Merriton

“We got some talkin’ to do, boy.” Elvis handed a large floppy disk to Randy and he handed the old disk back to Elvis. The two of them had gotten into a routine of exchanging the disks every time Elvis made a new backup. Randy had gotten a Commodore 64 on eBay a few weeks ago. He had been working on a database program on the PC. He was trying to make it look exactly like the system that Elvis was using on his old computer. It was almost finished and Randy was so excited to show it to him.

“Yeah! Come on in, Elvis!” Elvis looked surprised and took off his cowboy hat as he walked into the door. The thunder of his voice quieted, “Haven’t been in here since I found that boy…” Randy suddenly realized that it must have been Elvis who found the previous owner’s body. The back room where the blood stains still covered the wall and floor was empty still. Sierra refused to go into the room and even Randy had avoided it. Both of them used the bathroom upstairs rather than use the bathroom in the “suicide room.”

“Come on in here. We don’t have very much furniture, but you can sit on the futon. This place is a lot bigger than the apartment we had in San Francisco.” Elvis sat uncomfortably on the couch with his hat in one hand and a floppy disk in the other. The strong timber of his voice was softened a bit by being in the house. “Mary’s ’bout ready to birth, so we need to talk about the servicin’ fee.”

Randy had pulled up the database program on his computer. The big black box sat on the screen while the green letters scrolled. It finally came to rest and the green cursor just flashed. Randy barely heard what Elvis had said. “Servicing fee?”

“Yeah, that’s how it works here. You either pay a fee for servicin’ or you share the kids. I’d be willing to take one of the kids if you don’t want to pay the fee.” Randy looked up from his computer screen. “You want to take one of Sierra’s baby goats? Is that what this is about?” Randy felt the anger boil up from his belly and he knew his face was turning bright red. He wished he could hide his anger like other people could, but his face betrayed him every time.

“This is a business, boy. You either pay the servicin’ fee or you share the kids. That’s how this works. We’re not here feedin’ these animals for the fun of it. This is our livelihood, son!” Randy imagined Elvis taking away one of Sierra’s baby goats. Sierra had been so much happier since Mary came into their lives. She had even decided to study for the Bar Exam so she could practice in this state. Randy credited all of Sierra’s positive emotions to that goat and her unborn kids. There was no way Elvis was going to take them away.

“There’s no way you’re taking away Sierra’s baby goats!” Randy stood up and the database that he had created for Elvis was forgotten. Elvis stood up. “Then you pay the servicin’ fee. It’s $200.” Suddenly one of the fields of the database made sense to him. The servicing fees that Elvis had been paying were actually in the range of $250 to $350. He realized Elvis was giving him a good deal, but he was still angry.

“The vet said that there was no way she was pregnant when you gave her to us. They’re not your kids.” Elvis shook his head. “Listen boy, this kind of thing doesn’t happen without a male and I’m the only one with male goats in 50 miles. I didn’t give her to ya pregnant, but she musta snuck back home. Or, maybe you brought ‘er to my corral when she was in heat.” Randy couldn’t believe it. Now Elvis was accusing him of mating his goat without permission.

“Get out! I’ll have a DNA test and prove that our kids don’t belong to you!” Elvis stood still in front of the futon. The computer screen flashed data of his flock, but he couldn’t see it from where he was standing. “DNA test?! Boy, you got more money than sense! A DNA test’ll cost ya way more than a servicin’ fee! I was givin’ you a break on the fee and you wanna push this?!”

“You accused me of stealing! I didn’t take Mary over to your flock! Sierra says she’s too young for mating! We’re worried about her and you come over here and try to accuse us of stealing from you! No! We’re having a DNA test to prove that we didn’t do anything wrong!” Elvis shook his head. “Listen to reason, boy! Just pay the servicin’ fee.”

“I said get out!” Randy stormed over to the door and held it open. Elvis put on his cowboy hat and walked out the door.