Horner Springs Retirees #01

While he waited for a reply he called room service to see if he could get something to eat.

A few minutes later he received a reply, "Getting what you need is going to be hard to do quickly. Stall them as long as possible and if worst comes, we can do the installs in the field, by swap-out," came back the response to his request.

Morgan smiled, and thought about it. He formed his words carefully. If you gave Quartermaster troops an inch, you would be eating MRE's forever.

He wrote back, "Understood the difficulty of supply, however, I will need at least two machines, by Monday next, for establishing my capabilities. I will require that additional shipments, be modified to accept the package within two weeks, estimate twenty (20) additional machines, then forty every two weeks to fit expected install schedule." Morgan sent the message, first encrypted by his laptop's special communications program and then hardware encrypted, as it fed through the actual communications hardware.

There was a knock at the door and a female voice called out "Room Service"

"Be right with you," Gilhoulie called out.

Gilhoulie put the lap top in its case and put the case under the bed. It might say Sony on the cover, but it was built outside Boston at a decommissioned Air Force Base, converted into high tech engineering, design and prototypes. Morgan kept this particular laptop in a special suitcase. It wouldn't do to have someone try to steal and open it. Most of the building would be destroyed if you opened this laptop incorrectly. Morgan didn't want to see anyone get hurt, least of all himself

When Gilhoulie opened the door he saw Gloria, one of the bar servers with a tray covered in a cloth.

Gloria, smiled, "I hope you like roast beef, that was all I could find, the kitchen was closed. I brought you a couple of Bass Ales. That's what you like isn't it?"

Gilhoulie grinned and said, "Close enough for Government work. Thank you," and reached for the tray.

Gloria, a rather large woman of 'an age', said, "Oh let me serve you," and pushed past Gilhoulie.

Gilhoulie had chatted Gloria up in the "Sleazy 8's" bar the previous night. As he closed the door and watched her put the tray down on the table, he wondered what she was up to.

Gloria bent down to set the tray on the table, her breasts, in the tight bodiced 'dance hall girl' costume bulged and seemed ready to fall out. She looked up at Gilhoulie and as she stuffed the right one back in and blushed as she smiled and said, "Is there 'anything' else I can do for you?"

Now Gilhoulie understood, "Well, I could use some company while I eat. Too bad you have to go back to work." He gave her his best boyish grin.

Gloria dipped her eyes, bit her lower lip and said, "I'm off duty, now. I brought this to allow the other girls to deal with the Rotarians."

"Well, then have a seat, would you like a Bass?"

Gloria pulled the cloth off the tray and exposed the sandwich, which was made with Shepard's bread and had two large pickles for a garnish, the two Bass Ales and a bottle of Corona. "I brought a Corona, for me. Just in case," she pulled out a chair. "Come, sit, Charlie always says the Customer Comes First."

It didn't work out that way, Gloria came first and second, Gilhoulie came in her ass, finally. Gloria was on her knees, her face pressed into the pillows when Gilhoulie sat back and sighed, "Oh Gloria, what a tight little ass." His hands cupped her cheeks and he stoked them looking at her expanded asshole. "She won't shit right for a week," he thought and lay her down beside him. "She cuddles real good for a fat girl too," he thought and kissed her.

~oOo~

The next day Lester was finishing his rounds on Route # 3, which wound out and around the edge of town and had a few rural mail boxes big enough to house a Labrador. Nothing he delivered was large and the few packages seemed to be from "View a Jewel" or some such TV station the girls at work told him sells, "Jewelry, with real jewels!" He remembered his friend in Bangkok who sold ruby and sapphire from up country, of course that wasn't the only trade item, but that was another time and Lester thought about other things.

He had only one more delivery to make and it was a package from "Horner Springs Flute and Fife, Suppliers of Distinctive Accoutrements,", Lester had been looking at the slender mailing tube as he drove up to the mailbox and took it in his hand. It was heavy for its size, felt firm, but yielded slightly to his grasp. He checked the address on the mailbox and on the package before he put it in the mailbox.

"Lois O'Malley, #372 RFD, Horner Springs". He glanced at the number on the mailbox, #372 was in black numbers on a new white mailbox. He slid the box and a handful of bulk flyers into box, #372, and he was done for the day.

He checked his new GPS and smiled. "Man this was a lot better than the old M-199M3," He thought. The color display was a bit dim in the sunlight as he made the turn back to the post office, he had the voice prompt off and missed the left turn that would have taken him back in five minutes and ended up wandering around through roads laid out along the back sides of the smaller properties.

He stopped and checked the GPS, realized he had shut off the voice prompt, but was somewhat relieved when the thing seemed to be working, it had a route and it was only four point three seven miles. He glanced around and seemed to be in a thicket, the road graveled, so he followed the directions on his magic box.

The gravel road gave way to a two lane county road and the voice prompt said, "Turn left at the next opportunity, County Road 298." The voice was mechanical, but not too bad, sort of sounded like a stoned sophomore.

Lester turned on the county road and passed by a large house set off the road about two hundred yards and up a small knoll. Lester realized he hadn't noticed the knoll until now, but it was very close to down town. Wondering about the geology of the knoll, he completely missed the naked female who was gardening in the front yard. As Lester obeyed the magic box and turned on to Sly Fox Road to get back to the office, the woman stood and turned to watch the postal truck passing.

Les got a flat tire on the Sly Fox Road and was squatting looking at the wheel fittings when he heard a truck pull up. He looked and it was sort of a truck, although it had wheels almost as tall as he was. The body didn't fit the chassis. The body had come from a 74 El Camino, the rest of it looked like International Harvester on steroids.

"Hey, Mister, need a hand?" A voice called down from the cab."

"A flat tire, was just looking to fix it." Les couldn't see who was talking until the door opened and a rope ladder dropped out. Then the biggest cowboy in the world backed out of the cab and climbed down the ladder. Les knew he was a cowboy, from the shit on his boots and the size of his hat. Les smiled at him, the guy was late twenties, had wild curly blond hair leaking out from under his Setson. "Shit he must be seven feet tall," Les thought.

Norman and Homer could have been twins, while Homer changed the flat and grinned as the pneumatic wrench driven from the compressor that was somewhere in the back of the truck whirred and the nuts flew.

Norman had been a cannon cocker in the First Infantry Division when he met Homer, who had sent half the monstrosity home in pieces. Norman had agreed to help Homer fit it all together when they got out. Homer had been injured by an IED and Norman had waited for him to get out of the hospital and helped him assemble what was part eight ton tractor and part, well, parts. They had gotten the body from a junk yard, in San Diego and drove it home to Horner Springs, using an Agricultural plate from Homer's Uncle's tractor.

"We're in the auto accessories business now," Norman said as he helped Homer put the tools away in the truck, Norman tossed them up to Homer, who missed the jack and almost hit Norman with it when it dropped.

Norman cursed, "Shit-fire, Homer you trying to kill me?"

Homer looked over the edge of the bed and smiled, "Oh Norman, I wouldn't mean to hurt you." His face sort of sagged and Les thought he was going to cry, when Norman said, "Homer, You know I was kiddin'."

Homer's face eased but he said seriously, "I don't cotton to kiddin'"

Norman said, "We'll go get a Smushie, how's that?"

Homer's face brightened immediately and he nodded laughing softly as he turned to put the tools in the bed. Rather than climb down and then back up, he just climbed into the cab from the bed then leaned out and said, "Come on Norman, Nice to meet you Mr. Murphy. Come on Norman! Smushies!"

Norma grinned and shook Lester's hand, "Nice to meet you, got ta go, when Homer gets to thinking of Smushies he'll drive you crazy." With that he climbed up the rope ladder, pulled it in, closed the door, and started the truck.

Lester stepped back as they drove off, wondering if that thing was actually licensed, no cop in his right mind would try to... well, that wasn't worth thinking about Lester reminded himself, "We're out of the Army; we don't care if people bend a few rules, as long as they don't hurt anybody." Les thought and followed the magic box all the way to the post office where he learned the way to properly fill out a vehicular incident and analysis report.

It was with malicious glee that he typed into the computer under the last heading, Lessons Learned, "Don't drive over nails."

"Don't drive over nails." or "DDON" was picked up by the Regional Director's Staff as the "straight forward way of optimizing precious resources in a time of national emergency,"

There was a jingle written and talk of a video, before a staffer confessed to a reporter that three hundred thousand dollars had already been spent.

~oOo~

Gilhoulie had the foresight to type up a "White Paper" to be used as a bidding solicitation and passed it to the Mayor's office, "Just in case you needed it," he told Muriel. He was especially proud of the fact that he had put in a paragraph that offered 10% of the gross income as a fund for "Sexual Responsibility Programs," nobody else would go for that, he was sure.

The next Tuesday Gilhoulie got the contract to supply 150 condom machines which would be surreptitiously equipped with "Agency Packages", Camera and sound wirelessly linked to a Surveillance system that only saw faces as patterns of numbers and sounds as Phnom sub processing.

The machines were from a company in Chicago that supplied condom dispensers, and other products such as the spermicidal "Mrs. Nightingale's Continental Douche, In a convenient purse friendly pouch in stunning emerald green. Only two dollars for a pint of confidence".

Morgan had written the install orders for them to be in the Hotel and a few of the higher class bars in town, but he was surprised when the Mayor's office called and asked why City Hall's restrooms hadn't been provided such a "Brilliant new product."

The Condom machine business wasn't exactly what he had expected. First it turned out that the reason the machines were available was because they only took dollar coins. As Gilhoulie found out, dollar coins are rare, so he went to all the banks in town and rounded up the dollars he could find. It had cost him another five grand to buy the coins. He had to front a hundred per machine to the bars and restaurants so that they could provide change.

He still was short of coins after a while, and realized that he was losing coins to the tourist trade. Tourists would take them as curiosities and soon he had only a few left. He fired up the forbidden laptop and contacted "Headquarters".

After some heated keyboard work, he got the number of a guy in Denver, who could get him the coins, but only if he took a ton of them. Desperate, he agreed. He contacted HQ and told them how much it would cost, to front the coins to keep the machines in place, $122,000. No one wanted to change out the machines now that they were producing data that was considered golden.

Gilhoulie called the guy in Denver back and confirmed the fix was in. The guy said, "The coins will be there Tuesday. I have never heard of you or this transaction and tell Redbeard, the next time I hear his name, I won't remember him either."

Gilhoulie thought about how many dollars and pounds and cubic feet, a ton of dollar coins would be. He wasn't sure that the Credit Union could take such a deposit. He'd have to go warn Dick Beucy, the President and chief clerk. "Tomorrow, No use getting him out of bed at this time of night," Gilhoulie realized as he saw the time on his laptop was 03:36.

The next day, Dick Beucy was happy to take the deposit, until he heard that it was in coin. "Morgan, that's a lot of coin and it's more cash than I can keep here."

Gilhoulie asked, "What do you suggest I do?"

Dick looked at Morgan's bewilderment and smiled, "Let me make a call and get my coat, we'll have lunch. I'm sure we can find a solution."

It turned out that Dick took him to the Sleazy Eights restaurant where they 'ran into' the President of the Horner Spring's Merchant and Stockman's bank, Leonard Sharply, who Morgan had heard referred to as "Snidely Whiplash". Morgan assumed that was due to foreclosure's.

They sat in a back table of the fairly empty dining room. Dick introduced Morgan as a Credit Union client who needed a range of services, the Credit Union was unable to provide.

Leonard smiled broadly and said, "How may I help you Mr. Gilhoulie?"

Gilhoulie, smiled as he sized up Leonard, "You know my machines only take dollar coins?"

Leonard nodded, "They're hard to find aren't they. I heard you had come in and cleaned us out?"

"Yes, well It looks like I can only keep about eighty six percent of them a month and I had to find a source of supply."

Leonard nodded, "I'll admit, you have stirred the Sacagawea's" He chucked, and said, "Sorry, Banker humor."

Morgan smiled politely, "Well I secured a quantity of coins that should last a good while."

"And you need a space to store them?" Leonard nodded.

Morgan nodded, "Yes, because Dick doesn't have a large enough vault."

Leonard frowned, "How many did you, ah secure?"

Morgan smiled weakly, "I had to take a ton load, otherwise they wouldn't ship them."

Even Leonard had to pause and calculate how many dollars were in a ton. Morgan and Dick watched as Leonard mumbled and shifted his eyes to keep the commas in the right columns, His eyes got bigger and he gave up when he got over $100,000, "You want to deposit that amount in my bank?" Leonard asked with a gasp.

"Yes, I guess I'll need an account and all that, right?"

"I don't believe that will be a problem. What say after lunch we go by the Bank and I'll fix everything?"

Morgan and the bankers all had the steak sandwich and the meal was more a fellowship than simply breaking bread together. Morgan wondered if the "Snidely Whiplash" crack wasn't a poor joke?

~oOo~

Les was taking Maureen Sorbados, the Real Estate lady to dinner at the Horner Springs Diner, as, again she had taken him to see some properties after five o'clock.

While they were on the street talking about the last property and possible finance options, Lester saw Homer's Monster Truck pull into the parking lot, Maureen waved to Homer, who shouted, out, "Hey Maureen!" before he drove to the back of the lot and parked the truck in next to the kitchen entrance.

"Do you know Homer?" Lester asked Maureen.

"He's a cousin of mine, through my aunt's brother's nephew or something, or so Homer tries to tell me." She smiled at Lester's confusion. "How do you know him?"

Lester glanced back at Homer who was trying to put the rope ladder back in the truck and having a hard time getting it to stay in. "Oh, he and Norman stopped and helped me change a tire on my delivery truck a few days ago. Nice boys."

"Homer's adjusting well, don't you think?"

Les looked at Maureen, "Adjusting to what?"

"Oh, he had severe brain concussion, from the war. He was in hospitals for months. Norman followed him from hospital to VA hospital, helping him rehabilitate. They are inseparable."

As he opened the door to the diner for Maureen, Les asked, "Are they brothers?"

"Step brothers, kind of. Norman was adopted by Homer's Uncle Walter, after... Well, after Walter heard how Norman looked after Homer." Maureen pointed, " See, where you find one, you find the other."

Norman was talking to one of the waitresses, at the counter and she was laughing. His Setson was cocked back on his head and his boots were clean and polished.

Les and Maureen selected the far back booth and sat across from each other, Maureen spread the data sheets for the properties they had seen before Lester, "Well what do you think?"

Les picked up three of the sheets and put them to the side, "I wasn't inspired by these." Then he picked up a page and said, "This one I might be interested in, depending upon the repair estimates."

Maureen glanced at the page and smiled, "Really, I didn't realize you wanted something that big."

Just then Norman came up to the booth and sat next to Maureen, "Hi ya' Mr. Murphy. I see you met my cousin Maureen. I'll bet you wouldn't think we're related would ya."

Les smiled, after all it was polite, "Hi Norman, I saw Homer outside. You guys doing okay?"

"Oh yeah, we just got a commission to fix up the Chief's roadster, new wheels with special plating, it's gonna look really tactical at the police convention next week."

Maureen laughed, "I was wondering what else you could hang on that thing."

Norman looked at Maureen down his nose, "The old wheels won't handle the speed the new exhaust system generates, You wouldn't want the Chief to lose a wheel at 200 miles an hour would you?"

Lester laughed, "Hell no. Especially not in town!"

Norman shook his head, "You can't activate the turbine booster under fifty, it makes the wheels spin. The Chief wanted it for a pursuit car, to chase people way out'a town. You folks come in for dinner?"

Maureen nodded, "We were looking at properties and Mr. Murphy and I were just about to discuss some of them."

Norman looked at the page Lester had and said, "Oh is Slippery Dick Road for sale again?"

Lester looked at the sheet which was labeled, #1 Slippery Richard Road, "Ah, it's Slippery Richard Road," he said.

Norman smiled, "It wasn't always. It was named for Richard, "Slippery Dick", Horner, who used to own number one. Didn't Maureen tell you? He was famous around here."

"No, she didn't. I never asked about it."

Maureen nodded, "Well, It's history now. The City changed the name to Slippery Richard Road after it was incorporated into the City Limits a few years ago.

Homer came in, saw Norman and joined them in the booth taking the seat next to Lester. Lester moved over and let the big cowboy have some room. "Hi Mr. Murphy," He tipped his hat to Maureen then sat it on the back of his head and leaned back. "Maureen you look prettier than a bluebell in June."

Maureen smiled and said, "Thanks Homer, you look happy."

Homer smiled and grinned, "I came in for Ms. Ellen's Smushie." He giggled and turned to Les, "Do you like Smushies too?"

"I never had one, what are they?" Les said.

Homer looked aghast, "Oh, you ought to have one tonight then" He looked at Maureen and said, "Is that why you brought him?"

Maureen blushed and shook her head, "No we're talking real estate, or were."

Les was wondering how his quiet dinner with Maureen had changed into town meeting, when there was a burst of giggling and a tall woman dressed in kitchen whites, came to the table smiling, "Hello Homer," she said and her broad face spread into a big grin.