To the last drop
Mar 31, 2009 2:19 PM, By Jeff Ryan
I know Arnie heard that discussion, but he didn’t say anything. He just smirked. He also called me Mr. Ryan every time he saw me from that point forward. When I got to know him better a few years later, he turned out to be a first-rate character, which happens to be my favorite kind. He had an incredibly colorful (and accurate) description of the coffee shop crowd: “Leeches! Nothing but [multiple expletives] open-eared leeches! You don’t want to give them any information, but they just suck it out of you like a bunch of [multiple expletives] leeches!”
Ever since then, Guy No. 1 and I always ask The Chairman when he gets home from coffee, “Well, what did The Leeches know today?” Some days the response is more productive than others. The day after the Death Valley episode, several theories were floated (okay, tossed out, because you can’t float anything without water) as to the cause of the insta-drought. There were three leaks in major water mains in different parts of town, probably because of old pipes. There was only one big leak and it was in a water main in the newest addition. (This was a direct contradiction to the crowd with the old pipe theory. Leeches love conflict. They’re like Keith Olbermann with a smaller audience, which I guess would make them Tucker Carlson without the bow tie.)
And my favorite solution of all: The guy who is in charge of the water system for the city of Cresco is dying of cancer. Only he knows which valves are supposed to be closed and which ones have to be open for the water to flow and the world to turn like it was meant to turn. Some rookie probably stepped in in his absence and flipped the wrong one.
I had the perfect solution for The Chairman prior to the next day’s session. After another round of adventures with a troublesome woodchuck screwing up my hayfield, I had a large wagon full of water sitting in the yard. The adventure was successful on my end (services were held for the woodchuck), but I still had my wagon ready to go for another round. I was willing to forego another adventure if The Chairman would agree to go to coffee with a pickup instead of the car. All I wanted him to do was to hook onto my 1,100-gallon water wagon, pull up to the front door of the coffee shop, and announce, “Here I come to save the day!”
Doing it in a Mighty Mouse voice was mandatory, not optional. I mean, just think how elaborate the story would be by the time the second-shift leeches showed up and rehashed it.
Guy No. 2
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