All Sorts

I stood with Renaldo in the hot afternoon sun. Both of us dusty and straight crusted with old sweat and muck. We had been digging that deep trench for the past three days without so much as a whisper from the home’s owner. Normally we wouldn’t have taken on such a mundane task, but when the anonymous call came in with the promise of high pay and the cash up front, we just couldn’t say no. Aside from the house being set three miles from the road I didn’t think much of the property – that was until I saw the backyard. Renaldo was the first to notice that it was filled with bizarre contemporary art pieces. By the pool was a giant iron oxidized cube with the word ‘Ballbreaker’ written on it in old Gothic lettering. A black marble statue of a woman with hyper-large buttocks wearing a neon green thong was positioned near the edge of the garden walkway. Other macabre objects were suspended from a great oak tree in the center of the lawn. It was late on the third day, when the home’s owner first presented himself. Without a word he silently emerged from the side door dressed in a skintight khaki suit. We watched him as he gingerly skipped over to the obsidian statue – with a silk cloth in his left hand, he began to wax that statues giant ass with such ferocity as to make the angels weep. Renaldo smirked and shook his head. “All sorts.” he said to me. Then he hocked up a huge loogie and spat into the ditch. I watched the saliva strands that hung from his cracked lips and mingled with the sparse hairs on his chin. The whole scene created a wondrous trail of mist that slowly floated thru the air, shimmering in the sun.