Brush Creek Charlie, D. B. Reynolds [top non fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

odd. My father and grandfather hated faggots with a vengeance.”
“Gay people are okay I guess. I’m straight and have never had a woman approach me with any gay gestures.”
“I share the same views as my father and grandfather about homosexuals. They’re an abomination and their way of life goes against nature.”
Lisa meditated on the large framed posters of different parts of Brush Creek. The posters covered almost every inch of wall space.
“Brush Creek, do you have a fascination with it?” Lisa questioned Charlie, picking up vibes he might’ve been rather weird.
Charlie stepped closer to one of the walls lined with four large posters. A glow was plastered to his face. “Brush Creek to me is one of the greatest engineering marvels in the world. If I was given the chance to make the call, Brush Creek would be the Eighth Wonder of the World. It’s greater than the pyramids of Egypt, The Taj Mahal, The Great Wall of China, Angels Falls in Venezuela, The Statue of Liberty, and the Panama Canal, all wrapped up into one.”
“Whew!” Lisa exhaled. “Your appeal for Brush Creek is not of this world. Never in my life have I met someone wrapped up in a piece of land that’s nothing but concrete and woods and water.”
Charlie signaled with a pointed finger. “My dear Lisa, Brush Creek is more than just concrete and water and woods and wild animals.”
“Come again, Charlie.”
“Did you know that forty-eight percent of the total annual flow of sewage comes through Brush Creek?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Did you know that Brush Creek causes raw sewage backups in homes and businesses?”
“No, that’s new to me.”
“Did you know that the creek also contains high levels of e-coli which causes people to have gastrointestinal illnesses?”
“That’s interesting.”
“People have also been known to have hepatitis and respiratory problems.”
“Didn’t know that Brush Creek caused such horrible things.”
“The downstream drinking water is negatively impacted. The fish and turtles die because of pollutants like insecticides, detergents, pharmaceuticals, and household chemicals. Do you know what causes a lot of this contamination?”
“Since you’ve got all the answers, why don’t you tell me.”
“Old infrastructures that are neglected in favor of building new sprawled areas.”
“Maybe if people didn’t disregard city regulations and were willing to enforce the laws, maybe we wouldn’t have all these health hazards.”
“Absolutely,” Charlie affirmed. “Brush Creek has been known as ‘Flush Creek’. That raw sewage I told you about earlier, it has also been known to back up into people’s basements and flood their yards. Despite all of that, Brush Creek is still the greatest work of masterpiece known to man.”
Lisa peeked down at her watch and realized she’d spent a half-hour inside Charlie’s apartment. She knew by now he was one weird man. How could one person be so fired up about a system which was erected to control the city’s sewage system? How she psyched herself into meeting him at his place for a dinner date she just couldn’t fathom.
“Don’t mind me asking, but what’s for dinner?” Lisa asked Charlie. She stood to watch aerial view posters of Brush Creek during the disastrous flood of 1977.
“I ordered Pizza for the both of us.”
Pizza? What a true cheapskate for their first dinner date. This bum could’ve taken her to some nice restaurant on The Country Club Plaza. He had the money to spend for a pleasant evening.
“What kind?”
“A large meat lovers.”
The buzzer on the wall sounded off. Charlie pressed the speaker button. “Yes, who is it?”
“You ordered a pizza, sir?” responded the pizza delivery boy.
“I’ll be right down.”
Charlie returned to his apartment with the large box of pizza and a two liter of soda. A small box of breadsticks sat on top. He flipped open the lid and piping hot smoke arose from the meat and cheese trimmings. Their tastebuds were startled from the aroma. Premature stages of nightfall moved upon the city. Charlie cut on an extra light and the television for Lisa’s viewing pleasure. Two plates and glasses were placed on the table in front of the sofa. Lisa grabbed two slices of the warm pizza and filled her glass halfway with soda. Charlie did the same and their date sprung to the next phase.
“Other than Brush Creek, what else excites you?” Lisa inquired, intuitively. “I mean, what else drives you, something that brings purpose to your life?”
“My job excites me,” Charlie avowed. “I enjoy the type of work that I do.”
“Again, where do you work?”
“Gomez foods.”
“And what do you do there?”
“Help make sauces and dips and salsas.”
“Interesting.”
As Lisa sunk her teeth into the juicy morsels of Italian sausage and pepperoni, she once again studied the pitted face and badly-wrecked dental work Charlie’d been cursed with. Far from being a good looking man, he somehow ignored the unattractiveness he was born with. Some guys had all the luck. Unfortunately, it wasn’t him.
Based on the response from most women, he’d gotten a hunch how most of them simply weren’t interested.
“I do a little bit of everything at my job. I keep boxes of jars on top of a revolving platform. I supply lids to the food line operators. I clean huge kettles and machinery at the end of the day.”
“Sounds like you stay fairly busy.”
“From the time I clock in to the time I clock out.”
Lisa tried ignoring the fact Charlie was a strain on her eyes. “When you were working on my car, you mentioned that you served time in Vietnam.”
“Sure did.”
“What was it like over there?”
Charlie didn’t like talking about such horrible experiences. Lisa was the guest he vowed to keep entertained. “Nothing pretty, my darling.”
“Which means?”
“Meaning, that I saw and experienced things that would’ve made the average person lose their freaking minds.”
“I know it’s difficult, but tell me about some of the things that happened over in Vietnam.”
“But, we’re eating right now.”
“Is it that gross?”
“Gross, sweetheart.”
“I’m not squeamish at all. Besides, I’m just about full.”
Charlie took a bite of pizza and chewed with anguish. “One time, I dived into a deep trench and ended up on top of a dead body filled with maggots.”
“Yeek!” Lisa shrugged. “Seeing that would be enough to ruin someone’s appetite for life.”
“Think you can stand to hear more?”
“Depends.”
“I’ve seen guys get their heads and arms and legs blown clean off. I’ve seen casualties in my military company step on land mines and grenades and get half their torsos blown way up in the air. The bloodshed and mayhem in Vietnam sent us home not correct in the mind.”
“Once, I had an uncle who served in Vietnam. God rest his soul, but he came back to the states with that Agent Orange junk.”
“Your uncle’s dead?”
“Yes, he is. He was my mother’s youngest brother.”
“I’m sorry. What do you know about Agent Orange?”
“Agent Orange is a mixture of plant hormones that was used to kill vegetation in the jungles of Vietnam. That poisonous junk didn’t stop there.”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“There was Agent Blue, Agent White, and some crap called malathion.”
“Do you know a bunch’a other stories about that sickening crap?”
Charlie drew in a quick wind. “There’re a million more stories to be told.”
“Like?”
His heart ached from the painful memories. “When I got back home, I did some research of my own about Agent Orange. The government tried to hide information about the shit which made all of us soldiers wanting to puke through every inch we covered in those jungles. A lot of the guys who made it back to the states alive, they came back with cancer and liver and kidney problems, some of them having kids that were born with birth defects.”
“Did any of you soldiers seek reparation from the government?”
“I never did, but a lotta guys from the war filed class action lawsuits that came to about two-hundred million bucks.”
“And they deserve every penny of it.”
“To think, they dumped almost twenty-million gallons of that junk over in Vietnam. The damage they caused over there, it’s almost impossible to fix with money.”
Charlie ripped off the last piece of his pizza. The longer he stared at Lisa, the more appealing she became to him. She was quite an interesting woman for someone who led a scrupulously conservative lifestyle.
“I’ve told you most of my life story,” Charlie said, his eyes planted on Lisa’s more erotic body parts. “I’d like to know more things about yourself.”
“Your life story is right there on the walls,” Lisa pointed, followed by an aggressive giggle. “Brush Creek is your alpha and your omega.”
“Must say that you’re almost one-hundred percent correct.”
“Well, what would you like to know about me?”
“The IRS, what do you do for them?”
“I’m a section chief over the data conversion branch.”
“What’s a section chief?”
“I’m responsible for designated sections within data conversion.”
“The work itself, what exactly do you guys do?”
“We process 1040 and 1040A income tax forms. We process prior year tax forms and extensions, among other things.”
“The workers under you, what exactly do they do? What do they have to do to