Airstream Dreams

"So ... that would mean it was okay, then?" I said, trying not to laugh.

"I'll tell you Carl, I'm going to marry that girl if she gives me half a chance. We have so much in common that I can't believe it. I mean, every time I told her about my life, she had a story that was similar for her too. Did you know she was a farm girl?"

"Yes I did, Jerry. That's why I thought of you when I knew we wanted to find a date for Bonnie."

"Well, Carl, I can't thank you enough for thinking of me. I owe you. I owe you real big. I don't exactly know what happened, but that girl and me are just perfect for each other and she thinks so too. How about that!"

"I'm real pleased to hear that, Jerry. I have to tell you that it was just good luck. It's not like I knew for sure you two would get along."

"Get along ain't the half of it. I swear I thought we were born for each other."

"Well, good for you and good for Bonnie. I wish you good luck," I smiled.

"No need, Carl. I got all the good luck any man could ever want."

I left him there in his happy thoughts, and headed back to the shop floor. Work was waiting. I felt good about choosing Jerry. He was a nice guy and with him hitting it off with Bonnie right off, I was sure Karen would be happy too.

I was right. I had to listen to Karen recite all the good things Bonnie had to say about Jerry. My putting them together had raised my status to all-star in their eyes. Karen said she couldn't wait for next Friday night to reward me for looking after her best friend so well. I was thinking I'd be counting the hours until we got together again too.

Chapter 4 I begin to figure it out

There's times when I swear I need to be hit upside the head with a two-by-four to see something that's right in front of my face. I'd been taking this meeting Karen, and the threesome, and Jerry and Bonnie situations just like they were a natural occurrence and a whole pile of good luck. I suppose if they'd all happened the same day, or even the same week, I might have been suspicious, but maybe not. Like I say, sometimes I'm not so quick on the uptake.

Anyway, I was leaving work one Tuesday afternoon when I heard a nice female voice call my name. I turned and saw it was Marlene Woloski, and she was standing in front of her car with the hood up. Naturally, I walked over to see what the problem was.

"Hey there, Marlene. What's the trouble?"

"It won't start, Carl. It just sets there and clicks, but it won't start."

Well, right away I kind of figured the battery had gone dead, so I said, "You just wait here, Marlene. I'll get my truck and bring it over. I've got some jumper cables and we'll see if I can get you started with them."

She was happy I was willing to help and waited by her car until I got back with the truck. I hooked up the cables and she got in her car and sure enough, it started first thing. She jumped out with a big smile.

"Oh, thank you so much, Carl. What should I do now?"

"Well, let's just let your car run for a few minutes," I said, disconnecting the cables, "and let the battery get charged up. Then you go over to The Battery Shop on Crescent Drive and they'll tell you quick enough if you need a new one."

"Oh thank you Carl," she said, taking my hand and holding it. She looked up at me and all of a sudden, I could see that look that I saw in Bonnie and Karen's eyes. I suddenly felt kind of funny, but not bad if you know what I mean. She was just staring at me and still holding my hand.

"Carl?" she said after a bit, "How come you've never asked me out on a date?"

Well, I wasn't ready for that question so I had to think fast.

"Uhhm, well ... uh ... Marlene, you were going out with Freddie Davidson and I've been seeing someone too. I'm a one woman man, so I don't mess with someone else's girl."

"I'd dump Freddie in a heartbeat if you asked me out," she said, just like that.

"Well ... uh ... Marlene, that's sure flattering, but like I said, I have a girlfriend and we're kind of serious about each other."

"Oh ... okay then," she said, looking sad. "But if you ever are looking for a date, come see me first, please." She was damn near begging, and I couldn't see why. She was very good looking and Freddie was a good guy with a nice job in the office.

"Yeah ... sure ... I can do that."

Now I suppose that most people would think that it was just an innocent conversation between two people who knew each other. Well, most people would be wrong. First of all, Marlene worked in the office, and I knew her name because I knew Freddie and he was forever bragging about his girl. I'd hardly said much more than hello to her up until that afternoon.

In the second place, Marlene was known to be very shy and uncomfortable around the guys when Freddie wasn't there. In fact, when I came over to help her, she looked downright nervous about me being there. So, it was a shock when she got all friendly-like when she held my hand.

So, that got me to thinking ... finally. What the hell was going on? First Karen, then Bonnie, now Marlene? And come to think of it, there'd been a couple of other cases where I thought some women acted a bit funny. Like at the grocery store when the girl at the checkout handed me my change and my bag and our hands touched, she looked up and I saw something in her eyes. And the waitress at the diner where I had dinner the other night. She got all gushy when she put her hand over mine when she brought the bill.

I had a magic touch, it seemed. Except, it only happened recently and only after work. I sat and thought about that for a while before it came to me. All this happened after I'd started using the new hand cleaner. And I kind of thought it might be the odor it gave off just as much as how soft my hands were. Some of those women hardly touched my hands.

Loving Hands, eh! Well, maybe that name meant more than I thought. Maybe there was something in that goop that was causing women to get all friendly like. Tomorrow, I was going to do a little investigating.

Over the next couple of days, I carefully talked to a bunch of the guys who were using the goop to clean up after work. Every one of them said the same thing. Their love lives had picked up 500 percent, and they were enjoying the benefits. I asked them if they knew why, and none of them connected the goop to the change. I guess I wasn't the only slow thinker in the bunch.

Then I did something to test my suspicions a little further. I asked a couple of the guys in the scheduling office how their love life was and got a shrug. No difference as far as I could tell. Like Freddie, they didn't work on the shop floor and never got their hands dirty. They were office staff. I was pretty sure now just what was causing the change in the way women were acting around us men.

I thought I would go visit Mr. Merlin Wiseman and have a talk with him. I mean, if I was right, this man was sitting on a pot of gold, whether he knew it or not. I was thinking I might want to become a distributor for him. Hell, one test of this cleaner by any guy and they'd be lined up to buy more. It would be the easiest "sell" you could ever find.

I remembered I'd given Wiseman's card to Karen, so during my nightly call to her, I asked her if she'd given it to her uncle.

"Yes, I did. Funny you should ask. He wants to get a big jar of it. Says it works wonders on his hands and that's translated into more fun in the bedroom, if you get what I mean."

"Yeah," I laughed. "I think I know what you mean. I'll look after that for you, but I gave you the card with his phone number on it. He's not listed in the phone book. Can you phone your uncle for me and get that number. In the meantime, I've got a big jar here that I haven't opened yet. I'll get that to you for him."

"Oh, sure, Carl. I'll call him right away and let him know I'll have a jar for him on the weekend. That okay?"

"You bet, girl. In fact, we can deliver it to him on Saturday if you'd like."

"That's really nice of you, Carl. He'll be very pleased, I'm sure."

Karen called me back in a few minutes and gave me the phone number for Merlin Wiseman. I called him right away.

"Mr. Wiseman, it's Carl McCormick calling. I wonder if I might come out and see you about a business deal I have in mind. It's about that hand cleaner you have, Loving Hands."

"I suppose so, Mr. McCormick. I rather wondered when someone would want to talk to me about it."

He gave me directions to his place and we agreed Wednesday evening at seven-thirty. I was thinking about all the opportunities there were for his product and I could see myself getting pretty damn rich if I played my cards right.

As you can imagine, I had that on my mind most of the day as I worked at the shop. I stamped my time card right on five o'clock and headed for the Airstream. I'd brought it to work today to save time and get to Wiseman's place right on the dot at seven-thirty. I cleaned up, changed clothes, and made myself a heat-and-serve dinner before loading up the GPS with Wiseman's address and heading off to meet with him.

He lived a little farther out of town than I realized and it was a good thing I gave myself plenty of time to get there. As it was, I was about five minutes late when I rolled up the driveway to this big ranch-style house that had a couple of big barn-like buildings behind it. There was a new, shiny pickup truck along side the house and I could see a late model Cadillac sitting in front of one of the barns. Looks like Wiseman was doing okay.

I rang the door bell and I didn't have to wait more than ten seconds before it opened and there stood a woman, the likes of which I had never seen before. She was near enough six foot tall like me, and a cross between Pamela Anderson and Uma Thurman. She had this white gold hair and a big smile with perfect teeth and a body that should be declared a national treasure.

"Good evening, Mr. McCormick," she said flashing that magic smile. "My husband is expecting you. I'm Felicity. Please come in."

Husband? Holy shit! That stuff must really work wonders. My recollection of Wiseman was a guy in his sixties, short, a bit tubby, bald except for a white fringe around his head. And this was his wife? HOLY SHIT!

She led me into the house and I could see that it was some kind of fancy. Very modern and really nicely decorated, but not overdone if you get what I mean. Wiseman was sitting at what I guessed was the dining room table and he got up as I came toward him.

"Nice to see you again, Mr. McCormick," he said in a friendly way.

"Nice to see you too, sir. Most of my friends call me Carl," I offered.

"Thank you, Carl," he smiled. "You can call me Merlin if you like. And no ... I'm not a magician, despite what you may think."

"First off," I began, "I want to congratulate you on Loving Hands. It is far and away the finest hand cleaner I've ever encountered and I can tell you I might have tried them all."

"Thank you," the old man said modestly.

"However, I have discovered that your product has a side effect that I originally thought you might not be aware of."

"Oh ... and what was that side effect?" he smiled.

"Well, as best I can figure it, the aroma or smell that it gives off has an effect on women that ... let's see ... what should I call it?"

"Acts like an aphrodisiac?" he interrupted.

"Yeah. Exactly that. I was thinking that it might just be an accident, but now ... seeing your wife ... I'm not so sure." I wondered if I might have offended him saying what I did.

The showed me a big grin and chuckled as he shook his head.

"I've never understood what took everyone so long to put two and two together," Merlin said. "I would have thought someone would have figured it out weeks ago."

"So ... you knew about it when you first handed out the samples?"

"Yes, indeed. I've know about it for some time. I suppose an explanation is in order. Do you have some time?"

"Merlin, you can have all the time you need," I said, sitting down in a chair opposite him.

"I retired some years ago from a very well known multi-national chemical company in the east. I had enjoyed a very good career and had contributed a number of valuable patents to that company. I had several ideas for other projects, but when the recession came along, the R & D budget was cut way back. I was offered an early retirement and I took it.

"I worked on my own and developed some of my ideas, patenting them myself and selling the rights to other companies. That turned out to be very profitable for me. In fact, I probably have enough money from royalties to live the rest of my life in obscene luxury. However, that didn't satisfy me. I was always curious about the next idea I wanted to explore.

"The one thing that my wealth provided was funding for longer term development work. I was a widower then, so I was free to travel and spend time as I saw fit without worrying about any responsibilities. I was looking for problems that I could address that fell into my area of expertise. As it turned out, the problems that men like you faced with their hands struck me as a worthwhile project.

"In the meantime, I was being hounded by various corporations to work exclusively for them. Even my old employer wanted me back. But I knew the corporate world well enough that I resisted all their charms. I wanted my freedom and my right to choose those things that interested me, not by some faceless executive on the twenty-fifth floor.

"My only solution was to get out of the limelight and disappear. I did some searching for a location that would give me access to potential test customers and still allow me my privacy. Hermiston turned out to be just the ideal place. As you can see out my windows, I have a magnificent view of the Columbia River and the Blue Mountains in the distance.

"Loving Hands is my first project, but I'm afraid it will probably never be a commercial project," he said with a frown.

"Why not?" I asked quickly. "It works like a hot damn, and that side effect has to be something that would guarantee success."

"So you would think," Merlin agreed. "However, think about the consequences if it fell into the wrong hands. Some unscrupulous marketer who might sell it as a "guaranteed female seduction lotion? I'm afraid my active mind can dream up all sorts of unfortunate circumstances where it might be misused.

"At present, I'm working on a way to neutralize the odor, which comes from the active ingredient in the formula. The base, of course, is lanolin, as so many of the current cleaners are. I'm pretty sure I have a solution, but I'm going to need to test it to make sure it still cleans as well as the current version, and has no other unexpected side effects."

"What about all the cleaner you've already sold, Merlin?"

"I'm not taking any new orders, Carl. When the current batch is gone, it will be replaced with the new formula. I don't want to disappoint your fellow workers at the Union Pacific. I'm sure, under the circumstances, they'll still be happy with the results," he smiled.

"Yeah ... I can see that. To bad you couldn't dilute that ... what did you call it ... active ingredient, and use it in an aftershave or men's cologne. That would be dynamite," I said.

Merlin laughed. "Yes, I'm sure it would, but I haven't put my mind to it yet. One problem at a time, Carl. One at a time."

"If it's not giving away any state secrets, what other kinds of projects do you have in mind?"

"Carl, I have to ask you not to talk about this meeting with anyone. The last thing I need is to attract attention again, especially if certain people knew that I had the formula for that cleaner and I could reproduce it. That would put Felicity and me in danger, I'm afraid."

"Yeah ... I can see that. Your secret is safe with me, Merlin. I guess I was thinking with my wallet when I came to see you tonight. You've given me a whole new way to think about things, that's for sure."

"As far as new projects go, I've got a couple that I'm going to work on when Loving Hands is finished. One of them is code-named Endure and another is called Interlude."

"What do you expect them to do?"

"Carl, do you know what the two most profitable drugs sold in North America are?"

"No."

"Viagra and Cialis. The patents are locked up tightly and so they can charge whatever the market will bear. The pharmaceutical companies know what a gold mine they've got, so they aren't about to get into a price war over market share. It's called 'conscious parallelism.' That just means that once one company decides to set the price like Viagra did in the first place, the competitors will follow along in lock-step to avoid upsetting the marketplace. Instead, they bombard the TV with advertising on shows generally watched by the demographic that is most like to buy their product."

"I had no idea. So ... it that what Endure is all about? A replacement for Viagra?"

"Yes ... but one that is more within the reach of the average man who is in need of help."

"Isn't that going to upset the pharmaceutical companies? Doesn't it take forever to get this kind of product through the Food and Drug Administration."

"Yes, it does. Unless, that is, it doesn't contain any ingredient that is not already approved by the FDA, and it isn't a prescription drug. In that case, the approval process is quite straightforward and only involves finding cause not to approve the product."

"You've already got something figured out, haven't you?" I said with a grin.

"Well ... let's just say I have an idea that I'm working on that is showing some promise."

"How do you test something like that without letting everyone know about it?" I asked.

"I have a number of friends from my past career that will help me in that regard. I don't want another problem like Loving Hands, so I'll use a more disciplined approach this time."

I nodded and grinned. "I get your point."

"Felicity married me for my mind, Carl. But just the same, there had to be some reward for her altruism."

I wasn't sure just exactly what he said, but I got the jist of it anyway. When you had a woman like Felicity, you never, never wanted to disappoint her.

"So, that leaves the other project. What did you call it?"

"Interlude. It's something quite different and I don't think I want to discuss it right now. I'm anticipating that it might be linked to a problem that hasn't yet arisen. Anyway, forget I told you about these three products, please. I don't want to have to leave this home and move elsewhere. Felicity and I are happy here and I'd like to be able to stay without worrying about who's coming after me for something."

"I understand. You're awful trusting if I must say so myself, Merlin. You don't really know me, and I could really be someone who would want to take advantage of you."

"Yes ... you could I suppose. But I don't think that's who you are, Carl. I did a background check on you and I think I know you well enough that you wouldn't betray a trust ... unlike your ex-wife. How are your sons, by the way?"

Well, you can imagine that he caught me flat-footed with that question. "Uh ... they're fine. Finishing up high school this year and next. They're still living with my ex, but everything seems to be okay with them."

"I'm pleased to hear that. Is there anything else you'd like to talk about, Carl?"

"I was thinking, when you get the formula fixed, I'd be pleased to take on a distributorship for Loving Hands. Side effect or no, it's a really great product and any guy who gets his hands in grime, oil, and grease like we do would be happy as hell to have it."

"I'll give that some thought, Carl. I have a couple of options open to sell the license for it to a national chain of industrial cleaning products, but I can see it having a good market for the home handyman and backyard mechanic. If that would satisfy you, I think we might be able to work something out."