What did that stuttering guru with the tumbleweed beard sitting cross-legged on the ashram/convenience store/gas station altar just outside Redding say? Something profound (Four Noble Truths, Three Gems/Jewels)? Something about impermanence? Letting go? Something? He’d taken comfort in it then and would now, if his own ROM Bank had not recently gone kablooey. Too much strain on the old Think-A-Rator with plain clothes agents’ arrival in opulent cypress-lined circular driveway. Franklin A Pierceall, CEO, CFO, and COO of Zipper Financial and Millennial Maximus Monies, LTD, has discovered just how much he can only take.  

         Ouch.

         Then NOW, as in RIGHT. Forsooth, Dear Speedometer, how you do climb! Metal to the pedal 70. Then—blink–90. Then Geez, Louise, 110! Who knew trusty RAM steed could haul-eth his ass at such a world class speed? Pusillanimous pursuit vehicles must slow for curves RAM steed knows like back of proverbial hand. The Man’s machines lag behind like freaking moronic tourists! All he can do to not pull over/laugh head off. But raving Jerk-o Agents might catch up, so ixnay that ay.

         After 5 years in this shadow of Mount Shasta road bend, Stuckleyville, Franklin A. Pierceall drives like real Townie. Cute kid, Frank Jr., on the soccer team, check, pretty/ebullient wife, Allison, shopping first name basis Safeway, check. Trust swiftly built to expertly sell humble burg citizens investment instruments so complicated—cryptocurrency mining, algorithmic investment funds, reverse life insurance policies, upside down platinum annuities, Class A Bondo bond funds—clueless clients had no choice but to trust. Him. The Pierceall. Lest they look dense to super sophisticated financial wizard kicking their dumb asses in Komodo dragon cowboy boots before weekending at Tahoe condo. What other options had they? Watch negative interest accrue in bank savings account? Cue wall of laughter.

         Heck, did Jerk-o Agents not understand–or dare appreciate–what hard work it was to build and maintain the elegantly engineered system their D.O.J. and mainstream media derisively branded “ponzi” and “scheme”? Oh, let’s all pile on for total unfair uber dismissiveness! Investors Happy! Pierceall Family (Frank, Jr., Allison,) Happy! Suicide to stop when just $35 mill down the road! Trusty RAM steed don’t fail him now!

         Robbie at the garage, Marta at the library info desk, Walmart greeting Bev love having wealth manager, love having wealth. Victims want con to work. Did they not understand? His Pops taught him most valuable life lesson ever by not keeping promises he, raw sprouting bud, precious little Frank, fervently needed to be kept. Like with that puppy. The bicycle. The Orel Hershiser catcher’s mitt. Lesson learned: When promises can’t be kept, keep yourself. And so, he did, and so would his son, and his son’s son, until ad infinitum and then some. Amen.

         KA-THUNK! What the? See in rear view, taking too fast curve has tossed submarine scooter from under tarp to pinball off truck bed. Frank, Jr.’s next week birthday present. Little bud wanted nothing more than to find treasures hidden beneath surface of Lake Shasta, that magnificent body of teal blue, like glittering inland ocean, majestic mountain rising to reflect on its mirrored surface.

         Locals spoke of Elgin Stuckley, engineer, building finest, sturdiest, most elegant bridge over Sacramento River as it gracefully flowed into Sacramento Valley. Hamlet soon to be Major Village named Stuckleyville in honor of growth his grand bridge would bring to their humble road bend. And so, it did. The gas station. The library. A general store/post office. Some subpar houses. One mock Victorian mansion. For about a decade. Then Biblical Floods and Army Corps have other plans. Shasta Dam begets Shasta Lake, great growing Golden State’s largest reservoir. Flooding stopped. World’s finest modern rural bridge, 20,000 tons of reinforced concrete, sunk beneath 500 plus feet of water. Elgin Stuckley crushed. New Deal Make Work Conspiracy! Cursing Roosevelt, Stuckley back to Kansas from whence he’d sprung. Abandon dream of West as civilization’s last best hope/bright shining future. Watched cud chewing cows until his own end came calling.

         Not The Pierceall. Being Bright Boy, he fled West from native Illinois when the local heat caught on to that phony personal injury practice. No better time than the present to give this submarine scooter a test run. Let the Jerk-o Agents figure out what scenery he’d melted into. Trusty RAM steed swerves into lake’s lip sludge. The Peirceall jumps out, kicks off limited edition Kanye West sneakers ($1,999.99 on resale market), runs like a burning bat fleeing brimstone cave into the mother effing water–freezing. Flick the submarine scooter “On” switch, sputter, sputter, then dive, dive, dive. Headlight, check. Top speed of 4 mph ridiculously perfect.

         Ahead, ahoy, wassup with that? A curving stretch of OMG, could that be concrete? Asphalt topping still mostly intact? Was this the legendary sunken Stuckley Sacramento River Bridge? The Peirceall smitten now, cruising gently along, admiring hand sliding over the sinuous surface all silky with moss.

            Fingers feel ridge, swipe away growth. Verdigris plaque proclaims bridge finest ever built over Stuckleyville Gorge by George Stuckley, Civil Engineer, July, 1915. The Pierceall tries to imagine building something so ginormous from mere mental picture or maybe napkin sketch. Such epic actualization, testament to one’s skill and training! Even underwater, haunting evidence of Professional Agency in Larger World. Not like pathetic financial sector churn, only as good as last bundled mortgage securities sold. Hyenas waiting for next bubble burst to frenzy feed on peasant dinero.   

            The Pierceall once pined for an engineer producing school, the one his family couldn’t afford even if he could get in, then found one they might help with if he worked Grocery Barn night shift. Then, lacking grades for even that, prove dear Dad’s prediction of never amounting with Community College AA degree in Municipal Bond Theory. Prof’s sage advice: get out there and make it up as fast as you can, everyone else already way ahead. Bogus inner city PI law practice soon follows. Then satellite ex-urb office dodging creditors and clients. Whee!

            Four mph top speed too slow to evade hair tugging trout. A turtle paws its way past as if The Pierceall doesn’t exist. Gentle hum of engine, calming vibrations, breath slows. Scooter crashes into swarm of silver snack-sized fish. Trout lunch? Biomass clears to reveal castoffs from the land. Noble bridge is backbone of major Townie dumpsite. Stuckley’s Bridge triumphant new life as dead appliance reef.

            Failing headlight beam bounces off tangle of chipped enamel, rusting metal, nobs missing Tappan range, long ago Maytag laundry day. Frigidaire freezer lolls against pylon, its coffin body teased by spelunking fish, seats from half a Chevy leak stuffing. Crushed baby carriage, wistfully waving turntable arm, one Orel Hershiser baseball glove with patented Flex-O-Matic palm. All schmeered in sensual olive fuzz.

The Pierceall might have chased four-year followed by MBA if Allison not preggers with first Frank, Jr. Not well did that go. Forced to work whatever to cover devastating medical mess. By time debt paid, second Frank Jr. hitting kindergarten, rattling own long list of possibles, plenties and hopes. So, no choice, whole fam-damily dragged into Westward Ho scheme and to now, with The Pierceall sucking oxygen hundreds of feet below.

             Piece of crap submarine scooter rattles, sputters, stops. The Pierceall wrestles with accelerator, slaps battery—hard, toggles starter. On off, on off. Thinks of guru, thinks of Being. In the moment. Redding. How did gurus survive? How to monetize Moments and Being in them? Think, Pierceall, think!

         Lame O Tourists would love this! Stop on way to Lake Shasta for submerged adventure to famous underwater Stuckley Sacramento River Bridge? Added value in Lost Land of Once Useful Things! Can’t leave without a rainbow-colored snow cone! Fortunes made on much, much less. A dozen submarine scooters to start. $25 a head. Ka-Ching for all. Thirty-five mill paid back in no time. Everybody happy. Except The Pierceall, whose teeth were jackhammering out of his head in this freezing effing water. He becoming snow cone! Dive into the Past was a turn key operation. Set up biz during pre-trial, run out of whatever Club Fed he could get sentenced to. Camp Auldie, Pops’ alma mater? Allison to manage front shop, Frank, Jr., Underwater Guide. Easily cover Amazon Prime insulin and weekly carton of unfiltered menthols for Mom.

         When he rose dripping buckets from the lake, his face blue as its surface, his body shivering like a 25-cent massage mattress, the Jerk-O Agents were waiting with blankets and dry clothes given to them by Allison, who always looked out for him. Just as he’d always done for her. And just as he always would.