CHAPTER 15
08/22/2017
After all of the hand picked Fuglies had been recruited it was finally time for a business meeting at Bob Miller's behest. Rounding up a bunch of underprivileged individuals to drop what they're doing and leave the country would surely take lots and lots of wheedling and coaxing. Sure his monetary funds were all but unlimited to carry out whatever he so desired he'd still have to take into consideration that his underlings could potentially become quite very suspicious. Especially since Miller Island was right along the lines of the Bermuda Triangle. Bob knew that the only way to host this business meeting safely was through the comfort of his three million dollar yatch. The ship was so huge it even had an entire movie theatre down below big enough to seat 200 people.
Of the 300 Fuglies that Bob Miller had recruited only 136 had shown up for the business meeting. The other half couldn't make the meeting for whatever reasons and a good 20% were convinced it was all just some kind of pyramid scheme scam that happened at the mall in the past all the time. Dirty Bird however was more than delighted that he managed to bring in 136 of his hand selected "Fuglies" onto Pterodactyl (The name of his enormous yatch). All of these people wanted the same thing that only Bob himself could deliver. A better job, a better life. Some had even done their homework and read up on Bob Miller. He was legit. Took "Amazing" care of his employees was the word used to describe him in the most recent issue in the Forbes magazine.
The boisterous group boarded Pterodactyl and descended down below to the icy air conditioned theatre room where women dressed as playboy bunnies passed out small glasses of champagne. It all seemed so surreal and magical like just for everyone to be able to get on a yacht for the very first time in their life. What really made things cool was Bob still had some old school in him and kept things real. Needless to say the theatre had a smoking section in the back. Because the yacht was privately owned, the dictating government could never force his big mighty ship to become "smoke free".
Dirty Bird was not surprised to see that Alice had made it to the meeting. All of the town weirdness of the whole "Dirty Bird On The Loose" had made for such a stir on Instagram, Facebook, Linked, and yes of course the celebrity preferred network "Twitter". A social network that involved much tweets about Dirty Bird and what he was up to. Over the week Alice had reached a social status like she would have never dreamed possible. People needed assurance about this reclusive stranger in town that nobody could piece together his birth name. Alice had to post numerous posts of encouragement in nearly every social network to assure the rest of the Fuglies that more than likely Bob Miller only meant well for people. She never disclosed who coined or where "Dirty Bird" nickname had actually come from. She had assured her audience that whatever "work" he was looking to hire would not involve them in any way or fashion with breaking the law. She assured her FaceBook viewers that Bob Miller was just too highly intelligent to be foolish enough to bring in any accomplices if he ever so desired to partake in crime.
The theatre down below the dock of Pterodactyl was just downright amazingly beautiful. The theatre style seats were extremely comfortable and even had buttons you could push to make them vibrate. Dirty Bird always insisted on the utmost comfort for his guests. He had always personally believed that the low SAT scores in the lowly funded city schools were due to the lack of budgeting in the air conditioning department.
Dirty Bird believed that a well fed comfortable student made for a better assimilating lister that couldn't be distracted by a growling stomach or a nerve racking house fly that had crept in because the school was opening windows and running fans. However, Bob Miller wasn't sure he wanted the entire audience having his undivided attention 100 percent of the time and that's why he hired a retired ballet dancer to be his sidekick during business meetings. Alex Balms. Forced to quit Ballet because of his Down syndrome. Alex Balms.....also known as "Robin Hood".
The women in the crowd wooed and cheered as Alex Balms did his thing to "entertain" them while Bob leafed through quickly and tried to organize his notes. Bob was very close to his side kick Robin Hood and never did a co-ed presentation without RobinHood. With RobinHood doing his thing on stage Bob Miller wouldn't have to stress too many potty breaks from the ladies during his presentations. It was all the women could do to keep their eyes off of Alex as he has always been considered eye candy of the highest quality.
A gigantic theatre screen could be heard whirring as it slowly unfurled with giant letters that read down that spelled out "FUGLY". Some giggled but some were offended by the negativity of such a word that hadn't been used since the nineties. However, Bob had spelled out some words of his own next to each giant letter to give his own definition as to what the word "Fugly" actually meant. Despite having a deep intuition that the majority of his soon-to-be employees were doomed for countless failure in their tough luck lives.
As the screen finished unfurling everything could finally be seen on the screen.
FUGLY DEFINITION
Fine
Underlings
Giving
Love
Year round
Much of the desensitized crowd giggled at Bob's humor while Robin Hood did his ballet moves on stage mesmerizing the female audience. He was dressed in super leafy green tights and even had the Robin Hood homemade bow and arrow. Alex was a black man full of toned ballet muscles throughout his body with his Robin Hood outfit giving much accentuation on his "love muscle"
The women in the crowd cheered as Alex did his dance moves over and over while shooting rubber arrows made of nerf out over the crowd to impress everyone. Alice was highly impressed at she talked about it amongst her newfound girlfriends. "Look at his crotch can you believe that? I never would've guessed that Robin Hood had a big one." She whispered to her new friend that was taking a break from Dollar Tree. Myra Jones.
"He can dance on me anyday" she whispered back.
Dusty however was not amused by Dirty Bird's side kick pretending to be Robin Hood. If it wasn't for the new experience and free boos, he'd be sitting in his mother's basement getting drunk and playing X-box. But how could he possibly say no to a free business meeting that involved getting on a yacht and free champagne? He knew he needed to find a girlfriend eventually and those internet dating sites always seemed to have some strings attached. Credit Card numbers.
Dusty never felt comfortable parting with his credit card numbers with online scams. His mother had warned him about that. Church was boring and those church girls would more than likely revoke his drinking rights and try to put their paws on his paycheck each week. Not that he really had much of a paycheck to show for anyways.
After his third drink the buzz affect finally put Dusty in a calm mood and he was now smiling and giggling at Dirty Bird's side kick Robin Hood. True the tights seemed kind of gay. Ballet always seemed kind of gay and he was convinced that Dirty Bird's side kick was quite gay but that was hardly true. Dusty had noted throughout his observations in life that women tended to feel very comfortable around gay men. Although he had a one sided opinion about this matter, he knew deep inside that becoming a bigot towards homosexuals would get him nowhere with the ladies. He was always so envious by how the gays could hold such in depth conversations with the ladies.
Envy and bias were two completely different things and he was tired of being labeled a "bigot".
Robin Hood finally slowed down his dance moves when Bob gave him a nod that he was ready to start his presentation. The din had finally settled down and the loosey-goose crowd was finally ready to hear what he had to say. The crowd was mesmerized when Bob Miller removed his fedora and laid it on the podium. His hair was his very own hair resembling the most wild Mohawk anybody had ever seen. Nobody had even known that Dirty Bird had a cool looking Mohawk because everyone was so used to seeing him hiding under his hat. Bob always felt naked in public if he didn't have his Stetson Fedora on his head and he tended to always prefer wearing brown.
He rustled some papers and gazed into the crowd showing off a million dollar smile.
"Good evening everyone! I'm going to be discussing some things today but first....and I do accentuate....please folks.....I don't mind what you do on your phones all I ask is no pictures. Learn to enhance your photographic memories and draw up pictures later when you get home. I'd like to welcome you all aboard Pterodactyl....she's lovely ain't she?"
There were whistles and cheers. Dirty Bird already felt his confidence boosting. He scrutinized his crowd of Fuglies and recognized a red head girl from the gym. How did she get in here? He didn't know her on a personal level and clearly couldn't remember putting her on the guest list.
He carried on with his presentation. "Folks....does anybody know what a Fugly is?"
A twenty one year old guy freshly fired from his construction job raised his hand and shouted. "I just googled it! A Fugly is someone that is Fucking Ugly!"
The cheery crowd giggled but Dirty Bird waved his hand to quell the noise. "You are wrong my friend. Don't believe everything you read on google. They are just words put there by man. You don't trust in man do you?"
The red head from the gym just couldn't hold back. She had never actually hung out with Bob but she knew his entire history going all the way back from when she had known him through a friend of a friend. Amber had known about Dirty Bird's shortcomings he had been struggling with since the age of 19. The chemical imbalances in his head were the real deal. Plenty of her friends had ascertained that to every degree.
"Were not sure we trust you Mr.Bob Miller if that truly is your real name!'' She teased.
Bob was starting to feel an uneasiness crawl about him. This girl clearly had him confused. Friend or Foe? He thought to himself, What is that girl's name?
Robin Hood immediately distracted the crowd by doing more dance moves and shooting imaginary arrows into the crowd while Bob fished for an answer. He opted to just smile and wing it Hillary style by playing dumb. He may even have to change the question.
"Agh... My beautiful fugly....I see you have a sense of humor......but you are all wrong about google....Fugly actually stands for Fine Underlings Giving Love Year round."
To his dismay, even his favorite Fugly Alice was getting balsy on him. She didn't even bother to raise her hand but mirrored the humorist sarcasm from the redhead. "Don't word play us Bob....we've been through all the empty pyramid promises before....what ya gonna post up next....Together Everyone Achieves More for defining the word team?"
The entire crowd was giggling now. But Bob was never the type to have words get under his skin. In fact it was quite the opposite as it only evoked many, many, comebacks. He just continued to cast his Bob's gotta bigger swing smile that he had stolen from the Enzyte enhancement commercial.
"Lemme just address the entire crowd with a quick question.
"How many of you are home owners in here? And I mean actual home owners. Living in Mommy's basement doesn't count nor does renting an apartment."
Although the majority of the crowd was in their twenties Bob was not surprised when not a single hand was raised. That's when he noticed a lanky old arm way way way in the back slowly go up. The skinny little arm belonged to no other but Screw Tooth Bill. Bill the garbage man. Dirty Bird smiled then signaled for his buddy to lower his arm.
"Okay folks let's try this again....how many home owners in here under the age of 60?"
Not a single hand was raised.
"You see folks....that's exactly what I'm talking about right there...now what if I told you that just twenty or thirty years ago a good percent of people your age were homeowners with no more...maybe possibly even less skill sets in which you guys have....I want to give each and every one of you a fair chance at becoming home owners some day."
The crowd grew quiet but let Bob continue without interruption. "You see folks...I hope each and everyone of you liked what you saw in my brochures for Miller Island."
Crazy Larry couldn't help it but come out with an outburst. "It looked cooler than Vegas!"
Bob Miller smiled. "That's because it is cooler than Vegas...everybody is a winner on Miller Island...tell ya what...any of you in here ever work at a bank?"
Pamela Grey raised her hand. She had been behind the counters of Coldwell bank since high school. Her salary was nowhere near anywheres with providing her with a way to become independent.
Dirty Bird addressed her. "Do you mind me asking how much you make?"
Pamela giggled. "Heh...2 years and I'm still stuck at 9.50 an hour....no benefits because my schedule never leads to full time."
"Do you like super rich people?"
Pamela chuckled once more. "Not really...some maybe....theother half tend to be whiny little assholes."
Dirty Bird's crowd giggled concurring with her statement. Bob Miller continued with his salesman smile. "Well if you work at a bank then chances are you're also good at numbers....How would you feel about taking money from all those rich assholes?"
The 23 year old girl was quite curious now. "How can I do that legally?" She asked.
Bob steepled his hand and kept the big smile going. "I'd like to offer you 15$ an hour starting pay with FULL benefits to come out and work at my bank on Miller Island Casino. You'd be doing the same exact thing you do now I'd just be paying you a lot more."
The crowd clapped as Pamela gladly accepted the job offer. Whatever sales pitches coming out of Bob's mouth were evidently working and nobody had a reason to doubt him otherwise. Bob Miller was not only offering his underlings a better way of life....but a better living environment as well. Dusty couldn't help but wonder how much life would be different living away from his mother.....Did Miller Island have cheap wonderful phone service? Would Dusty be able to Face Time his mother?