A Little Sheepish

Randy Johanssen was obviously in a good mood. He'd bounded through
the doorway of the U.S.D.A. Office singing Z.Z.Top's "Tube Steak
Boogie," and was sickeningly effervescent that Growlly Hatfield, the
office's Redneck-in-Residence, couldn't refrain from trying to bring
him down a bit.

"What the hell have you got to be so upbeat about, you weasel-nosed,
little needle-dicked asshole? Your old lady finally decide to take some
pity on you last night?"

Randy ignored him and poured himself a mug of coffee. Growlly does not
take too kindly to being ignored. For that matter, he's never been
known to take too kindly to anything. Just having to have to come to
work is usually enough to piss him off, and today was a Monday. Growlly
gave "The Boy," his contemptuous nickname for Randy, who bore it as
punishment for being the youngest inspector in the office, a look that
would've withered a potted plant. "Hey dumb-fuck," he snorted, "sit
your pathetic little boney ass down and look at me. I'm talking to you,
Boy."

The Boy gave him a look of tolerant pity, the kind of look you might
see a stranger give a mentally deficient child.

"You know, Growlly," he said. "I'm in such a good mood today that i
doubt if you'll even be able to ruin it for me."

"Alright then, you wormy little pencil dick, lets hear it," demanded
Growlly, exasperated that someone would have the audacity to show up at
work at the beginning of the week with a smile on his face.

"I stopped at the Hollow Inn last night," the Boy began slowly, teasing
his foul-tempered bear of a co-worker.

"That's no surprise," volunteered Vanderbilt from his chair at the end
of the table. "It would've been more of a surprise if you WOULDN'T have
pit there on your way home from visiting your folks last night."

"I got into it with a couple of tourists last night," the Boy
explained. We laughed. We'd often heard Randy speak disparagingly of
those
"goddamned stupid tourists."

You see, the Boy lives just two miles north of Lutefisk Hollow. During
the late 1840s a group of Swedish religious dissidents fled the
oppression of the State religion. They emigrated to the Illinois
prairie where they could be free to set up a communal religious
dictatorship more acceptable to them. Their grandiose experiment
failed, but their buildings remain. They're now administered by the
State of Illinois as a State Historic Site. Lutefisk Hollow has become
a destination for tourists; the sort of aggregate of overpriced
artsy-craftsy shops that women find fascinating and men tend to find
excruciatingly boring. Often the weary husbands will leave their wives
to fondle the pottery and nick-nacks and seek refuge in the only tavern
in the village, the Hollow Inn.

Such tourists tended to be surly, hyper-critical and obnoxious. Yes,
the Boy hated tourists. Especially the snot-nosed suit and tie yuppie
types from Chicago who come in to sneer at the hicks or quarrel with or
put down the local boys. Not a smart thing to do in THEIR bar.

"Yeah," said the Boy, "two of those smart-assed snobs came into the
tavern last night. Said they were from Cincinnati. First they ordered
something called "Sam Adams." Some sort of yuppie beer, I guess, and
they acted really put out when Jimmy told them that he didn't carry it.
A little bit later they bitched about the bowling tournament that we
were watching. They asked Jimmy if he'd mind turning the channel to
something that people other than cretins could enjoy."

They Boy paused, then continued his tale. "Needless to say, things went
downhill from that point. Eventually little Freddie Fergemeister
started to get mouthy with them, and the taller of the two dickheads
told him to go back to his farm and stick to fuckin sheep."

"That's when I stepped in," the Boy explained. "I sort of felt like
Popeye does when he reaches that point....you know, where he says "I've
had all I can stands and I can't stands no more." I figured that I
could gross those two prissy city bastards out, man, so I really began
to put on a show for them."

"Yeah, I'll bet you really made a major league jerk of yourself,"
Growlly chimed in dourly.

"Well anyway," the Boy continued, "I stood up and I told those two big
city assholes not to knock sheep-fucking until they've tried it. I told
them that screwin sheep is how most of us simple farm folk got our
first sexual experience, and explained that there was no anatomical
difference to speak of between a ewe's and a woman's sex organ."

"How'd them Perrier suckin Cincy jerk-offs react to your line of
bullshit?" Growlly asked the Boy.

"They thought I was serious, man," the Boy chuckled. "They grabbed the
bait like hungry carp. I mean, they took it hook, line and sinker. I
had all I could do to keep a straght face."

"Yeah, I'm sure you did alot for the image of the farmer," Vanderbilt
sarcastically observed.

The Boy ignored him and continued his account of his heroics. "Yeah, I
explained to them that most of us country boys wear boots so that we
can just stick a ewe's hind legs in them to keep her from bolting. Then
I described the act, man. I mean, I was graphic. You should've seen me
in action, man. I mean, I was doing pelvic thrusts and the whole
routine."

Vanderbilt grinned as he listened to the Boy brag about his adventure.
Packing house morality runs somewhat in accordance with Old Testament
law. Of course, the wisdom of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth" has been diluted to "what goes around comes around" or "paybacks
are a bitch." Vanderbilt owed the Boy a major payback.

In a packing house a nickname is usually a derogatory thrust at the
victim's jugular. The inspector called "Vanderbilt" was noticeably
nearsighted. It seemed to the Boy to be a glaring incongruity to make a
guy with vision problems a government meat inspector.

"Typical government logic," the Boy laughed, to take a guy they should
be issuing a seeing eye dog to, and instead give him a badge and send
him out to inspect meat for the public. It reminds me of that old TV
show you can still catch sometimes on cable. You know, "F Troop."
They've got a collection of losers and incompetents garrisoning a fort
in the old West.
They put old Vanderbilt, the guy who had to squint at the person he was
talking to in order to tell who it was, up in the blockhouse to be on
the lookout for Indians. Hell, that blind son-of-a-bitch couldn't have
seen an Indian if one walked up to him and said "How.""

That was how Robert Lindahl came to be christened "Vanderbilt." The
nickname was so apt that it spread through the kill floor quicker than
a rumor of a short workday. Most of the line workers by now don't even
remember Vanderbilt's real name.

Yeah, Vanderbilt owed the Boy. Now he saw an opportunity to pay him
back with interest. He'd have to bite his tongue though, and wait a
couple of weeks before he could put his fiendish plan into
action.

Two weeks later he was on his way to Lutefisk Hollow. Vanderbilt had
put on a suit and wore a pair of shined oxfords rather than tennis
shoes. He'd have to look the part. He parked his dirty old red work
vehicle, a station wagon, a couple blocks away from the Hollow Inn. It
definitely wouldn't jive with his personna today, he figured, as he
looked at the shabby rustic exterior of the littler taverm. It was
Saturday afternoon, just a little before noon.

The bartender looked up as Vanderbilt entered the dimly lit confines of
the tavern and then stood for a couple of moments while he waited for
his eyes to adjust to the lack of light.

"What can I do for you, buddy?" the bartender asked. He looked at the
stranger curiously for a moment and then obviously filed Vanderbilt's
image in the "tourist" compartment in his mind.

"I'll have a vodka gimlet," Vanderbilt whispered, looking at the
limited selection of beers and well drinks available. "If you don't
mind, I'd prefer crushed ice in mine."

The bartender looked at him with a touch of disgust. Vanderbilt could
read his mind. "Goddamn fussy tourist."

"Just the rocks," the bartender said. "That will be okay, I
hope."

"Sure," Vanderbilt said, as he pulled a brown notepad out of his
suitcoat and took a pen from his pocket. "Actually, I'm here more for
information than anything else. Maybe you can help me."

"I'll try," the bartender agreed, his interest suddenly piqued. He
looked at Vanderbilt with more interest. It was one of those looks of
distrust that said "I'll help you, buddy, but I hope you're not a narc
or some scumbag attorney." Vanderbilt decided to set his mind at ease
immediately.

"I'm on my way up to the Quad Cities to visit my folks, but I've been
meaning to stop here. You see, I work for Springer Productions. You
know, the Jerry Springer Show, out of Cincinnati."

The bartender's eyes widened. That explained the suitcoat, but
Vanderbilt knew that now he was thinking "what the hell does this guy
want from me?"

"I'm a production assistant," Vanderbilt explained. "A couple of weeks
ago one of my camera crew and a friend stopped in here while their
wives were shopping, and they got into a little discussion with one of
your locals, a young guy, I guess. Dark hair, late twenties. At any
rate, this guy was expounding upon....how shall I put it?" Vanderbilt
paused as if he were a bit embarrassed by the discussion and had to
grope for the right words.

"Anyway, this young gentleman was extolling the virtues of sexual
intercourse with a sheep. Do you know him?"

"Yeah," the bartender said, taking a deep breath and trying to mask his
astonishment. "I was here that night. You're talking about Randy
Johanssen."

Vanderbilt wrote the name down in the notebook that he'd brought with
him.

"You see," Vanderbilt continued, confident now that the bartender's
suspicions had been put to rest, "The Jerry Springer Show is always on
the lookout for bizarre and unusual people who are willing to share
their secrets with a nation of interested viewers. If this Johanssen
character was willing to brag about his barnyard exploits here," he
said, indicating the tavern, "he might be just as willing to share his
experiences with Mr. Springer and his fans for a
little...ahem...financial incentive."

"Maybe," the bartender said. "He's not bashful, that much I'll sure say
for him."

"You wouldn't have his address and phone number, would you?" Vanderbilt
asked.

The bartender eagerly obliged him, pulling out a phonebook from one of
the storage cupboards beneath the bar, finding Randy Johanssen's
listing and circling it with a pen before he handed it to
Vanderbilt.

"Good," Vanderbilt murmured. "Good. Thank you very much, Sir. This is
going to help me alot."

Up to this point Vanderbilt had been the only person in the bar other
than the bartender, but now an older man in bib overalls and a younger
man in faded denim jeans, obviously father and son, came in. They
looked at Vanderbilt curiously and took two stools within eavesdropping
range. The bartender took a break from talking to Vanderbilt to get the
newcomers a couple of Budweisers.

When he had finished, Vanderbilt gave him the smile of a fellow
conspirator and whispered, "you know, a guy can't be too careful, and
of course I'd never do anything to get my employers in trouble. A gu's
got to ask the right questions, you know. A guy's got to be a little
discreet about pursuing this sort of thing." Vanderbilt paused, looked
the bartender in the eyes, and whispered, just loud enough for the
farmer and his son to hear as well...

"This Johanssen character. He isn't a little simple or developmentally
disabled, is he? The last thing our show would need is somw flak about
taking advantage of someone who's slightly retarded."

"God, no!" the bartender almost shouted, the logic behind the question
having caught him by surprise. "He's got a good job, he's got a wife,
he's even got a kid for God's sake."

"Just had to check," Vanderbilt reassured him. He caught a look in the
mirror behind the bar at the two farmers. They were following the
conversation intently, although they were half-heartedly feigning total
disinterest. Good, Vanderbilt figured. He had them all hooked.

"How's his wife react to her barnyard competition?" Vanderbilt asked
innocently, trying hard to suppress a grin.

"I doubt if she knows anything about it," the bartender admitted, "so
maybe you'd better use a little discretion. Don't show up at his home
and knock on the door and go in and lay this stuff on him in front of
his wife. Play it a little cool."

"Don't worry. We at the Springer Show are used to dealing with this
sort of thing.. "I'll be the soul of discretion and propriety."

The young farmer in the faded denims chimed in.
I went to high school with Johanssen. He was a crazy son of a bitch
even back then. I wouldn't put anything past him."

Vanderbilt rose to leave. "Thanks alot, Sir," he said to the bartender.
"You've been a tremendous amount of help. And you guys take care," he
said to the two farmers. "Good day."

Vanderbilt paused at the door. "Wait and see," he said in a cheerful
voice. "This Johanssen character is probably just like all the rest.
Write him a big enough check and he'll spill his guts on national T.V.
Most people have no pride when it comes to making a few quick
grand.
It constantly amazes me how much they'll debase themselves."

With that parting shot Vanderbilt left the tavern and walked the couple
of blocks back to his car. He was feeling pretty smug. He'd handed the
three guy in the bar a goody bag of gossip that they couldn't help but
open up and distribute and no doubt embellish. The story would spread
like a prairie fire on a windy day. The Boy would show up at the Hollow
inn either tonight or tomorrow evening. He'd hear the story and he'd
have to scramble like hell to squelch it. It would be as difficult
though as trying to put out a prairie fire by stomping it out with
one's bare feet. Yes, Vanderbilt felt really proud of himself.

Monday morning the Boy didn't come whistling into the office. He was
pretty quiet as he went to his locker and changed into his whites. When
he finished dressing he came into the coffee room, filled his mug, and
scowled at Vanderbilt.

Vanderbilt returned the hostile look with a puzzled smile and a
question. "You're quiet today, Randy," he said. "What's the matter? You
look a little sheepish."

The Boy made an effort to continue looking angry, but eventually burst
out laughing. "You son of a bitch," he said, shaking his head in
admiration. "Do you know what you've done to my reputation? I stopped
in at the Hollow Saturday night and I had five people come up and ask
me how much the Springer Show had offered me. I had no idea what the
hell they were talking about.

Vanderbilt laughed, delighted at the success of his ruse.

"Finally Jimmy took me aside," the Boy continued, "and he told me about
the visit that he had from a guy from the Jerry Springer Show. It took
me a good twenty minutes to figure out that this was your doing."

"How'd you figure it out?" Vanderbilt asked.

From Jimmy's description of the guy it sounded a bit like you. But he
said that you'd even handed him a business card. You were that
goddamned convincing. Eventually Jimmy mentioned that you had to squint
at the phonebook to read my address. Then I KNEW it was you, you
goddamned cross-eyed sack of shit."

"Hell, all he did was shove your foot in your mouth after you'd hung it
on your lip, you sorry-assed whining little pecker head," Growlly
chortled, delighting in the Boy's embarrassment.

Vanderbilt was laughing so hard by this time that tears were beginning
to form in his eyes.

"I owe you, you son of a bitch," the boy laughed. "Someday, if I ever
get a chance, I'm going to burn your ass good."

Vanderbilt laughed, but in the back of his mind he made a mental note
to keep close tabs on the Boy and watch his back. The Boy owed HIM a
payback now, and Vanderbilt knows from his years of working in a
packing house, that paybacks are a bitch.