My Redacted Life: Chapter Three (Cont._3)

 I was enjoying my first day of work in complete silence, when one of the bosses came in. “Good to see you,” he said, walking straight to me. I’m sure he meant it. I was sure as hell glad to see him. I’d had about all I could stand of what passed for an enthusiastic welcome in Little Rock.

Jim Vines was a tall man, around six-foot-four if I remember. He had a dancing face, accompanied by a lively way of talking. His black hair was cropped short and he was wearing a well-fitting suit. He spoke to the other two in the room, both of whom pretended not to have noticed his arrival. They returned the greeting and went right back to their work. “Come on in to my office,” he said, “and let’s get you oriented.” He turned to the coffee pot. I rose. The air fairly crackled with suppressed resentment as I walked out of the drafting room.

We went inside his office and he closed the door. Easing his lanky form into his office chair, he motioned for me to take a visitor’s chair. “Have any trouble finding a place to park for all day?”

What was it with these people and parking? Little did I know then that this would become one of the most vital urban issues of the future. Hell, in the Navy, we just parked wherever the water was shallow enough that the anchor could reach bottom. Failing that, there was always a welcoming port.

As we talked that morning long ago, though, trucks and automobiles were beginning to flow over America cities with a demeaning vengeance, like a cancerous disease devouring internal organs. We would never be the same. But I would learn this later.

“I walked,” I said, and waited for the incredulity to strike.

“Were do you live?”

“Up Capitol Avenue,” I said. “Right across from Horace Terry Pontiac.”

“Just up the street then?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good gracious, don’t call me sir. That’s neat. I wish I could just walk down the street to work.”

He sipped his coffee. “I guess,” he said, “you are wondering why we hired you?”

I thought before answering. “I’m not sure,” I said, “but I am certainly glad you did.”

“Tom and I have about all we can ‘say grace’ over. We need some help. Some professional help. We have a good drafting staff, but as far as moving beyond that, it’s ‘Ned and the Second Reader.’ All we get is blank stares when we try to get them out of their comfort zone.”

Now that manner of speech was a trademark of his. He knew more “sayings” than anyone I’ve ever met, other than Sainted Mother. He came from a farm-oriented family, His father was a minor celebrity who interrupted the local rock and roll radio station each day at noon to give a farm report, playing to the hilt the character of a highly-educated country bumpkin. Brothers and sisters were educated and successful. The family name stood respected and unblemished.

His family, in short, was a modern version of one from the Horatio Algers stories, but one sadly destined to become a modern version of the Book of Job.

“First thing we’re going to do, you and I,” he said, “is we’re going to the great metropolis of Dierks, Arkansas, talk to their mayor, meet with their new planning commission, evaluate their streets, and do a land-use survey. That’s a real ‘Duke’s Mixture’ I know, but we can do it in two days. You don’t mind spending the night away from home, do you?”

Hell no.

“Do you know what a land-use survey is?”

“Where you survey land uses?’

“Existing land uses. Yes. We need to know where things are. There won’t be much to survey in Dierks, but the paper-mill there wants the city to have a plan and enforce zoning, so they are paying us to do it for them. Paying us well. The city does what the Mill says, and it makes us happy as a ‘dead hog in the sunshine.’ We leave early in the morning. Why don’t I pick you up at 8:30?”

Eye-god, was I on my way or what?

Whatever was going to happen
was going to be great.