B.O. Plenty's Piece of the Rock

Prudence E. Senshul evaluated her face in her car’s rear view mirror.  Her make-up was immaculate, accentuating her prominent cheekbones. She applied another layer of gloss to her full lips and smacked them together to make sure it was even. She fluttered her eyelids a few times, checking that her mascara didn’t stick and her eye-shadow didn’t crease. She looked at herself with her steely blue eyes, then relaxed her features into her carefully rehearsed “warm” look.

She stepped out of her car and into the daylight. It was a warm spring day, and she had briefly considered putting her car’s convertible top down, but her hair had been carefully styled and fixed, and she didn’t want to risk disturbing it. She smoothed her skirt (which was scandalously short) and carefully walked up the uneven pathway on her designer heels (which were dangerously high). She checked to make sure the seams in her stockings were straight. She toyed with idea of undoing another button her crisp white blouse, but decided against it. 

Let the top one show some stress, she thought. It’ll make a better distraction…

She rang the bell. 

When Gertie opened the door, Prudence smiled widely, just as she had prepared to. When she had first met the Plentys, she had managed to maintain her composure, though the child Attitude had elicited an involuntary gasp. She was sure that Gertie had heard it, and Prudence had made a strong effort to get back on the older woman’s good side.

Of course, Gertie wasn’t her target. He target was sitting at the dining room table with his shoes off, whittling. The wood shavings fell into his overturned hat.

“Hello, Ms. Sensul.” Gertie greeted her. “You’re right on time, just like always.”

“Gertie, it’s lovely to see you.” She put her hands on Gertie’s shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “And, please, call me Prudence. I insist.”

Gertie’s lip curled just a bit. “Thanks just the same, but I hope that once we get this piece of business done today, we won’t be seeing you around these parts much.”

“Don’t be rude, woman!” B.O. Plenty shouted. “Sure, we got a business relationship with ol’ Prudie here, but that don’t mean we can’t be sociable. Shoot, I was fixin’ to invite her over for Thanksgiving dinner!”

Prudence briefly considered the spectacle of what Thanksgiving in the Plenty home might mean, and she responded quickly.

“I wish I could, B.O., really I do,” she said. “But I promised my mother I’d have Thanksgiving with her and her new beau back on the coast.”

“Oh? Which coast is that?” B.O. asked.

“The… East coast.” Prudence said, awkwardly.

“You don’t say?” B.O. beamed at her. “I’m from the east myself. ‘Course I was mighty young when Pappy brought us west. I was one of 8 boys, and-"

“Everybody knows, B.O.!” Gertie cut him off, then turned back to Prudence. “Why don’t you have a seat and we’ll get this taken care of. Would you like some tea?”

“That would be lovely, thank you.” Prudence made her way to the dinner table, and B.O. pushed his hat out of the way so she could set her briefcase down. It was tan leather, lightweight but sturdy. Many of her colleagues had taken to using over-the-shoulder messenger bags in an attempt to seem less formal, but Prudence found they disrupted the lines of her outfits. She sat down, slightly more heavily than necessary, in an effort to make sure that everything bounced.

Prudence opened her briefcase and brought out the contract and her favorite pen. When people asked, she called it her Lucky Pen, but she didn’t really believe in luck. For Prudence, her business was all about preparation.

“So, you’ve looked over the final terms and don’t have any objections?” She asked B.O.

“Nope.” He said, and spat a well-aimed glob of tobacco juice at the spittoon at his feet. “Even had a lawyer friend in the city look it over and he assures me that it’s all on the upper-up.”

Prudence smiled. In spite of herself, she’d developed a certain fondness for the Plentys. They were rubes, to be sure, but they were charming rubes. And for someone in the insurance business, they were an absolute goldmine.

“So, if you’ll just sign here,” she held out the pen to B.O. and indicated the line on his policy, “We can ensure that Gertie and little Attitude will be able to continue to live in the style to which they’ve become accustomed in case anything should happen to you. Heavens forbid, of course.”

“Of course!” B.O. said. He turned to Gertie. “With a stroke of this here pen, Gertrude, I am securing your future financial sterility.”

Prudence came uncomfortably close to snorting with laughter, and Gertie rolled her eyes. Keep it together until the ink dries, Prudence thought.

When Prudence had first met the Plentys, she had been amazed that they had no life insurance. B.O. Plenty was a well-known public figure, famous for his misadventures with various notorious criminals. Gravel Gertie had a similar level of renown, and their daughter was an internationally famous recording artist and model. A chance meeting at a nearby farmers market had prompted Prudence to make several visits to the Plenty home, seeing exactly what kind of policy she could get them into.

Homeowners insurance was a non-starter, of course. The place was barely standing, and she doubted that it could pass a fire inspection. Additionally, disasters (both natural and otherwise) seemed drawn to the place. Yet somehow the Plentys had always survived and thrived, with numerous financial windfalls over the years. This made them the perfect combination of long-lived with access to cash, yet easily convinced of constant peril by Prudence’s life insurance pitch.

And now that she had landed them, she hoped she might have an in-road with some of their prominent friends, such as Diet Smith and VitaminFlintheart. Her painstakingly crafted appearance and persona were finally paying off as she watched B.O. Plenty carefully write his name.

She was momentarily distracted as their young son Attitude toddled past.

“Good Lord, is he holding a blowtorch?” Prudence gasped. Gertie looked at her son.

“Hmm. T’ain’t lit. He’ll be fine.” She said with a grim resignation.

B.O. finished signing the policy and handed the paper back to Prudence.

“There y’are.” He said. “You say I’ll get billed at the end of the month?”

“For the first sixth months’ premiums, yes.” Prudence explained as she looked over the document. “Then you won’t have to worry about it until renewal time.” 

Prudence’s brow wrinkled for a brief moment. “Mr. Plenty, I notice that you signed as ‘B.O.’. Is there a reason you don’t use your full name?”

“That’s how I’m known perfessionally.” B.O. explained. “Always have been. Never cared for just ‘Bob’ or ‘Bob Oscar’. T’ain’t dignified.”

“But wait a minute.” Prudence said, leaning towards him. “Isn’t ‘Bob’ short for ‘Robert’? So your initials SHOULD be R.O. Plenty, right?”

B.O.’s eyes narrowed, then went wide. “Sakes alive, I’ve been livin’ a lie!” He thundered. “Gertrude! Why didn’t you ever say anything about this?”

“It’s your name, husband, I figured it was your own business.” Gertie replied.

B.O. was on his feet, flying across the room to the kitchen sink. He cast aside the curtain under it and crawled into the cabinet.

“I hope I haven’t caused a problem.” Prudence said.

“Oh, he just gets like this…” Gertie sighed.

Prudence marveled at Gertie’s nonchalant reaction to B.O.’s sudden fit. She had taken notice of the unique relationship the couple shared. In the blink of an eye they could go from shouting to kissing. One minute, Gertie would scold B.O. about his ill-mannered ways and he would puff up his chest and defend himself as ‘refusin’ to put on airs’, the next minute she would be wrapped in his arms and twiddling his beard between her fingers and it would be as though the rest of the world ceased to exist.

Prudence wondered if she would ever know a love like that, so sweet and yet so passionate, but she had to acknowledge that she was too committed to her work. Maybe when I’m their age, she thought.

B.O. emerged from under the sink holding a yellowed piece of paper.

“I knew that safe was a good idea!” He shouted. “It’s protected my vital documentarians through flood, fire, earthquakes and lightning bolts. And here is my birth certificate, fresh as the day it were born!”

Gertie looked over her husband’s shoulder. “It says your name is Boniface.” She observed.

B.O. was goggle-eyed. “It does not! It cain’t!” he objected.

“Either that or it’s ‘Bony-Face’.” Gertie assured him. “Which do you prefer, love of my life?”

“Boniface Oscar Plenty!” B.O. read. “Clear as day in black and white as the nose of my face!” 

B.O. walked across the room and collapsed in his chair. He accidentally flipped over his hat, sending wood shavings flying. Gertie rolled her eyes.

“All these years! All my brothers, lying to me! And my sister! And Mammy and Pappy, too!” He looked at Prudence. “Why would they keep this from me?”

“I – I really don’t know what to say…” She stumbled.

“I’m sure there’s a good reason.” Gertie said, grabbing a broom. “You remember how you couldn’t pronounce your brother Kincaid’s name when you were a young’un, so you called him ‘Canhead’? And then everybody else did, too? Well, you probably couldn’t pronounce ‘Boniface’ neither, so they told you it was Bob so you wouldn’t feel silly not being able to say your own name.”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose that could be it.” B.O. rubbed his forehead, still looking stricken. “Miss Prudence, I hope you won’t mind if I ask you to give me some time alone? I need to make a few phone calls. And a glass of Gertrude’s famous homemade tonic wouldn’t hurt none, either…”

Prudence stood. “Of course, B.O., I understand.” She stepped towards the door. “Before I leave, though, I was wondering if you could put me in touch with-"

“Some other time, dearie.” Gertie soothed as she ushered Prudence out the door. “My man needs his space right now.”

Prudence emerged into the sun and the door slammed shut behind her. Plaster dust and paint flakes showered down from the door jamb and coated her hair and shoulders. She shook her head and brushed off her clothes, grateful that no one could see such an undignified display.

Still, it’s not the MOST undignified thing I’ve done to close a deal… She thought as she clacked her way to her car. She planned to celebrate that night. 

Maybe I’ll go back to that karaoke place I went to on my birthday, she thought. The drinks are cheap, the men are super-gay, and I can sing ‘Taxman’ again. God, Ringo is so cute…

END