Pulp 109

       Sundays were good days to work. The bulk of students didn't get up till noon, didn't get on campus till two. The bad thing about Sundays were the non students--the after-church families. It went like this: Mom went into the Craft Shop to "Do a little shopping." That left dad outside to watch the boys for an hour.
       Today, in front of The Center, I had two dads watching their two boys building a fort in my evergreen azaleas. Approaching, I panned the dad with the dark shirt and yellow tie. The other dad--in a white shirt and black tie--was even scarier. Inspired, I dropped my wheelbarrow beside the azaleas going the way of fort.
       No, I wasn't out to take no dads to school on parenting--studies show, dads were through with school; I was out to milk these dads of acid. That's right, men in ties were next to extinct in the Great Northwest, and I, the creative writer, was out to extract some DNA before they died off. Some called this stealing. I called it keeping an eye out for the oddballs of a culture that I might capture the idiomatic phrase, use it in my fiction to spank my readers awake. For, as all writers know; a spanked reader is a reader turning pages.
       I quick-drew my pad and pen, set the scene: "How finished these men in ties looked. So finished they looked faux. Their dress shirts fitted to their gym-ripped chests, their hair fitted to their gunboat skulls, even their eyebrows so meticulously cut into position they looked like pasties."
       Now to capture some dapper-speak. "Blah blah blah," the one man was saying, "dug up some old suit from some old case."
       "Blah blah blah," the other man responded, "certain to throw out said suit."
       At first I thought the men were trashing a fellow oddball's outfit. But then the singular phrasing, "said suit," sunk in. Ah, legal-speak. Sure, a couple of lawyers, talking shop.
       Dejected--little spank in legalise, I pocketed my pad and pen. 
       Picking up my wheelbarrow, I caught the black-and-white dad throwing me an incriminating eye. I threw an eye right back. An eye that said, "True, I was out to steal from you. Too bad you had nothing of value." I thought that funny, and was about to laugh, but the snap, crack, crunch, coming from my azaleas got me pissed, so I threw the black-and-white dad a follow-up eye. "Hey," my eye said, "I'm not the criminal here." And away I went, wheeling my barrow off in a huff. 
       My sure-fire cure for culling anger was to find a mess on campus, sweep it up. Wheeling through the corridor alongside Drawing, I envisioned the snowdrop tree growing out of the hole in the Fibers patio. In my vision the tree was quite big, the mess it had made, bigger still. No, I couldn't wait to get broom in hand, shove those leaves and nuts into perfect piles.  
       Coming out of the corridor, I faced reality. Not only was the snowdrop tree quite small, but this time of year--mid September, there was no mess. Oh, sure, there were some nuts. But a dozen nuts the size of cherry pits hardly made for a pile.
       Let's see, there was that spill of paper pulp dried to the patio. Of course, that required getting down on a knee. No, I was in need of therapy; not hard labor. That's when I spied the Dye Studio. Boy, the spiders sure had gone to town on those windows. No, if it's therapy you're after, sweeping away the cobwebs is as good as it gets.  
       Cobbing, my keen peripherals detected someone standing across the way. I didn't look over. This someone, staring me down, was troubling, sure, but not as troubling as said someones clothes--black and white clothes. 
       Cobbing, my stressed brain went to town. No, the only thing to do when you got a black-and-white lawyer about to sue your ass off is to sue his ass off first. 
       "How, your honor? How can a lawyer create a hostile work environment for a groundskeeper? Well, he stared me down for the entire time it took to cob Dye. How, your honor? How did I know said lawyer was sending hostility my way? Well, I guess, by all the hostility I was sending his way." 
       Cradling my broom like a rifle, I turned to politely ask the black-and-white bastard to get the hell off my campus--something my superiors told me I had every right to ask.
       Imagine my surprise when said black-and-white bastard wasn't said lawyer--wasn't a person, even. Just some yarn art that had gone up recently.  

       The Fiber major responsible for the yarn art, Brittany, was the kindest, sweetest girl on campus. After my brush with the law, I'd become hardened; would likely sue her ass off. 
       "How, your Honor? How can an art student create a hostile work environment for the groundskeeper? Well, a groundskeeper's got ground to keep. How can he keep his eye on all that ground when he's got to worry over which limb that mean girl's going to hang her art from next?" 
        It was then that my eye caught movement inside Fibers. Oh, it was the weekend workshop participants moving into Surface Design. But wait; who was that moving in with them? Cry me a creed! It was her; The Woman Of The Orchard, climbing up, sitting on a padded surface-design table.
       It was then that I accidentally bumped into the snowdrop tree. Accidentally bumped into it again. Damn, and now I had made a mess for myself. 
       Boy, sweeping a nut across a patio can sure get a guy stiff in the neck. No, a guy must roll his head often to keep his neck from locking up. And if, in the course of rolling head, a guy's eyes pan a bank of Fibers windows, well, you can't blame a guy's eyes for taking some fiber in. And if, in the course of taking some fiber in, a guy's eyes get fixed on a certain finger stirring a stub of a pony tail, well, you can't blame the guy for positioning himself favorably in what fantasy have you.
       Perfecting my pile, I fantasized how I worked at a school for girls--a finishing school for girls. And, oh, what a curriculum we offered. Where the adjunct professors taught the girls how to put themselves together, I--the sole professor with tenure--taught a girl how to stir her pony tail till it came undone. 
       Admiring my pile, my finishing fantasy was interrupted by a middle-aged woman coming out of the Fiber's door. She planted a buttock on the outdoor ashtray, lit up.
       I was inching my way away from the smoke, when the door opened again. Out came The Woman Of The Orchard--out to chat with the smoking elder.
       I was inching my way towards the smoke, when I spied that patch of pulp under the table. Removing a glove, I got down on a knee, took a slow finger to it.

       "Thanks for inviting me to lunch," the smoking elder said, her voice dirty as a male. "It's been ages since I've picnicked, and in such a lovely setting."
       "I know," the younger said, her voice clean as an angel. "I love the orchard."
       How about that? An angel had been in the orchard at the very hour I'd received that clear calling to go to the orchard. Damn, why hadn't I followed through with my clear calling?
       Getting off my knee that I might better kick myself in the ass, it came to me; I wasn't to blame. Apolena was to blame. Damned Czech Republican; coming between me and my orchard calling.
       Dragging my feet, I headed back to my pile. 
       "Do it," I had my shovel say as I positioned it to receive my pile.
       "Do what?" I said, sweeping my nuts into my shovel.
       "Write the Czech bitch out of your life. Lord knows you've written women off for lesser offenses."
       That old shovel of mine, what a sage time had made of it. Ya, maybe it was time I got me a new Czech Republican.

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