Previewing the Tingle Creek Festival - Bet Calculator

Chapters 1 & 2, 3, 4 & 5, 6 & 7, 8, 9 & 10, 11, 12 (Part 1), [12 (Part 2)], 13 & 14, 15, 16, 17 (Part 1), 17 (Part 2) & Epilogue
XII
A Little Help From My Friends (Continued)
We made our way from the kitchen to the living room, and up the small set of stairs to the hallway. Scotty lived in one of those classic, mid-century, split-level ranchers, complete with the requisite three-door hallway (bathroom on the left) and a string hanging down from an attic door in the ceiling.
We headed past the bathroom and went into the door on the right. It was a smaller room than the main bedroom and appeared to be used by Scotty as an office. Of sorts. I don’t know. It looked like a hobby room with a computer in it, more than anything.
Movie posters adorned the walls, along with clever clusters of band photos clipped from old magazines and Polaroid photos of us as teens. A bookshelf, haphazardly stocked with everything from The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes to Noam Chomsky, Jon Ronson, and Stephen King, took up most the east wall, which made for a nice, permanent room feature.
The long, tubular black light on the third shelf, however, did not make for a great room feature. The sight of it felt like a remnant of Scotty’s college days, especially seeing all the dust piled up on it. In fact, it looked as though the dust had moved with him from his college dorm, to his first apartment, to this one.
The morning sun greeted us through the windows on the south wall, which was the front of the house. Scotty beelined to the wispy, tattered strings which controlled the office’s blinds.
“Lady across the street is a little too curious for my liking,” he said as he lowered the blinds on the rightmost window and faced them downward.
After making his way to the leftmost window, he reached for the strings and then stopped suddenly, shielding his eyes with his left hand.
“Sweet Christ, Jon, is that your car out there?”
“Which one?” I made my way behind him.
As I got close enough to see around him, I saw that he was shielding his eyes from a strong beam of light. The sun had reached an angle in the sky that caught the corner of one of my mirrors in my back seat, sending the beam through Scotty’s office window and directly into his face.
I laughed. “Yep, that’s the one,” I said.
“Is that part of your big project, too?”
“Sherlock Motherfucking Holmes, over here.”
“Duuuude,” said Scotty, then, after a beat, said, “whatever this is, it sounds sick.”
He put the last set of blinds down and secured them, popped on the craning lamp that was clamped to the edge of his computer desk, threw open his stash drawer and sat down.
A rush of warm, flagrant, earthy weed air filled my nostrils. Scotty pulled a surprisingly clean pipe (a man must have his priorities) from a soft satchel and a small glass jar from what appeared to be a separate satchel in the back of the drawer.
“This is my thinker shit. That’s what I call it. The Thinker. I’ve managed to conserve a half-eighth of it for the past four or five months because I only pack some up when I’m looking to turbocharge my creativity glands, you know?”
“I know the creativity glands, yeah,” I played along.
“And lately, I’ve just been wanting more of a mellow, laid back high. A watch-YouTube-videos high. A leave-your-thoughts-at-the-door-high.”
“Not feeling creative?”
“Nah. Not until a few minutes ago, when you got here, at least.”
Scotty reached back into his stash drawer and procured a shiny, black metal cylinder that I presumed to be a grinder. He pulled the top off the cylinder, revealing a wild set of stainless steel teeth that proved my hypothesis to be true.
While he went to work preparing his morning smoke, I poked around his movie collection for a bit. So many 80s and 90s classics. He and I used to watch movies like Predator or Clerks on repeat during sleepovers as kids, drinking gallons of soda and eating metric fuck-tons of junk food.
After what felt like only a matter of seconds, I heard a disposable lighter snap to life behind me, and turned my attention toward it. A wisp of sweet smoke rose from the glowing pit of Scotty’s glass bowl. Just as I caught the scent, Scotty turned to me and released an opaque plume of off-white smoke in my direction. I closed my eyes. The smoke poured over me and I breathed it in.
In that moment, I forgot all about vampires, murders, visions and daydreams, and just lived. I took in the moment like it was the last truly free moment I’d ever have. For all intents and purposes, I thought it was.
I exhaled. A little smoke puff of my own was emitted, making me believe Scotty’s cloud was a little more first-hand smoke than second-hand. I didn’t really care.
“That stuff smells great,” I said.
“Right?”
“Thanks for that.”
Scotty gave the A-OK gesture with his available hand as he took in another drag for himself with the other.
Suddenly, reality snapped back to me and my stomach sank like a lead anchor. As much as I wanted to stay and hang with Scotty, I had to get out of there. I hurried the conversation along.
“So, no lamp holders, huh?” I asked.
“Nah, man, I haven’t seen them in over a year. I’ve looked,” he said with a dry voice as a plume of smoke poured form his mouth.
“That’s so weird. You never lose anything.”
“Does that throw a wrench in your plan? Can I know what your plan is?”
“Yes. I mean, no,” I stammered. “I mean, yes, it throws a wrench in my plan, and no, I can’t tell you what my plan is. Not yet. But I need those lights to work.”
“Roger, dodger. Well, come on. They’re in my closet in my bedroom.”
We vacated the smoke-filled office and strolled into his bedroom. He opened the door to his closet, got down on one knee, and started rummaging.
“C’mon... I know you’re here...” he mumbled to the LED grow lights that were, as of that moment, at large. “Oh, shit, that’s right. I put them up here,” Scotty said as he stood up and began reaching for the shelf above his head, which required the use of his tippy toes.
“Eureka,” he said, and pulled down a box. It was the original box they came in, which was just a cardboard sleeve that surrounded a two-piece Styrofoam container. The cardboard was immaculate but dusty, the Styrofoam unchipped, and to my surprise, removing the foam lid revealed that Scotty had kept the original plastic wrap that dressed the light bulbs.
“There’s the Scotty I know,” I said, plucking one of the lights, which looked like the Apollo Command Module, from its die-cut cradle. Unwrapping the plastic, I saw that it had a 2-prong contact at the bottom.
“So, these’ll be usable in any standard lamp holder?” I asked.
“You bet your sweet bippy. They’ve got voltage regulators or something in them so they won’t blow out.”
“You’re shitting me. That sounds made-up.”
“Shit you, I do not, my friend.”
“Well, they’re great, but they still leave me paddling up shit creek. What brick and mortar store in Lansdale is selling grow lamps?”
“Why do you have to go to a brick and mortar? You’ve got the Internet,” Scotty asked, confused.
“Time is of the essence on this one,” I said, solemnly.
“Fair enough,” he said, adding a “hmm,” before we both sat in silence for a moment.
Then, he said, “Maybe you can try Craigslist.”
I laughed. At first it was a dismissive chuckle, but then the irony struck me and it made a crescendo into guttural howling. I must have looked like a lunatic to him.
“Okay, no Craigslist, then,” Scotty said with feigned concern.
“No,” I said immediately. “It’s perfect. Craigslist is perfect. Poetic, even.”
He raised an eyebrow. Then, after a beat, said “Alright, let’s do it.” He jiggled the mouse at his desk to wake up his computer.
“I don’t think just any lamp is gonna do on this one, though,” I said as I waited for him to launch Firefox. “It’s got to have a reflector dish, or something. I could have worked with the setup you had, but now I have a chance to rethink my plan.”
We both quieted, contemplating.
“What if I used a projector of some kind?”
“Duuuuude,” Scotty approved. Then, after a moment, he said, “What about an overhead projector, like from school?” he smiled, pleased with himself despite not having the slightest clue what I was doing with this thing.
I smiled, too, remembering life in elementary and junior high school, before the stresses of real—and surreal—life were any of my concerns. I also smiled because it was a great idea, and really helped solidify my plan.
He pulled up the Lansdale Craigslist page and started tip-tapping a couple of search queries. Searching for “overhead projector school” yielded us this:
FOR SALE:
AUDIO/VIDEO EQUIPMENT
4 CRT TVs, 24” ($30 each)
4 DVD/VHS Hybrid Players ($15 each)
4 Television Carts ($20 each)
6 Overhead projectors ($45 each)
2 Smart Boards ($80 each)
Our elementary school has just received a much-needed upgrade to our AV equipment. Storage is at a premium in our tiny building, so we must sell all the old equipment ASAP.
Respond to this listing for a contact phone number. Personal checks only, please.
​
The post was only 3 days old, and I don’t imagine there’s often a run on overhead projectors when they show up on small-town Craigslist pages, so I was optimistic.
“Fuck it,” I said, “I’ll shoot ‘em an email.”
“Let me forward you the link. What’s your email?”
I gave him my email address.
Moments later my phone buzzed with a new email message and I tapped the link within it. The Craigslist post loaded and I proceeded to tap the Reply link.
My reply was short: “Hello, I’m very interested in one of your overhead projectors. Can I have your contact info?”
I knew it would take a while for the other party to respond—if they did at all—so I figured I’d head out from Scotty’s house in a minute or two and accomplish three things: Get the supplies I need to create my “work of art”, figure out a way to come up with a check (that doesn’t involve going inside my vampire-occupied house) to buy a projector, and get Travis his goddamn six pack.
​
I hung around for a polite few more minutes, told Scotty I had to run, thanked him for the access to his grow lights, and left for the local Lowe’s hardware store.
The trip to Lowe’s wasn’t eventful, but I had gotten a bit of a contact high from Scotty, so it was also pretty relaxed. I bought a tall plywood board that was about two feet wide and seven feet tall, a bucket of spackle, a putty knife, and some nuts, bolts, and washers. I figured that was all that was necessary to piece together my project.
I hadn’t received a reply regarding the overhead projector yet, so I headed towards the closest six-pack shop to fulfill my duty as a good friend to Travis while I waited. If I told you I wasn’t worried about whether or not I’d get a reply at this point, I’d be lying. There was a backup plan, of course, which involved going to a teachers’ supply store a few towns over to get a projector that way. Those things aren’t cheap, though, so I was hoping this Craigslist deal would go through.
Craigslist.
Fucking Craigslist.
The place where you can get a gig doing foot-porn for $500.
The place where pathetic people write pathetic love letters to strangers because they may have exchanged a glance on the subway.
The place where you can get anything in the world, anything at all, but I managed to get Viktor Drasko. Viktor Goddamn Drasko, the Traveling Terror of Transylvania. Fuck me.
I put together a crafty six-pack for Travis at the convenience store, along with a 22oz bottle of some kind of weird pumpkin stout I remembered him liking a year or so ago. It was probably the most expensive six-pack I’ve ever bought, but I was happy to pay.
I left the shop and headed toward my car at the curb. As I approached, I found myself at a sort of mental impasse.
The only place—besides my house, of course—that I could think to get a check would be the bank. Problem was, the branch closest to me was about 20 minutes away, while my house was only about 5, so I would’ve rather not wasted the extra time. Besides, I was just going to be in and out with the checkbook if I went to my house, anyway, so I also thought that maybe driving all the way to the bank wasn’t that necessary after all. I decided I would drive by my house to see what kind of vibe I got before deciding whether I was making the trip to the bank.
When I was about half-way to my house from the beer place, I began to feel uneasy. It was familiar, but at first, I couldn’t place it. I kept driving. When I was about 3 blocks from home, I could feel it even more. Ominous. Vengeful. It wasn’t paranoia from catching a buzz; it was tangible. Thick. It was very real.
Finally, as my house came into view, I realized what was familiar about this feeling. It was the same feeling I had before and after I had experienced those visions. Like my mind was being penetrated. But, somehow, this time, it wasn’t getting in. I couldn’t tell if it was weak or if I was somehow more resilient, but a bad vibe was all I got.
I pulled over to the side of the curb and looked on, studying the brick façade of my house. As I did so, I noticed that the world from inside my car was suddenly quiet, like a lightless neighborhood during an evening snow storm.
I felt like I was staking out a property in the third dimension while being watched by something in the fourth. What was I thinking, coming here?
Without warning, my pocket vibrated and I jerked violently in surprise from it. It was my phone. Irked, I pulled it from my pocket and looked at the screen.
It was an email from an auto-generated email address from Craiglist; the system they programmed to prevent people from getting stalked on their platform. The subject was, as expected, the same subject as my original email, now with a prefix of “Re:”.
The response was short, but sweet:
“Thanks for taking interest! I currently have the projectors at my house. Feel free to call me at 610-436-2082 to meet up for one, as I am available all afternoon.
Best,
Judy Henning
Librarian”
I took the timing of her email as a sign to forget going to my house, and just steer the ship towards the bank. I further rationalized my decision by a sudden desire to petition Travis to let me put my project together at his house, since it was out that direction anyway. My house gave me the heebie-jeebies and I didn’t want to spend any more time there than I had to.
Pulling a K-turn in the middle of my street, I started off toward the bank and dialed the number Ms. Henning had provided.
She sounded very nice, and especially excited to have somebody replying to her Craigslist ad, as she’d never used it before. She told me her address, which was not too far from where I was going (albeit a little to the north), and reaffirmed her assertion that I would need to pay by check. I agreed to the terms and told her I’d be there in a half hour or so.
As I was hanging up with Judy, my screen lit up with an incoming call. It was Scotty.
“Scottyyy. What’s up, man?”
“Not too much,” he replied. “Did you get an email back about the projector yet?”
“Yeah, I actually just got off the phone with her. Heading out there after I grab a check at the bank. Why?”
“Not just stopping at home?”
“I’m out of checks.”
“Oh,” he said. Then, after a beat, “I didn’t get to ask you while you were at my place, but, well,” he hesitated.
“Well?” I echoed.
“Did you hear about that shit that went down at the pawn shop near your place?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“And the stuff that’s come out after it? The surveillance tapes?”
“Yeah, just read about that this morning.”
“Dude, what the fuck? The tape is up on Channel 8’s website right now. It’s surreal. And even if I wanted to believe the cops altered this tape to cover for a buddy, the dude would have had to be a super hero to toss around a grown man like a ragdoll like that. You gotta see it.”
My jaw tingled with the urge to just say it. Just get it out there. Get it out in the open, because it was just too much to deal with and keep inside at the same time.
And then, to my own surprise, I did it.
“Yeah, Scotty. I’m trying to kill the fucking thing,” I said, flatly.
“I KNEW IT,” Scotty yelled into his phone, peaking out my phone’s thin speaker like a distorted cacophony of crashing cymbals.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Dude,” he continued, nearly exasperated, “I knew it. Mirrors and grow lights. I knew you were up to something. Whatever it is, you gotta let me help you.”
“C’mon, Scotty, no.”
“No, come on, man, you gotta.”
“What are you even going to do?”
“Help you. In any way that I can.”
“You helped enough. I have your lights.”
“But I’ve got ideas, man.”
“I’ve got it figured out, Scotty. It’s good. It’s fine.”
“Jon, just hear me out.”
“I’ve got it figured out,” I persisted.
“Buy a second projector.”
“What?”
“Buy a second projector,” he repeated. “And meet me at Travis’s.”
I sputtered. “I—fu—what? Goddammit, Scotty.” Then, after a moment, said, “Fine. But bring a 2nd six-pack. I’m going to have to tell you the whole story there.”
“Roger THAT, homie!” he replied, in the affirmative.
“I’ll be there in an hour or so,” I said.
“Right on,” Scotty said, and I hung up.