The Package

When I left Bertha's hotel room around
2 o'clock this morning, she was chewing
on a T-bone steak --

like a cow on cud.

That's right-- Bertha was a lady who gave
good cud. She gave good cud, alright, but I
wasn't thinking about cud right then. No,
I wasn't thinking about cud; my mind was
on something else—

I had to get to LA by noon.

It was a ten hour drive by backroads to LA
and I wasn't sure if I could get to LA by driv-
ing back roads-- but by God I was going to
try! I had to try. A lot depended on it--

maybe my future.

After an hour on the road, I started to worry
about Myrna. Yes, it was Mryna I started
worrying about. I don't know how I got mixed-
up with Myrna. It happened fast-- one day
I was a salesman for California Electric and
Coal, next day I was mixed up with Myrna.

I woke up with a bad feeling the day I met
Myrna. I took the city bus to the corner of
Vine and Third and when the bus stopped
at the corner of Third and Vine, I got off--

as I always do when I take that bus.

Well ... standing by a cab with the back
door open was Myrna. I didn't know her
name was Myrna right then. I found that
out later-- after I got mixed up with her.

She called me over. Seems she couldn't
pay her fare. The cabbie had threatened to
keep her suitcase and coat until she paid-up.
I don't know why, but I pulled out my wallet
and gave a ten to the driver--

that left me with a five and two ones and
some change I kept in the snap-pocket of
my wallet-- the one Aunt Hildred gave me
for tilling her garden two summer ago, when
wallets were on sale at Jenna's Discount and
Second-hand.

So I'm driving down these hilly back roads
to LA stuck behind a slow truck hauling
chickens, and I get a strange feeling. Maybe
some people would call it an odd feeling,
maybe a weird feeling, but I call it a strange
feeling--

like I feel something's going to happen,
which it always does, like it or not.

I started to worry.

When the chicken hauler turned off at Brad-
dox Junction, I kept worrying. Then I be-
gan to doubt if I could get to LA by these
back roads, by noon.

Plus, there was the Myrna issue, and since
last Friday, I had started to worry about
Vivian. Vivian is a waitress at Mid-Californ-
ia Truck Stop on Highway 114, a back road.

That's why I had to take back roads. I had
to stop and see Vivian and find out if she
still had the package. I left the package
with her about about a month ago; I had
to make sure she still had it. I needed that
package, bad --

for Eugenie.

After I met Eugenie at a noon rummage sale
downtown at Saint Vincent de Paul's, I start-
ed changing my mind about a few things I
wasn't very sure about before. At first, I
wasn't sure if Eugenie needed to see what
was in the package, at all.

And the Myrna issue still bothered me-- even
after our all-night talk sitting on the porch of
her rooming house and drinking lemonade.

I needed time to think-- that's why I left the
package with Vivian. A few days ago while I
was buying some treble hooks, a roll of mono-
filiment line and a new pair of pliers at Lake
Chancy Tackle and Bait Shop I realized I had
to tell Eugenie about the package.

I had to open it in front of her and let her see
for herself what was inside – that was so she
would know what it was.

I had to do it that way. There was no other
way. Sometimes a person has an alternate
way, or three ways to do something, but not
this time.

Eugenie was leaving LA on the noon Grey-
hound to Phoenix. That's why I had to stop
by the truck stop, get the package from
Vivian, and get to the bus station by noon.

I had to let Eugenie see for herself the con-
tents of the package-- then together we
would decide what to do, after that.

Everything was all mixed up. I guess it was
Blendina Coztagna's fault. All this started
with that redheaded IRS agent Blendina
Coztagna from South Lake Tahoe. If she
hadn't walked into my office at California
Electric and Coal, sat down to light a cigar-
ette, things might have been different.

If she hadn't asked that question right at
the exact time my secretary, Della, decid-
ed, right at that moment, to peek her
head around the door of my private wash
room and ask if I had some more paper
towels, as the paper towel dispenser was
empty,-- things might have worked out.

Ms Coztagna gave Della a hard look so
Della ducked back inside the wash room
leaving the door open. I suspected that
was so she could hear what we saying.

That meant of course Ms Coztagna could
hear the sound of Della was doing--what
was going on inside the washroom—but
that was nothing to me since I had heard
it all before.

Ms IRS stubbed out her cigarette in an
ash tray I had taken from the Ramada
Inn in Barstow and asked why I had
claimed a one Bertha Ratterfield on my
return as a dependent for the last five
years when Miss Ratterfield had always
claimed herself on her own return?

As I drove down the back roads toward
Mid-California Truck Stop, I thought--

if Vivian still has the package and if I can
get to the Greyhound bus station by noon,
everything-- hope to God—will work out.

I don't know though.

##
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