NUCLEAR BLUES by Bradley K. Martin

Author:Bradley K. Martin [Martin, Bradley K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Great Leader Books

12 Can’t Dance

I picked up sandwiches from the Sunday brunch buffet in the dining hall and returned to my apartment to set about making the place habitable. Squatting on the wooden floor, I wielded a towel to wipe up bourbon and broken glass and dried blood. I heard footsteps and a shadow appeared on the wall. I grabbed the gore-caked remains of my weapon, turning and rising to a crouch so I could use it again on whoever had come for another crack at me.

“Easy, big guy.” Bartow Toombs, the bookish English professor, backed up and pushed his open palms in front of him. “Just wanted to know if the campus renegade Baptist got out of stir. I knew church wasn’t the place to look for you.”

“Oh, hey, Bart. Sorry, I’m a little shaky still. Probably could use a drink to settle down. Can I get you one? There’s plenty more where this bottle came from. Come on in. Just walk around this mess. Just don’t ask me what’s been going on around here. As I told the guards, it’s a mystery to me.”

“I could use a snort. I would’ve attended today’s monthly communion service in exchange for a few drops of sacramental wine, but I knew those teetotalers would serve grape juice instead.”

I chuckled as I poured for both of us. But there was no mistaking the troubled look on his face. Bad vibrations in the dining hall had made it clear that other faculty members were unhappy with Toombs, a worldly Episcopalian who made no effort to hide the fact he didn’t buy into the campus’s hyper-religiosity. With something of a start, I realized I might be cruising for similar problems. While I was too new to have earned a rap sheet as long as Bart’s, he wouldn’t be the only one who’d noticed my failure thus far to attend Sunday services. I replied: “Going through a rough patch?”

“For one thing, they want me out.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” This was worse than I’d imagined. I lifted my drink in a toast. “Here’s to your finding a new gig, pronto.” We clinked glasses. “Did they give you any reason?”

“Sable said they have a problem with my attitude. They’re not renewing my contract next year. They’ve already got a replacement lined up, a woman from Bob Jones University.”

“Bummer.”

“I can’t complain too much about getting canned. I don’t fit in with most of the faculty. The problem is, I need to start hunting for a job and I’m blocked from doing that.”

“You mean because of that emergencies-only rule for using Reverend Bob’s Internet and phone connections?”

“That, yeah. But I had a workaround in mind. I was hoping to take the long weekend that's coming up and fly to a civilized country with unlimited communications where I could hole up in a hotel room, do an online search and send some applications out. Now my passport’s missing. I can’t leave North Korea until I get a new one, and that’s going to be complicated.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.