In Hands Not The Mind

“Come look at this,” she said. “It’s just over this ridge, down the hill where the old fort used to be.”

“The old fort,” he raised incredulously. “I’ll be a week older by the time we get there; why did I let you take me for a quote unquote walk? My pits are staining and my aorta is straining here. “

“Walter, walk, just walk Walter. We’re almost there.”

“Are we, are we almost there? Because it feels like I’m still walking.”

“SHUT UP!...and look, down there.”

“Whoa,” he floated in awe of the sight down the hill. “Is that?...”

“It ain’t Wendell Wilkie Walter."

“It, it’s beautiful. An oasis of junk in a perfect portrait of flora and fauna. Trees schmrees.”

A junkyard lay below them. Walter loved junkyards. Got misty just lookin’ at em.

“Here’s the thing though,” she said, “this thing is secured like the Louvre.”

Walter jerked his head around at warp speed to glare at her. “You bring me here and expect me to just look at all this. This ain’t a portrait of Sir McSire of the Sires of the realm; this stuff needs to be touched and manipulated and held and tinkered with. The progress of man is in hands not the mind. If you say forced dichotomy I will punch you in the brain and ask you how your mind feels.”

“Would you just take it easy Walter. I didn’t say one word about just looking or the progress of man or your parents forcing your lobotomy; I merely said the place is secure. Open. Your. Fucking. Ears. Tinker with em with your fucking hands if you have to but open those god damn things up. Shit Walter.”

“Sorry, I just see so much junk. Me want… me need. There’s auto junk there’s industrial junk, there’s atuo-industrial junk. And soooo much rust. If I had some WD-40 right now…”

“Whoa whoa whoa, I did not come out here to watch you get hot and heavy and talk about rust lubricant. What’s the plan and what’s my cut?”

“The plan depends on your cut.”

“Contingencies are a slippery slope to relativism Walter and you don’t want to be a relativist do you? You want lines and demarcations Walter. Black. And. White Walter.

Walter took his eyes from the junk to glare at her. “I think you may have forgotten your order in the pecking.”

“Do I look like fowl to you? There’s money down there Walter and you know you need me to get it. Stop wasting time; I hate wasting time! You wanna haggle then set a price and we’ll haggle but I don’t have time for contingencies and evolved social behaviors of fucking chickens.”

She cut her rant to breathe heavily and wait for his retort.

“It’s not just chickens but I get your point.”

He began scanning the yard in earnest and mumbling about acreage, entry points, and god damn pit bulls.

“You get the first stakeout.”