Hangin' Out With The Butcher

The Butcher is staying on the company dime at a lodge near our factory. He's got the same deal we had when we were in Spokane. Paid for rental car, fully furnished apartment with maid service, per diem per day, etc. The Butcher wanted to do some sight seeing in our county and he asked me if I'd drive him around the area for most of this past Saturday. I said sure thing. I liked the guy well enough even though I think he's a lousy technician since he manages to BBQ instruments and PC boards daily.

I drove over to the lodge he was staying at and was happy to chauffer him around all day in my '68 Cougar, but he insisted we take his rental car. He didn't seem to have any problem with my ride or anything. Instead I think he was trying to be overly polite and not burn up my gasoline or something. I shrugged and we took the rental car. He also insisted I drive which was kinda cool. I enjoy beating the shit out of rental cars. We headed out for the coastline, the wine country, and I took him to a few of the small towns in the area with dainty tourist trap establishments. The Butcher could pick up a few trinkets if he needed to burn a hole in his wallet. Everything was pleasant enough until we got back to his place after the roadtrip.

The Butcher invited me up to his room for a minute before I left because he said he had some stuff he wanted to "show me". The way he said it kinda made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I wanted to leave, but for some reason I followed him to his floor. When we entered his room I cringed. All sorts of stuff was going through my mind. Was he a closet gay man who was gonna make a pass at me? Maybe his ski-masked militia pals were hiding behind the door so they could jump me for spilling the beans on their plans to overthrow the government. I didn't know what to expect. He brought me over to his black attache case, which was laying on the edge of his bed. I stayed a good six feet away from him ready to bolt out the front door if he suddenly got all loopy on me.

At work I saw him bring that case in every damn day but he never opened it. I had no idea what was inside. I assumed it was filled with slide rulers and board schematics. At least I hoped it was. The Butcher opened up his case while I watched. He handled it as if the contents of that little attache was a timebomb about to explode. As he opened the case The Butcher told me there was some things he wanted me to read right away, to get the stuff back to him quickly, and not to tell anyone about it. The inside was jam-packed with papers. He shoved a fat stack of stuff at me and with much relief I grabbed them and left for home. Whew. That was another UFO music moment courtesy of a Spokane resident.

Back at home I thumbed through all this crap The Butcher had been saving. I laughed my ass off as I perused the headlines of each page. All of this junk he was so carefully guarding turned out to be nothing more than crudely photocopied underground newspapers. In his collection there were fliers for anti-government conspiracy theories and intrigues like alien coverups, the JFK assassination, and pamphlets about how evil the FBI is. Those were just a few of the common themes. Others were about how the U.S. government was actively trying to take away the private ownership of firearms, and nutty stuff about concentration camps for civilians that were being built in the desert by the Army. Twenty minutes later I put the paranoid paperwork in a pile under a heavy book and decided to hold onto it for a couple of days. That way The Butcher would have the illusion I might have actually read this garbage. I plan to have as little as possible to do with him until he leaves for home. He's even more of a wingnut than I anticipated.