"Hey, this is all twentieth-century stuff," Ugolini protested. "It's worth a lot. We can't make any of it anymore."
LeeAnn raised her eyebrows at this. She knew he was wrong about the wire hangers, anyway. She glanced significantly again at the bedraggled bed.
"Well, maybe I could put that thing on the curb. I'll probably need the space before I'm done."
After her landlord left, LeeAnn sat at her card table on a wooden folding chair and ate the bread and cheese she had brought home for dinner. Berta at work was always nagging her about her food. LeeAnn snorted. "Like I need some foreigner telling me about 'nuut-ree-shun.' I made it through two winters here, so I guess I know what I need to get by." She sighed. It sure would be nice to get some more meat once in a while, and more vegetables. But even when the harvests were just in, those were expensive because transportation was so difficult. Now they were dear. LeeAnn shrugged. She looked at the two wizened apples she'd bought for desert, but decided she was full. She licked her lips, wishing she had something to warm her growing inner chill.
She thought some more about what had been bothering her today. She still couldn't pin it down, and it was truly annoying her.
The light was fading when LeeAnn changed into the velour running suit she used for sleeping and moved to the recliner she used for a bed. The landlord supplied electricity, but he didn't supply light bulbs, and LeeAnn couldn't afford them. Won't let me use candles or a gas jet either, she thought with disgust. Afraid I'll burn the place down. So it was to bed with the twilight and up with the dawn. When the days finally got longer, she could read after dinner. I really miss being able to read.
The recliner had seen better days, but it was hers. She held the covering quilt up and flopped herself down. She was rewarded with a metallic "click" and a poke in her left rear. She cursed, levered herself up, and glared at the offending chair. "Now what am I going to use to pad . . ."
"The 'experts' can't possibly have been that stupid, could they?" LeeAnn muttered as she manhandled the recliner over onto its side. She peered into its innards. "Hmm, not exactly what I thought, but close enough." She went to get a set of cutters. A few careful snips removed the item she needed. She got the heavy chair back upright, then stood holding her prize and gazing off into the gloom of the garage. "Yes, they really can be that stupid. They really screwed up this one." She licked her lips, but not from thirst for booze, this time.
Her gaze fixed on the torn mattress in the corner. Her eyes narrowed. She strode over and peered in through the torn cover. Yep. More in there. She pulled the mattress forward and checked the object behind it. There too . . . duh, of course. Her eyes narrowed even more, then she glanced up into the corner by the big door, and started to laugh. She slept peacefully that night in her saggy recliner, her prize clutched in her hand, warm both inside and out for the first time in ages.
* * *
As LeeAnn walked to work the next morning, Frau Hoffman was sweeping her front steps. LeeAnn gave her a radiant smile, then laughed at the look of surprised confusion her smile caused on the German woman's face. LeeAnn bypassed the recycling center and entered the main office of the Public Works Department, pulling her roller bag behind her. She marched up to the well-fed down-timer secretary outside the director's door, and stated, "Tell Garland Franklin that LeeAnn Sanderlin is here to see him. It's vitally important that I see him about Strategic Materials. And tell him that I'm applying for the Strategic Materials prize."
The secretary looked up at LeeAnn with mild disdain. "I'm afraid Herr Franklin is quite busy this morning. You will have to make an appointment."
"I don't think so. Mister Franklin always says he has an open-door policy to his employees, especially when they have valuable suggestions. So you march right in there and tell him I'm here. He will definitely thank you once I let him know that his 'experts' have been sitting on their fat butts on a Strategic Material for years now, and didn't even know it."
Garland Franklin was sent, quite frankly, into a state of shock when his secretary ushered LeeAnn into the conference nook in his office and she placed a football-shaped coil spring in his hand. "Ed Barger over at the Department of Transportation told me that coil springs are required for a lot of important things, especially modern gun designs. He said they are a special steel alloy that we can't make here-and-now. I got this from under the seat of my recliner. There were five of these smaller ones and four big ones," LeeAnn stated. Franklin understood the importance of that immediately. "There are probably thousands like them all over town." Franklin just nodded. "And there are thousands of other coil springs, with different size wire, in box-springs and mattresses also." Franklin couldn't do anything but nod some more. "And there are two great big coil springs on most every garage door inside the Ring of Fire. Most folks don't use their garage doors much anymore. If they knew how important they were, and were offered a reasonable price, they probably wouldn't mind selling the springs to the government. I bet you could make an awful lot of gun springs from just one of those big overhead door models.
"But one thing has been troubling me. If coil springs are so important and can't be reproduced, why aren't they on the Special List at the recycling center? I'm sure now that I remember coil springs coming through in recycled items before. I bet there have been many that just got tossed in with the regular steel scrap and a lot have probably been melted down by now. If I didn't know they were special until I overheard something that made me drag it out of Ed Barger, it's a sure bet that none of the down-timers did."
"Public Works doesn't make up the Special List." Franklin wasn't so much in shock that his bureaucrat's CYA instincts didn't immediately kick in. "That comes down to us from higher up. My department only got stuck with recycling because it didn't seem to fit in anywhere else. And even though the administration gives recycling a lot of lip service, and makes a big deal out of the Strategic Materials prize, they never really put much behind it come budget time."
Now that Garland had recovered himself by getting back on familiar ground, he shook his head and chuckled ruefully. "I still just can't believe that all this spring steel has been there all this time right under our noses."
LeeAnn gave a wicked laugh. "It wasn't under your nose, Garland. It was under your rear end." Garland sank back into the old-fashioned overstuffed chair he favored, now actually noticing the springs creak as he did so, and laughed along with her.
* * *
LeeAnn clutched the Strategic Materials prize certificate in both hands after the award ceremony at the Fourth of July celebration. She'd already tucked the $1,000.00 cash prize into the pocket of her new slacks. Guenther Wendel was one of the first to congratulate her. He was actually beaming with pride for her as he shook her hand. He's not such a bad guy after all, LeeAnn thought. The breeze blew a lock of her carefully brushed hair into her eyes. She smoothed it back into place.
Preston Richards also came up to congratulate her. "You've done a very important thing for all of us, LeeAnn. It's amazing how we can all miss the obvious for so long. I'm glad to see you looking better now. I haven't seen you partake of our 'hospitality' at the jail for a while now either. That makes me even more happy."
LeeAnn glanced down at the beautiful calligraphy on the certificate once more. She had thought the cash prize would be the big thing to come from her discovery, but she was finding that having other people looking at her with approval was much bigger. She was amazed at how much her outlook had changed in the months since she had found the springs, and how good it felt to smile again. Each smile put more warmth into her fight against the inner cold than the booze ever had. "Thanks, Preston. And thank you for trying to help even when I was throwing myself away. I guess this means that you can find something to recycle in every sort of trash."
Old Folks' Music
by Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett
July 1, 1633
"You reckon we could afford to do something special for the Fourth?" Ella Mae Jones was sipping
iced chamomile tea and making faces at it at the same time. "Lord above, I wish a person could afford sugar," she muttered.
Nancy Simmons ignored the comment. Ella Mae was always griping about something. "What do you mean, do something special?"
"Well, you know Huey was born on July seventh." Ella Mae made another face at the tea. "And your boys, well, they all have summer birthdays. I was thinking we might have a barbeque. Smoke some ribs. And the corn is coming in. Corn on the cob. We could spare a few ears for a holiday, couldn't we?" Casting a look at Mildred and Regina, Ella Mae smirked a bit. "Well, for those of us who can eat corn on the cob, I mean."
Regina gritted her false teeth for a moment. "Tastes just as good when you cut it off, Ella Mae. And it's a damn sight easier to eat, too. But I figure we can probably do it. The party, I mean. Sort of combine all the boys into one big shebang. I've been saving up from the canning and I think I have enough green beans to last the winter—I could probably get enough for the extra to buy enough sugar for a cake. A yellow cake, unless one of you is holding out on cocoa."
Ella Mae, Nancy and Mildred shook their heads. "All gone the first winter," Milly mourned. "Bucky drank cocoa like it was going out of style when we couldn't get coffee. I've got a little bit of vanilla left, though. That will do for the frosting, with the cream cheese they're producing now. If we can grind the sugar down to powder, that is."
"We'll find a way." Nancy grinned. "May have to run the blender to bits, but we'll see what we can do. I can't tell you how much I'd like some real frosting, even if we have to use cream cheese instead of Crisco."
* * *
The "boys," not that they could be remotely called boys by anyone but their wives, trudged home from the bus stop, trying not to glare at the boarders.
"Ah, youth," Henry muttered. "Wish to hell I had that kind of energy."
"I wish to hell they could carry a tune in a bucket," Jerry Simmons complained. "At least what we did was music." The boarders and some young friends were experimenting with rap, of all things. In a combination of two different dialects of German and badly accented English. Mixed in was a lot of laughter and not a lot of tune. To be honest, not that much rhythm or rhyme either. The kids weren't all that good.
"Good grief." Bucky looked over at Jerry. "It's been a long time since we played, hasn't it? We all got caught up in all the hoopla . . . I haven't pulled the banjo out of the closet since, well . . ." Bucky's face creased. "Must be six years, now."
"We ought to pull the banjo and the mandolin out for that barbeque the girls are planning." Huey grinned. "Show these boys some real music. You've still got the guitar, don't you, Jer?"
"Might just do that," Bucky said, when Jerry nodded. "Might just do."
* * *
The day of the party was clear and bright. And a great deal of work. A blender can turn granulated sugar into powdered sugar. It can even turn rock sugar into powdered sugar. It's not the best way to go about it, but the girls didn't know that. A blender or food processor is made to cut, not to crush. A mortar and pestle would have probably been less work and certainly used less electricity. Still, they had powdered sugar.
"Out." Ella Mae flapped a dish towel. "Out of the kitchen, all of you." Good grief, she thought. Dealing with all these boarders could be a pain.
"Smells good." Karl, one of the youngest ones, smiled hopefully. "Very good."
"And there will be enough for everyone. Just get out of the kitchen, out from underfoot, please. We'll be eating around five. Until then, out. If you need something to do, you could always weed the garden." Ella Mae laughed as Karl scooted out the door, followed by two more young men, Johan and Peter. "Good boys," she muttered. "Good boys, all of them." She peered out the door to see that all three of them had headed for the shed and taken out hoes. "Work like the devil, even on a holiday."
Ella Mae went back to her cooking, enjoying the sounds of young people laughing at their work. Not that she didn't have plenty of her own work to do. Between them, the four families boarded fifteen of the younger miners. That took a fair bit of cooking. Not to mention all the dishwashing.
* * *
"Drat." Bucky plucked a string. "If this thing was any further out of tune . . ."
Henry grinned. "Shoulda taken better care of it, Buck." His mandolin sounded pretty good, he thought.
Bucky turned the peg a bit tighter, then tried it out. "That's got it."
"What do we remember best?" Jerry plunked at his guitar.
That took some discussing. Titles flew back and forth for a while. Just as they settled, Nancy hollered, "Come and get it."
It was a great meal. The girls had had the boarders set up the picnic tables in a line and used some old sheets for tablecloths. There was much discussion of the merits of sweet and spicy barbeque sauce. Some liked it, some didn't, but the racks of ribs disappeared, along with the pile of corn on the cob. And all the other side dishes.
"Almost like it used to be." Henry rubbed his belly. "All of us, sitting around in the yard. Food that isn't soup."
"And," Ella Mae said, "genuine real birthday cake."
Ella Mae had slipped into the kitchen and back. She stood at Bucky's side, holding her treasured cake plate. "Small slices," she warned. "I only made the one."
More discussion followed, along with the sounds of forks scraping against saucers. Then a certain amount of burping followed the discussion. With a general clean-up afterwards. "Nope." Nancy smiled. "Just this once, since this is your birthday party, you four don't have to help. Just sit on the porch and talk; we'll all take care of it."
Huey settled into his favorite chair. The boys got out the old lawn chairs. "I'm glad we kept these old metal chairs. Lots better than the aluminum framed jobs. That webbing wears out too quick." They grouped the chairs together in the shade and retrieved their instruments. Huey gave his tambourine a shake. He couldn't play anything more complicated, but he had a pretty good voice. Well, at one time, back in the day. It was getting a bit reedy nowadays.
Bucky strummed for a moment, then began a song. The others, once they figured out what he intended, began to chime in. Huey started singing, and the boarders who weren't on clean up duty drifted closer.
By the time Bucky got to "You told me once, dear, you really loved me," the younger boys were chiming in on the chorus.
"Listen to that." Nancy peeked out the kitchen window. "Not too bad, are they?"
"Sounds good." Johan paused in his dish drying. "We go out, soon? Hear more?"
"When we finish up." Ella Mae wrung out a sponge. "Now that they've got started, they aren't going to run out of steam anytime soon. They never did, once they started the pickin' and grinnin'. That's what started all of this. Hee Haw."
Regina waved at the door. "You all go on. All that's left is the counter wiping, anyway. I always thought it was the girls on Hee Haw, myself. Draped over the porch like they were."
Ella Mae grinned. "That Bucky. He loved that show."
Bucky started in on "Big Rock Candy Mountain," and Regina grinned. "I always did like that one." She started humming along.
The girls finished the clean-up and drifted outside. Ella Mae got there just in time to do the whistle part at the end.
Huey was feeling pretty good. He rattled the tambourine a bit. "Girls, your turn. What song?"
Ella Mae smiled. "You know my favorite." The boys nodded.
"Sure do," Bucky agreed. He started grinning. "Take it, girls."
Ella Mae waited for the intro, "Some bright morning, when this life is o're . . ."
Jerry added is deeper voice for "In the morning." The chorus of male voices caught on to "I'll fly away, Oh glory," real quick.
Bucky, Jerry and Henry really got into it.
* * *
"That was fun." Jerry massaged his fingertips later that night. "More fun than we've had in a while. But my fingers are sore."
Nancy grinned. "Lost all your calluses, did you?"
"Yup."
&nbs
p; * * *
"Herr Buckner?" The question came from young Johan.
"Hmm?" Bucky looked over at him.
"You and your friends, you will play the music today?"
"Reckon we could," Bucky said. "Didn't realize you boys liked it that much."
"We like it." Johan nodded. "Much better than Mountaintop, at the Gardens. Is . . . more sound we like. I invite friend, next time."
Bucky had to admit that having all the boys around was kind of fun. The boarders all chipped in with the work. And youngsters had so much energy. "I'll go check with the others. Here, you finish this row." Johan took the hoe and began carefully weeding the row of corn.
* * *
"Johan wants to know if we're going to play tonight, since we're off today."
"Which Johan?" Huey asked. "We've got three of them."