Taboo

Keywords: Final, Mysterywriter's, Spring,

*Note from the author*

" I hope you enjoy this piece but I don't much care if you like my grammar or my spelling. So don't bother sending me email about it please. If you want more of the same there is a free web site with nothing for sale, no adv, and no popups, just about two dozen novels and short stories galore. Email me for the address. If you hate it, let me know that too as I always love to hear from people who can write better. C Gurkin"

Mysterywriter's Final Spring.

When I saw the lights ahead, I was almost as happy as I had been the first time I got laid. Since I had been nodding off for the last hour, I really needed the coffee that the truck stop sign promised. The number of eighteen wheelers at the truck stop alongside the two lane road surprised me. I had left the four lane at least twenty miles back. The map didn't show any other major highways before I reached the coast.

As I pulled the Mini Van into the parking lot it all became obvious, the trucks all had the same logo. There had to be a freight company nearby, I thought. It must have been breakfast time for them before they began their day. I parked the mini van in a spot far away from the real trucks. I didn't want to block one of them in. It sure as hell wasn't to save the van. That van had been worn out when I bought it. Buying junk was one of the benefits of having a best friend who ran a salvage yard. It might have been the only benefit.

John could put together about anything I wanted at a dirt cheap price. The van had been his idea actually. I told him that I wanted to sell my novels at festivals during the spring so he suggested that I buy a mini van. It would be good to carry all the junk from town to town and would be comfortable enough to sleep in as well. The deal was struck. I gave him all winter to do it. In exchange he sold me a van with the best of his junked out engines and transmissions for a song. Perfect bodies seldom go to salvage so the body was mess. The fenders on one side looked as though they had been straightened with a claw hammer. The paint was most likely house paint from home depot. The front seats didn't match at all, and there were no rear seats.

As was my habit, I took my antique cane with me. I did it so that my staggering would look as though it were physical, rather than the moves of a drunk. The fact is that it was physical, I just didn't need the cane. It was window dressing, as were most of the things I did that spring.

I found the restaurant to be warm on that chilly spring night. The barstools were all taken so I found a small booth where I seated myself. When I looked at the menu, I found that it made me hungry. I knew I shouldn't have the waffles but what the hell difference did a few pounds make at that point. I resisted the urge anyway.

"Hey there," I said to the waitress before she could greet me.

"You want coffee?" She might have been more asleep than me.

"Coffee would be fine," I replied.

"You know what you want to eat?"

"Nothing thanks, just the coffee and some information."

"Coffee's a buck for all you want, the information is free. We guarantee the coffee is good, the information might or might not be any good." She smiled showing me crooked and yellow stained teeth.

"That sounds perfectly reasonable to me," I said smiling back.

"I'll be back with the coffee then you can try the information bit," she said it while turning away. She returned in less than a minute with a coffee cup, it was about half the size of the one I traveled with.

"Now let's try that question thing."

"Okay, I am headed for a small town called Rosehill, do you know it?"

"Know it hell, I live there. You headed to the festival?"

"Yep, I'm a first time vender there. So could you tell me where the fairgrounds are."

"Ain't no fairgrounds honey, they are having it downtown. Gonna block off the streets."

"I know but they said we could camp on the fairgrounds." I was a little worried at that point.

"Never heard of a fairground let me check with someone." The waitress with the bad teeth left me to ponder my next move. That night was pretty much shot anyway. I could ask at the show the next day I supposed. The very best I could do would be two hours sleep that night anyway. The setup downtown began at 5am.

The waitress came back a few minutes later with the coffee pot in her hand. "Okay Mister, I found out I think. I never been there mind you, but when they have the youth carnival they have it at the stadium complex. We are pretty sure that is where you want to be. It makes sense since it has bathrooms.

I thanked her while I sipped the scalding coffee. When I left the circle of warmth, it was almost 3am, I figured I had just enough time to find the high school stadium from her skimpy directions, then just go straight to the set up coordinator. The coordinator who was supposed to be downtown at 5am handing out assignments.

Finding the stadium proved to be easy since someone had thoughtfully placed temporary signs for the vendors. I didn't bother making room in the van for me to stretch out, I was afraid that I would over sleep. What I did was to set the traveling alarm clock, then push the seat back. I slept in ten minutes increments until the first of the pickups pulled from the grass covered parking area for the small town stadium.

I found the bathroom, where I deposited the dregs of the coffee both from the styrofoam cup and my body. When I returned to the van, I waited for someone else to leave for the downtown. When they did, I followed behind. The coordinator set my site on one of the side streets. If I had been selling jewelry or some such, I would have been angry. I wasn't expecting big crowds anyway so I just smiled. Since the rent was the same on them all, it was my guess that the prime spots were saved for the locals.

I had never set the booth up for real before so I had planned a little extra time for it. I started at 5am, which was way too early. Unlike some of the more elaborate ones mine could be set up in just a few minutes. That is once I had the bugs worked out. That morning I planned on an hour.

The coordinator was a gray haired lady whose age I wouldn't even try to guess. She gave me detailed directions and a map. She also told me that my space had a chalk number on it. The instruction, to have my beat up old van in the parking area by six, was delivered as she stared at my wreck of a vehicle. That ragged out old van might prove a liability but I really didn't care. It was all part of the image.

The very first thing I unloaded was the folding chair. I expected to spend a lot of time in it, then came the blob of concrete in the shape of a milk container. The reason for the shape was simple I had used an empty gallon plastic milk bottle as a form. A steel pipe was buried inside the blob of concrete. The beach umbrella came next. It had come from a discount stores close out sale in November of the year before. That should tell you how long I had been planning the spring and summer tour.



When I turned my hand to setting up the tables, it was dawn or a little after. The sun was still below the horizon but it was still pretty much lighting the downtown. That was probably because there were only few tall buildings to block the bent rays.

The two folding tables had come from the local goodwill store. I had kept them stored with the umbrella in my studio all winter. I had erected them at home just to make sure that they weren't going to come crashing down like the walls of Jericho. I had also purchased a coverings for my tables. It had been suggested to me by my ex wife that I use fake fur. That material would not wrinkle while being folded, she explained. It worked just exactly as she had predicted.

With the tables assembled, I moved on to the product. The product was two and a half dozen mystery novels. They were on CDs, since I not only wrote them I also recorded them. The PC along with a program from a cell phone company allowed me to record, then edit them digitally. The CDs were just the easiest thing to produce. I had all the equipment to produce mass quantities of cassettes as well, but they were just a pain in the ass.

I had intended to bring a small number of CDs with me, but again my ex wife convinced me to bring more than I ever expected to sell that summer. "Make it look like a bookstore," she advised me. Hell, they were easy and not very expensive to produce so why not, I thought.

That being the case, I removed a small plastic box of CDs for each title. Thirty one titles meant thirty one six by six by twenty-four inch boxes of novels and two more boxes of assorted short stories divided by tabs. Each CD was in it's own plastic box. The only label was on the CD itself.

With the boxes set up, I was almost finished. Not much more a writer can do you would think? Since I was a photographer most of my life, I had also produced a set of posters for the booth. There were a dozen twenty inch by thirty inch posters in round tubes from the post office. From them I selected six for the stands I carried with me. I would have loved fancy stands that broke down but I just couldn't justify it so I build half dozen.

Each stand was fitted with a cork board after it was erected. The posters were then thumbtacked to the board which had been wired to the stand. I had figured to keep the posters to a minimum during outside shows, to prevent wind damage. I put them up just to attract the crowds. Most were scantily clad women but a couple were male friends of mine holding their pistols. Thank god for redneck friends who own their own guns. Since the digital revolution, I was able to make posters with titles on them. I expected that the posters would help. Then again, I hadn't been on the road before so I couldn't be sure.

Last, but certainly not least, I removed a CD player. The player had been extensively reworked. I am a bit of a tinkerer you see. The four C cell batteries had been replaced by a wet cell lead acid battery that could be charged from the cigarette lighter of the van.

Keywords: Final, Mysterywriter's, Spring,