We Buy Souls $5

Bubba and I have a “safety meeting” from 2:45-3:30 every weekday in the extensive, sprawling, cluttered shop behind his house.

Today, after talking mining and orogenesis for a while, Bubba pulls a new 750ml bottle of Jack Daniels from a cabinet above a bank of overflowing, oversized toolboxes. He must have fifty varieties of every tool known to man. Bennies of running a pawnshop, I guess.

He pours us a shot each in the dirty glasses that are always on his disorganized workbench. We toast absent friends, then down our shots.

He wipes the back of a hand across his lips, then says, “A chick, real pretty girl, came in the pawn shop today wanting to buy her soul back. I told her she couldn’t buy it back.”

“She said, ‘But it’s been five years, Bubba! I swear to you I’ve changed. Please, dude. I deserve my soul back. I’m a good person.’”

I’m flabbergasted. I saw the sign in the pawnshop, “We Buy Souls”, but I thought it was a joke!

Bubba says, “I think she was sincere.”

“Why do you think you deserve your soul back?” he said he asked her.

“I... I... don’t know how to tell you!”

“How about this,” he told her, “Go home, think about what you want to say, then make a video convincing me you deserve your soul back.”

“I will!”

Bubba says, “She was all excited. If she convinces me, it will be the first time I’ve ever returned a soul.”

“How much is a soul worth?” I ask him.

He grins. “Five dollars.”

“What the hell?” I laugh. “Who sells their soul for five bucks?”

“Seventy-four people so far.”

“What???”

“Yeah. They sign a contract.”

He goes on to tell me some of the stipulations in the contract. Crazy stuff, like ‘If you, your heirs, your family, your friends, your assignees, or designees ever hassle me about your soul, I have the right to sell your bodily organs,’ and ‘Souls cannot be redeemed, purchased, bartered, or traded for cash or material goods.’

I’m laughing even harder, now.

Straight-faced, he continues, “I keep the contracts in a folder marked ‘SOULS’. It’s in the top drawer of the file cabinet. When people don’t really believe I buy souls, I show them the folder and say, ‘They’re right in here!’”

Looking deadly serious, he adds, “Most likely, I’ll take better care of them than the previous owners would have.”

Bubba pours us another shot. We drink to Goober, his Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy. Goober has been in the hospital for a week with parvo and came home today. $1300.

That dog better be a stud!

Eventually, I ask Bubba, “Gotten any good stories out of this soul buying business?”

He nods and says, “Yeah, even video.”

He lights a Camel and adds to the shop’s funky atmosphere, then continues, “One time, on Good Friday, a guy came in and sold me his soul, then he went home to get his dad to witness the contract, just to make sure it would be valid.”

I chuckle at that one. My estimation of Bubba just went up a notch. This is one of the best stories I’ve ever heard. But it’s not over.

He says, “You know that climber guy, Randy? The one that lived in a bus on BLM land south of Box Canyon?”

I do know him. Used to be a physicist or some such. Born with a climbing gear, like a cat, like me. I nod and say, “Yeah.”

Bubba leans back on his Craftsman Tools stool, exhales a series of perfect smoke rings, then says, “Randy came in one winter, flat busted broke. He hadn’t eaten in three days. I bought his soul so he could get some grub.”

Back in those days, Randy lived off the grid and on whatever he could scrape up. He would think $5 for something worth nothing was a bargain in anybody’s book.

I say, “I think you got taken on that one, bro.”

Bubba studies the glowing coal of his cigarette for a second, shrugs, then continues, “He hasn’t been back for it. He’s pretty cool. I see all his photos on Facebook.”

He sighs, then adds, “He’s gonna fall off a cliff some day.”

Bubba takes a big hit off his Camel, stubs it out in a black iron skillet, blows out a huge cloud of blue smoke right in Goober's face cause the pup is being a very large little nuisance.

Squinting through the smoke cloud, he gets back to his story, “Another guy came in and sold his soul, then told his parents. They came down and demanded the soul contract back. I said no. If the kid wanted it back, he’d have to come get it himself. They offered me crazy money. Nope. They threatened me. Nope. I still wouldn’t give back the contract.”

Bubba grins at me. “That happens a lot. Kinda funny since the shop is just a block from the Catholic Church.”

I’m laughing so hard I can’t breathe. I gasp out, “Bubba, you’re SATAN!”

No wonder he likes fires and fireworks and firearms and has so many forges and furnaces, kilns and ovens, welders and torches scattered about his shed and yard.

Bubba’s laughing, too, now.

Finally, I’m able to ask him, “Bro, do you have the souls of any dead people?”

He looks me in the eye and says, “Yeah, thirteen, and I’d like to ask them, ‘How’s that working out for you?’”

I nearly piss my jeans laughing.

Freaking Bubba. He'll either have his own army when he meets the devil in hell, or he'll tell St Peter at the Pearly Gates, "Have I got a deal for you!"

I hope the cute chick gets her soul back! How about you?