Beginnings – Battered and Beaten: Eggs on the Run

Jake Rudder, Private Detective. It wasn’t catchy, rather boring really, but it worked for the space allotted over the mail slots and that was all I needed. My office was on the third floor, which was also the top floor, of the oldest office building know to man. It claims to have been built in 1893, a rose in the hat of the upper west side of Springdale. I can only imagine what types of businesses occupied office number 308 before I arrived four years ago. Someday, I’ll pull up the burnt orange shag carpet, which sweeps through the entire three room office like an ocean of overripe fruit, and count the inevitable chalk outlines which must cover the old hardwood floors beneath.

They called the building The Chamberlain, after Mayor Alfred Patrick Chamberlain who pushed for, funded and oversaw its construction. “Bringing in commerce and industry – A healthy city’s life blood!”, was his reelection cry, a vision which had begun and ended right here on 1243 Brightenburg Avenue. He was never reelected.

Three square stories of mud colored brick with large windows and narrow ledges, perfect for the depressed who wanted a place from which to jump. Problem was, I doubt that they could kill themselves from only three stories up. To date, I have never heard of any legitimate attempts, but in this town anything is possible.

I advertise in the classified of two small local papers. Nothing fancy, just “Detective work – cheap, quiet, gets results 555-8808.” It works okay. Enough to pay the rent, feed myself and occasionally put something away towards the tropical island that I intend to buy. Something off Bora Bora maybe, who knows, I’m not really that picky.

My clientele is a funny mixture of kids with active imaginations, strange little men who think that some government agency is following them and lonely old gray haired ladies who want me to find relatives, friends or even the occasional extra pair of glasses. I take all kinds, an equal opportunity snoop, of sorts.

I spend most afternoons behind an old three legged plywood desk, originally painted beige. The desk apparently came with the office. I found it turned on its top, in the tiny back storage room, the day that I rented the place.

I usually flip on the old black and white which sits on a sagging metal shelf bolted into the corner between two walls of the front reception area. My desk sits out there as well because I can’t get it through the second door into the one nice office in this place. So I sit out front, perched in a squeaky high backed, second hand, olive green vinyl office chair which, if forced, leans back just enough to allow my scuffed four year old wingtips to clear the top of the desk.

I then loosen the tie about three or four inches, stretch back with half open eyes under the brim of my dirty yet loved ball cap, pulled low over an ever widening forehead and watch baseball while eating fig newtons and slurping down a concoction of Diet Pepsi and lime juice.

Today, I stuck my fingers through the slats of the window blinds and watched the dark grey clouds roll and build along the horizon like balled up dirty sweat socks. The storm was growing over the mountains. The news predicted rain and lots of it, turning to snow by late afternoon. The weatherman spoke in over dramatics about a low pressure front pushing across the state. Blah Ba Blah Blah Blah, I had lost interest after “We will receive rain.”

This meant that I would have to go down and move my rust red VW Bug, illegally parked, out front in a faded yellow disabled parking stall. But really, it was always the only one available, what should I do? I wouldn’t have to move it at all except for the fact that the car had become a perpetual convertible. The top had slowly rotted away in large chunks until, two summers earlier, I had to remove it completely. Now I am constantly running to move it out of the weather or throwing a tarp over it like a redneck’s lawn ornament.

I let the blinds fall back into place and turned back to the baseball game on television. It had been a slow day and a slow game. Brewers versus the Royals, not a season deciding game by any means. I am a Kansas City Royals Fan. I state that unequivocally. I have been one since I was ten years old. My little league team carried the same name and I’m nothing if not loyal. They are currently 48 games out of first place, a fairly familiar position in the standings. But I still watch the games and wear the hat, my contribution to fandom.