098 - Scrapper Jo

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20% off your first order. That's Thrive Cosmetics, C-A-U-S-E-M-E-T-I-C-S dot com slash shine twenty-six. My name is Thomas Edward M. Freelance Sound Man. A mysterious client has hired me to record the oral history of an obscure island community.

This is Slum. Very well, then. I've gotten the thumbs up from Thomas that he is recording now, And so this special gathering of the Coyote Club is hereby called into session. Tonight we have just one single order of business, but it is one of utmost importance. for, at long last, we have found out a promising means for permanently removing from Slumberland the Sandy Spectre. The ghost, formerly known as Badamo del Becca. Yes, yes, quite exciting, I know.

First we should put our roll call on record. Let us go round the table, beginning with myself, Jeepers McGeepers, Township Supervisor and to my left is Hello everyone. My name is Lord Lord. Serving as secretary, I'll be taking notes for tonight's meeting. Evening, I'm Alva Pierce junior. Of course to all my friends here, you know me as Alva too. Ah, the next seat over was saved for Omar Evanston. Unfortunately he remains missing. However, we have placed at his spot that toy clock you see there.

Thomas, be a good lad and check that it's switched on. Just in case Omar wants to send us a coded message. Yes, it's on. Fresh batteries in it. and just so everyone knows, all this clock's ever done is beep or sing children songs that mention my name. So Coded messages maybe. We don't know. And on that note, I believe all of you know by now Thomas Edward M. The freelance sound man hired to record the Oral History Project. Hey, hey, quick question. Actually two. Two questions real quick, Jeep.

And sitting beside Thomas is Jolene Langerstein, local entrepreneur. Go ahead, Jolene. Just want to clarify. Is this new guy in the Coyote Club? Well, we skipped the standard initiation. He is here as an honorary member at my own discretion. Yes, I see you want to do the formal initiation, don't you? Just a little quick version. Coyote Club calls, everybody!

Thomas Edward M, welcome to Coyote Club. Thank you for that. Second question, Jeepers. Is that bowl of candy for everybody? What? Oh that you see, this was left upon my desk by Oblivia Newtonbaum. Evidently she had another dream in which she murdered me. Whenever that happens, she feels bad about it and atones by leaving a treat at my desk the following morning. Uh yes. Please help yourselves to the candies. Woo! Thanks! Go ahead, baby. Hi, I'm Ella Minopier. Um

I'm not quite far along enough in my life yet to feel like I've landed on a title that goes with my name. What about the bedbug sugar? Oh true. I'm organizing this year's bedbug poetry and performance show. Reminder, everyone get your submissions in soon. Jolly good. Next to young Ella, the unoccupied chair there belongs to Doreen, who is in attendance to night, however, at the moment, she is still in the adjoining room, as a result of her time out for overusing vulgar language earlier.

Can you hear quite all right, Doreen? Whatever. And finally, two more empty chairs, I'm afraid. The first was meant for Shelley Ruxbin, However, for reasons that will become painfully clear during this meeting, Shelley Ruxpin is no longer a member of Coyote Club. And of course the final spot belongs to Oscar Millardo. The lad is still somewhere in Southeast Asia tending his coffee company, but he will join us shortly via the laptop computer sitting there.

Ugh, so we gotta wait for Oscar before we get to say anything? If we're going after the Sandy Spectre, I'm ready like yesterday. We take my microbus, roll onto that beach, we get a 360 view from the roof hatch. Spot'em, take'em out. Phew! Ooh, will we be using like ghost tasers? Are those a thing now? Uh uh look, if I could interject. In my experience, Oscar is not the most reliable person to wait upon.

Having said that, if we, including me, if we are quote unquote going after the ghost on your beach, I'd prefer some slow, careful planning. Uh no offense, Miss Longestin. Oh now, you don't call me Miss Longestin. We go way back. You call me Scrapper Joe. Me and you, mister Beaniehead, we both helped the McGilllic haul their sunken treasure out of the lake. Shh we're not supposed to talk about that.

Signed a nondisclosure agreement, remember? This boy is precious. He's had me running my tail off since he plopped onto this island. I've had to use my scrap hauling crane to reconstruct the share shop building. To lift a tree off a crushed car and then reinstall the septic field at Oscar's place. All that stuff's tied by a common thread leading back to this one.

Thomas, you ever consider that you might be cursed? I do. I really do. Oh Thomas, you know, when you have a heroic destiny, it can feel like both a blessing and a curse. I don't mean it as a put down. Scat happens. But if life gives you curses, you just make a curse cake. What a- Doreen, if you please. That's another twenty minutes time out.

Oh look, it's Oscar. Oh no. That's just the screensaver coming on. So we still got a minute. Thomas, you need to hear how it was. In my early days of movin' to Slumberland.

I drove in my microbus. All my worldly possessions packed inside it. Every little thing that survived Hurricane Katrina. Once I got settled here, Cheapers showed me to the Supper Shack. That was the original Supper Shack, mind you. Not the one you know. It was a rickety-lean-to, connected to that old building next to the lighthouse. Inside, it was something approximating a bar made out of a scrap wood.

Some cable spool tables and benches were scattered around it. A place where locals could get a drink and Food any night. For a couple months, that's where you'd find me working.

Now the real grabby part of my tale begins. Was a Friday in winter, long after sunset. Me pouring drinks, Townies packing the bar, all the cable spool tables and bench spots taken. Real elbow to elbow kind of night. Suddenly, the room filling chattered. It goes hush. So I look up. Coming through the doorway is some old guy. He's like seven feet tall, wearing a long fur coat, and barefoot. Everyone staring like none of them knew who the flip he was. He lumbered straight towards me and my bar.

I'm seeing his shaggy gray hair, his beard so thick, it starts just under his black beady eyes. He presses his gut right up to the bar, edging out two people already there. He lifts his arms, then lets his big old hands drop. Slamm the bar top, all the glasses bounce. His lip curls. He growls. And then he flings his arms out. Made drinking glasses go flying across the room. Couple people got hit and the glasses shattered on the floor. There's one hanging second of silence.

It was instantly crazy. People rushed to grab this old nut job. And oh boy, he reacts. flings people off him like they were ladybugs. Some folks he's lifting, he's tossing. Folks go swinging benches to whack him from behind. But he just backhands those benches, turning everything to splinters. Then he goes and runs around and he's leaping too. Blobs of foam are flying out of his mouth. He's roaring like a crazed animal.

People go scrambling to get this guy in a corner, but he keeps bum rushing. And all the while he's smashing holes in the walls with his bare knuckles and flinging wood shards at the people trying to get him. And now the room lights are flashing, see? The fixtures are swinging. A strobe light effect. of the chaos. And that's when I think to myself, this old guy's going berserk. He maybe don't look so much like a man right now. No, he looked like maybe He was actually a wild grizzly!

Ain't that right, Jeep? Oh, most certainly. I shall embellish your tale just a tad, as I mentioned that it was that precise moment I was ducking behind the bar with you, to avoid a load bearing support beam thrown in our direction. And whilst taking shelter there, I yelled a single word into your ear, in effort to identify our assailant Ye Shapeshifter. That's what Jeepers yelled. And I was like, say what now? The shapeshifter?

But see, I hadn't yet heard the local legend. Going back hundreds of years when indigenous folks spoke of a violent spirit that would take the shape of either a man or beast. In the stories passed down, they call this thing Grey Pig Bear. So that's how the bar fight turned into a bear fight. Fists are flying, furniture's flying, furs flying, people flying, pieces of the walls are going too. Chunks of ceiling are falling out.

Leaving holes big enough to see stars and moonlight through. The intent to corner and catch Grey Pig Bear? That was looking like a big na-uh. And then someone yells, she's coming down! And everyone runs like hell for the exits! I got clear just in time to turn and see the whole damn lean two collapsing on itself.

After the noise and calamity of that, we took a headcount. Candle lamps and the rubble started a few little fires, so we stomped them out. No sign at all of that gray pig bear. Next morning, daylight shows us the sad truth. The lean to, our supper shack, she was toast, and so was my new job. Folks had to sit me down and admit

Some sad truths about this town. The Sandy Spectre curse. AKA the dude Botamo Del Becca. Back in the Prohibition years, he made his dough an illegal liquor, you know. His story goes, it was bootleg whiskey that led him to getting trapped on this island as a ghost. Ever since then, he's made bad juju happen to the people living here. Makes sense Batamo hated seeing our successful drinking establishment.

But Bottomo, the sandy specter, he can only haunt so far as the beach. For the Supper Shack smash up, he had to poke the old gray pig bear to get another dusty old. Do some dirty work for him. But you know what? That day after the attack, I started working with the team clearing the Supper Shack wreckage.

I learned to work a bulldozer in a crane. It was fun. They couldn't pull me away from sifting and picking through the metal and the lumber. That's how I found my new calling in the salvage biz. That's the story of Scrapper Joe. A splendid telling, Jolene. Thomas, could you make a mental note to include that in the oral history? Oh, hey! Oscar's coming online.

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