Blessing and Nolan were alone in the florist shop. Putting the eighty-one-thousand, seven-hundred-and-forty dollars and sixty cents as far back her mind as possible, Blessing was toying with the bitcoin in her pocket. She'd found it in her money binder. She didn't know where it came from and she wanted to impress Nolan.
Nolan was blond and smart. And very bored in Longmont, Colorado. When Blessing showed him the bitcoin, he instantly became intrigued. "This is a Buck Rogers bitcoin," Nolan said.
"I can read," Blessing said.
"Sorry, this coin is one of the first bitcoins minted," Nolan said. "This is very rare."
"Really?" Blesssing said.
"What do you know about bitcoin?" Nolan asked.
"What do you know about Buck Rogers' bitcoin?" Blessing asked, not wanting to appear too dumb.
"Well," Nolan said diplomatically, "It's not possible to mint any bitcoin now. But back when it was first introduced, some makers did mint coins. So even though it says it's for five thousand it's worth more now as a curiousity."
"So this is worth real money?" Blessing said.
"Well, bitcoin is real money and this is, as an object, worth more than bitcoin."
Nolan looked at the girl who made his heart beat faster. "Um...where did you find it?"
Blessing looked at the boy who made her heart skip a beat. "Can you keep a secret?"
Actually Nolan was really good at keeping secrets. "Cross my heart."
Blessing took a deep breath. Could she tell him the truth? Would she sound crazy?
"It's just that me and my friends started keeping secret money binders to save up and.....I've been putting my money away. But they come up with lots of money for their binders. I am not as good as they are at making money, but then...it's really weird. Money keeps appearing in my binder, dollar bills mainly, but then there was this," Blessing pointed at the coin in Nolan's hand. "Some days I think I might be seeing things."
"Did your mom put it there?" Nolan handed back the coin.
"Are you kidding? She could have found my binder and not said anything. But she and Roy are arguing about how to pay the electricity bill. Right now Roy is putting in a gas generator to try to go off grid..." Blessing trailed off. "Not really totally legal....." she added.
Nolan looked at Blessing. She was quite logical and that's what he really liked about her, aside the freckles.
"You're not crazy," Nolan said. "There has to be an explanation." Nolan thought about his Uncle Lolly who had disappeared. Nolan liked to poke fun at Uncle Lolly. That's why he was pranking him with the drone. Everytime he heard people gossip about the UFO, he had to supress a smile. And, whoa, did Uncle Lolly get riled up about the topic. Where had Lolly gone? Despite his attempts, all he could locate was the Chevy Cameo at Rimbaud Ranch. It had been parked there for weeks.
Nolan wanted to invite Blessing to go bowling. "Are you working here next Saturday?" he asked.
"Yeah, from twelve-thirty to four, after my class," Blessing said.
"Do you want to go bowling?" Nolan asked. "Maybe Mom can drop us off with the last delivery run."
Blessing smiled. "Sounds good."
"Afterwards maybe your mom can pick us up," Nolan said. He had the impression that Julie was a pain in the ass and he had to gain her trust. Even at fifteen Nolan, was certain that he had met the woman of his dreams. He was totally crazy about Blessing.
Candace was back at McCarthy's Pub. She and her friend Hope were ready to chase any ghost that entered the bar. It was Saturday night after all, and something had to show up.
"Candace," El-Don said, eyeing his old high school girlfriend.
"El-Don," Candace said, remembering her old boyfriend's poor behavior. "This is Hope."
Hope was wearing a flannel shirt and jeans. Candace had a new sweater on and her best sprinting sneakers.
"May I?" El-Don said, gesturing at one of the empty chairs at the table.
"Sure," Hope said. Candace sniffed.
El-Don looked at the two women. If he didn't know better, he'd have sworn that they were in a relationship. But Candace wasn't that way. "You, uh, notice anything unusual about this bar?" he asked.
"Are you taking a survey of bars these days, El-Don?" Candace asked, well aware that El-Don had been a notoriously uptight Christian all his life. Despite his righteous complex, she also knew he longed to be a Bad Boy.
Hope looked at Candace. Hope wasn't interested in deception and games. "We're waiting for the spirits to arrive," she said to El-Don.
El-Don didn't know quite what to say to this blunt reply. "You, uh, mean the...."
"Keith Kumasen Abbott, the zen monk." Hope said.
El-Don froze. "You mean, he's around?"
"Yes, he's on a quest."
"For what?"
"His missing manuscripts."
El-Don's mind leapt to Lolly. What had Lolly done with the manuscripts?
Candace looked closely at El-Don. He was always involved with some sort of shady real estate deals, worming his way into charities and boards. Candace felt that El-Don had something to do with Keith Kumasen Abbott's quest.
"Is this chair free, ladies?" Buck stood next to El-Don. Buck was wearing a Heavy Metal hoodie and cowboy boots. He was ready to blend in at McCarthy's. He even had a temporary tattoo of an eagle on his neck.
El-Don didn't know what was happening to him. How come Buck was at McCarthy's Pub? Buck never strayed far from Rimbaud Ranch and rarely mingled with the locals.
Candace and Hope were amazed that the legendary Buck Rogers was sitting at their table.
"Do you know each other?" Candace asked.
"We share a business interest," Buck said. "What will you ladies have? It's on me."
El-Don noted the long knife strapped to Buck's thigh.
Buck ordered their drinks.
"Didn't you handle the sale of Keith Kumasen Abbott's house?" Candace said pointedly, taking advantage of the distraction.
"Really?" Buck turned to El-Don. "Were you involved in the sale?"
Candace knew that El-Don had captured the sale of the house well under market value before the Beige Widow died, telling the Beige Widow that the proceeds would go to charity if she left it to him in her will, and then flipped the house through his son-in-law.
"Yes, El-Don got the house and the contents."
"Now, it was for the InBetween Foundation." El-Don said.
"Nice name," Buck thought.
"So what did you do with Abbott's archival materials?"
Before El-Don could answer, Hope gasped. "There he is!"
The ghost of the Zen monk walked into the bar from a wall, followed by a ghost in an oatmeal sweater.
"Is that Gertie Stein?" Buck asked himself, looking at the figure following the ghost in the oatmeal sweater.
Lolly frankly didn't know where he was. The landscape kept changing just like the time and day and even year. He had retained his phone throughout his capture and it was constantly being reset.
The alarm went off. Lolly looked at his phone. Someone was in his cabin.
Panicking a little, Lolly punched the code of his camera app into his phone. Amazingly he found himself staring at Big Foot, sitting in Lolly's Lazy-Boy recliner, reading a manuscript. Big Foot stood up, almost eye to eye with the camera hidden in the moose head over the fireplace, went to the opposite corner of the room, took out his dick from his hairy underparts and peed into Joseph Smith's bucket. The bucket had been authenticated.
Lolly began to pray. "Great Lord Jesus, help me," he said as his heart sank. His Superior Man Plan was failing.
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