Bakers Dozen

Porker had not seen the article. Brenda Mae did her best to give him a synopsis

while staving off the seven builders who had stormed the office. They were there to apply for occupancy permits. Meanwhile, the phones rang incessantly.

‘What have I done?’ Porker thought. The article was totally inaccurate. There had been no mention of occupancy permits or of a fine for not having one.

‘What have I done?’ It was while they were under the blanket, Maggie’s tits dangling in his face, that she had extracted the idea from him. He had told her that while reviewing the Cornbramble file he had noticed a stamp at the bottom of each building permit. The stamp served as a check list for the building inspector and included each item to be inspected as the construction progressed. The last item to be checked was ‘occupancy permit.’ It was as if he was seeing the stamp for the first time. All of this was new to him. The permits he had issued had all been for demolition, until recently. As he mentioned occupancy permit to Maggie he wondered it he had been negligent in his duties. What if an accident occurred due to an unsafe condition in one of the homes. Would the town be liable for negligence, his negligence? That was when Maggie had asked him to put his car in her garage.

“How much do we charge for this occupancy permit?” Brenda Mae yelled from the collection window. She was being a real trooper, helping answer the telephone and now handing out forms to contractors who had lined up at the window.

“Thirteen,” Porker said out loud, “that’s what got me in trouble, fucking thirteen.”

“Did you say thirteen?” Brenda Mae wanted clarification. Not waiting for an answer, she impulsively turned to Seth Tucker, thirteen times twenty-five, that will come to, let’s see, hold on Mr. Tucker, let me get a calculator.”

The telephone calls were mainly from angry residents who had recently moved to a newly built home in Two Rivers. At first, Porker hedged, saying there had been no decision as to when the fines would begin or how much they would be. But after hearing one of the town selectmen comment that the occupancy permit fines could turn out to be a bonanza for the town, Porker answered the calls with conviction, saying that the contractors were applying for the permits and he would do his best to make the inspections in a timely manner.

“I don’t remember the subject of fines coming up, I want to see those notes,” each of the selectmen said as if they had spoken to one another before they called Porker. He had to confess that his notes had suffered water damage soon after the meeting. Naturally, the selectmen wanted to know if the unfortunate accident had something to do with the number 13. “Sandy Scott was there, we’ll see what her notes say about occupancy,” the selectmen said as if they had spoken to one another before calling Porker.

‘What have I done?’ Porker thought, ‘what have I done?’

By the end of the morning Brenda Mae had collected $3250, Porker had 250 newly constructed homes to inspect and Sandy Scott had confirmed that her notes included the occupancy discussion. She elaborated that the amount of the fine had not been set. More discussion would take place at the next meeting, prompting each of the selectmen to say, “I would remember it if we had set the amount of the fine.”

Seth Tucker took Porker aside, wanting to know how he was progressing with changing the house numbers. To this, Porker was very evasive, saying that he was having difficulty with the home owners, without being specific. In turn, Seth offered to do anything he could to help rectify the situation.

“That’s good to hear,” Porker replied, “I’ll be sure to call upon you if it comes to that.”

Porker wanted to begin the inspections, to get away from the ringing telephones.

He also wanted to go see Maggie. But there was another round of calls from the selectmen. Their conversations were all the same, as if they had spoken with one another before calling Porker. “Thirteen Dollars? Is that all you charged? You could have easily charged fifty or one hundred. We’ll make up for it on the fines. We’ll charge thirteen dollars per day.” They spoke as one, it was good to have them agree on something.

Porker explained that the inspections would only take a few minutes each. He had been to all the homes several times. Unless he found a deviation to the plan, something added since his last inspection or otherwise out of order, the homes would pass. There would probably be no fines. Hearing this displeased the selectmen.

“How does that work, an occupancy permit? What do you look for?” Maggie had him in a tit lock, his handlebar mustache pressed between her tits.

“I have no idea,” he answered, knowing that with each word her tits were being tickled. She was beginning to like the feel.

“I would think there would be some reason for rejection in every house on the street. You have to reject this one.”

“For what?”

“What did you say?”

“What is the reason for not issuing an occupancy permit for your house.”

“What did you say?”

“You’re just doing that to get me to tickle your tits,” Porker said, having caught on to her prank.

She took him to the basement to show him the leak. Naked, she proudly pointed to the wet spot on the floor and drips of water coming from above.

“That’s from the mud room where you dumped two buckets of water on me.”

“You’ll have to reject my house,” Maggie said, so close to him that he had to agree with her.

“You’ll have to stop dumping water on me. From now on, just ask. I’ll take off my clothes.” They laughed together.

“How did you persuade Sandy Scott to revise her notes?”

“She sold me the house. She felt badly that I got stuck with that number. She said she would be glad to help us get the house numbers changed.”

“Is that why you dumped the water on me? To destroy the meeting notes?”

“No honey, I doused you with water to get you out of your pants. Changing the notes was an afterthought when you told me about the occupancy permit.”

“It’s a good thing Sandy went along with your plan.”

“By the way, she told me your nick name in high school.”

“Really, I thought Fitz was the only one that remembered that. Now you call me that and even Brenda Mae is calling me Porker.”

“That’s not it. Sandy says the girls called you Bakers Dozen in high school.”

It took over four weeks for Porker to conduct the house inspections, some of which had to be done on Saturday when he could catch working couples at home. All the new homes were found to be acceptable for occupancy except seven homes on the left hand side of Cornbramble Road, numbers 13 through 25.

Seth Tucker was beside himself and the residents of the homes who had received rejection notices were outraged. Seth complained that the rejections were based on minor infractions. He and the angry residents attended the next town selectmen’s meeting, fuming, leveling the charge that Porker was discriminating against them, that he had rejected their homes for reasons having nothing to do with building codes. The selectmen, while sympathetic, reminded Seth that he was delinquent paying the fines.

Seth also complained that permits for his new development were taking an unreasonably long time to be issued and work was being held up. The selectmen were sympathetic, explaining to Mr. Tucker that Lester Hogg was a very busy man. They were considering giving him a substantial pay increase and getting him some help as recommended in a recent newspaper column.

Meanwhile, Maggie’s column continued with the “City Vs Small Town” theme, ending each article with the title of a very conscious town employee who had cooked breakfast for her. Circulation of the Springfield Times had tripled in Two Rivers.

One Saturday morning Maggie’s door bell rang. She answered the door wearing the terry cloth robe, a tape measure in her hand. Seth Tucker apologized for waking her so early, it being 10:30 a.m. He explained that he had just changed the house numbers beginning with her house. He offered to pay for new stationary and for any other expenses associated with notifying others of the change.

“Oh, Mr. Tucker. That wasn’t necessary, I’ve learned to look at that number differently, it no longer offends me. I am now able to go to work without being affected by it,” she said sheepishly, fingering the tape measure.

Seth nearly lost it. He had spent untold hours convincing the other home owners to let him change their house numbers. He had even bribed some of them. His new project had suffered during his absence. Now this crazy woman was telling him it was all in vain. If it was not for those columns, where she named names, he would explode.

“I’m happy to hear that you’ve conquered your fear, Mrs. Potash. Tell me, how did you do it?”

“I think of the number as Bakers Dozen,” Maggie said, still fingering the tape measure.

Tipping his cap, Seth Tucker signaled he was leaving. “I’m going to try to find Mr. Hogg to let him know about the numbers being changed.”

“Oh, Mr. Tucker,” Maggie called after him. “Mr. Hogg is here but I don’t want to wake him. We didn’t get much sleep. I had him up most of the night, taking measurements,” she explained, holding the tape measure up for him to see. “I’ll let him know the good news as soon as I can get him up, again.” She smiled as she closed the door.

Lester ‘Bakers Dozen’ Hogg, town manager, ran his thumb over the raised lettering in the mayor’s letterhead.

From the offices of

The Honorable Curtis ‘Fitz’ Slocum

Two Rivers Mayor and Acting Chief of Police

March 30, 2004

Porker,

Kindly take care of the attached.

Sincerely,

Mayor Slocum

Brenda Mae had delivered the memo personally. She was spending more and more time in the new town manager’s office, often taking the liberty of referring to him as ‘Bake’ or ‘Doz.’

The attached pink telephone message was from Mrs. Dunlap, 20 Cornbramble Road: “Some idiot has changed the house numbers on the other side of our street. My house number 20 is now between numbers 21 and 23. I DEMAND that my house number be changed to number 22.

Porker ran his thumb over the embossing once more before stuffing the memo into his pocket, thinking, ‘I’ll ‘handle it’ when I go to lunch. Maggie’s sure to want to take a measurement.’