Call Me E.

Call Me E.
all stories and essays by Sean Rein

On Assignment

So. During one of my semiannual meetings with my editor where I usually attempt to negotiate some sort of payment in return for all of my hard work for Whale Time, my jackass of an editor not only said I would not be getting any payment above the one beer he bought me, but I would get to go on an assignment for him.

Lucky me.

The pitch went something like this.

Editor: "Sean, A man named Jim Ortiz will pick you up at your house on Friday at 7 p.m. and drive you to Albert Lea to get a rural Minnesota Hispanic point of view on immigrant rights in America."

Me: "This Jim dude, is he on the up and up or is he one of those crazy bastards that you hang out with in that alley."

Editor: "No, he's cool. In fact, you'll like him. He likes guns and booze."

Well, well. This just got interesting. Driving to Albert Lea with a gun-toting freak might be just the thing to bust me out of the rut I was in. Fuck immigration, I was just looking for some action and a ride home. Jimmy here might just take care of me.

Friday arrived and Jim was one prompt son of a bitch. He pulled up in front of my house at 6:55 p.m. in a 1971 black Buick Skylark convertible with the top down.

I squelched the urge to jump in over the door in case this guy was packin' heat and didn't like Converse tracks on his paint job. I opened the door, slid in next to a BIG Coleman cooler, and he took off like a shot. We barley got around the corner when he pulled a bottle of Miller High Life out of the cooler, opened it, and threw the bottle cap at one of the overweight neighbor kids.

Me: "Hey, Jim, where are we going and how long will it take?"

Jim: "We're going to a bar I know, and we will need to stop for beer before we get there."

At the beer stop, I bought two cases because you never know, and the two of us drank all the way to Albert Lea with the top down in his beautiful tribute to American know-how, taking turns throwing our empties at highway signs just to hear the sound of glass breaking.

Six or seven beers later, Jim pulled into Andy's Roadhouse Bar & Grill. This place just looked like trouble. Besides having a parking lot full of pickup trucks and motorcycles, I noticed several cars in the back of the lot. They were late-model Cadillacs. I know that the occasional redneck will hit the lottery and buy himself a nice set of wheels, but there were five of them parked back there.

I pointed it out to Jim and he just shrugged his shoulders.

Jim: "It's probably just the local union boss' cars.

Me: "What union?"

Jim: "The American Meat Packer's Union. Sean, you are 20 miles away from Austin, Minnesota. Home of Hormel. You have heard of SPAM, haven't you?"

Me: "Well, yeah. So am I interviewing Mexican meat packers or what?"

Jim: "Yes, you are going to talk to recent immigrant workers and their problems with getting jobs with the local union."

Great. I'm going to talk to these poor saps for about five minutes before Guido and the boys come break it up. I padded my pocket to make sure I had my Mace. And I never go anywhere without my nine-inch sap tucked into my sock.

I was wrong about the five minutes part. Jim introduced me to three nice guys that wanted to remain anonymous. I had my notebook out and was talking to them for about 30 seconds when a big hairy hand grabbed my notes and tore them up.

Hairy Hand spun me around and suggested that I leave the bar as soon as possible. He had two greasy little friends as backup, and for small wops, they looked pretty tough.

Hairy Hand: "Why don't you three ladies meet me out front to discuss this."

He grabbed me by the neck, and his two buddies frog marched me out of the establishment, and threw me down onto the gravel parking lot.

I got up cat quick and doused the three of them with Mace the way a firefighter hoses down a burning building.

Jim came out just in time to see me bring my sap down on my third customer of the night. He helped me drag the unconscious gunnies behind a truck, and I rummaged through their pockets.

I got three wallets, three new driver's licenses, and $795 cash. Plus one Smith and Wesson .38 caliber revolver. You know, the little ones with the short little barrels. They aren't so much for killing a man as much as for maiming. One shot in the thigh, and you smash the femur into hundreds of pieces. You don't kill the poor bastard, you give him a permanent limp to remember you by.

Now, I know what you are thinking. Sweet, new gun. However, these three dagos look like they know crime and the last thing I want is to get pulled over by the cops holding a juicy piece of evidence in multiple unsolved crimes.

Jim drove us to his favorite gun-dumping spot on Geneva Lake, then we plotted out our next move.

At least I got a story for my editor.