Welcome to Apple Valley.
A nominally sized, everyday Midwestern town that at one time lay between an apple grove and the famous Nameless River. The apple trees died in the great freeze of 1977 but the name stayed as permanent as the graffiti on the door of the women’s restroom at the Ginger Head Park, just down the road from the Cheese Castle and Palatino Trailer Park.
This fair city has the same things as other towns of the same ilk. The crime rate is low, there’s a Fire Muster every August and the sound of baseballs hitting bats can be heard in the summer if your car windows are rolled down. But just like any other town, Apple Valley doesn’t run on its own; there are faces behind the Welcome sign and hands that do the work: these are Streets Crew, the Sanitation Department, the Lawn and Fields crew, the Cops and the Parks Group. They all work together to keep Apple Valley the best town it can be and they all meet every morning at 5am in the round room of the City Lodge on West 141st Street. Most of the employees have been with the city for decades and their teams have been chosen, lines in the sand have been drawn and their relationships are now cemented while a steady schism announces clear boundaries of who’s with whom. Let’s meet the eight biggest heroes of the public –
Meet Ray:
Ray is 5 feet 4 inches. He’s a short man, but stocky. Don’t let his belly fool ya; he’s strong with a good heart. His lack of height is not matched by a Napoleon complex, as a matter of fact, he knows he’s short and doesn’t care one bit. He’s on his second wife and has a daughter and a son with a third on the way. Ray works for general maintenance and today’s special, today he’s getting two new guys to his summer crew who will work in Sanitation.
Meet John:
John’s a tall asshole with a big Wyatt Earp mustache. He works for the Streets Department and monitors the municipal pool.
Meet Burt:
Burt runs the Street Departments. He’s very tall and very thin and dresses in clothes from 1981. He’s mean to anyone who’s not in the street’s department and calls ‘em all “fags” even though Burt is remarkably effeminate and chain smokes Virginia Slims.
Meet Tim:
Tim is a very nice kid, he’s about twenty four. He works with Ray. A football injury in highschool has forced him to have a fairly sedentary lifestyle, which unfortunately has caused him to gain many pounds; he’s nearly two hundred and sixty pounds. Ray’s fairly certain he’s a virgin.
Meet Zodi:
Zodi’s an ex-con who moved to Apple Valley from San Francisco in 1988. No one knows what he did and there was a rumor that he was the Zodiac killer and everyone started calling him Zodiac, which eventually went to Zodi. Zodi works from streets and cleans up road kill. He plows streets in the winter.
Meet Jane:
Jane’s the only woman who works for the city crews and that would be in the Parks department. Jane’s a hard ass and doesn’t take any shit from the guys. She devised a plan early on and got almost every single guy in the city crews in a compromising position; got them to remove their dicks from their pants, noted the size, ended the rendezvous and told them she’d spread the size of their wand. She was divorced once and has no kids. She’s not outstanding in any particular way… yet.
Meet Barry:
Barry reports to Dale and is in charge of most of the crews with the exception of streets. No one knows who’s in charge of streets and most assume its Burt. Barry’s been divorced twice and has four kids who hate him, not ‘cause Barry’s a bad father, but because his kids are assholes. Barry has long hair, past his shoulders, but is bald on top. He’s five foot three almost a perfectly round orb of a man. He has a full handle bar mustache and he only wears tank tops, even in the dead of winter. He has two tattoos, running the length of each of his arms. One is a wizard, holding a staff and crystal ball up towards a dragon flying overhead; the other, a totally nude woman. It’s gross.
Meet Dale:
The Head Honcho, the boss’s boss. Dale is sixty three years old and a year from retirement. Dale’s your typical grandfather-esque man with a raspy voice and grey five o’clock shadow. He doesn’t work so much as hang out and many of the guys agree that Dale makes most of their jobs harder than they should be. Also, Dale lies. A lot.
INT. CITY OF APPLE VALLEY GREEN DODGE PICK-UP TRUCK – MONDAY – 8:37 AM
Ray drives the truck while Dale sits in the passenger seat with the window down. Dale hangs his right arm out the window and chews on a cigar.
Ray: So… you’re almost dunzo, hey.
Dale looks over at Ray.
Dale: What the fuck is dunzo? What is that? Slang? You’re too old for slang.
Ray: Yeah, I mean, you’re almost done.
Dale: Yep. Ten more shitty months of dealing with you fucking – wait… where are we? What street are we on?
Ray: We’re heading south on Palatino.
Dale: Take a left.
Ray: Why?
Dale: Just do it, Goddammit.
Ray takes a left at the corner and they drive through a trailer park.
Dale: I don’t get it. These sharters live in these broken down dick shacks and they got brand new 2011 Escalade lifters and Mustang – Oh shit, see, look at that idiot, total clown tent and there’s a goddamn Ski-Do in the driveway. No priorities. They don’t even have a car with a hitch to get to the lake.
Ray: What are you gonna do when you’re done, Dale?
Dale: Aw, shit. I don’t know. Drink, play with my grandkids.
Ray: You do that now.
Dale stares at Ray.
Dale: Hey don’t you got new boys coming in today? Where the shit are they? They gotta be better than that assbag you had last summer, what was his name… fuckin’ Bobbi?
Ray: It was Robbie.
Dale: What kind of name is Bobbi?
Ray: Anyway, they’re checking in with Tom now, paperwork and shit.
Dale: Back when I was where Barry is now, I used to throw those turds right into the riptide, ya know. Now they have to have “training” and sign their fucking “papers.”
Ray: What the hell are you talking about?
Dale: Oh good were here!
Ray: Where?
Dale reaches over the center console and takes control of the wheel, slides his butt over and presses hard on the gas pedal, revving the truck up to 75 miles an hour in a 25 mile an hour zone as they fly through the end of the trailer park.
Ray: What the FUCK are you doing, Dale!?
Dale leans out the window flagging the middle finger on both hands and screams,
Dale: FUCK YOU!
Ray looks out the window and sees two cop cars behind a water shed in a speed trap. They flip on their lights and then see its Dale and turn them immediately off. Dale plops down back in the seat.
Dale: Ha. Fuckin’ idiots. Ha. Ha… I’m hungry.
Keep checking back for more.
Before Ernest Hemmingway wrote The Sun Also Rises, he had completed an epic novel; a novel discovered early this year by scholars who maintain it is by far his best work. This rare find has been described as a truly flawless love story and quite possibly the most touching tale of love ever put on paper. The story follows a terminally ill woman who is admitted to a long – term care facility where she is cared for by a brilliant physician who not only nurtured her but also devoted his entire life to discovering a cure for the disease that was ravaging the woman he was falling in love with. The greatest literary minds gathered to discuss why this compelling and beautiful story was never published and none of them could find a flaw until the title page was discovered in a seperate box with an alternate beginning. You see, the illness the main character suffered from was a severe stomach infection with a common side effect mirroring that of dysentery and Ernest Hemmingway made a note that he would never budge on the title of the book and it is presumed that his insistance on the title is what most likely kept the book from getting published. The title of the truest and most inspiring love story ever put down on paper: The Pooping Flu.