Another day in Tortilla Flats RB part II

I headed to Bubba’s house for a “safety meeting” promptly at 2:45, like I do most weekdays. He’s usually there at 2:30, but unlike other visitors, I don’t dog him in the door. A man’s gotta eat and he’s married.

Bubba has Shitty Neighbors. Except for me. I live a block away. Good distance for an afternoon walk, always an interesting adventure.

I cross the street and go past the unkempt 2-bay, 2-man auto body shop on the corner. The same vehicles have been parked on the lot awaiting a paint job for more than seven years. Bubba has video of people coming over the lot fence at night with packs and satchels. When they leave, they’re empty handed.

The next day, somebody drives a vehicle in a bay and the door closes.

A few hours later, the door opens and the car drives off.

No obvious body work.

The body shop boys also wash and detail Socorro PD cars and Electricity Co-op vehicles.

So that’s why my freaking power bill went up!

WTH?

Lazy bastards.

On past the “Band”’s communal house. Well-fenced. Mean dogs. They can rock. Never bother anybody. Always turn it down by 10.

\,,/ Rock on gentlemen.

On past the lowest point in Socorro, a Miasmatic Swamp called Tortilla Flats when the aquifer is high, a ghostly, rustling, garbage ridden acre of cattail hell inhabited by feral cats and crows when it’s not.

Like now.

Down at the end of the street, five rough-looking Native dudes surround one wobbly, laughing, toothless old drunk Native chick and pass around a bottle of Dark Eyes vodka, a local Native favorite.

That Old Sister is about to get it nine ways from Sunday.

Good for her.

Everybody needs some Lovin’!

Word.

Porno for winos.

“Come and get your love… Come and get your love… Come and get your love…Come and get your love, come and get your love, come and get your love now…”

As the song dies, my very own personal imp pops into existence on my left shoulder.
I should've known.

Today she's a wicked little bitch in heels and spinner pasties, thrusting her hips at me, one finger stuck in the corner of her mouth, going in and out and in and out…
Another song gets stuck in my head as I hobble on and I know it's all her:

“Cause she’s playing all night. And the music’s all right. Mama got a squeeze box, daddy never sleeps at night.”

I growl at the imp. All she ever does is get me in trouble, especially the day after my testosterone shot.

She's not stupid. She drops it like it’s hot once, then poof, she’s gone.

I make a left before I get to the end of the street.
I can't watch anymore.

I am not and never have been a Gang-Banger.
A thug maybe, but I can always say the imp made me do it.

On past the grime-streaked trailer on the right where fat, sullen weirdos live, then by the JB Hunt semi-trailer off to the side in the diseased elms where furtive, paranoid, schizophrenic Zombies smoke meth, huff paint and Babel with God and the Devil.

Sometimes I can tell which.

It’s a Gift.

Well, except with the Dude who wears a home-made Aluminum Foil Helmet. I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. Maybe whomever it is he yells at knows.

I call them Crack People. Somehow, they all fell through the cracks in the mental health care system.

Nice Work New Mexico! I see it every day.

Bubba’s lot starts here ¼ of the way down the block, on the left side of the dirt road and extends all the way to *.* St. A 6-ft fence borders the property. It’s made of 2x6s on 4x4/2x4 frames backed by decaying, ¾” plywood on the inside and covered on the outside by discarded, bent, twisted, holey, oxide-streaked, metal roofing sheets.

Gunrunners, Drug Dealers and Scumbags live on the other side of him, across *.* Street (a very extended family), across the dirt side street, and in the duplex rental right behind. 600+ vehicles pass down *.* Street every day on the way downtown. Lots of foot traffic, bums and drunks mostly.

And more than a few of those Good Citizens have sold Bubba their Souls.

Let’s say he’s a Very Cautious Man.

Xena, his internet wife, grew up in a mountain province where half the people are Islamic Fundamentalist Jihadists, and the other half are Anti-Government Bandit Rebels.

Seriously.

She taught English as a second language back in the homeland. She’s also a devout Seventh Day Adventist.
Met Bubba playing games online. She's half his age, if that.

Go figure.

That’s why we hike in the mountains on Sundays, not Saturdays. She makes Bubba go to Church.

HAHAHAHA!
I wonder if he takes the 'Soul' file with him!

Now I’m at the corner. I negotiate a maze of dead vehicles, dead appliances, dead buckets, dead, overfilled garbage cans, stacks of dead tires, dead... parts, and assorted other dead junk that Bubba set up to discourage potential Spies, Burglars and other Assorted Lowlifes.

I arrive at the side gate, which I always have trouble opening. Bubba opens it for me. I know he saw me coming on a camera monitor. He’s got several.

I’m not all that stable on my feet, so getting past two happy-to-see-me Rhodesian Ridgebacks is hazardous. They’re like Freaking Bulldozers, though I’ve seen Sweet Pea jump six feet off the ground and snatch a bird out of the air.

She’s a Sweetheart, never barks before she bites.

Neighbors, Nosies and ‘Ntruders Beware.

I see Bubba has made some progress in clearing a 12-ft stack of solar panels and another of rusty metal shelving from a potential patio/bbq spot. Surplus metal bins of screws, bolts and nuts he bought at a local auction still take up a lot of space.

Three tons of it.

He’s already moved 3 grills and 3 smokers there. He probably has more, but I don’t care enough to go looking.

I’ll bet ten bucks the patio never gets finished.

Like the garden that gets planted every year, but never harvested.

Except for the ‘weeds’.

Bubba has amotivational syndrome, but we love him anyway. He was a student body officer for what? Five years?

Maybe a couple of times when he wasn’t even enrolled!

We head for the heavy 12 x 4 worktable that is always the center of shop activity.

Rock samples from our latest mine exploration in the mountains cover it, most of those high-quality green sphalerite (ZnS).

Two microscopes, a glass bottle of HCl, one of H2O2, another of lye are to my left, along with an assortment of various nut picks and jeweler’s tools.

A dozen half-finished stoneware pipe molds are stacked to my right along with 2 5-gal buckets of stoneware slip.

Various tools and instrumentation lie scattered everywhere.

This is the least clutter I’ve seen in a while.

Bubba finally heaves a sigh to get my attention. Two lines crease his forehead. He hasn’t smiled or even spoken. He usually does a lot of both, always on greeting.

He seems a bit morose and distracted... or something.

I push Goober hard enough to send him rolling like a barrel and fend off Sweet Pea long enough to sit in my favorite chair, the only one of a dozen I can tolerate.

Sitting ain’t really my thing.

“What’s biting your ass, dude?” I ask him.

He pokes out his bottom lip and rolls his eyes. “GD Cops, man. I’m always in Court, testifying as to who sold me what Stolen Property.”

He frowns down at his hunting boots. “I’m meticulous with my paperwork. I’ve got 8 cameras rolling at all times in the shop. I added those when somebody squirted Superglue in the keyhole of the shop’s front door lock.”

I nodded. “I remember. I had to pick up a new lock in Albuquerque.”

The glum look passed across his face. “The damn PD hates me!”

I snort out a laugh, then say, “Maybe it was them, our 10-term Hindu mayor’s own hand-picked Inglorious Basterds.”

I look him in his brown eyes. Brown cause he’s full o’shit. 
“What now?” I ask him.

“Twenty storage units got robbed,” he says. “I’m holding most of the loot.”

“How much are you gonna be out?”

His shoulders slump. “At least a grand, and you know that uv flashlight, that auto computer diagnostic box, all that other diagnostic equipment?”

I nod and say, “Came from those robberies.”

He scuffs a boot at another giant hairball on the pitted, dusty concrete floor. Sweet Pea and Goober are shedding.

“Yeah,” he says.

“So what’s up with the police?”

“Rocky came in. Accused me of being a fence.”

“Pfffft. He should be thanking you. You’ve got the ID of each and every person who sold you some of that loot.”

“And video,” he adds.

“Yeah. That accusation is bogus. Rocky is an asshole. Trust me. I know. He’s supposed to be our Neighborhood Watch Liaison Officer. I hear he’s snorted all the coke in the evidence room, sold all the high grade herb and just turned himself into rehab to avoid prosecution for some harassment bullshit.”

Bubba nods and points a finger at me. “Damn straight. You know what he did? He told all the victims to come identify their stuff. None of them had a police report or list of their stolen goods, no serial numbers, nothing.”

A fierce look crosses his face. “They were pointing out stuff that’s been in the shop for fifteen years. Some were calling their friends, then reading off the serial numbers of all kinds of stuff. The friend would say, ‘Yeah, that’s it!’”

He looks me in the eye. “Do they think I just fell off the turnip truck? They’re as bigga thieves as whoever robbed their storage sheds! All that stuff was probably stolen in the first place!”

No doubt.

I point a finger at him. “That seems more than likely. This is Socorro. Charles told me that after the Civil War Battle at Val Verde, the locals stripped even the tattered socks off dead and wounded soldiers of both sides, then just left them where they lay, naked in a cold Feb. rain.”

Bubba snorts and shakes his head. “Lovely people.”

He’s not from here either.

“Socorro hasn’t changed much in the intervening years," I say. "Strange for a town with a name that means, ‘Help in time of need’.”

I sigh and shake my head, then add, “Freaking Socorroans. They’ll steal the stray hairs out of your hair brush.”

He pours us a shot of Jack, part of the daily ritual. We drink to dearly departed friends, then have another cause it’s Thursday.

Bubba lights a Camel, takes a long drag, huffs it out, says, “I bought another Soul today. When I looked for a blank Contract, I couldn’t find one. Had to print some more.”

He slides off the stool and paces for a minute, then he says, “So the guy today got his father to witness. Turns out I already own his Soul, too. That makes a set, father and son. There has to be a bonus for that.”

His brow wrinkles. “I want that guy’s mother’s soul.”

He looks me in the eye and adds, “I don’t have enough juice to take on Satan, yet.”

I laugh. “Yet.”

Bubba gets all serious. “But I will. That Old Bastard better look out. I’m gonna own his Soul, too, some day.”

I have to wipe the tears outta my eyes. I say, “I can see the headlines now. ‘Coup Topples Satan. Pawn Shop Manager now in Charge of Hell.’”

Even Goober and Sweet Pea grin at that one.

Freaking Bubba.

I wonder if he owns Xena’s Soul?

He’s not getting mine.