The Norphlet Mafia, Chapter 9, Post 13

And, well, Mr. Secret Private Investigator didn't like that question at all, and he just mumbled something that we couldn’t hear and Bubba, who is almost deaf sure couldn’t either. "Mister you’re gonna hafta speak up. Since my accident, I’m a little hard of hearing.” Well, the man did speak up and he simply said, “Maybe.” “Huh? What does ‘maybe’ mean, and why are you here in Norphlet, anyway?” Yeah, Bubba had asked the big question that we knew he'd ask, and then, after some head-shaking, the man said, “I really can't say.” Shoot, Bubba lit up and just jumped on that one. “Ohoooooo, yeah… yeah, Uh, yeah,” and then Bubba pounced. ”You’re here because of the Chihuahua thing, ain’t ya?” Heck, if you had hit that guy with a baseball bat you wouldn’t have gotten much more reaction, and for about five minutes he just mumbled and squirmed, while we tried to hold back a laugh. Then Bubba nodded and kinda whispered—but loud enough that you could have heard him out on the street. “I know who did all that stuff to Mrs. Graves’s Chihuahuas.” “You do?” Yeah, the man was on the edge of his chair now, and so were we. Ears turned white as a sheet and mumbled to me, “Should we take off runnin’? I don't want to just sit here until the man puts handcuffs on us.” “Naw, Bubba can’t possibly know. Just be real quiet and listen to what Bubba’s gonna say,” I whispered. Well the man leaned forward, and asked Bubba, “Who?” Shoot, Bubba just drew himself up, threw his shoulders back, and bellowed, “Space creatures!” Heck, I had to put my hand over John Clayton’s mouth to keep him from just cackling. Yeah, the investigator man looked like he’d been slapped, and tried to ignore Bubba, but I knew that wasn’t gonna work ’cause Bubba was just getting started. “Yeah, I figured it out back when them dogs first showed up with white spots on ’em, and I told the Marshal, but he didn't believe me. And when that little dog just disappeared, I knew I was right ’cause that happened to me last year..." and Bubba went on and on about how different animals and people were being marked to be harvested... Uh, like eaten by the Space creatures, and he figured Chihuahuas must be really high on the Space creatures’ menu. We had split a Coke three ways, and had finished it, but we weren't about to leave until Bubba served up the Daily Special, which had been the “Special” for most of the week. Bubba went on and on about how the Space creatures were gonna gobble up stuff on Earth, until Mr. Investigator begged Bubba to go fix the Daily Special. Yeah, Bubba did finally head back to the kitchen and as he left the room, he yelled, “Tatum, don’t chunk out the rest of the onions and liver.” Bubba left the room and headed for the kitchen, and in a few minutes, we heard a Whooooommmm! and Bubba ran out and grabbed a bucket of water. Some kind of greasy smelling smoke drifted out of the kitchen, and Bubba stuck his head out and hollered, “Nothing to worry about, just strong onions.” Well, I could tell the Little Rock man was ready to break and run but he didn’t, and in about 30 minutes Bubba came out looking kinda burned... you know, his hair was signed, and it looked as if his face been lying out in the sun for about a week. “Here you go, the City Café's Daily Special.” Well, we could see the man’s plate, and there was a huge pile of onions that looked like they had been cooked to death, buried, and then cooked again. “I done gived you extra onions since we’re running short on liver, and the stove overheated and caused them onions to get a little brown."” Well, the man kinda looked that stack of burned onions, shook his head, and then looked up at Bubba. “Where's the liver?” Well, Bubba kind of puffed up said, “I done told you we was short on liver, so I gave you extra onions.” “I don't see any liver.” “Look under them onions.” I was watching as the Little Rock man started digging into that huge pile of burnt onions, and when he finally came up with a really bad sliver of what was maybe a piece of liver, Bubba said, “See the liver was just covered in all them extra onions I done gived you.” Wow, the man just lost it and, after he slammed his fork down and said the City Café had the worst food known to man, he got up and left. Bubba yelled after him, “I'll have you to know the City Café is the best in Norphlet!” Yeah, Bubba was right, ‘cause The City Café is the only place to eat out in Norphlet. But as the man jumped in his car and roar off, I had another real good thought, and it just might save us all from reform school—we had to run him out of town, and Bubba had been a good start, but we needed to do a lot more.