This is the perfect romance because it has all the elements of what a perfect romance should have. It is funny. The two lovers have to overcome obstacles together. There are pirates. There is apparent death. There is a happy ending. Hope you like it!
Wayne Oofster ordered his usual drink at the local bar. The bartender, noticing Wayne looked blue, asked what was the matter.
“I just found out I have been diagnosed with a brain cloud and only have a month to live.”
The bartender was a little shocked to hear that type of news from one of his best customers, but the look on Wayne Oofster’s face told him that it must not be good. He placed the small Dirty Shirley in front Wayne, “It’s on the house.” Then he walked away to tend to two hot college chicks who had just seated themselves at the end of the bar.
Wayne watched as the two girls flirted with the bartender while the old man enjoyed every minute of it. Wayne tried to drown his sorrows in his fruity cocktail drink and listen to the loud music playing in the background. It was some country western song about some guy wanting his girl to love him like his dog does. Yeah, he definitely picked the right bar to hang out in. Then the miracle occurred. The jukebox switched to a more mellow song. Wayne Oofster recognized the lyrics “Live Like You Were Dying”. That’s it! He had always wanted to see the country yet had never had the time to travel because of his work at the peanut butter factory.
He chugged his drink and told the bartender thanks. He had always wanted to see the world’s largest frying pan and the town dedicated to the Andy Griffith Show in North Carolina and what with his fatal diagnosis and all, now seemed like the time.
When he opened the door to his modest farmhouse, Lola, his faithful old black lab, greeted him at the door with a bark. “Want to go on a road trip, Lola?” She responded with yet another bark.
He packed his bag and jumped into his 1973 farm truck and hit the road.
His son had given him a cell phone for Christmas last year and, after thinking for a few moments, Wayne had placed it in the cup holder of the car and turned it on. The thing had only been turned on once since he had received it and that had been the time his son had attempted to show him how to make a call. His son, Robert, lived in LA and carried anywhere from 3 to 5 of the stupid things at any given time. No sooner than Wayne had pulled out of his driveway did the cellphone begin vibrating as if possessed and screeching. He flipped it open and mashed buttons until something happened.
“Hullo?”
“Dad. Finally. Have you left yet?” Robert sounded exasperated.
Wayne reported that he was just leaving the house but the words were barely able to leave his mouth before Richard launched into a diatribe in which he explained that his mother (Wayne’s ex-wife) was considering leaving her new husband (the man she had left Wayne for) because she thought he was a ‘low-life’ and he was already asking to borrow money from her. Apparently she (Susan, to be specific) had stated that she needed to talk to Wayne, immediately. She wanted him back. Wayne pulled the phone from his ear and mashed buttons until it fell into darkness and silence. There was the thought of disabling it with a pistol.
As he drove Wayne considered his life since Susan had left him. They had been at their high school reunion when he received the bad news. She had gone off with Tommy Smith, her old high school flame, in his convertible and come back with rumpled hair and a flush in her cheeks. He knew it was over. After they had split and she had sold their old farmhouse he had floated into a brief affair with a waitress from the local diner named Babette. Babette had tired blonde hair and always wore a pink sparkly cross around her neck. Babette had made him feel 20 years younger for about two weeks and then it had just begun to feel exhausting. He thought it ironic that his relationship with Babette represented the consummation of 45 years of unfulfilled yearnings and he finally realized all he really wanted was lunch.
Anyway, Susan ran off with Tommy Smith and Babette was too much and now he was alone in the car with the only woman he had ever truly loved – Lola. She stared out the window at the scenery and didn’t complain. Once, Susan had told him she would leave him if he continued to eat burgers. She ate yogurt and would threaten Lola with spoonfuls and Lola would growl and leave the room. Susan wasn’t here anymore, though, and Lola didn’t mind if he ate burgers three times a day. Wayne was about fifty miles outside of Minneapolis when the old truck started making incredibly alarming cat noises. MEEEOOOOWWWWW. He slowed down a little and the sound went away. When he thought the sound had completely stopped, he sped up again. MEEEOOOOWWWW. This was just what he needed. He was dying and trying to see the world while his old ford was apparently transforming into a creature of the feline-ish persuasion. As luck would have it, there was a small little local shop on the side of the road a few hundred feet ahead. It wasn’t much, but it had a licensed mechanic and root beer floats.
“Alright, Lola, let’s get rid of this damn cat racket so we can get on the road.” Lola hopped out of the car with her tongue lolling out of her mouth. Lola was Wayne Oofster’s best and only girl and they had spent every day together since the day he found her outside the peanut butter factory. She was stray and hungry and had been searching for left over peanuts to eat. Wayne hadn’t had a dog since his old coon hound died 4 or 5 years back so he took the scruffy little pup home and had cared for her ever since.
The mechanic’s shop was empty. The only furniture in the waiting room was a small child’s rocking chair that was sure to splinter into a thousand very dangerous pieces under the pressure of adult weight. The sign for the root-beer floats was the only thing that was painted and, as it was brown, it didn’t add too much color to the room.
“I’ll be with ya in a second,” yelled a woman in the back.
Wayne stood there, waiting for a few minutes and contemplating the dirty white walls and filthy cement floor. Finally, the woman walked up behind the counter. She was gorgeous! She had straight teeth and wore a pair of blue jeans with flattering, well-earned, holes in them. She had a tank top on that resembled dirty dishwater although it was clear that it had, at one point, been white. It was casual, yet it showed just enough cleavage to keep Wayne Oofster interested.
“How kin I help ya’?” She asked.
“My car seems to be making a noise,” he responded, feeling a little embarrassed, “something like a ‘MEEEEEEEEEEEEOW.’
Lola and Wayne followed her to his car where she popped the hood and stood over the engine for a few minutes while making reassuring noises. “Hmmmm”. “Oh, yeahhhh”. “Interesting”. “I see”. Then she turned to him and said, “I know exactly what yer prob’em is, sir. You have a small hello kitty bobble head stuck to your thermostat. Every time you reach a certain temperature, the dadgum contraption goes off.”
Wayne Oofster was extremely happy to hear that it wasn’t anything too major.
Although he was a little embarrassed that his hello kitty obsession had been discovered, he was grateful for the womans unassuming demeanor. She introduced herself as Glenda.
“I can fix this here problem, but it will take about a week for the parts to come in,” she said. “I’ve got a spare bed out in the maintenance shed, you can stay there. It’s at least 6 hours to the nearest motel.”
Wayne tried to conceal his joy.
Glenda had successfully caught Wayne Oofster’s eye. She was tall, but not too tall. She wasn’t skinny and her curves hugged her in all the right places. Her supple body gave off the strong odor of gasoline, the preferred perfume for any man. Wayne knew that this was something big. But now, he had to make her feel the same about him, as his softness was overwhelming compared to the fierce lioness next to him.
Wayne made himself comfortable in the bed behind the shack and eventually made his way to Glenda’s house for the dinner she had invited him to. He was surprised that she lived by herself in such a remote place and was eager to get to know her story. He licked his fingers and smoothed his eyebrows, rubbed some dirt into his hands to look tougher, and rolled up one sleeve to place his recently purchased pack of Marlboro Lights in.
Upon his arrival, Glenda asked him to wash his hands and asked him not to smoke inside her house, “a disgusting habit!” He then moped around the house with his tail between his legs. Glenda was never going to think of him as a real man!
They ate leftover fried chicken.
Wayne tried to get to know Glenda, but she was quite apt at dodging the personal questions, and by the end of the evening, all he had gotten out of the deal was some cold chicken and a few tequila shots. Glenda was proving to be a challenge to impress and to get to know. Some woman! Wayne grumbled on his way back to the shack. Not even so much as a hint towards her marital status. How was he supposed to know if she was up for grabs, or some man’s slice of pie?
It was exactly this idea about women that Glenda perceived in Wayne, and the exact reason she had decided to avoid personal questions. She knew that if he knew she was single, he would come at her like dog in heat. Speaking of dogs, Lola did seem like a fine lady, and perhaps if that dog loved Wayne so much, maybe he wasn’t as much of an old-fashioned misogynistic prick. Glenda had a good feeling about Wayne, but she knew that he needed to be taught a thing or two.
Wayne awoke to a sharp knock on the door, which felt like minutes after he had finally fallen asleep.
“Wayne! Wayne! It’s Glenda! Put on some pants and come out here!”
What the hell, Wayne grumbled, as he was pulling on his khaki slacks and buttoning his orange plaid shirt. He opened the door to Glenda and almost lost what little composure he had. She was dressed in all black leather, except for the tight jeans underneath her taut leather chaps. She had a leather jacket, outfitted with a logo Wayne couldn’t read in the faint morning light, and diamond buttons. He stared.
“Come on Wayne. Something’s been stolen and we’ve got to get it back.”
Again, without the personal details, Wayne thought.
“And since your car is in my shop, you’re just gonna have to hold, as we cruise my old motor hog down to Sturgis.”
What a way to see the country, Wayne pondered as he clung tightly to Glenda’s svelte waist.
They were cruising down interstate 35, setting a fast pace towards South Dakota, when Glenda pulled off the interstate and got onto this little dusty back road.
“Where are we headed Glenda?” Wayne asked a little nervously.
“Well we need to get some gas and I decided its high time for us to get some grub into our bellies. Now you see this here road leads on up to this teensy weensy town known as “Dead Dry Gulch”. It didn’t used to be called that but once the crick dried up and all o’ the cattle died from lack of hydration, well, there weren’t no other name worth callin’ it. Not to mention everyone just plum forgot it’s real name. So as I was saying, I’m hungry and I know about this greasy old joint that serves the best fried pork chops you can get this side of the Mississippi.”
Pork chops did sound delicious, Wayne thought, but “Dead Dry Gulch”? Seriously, who would name a town that? It just didn’t sound like a safe place to look for gas or food.
“Are you sure this is a safe place to look for gas and food?”
“Of course I’m sure, plus who ever said this trip was gonna be safe? We are on a hunt for that thing someone stole so nothin’ is gonna be safe for us, nothin’! Ya hear!?”
Good lord! What is it with this woman and her ambiguity?
“Speaking of “that thing” and that “someone”, what are we trying to recover from this so called thief?
“Now Wayne, if I told you that I just don’t think I could trust you to stick with me on this little, shall we say, quest that we have embarked upon and I really need an ally for later on when we encounter the bad guy.”
Good grief, Wayne thought, if only I could get some sense out of this blasted woman.
When Wayne finally stopped pondering the reason for their quest he realized that Glenda had stopped the dusty Harley on the side of the road and was busily looking at the exhaust pipe, from which copious amounts of steam appeared to be issuing.
“What’s going on Glenda?” Wayne asked worriedly.
“Well you see this thing-a-majig? It don’t work no more. Jeez, if only I had taken this darned thing into the shop for a quick tune-up before we had left. Oh well, Wayne we are just going to have to walk.”
Glenda got up gracefully from the ground and glanced at Wayne to see his reaction to her words. Wayne looked stunned. Completely flabbergasted. His face had turned a ghastly shade of red and a little vein near the corner of his left eye was pulsating, threatening to burst with every throb. And in the instant Glenda saw poor Wayne’s face, she realized she was in love.
Plodding down the road feeling very regretful and downhearted, Wayne kept thinking about the odd little choked up feeling he had had when Glenda had looked at him. Her gaze had softened as it scanned his face and she had become, in that moment, a truly beautiful woman. Wayne’s heart felt a little tighter and his palms were getting sweaty as he thought about how much he wanted to kiss Glenda. With the moon shining on her hair and the gentle gleam of her skin, he could think of nothing else. Nothing, that is, until he heard the sharp sound of a “YeeeeeeHaaaaaaaw” and the crack of a whip against his backside.
“Dang nabbit!” Shouted Glenda. “ It’s the Gloopy Gloppy Mud Band from Dead Dry Gulch. I knew I shoulda paid for those pork chops last time I was here! Run, Wayne, Run!”
“Okay, firstly Glenda, how can they be the Gloopy Gloppy Mud Band if there is no water in Dead Dry Gulch? And second, where am I supposed to run to?!?”
“Shoot I forgot they changed their name, they are now known as the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and all I can tell you is to run, just run as fast as you can, ‘cus if they catch you, well there is no sayin’ what kind of horrors they will inflict upon the both of us.”
Running as fast as they could, Glenda and Wayne tried desperately to escape their would be captors, but to no avail. In the end, the band of desperado cowboys caught the couple with their backs up against a tree.
“Hey Glenda, long time no see.” said the leader of the band. “We’ve been waiting for you. We knew you couldn’t withstand those nasty pork chop cravings you get and that it was only a matter of time before you back on our turf. Tie them up boys and make sure those knots are tight, we don’t want this little puddin’ cup escaping again.”
While the rogues were tying up Glenda she tricked one of them into getting real close to her face by pretending she wanted to tell him something. When the man got so close to Glenda’s face that she could have kissed him, she leaned forward and chomped down hard on his nose. So hard in fact that when she finally let go a little piece of his nose fell off of his face and onto the dirt between them. Well of course this little act of violence caused a huge ruckus and with all of the mayhem ensuing, no one noticed when Glenda whispered “run” to Wayne and when he then proceeded to sneak away into the night.
Wayne ran quietly off into the darkness, never pausing to think of what was happening to Glenda because he knew if he did, he would lose all courage to continue on.
Days and days passed. Wayne decided that it was safer if he slept during the day and then continued on with his arduous journey under the cover of night fall, but this style of travelling was taking its toll on his aged body and he was feeling more and more exhausted. Finally, one evening he came upon an all-night diner and feeling he could go no further without first nourishing his body, decided to rest a while and enjoy a semi-warm cup of stale burned coffee as much as any sane human being can. He stepped through the door.
“Welcome to Charlie’s Diner! My name is Meg and I am here to help you!” said an overly enthusiastic young woman with far too much hairspray in her poor, wilting bouffant.
“Can I just get a cup of joe, please?” Five seconds later the aforementioned coffee was deposited in front of Wayne and he was busy loading it with sugar when a glimmer of gold caught his eye. Taking his mind off of Glenda and the nasty coffee for a moment, Wayne realized that the shiny gold thing he had seen was a hat. A gold hat. And not just a gold hat, which was amazing in and of itself, but a gold umbrella hat.
“You look like a man who has traveled many miles.” The owner of the hat caught him staring. “Pretty flashy hat, isn’t it?” Wayne just nodded and bent over his coffee. He wasn’t in the mood to talk. Fortunately for Wayne, Umbrella-hat man was. The gold-wearing man walked over and shifted his ample weight into the stool next to Wayne. “I know it’s a peculiar piece of head gear” he conceded, caressing the brim lovingly. “And in fact, it’s a rather peculiar story. You see, in the folly of my youth I invested in peanut farming to support my real ambition: tight rope walking. While the latter was my real dream, the peanut factories began to really take off and eventually grew to monopolize the entire peanut making industry! Well, I had finally had enough money to pursue my ambition, so one day I loaded up my beautiful wife and our young son in our Izuzu and drove to the two highest buildings in the state. We wrapped the wires taut at the top and I was just beginning my walk across with my customary gold umbrella in one hand and my young son on my back when a mighty gale force wind brewed out of depths of the plains and swept the infant from the safety of my back! Thinking quickly, I threw out the golden umbrella to the child and screamed “play paddy cake!!” and the boy held out his hand obediently, bless him, and grasped that golden handle. I watched, helpless, as my only son and heir to the peanut butter factory floated out over the buildings and out of sight, safe but beyond my grasp. Now I wear this hat always, as a sole beacon of hope in my dark search for my child. Have you seen him? Do you know anything of my golden umbrella boy?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t.” Wayne said. “But I’ve lost someone of my own, someone very important to me. I’d be happy to help you find your son if you would only help me get back my Glenda.” And he explained the whole long story to Umbrella-hat man.
“I will help.” Umbrella-hat said. At that moment, Lola the black lab burst through the doors of the café, panting and exhausted and more than a little miffed at being left behind. With much tail slapping and joyous barks, the loyal companion bounded to Wayne’s side. The three set out together to make the long drive back to Dead Dry Gulch in Umbrella-hat’s gold Izuzu.
They followed Lola’s excellent nose to the lair of the Nitty Gritty Dirtband (though human noses would have sufficed as the smell was somewhat pungent). As the three companions crawled on their bellies through the sagebrush, Wayne caught a glimpse of Glenda’s hair floating like a halo around the golden sheen of her shoulders. Her hands were cruelly bound behind her. The band’s leader, No Good Saul, was sitting back on his haunches, carving into a prickly pear with a bowie knife and flicking the spines at her.
“Now, listen up puddin cup. I know you know where it is. Just tell me and we’ll let you ride off into that pretty little sunset, off scotch free.” Glenda responding by hucking an enormous filmy logy into his mustache. He flicked the spit off his foomanchu and glared at her, dark unruly brow drawn into point above his nose. “That’s it, sex kitten. We’re gonna have to resort to unpleasant measures, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down. That wasn’t very ladylike.” And he stood up and pressed the bowie knife to her jugular.
“Well, that’s alright, cause I ain’t much like a lady.” Glenda replied, and at that Wayne felt his heart swell almost to bursting. He didn’t even notice the clamminess of his hands as an inhuman cry boiled out his mouth. Flinging himself out from behind the sagebrush, he snatched a doo rag from Glenda’s back pocket. Any other time he would have nearly fainted from being so close to touching that tush of perfect proportions, but Wayne Oofster was a man of focus at the moment. “Sick em Lola!” He cried, and wrapped the doo rag around the offender’s neck as Lola went for the vulnerable spot in the man’s crotch less leather chaps. No Good Saul dispensed of, Wayne cut Glenda free with the bowie knife that almost took her life, but there was no time to even embrace. The rest of the Nitty Gritty Dirt band was as stirred up as a hornet’s nest in August heat.
“There’s no way out of this, Sweet Thang. Just tell us where you hid the Golden Umbrella and we won’t bury yall up to your neck in an ant pile.” One member held out a jar of honey and grinned toothlessly.
“Did you say golden umbrella?” Umbrella-hat man popped up from behind the sagebrush. The band’s attention turned to that peculiar golden hat, and Glenda grabbed the nearest can of gasoline and threw it on the fire. Wayne grabbed the nearest motorcycle, and with Glenda sitting behind and Umbrella-hat and Lola in the sidecar, he rode away from the smoldering camp and out of Dead Dry Gulch.
Glenda’s hands are around my waist…he thought. Glenda’s hands…he breathed in deep her smell of gasoline and grinned sheepishly. “So…Glenda…I just…I’ve been thinking. And there’s…ahhhh. Something I want to…uhm. To uhm. To…”
One moonlight colored hand removed itself from his face and drifted in front of him, pointing. “If you don’t go over 45 mph right now, I’m driving.”
“Did you say you know of a golden umbrella?” Umbrella-hat man asked eagerly, his peculiar hat bouncing in the wind.
“Yeah, I found it when I was a young’n. It just drifted in one day when I was out in the yard, tinkerin with an old diesel tractor. And when I bit it, I knew it was real gold. Unfortunately, my pa’s got a mouth on im when he’s liquored, so most of Dead Dry Gulch knew it too. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s been after my golden umbrella for quite some time, but I’ve got it hid pretty well.”
“Was there a boy, by chance, attached to said umbrella?” The man asked eagerly, leaning in. Wayne tried to ease the bike over 60, but his hands were shaking. There was something on the corner of his memory…
“No, but there was some crude writing scratched into the gold. Some second owner. It said, property of Nells Oofster. But I figured if you let your gold umbrella get away, then you didn’t deserve to have one anyhow. Finders keepers.”
“That’s my dad’s name.” Wayne said. “My dad is Nells Oofster.”
The umbrella man gave a soft cry. Then he leaned in close and studied Wayne’s face in profile intently. Wayne swallowed and tried not to crash the bike. He was going 65 mph.
“That’s it. You have your mother’s eyes. My son.” He cried out and embraced Wayne on the bike, and at that Wayne had to pull over and hug him back.
“Don’t get too excited.” He kept trying to say. His mouth seemed numb. “I have a tumor, I have a brain tumor. I’m really sorry, you’re going to lose your son again.” He couldn’t look at Glenda.
“No, no, no.” The man said. “You’ll be fine. It runs in the family. We’re healthy, but we have abnormal looking brains.” He tossed his hat into the air and embraced Wayne again. “You kept your promise. You did help me find my son.”
After the long exchanging of stories between long lost father and son, Wayne left his dad at the fire with Lola to walk in the sage with Glenda. He couldn’t seem to meet her eyes, but when he did her face was blazing. He felt a cool hand slip into his, and he looked up. He didn’t know what to say.
“But where is the umbrella hid?” Wayne asked finally. She was impossibly close. He could count the individual freckles on the bridge of her nose.
“Silly Oofster,” she said. “You don’t need to know the answer.” And after that, his mouth was too busy to do any more questioning.
