US Copyright #TXu001601083 / 2007-11-26
ISBN 978-1-105-61169-8
Church chimes chased the cautious steps, paced by Royce Maxwell down the alley way behind his father’s used car emporium, on his trudge to the Red Spot Tavern where profane old men dressed in dark wool pants, gambled at the ancient game of dominoes and smoked unfiltered Luckys.
It was noontime and the church bells of the small mid-western town of Wichita, always rang out to either remind everyone of the omnipotence of the church or else to chase away the pigeons roosting in the steeples. Royce Maxwell wondered about the meaning of the church bells as he magically kicked a few round stones in his way and tried to time his steps to match exactly the positioning of the next stone; to be able to kick it without breaking stride.
In the backyards of the various houses ran clothes lines covered with white laundry. Behind most houses, were ten foot tall concrete trash incinerators which puffed the odor of newspapers and other fowl smelling incineratum. The alley was filled with the previous autumn's dead weeds. The few metal trash cans stood as perfect targets for the one most perfect round stone he searched for, to kick the most perfect clink on his way to the Red Spot Tavern. Henry, his father never participated in the stone kicking and his silence about the subject indicated it must be one joy reserved for youth, Royce imagined. It was something he always meant to ask Henry about, but could never work up the nerve to ask something so childish.
‘Slow Motion’ was the nickname for the drunk who meandered down the alley during the day on his way to the bottle store. Both Royce and Henry saw the shadow of him leaning up against a wall, ahead. A series of body motions between the two, signaled they both were aware of the drunk's presence.
The conversation centered on mostly "When I was a kid's" that Henry was unfurling with the greatest of ease. "You cannot believe how tough it was in the depression….people raised chickens in their homes, just to have something to eat." Royce listened intently to the stories as Henry was always building up his yarns with some interesting tidbits of yesteryear.
At the Red's Spot Tavern, they served goose liver sandwiches that Henry frequently recommended, although never actually ordered himself, as next door was Bogue’s Animal Hospital and certain doubt was always cast, whenever Red yelled out an order for one of these mysterious concoctions. The sandwich consisted of two 3” circles of store bought braunsweiger served on two slices of wonder bread. Mustard was the main and only condiment available. Almost daily, Royce Maxwell went to the Red Spot Tavern through the alleyway, listening to the church bells, kicking round stones, and sitting at the bar next to invariably, someone who actually did order a gooseliver sandwich. He tried them a few times and actually liked the flavor.
On the wall across from the long bar was a large slate scoreboard which some elderly Negro managed with great deliberation, whenever there was a baseball game on the radio. The innings were marked off in red painted lines and he used red chalk, after climbing up his library ladder, to mark the appropriate change in inning information. His lettering seemed almost as if he had mastered the art of penmanship in the third grade, which was his highest level of educational achievement, other than a stint in the US Navy. Nonetheless, the scores were always neatly kept. This was his only real job and had been his only job since the depression, or so the rumor ran. He also manned a push broom with the greatest of finesse and swept the entire place into one small pile, proving he was either a very poor sweeper, or else he had kept the place meticulous for years. Royce pondered that notion numerous times, however, no one seemed to ever really know what the sweeper was really about. He rarely spoke while sweeping.
The Red Spot tavern was alive with such traditions. There were long green felted snooker tables and frequently, over the clatter of shuffling dominoes, the barking out of grille orders by Red and the constant loud rail of the radio, could occasionally be heard the breaking of a rack of pool balls. Cash money was thrown around back there on top of those green felted tables as gambling was as common as cheap talk and never nearly as interesting. The losers came and went. A big gypsy man named Sol, was the cock of the walk on the pool tables. He would play anyone for a fiver and carried a big wad of cash always. His black ‘41 Cadillac coupe was parked right outside the back door everyday guarded by several young gypsy boys, too young to be allowed into the Red Spot Tavern. Sol was rumored to still carry Grovers in his wad, thousand dollar bills, so he could buy his way out of any trouble. He sharked a few loans and sometimes pulled out his wad to peel off some cash for some desperate soul looking for a fast, high interest loan. People said cautiously, that he was a bit ‘shy’ as a reference to his being the local loan shark.
The old men at the front in wool pants played dominoes. Royce could never figure out why they shuffled the dominoes with such glee. At the conclusion of a game, someone would shout out another drink order to Red and the shuffling would commence. It seemed to go on and on. Royce watched always through the mirror behind the bar, convinced that some sense of the game would eventually be made. Often games concluded, because some of the old men in wool pants smoked the nastiest smelling cigars in the world and had to take a break from the action. No real sense could be made of the game of black tiles, to Royce.
In stride, Royce and Henry walked in the front door and smiled a grin as wide as a river. Henry blurted out a few bold hellos to some of the boys and waved at several others. Up to the bar they hoisted themselves, as the stools were way too high for even tall men. Red proclaimed Henry's arrival and always embellished it with some statement of how “Moneybags” had arrived. Henry loved it. Royce was ignored, as old men simply did not speak to younger men in Red's Spot Tavern.
“Dad, your looking fit as a viper. Did you steal anything from Quality, across the street?” Henry had just come back from a couple hour meeting of negotiating and buying from the Used Car Manager at the Chevy store.
“I got a couple old bones, a ‘66 Caprice, busted on the miles and a Dodge pick up. He made me bleed for the Caprice!”
You need one of those don’t you?’
“Yea, Creekmoor, the plumber wants one and this one is just what he will buy. I got to send it to Earp’s and get the motormedic on it. It’s got a bit of lifter tick. Maybe some mystery oil will help it.”
“How many rounds showing on the clock, Dad?’
“I think it has 37 or 43, or at least that's what it will have after the Earp’s get finished busting it in the head. The old car looks pretty good, although it does need a good ten dollar shine and it has a crack in the crystal. I also need to get some recaps on it.”
Tall Budweiser beers arrived and Red asked if the usuals were what they needed. Both men nodded and Red shuffled off to get someone else a beer as he cried out, “two roast beast sammies on white bread....lotsa chips!”
Lunch was over in a few minutes and Royce asked his father about how he felt with his leaving. His dad said it was fine and that he wished him luck moving away some 200 miles to study at the state university. It was time to leave, Royce knew and deep down he realized the cigar smoke, the sounds, the goose liver and the baseball scores would never be as beautiful as they were right then. He would never be able to come back there again and see such texture of life. For Royce, it was off to be a college man. He shook Henry's hand and together they walked back down the alleyway to the lot, two blocks away, to his car. They nodded at each other as he got into his ‘65 Impala with three on the tree and a six cylinder motor. It was a bright and sunny August day. Royce pulled out of Wichita on the Turnpike and headed north to Lawrence. As he drove past the first old wind turbine, outside of El Dorado, Royce pondered if everyone at college would be smoking dope and he vowed to himself to not go there.
The weeks passed and the experience of becoming a college student was a blur. Royce took it all in as part entertainment and part work. He liked his classes and especially the fact that he was on his own. A trip home several times a semester was in order and then summer for more work at Henry's car lot, to earn enough cash for the next year's tuition. College went by quickly and in four years, Royce was graduated with a degree in Fine Arts, Painting and Drawing. He was perfectly educated to then become a poor starving artist.
During the four years of college in Lawrence, he befriended his cousin, Leroy, who owned a building next to the railroad tracks. Leroy was in his forties and worked at the fertilizer plant as a chemist. He had been there all his adult life, after college and had an unusually lonely existence. Royce knew of him as a kid, as Henry and Royce once visited him years earlier, on one of Henry's car buying trips to Kansas City. Leroy was smart. He had much education and was a whiz at science. Royce liked his nerdiness and they became good pals during Royce's tenure at college.
"What are you gonna do after school?" Leroy asked him. "Got any plans?"
"I would like to stick around Lawrence and maybe open a business." Royce explained. "I inherited at 21, some wheat royalties and have a minor amount of cash set aside."
"What kind of business do you want to have?"
"I bought some old cars while in school and gypped them easy enough out of the paper. I think I will specialize in handling some old cars… cars from the fifties or earlier. I just bought a couple of '65 Mustangs and think I will get them both lot-ready and curb them."
"Do you need a place to fix them up? I have all this building here and I only use this back lab area. People have asked me about renting out the lower shop space, but I never trusted anyone. You can use the space for free, if you can keep it just you and not let anyone in upstairs, here. I gotta keep my experimenting very hush hush."
"What kind of experimenting do you do up here? Are you making a time machine or something? What is all of this crap?"
"I experiment with fertilizer chemicals and up here is where I do my own stuff. Out at the plant I have a great lab, but here, I just do the specialized research. You should come out to the plant sometime, if you are really interested in seeing lots of chemistry equipment."
"Naw. I was just curious what you do, Leroy. You do not seem to have much of a life beyond your work and this funky railroad building. I would be glad as hell to use the space downstairs for my cars. I will not park them outside and will only use the back door, to not stir up any curiosity. No sign or much of a commercial look. Is that OK?"
"Sure. You just have to keep people out of coming upstairs, here. I don't let anyone else up here, besides you. No one! Ever!"
"You are making me feel curious about what is so important up here, Leroy. Are you working on some top secret up here?"
"Hell no. I just do not want anyone at the plant to know I have this place. I get lots of work done here and take the results back to the plant. This way, no one can figure out what I am up to and besides, it is my damned business anyway. No one up here! Is that clear?"
"No problem, Leroy. If anyone ever comes in downstairs, I will never mention you or your lab up here. I swear."
Royce began his business with old cars. He found the parts and the mechanics to get his cars together and began to advertise his reconditioned old cars in the paper. Two Mustangs turned into six and then ten at a time. Mustangs, Camaros, ‘57 Chevys, A couple of GTOs, and many other muscle cars. He was slowly building up his knowledge of how to get these old cars together and rapidly selling them for a nice profit. In a year, he had made enough for a downpayment on a conservative home in a nice part of town. Life was going well. Leroy had remained an enigma to him and he did his best to completely respect his privacy.
"Royce, you seem to be doing ok with these old cars. Where do you find them? Leroy asked.
"I get most of them in Kansas City. I get the Star and early on Sundays, go buy cars with cash. Those greenbacks always come through for me. I bought that '56 T-Bird that way." Royce said as the two peered at the beauty under the car cover. "I will make a couple grand on this one, if all goes as planned."
"I am proud of you, Royce and I hear Henry is as well. Are you going to do anything with your degree in art, or is this it?"
"No. I am painting at home. I go to a drawing group on Wednesday nights and still participate in many art things. I like the art world, but it is hard as hell to make any money in it. I like the old cars, because it pays for my living expenses and is actually getting me ahead a bit. I bought a house and feel like I am headed ok. Wanna come over for steaks some night?"
Royce and Leroy were close, but except for meeting at Leroy's lab, there was no relationship. Leroy had no life beyond his work. He had really no friends and had never married. He was a typical nerd. Thick glasses and weird breath. He was very self absorbed in his work. Royce felt sorry for him a bit and had tried before to encourage his coming out of his shell some, to no avail.
"My work is so important, Royce. I have these experiments I have to monitor all the time. I just do not have any spare time. You can bring me something to eat, though about anytime. I love steak."
Royce had driven by the apartment building that Leroy lived in and it was neat, nice and anonymous. He had stopped there many times looking for Leroy, but discovered that beyond somewhere to sleep, Leroy spent almost all his time either at work or in his lab above the railroad building. He listened to talk shows on AM radio. He subscribed to science journals. His entire life was just about work and nothing else beyond his limited relationship with Royce seemed to matter. Holidays were spent alone and never had Royce ever seen him stray from his routine. Royce accepted Leroy and cousins just did that, if they wanted to remain close.
"Leroy, what exactly are your working on, up there? Royce finally asked him one night. "I am curious. I probably would not understand, but in general terms, what are you doing?"
Leroy had always avoided mentioning much about what he was up to. He became evasive and would change the subject. This time was different. Royce had brought him a sack of hot donuts from Joe's. Leroy rolled his eyes and told Royce her had better come over to the other side of the room.
"Basically I work on weird biochemicals. These are unusual chemicals that occur in plants. Some very common and some very uncommon. My hunch is that I might find some trigger or something which could influence the growth of plants, much like a fertilizer. That is my main research. I have had some success and I have run into some really weird chemistry. My hope is that I just might discover something which could significantly change the world."
Then you will have all the women chasing you, Leroy."
"Yeah, right. The only women who ever chased me were crazy. Screw them all. I do not need anyone. I just want to make a major discovery and I just may have found one."
"Like what? What discovery?"
"Let me show you a little something. Come over here and watch me."
Royce followed Leroy over to a clear panel where behind, Leroy lit a candle. He poured from a flask some water looking substance into a spray bottle and picked up another spray bottle, which looked to have some oily liquid in it, but clear. He set them both on the table in front of the candle and reached through the gloves in the clear panel to pick them up in either hand. "Watch this." He sprayed a small amount of both into the candle flame and a big burst of flame spewed up. Royce jumped back. Leroy turned around and began to laugh.
"What have you got there, Leroy? Are you playing with hairspray, again?"
Leroy extinguished the candle and poured the clear liquid back into its container. He moved back to his desk area and looked hard at Royce.
"Royce, I believe I have figured out a way to break down water into hydrogen and oxygen without electrolysis. I have found a biochemical catalyst that causes water to break down, almost instantly. Do you have any clue what this could do to the world? Do you realize how incredibly valuable this discovery is to the energy industry? If I can just isolate this biochemical reaction and manufacture this, I could become very wealthy. This is almost like being able to turn lead into gold."
"Wow. Are you kidding me? Have you really figured out something here or is it some oddity. How do you make this catalyst? Where do you get the materials and how come it does not occur in nature? Royce was dumbfounded.
"The story is long and a very unusual series of circumstances, that I came across this. Do you remember hearing about my parents who lived in western Kansas? My father farmed wheat out there on the land his grandfather farmed for decades. I am not sure when my great-grandfather started out there, or even if his father was there before him. My family history is lost as my parents died early in a plane crash in the sixties. I inherited the land and leased it our to another wheat farmer all these years, right after I started school, here. You know about this as that is where you get those wheat checks. My dad left you and your brother a chunk of the royalties. I get half of it, plus the land appreciation."
"There is a dilapidated farm house out there that my parents lived in. Hell, I grew up out there and could not wait to leave. I came to Lawrence to get away from the total emptiness of the place that I felt growing up. Tornadoes, hail stones the size of golf balls, unending wind and weather as extreme as any I have ever known. Hell, it would get so hot there in the summer and the winters were just as bad. I really did not like the place, once I discovered Lawrence."
"My grandfather raised a few cattle out there, but the land was good for little else than wheat and brome grass. My dad just grew wheat and was proud to live off the land. How he ever convinced my mother to come out there is still a mystery. They lived on almost nothing and had me. I was taught to read and study hard to escape the place. I hardly had any friends out there growing up and still don't, I guess, except you, Royce. Your dad was always kind to me and treated me with great respect, however living in Lawrence, I figured I would find a way to make a life for myself."
"OK. Back to the water. How did you discover the water trick?"
"Oh yeah. My grandfather had a stretch of ground out there in a low lying area. 50 acres or so. It was full of a weird thistle weed and nothing else would ever grow there. He tried everything to get rid of it, but noting would keep it from coming back. Finally, he tried cutting the stalks and experimenting with making some animal feed from it, to no avail. He called it dragon weed, as it would bloom red flowers all the time and they looked like dragon breath, he said. I remember as a kid, he talked about the stuff to me. No one could figure out where the stuff came from or if anyone had seen it anywhere else.
Then in the fifties, some geologist came by and wanted to test the ground for oil deposits. They ran core samples down at various places on the property and especially down below the dragon weed patch. After several months, he came back and told my grandfather that there was some very odd geology beneath the thistle patch. There were odd rare earth chemicals and elements; lanthanum, holmium, gadolinium chemicals…. Some of the weirdest chemistry the geologist had ever run into. He speculated that not only had a meteor crashed there centuries ago, but that another meteor had crashed exactly on the same spot, making the ground unusually different. He said there were all kinds of rare earths there and that explained the weird soil and dragon weed. Unfortunately, no oil was found and any hope of oil money was lost. The mining of the rare earths was possible, but not enough of anything worth the efforts. The geologist faded away and Grand Dad never heard from him again. My grandmother thought the guy was a drunk for some reason.
Well, my father fooled around with the dragon weed, as well. He said his dad said there was something very unusual about the stuff. Dad called the Kansas State University people to come out and examine the weed. They did and said they had never seen anything like it. It was a thistle, but unlike any other in the area. They concurred that the soil was obviously the reason it had evolved into this plant. Lots of talk was made about it being such a rare discovery, but nothing ever came of it. The subject was forgotten by all in no time."
My father told me when I went to college that I should research this plant as he felt there was something about it that he had seen in no other. He claimed at one point he was driving the combine by the patch as he saw a flash or explosion at the edge of it, but that it vanished almost as fast as it happened. It had rained that morning and he figured the sun had somehow set off some natural gas that had seeped up from the ground. He also thought there was something about the weed that maybe caused a gas explosion.
After I finished graduate school, I went to work for the fertilizer plant, here. I had a good job, but it was very lonely. My assignment was to constantly keep the quality controls in place for what we make there. I was also encouraged to research other fertilizers, since we had all of the equipment. The old guy, Bales, who was my boss for years, believed we were always on the verge of discovering some revolutionary fertilizer and he taught me to keep my work very hush-hush. This building came available, as we had leased it to store equipment in for years. I bought it ten years ago for practically nothing after we no longer needed it to warehouse equipment. That is when I had the idea of studying this dragon weed some more, along with many other unusual biochemicals. Old man Bales retired and I took over the lab at the plant. I would work there in the days and spend my time here working at nights, being close to the plant, if something needs my attention.
I was studying the various proteins and chemicals in brome grass. I had isolated many of these and was trying to figure out some way to make wheat self seed….a perennial crop would be very good. Brome seemed to grow almost everywhere in Kansas and it did a fine job of self-seeding, it seemed. I particularly remembered the brome grass that grew along the edge of the thistle patch back at home, as it would grow to very tall heights. Dad never planted wheat too near that patch as it never did very well.
Well, at one point, I had to go back out there and board up the old house. The roof was still good and I did not want to see it go to ruin, just from varments getting in any broken windows. I hired some guy to patch the stone walls a bit and board up the windows. I had to go back out there to make sure he had done his job. During one of those trips, I went down to the tall brome grass and cut some of it to take back here to my little lab. I also cut some of the dragon weed to play with it some, as well. I had the two samples in a gunny sack in the back of my truck and ran through a rain. The sun came back out and the bag caught fire. I pulled over and threw the bag into a ditch. When it hit the water, it started popping and ignited in a blaze for a minute or so. I was truly stumped at how it had happened. I stood there for a long time just thinking about it. Something had caused the grass to emit some explosive gasses, I surmised. Curious, I went back to the farm and grabbed another couple of bags of the brome and dragon weed, but wrapped them up under a tarp, to keep the water off and separated. I got back here and in the next few weeks began to study these two batches with great intent.
A couple of months went by and I abandoned my project. I could not figure out what had happened. I had experimented many different ways, but could not repeat my earlier results. I gave up on it, as I was too busy working on some other fertilizer ideas. Time went by and finally, three years later I played around with these again.
I made another long drive back to the farm. The dragon weed was as usual, completely happy where it was. The brome was tall and seemed normal. I cut some new samples and came back to Lawrence. I then began to break down various chemicals in each of the plants. In the dragon weed, I found a very strange chemical that I had never seen and it was in great supply. Puzzled about why so much of this one chemical, I isolated it and ended up with an oily substance that when mixed with water, would suddenly begin to break down the water into hydrogen and oxygen. Eureka! I had found something really unusual. Electrolysis without electricity was the first flash in my mind. How much energy could be created? How many other chemicals would be released in this burning of water. I worked feverishly for months on this, but could not get consistent results. I was stumped. Finally and by accident, I tried using some proteins in the brome grass. I found the secret!"
"This is incredible, Leroy. What have you done to tell the world about this find? It could change everything. If you can change or break down water in a simple chemical reaction, just think of the impact to the oil industry? This is very wild stuff."
"I have told no one about this. I am telling you because I have no one else to explain this all. Royce, you are my only close relative and I really do not have the strength or time to turn this thing into something useful. You are young and you can make this into a big thing. You know how to deal with people and you understand business much better than I ever could. I live like a hermit and work all the time. I have no friends and know if I published a paper on this, it would ruin me. I am happy just where I am, but you could make this thing work?"
"That is a tall order, Leroy. Do you really think there is any way you could repeat this chemical reaction on some big commercial scale? Is the dragon weed plant the only one with this catalyst chemical? How much of the chemical exists in that patch out at your farm and how reliable is the crop every year?"
"The weed always grows there. Nothing else does. You can cut it down and it comes back with vengeance, as nothing else will grow there. There must be forty to fifty acres of the stuff there and you can harvest it several times a year, with any luck. It self seeds. Now, I do not have a clue how to do that or what, if any harvesting equipment you would need, but the stuff is there in large quantities. The amazing part is that it does not take much of it to mix with the brome grass protein to cause this catalytic reaction in water. My best guess is that it takes about one 800th of an ounce of the chemical in the dragon weed to affect a gallon of water, once it is mixed with the brome protein."
"How much of the brome protein is needed and is it any particular brome grass?"
"Naw, Any bluestem brome grass seems to do the trick. The processing for the brome grass is real simple. The dragon weed chemical is a bit tricky. I can show you how and I bet we can figure out how to do it on a large scale."
Royce drove home that night and met Ellie at the door. She was concerned that Royce was spending so much time with his weird cousin. Ellie did not like Leroy. They had met once and Leroy seemed to pay her zero attention. Ellie thought he was a bore and too technical. He had no friends and no social skills with women.
"Is your cousin more important than coming home to dinner with me?"
"Ellie, Leroy just showed me something which will change very much in my life and yours too, if you do not piss me or him off! Sorry I am late, but I told you I was going to see Leroy tonight."
"Have you guys been drinking beer?"
"No. Ellie, we were just talking. Forget it. Let's go get something to eat."
Ellie and Royce went to dinner and talked about Ellie's sister, who was always in trouble with either her boyfriend or her job. Ellie blabbed on and on about her sister as Royce nodded his head frequently, but stayed mentally distant, thinking about the catalyst. Ellie finally said she was tired and they should go home. A quick trip to her sisters to pick up some things and they headed for home. Life with Ellie was ok, but there was no great passion.
If you want to read all of it, email me and I can send you an E-version of it for $20.00