Welcome to Boomtown - Chapter 3
The bumps had always been there, even when he was an infant. His pa told him it was a sign of special things to come. Thankfully, his hair came in thick as he grew into toddlerhood, so the lumps weren’t obvious unless someone put her hands on his head. That didn’t happen often enough for him to worry about.
Pa told Earl the bumps were like antennae. Each one was tuned into something different; animals, people’s thoughts, the vibe of the universe, etc. Earl thought it was bullshit. He had never been any luckier than anyone without a lumpy head, so what good was it even if he was “tuned in?” None. None at all.
The only experience Earl could remember that remotely resembled luck or clairvoyance or awareness in the slightest occurred when they visited Scotland. He was a teen and the family was walking the fields to nowhere in particular. The fog was just lifting a bit when they saw another little group wandering in the grass.
It looked like a father, a teenage girl, and a boy. They were talking and laughing and Earl was wondering what it would be like to be easy with people like that, even his family. To just walk in a pasture talking and laughing in the morning mist, not a care in the world. It must be amazing.
Then Earl started to feel a rumbling. He heard and felt this low rumble, and turned to look at his pa. Pa and the rest of the family were not reacting at all. It was like they didn’t even feel or hear the rumble that was building until it was nearly deafening. He screamed and the other family looked up, suddenly aware of his presence. They began to run over to Earl because of his screams, and that’s when it happened.
A herd of Highland cattle stampeded by. They came out of nowhere, out of the fog, and thundered over the ground where the girl and her family had been strolling. If not for Earl’s screams, they’d have been trampled. The herd continued into a small village nearby, knocking carts to the ground. Some of the cattle were wounded and subsequently destroyed.
Testing showed the herd suffered from bovine spongiform enchephalopathy. Had the cattle not stampeded, they might have gotten into the food chain as well as killing the little family. Earl put it down to acute hearing, but he became the “boy who stopped the mad cows.” It was a moniker he could have done without.
Mary, her father and brother came to the pub that evening to buy dinner for Earl and his family as a thank you for saving their lives. Earl couldn’t help blushing every time he and Mary made eye contact. They slyly eyed one another with peripheral vision, neither of them forward enough to out and out stare, tempting as it was. The air was crackling. They had no idea their families were even at the table. It was heavenly.
When the dinner was over. Earl and Mary shook hands formally, as did everyone else. They also traded addresses. “I promise I’ll write you!” “Let’s stay in touch!” They said all the things teens have said since time began, whether they met on the beach or at summer camp. But Mary really did write Earl, and that was enough for him. He started saving his coins for a trip to America to visit her.
Mary couldn’t forget the slight Irish lad who saved her life. She had never seen anyone like him. He was so still, even when the rest of the world was spinning with activity. His eyes twinkled so that she swore to herself her Earl must be half leprechaun. Was that possible? She brought a book home from the library on fairies and leprechauns and elves. Ireland was such a magical place. She wished they had been able to see where Earl lived. She wondered if he burned peat in a fireplace in his living room.
Earl told the doctor that the lumps had always been on his head, and they had never caused him any discomfort. Life had far worse trials for him than those stupid lumps. He didn’t tell the doctor about his mad cow sensing skills. He’d made that mistake before. It wasn’t worth changing hospitals again just to avoid a psychiatric evaluation.
