The 'Cousins'

Part Fifty-One : Out of Difficulty Comes a Team

Timeline: 09:21, Friday 20th April. Greg, Ali and Pedro leave Ma Tooley’s diner for the Town Hall.

Greg leaped out of Ma Tooley’s tiny diner whooping and cavorting for joy, his head full of Bill Elbury’s information with its powerful portent for him and his future whirling round and round in his head.  His feelings were so unreal even Ma’s hearty cackle simply registered with him as a distant background caterwauling. 

Bill’s information meant that he had become a man of considerable material substance; and that changed everything  for him on this otherwise doubtful morning. 

Greg breathed deeply and stood straightening himself on the sidewalk, sucking in deep lungfuls of the manure tainted air. For once he failed to notice its pungence. Greg  suddenly felt himself to be  free of whatever constraints that  had held him back from putting his plans into effect.  

He breathed deeply once more. 

Relieved. 

Emancipated.  

People in the street who had previously watched him with distaste, occasioned by the rumour circulating about him, now did so out of curiosity for the strangeness of his behaviour; coupled with the broad grin that illuminated his face. They could not understand how a man accused of such un-Godly pursuits could be so happy.  It made the very happiness Greg displayed immoral and objectionable to them.  Of the watching throng, none was more surprised than the redneck leaning against the street-side wall of Ma Tooley’s.  His jaw had dropped so far in bewilderment at Greg’s exhibition that the lighted end of the cigarette perpetually stuck to his bottom lip seemed in danger of burning his chest.

Greg failed to notice any of them; pleasant thoughts circulated through his head on a continuous loop bringing exhilaration to his entire being. 

He no longer cared what any of them thought. He could now buy and sell them; each and any one of them, and that thought generated a considerable, inner glow of confidence. This unexpected financial independence put a lot of wrongs to rights and looked likely to continue and accelerate for as long as the latest property boom lasted.

Greg galvanised his audience’s attention with another loud cry of "Yippee" and further startled the onlookers by jumping high in the air, clicking his heels together two feet off the ground. Men stood back in alarm, and women hurried past gathering whatever youngsters were abroad to put some distance between them and the deranged and immoral Englishman.

In two strides after his feet came back onto the sidewalk he reached the truck and held the door handle, laughing out loud in a long, exuberant burst of sheer joy that came from the depths of his soul: expelling into the ether all the doubts, tensions and fears that had robbed him of his equilibrium. 

He ignored the few people who remained on the sidewalk  watching in bewilderment as he ripped open the door of the truck. 

Greg’s laughter reached an even higher pitch when he saw Ali and Pedro, the two fire-eaters of a few minutes ago when sat at Ma’s table. They now  cringed  in the cab of his truck cowering and crowded against the passenger door; low down  in their seats so that folks outside would have less chance of seeing them with Greg.

They both looked at him  with wide, uncomprehending eyes that reminded Greg of errant schoolboys waiting for punishment; mouths agape in bewildered apprehension.  Beyond the uncertainty in their eyes, Greg could see that they doubted his sanity.

He threw back his head to emit one final chortle and leaped into the cab slamming the door closed behind him.

“ Yes ! Yes! Yes!," he pounded the steering wheel with his half closed fists as he yelled at the windscreen; ignoring the presence of his passengers.