Rupert Dillinger Jones

 

Roop

“Well, Elf doesn’t talk a lot, but when he does it’s usually something he has been thinking about.  Maybe it is time to bring the Roop into the scene,” said Doug sitting in the dim light with his hands behind his head.

“Rupert Dillinger Jones is a maniac.  He is an old hacker from before.  He believes in the Wild Men of the Woods, and some say he is part wild man himself.  He is sixty something now and grey bearded. He is bald on top, but his back hair goes down to his butt. He is about six five and weighs like three fifty, but he doesn’t look fat.  He just looks big like a buffalo.

He has access to world news, as bad as it is, because he still has internet, but I don’t know how.  If you go to his place and sit around, he will tell you what the world is doing any particular day.  I don’t know if it’s good or bad to know some of that stuff.

He lives in an old radio station building by himself.  I don’t ask why. I guess none of us ask those questions now days.”

I was so sleepy.  But it occurred to me to ask, “so what’s the connection between you guys and this Roop dude?”

Says Doug “Roop is the grand wazoo.  He tells us what’s up and the NO party was his idea, but he says he is too old to run it and besides he likes hiding out and supplying information better than being out in the open where he is noticed. Also he likes dreaming up the more colorful stuff like the stencils and the posters.  He is a bit of a latter-day hippy too, I guess.

Roop says we need a central figure like a king or something.  He says there aren’t enough people for a representation gov. He thinks like until the population gets back up, we need a guy who can make decisions from the seat of his pants and maybe on the run!

The weird thing, and the scary thing is, he thinks I am probably that guy and the even weirder thing is I think he might be right.”  Doug sighed. “I suppose we better go see him and make introductions all around in the morning.”

“Well, Y.M., I think I will run upstairs and hit the sack.  We can figure it all out tomorrow. Um, good night I guess.” I said.

 

On the way up the stairs I wondered if ol Rupert had any news on the triangle things that blew up the Wharf Café.  I had noticed that the two boys didn’t seem all that surprised to see them.

The last thing I thought about before sleep was those things flying over so silently and low, doing their business and then silently going away over the water.  That silence was so creepy.

 

First light.  Very dim.  I was awake, but still horizontal.  I realized now that I had a larger “family” to feed breakfast to.  Oatmeal.  Yup.  Everything I heard last night and the memory of the meeting and all that came back to me suddenly. I got that crazy feeling again like everything was changing.

I was thinking about an old Cat Stevens song.  I told you that the only music we hear is old stuff our parents have on CD’s.  Morning had broken alright, good and hard.

Lou hadn’t moved since she hit the pillows last night.  I was sitting on the side of my bed trying to wake up.  I decided to take a quick shower and then go downstairs and see what we had down there.  I bet they were asleep.

By the time I went down there Doug was awake.  He was drinking plain boiled hot water and standing looking out of the kitchen window. I noticed how thin he was.  I also noticed that in just his t-shirt and jeans he wasn’t hard to look at.  But never mind that!  He had washed last night’s few dishes. Well!

“Can you stand oatmeal?”  He nodded and sat down at the table while I cooked oatmeal.  It would have been very nice to have some cream or butter or sugar, but we didn’t.  We had some raisins though, so in they went.

I noticed a funny noise at the front door.  It sounded like scratching.  What?  So of course, I had to take a look and opened the door.  There stood Buddy.  I could say that he was smiling.  He walked in like he did it every day and headed in to the sofa and woofled around Elvin until he woke him up! He sat up and grinned at the dog and now all we had to do was get Lou to get up and get ready to roll.   So, I yelled up the staircase and she told me to shut up and it was a real morning for sure!  I could hear her slamming drawers and doors and so I knew she was up.

 

We sat again at the kitchen table, ate oatmeal darn near plain and talked about going to see the Roop. Buddy lay under the table with his big head on my foot.  I was utterly charmed. I was beginning to feel like we were enacting some kind of epic journey story.  Maybe we were. It sure wasn’t normal life.  I guessed I remembered normal life from my early childhood. It was seeming very far away and long ago about then.

Just like all heroes of epic journey stories we prepared for a walk back to town and the next step, if we could figure out what it was. Doug said that Roop lived on Willow Street in the old KSMR station building.  There was no way of letting him know we were coming, so we had to just chance that he would be there.

To get back to Milltown and the radio station we had to go past Mrs. Steele’s house again.  I thought we should stop and say hi and see what was up with Buddy following us around like he was.  So, we all four and Buddy walked up the drive and I knocked on her side door, with all the scratches scored into the paint.  In a few minutes I could hear motion and then she opened the door.  She looked about a hundred years old.  She must have weighed all of 97 pounds, looked like a wind would blow her away, but she was smiling.  She was wearing a floral dress and house slippers and a home-made sweater in royal blue yarn.

She looked at her dog, who walked right in, and then at us and said, “why don’t you all come in?”  We did, and I asked her “I wanted to know if it was ok with you if your dog comes with us sometimes?  He followed us to Milltown yesterday and stayed with us until we walked past here again.  I started calling him Buddy, but I bet that’s not his name?”

Mrs. Steele grinned at him and said, “that’s funny because we always called him Bubby.  He must have thought you knew him!  No, it’s fine with me if he wants to go out and play with you kids.  It’s just fine.  I think he gets bored sitting around here with me.”

Thinking, she said, “you know what?  While my husband was alive, one of the last things he did was shoot a deer and I turned most of it into jerky.  I could just about fill one of those backpacks with Bambi jerky and you could feed it to him and it’s good enough for people too! How about that?”

We thought that was a very fine idea.  So, since my backpack was pretty empty, we let her put the jerky wrapped in it’s plastic bag into my pack. We thanked her very much and trooped back out the door and back onto the road to town.  Lou was walking with her hand on Bubby’s collar.  The rest of us just hiked along. We’re off to see the wizard for sure!

Link to the whole deal so far: In the tenth year of the pandemonium.docx