Kevin Ryan [email protected]
This is the contest part:
Bob Rushman was a handsome, 25-year-old bachelor. He lived in Jacson, Tenn., where he worked as a computer programmer. This fine day found him walking to the local coffee shop.
A large, black van with darkened windows and a small satellite dish on top came slowly down the street. Just as the van passed Bob, an arm extended from the window and dropped a sheet of paper. The van sped away.
Bob picked up the paper and read:
Jim Edwards, Bill Artman, Linda Walls, Bob Rushman
Bob did not recognize any of the names except his own. He started after the speeding van, dropped the paper and ran toward home to wait for the inevitable.
Now, the part of the story that the author was suppossed to finish, my version:
We all knew him as "Billy Bob". That was his given name by his folks, of course. But after his folks died, Billy Bob thought, I guess, that he should be a grown man and others should start calling him just "Bob". Now Bob was the type of person that you’d call "salt of the earth". The nicest guy you’d ever want to meet ,but, and I’m trying to be kind here, he wasn’t exactly the brightest nut on the tree. Oh sure, he was a computer programmer. His folks were always proud of that title. You know how when you buy one of them computers it comes with all that stuff in it? You know, the programs that make the computer do what you tell it to do? Well, all them things come from this little shiny record, kind of like them old record players. Bob’s job was to put that thing in the computer and take it out when it said it was done. Well, shoot! A trained monkey could’ve done that! A few years back some animal organization complained about working monkeys and such so they had to hire Bob and he was a "Computer Programmer". Well, he was, I guess.
My name’s Fred. I was and still am Bob’s best friend. So don’t expect me to say nuthin’ bad about him because I won’t! Even if he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed he was my friend and I liked him. Still do! You ever meet one of these guys that are just so good-hearted, so country dumb, that you just have to like ‘em? It was shortly after high school that I met Bob. Dang it I still want to call him "Billy Bob". Anyway, we was both working for a local "fillin" station, what some of you might call a gas station today. Well, the boss took a liking to me and put me on the important job of pumping the gas and collecting the money. He must’ve seen that Bob was no Huey Long (or even a Huey Lewis for that matter) and put him on the windshields and had me look over him. Poor kid didn’t even know how to clean a windshield. I took time with him and got to like him. He’d always ask me what I thought about things and just listen to what I had to say. Bob was a great listener. Always keeping his ear open, you know, kind of like I was his older brother. As often as he could he’d invite me over to his house and his parents would have me to dinner. I got to know them real well. They was good people and told me how much they appreciated me looking after their boy and all. Now some of ya’ll are probably thinking this was just some charity case, but I got to where I really liked Bob. Why, he was even my best man at the wedding. Had to tell the boy, though, what he was supposed to do with the ring.
Yea, Bob was my best friend. I’m gonna miss him real bad. He’d been locked up in his house for four days before they found him. Oh, I tried to get to him but he wouldn’t let me in to talk. Just told me through the door that he had to wait in the house. That something was gonna happen but wouldn’t tell me what. Well, when Bob got something in his head he was as stubborn as a mule. Since I didn’t even know what it was I just gave him some time to stew over it and thought it would all pass. Coroner said he died of a heart attack. Heck, he was only twenty-five! How did that happen?
Well, I sorta pieced together the first part of this story on a count of what I found out when I got into his house. The piece of paper that made Bob run home and stay? It was one of them papers that you get that has your name on it with a few other fellas that says you may be a million dollar winner.
Old Bob was always one sandwich short of a picnic.