Nobody's Fool Y'all

13

 There was an infinite number of nightmare situations Hadley could imagine. She kept looking, but she saw no signs of anything out of the ordinary. Finally, she arrived at the gravel road that led to Beanie's home. She noticed several advertisement flyers hanging out of the mailbox.

"Oh, dear Lord," she whispered, "don't let him be dead."

She stomped the gas pedal, and the car took off down the road. She slammed on the brakes near Beanie's front porch, and the car screeched to a stop in a cloud of dust. She honked her horn and opened the door, frantically looking and listening.

Nothing.

Her heart was in her throat. She hurried up to the front door and knocked loudly. Nothing stirred in the shut-up house. She decided to check out back to see if Beanie was lying out in the dirt, sick or injured.

"Beanie!" Hadley yelled. "Beanie!"

Racing around the side of the house, she skidded to a sudden stop.

There was Beanie, lounging in a reclining chair. He was wearing oversized sunglasses, and there was a pair of sound-muffling earphones on his head. He was dressed in a pair of bright yellow shorts and an orange tank top.

That was a startling sight in itself, but that was not what had caused Hadley to come to a screeching halt dead in her tracks. Submerged in Beanie's backyard was the biggest dumpster she had ever seen. And wonder of wonders, the thing was filled with the clearest water. It sparkled as the sun reflected off small waves and ripples.

She walked up to the reclining Beanie and put her hand lightly on his shoulder. Beanie jumped. His sunglasses fell off. His eyes popped wide open. He pulled the earphones from his head. It took him a second to recover.

"Hey, Hadley," he said, bending down to retrieve his glasses off the grass. "How you doin'? Do you like my new pool? Ain't it a dandy?"

"Beanie Fugate," Hadley said, "it just hit me that I hadn't heard from you or seen you in about a week. I was worried sick. I thought you were sick. Injured. Dagnabbit! I don't know what I thought. I felt I should check and make sure you were alright."

"Oh," Beanie said, "I didn't mean to twist your girdle, Hadley. I'm as fine as frog's hair. But as you can see, I've been real busy."

"I do see," said Hadley. "When did all this come about?"

"You like it, don't you?" Beanie asked.

"Why," said Hadley, "I think it's about the finest thing you've ever built."

"I think so, too," Beanie said. "I got you to thank for it, too."

"Me?"

"Yes, sir. I sure do. So, thank you, Hadley."

"Well, you're welcome, of course. But how did I inspire you?"

"I got the idea from when we were cleaning out Eustian Singlepenny's house. Remember how you talked about making one of those dumpsters into a swimming pool? Did you bring your bikini?"

"Well, no," she said. "I didn't know you had a pool, remember?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Just how did you do all this, Bean? You didn't dig a hole for that thing with a shovel did you?"

"No," Beanie said. "Of course not. Harvey got new dumpsters at the Gardens. He said I could have this one. Rake Jakell hauled it out here for me for nothing. He even brought over his bulldozer and his backhoe and helped me dig the hole. Rake's a good friend. Like you, Hadley. He helped me get the dumpster into the hole, too. You know, I was real scared about it all, but it turned out to be a lot easier than I thought. With Rake's help, I mean. It was kind 'a like burying a really big casket. You just don't fill up the hole with dirt is all."