Everyone needs a confidant.
Someone to turn to in time of need. Someone able to tell you the painful truth without inflicting hurt. Someone with a boatload of common sense. Someone who can size up a confusing situation and show you a way out.
Such individuals are hard to come by but, when found, they become more than friends. They become a personal muse.
In my case, I’ve found Mudrock.
Before we get too far along here, I should introduce Mudrock and explain a few things about him. He, to phrase it gently, marches to a different drummer.
Mudrock’s a Wyoming-raised farmboy who somehow wrangled an engineering degree (at the point of a gun would be my guess) out of a pretty fair northwestern university. My guess is that the institution in question would probably deny the above and is working diligently to bury any evidence of his stay there.
Mudrock’s also not one to adopt things quickly. He still owns an old rotary dial phone (made of the same material now used on main battle tanks) and is suspicious of computers. He believes they “hide words where you can’t see ‘em an’ where would you be if it ever decided to not give ‘em back?”
Having had more than my share of crashes, viruses and hard drive failures, I know better than to argue that particular point with him.
One should also understand that Mudrock’s methodology in writing involves the use of a manual typewriter and frequent dollops of fine whiskey to keep the literary juices flowing.
As you might guess, if what he’s writing runs a bit long, there’s a good chance that whatever he was expounding on at the beginning may bear little relation to his closing thoughts – such as they might be.
Anyway, I had a problem and I knew there was only one person I could turn to, so I headed off to Mudrock’s place.
I found him about chest deep in the engine compartment of his ‘68 Mustang. He’s partial to that car even though the paint hasn’t seen wax since boarding call for the Ark was announced and the interior has the distinct smell of the windows having been left open in the rain one too many times.
“Mudrock, you got a minute?”
“Problems, Lar?”
“Yeah. Big one, it being Christmas and all.”
“You haven’t gone an’ picked a fight with the ACLU over Christmas displays in that column of yours, have you?”
“No. This is worse.”
Mudrock put down the duct tape he was using to slow a leak in his radiator hose and looked at me.
“My wife wants to go see ‘The Nutcracker’ again.”
“That the one with them plum fairies and whatnot cavorting all over the stage?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“Kind of like it myself.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“Why?”
“Because, she expects me to go and that’s my problem. Everyone seems to like it, but all I can think of when I’m sitting there is ‘Lord, will this thing ever end?’
“I know it’s shameful and low and likely an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, but I’ve never been one for that kind of entertainment. Only thing I can figure is that I missed out on that gene. Almost fell asleep the last time I went.”
“You ain’t never told her this, have you?”
“Nope.”
“Smart move, Lar. Best let that dog lie quiet. You might not be alone out there, but I guarantee there ain’t a soul – man or woman – this side of the moon who’d admit it, ‘specially, like you said, it being Christmas and all.”
“So what do I do?”
“You do what you have to do.”
“Which is?”
“You suck it up an’ go. Then you sit there an’ act like you enjoy the blue blazes out of it. Oh, an’ you might drink a pot of coffee or so beforehand to keep from fallin’ asleep an’ havin’ Linda bop you upside the head so hard you couldn’t find next week with a month to hunt.”
“I have to go?”
“Yep. You got enough problems already with some people thinkin’ you have all the sensitivity of a KGB prison guard. Folks find out about this an’ I don’t know what all might happen. Now pass me that duct tape.”
“Mudrock, when are you going to sell this beater and get a reliable car?”
“Let it be, Lar, or I’ll tell folks how you proposed to that wife of yours.”
“No need to get nasty, Mudrock. I came here for help.”
“Which, it seems, you’ll be needin’ the rest of your days.”
I think he has me pegged there.
Larry Simoneaux lives in Edmonds. Comments can be sent to larrysim@att.net.
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