Underground lounges, chewing tobaccy, and extravaganzas...just another holiday here at The Compound!

Happy post-4th everybody! Hope you’re all well and still have your fingers and whatever other appendages attached. Never know when they’ll come in handy.

It was, to make a gross understatement, a weird and twisted weekend for those of us here at The Compound…well, for me anyway. So much happened that I’m not sure where to start.
We’ll go back to Friday, I suppose. Yeah, that’s it…start from the beginning…sort of. But then again friends, what is the beginning and where does it start? And, once you begin something, I suppose that means it has to end at some point.

I’m telling you, Francis Ford Coppola and Quentin Tarantino couldn’t possibly have directed on film anything more bizarre, savage, or strange than the Fourth of July Weekend here. Okay, maybe Stanley Kubrick…maybe. Sorry, I’m stalling…here it goes.

So, Friday, Cousin Fred found a combination hydrologist/engineer consult on the construction of a Lake Mountebank fed either by a spring or artesian well. The guy’s name is Felix and he’s in town to oversee the construction of a large pond on one of the ranches north of Cosmic City. That project is fairly straight forward, the landowner is planning to dam up one end of a canyon through which a stream runs.

Felix the Hydrologist/Engineer tells us that the project is going well, almost too well. He was able to skip right over the top of any regulators who may have objected to damming up a stream by stressing that the dam is actually a conservation effort to preserve the less-prairie chicken (a bird with reportedly atavistic breeding habits that no one has ever actually seen) and the variety of bats that live in caves north of here (flying mammals that no ever actually sees unless they actually go looking for them).

As I mentioned, we came into the acquaintance of Felix the Hydrologist/Engineer through Cousin Fred (of course). The two of them know one another from The Pukin’ Dog Lounge, one of the new underground drinking establishments out in the county west of town. I’ve not been there myself, but the place reportedly draws a crowd every night. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before the Sheriff’s Office, OHP and/or the ABLE police raid the joint and shut it down (after all, they know what’s best for us), but in the meantime patrons can continue to enjoy themselves. Our old friends, Wiley Piemore and the Prairie Dawgs is the house band so how bad could it be?

Anyway, Felix the Hydrologist/Engineer told us Friday that our best bet would be to drill a well and install a pump with a solar panel to power the entire operation. He had with him a number of charts and maps that he spread over the hood of his vehicle to show us that the location would likely mean that we would be tapping a major aquifer to fill Lake Mountebank.

He said that Cosmic City might have a problem with that since the city derives much of their drinking water from that aquifer. But then he also pointed out that the city is so tied up for cash that they wouldn’t likely be able to expend the fuel for someone from the Water Dept. to drive here to see what was going on and complain about it.
I told Felix the Hydrologist/Engineer that I would think about it. He’s supposed to be getting a formal proposal together for the project.

Saturday was actually pretty quiet. I saw Cousin Fred and Gigi the Hairdressing Hydrologist outside on the site that may soon once again become Lake Mountebank. They were examining the mostly buried bass boats that technically belong to the Brother-in-Law. I say technically because they’re been there buried for nearly a year now. I consider that abandoned property. I could see Cousin Fred kicking at the dirt around the hulls of the boats and nodding thoughtfully at Gigi who was on the phone with someone.

I cringed at the thought of what the two of them could be cooking up, but let it go. Cousin Fred told me later that he and Gigi were going to stage a very memorable “Fourth of July Holiday Extravaganza” and that I needed to invite family and friends out to watch.

Not being one to ever turn down a reason for a party agreed…without ever asking him what he meant by “Extravaganza.” That would only have taken the fun out of it. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

On Sunday morning, I awoke to the sound of a helicopter buzzing The Compound. I stumbled out onto the porch to find a large black helo landing out on the yard and several people unloading large boxes from inside. Cousin Fred was barking orders through a bullhorn, telling people to move the boxes back toward Hellkat One’s trailer and constantly telling them there would be “no skylarking on my work party.”

Once the boxes were unloaded, Cousin Fred directed most of the people over to the half-buried bass boats where they then took up shovels. In the meantime, the helo lifted off and moved in the direction of the boats. I saw a thick cable come down from inside the helo. The people on the ground attached the cable to lines they had rigged to the boats.

The helo began trying to lift the boats out of the ground! I thought I should go call the Brother-in-Law to let him know the news, but realized he wouldn’t be able to do anything anyway…he was over at Kaw Lake for the weekend. So, I sat down on the porch to watch the scene unfold.

As the helicopter struggled to pull the boats from the ground, the people assembled would run over and begin digging around the partially exposed hulls in an effort to free them. It worked, soon all three boats were back above ground.

I heard cackling that sounded like the Wife, but looking around I couldn’t see her. I stepped off the porch and looked on the roof to find her there in a chair that was straddling the roof peak. Next to her was a table, also straddling the peak, with an umbrella. Atop the table was a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and an old coffee can that she kept spitting in. Apparently, she’s gone from chain smoking filterless Pall-Malls to chewing a big wad of Mail Pouch tobaccy. Note to self, cut off the MLB channel.

Apparently, Cousin Fred noticed her too. He was walking toward me still speaking into the bullhorn. When I asked where all the people came from, he hollered through the bullhorn (he was now standing within six feet of me) that they were “fellow” patrons of The Pukin’ Dog Lounge. He said they were there to help with the holiday extravaganza. I was about to ask where the helo came from, but anticipating the question he responded, “Gigi arranged for that.”

More cackling from the rooftop.

What follows will go down in the annals of Compound history.

To be continued tomorrow…
 

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