CHICAGO CHICK
Golden opportunity comes like a snail and goes like a lightning‌
G A LorĂŠn
CHICAGO CHICK
Takes a sad girl to sing a sad song
Author’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.
© 2019 G A Lorén Cover picture and design G A Lorén Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand, Stockholm, Sverige Print: BoD – Books on Demand, Norderstedt, Tyskland
ISBN:978-91-7569-050-6
Table of Contents Friends till it ends............................................................................... 7 End of Dream ................................................................................... 11 Wrong end of a Nightmare ............................................................... 23 Middle of Nowhere ........................................................................... 27 Keeping Illusions alive ..................................................................... 39 Favorite Pastime............................................................................... 47 Expectations ..................................................................................... 55 Summer Time .................................................................................... 63 Flashback ......................................................................................... 67 Review .............................................................................................. 77 Audition ............................................................................................ 81 Devil’s planning ............................................................................... 97 Fuel and Pool ................................................................................. 103 Wanted............................................................................................ 117 Holy Procedure .............................................................................. 121 First Time ....................................................................................... 131 Ticking Eyes, Ticking Bomb ........................................................... 155 When Bubbles Burst........................................................................ 169 Nonsense......................................................................................... 183 Lucky Losers ................................................................................... 189 Tire Tracks...................................................................................... 203 Paint in your ass ............................................................................. 213 Truth and Consequence .................................................................. 217
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Muddy Water...................................................................................227 Reporters Game ..............................................................................239 Consultation ....................................................................................253 When Love Hurts.............................................................................263 Rehearsing, Reunion .......................................................................293 Farmer vs Farmer ...........................................................................309 Mill of Law ......................................................................................317 Promising Prospect.........................................................................335 Celebrity Electricity ........................................................................339 Urban, Rural ...................................................................................353 Wrong Direction .............................................................................361 Shocking Encounter ........................................................................367 Ups and Downs ...............................................................................381 Hunter’s Game................................................................................393 Easy Rider.......................................................................................397 Sigh Fashion ...................................................................................413 Rainy Goodbye................................................................................419 Sad Girl, Sad Song ..........................................................................423 Another Sad Farewell .....................................................................435 From Gloom to Boom .....................................................................437 Good Boys, Good News...................................................................453 Greenbacka Dollar .........................................................................459 Another Day, Another World ..........................................................473
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Friends till it ends SAM LOOKED FROM ABOVE HIS GLASSES as he pushed the bundle across the desktop. “About time you check out, Joshicker. Another month and you’d count among permanent decoration.” The big man flashed an inward smile as he took half sitting position on the desktop. “I can live with that. Beats pollution.” “Is that how you feel?” “In my bright moments.” The frosty irony led the minds to side tracks. Some reflections triggered nasty sneering. The warden locked his hands behind his neck. “What now?” Joshicker’s smiling changed to bitter sarcasm. “What else, I’m going back to my job.” He pretended to search the bundle. “Where the hell is my uniform?” Silent chuckling confirmed the bonds between the men. Sam interrupted with another grim leer. “Cremated like mine.” Joshicker flicked his hand. “At least you got away with sacking and a warning.” “Right, sergeant. I was lucky.” Joshicker’s thoughtful glance slipped out through the window. The sight of fences and guard towers didn’t improve his mood. “Six years for a fuck. I’ll never forgive that damned bitch! What a sick idea to rig a camera.” 7
Sam made an ugly grimace. The prostitute had accused him of the same crime but there had been no proof. Still, circumstance had led to the humiliating discharge. “Will you get back on her?” “She’ll have her share when she burns in hell.” “You’ll be there watching?” “I wouldn’t mind.” The image of frizzling human flesh silenced them. For a moment they were lost in introspective rumination. They had been friends for as long as they could remember. As Joshicker walked out, it would be like a last farewell. Sam wanted to extend the moment but treating emotion wasn’t his showpiece. “Will you stay in Texas?” “I’m racing north. To Canada if that old wreck makes it all the way.” Sam nodded sideways. He had brought Joshicker’s Mazda to the prison and parked it outside the gates. He shifted forward in his chair and handed over the keys. “No problem. I charged the battery and filled the tank. It started like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Good.” Joshicker jangled with the keys before stashing them into his pocket. He fingered out a couple of bills from his wallet. Sam checked him. “On the house.” The wallet went back to the inner of the baggy blazer. Another moment of contemplation followed. None of them wanted to initiate the break up. Sam looked over his glasses again, this time in a questioning manner. “What’ll you do in Canada?” “Same as all cops after sacking – private investigation.” Sam nodded. He too had pondered on that kind of future. The jailer job had saved him. “No need to go to Canada. You’re a free man now.” 8
Joshicker grabbed his bundle and slid off the desktop. “Free is a funny thing, Sam.” He nodded to the inner of the building. “My kind of free died in that foxhole.” Sam walked around the desk and reached out his hand. “Take it easy on the roads, you haven’t been driving for six years. It’s a hell of a bustle on the asphalt.” “Don’t worry, Sam. The one thing I’ve learned at this place is to take it easy.” Sam walked up to the window to watch his friend strolling towards the gates. The big guy looked small and lonely on the huge yard. Sam didn’t believe he had learned to take it easy. The hullabaloo that danced around in Joshicker’s head had led to nothing but destruction.
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End of Dream THOUGH HE HAD NEVER worded his appreciation, John Carlson liked to listen as Carsie picked his guitar in the workshop. And though Carsie would never admit, he chose to practice in the barn because he wanted audience. John ogled his son as he fastened a metal box in a vise. “What’s the name of that song?” Carsie stopped playing. Not because of the question but a string needed tuning. He grimaced as he failed to adjust it to the proper G. “Just toying with chords, perhaps it’ll be a melody one day.” He picked the string repeatedly. “Must buy new strings, can’t tune these anymore.” “Sounds all right to me.” Carsie knew his father had a soft spot for folk music. “Bertie Berger asked us to play at the Senior Club; he’ll be seventy-five.” “He’s that old? Doesn’t look it.” The reminder that not everyone would reach that age squeezed John’s mid-section. He was sixty-one. A week ago, the physician had told him the cancer was beyond curing. He had urged the doctor not to tell him how long time he had. It would be like waiting for the gas chamber. Suppressing unpleasant facts was his life philosophy. Carsie slid off his stool and leant the guitar against a fence. The barn hadn’t housed livestock for decades. The young musician was ignorant of his father’s condition. 11
“Must summon the boys; we need rehearsing.” The boys meant Les Gode on five-string banjo and Tom Brown on fiddle. Carsie did most of the singing but all members knew how to join in with low as well as harmony parts. According to most listeners, the trio did a good job. Carsie ogled his father in wait for response. A nod, a glance or silent grunting would do. There was no such sign. His head shook in idle resignation. John Carlson kept fiddling with his box. His current mind actually concerned what Carsie was ruminating on – concentration problems. Through sleepless nights, he imagined he could feel the tumor nibbling at sensitive parts of his brain. As to top off the depression, he had received the diagnosis frail heart. He prayed the heart disease would beat the cancer. As the silence changed the atmosphere in a puzzling way he looked up and noticed that Carsie watched him. He tried to recall if there had been a question. A silly smile ended the abortive attempt. Like so often over the last weeks, the attempt to concentrate had opposite effect. Instead of trying to solve the practical problem, his mind started grinding on his unproductive biography. He sighed as he failed to lead the mind work to happier tracks. His life was painfully short of happy tracks. His wife Christine had left him a good year ago. Though the marriage had been a poor joke from first day, she had been the only woman in his life. The divorce had been settled the day he had received his medical sentence. He had read the legal document in the doctor’s waiting-room. Like getting two death sentences in one day. The element of irony pulled his mouth to a bitter smile. Christine could no longer make claims on the huge estate. Everything would go to Carsie. He beckoned the young man closer. “Come over here, Carsie. I’ll show you something.” 12
Carsie took no interest in his father’s innovations. None of them had yielded the fortune John had talked about since his first brainchild had transmuted into a pathetic version of a golf bag. It would take a heavyweight champion to transport the thing around the course and when you released the grip around the handle it fell and spread clubs and balls on the ground. A few patents had been sold for peanuts, but none of them had gone into production. Not even the practical thumbtack remover in the shape of a modified screwdriver. John Carlson made money on repairing agricultural machines, but major source of income was tenant farmers fees. The huge estate was divided into four agrarian sections. The laughable fees had been the same for seventy years. Two thirds were hunting ground, also leased out for peanuts. Carsie rammed his hands into his pockets as he sided up with the shorter innovator. He watched the thing in the vise with vacant air. “Okay, I see a metal box with two pipes sticking out. What about it?” John Carlson looked at his son with shy pride. The boy was good-looking and good-hearted. He wasn’t strikingly brainy but common sense helped him make the right decisions. His smile and charisma had an effect on women. John nodded to the box. “Why don’t you have a girlfriend? You’re thirty next.” Carsie shrugged. They had chewed on the issue so many times that he felt like a parrot. “I’m not ready for marriage.” “I’m not talking about marriage. But if you don’t start dating, it will be too late. The chicks your age are married and the younger ones think you’re too old.” “They don’t want me. I have no luck with women.” 13
John dropped the subject. Talking to Carsie about the opposite sex was like talking to a brick wall. He guessed the boy hadn’t been with a woman at all, not even Betty Brown, the pretty black girl who served as Pickers Point’s associate for lonely men. It wasn’t likely he had met anyone elsewhere. He only left when the band played in small towns around the county. It didn’t happen often and the trio always returned when the performance was over. They loved to sit on the porch in the dark, sipping beer and discussing whether it was the best gig ever. Carsie’s only passion seemed to be his music. A tired sigh left the inventor’s sunken chest as his conscience reminded him that he was poor adviser in the delicate subject of approaching women. It remained a mystery why a handsome woman like Catherine had agreed to marry him. Even bigger mystery was that the marriage had lasted for thirty years. Perhaps the big farm had been primary attraction. She had grown up on a smaller farm. “This metal box will make you rich. I have registered a patent in your name. The document is in the drawer.” He nodded to a cracked piece under the workbench. Carsie shrugged. The million-dollar story had transformed to a mantra. “Why my name? It’s your innovation.” “Don’t ask. Listen.” John Carlson wiped his forehead with cotton waste. It was midafternoon and very hot. The doors to the barn were wide open. Normally, it meant a breeze that cooled the air, but right now desert-like heat gushed in. “You know that engines are propelled by gas. Now, gas is made of oil and oil is not only expensive, it’ll become short supply in a few years. The Chinese and billions of Asians can suddenly afford cars.” 14
Carsie turned his eyes to the sky. His father’s tardy way of presenting his cases had been exposed to public irony for decades. “Really? I had no idea.” John Carlson ignored the scorn. “This little box will change everything. The content will replace gas and almost all other energy. All you have to do is attach the box to the carburetor with a duct and the car will keep rolling for at least five thousand miles.” Carsie wasn’t in the habit of scrutinizing people’s features but something about his father’s appearance bothered him. The skin was grayish and the blue eyes seemed to have grown in the thin face. “Modern cars don’t have carburetors.” “Find an old one with a carburetor.” Carsie had a feeling of listening to a child’s fantasy. And the unhealthy looks distracted him. “Okay, what’s inside?” “Since you take no interest in techniques, the explanation will do you no good. But there’s a notebook with all information in the drawer. It’s built on Electro-magnetism and the unknown power of bauxite.” “Never heard of.” “You would if you had paid attention at school. It’s the ore used to produce aluminum. Now, what’s happening is that the mix produces a substance that equals gas – not in the liquid form – but gas in a gaseous state.” “Gas turned into gas. Amazing.” “It is amazing. Science hasn’t touched upon this. The box content does what gasoline does in a carburetor.” “Have you tried it?” “I tried on the mower. It worked fine.” “A mower is not a car.” “It’s the same principle. It’s all about principles. You don’t invent mechanical stuff, you invent principles.” 15
Carsie’s head shook again. This time to clear it from irrelevant mind work. He had started pondering on appropriate mix for Saturday’s show. These old people would certainly appreciate Burl Ives’ ballads. “Why haven’t science thought of it? The big institutions have recourses to test all materials.” “Got nothing to do with big, it’s a first time for everything. All great inventions start with one person’s idea. And the metal itself doesn’t do the job. Heating process and interaction with other components are involved.” Carsie’s struggled to appear interested. “Okay, but why do want me to know? You’ve never told me about details of your creations before.” “There is a reason.” “What reason?” John Carlson sighed again. Within short Carsie would be alone with a giant estate and a big house. A woman by his side had been on his wish list for years. He wondered what was wrong. The boy was a real looker. In his late teens the girls had lined up. One of them was Jennifer Brown, a sprightly little darling with an infectious smile. She had told John in confidence that Carsie had been first choice for all pretty young women. There had been frequent invitations to exercise in bed. The poor chicks had thrown in the towels when the object of affection had treated them like creatures from outer space. And he didn’t know how to cook. After Catherine had left, John had taken over the kitchen. He wasn’t much of a cook either, but he knew how to season pork chops and fry sausages. In spite of that, or because of the uniform menu, Carsie often went to town for hamburger or pizza. But food habits were trifles compared to the other problem. Carsie’s lack of interest in techniques had expanded to major obstacle because of John’s limited time on earth. 16