Dead Cow in Aisle Three by H. Mel Malton

Author:H. Mel Malton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Published: 2001-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

And the winner is . . . ! Why not visit our engraving shop at Kountry Pantree, located right next to the bakery. Get your daily bread, and then pick up that trophy for your little league tournament! Why waste time downtown when you can get everything you need at Kountry Pantree?

—Another ad in the Laingford Gazette

A couple of hours before the council meeting, Aunt Susan’s League of Social Justice met for a final briefing at George’s place. I was not invited, and George had requested diplomatic immunity, so we decided to go together in the same vehicle. I offered to drive the farm truck, as George’s eyesight was deteriorating and his driving technique, while lawful, combined a firm determination not to go more than 40 km per hour, with a disturbing propensity for exploring the road conditions in the oncoming lane.

“So, do you actually know what they’re up to?” I asked as he climbed into the cab of the pickup.

“I have some idea,” George said, “but I have deliberately stayed out of it. Your Aunt believes that the fewer people who know, the better.”

“They’re not planning anything illegal, are they? No dynamite or anything?”

George chuckled. “They have a lot of papers, documents they have obtained from what Susan says is an inside source. That could be dynamite, maybe. But I don’t know.”

“Well, whatever happens, I just hope she doesn’t embarrass herself.”

“I think your Aunt is old enough not to worry about embarrassment,” George said, craning his neck as I inched the truck past the bumper of Emma Tempest’s purple van. The driveway looked like the parking lot of Downtown Business Folks’ Association (DBFA) meeting hall: every single vehicle was an advertisement on wheels. “Emma’s Posies are Bloomin’ Lovely” on the purple van, “Downtown Drugs: Your Family Drugstore” on Joseph Olszewski’s sedan, “Smile for the Shutterbug” on Stan Herman’s yellow Camry with the camera on the roof, “Go Crazy: It’s Pizza Madness” on Pete Holicky’s battered compact (with a license plate that said PIZA PIE), “Make Every night Movie Night at Homerun Video Den” squeezed onto the driver’s door of Florence Levine’s Tempo, and “Watson’s Old Fashioned Service” on the side of Archie Watson’s vintage panel van.

“If you are concerned about embarrassment,” George said, “perhaps it is your own that you are thinking of, no?” The wheel slipped in my hand, and I just slightly grazed the side of the pizza car. A faint noise accompanied the action, as if someone had just torn a small strip of velcro off a tin can.

“Holicky won’t notice,” I said. “It looks like he’s a regular at the Sikwan demolition derby already.”

“And my truck? I will not notice either?” George said. Normally, this kind of incident would have had me apologizing in fourteen different positions and offering to go to jail. I don’t know what was wrong with me. I sighed rather obviously and hopped out to examine the damage. George stayed where he was, gazing at me with a bemused expression on his face.

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