a touching coming-of-age story set in the midwest

We interrupt tonight's usual broadcast of "The Meatfields" to bring you a fragment of a novel I'm working on tentatively entitled THE LUCKY SEVEN.

Ronald Desch's office resembled an office in form only vaguely: there was a desk with some crap on it, including a computer, a nice chair for him, two not-so-nice chairs for whoever, a telephone with a million buttons, a number of cardboard file boxes with contents in various stages of disarray along the walls, which were bare except for a couple of official looking framed certificate-type pictures. Mostly these things made it seem more like the set of a high school play, having all the necessary parts but somehow not pulling it off. Much like Mr. Desch himself, who sat stiff backed in his good chair with his hands on his knees talking to me and acting like the job he was offering was more than a glorified housekeeping position. Upon careful inspection I learned that Mr. Desch wasn't, indeed, what he seemed to be: the certificates on the wall were those of the Captain of the Highway Patrol of the State of Florida, making their adornment on the wall of the manager's office of the Lucky Seven Hotel in the state of South Dakota seem a bit odd.

Later I would learn that Mr. Desch had been ousted from his post as the Captain of the Highway Patrol of the State of Florida due to the President's brother's reforms and subsequent replacement of Mr. Desch with a personal friend upon his election to the Governor's seat the previous fall. Mr. Desch was now in South Dakota on the good will of a friend who had recently acquired ownership of the Lucky Seven, a quaint little gem of a hotel in the middle of nowhere with whom I had recently found employment.

"So that's it, then. I believe everything is in order." Mr. Desch slapped his hands on his knees in an official gesture of closure. "I'll have Buck show you your room."

"Thank you, Mr. Desch."

"You can call me Ron."

Buck was an older man with grey hair and slightly bulgy eyes. He wore his hair like it was 1977, blue polyester slacks, and his identically colored work shirt tucked in perfectly, making it look like he wore a jumpsuit from afar.

His office was very believable, in that it seemed not only just like a maintenance man's office, but like it really was Buck's office: something that not only belonged to him but was a part of him. It was actually just the furnace room with a desk in it, most of it jam-packed with mysterious machinery and tools, with a little corner cleared out for a desk. Above the desk on the wall was a small framed photo of a barn, and above that an old golf club mounted like you might mount a rifle or a broadsword. Above his desk was the gratuitous pegboard panel, with pliers and hammers and various handy items displayed in meticulous fashion. In the desk was a bottle of Crown Royal and a glass. It was no secret what work went on it Buck's office. But his office wasn't his greatest attribute, though the bottle in the desk struck a close second. The greatest thing about Buck was that his last name was Rogers. The man's name was Buck Rogers. I know this because emblazoned on his golden "Lucky 7 Hotel" name tag were the words "Buck Rogers". And name tags, as we know, don't lie.

"See that picture on the wall there?" He motioned toward the barn photo. I nodded.

"That frame is made with wood from the barn in the photo."

"Wow." I really was impressed. Not so much at what it was, but how utterly bizarre it was to have a picture like that, and how unutterably proud he seemed to be of it. I moved towards it and traced the weathered old grains on the wood.

"Was it yours?"

There was an awkward silence, then he answered: "What?"

"The Barn- was it yours?"

"Oh, oh no. It was my neighbors'. They tore it down last year." He didn't even sound sad when he said that. It was as though he didn't actually care. "Welp." He almost yelled it, slapping his hands together like he was trying to shake it off. "I suppose you'd like to rest a bit, having driven all the way here from- where was that again?"