The diner was hopping. People were eating and talking and enjoying themselves loudly. I kept looking at Shirley, and she kept pretending she was ignoring me. She knows she likes me. I can’t figure out what’s taking her so long to come on over to my side.
Fat Mack looked up, grinning over a mouthful of grits and turkey ham.
“Y’all hear about the guy who tried to launch himself in a homemade rocket?”
Seated across from him, Little Willie was looking at that huge plate of food Mack was eating from. “Where in the world do you put all that food, Mack?” he asked. Mack smiled, but didn’t answer.
“I missed that little news gem,” I said, referring to the rocket. “So what happened? Did he kill himself?”
“Naw,” Mack answered. “He took his contraption out on government land and was preparing it for launch when a park ranger or somebody in a uniform stumbled upon him and asked him what he was doing. He told the officer he was about to launch a rocket, and the ranger said ‘Uh, no, you’re not.”
“Bet he hadn’t filled out the right forms in triplicate,” Willie snorted. Uncle G nodded and smiled approvingly.
“Whatever,” Mack frowned. The point is that he told the park ranger that he needed to launch so that he could help re-educate all the people who have been misled by the government and the educational system about the planet.”
“O, Lord,” Willie said, rolling his eyes.
UncleG’s mouth dropped open. “Did he just say ‘O, Lord’?” He turned to Little Willie, eyes wide. “Did you just say ‘O, Lord’?”
“Alright, alright, Uncle G. Just drop it.” Willie gave G a stare that said he meant business. Uncle G scratched his head and turned back to his breakfast.
“He’s a damn fool,” Uncle G said, snapping his notorious 12-inch handkerchief and tucking it under his chin. “Tell them what the fool was trying to prove,” he frowned.
Fat Mack pushed all the food in his mouth to one side, causing his right cheek to swell to the size of a baseball. He shook his head, a noticeable smirk playing across his face.
“He was trying to prove that the earth is flat.”
Little Willie looked up for the first time. “Wait. What?”
I followed quickly with a “Huh?”
“You heard him right,” Uncle G said, giving Mack a chance to chew his food. “Flat. Think I throw away all my globes of the planet?”
“Uh, not yet,” I said. “Am I mistaken, but haven’t we seen picture after picture of the earth taken by astronauts thousands of miles up circling the planet? I mean, is there supposed to be some kind of earth is round conspiracy going on? It’s round in every picture, right? So, how high was he trying to get, anyway?
“Ok, get ready for this, ’cause this is the kicker,” Mack said, then stuffed more food into his mouth. “Eighteen hundred feet.”
“What?” I asked. “You’ve got to be kidding. Oh, so this was just some publicity stunt. The rocket fit in the back of his pickup truck.”
Mack looked over at Uncle G’s plate. “You gonna eat the rest of that?”
Uncle G glared at Mack. “Boy, if you reach over here with that fork, you’re gonna end up missing an arm.”
“I don’t know how big the rocket was,” Mack said, but it was big enough for the park people to go over to see what he was up to. And hey, the man is an engineer, so it’s possible he built a real rocket.”
“Yeah,” Willie said. “But 1800 feet?”
“Educated people can be crazy as batsh*t like anybody else,” Uncle G said, taking a long drink of orange juice and then smacking his lips loudly.
Little Willie looked around the diner to see if anyone else had heard Uncle G smacking his lips. Sometimes his uncle could be a real embarrassment. “Guess that juice tastes good, huh?” Willie said to him G without expecting any response.
“OK, so after the government shut him down, he said he’s gonna try again on private property,” Mack said, still eyeing Uncle G’s plate. “He said he’s gonna move the show three miles down the road.”
“He’d better be careful though,” Uncle G said wiping his mouth with a corner of his huge handkerchief, “three or four miles down the road and he’s liable to fall off the edge.”
Mack laughed, spewing food everywhere. “Good one, Uncle G,” Mack said with a grin. “That was a good one.”
