Harley ventured out into the morning sun, smiling as the distillery’s door slammed shut behind her. The air felt a bit warmer now, and she hoped for temperatures in the low sixties. After resting the bottle inside her truck, she decided it was time to pay a visit to The Shed, the red tin outbuilding where Uncle Tater held court. She didn’t usually visit The Shed at this time of day, but wanted to ask Tater something.
She found him inside, lounging in a green plastic lawn chair beside a small cooler, his boots propped up on a giant spool of copper cable. He held a remote control in one hand and a longneck beer in the other, his eyes dancing with the flickering light of a flat-screen TV. A collage of license plates lined the wall behind him, and a long-abandoned hornet nest peeked from the corner of the ceiling.
“Come on in, honey,” he said. “Have yourself a seat on the couch yonder.”
The couch was a long vinyl car seat Tater had disemboweled from an old minivan. Like most things in The Shed, he’d acquired it from Floyd’s Junkyard.
“Wanna beer?” he asked, patting the cooler beside his lawn chair.
“Not yet, but thanks.”
“Well,” he said, picking up his remote, “you’re lucky. You arrived just in time for The Golden Girls.” Tater grinned as the opening credits for The Golden Girls appeared on the screen. He turned up the volume.
“Thank you for bein’ a friend,” he sang along. “Travel down the road and back again. Your heart is true, you’re a pal and a confidant.”
“Tater,” Harley said over the music, “can I ask you something?”
“What’s that, honey?”
“Have you seen anybody new in Bud’s recently?”
“What kind of individual you talkin’ about?”
“A man, probably middle-aged or older—dark hair, ratty clothes.”
“That sounds like half the county.”
“But this man had scars on his face—several—like he’d been in an accident or something terrible.”
“Scars, scars,” Tater said, scratching his chin. He took a sip of beer and burped. “Hmm. Seems like I did see a feller like that last night.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Nope, but—”
The Shed’s door flew open and Tater’s best friend, Floyd Robinson, stepped inside, a Hardee’s bag in one hand and a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon in the other.
“Well, there’s ol’ Winnie Cooper, ain’t it?” he said, smiling at Harley.
“Floyd,” Harley said in return, pleasantly.
Floyd Robinson, proprietor of Floyd’s Junkyard, was a large, burly man in Dickies and loafers. With his bulbous red nose and happy demeanor, he reminded Harley of Mr. Hamburger from Popeye, but with a shock of white hair. He thumped down into the beanbag beside her, and she wondered how he was ever going to get up from it again.
“Did I miss The Golden Girls?” he asked.
“Naw, you ain’t missed ‘em. And it’s one of your favorite episodes. ‘The Men of Blanche’s Boudoir,’” Tater said with panache.
Floyd unwrapped his cheeseburger and took a bite, smacking his lips. “Yep, I reckon that’s one of my favorites.”
“Uncle Tater,” Harley said, “you were telling me about the man you saw in Bud’s.”
Both men looked over at Harley, seemingly surprised that not only was she talking, but that she was asking questions.
“Oh, yeah, that.” He took a sip of beer. “Well, he was goin’ around the bar yonder askin’ questions of folks.”
“What kind of questions?”
“About folks in town mostly,” Floyd said, his mouth full of cheeseburger.
“Sure was,” Tater said. “But who he really wanted to know about was Patrick Middleton. Why I don’t know, but he wanted to know where he could find him.”
“Said he was supposed to meet him there,” Floyd said.
“And?”
“Well, I reckon somebody give him Patrick’s address because the next thing anybody knew, he was gone. Just like that.”
“What time was this?”
“Aw, about eight, I reckon.”
“And you haven’t seen him since?”
“Nope.”
Harley was about to ask another question when Floyd pointed at the TV screen. “Oh, look yonder! We’re comin’ up to my favorite part!”
Blanche was on screen, presenting a calendar to Sophia, Dorothy, and Rose. “The Men of Blanche’s Boudoir,” she said. “I’m surprised you were able to walk in October,” Sophia added.
Floyd’s laughter burst through The Shed, rattling the tin walls and inflating the beanbag. Patting his belly and catching his breath he said, “That Blanche. She’s a good ‘un.”
“Naw, not for me,” Tater said. “I’m more of a Dorothy fan. Takes charge. Knows what she wants.”
“Well, you’d have to get you one of them step ladders for your dates.”
“What do you know about dates, Floyd? I bet you ain’t had one in thirty years.”
Floyd laughed, this time only rattling the beanbag. “Well, I have me a right mind to ask old Hazel Moses out. She’s about the only person in town I know who’s been single about as long I have.”
“That’s because she’s been pinin’ for Patrick Middleton for thirty years. It seems like everybody’s interested in him lately.”
“Aw, Tater, you know Patrick ain’t gonna get with her.”
“She don’t know that.”
“Well, she ought to know it. Heck, he would’ve made a move by now if he was interested.”
“I heard he likes ’em young,” Tater said. “And blond. Hazel’s right purdy, I reckon, but she ain’t young.”
“And she definitely ain’t no blonde,” Floyd added.
Harley glanced at her watch and rose from the minivan seat, satisfied with her visit to The Shed. If anything, Tater and Floyd were a wealth of information.
“Where you headed off to?” Tater asked.
“An errand.”
“Yeah?”
“And then to the historical society meeting.”
“You mean the ‘full of horse poop meeting’?”
Harley couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, that one.”
“Well, you better take a shovel with you, you hear?”
“Will do,” Harley said, forcing back another laugh.
After leaving The Shed, she walked back to her truck, pondering the homeless man’s behavior in Bud’s Pool Hall. Why had he been searching for Patrick Middleton? She stopped when she spotted Wilma standing beside the truck’s passenger side door.
“I need you to take that pig in and get her weighed,” Wilma said, motioning to Matilda in the truck bed. “For Pioneer Days. I think we ought to enter her in that Prize Pig contest. I think she’s got a good chance of winnin’. And that prize money’s twenty-thousand dollars, Harley. You know what we could do with twenty-thousand dollars? We could make repairs to the distillery, buy us some more barrels. Heck, we could even build Matilda her own little house at your place. With heat and air and a refrigerator.”
Harley considered. While their whiskey business was no longer in bankruptcy, they were still a long way away from being successful. The money would certainly come in handy. And though Matilda was precocious, she was objectively a large and beautiful pig.
Harley nodded in consent, and Wilma clapped her hands together in excitement. “Alrighty! You’re to drop her off at six o’clock tomorrow mornin’ at the festival grounds, you hear? And I figure she can stay with you tonight, bein’ as you live in town.”
The last time Matilda had stayed at Harley’s house, the pig had chewed through the laundry room wall and eaten her hardback copy of The Fall of the Roman Empire. Nonetheless, they did need the money.
Harley got inside her truck. “6 a.m., it is.”
“You won’t regret it, Harley. I promise you won’t.”
Harley was about to make her escape when Uncle Tater ran out of The Shed, flagging her down with his beer bottle. “Hold up there, Harley honey. I need you to haul somethin’ for me if you don’t mind.”
He pointed to an antique toilet in the back of his orange 1976 Ford pickup truck. Harley was not a historian, but she knew the toilet must date back to at least the 1860s.
Wilma huffed. “You mean that old toilet?”
“Opha Mae Shaw wants it,” Tater said. “Says it’s got hysterical value. Says she wants to plant some flares in it for Pioneer Days.”
“I don’t care if it’s got historical value or not,” Wilma said. “That ain’t no flower pot.”
“Opha Mae’s the creative type, Wilmer. And I reckon it ain’t no worse than that cupcake Harley’s got perched on her roof yonder.” He moved his gaze from Rosie, the cupcake, then back to The Shed. “Floyd, get your butt out here!”
Seconds later, Floyd emerged from The Shed, his cinder block legs wobbling in his Dickies. Before Harley knew it, the two old men were loading the antique toilet in the back of her truck, stationing it alongside Matilda.
Tater took in the scene and grinned. “Well, Harley, I reckon that old Mr. Dickens of yours would be right proud. You got your own Olde Curiosity Shop.”
“And it’s mobile,” Floyd said with glee.