when I confronted him in the open he claimed I was just making it up because I was jealous.”

“He does have that hair thing going on.”

“I’m not jealous of Noah Taylor,” I said, frustrated.

“It’s just you and me, Trust. You and me.”

“He’s a crook.”

“I believe you.”

I suppose I should have been comforted by this, but there was surprisingly little personal fulfillment in the knowledge that Leonard Vastly was mentally aligned with me.

See, everyone? I told you I was right. If you don’t believe me, just ask Leonard Vastly, the man over there in the plastic-covered single-wide.

“Thanks, Leonard,” I lamented.

“I’ll tell you what,” Leonard said, setting his ice cream down. “What would you say if we helped each other out. We could make it our mission to expose Noah Taylor as the fraud that he is. You and I could be like a team of do-gooders righting this horrible injustice.”

I must have done something incredibly bad in my premortal life.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think we really are the most believable witnesses at the moment. No one’s going to listen to a single word we say.”

“You’ve got a good point.” Leonard hummed.

“I shouldn’t have walked out on Grace,” I scolded myself.

“We all live with regrets,” Leonard agreed.

My list was growing longer and longer.