Shack Man: East -> West

Catch up here – Shack Man

Chapter 27 – East -> West

Shack and I decided to postpone going to New York. It was because of this ordeal, in part, but more so because we had a lot going on back in Denver. For example, the sale of my condo and the purchase of our house was roughly a week away and we had a lot to do and a lot we wanted to do.

He had to get back to work and catch up on what he’d slacked on, while taking all those family phones call on the job. Wedding imagining and ring design was his job. I was doing the mundane stuff, which was suited me.

I’d called the battered women shelter to donate the rest of my furniture and various household goods. We’d decided to take my bed, his stereo and his ear-height couch to the new house; scrap most everything else and then slowly fix the house the way we wanted. This was an ongoing Uranus transit for me and it was all about out with the old, in with the new.

I didn’t have that much, having already sold my house in Arizona, along with its entire contents. I’d left the state in little pickup truck, with my clothing and my albums, in the back, under a camper shell. Very Henry-esque. In whatever case, I was into this transit and loving it. The Three Amigos were going to do the moving; I wanted it to be as easy as possible.

We wanted to have one last shack party. We also wanted to have a big party in our new house, right away! Hey. When Jupiter / Leo people see a way to have fun, they’re going to do it.

We’d already begun mixing our friends, but the shack was tiny. Our house had plenty of room. We wanted everyone we cared about to come see where we live, and to feel welcome and have fun.

We also wanted to merge our ways. Shack and I had an unusual commonality in that neither of us watched TV. He had a big TV in the shack, with no reception, though. He used it to watch movies on video, with the sound played through his stereo. It was freakish. You could hear everything. You could damned near hear a person on the screen, sweat! This was a typical, Shack party.

We decided to do an expanded version of this. First, movie night, would be a double feature. We would each choose a movie we felt our friends would like. We’d also have a bunch of food, Italian, of course.  A big, help yourself, situation, with plenty of leftovers for people to take home.

We were also going to accommodate everyone’s schedules, by making it and open house, from mid- afternoon until midnight. Come when you want, leave when you want. If anyone got drunk, we’d going to put them up. We were excited to pull this off.

We had open tickets, but could not get on the same flight with Shack’s brother so we split at the airport. I felt we pulled it off, okay. They both said it was a lot better with me there, than otherwise. It was heartening.

Back in Denver, we spent the night at the shack. He left for work in the morning. I was in the habit of the doing his laundry at my condo, so I was gathering it and some other things, when someone pounded on the door.

Lots of people came to the shack, but no one had ever come over, unexpected. Curious, I pulled the door open and there was a pissed off dude there and I mean mad. He had a bat!

”Hi” said, Libra. “What’s up?” I asked.

He looked me up and down. “Does, Shack Man, live here?

“Yes, he does. But he’s not here. Can I help you?”

I think my forthrightness slowed him down. Also, I was a girl, in a shack. “I need to talk to him.”

“Sure! Who are you? He’ll be back later. I’ll tell him you stopped by.”

“I own the, Ace Hardware,” he said. “He bounced some checks at my store”, he said, controlling his fuming. “He passed two of them, on Wednesday. One hundred and forty-five dollars. I come to get my money,” he said, glancing at the bat.

It was hard not to laugh. It was like Deliverance! “No, he didn’t. Shack doesn’t pass bad checks. I’m positive he didn’t pass these. He couldn’t have. We were out of town on Wednesday. The holiday?”

He raised an eyebrow, but I’m honest and I look it, to the non-blind, anyway. “I’m going to believe you. Tell him someone is passing checks with his name on them; the checks look legit. If he’s not a fucking thief, tell him to come see me at my store; talk to me.”

“He’s not a fucking thief. I will tell him and I’m sure he’ll come talk to you,” I said.

“Okay. I’m taking your word. You tell him if he can’t pay, I’ll take some of that wood, there…”

Shack had five years’ worth of wood, he’d gathered by hand. “He’ll be in to see you,” I said, nodding.

“Okay. Tell him to look for, Ed. I’m, Big Ed. Fat guy in overalls.”

“Will do. Nice to meet you. Ed”.

“And you, ma’am,” he said. “But make sure he comes in. I don’t cotton to people stealing from me. If I don’t hear from him, I’ll be back to settle this.”

We quickly found out the thief had stolen a box of 200 checks from the blue shack mailbox on Wednesday. Every single one of them had been passed by early Friday.

Shack was stressed out of mind over this; I guess I would have been as well.  He had to take off work and go to the police, and then he went to see, Big Ed.

The police told him, he should expect more, Big Ed’s, to show up. As many as 198 of them, since that’s how many checks were still out there. They said it could be dangerous, because people don’t like being ripped off.

On the upside, Shack had no liability. They gave him a case number. That’s what the victim would need to be reimbursed.

They recommended he get a roll of stamps and a form letter printed. When contacted by a victim, he should try to calm them down, explain the situation, get their name and address, and then send them one of the letters. He was to do this, until the people quit coming. There was no other way.

Shack had considerable catching up to do at work. He was completely overwhelmed by this. Two hundred phone calls! It was the other two hundred family phone calls that had put him on edge in the first place.

“Why don’t I do it?” I asked.

“What?”

“Just give it to me. Give me the case number, I’ll get a roll of stamps and take care of this.”

“Are you serious?” he asked.

“Of course I’m serious. It’s not a big deal, Shack. I can stuff an envelope.”

“My brother can print the letters on his computer, I think”.”

“Perfect! Even easier.”

“You’re just going to take care of this for me?” he asked.

“Of course! You’re stressed as it is. You don’t have to worry about this. Just call your brother and we’ll take it from here.”

He looked both shocked and bewildered. I don’t think anyone ever took a problem off his hands in his entire life. He sat there with his eyes wide so long, I had to ask. “Are you okay?”

“I have a wife!” he said. I cannot believe it, I. Have. A WIFE!” He looked goofy and happy like he was going to go clean a chimney or something. “I can’t wait to call my brother, for yet another favor. I’m going to ask him to print these forms and give ‘em to my wife!” He laughed, joyously. “You know what else, Elsa? He’s going to be as happy about this as I am.”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go to bed!”

I can’t say I was glad this happened as it turned out to be quite a pain. But I liked how threw us into the present and the future, leaving, “East” in our rearview mirror, or so I thought.