The Caretaker of Lorne Field

A few minutes before nine someone knocked on the front door. Lydia dumped the bag of half-melted ice into the kitchen sink then, before leaving to answer the door, warned her husband what she’d do to him if he ruined this for them. When she came back into the kitchen, she brought Paul Minter with her. He took a step towards Jack Durkin and then skipped to one side to avoid a piece of glass.

“You realize you have broken glass on your floor?” he asked Lydia.

“He’ll clean it up,” Lydia said, turning an angry glare towards her husband.

“The hell I will,” Durkin muttered.

Minter looked at both of them. “If this is a bad time…” he started.

“As good a time as any.” Lydia took her seat as stiffly as a corpse.

Minter gave them both curious looks again then, avoiding the broken glass, he made his way over to Durkin and introduced himself. Durkin grudgingly took his hand and muttered his own name in response. Minter carefully made his way over to Lester’s seat at the table.

“Mr. Durkin, it’s a pleasure meeting you.” Minter looked around the room smiling artificially. “Has your wife mentioned to you any of what we’re planning?”

“Nope. Not a word.”

Durkin snuck a quick look at his wife and couldn’t help worrying about how awkwardly she held her injured hand. He also didn’t think this kid sitting at the table with them seemed like much of a lawyer. He sure wasn’t dressed like one, wearing a polo shirt and short pants, and without anywhere near the imposing presence of someone like Hank Thompson. Durkin wiped his hand off with his napkin and watched as Paul Minter showed off a large toothy grin.

“Well, it’s really pretty simple.” Minter adjusted himself in his seat and took one more gaze around the room. “What we’d like to do is develop a theme park around what you do.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“We’re going to put this town on the map. Instead of people spending money to go to Salem, Massachusetts, for witch trials, we’ll get them to spend money here watching monsters being pulled out of the earth. Imagine this house being turned into a museum and gift shop-”

“Wait a minute. Where are we supposed to live?”

“We’ll build you a new house,” Minter said with a wide smile. “With the numbers the investors are tossing around, we should be able to build you something nice. Central air, central vacuum, gourmet kitchen, home theatre, pool and Jacuzzi in back. How does all that sound?”

“Sounds okay,” Jack Durkin admitted. “But it’s going to have to be close by so I can get back and forth to that field.”

“That’s not going to be a problem. There’s quite a bit of land deeded with this cabin for us to build on. Getting back to what I was saying, along with this house being turned into a museum and gift shop, we’ll offer tours to Lorne Field so people can watch you at work, and-”

“I ain’t allowing nothin’ that goes against the contract. No one’s allowed at Lorne Field but me.”

Minter forced his smile wider. “Contracts can be amended-”

“Nope. Not this one. It ain’t being changed. Not a word of it. Everything in it is written for a reason. You start messing around with it and we’re all lost.”

‘Please, Mr. Durkin, you need to be reasonable-”

“I’m not allowing a single word of that contract to be changed. Not a single damn word.”

“Is there anything in the contract against turning this home into a museum or gift shop?” Lydia asked.

Durkin thought about it and shook his head.

“How about against you setting up cameras down there so people can watch you work?”

Again Durkin ended up admitting that there wasn’t.

Lydia turned to Minter. “How about all that then?” she asked. “Would that be good enough?”

Minter pursed his lips as he considered it. “I think that would work,” he said. “We could clear out some land behind this cabin and recreate Lorne Field. It might even be better that way. It would both add to the mystique of the actual field and give us more control. And people wouldn’t have to traipse miles through woods to get there. I’d still like to have a supply of weeds that we could laminate and sell as souvenirs.”

Durkin’s jaw dropped as he digested what the lawyer was suggesting. “W-what do you want to do?” he stammered out, not sure he believed that he had heard right.

“We could make a small fortune selling those weeds.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Okay, okay.” Minter held out a hand to stop him. “I just thought I’d ask. The marketing potential could be huge for something like that. But it’s not a deal breaker.”

“So we’re all set?” Lydia asked.

“Well, we’ll see. The investors I talked to so far are excited, and I think I have the support of the town council. So as long your husband doesn’t have any further objections…?”

Durkin glanced at his wife and saw that her eyes were fixed on him. He also saw her still gingerly holding her injured hand. “As long as it don’t violate my contract, you and my wife can do whatever you want.” He cleared his throat. “What would be in the museum?” he asked somewhat sheepishly.