Ghosts Past and Present – Episode #5

December 8, 2009 on 2:04 pm | In Mountain Biking | 3 Comments

I’d wielded the chainsaw like a gentle scalpel. When Lipton asked for a turn, I figured he’d do the same.

Wrong.

He threw the chain on a clavicle, and it took us several minutes to get it back on (The chain, not the clavicle). Then he really got carried away. The chain was sharp, the saw was running hot, and he buzzed off Patterson’s left ankle in nothing flat. 

“Patterson has a bad foot. I thought I’d take care of that for him.”

Patterson also had a bad knee, so that was next to go. After Lipton had eliminated all of Patterson’s defective parts, very little of Patterson remained.

We hadn’t really meant to kill him – just torture him a little. There was nothing illegal or immoral about that. I’ve read the Guantanamo Manual for Humane But Marginally Sadistic Treatment of Those Suspected of Crimes Who Won’t Talk and Need Some Persuasion in Order to Divulge Information So That We Can Ensure the Greater Good. It was very clear about situations like this.

The recovery of the cups was the greater good. Patterson wouldn’t talk. Thus, we were forced to resort to extreme measures. Unfortunately, because of Patterson’s stubborness and Lipton’s ineptitude with the chainsaw, things had gone slightly awry.

Now we were sitting in the garage, trying to decide what to do next.

“I’d feel better if I had a beer,” Lipton said, ”preferably a big porter with at least 9 percent ABV. Without one, I might start losing control of my emotions.”

I had a Black Butte XXI aging in my refrigerator. Lipton knew it. I went downstairs and came back with the XXI and two glasses.

When we’d  finished the XXI, we got started with the clean-up. Because Lipton had experience as a high school custodian he’d dealt with messes like this in the past, so he agreed to bag up the larger pieces.

We got everything into a couple of big garbage bags and tossed in the plastic sheeting. I hosed the rest of Patterson out onto the driveway. It was starting to rain, so I was hopeful that everything would be washed clean by morning.

We buried the bags in an undisclosed location, then Lipton drove us back to the whitebread Terry-Taylor neighborhood. We parked at Lipton’s and walked over to Patterson’s.

It was well after midnight and the neighborhood was deader than Patterson. The residents had sucked down their warm milk and racheted off their evening push-up. Things wouldn’t heat up at the senior center until around 10 a.m., so we had all the time we needed.

We walked up the front walk and I tried the door. It opened. Patterson had been so excited about getting a shot at the Ace of Spades Imperial IPA that he hadn’t locked up.

Lipton and I spent the next two hours looking for the cups. We checked under Patterson’s pile of Readers Digests, looked behind his incredible array of painting supplies, even searched the bike pack that hung on the handlebar of the classic Schwinn Moab that hadn’t been ridden since  the Clinton administration.

Nothing.

“Patterson was more clever than I gave him credit for,” I said.

“That’s not possible,” Lipton said. “We must be overlooking something.”

We decided not to push our luck. I found the keys to Patterson’s beaten down SUV – the Love Machine – and we headed out. We dumped the Love Machine – again in an undisclosed location – and drove back to Lipton’s. If anyone asked, Lipton would say that Patterson had told him he was heading to the Oregon coast for a couple of days.

“I’m starting to feel better,” Lipton said. “I just realized that I’ll be able to get rid of the cheesey holiday decorations Patterson has been storing at my house all these years. I might have room to put in a pool table.”

“See what happens when you rely on the power of positive thinking?”

We decided to make it a Souther Tier evening. We’d finished a Gemini Imperial Blended Ale and an Unearthly Imperial IPA. I was trying to talk Lipton into popping a rare Back Burner Imperial Barley Wine, and he was trying to come up with a reason not to.

My cell buzzed. Someone had left a message. I opened the attachment, stared at the photo, and turned to Lipton.

“I think we may have a problem.”