Bill Andrews, legal representative for the Duh! Beer Company, vigorously shook hands with Doyle “Bubba” McKenna, current mayor of Chick Pea, Iowa, who was running for reelection. “Today is your lucky day, Mayor McKenna,” Andrews said. “This here is Charles Duhkovic, Vice President of Corporate Development for Duh! Beer. We’d like to put Chick Pea, Iowa on the map by legally changing its name to Duh!. And we’d like to give each of your 400 citizens $5,000 cash as a reward for doing so.”
Bubba motioned for the men to sit in the wooden chairs opposite his chunky stained oak desk. “Why Chick Pea?” he asked.
Charles replied, “Surely you’ve heard of various dot-com companies persuading towns to change their names to a company name. Well, this is the same thing. It’s a means for us to promote the name of our beer.”
“Duh! Beer also proposes to build a brewery here,” Bill chimed in. “That means jobs, health benefits, and taxable property for Chick Pea. It’s a win-win situation.”
“And it can’t hurt your chances in the election either. What citizen wouldn’t like a mayor who could provide more money for them? Cash up front initially and then the opportunity to earn a decent wage in our factory,” Charles said.
Bill produced a map and spread it across the mayor’s desk. “This is the area we’d like for our factory,” he said, pointing to a large tract of land that showed an architect’s rendering of their proposed factory. “It’s an ideal location. And your grain farmers would benefit too.”
Bubba liked what he was hearing. He had a silo full of grain and acres of it growing. He could have a steady sales contract for it. He liked Duh! Beer. But would he like living in a town named Duh!?
As if reading his thoughts, Bill chimed in, “You’ll get used to the name. It’s good for Iowa’s tourism. You could attract more business that way too. Good for all the little mom and pop stores in town.”
Handing his citizens $5,000 each couldn’t hurt his chances for reelection, Bubba thought. He didn’t have much of a platform. And his opponent, Emory Fine, was a young go-getter, fresh out of school. The evening news recently aired a story about a kid in high school beating out a town’s current mayor somewhere in the U.S. He couldn’t let that happen here, not to him. As it was, his opponent, had been going door to door with his mama’s baked goods, hoping to warm his way into Chick Pean’s hearts. That and doing everything from helping seniors with their Medicare forms to bringing groceries to the infirm. Charity work might put his opponent in high regards, but money, in the end, always talked.
“We’ve taken the liberty to draw up the legal documents for the transition. All we need from Chick Pea is unanimous approval by the Town Council.”
Bubba chuckled to himself. His Council consisted of two people, Ethel Simone, the resident beautician who loved NASCAR and her beer, and Jimmy Crane, owner of the town garage and the sole auto mechanic, who despised Andrew Franklin, the one obstacle to making this deal happen, at least as Bubba saw it.
Andrew Franklin’s farm sat smack dab in the middle of the proposed brewery site. Of course, Bubba thought, where there was a will, there was a way. “Just how bad do you fellers want this factory?”
Bill removed a thick brown envelope from his briefcase and placed it on Bubba’s desk. “This badly.”
***
“C’mon, Jimmy, you’re dropping him,” Bubba wheezed. Who knew that Andrew Franklin’s corpse would weigh so much? The man was tall, but he was pencil thin. Then again, they had been carrying him a distance, in the dark, and through the woods.
“Just watch where you’re going,” Jimmy said. “Stop waving the light around.”
“How else do you expect me to see where we’re going?” Bubba snapped. “I don’t know why you couldn’t have just hidden him in your truck and dropped him somewhere.”
"Because I’m no fool is why. If I get caught, you get caught. I see them cop shows on television. This way you won’t get any ideas.”
Bubba stopped and put his end of the body, wrapped in an old tarp, down on the ground. “What ideas are you talking about?”
Jimmy dropped his end, too, in order to catch his breath. “Like blaming me for Andrew’s murder, Bubba. Don’t think I don’t know it’s crossed your mind.”
“Oh, and like you haven’t thought about blackmailing me? I can’t trust you either.”
Jimmy laughed. “Yeah, I guess you got me there. But don’t worry, Mr. Mayor, I’m happy with the increase you gave me for uh… side work.” His grin was lost in the dark. “I just hope that Ethel is agreeable at the meeting tomorrow. Otherwise, this was all for nothing.”
"When has Ethel ever not voted our way?”
***
Bubba sat in Chick Pea’s town hall meeting room with Jimmy sitting to his left. Across from them sat Bill Andrews and Charles Duhkovic with their documents drawn up, waiting for signatures.
“What’s keeping Ethel?” Jimmy asked. “She’s never late.”
“Maybe she was giving a perm this morning. That’s what happens when you live in a small town,” Bubba said. “You have more than one job.” He could sense the beer people’s growing concern.
A moment later, Ethel’s voice cascaded down the hallway as she greeted Helen, the mayor’s secretary. “It came!” she squealed. “I’m so excited. I’ve never seen a check this big before. And to think they tried to swindle me out of it.” Helen and Ethel could be heard hugging and shouting for joy, before she whispered a little too loudly, “And to think that that nice Emory Fine went out of his way to make it happen. He’s got a high-powered cousin who’s an attorney.”
When Ethel finally entered the meeting room, she took one look at Bill Andrews and froze. Then they mutually pointed fingers at one another and said, “You!” in unison.
Bubba’s head moved as if on a swivel. “Ethel, will you please sit down. We have important matters on the table.”
”I will not! I’ve had enough of Mr. Andrews and his Duh! Beer.” She narrowed her eyes in his direction and shot her hands to her hips, making her look like a puffed up hawk scrutinizing its prey. “He tried to cheat me, Bubba. Did you know his beer factory in Wisconsin had a chemical leak? There were traces of a toxic substance in my beer. I would have died from it if I hadn’t been on vacation. Lucky for me I wound up in the best hospital in the state.”
Jimmy shot Bubba a look as if to say, “Now what?”
“Oh, come on, Ethel. Accidents happen. You can’t blame Mr. Andrews for something he had nothing to do with,” Bubba said.
“I can when he tried to cheat me out of my settlement,” Ethel retorted.
By now, Andrews and Duhkovic were gathering their things and getting ready to leave.
“I’m sorry, Mayor McKenna, but it doesn’t look like Chick Pea is going to be on the map after all.”
“Oh, it’s on the map all right,” Ethel said, fishing in her oversized tote bag. “You look right here.” On the cover of The National Tattler was a photo of Ethel holding a can of Duh! Beer beneath the headline:
CHICH PEA, IOWA, RESIDENT HAS BEER COMPANY SAYING ‘DUH!’ IN HUGE SETTLEMENT.
Copyright ©2006 Chelle Martin All Rights Reserved