TWENTY THREE & FOUR
“ Are you going to tell him you know he’ s telling the truth?” Eddie asked, and saw another look on Van’ s face. Surprise followed by sorrow so deep it brought tears to the man’ s eyes.
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“ He has to know. You should have seen the look on his face when Armando cut open that fish and the sinker rolled out. There is no way he would have gutted that fish, with me standing right there, had he placed that sinker in the bass’ s gullet. He was about to go tell the judges when I stopped him.”“ He still has the boat?” Eddie asked, hoping the smile would return.“ It is his pride and joy,” Van beamed.“ So how did you two become partners?” Eddie had been reeled in. Van finished the story.
Depositing the fish on the cutting board, Armando began cleaning the large mouthed bass. Someone asked why he wasn’ t going to mount that prize winning fish. He looked at them like they were crazy. He had hungry mouths to feed and this was the only fish he caught. The fish was not the only thing on which Armando was concentrating. About a month later, Armando showed up at Van’ s house. He located Van by contacting the organizers of the tournament. The box in his hands had a carefully scrawled note on top that read,“ Thank you. Please wear these in good health.” In parenthesis, and the same handwriting, someone added,“ Papa made these for you.” Van opened the box and removed the patchwork cowboy boots made from scraps of the most exotic leathers. The boots were identical. If there was a half inch diamond of ostrich over the little toe on the right boot, there was a matching piece on the left boot.“ I still have those boots and they fit like a glove,” Van’ s laughter filled the place as he told the joke as if it were the first time.“ That is the reason I hired him in the first place. They were paying him peanuts at the boot shop. The work he performed was incredible. I took those boots to have them resoled, and was offered three thousand dollars. Costumes are nothing but odd shaped pieces of cloth sewn together. I made him a partner because my business took off. I make the masks and do a lot of mechanical stuff knowing Armando will be able to put together the costume and make it look real. You have come to see the spider.” Van stated, leading Eddie toward a closed portion of the shop. The door had a sign that stated“ Employees Only”. Van mentioned the operators were going to have to be under five foot four inches tall and fairly athletic as he opened the door. Armando waited inside the costume and heard them approach. Eddie watched the giant spider move around the room. When the spider’ s mandibles began to work Eddie was thrilled.“ Nice touch!” he said.“ We thought so,” said the spider. The sound of zippers began and Armando extricated himself.“ You are going to have to keep building at about sixty-five degrees or you are going to have dead spiders,” Armando warned, he was dripping wet.“ Were you using some kind of reverse psychology when you gutted that fish in front of me?” Van asked, approaching the subject from a different angle. Surprise, anguish and resolve flashed across the smaller man’ s face.“ I prayed for boat every day. I didn’ t mind rowing but bailing was killing me. When I got fish in my boat I was standing in water to here,” he pointed to his ankles. A twisted ball of line and sinker came with fish. I checked time, saw I was going to be late and put fish on stringer. He was swimming around in the bottom of boat. I forgot about sinker until it fell out. I couldn’ t believe, and never noticed, he swallowed that big piece of lead.” he said. The look in Armando’ s eyes told a truth he held for twenty years. Van had stopped him from doing the right thing. But he hadn’ t stuffed the chunk of lead down the fishes gullet.
Eddie looked at other projects in progress, while Van had to sit down because he was laughing so hard. A large head with sagging features sat on a bench. White wispy hair puddled around the base of the neck.“ That isn’ t very scary,” Eddie commented. Van had calmed.“ It’ s meant to be real and unreal at the same time. I have hands that go with the mask. You wear normal clothing like jeans and plaid long sleeved shirt, and stand perfectly still until eye contact is made. Then you take a step and look like you want to shake hands,” Van explained.“ Take it and try it.” The spark of a true prankster twinkled in Van’ s eyes.“ I bet your mother had her hands full with you,” Eddie said.“ Bet I could say the same,” Van smiled.