Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

STUFF DREAMS ARE MADE OF

A
LSO BY
D
ON
B
RUNS

Jamaica Blue

Barbados Heat

Death Dines In

(contributor)

A Merry Band of Murderers

(editor & contributor)

South Beach Shakedown

Stuff to Die For

St. Barts Breakdown

A N
OVEL

DON BRUNS

Copyright © 2008 by Don Bruns

FIRST EDITION

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN-13: 978-1-933515-16-8

Published in the United States by Oceanview Publishing,
Ipswich, Massachusetts
www.oceanviewpub.com

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This book is dedicated to Edward Stratemeyer who invented the Hardy Boys. His juvenile mysteries were my first foray into the genre. Nancy Drew, The Happy Hollisters, The Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, and The Rover Boys were all products of his fertile imagination. Skip and James are grown up Hardy Boys, and I think that Edward Stratemeyer would be proud.

I’d like to acknowledge my support group, Mike Trump, Don Witter, Jay Waggoner, Mike McNamara, and my brother Dave. Thanks to my wife, Linda, who edits all my work, and to Maryglenn McCombs who is the best publicist in the business, and getting better with every book. Mary Stanton, my good friend and advisor, thank you. Bob and Pat Gussin, Susan Greger, Mary Adele Bogdon, George Foster, Susan Hayes, and the rest of the staff from Oceanview, you make the product look and read like a million bucks!

STUFF DREAMS ARE MADE OF

I was fifteen years old when I found out my Uncle Buzz’s name was really Clarence. Not that it mattered that much. Despite the name Clarence, Buzz was a very cool uncle, ten years older than I was, and on my fifteenth birthday he picked me up in his 1987 Mustang convertible and promised to take me places I’d only dreamed about and show me things I’d never seen.

Dad had left home four years before, and my mother had pretty much washed her hands of any serious parental control, tending to be bitter about her lot in life and distant in her relationship with me. I waved to Mom and my little sister as we pulled out of the driveway, and Buzz burned rubber at the end of the street.

Leaving Carol City for the weekend was enough of a treat, the urban blight of that depressed area leaving real stains on my outlook on life, but Buzz had promised the excitement of Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and maybe a trip down the Keys as an added bonus, and I was on a true emotional high.

I still remember the hot Florida sun washing over us as he cruised down I-95 and the sweet bite of Coke and Jack as we
pulled from the silver flask he’d brought for this special occasion. Jack was my new best friend and my head was in the clouds.

“Gonna be a weekend to remember, Skip. Honest to God, a weekend to remember.”

We met with God that night, sitting on dew-damp grass on a slight rise watching a full-scale tent revival with a black preacher, gold Bible in hand, regaling his flock with stories loosely borrowed from the Bible. About three hundred parishioners swayed and chanted with the preacher and when they sang it was as if the sky had opened and the Lord had unleashed all of his unruly angels to shout his praises.

“People get worked up for a lot of reasons, Skip,” Buzz sipped his Jack and Coke, watching the proceeding with the eye of a skeptic. “I used to get worked up because of my name. Imagine. Upset about a little thing like that.”

“Buzz? What’s wrong with your name?”

He passed the flask to me. “That’s not my name, Skip. It’s Clarence.”

I smiled. There was no room to laugh. With the name Eugene haunting me for fifteen years, I knew the stigma.

“Clarence. Both of our moms had a sense of humor.”

Buzz laughed. “That show down there, those people when they get worked up could accomplish anything tonight. Do you believe that?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Right now, Skip. They could move a mountain. No, they could. They could go from here and raise a million dollars in the next hour. They could heal the sick and raise the dead. Raise the dead, nephew. They could do it. But when this show is over they go back to their miserable existence. They return to their drab, humble shacks, their cheating spouses, their screaming litter of kids, and their sham of a life. When it’s over, the only thing to look forward to is the next revival.”

I thought about that. I wasn’t quite sure why we were there, except he was fulfilling his promise. He was taking me places I’d never been.

“So what’s the point, Buzz?”

“It’s gonna be a weekend of revivals, Skip. The only thing we have in this world is looking forward to the next revival.”

He put a twenty in the collection box when the pretty little black girl stopped by our resting spot. Then, as we stood up and walked away from the thundering voice of the gospel choir, he offered me a cigar. We puffed away in the steamy night and in my foggy state of mind, the booze and the thick smoke swirling in my head, I realized Buzz may be onto something. Life was a constant search for the next adventure. My uncle was right.

But he was wrong about the capabilities of the faithful. If that crowd could have raised the dead, seventeen-year-old Cabrina Washington would be alive today. As it is, she’s in a grave, and the last adventure she had was the tent revival near Miami.

“Think of it as an adventure, Skip.” James was into his selling mode. “Come on pal, it won’t interfere with work and we’ll make some good money. Tell me you couldn’t use a little extra scratch!”

The truth was, I could. And James had outfitted the truck with two gas grills, a small refrigerator, and a stove. He could cook, I’d sell and collect the money, and it would all happen after our regular working hours. The one-ton box truck was a regular kitchen of the road. He’d cut a window out of the side, where we could let the air and light in, and he’d cut a hole in the top to vent the greasy smoke. He’d fixed up a makeshift counter next to the small grill at the rear of the vehicle so I could sell the food and hand it down to the lines of hungry Christians. Adding an aluminum step-up to the rear of the truck so customers could “rise” to the occasion was the final modification. It wasn’t perfect. I would have to lean down to give the masses their meals, but it was doable. I stalled, taking a swallow of beer and gazing down the row of apartments with their postage-stamp concrete porches.

“Skip! Amigo! You know I can make this happen.”

I put my hand up, silencing him for a moment. “The last time you told me this truck would make us some money, we got ourselves in a world of shit and you almost got beaten to death!” There had been an international incident that we didn’t bring up very often.

“This is strictly selling food, Skip. No more terrorists or international plots.” The last idea he’d had, we’d both been in life-threatening situations. “We start at six p.m. and work until about eleven. There are supposed to be fifteen hundred to two thousand people at this tent revival every night. My God, we could make a fortune.” He tapped his cigarette, dropping ashes on the stained cement. Wine, beer, and some stains I can’t explain.

James was convinced we’d both be worth a fortune by the time we reached thirty. I had my doubts. As small children growing up, we had dreams. By the time we were seniors in high school, James had decided he would study culinary arts and I would major in business and we could open up the greatest restaurant on South Beach. It didn’t happen.

College loans, personal debt, family problems, and two dead-end jobs later we were struggling. James was a short-order cook at Cap’n Crab, a fast food restaurant, and I was selling home security systems in a community where no one had anything to secure. Carol City does not appear on the Miami Chamber of Commerce list of must-see places. It’s a secondhand city, urban and poor. We’ve got a couple of old run-down malls, one decent restaurant, and a handful of old stucco gas stations, which have been converted into nondenominational churches with names like Church of the Lamb, or Salvation Congregation. There’s Hallelujah Station (a converted grocery store) and a strange building a couple blocks from our apartment with a faded sign outside that simply says “Welcome Sinners.” James and I have often said that that’s the one we’d pick if we were to pick any of them.

But the revival was in a tent, at a fairgrounds outside of Miami, and this wasn’t Salvation Congregation. Nope. This was the reverend Preston Cashdollar who headed up the largest church in the Miami area and boasted a congregation of fifteen thousand members, growing every Sunday. I swear to you, that’s his name, Cashdollar. And to have fifteen thousand members in your congregation? I couldn’t even fathom that.

“What do you say, pard? I’m figuring we lay in a supply of ground beef, brats, corn on the cob, and potatoes and we’re good to go. There’s a chance we could take home two or three thousand a night, Skip.”

“Two thousand dollars a night? How do you figure?”

“Jeez, you’re the business guy. We get two hundred customers a night, sell ’em a meal for ten bucks and —”

“You’re gonna sell a hamburger, corn, and potato salad for ten bucks? My God, James, those people won’t have anything left for the collection plate.”

“Listen, Daron Styles says that —”

“Daron Styles? Why would you quote that reprobate?”

“All right, he wasn’t the most trustworthy kid in our class, but he’s done this revival meeting. He says it’s a license to steal.”

“Daron Styles ‘did’ this revival meeting? What does that mean?”

“He had a booth. Sold religious stuff like small Bibles, pictures, silver crosses, statues and stuff. He says the followers come with money to spend. I believe he did quite well.”

“Styles is sleezy. Is that the kind of person we’re going to be working with?”

“He’s not with the meeting anymore. He’s working in South Beach, but Skip, who the hell cares? Listen, pard, we’re in the middle of a campground. These people have been dancing and singing and whatever they do at these revivals and they are hungry, Skip, with nowhere else to go. Ten bucks a meal covers our
gas, our time, and our supplies. We can make some good money, pal. Come on, would I steer you wrong?”

He paused, waiting for me to jump at the chance. If this was such a good idea, why had Daron Styles left? And would James steer me wrong? Of course. No question. He’d steered me all over the place since grade school. “James, there has to be a tariff. They’re not going to let us just make that kind of money off of their congregation without some sort of fee.”

James smiled. His charming smile worked on a lot of people, but we went back much too long for it to have any effect on me. “Skip, Skip. I can’t pull anything on you. You’re my amigo.”

“Can it. How much?”

“Five hundred a day.”

“Jesus!”

“That’s why we’re going, son. For Jesus.”

“And if we don’t make five hundred dollars a day?”

“Well,” he studied me as if to gauge my reaction to his next
charming
statement, “we still have to pay. It’s up-front money.”

“Oh, well let me get my wallet out. I’ve got three days worth of five hundred dollars right here. No problem.” I probably had nine bucks if I was lucky.

His charm went out the window. “Look, damn it. We can make twenty-five hundred a night off this thing. I’ve met with one of Reverend Cashdollar’s business guys, Thomas LeRoy, and he assured me we could do at least that well.”