Play It Again, Hub

Hub always felt a sigh of relief once he had "Lubbock in his rear view mirror" - the most truthful lyric Mac Davis ever penned. Thanks to his fraternity brothers and a couple of professors, he endured the tedium of small town hell. The university was a means to an end and spelled with three deceptively simple letters: C.P.A. The calendar in his dorm room was not unlike many that had been thumbtacked to the same ugly walls - lithesome nudes on Harleys celebrating the seasons with a minimum of wardrobe change. Yesterdays were meticulously noted with a heavy "X" in broad black strokes. Like Defoe's Crusoe, Hub noted the passage of time, but without the eager sense of adventure. Football had lost its allure, thanks to being redshirted for two straight years. Now, off the team and working parttime for tuition dollars, any chance for fun was the occasional keg party at the frat house.

This Friday night would be spent on the monotonous interstate driving home for the weekend. Tomorrow, he would celebrate another birthday with family early, then meet up with old friends from high school. A chance to kick up his heels and forget about Lubbock, if only for forty-eight hours. The long empty miles of asphalt passed underneath the six-year old Chevy, a castoff from the folks. Someday he would have fast cars, a big home in the right neighborhood, and his own accounting firm. Someday.

As usual, on this particular stretch of highway, the radio crackled with static and the strongest signal would be from a local station. Local meant yokel - a mixture of farm reports, weather and an occasional Merle or Hank tune. Hub turned the volume down, leaving the radio on for the small glow of light. Driving at night, by himself, gave him the heeber jeebers. At 280 pounds and four inches more than 6' foot of man, Hub was not one to back down from a fight. And although he would never admit it to another person, being alone in the dark was the one real fear he knew. At night after studying, Hub left the desk light burning. Seems he always fell asleep before turning it out. Growing up, his younger brother never teased him about it, as if he liked having the power of the secret.

Caught in a reverie, Hub was surprised to feel the car buffeted by a big rig as it passed him in the next lane. This time of night, 18-wheelers prowled the interstate and claimed it as their own. Usually, headlights glared through the back windshield long before he could hear the roar of the monstrous tires. Hub rubbed his eyes, looking ahead he could not see any sign of the semi that surely should only be a couple of car lengths in front of him. A check to the side mirrors - nothing. Gripping the wheel a little tighter, he felt an unease. An ugly memory stirred.

It was summer and Hud was eight, those magical years between babyhood and puberty. Fishing on the Brazos with his dad and his uncle Gerald, Hud sat and watched the last threads of sunlight hem the horizon. The Coleman lanterns, with their familiar kerosene smell and slight hissing noise from a glowing mantle, were placed along the bank where the men sat. Hub had spied a small snake in the river and followed it a short ways, watching its glossy head arched just above the surface. The grass was taller and reedier here and the yellow circles from the lanterns did not pierce this far. Sensing the darkness wrap around him, he stopped and brought his head up. Across the river, an eerie glow emanated from the large expanse of woods. An unnatural fog was curling up around the trees and Hub could hear an uncomfortable humming. The sound pounded off his chest and match his heart beat for beat. The hotdog he had eaten earlier threatened to come back up. Crickets and frogs stopped their songs midnote. Except for the increasing humming noise, the night was tight, muffled. Squinting his eyes, Hub could see small, backshadowed movements, almost like children playing. Only these weren't children, their heads were misshaped with large black ovals instead of eyes. Closing his own eyes, Hub tried to go back to sleep; surely this was a dream and he could push it away if he put his mind to it. Later, puzzling to make sense of it all, his father told him he had watched too many Outer Limits shows on the "boob tube". Both his uncle and his dad assured him that nothing other than a few onery carp had disturbed the evening and that Hub had walked back into camp, went straight to his cot and slept the entire night. He had been gone for only a few minutes, they were sure.

Images from that night seemed sharper in Hub's mind this evening, forcing him to remember. The air inside the Chevy was stale, choking and he tried to roll down his window. The plastic handle seared across his palm, and bits of the black resin stuck to his skin. In the same instant, the radio burst forth with a sudden clarity - a Bob Wills' fiddle playing a long ago tune. Reaching for the volume control, Hub stopped in mid air. Long slender fingers were slowly wrapping themselves around the knob, the skin a greyish hue.

"No, Hub", a metallic voice came from the passenger side of the car. "We want it loud." Pointing to a distant star, the small being said, "Cause' once you're down in Texas, Bob Wills is still the king!"

Rather Have "Soldiers" In My Cup

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- SARS fears have stopped the Chinese from eating civet cats. But that hasn't turned off others from sipping the strangest of brews - one they insist is made from coffee beans eaten, partly digested and then excreted by the weasel-like animals.

The story goes like this: Civets live in the foliage of plantations across Southeast Asia. These fussy foragers pick the best and ripest coffee berries. Enzymes in their digestive system break down the flesh of the fruit before the animals expel the bean.

Workers collect beans from the plantation floor, wash away the dung and roast them to produce a unique drink that devotees might say is good to the last dropping.

Skeptics, though, dismiss it all as a weird and unverifiable marketing gimmick. Still in Indonesia's capital Jakarta, the owner of three fashionable cafes, Agus Susanto, sells what he claims is a mix of regular beans and those that have passed through civets. The blend and the cafes are both called "Kopi Luwak" -- in English: "Civet Coffee." "Our coffee has a strong taste and an even stronger aroma," Susanto said by telephone from his factory in central Java.

Others just won't swallow the claims.

Gordon Must Have Texan Blood!

Champion liar tells good, clean story

BURLINGTON, Wis. — Gordon Zwicky's outrageous tale about his trip to Florida earned him top honors in this year's Burlington Liars Club contest. Zwicky, 72, beat out 299 other entries from 31 states and Canada. Zwicky claimed he and his wife, Dorothy, won the lottery and decided to drive to Florida. Their neighbor told them they would be fine as long as they paid attention to the road signs. ''Thirty miles from home they saw a sign stating, 'Clean Restrooms Ahead.' Two months later they arrived in Florida,'' the tale read. By that time, they had cleaned 450 restrooms using 267 rolls of paper towels, three cases of bowl cleaner and 86 bottles of Windex. They were so tired, they immediately left for home.