WELCOME TO

The Bug That Ate Texas

and Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, ....

by

Bill MacWithey

When the supertanker Oso de la Norte ran aground on the coast of Alaska during a severe storm, it was beaten against the rocks until its tanks split wide open. Twelve million barrels of crude washed out onto the beach and slowly worked its way down the coast to the south, covering everything in sight for hundreds of miles. It was estimated a million sea dwelling animals and untold millions of birds would die from the gooey, sticky mass of crude if it weren’t controlled.

Seven years earlier, Joe Forester and Dan (Handy Dan) O'Brian had formed a company called Houston Oil Gobblers, or HOG for short. Joe and Dan, having worked with oil all their lives, including everything from roughnecking on a drill crew to working with a famous oil well fire fighter from Houston, had met Tom Merit quite by chance. Actually, he was Professor Tom Merit, from Rice University, a microbiologist.

Joe and Dan were taking it easy after returning from the arduous job of extinguishing oil well fires all over Kuwait after the Persian Gulf War. If there was one thing that interested both men more than fighting oil well fires, or sinking the next deep well in the Gulf of Mexico, it was fishing. They had probably spent as much time sitting hunched over a fire on the bank of a lake, or out on one of the jetty's protruding into the Gulf, or floating slowly along on Tom's thirty-foot ocean rated bay boat as any man alive.

After returning from the Persian Gulf, Tom and Dan spent three weeks helping put all the equipment back into top notch shape and preparing everything to be hauled out and trucked or flown to the next disaster. Then, they took off for South Padre Island, their favorite spot to lay on the beach, or fish, or watch women. It had also been the scene of some of their more famous fisticuffs. Neither had a particularly short temper, but neither ever backed down from anyone who wanted to get his head pounded.

They were nearing the island, when they passed a car beside the road with its hood up. Dan was driving, and at first slowed slightly, then sped back up. But after a quarter mile he said, "Aw, man, I can't go on by that poor idiot. He might be stuck all night." He braked to a near stop as he spoke, and glancing in the rear view mirror, made a U-turn. Driving back to the stranded motorist, he pulled across the oncoming lane and stopped a few feet in front of the car.

At first, they both thought it was some Yankee in a rental car from the way he was dressed. You just didn't drive around in far south Texas with a suit and tie on. Only some fool Yankee would do that. But when the man spoke, it was pure East Texas.

"Shore do appreciate you comin' ta my aid, gentlemen. Got a talk ta give in Port Isabel, and I'm already an hour late."

"What seems to be the problem?"

"Well, I think mainly the problem is that this car is a piece of junk. Has been since the liar at the dealership in Houston told me it was the best thing since the Milky Way candy bar. Been nothin' but trouble since day one. Mostly, the stupid thing just won't run. Think you could give me a lift into Port Isabel?"

"Sure. No problem. Climb on in."

Soon, they were back on the road toward Port Isabel, two dozen miles ahead. Now, Joe and Dan were what you might call diamonds-in-the-rough. They fought, they cussed, they weren't above havin' another man's woman for a night or two if she was willing, and when they weren't working, or on short call, they pretty well drank a bunch. Joe pulled a large bottle of Crown Royal from the floorboard and handed it over the seat. "Sorry we don't have a cup or glass or somethin'. Me and Dan damned sure ain't gonna catch anything from one another after all the years we been sharin’ women and booze. Oh, by the way, I'm Joe, and that there's Dan, drivin'."

Both men reached over the seat to shake his hand. "My name's Tom Merit. You gentlemen look like you might be oil workers."

"Hey, that's pretty good. We work for ol' Red puttin' out fires. Just got back from Kuwait a few weeks ago. Whata you do, Tom?"

"I teach at Rice University in Houston."

"Oh? You one of the professors?" Dan seemed impressed. He'd never met a real life college professor face to face. This one was taking a long pull from the two liter bottle of twelve year old CR.

Professor Tom Merit wiped his sleeve across his mouth and passed the bottle back forward. "Yeah, I teach microbiology. Matter of fact, I'm working on a research project that might interest you boys, since you work with oil."

Dan glanced in the rear view mirror at the professor and said, "I guess you'll hafta explain what that microbi... uh, what that is you teach, Professor. You're talkin' to a couple of hellacious good fire fighters, but we shore don't know a lot about college courses."

"Well, to put it quite simply, my good Samaritan, microbiology is the study of little bitty teeny life forms you can't even see. You being in the oil well fire fighting business, well, you're aware what happens when you have an oil spill in the ocean. Wrecks the beaches, kills lots of wildlife and so on. I found a microbe... I guess you could say a microbe is a little bug of sorts. Anyway, this little microbe I discovered likes to eat crude oil. I know it means nothing to you, but its scientific name is astimositonya-gubdabyllaer. What I’m experimenting with is turning trillions of these little bugs loose on an oil spill and see if they’ll clean it up."

Joe was turned sideways in the seat, and it was obvious from his grin he thought the professor must be a little tetched in the head. "You’re saying this little bug of yours can eat an oil spill?"

Tom Merit was highly educated, but he came from the oil patch as a kid, himself, and knew exactly how Joe and Dan thought. He had known hundreds of Joes and Dans. Good ol’ boys, but pretty much uneducated in the sciences. "Yep. That little oil gobbler does a hell of a job in the lab."

Joe slowly moved his head from side to side and continued to grin. His next comment confirmed that he was anything but a scientist. "I’m not sure exactly how many a trillion is, professor, but if you throw these trillions of little whatchamacallits at an oil slick and they eat it, then what. Do they poop oil, or what?"

He couldn’t help but laugh, as Joe took another long pull of CR from the bottle and again, handed it toward the back seat. After a good long swig of his own, Professor Tom Merit said, "Yeah, matter of fact, what they do is, they convert the oil to pure carbon and poop it out. The carbon is so fine, it just disappears in the ocean."

Joe moved his head slowly up and down, as if he understood, then asked, "What happens to them little critters when they eat all the oil and ain’t got nothin’ left ta eat?"

"They die from starvation, of course."

Joe slapped his knee and said, "Well, there you have it. They all die off, where you gonna get the next batch to eat the next oil spill?"

As the professor handed the bottle back to the front seat, he laughed and said, "No problem. You see, we don’t really dump trillions of them on the slick. Maybe several million. But, they multiply so fast, within a few days, there are trillions of them eating away at the crude."

Dan had been quiet, letting his buddy ask all the dumb questions, but now he asked, "If those things like oil, and they can eat a lot of it up real quick-like, what if they got into the oil underground? They could eat up a field in no time."

"They don’t come out of the water. Can’t live out of the water."

Dan asked, "You really think it’ll work?"

"Know it will."

"I’ll be damned. So, why haven’t you used these little critters on a slick? I ain’t heard nothin’ about it?"

"Like I said, Dan, it’s in the experimental stage. But, next accident, I’m going to get the chance to prove my theory."

As they pulled into Port Isabel, the professor directed them to the Bayside Hotel, where he was giving his talk on his project. When Dan stopped opposite the door he said, "Listen, boys, you don’t know how much I appreciate your help. And, your booze. Uh, listen, if you’re around about suppertime, why don’t you let me buy you supper here at the hotel? They have a pretty darned good menu."

Dan looked at Joe, who shrugged his shoulders to signify that it was up to Dan. "Yeah, I guess we can take you up on that. We’re goin’ on over to South Padre, but we can drive back over."

"Good. About six o’clock be okay?"

They fished off a jetty for a few hours, then headed for a beer joint for the next couple of hours. The professor was right about the place having a good menu, and after promising to call him at Rice University and come by to check out his little bugs in the lab, they drove back across the tall bridge to South Padre.

It was several weeks later when Joe found the professor’s card in a stack of unopened junk mail on the kitchen countertop. He had nothing much to do that day, so picked up the phone and called Dan. "Hey, I came across the professor’s card here on the counter. Ya wanta go see his little bugs with me? Okay, lemme call him, make sure he’s there. I’ll call back in a couple minutes."

It turned out the professor was in, and Joe put on what he hoped would be acceptable clothes for a college campus. Oh, he had his good stuff, the stuff he wore went he went out to the kicker joints. But he wasn’t sure if fancy western garb would be appropriate. Most of his decent shirts looked as if some classy cowboy might wear them, like Roy Rogers or Gene Autry. Well, what the hell, he’d wear one of his more sedate western shirts, a pair of jeans without holes in the knees and his best cowboy boots. That oughta be good enough for Rice University. Now, if it were Harvard, or Yale, or one a them high falootin’ Eastern colleges, well he might have to wear his purple satin shirt with the real silk embroidery of yellow roses.

Joe was a little put off when he saw that Dan was wearing a nice pair of regular dress shoes, a new looking white shirt and a pair of slack pants that didn’t look like they came from K-Mart. "Man, who died, dude? You look like you’re goin’ ta someone’s funeral."

"Aw, c’mon, Joe. Man, we’re going to see a college professor at Rice. Ain’t every day we get an invite like that."

"Just the same, you shore look funny, dressed like a damned Yankee."

After finally finding a place to park Dan’s genuine, all original 1958 Chevy Cameo pickup, only two thousand were built, as he liked to brag, they asked how to find professor Merit and were directed to his lab.

The professor greeted them warmly. "Joe, Dan." He shook their hands vigorously and said, "Sure am glad you called. I wanted to get in touch with you, but had no idea how. Forgot you worked for Red. Listen, you want to get some coffee or an ice tea? I have a proposition for you." Without waiting for an answer, he led them from the lab and what seemed a half-mile across the campus to a big cafeteria.

With pie and coffee on each of their trays, Professor Merit stood looking around for a moment, motioned them to follow and led them to a table in a far corner. Another half mile. Those old boots were shore beginning to hurt the corn on his right little toe. Maybe he should have worn shoes. But, he would have had to run by K-Mart to buy some.

When they were seated and Dan and Joe were in the middle of their pie, the professor asked, "How would you boys like to go to work for me for sixty grand a year apiece?"

Joe blew coffee all over Dan. Dan spit apple pie all over the table and coughed, as if he were in the last stages of TB. Joe shook, as he wiped the table with his napkin and, in a shaky voice, asked, "Did you say sixty grand a year? Like, sixty thousand dollars?"

"Yeah. Sorry. Didn’t mean to catch you by surprise, like that."

Dan leaned across the very messy tabletop and asked, "Who we gotta kill for that kinda pesos, Professor?"

Tom Merit laughed and said, "Let me tell you something, boys. You know, when that stupid car quit on me and you boys happened along, I was on my way to talk to a bunch of these rich oil barons about financing my research. When I told them about the Astimositony-gubdabyllaer and what it could do, why, they immediately saw the commercial possibilities. You know, make a bunch of money from owning the rights to my bug."

He leaned across the table and said quietly, "Look, I’m gonna trust you boys. You seem real honest to me. Truth is, this job doesn’t pay me squat. But, my bug could make me wealthy as hell. Trouble is, anything I develop on university time is supposed to be theirs." The professor waited to see if they were catching on to what he was saying, but it was real evident by their confused looks at one another and him that they didn’t have an inkling. "What I need is someone else to claim they created this bug. That’s you two boys, if you’re interested in sixty grand a year. Couple of them oil barons are willing to put up a couple million dollars to get the business started. They get thirty-two percent of the take. So, can I trust you boys for sixty grand a year… apiece?"

Joe swallowed hard and, not for a minute, thought about what they might get involved in would be illegal. "Shoot, professor, you can count me in. Like they say in them craps games up in Las Vegas, Baby needs a new pair of shoes."

"You ain’t married are you, Joe?"

Joe laughed uneasily at the professor thinking he was serious. Although, for sixty thousand dollars a year, he could go to somewhere besides K-Mart to buy a new pair of shoes. Maybe even to the Florshiem store at the mall. "Naw, heck no. What woman would marry a roustabout like me? Dan ain’t married neither."

So, a deal was struck for Joe and Dan to start an oil slick fighting company using the professor’s bug. Just like that, the two oil well firefighters were businessmen. Professor Merit even took them to his lab and showed them the little bug that would make them all wealthy under the microscope. Both wondered how in the world a thing as tiny as that could eat crude oil, survive and even multiply at a rate they couldn’t begin to fathom. But, the professor showed them the little guys at work, eating oil in a small tank in the lab.

That was seven years ago, and not only had they cleaned up a dozen small oil spills in the Houston ship channel with their little bugs, but they had saved millions of dollars in lost revenue for folks in places like Alaska, Kuwait and the Gulf of Aden. Not only did they become world travelers, but they became true experts at what they did. Joe forgot about Florshiem and had custom boots made that cost in excess of what he used to make in a month fighting fires. Life was good. Well, so far, it was good.

Now, seven years later, the two-man team and their flunkies, as Joe referred to their employees, faced the biggest challenge ever. The Oso de la Norte was the largest tanker ever built, and now, it lay on the rocks, a total loss. But, worse, it had spilled nearly every drop of its multimillion-gallon cargo. Joe and Dan flew over the eighty-five mile long and twelve-mile wide oil slick and were amazed by its size.

"Man, Joe, how many tanks of bugs we gonna need for this mess?"

"I’ll tell you this, we damned sure better get the flunkies at the warehouse geared up to split tanks and feed those bugs an extra ration of crude. How much we gettin’ fer this job?"

"Ten million, if we can stop it in its tracks."

Joe grinned and said, "Ya know, Dan, I sure hate ta see all that oil down there, but it shore is good for business. We stop this baby, we put about eight million in the bank."

"Yeah, the professor would be proud of how well we learned the business, wouldn’t he?"

Joe again grinned, nodded and moved to the computer mounted in the wall of the cabin. He typed in a fax that would go to Houston at the speed of light, and the bugs would be on their way to Prudoe Bay. Then he turned back to Dan and said, "Shore was a surprise when old Professor Merit dropped dead. Whoda thought a man of fifty would have a heart attack like that?"

"Well, I hate to say it, but in a way, well, it sure is nice to be makin’ all this money instead of sixty grand a year."

"Yeah, ain’t it strange that the professor never put any kinda agreement on paper or anything? And, heck, it was his idea we take credit for the bug."

***

Even though a much greater concentration of microbes was spread atop and around the oil slick, the speed at which the slick was disappearing came as a complete surprise. Much smaller slicks took a lot longer. Every day, Joe and Dan flew over the slick, and after less than two weeks, it became harder and harder to find each day. The worst spill the world had ever seen was but a tiny, thread-like discoloration on the surface of the ocean and ran less than ten miles long. After landing and returning to their portable office-away-from-the-office, Joe called back to the lab in Houston and spoke with their chief Microbe breeding flunky.

"Charlie, what did you do different with this batch of bugs?"

"Whataya mean?"

"I mean, the damned slick is gone. What did you do?"

"Joe, I got to admit, I’ve been doin' a little experimenting on my own. I figure this little bug you guys came up with did a great job, so why not try to make them hungrier. I crossed them with another microbe that normally wouldn’t eat oil, but has a hell of an appetite."

"Well, ol’ buddy, you got a bonus coming. A great big bonus. That slick is gone, faster’n a crooked card player in Vegas."

When Joe told Dan what Charlie had done, Dan got a worried look on his face. "You know, if he did that without letting us in on it, what’s to stop him from goin’ out on his own?"

Now, Joe got a worried look on his face, but just as suddenly grinned widely and said, "What the hell do we care? Dan, how much money you got in the bank. I mean all the stocks and things included."

Dan tapped his finger on the desk for a moment, then said, "Heck, I guess about fifty million or so."

"Did you ever dream you’d have that kinda money? Heck no, you didn’t. I got at least that, myself. You know what we oughta do? We oughta get outa the business and live good the rest of our lives. Find us some first class women to settle down with and enjoy our money. We got all the money we could ever want. Whataya say we give this whole damned thing ta the flunkies and let them worry about all the business details we’ve had on our shoulders. Me and you, well, we can be out in the gulf fishin’ or anything we want ta do from now on."

Now, I wouldn’t say ol’ Joe and Dan were given to split second decisions or anything like that, but they took off for Houston an hour later. They’d have left sooner, but Joe was hungry and wanted to eat before they left. As they flew along the coast at a couple thousand feet, there was no sign of the slick. What they had seen just two hours earlier was gone. Joe even felt some sort of sorrow for all them little hybrid bugs that was out of food and would die almost instantly. Boy, what a way to spend your life. One great big meal and, whamo, no more bug.

***

It had been two weeks after visiting with their attorney upon returning to Houston. Joe had always wanted to go to Disney World in Florida, so he and Dan, along with their new girlfriends, were lolling on the beach at the Disney World Hotel. The steward came by and laid a complimentary newspaper on the table beside them. Now, neither of those boys were much into reading, but the headline caught Joe’s eye. He grabbed the paper and quickly sat up. "Aw, man, lookit here, Dan." He held the paper where his life-long buddy could see the headline: Tanker Anchored in Prudoe Bay Loses its Cargo.

Joe started reading aloud, "The tanker Sarah Anne, of Panamanian registry, spent thirty hours taking on a load of crude oil from the Trans-Alaska pipeline and was ready to put to sea Wednesday, the day before yesterday, when a small mechanical problem delayed their departure for New Orleans.

"When the crew awoke yesterday morning, the captain noticed the ship was riding far too high in the water. Upon inspection, they found the entire load of crude oil was missing. As a crew member put it, it seemed the tanks had been steam cleaned to the point you could eat off them.

"Then, when all power aboard the ship failed, it was discovered even the ships fuel supply was dry as a desert. No one aboard could offer any reasonable explanation. However, the single crewman who had been standing watch overnight did report he saw some sort of unusual slime that seemed to creep across the deck, then disappear. The crewman did say, however, it was an extremely foggy night, and his eyes may have played tricks on him in the fog.

"But, that still leaves the mystery of the missing oil and fuel. Authorities are investigating, but have found no evidence of an oil slick from the missing cargo. A local oil pump station worker quipped, "Perhaps they were robbed by aliens."

Joe lay the paper aside and stared at Dan. "You don’t think… "

"What? You ain’t thinkin’ our bugs did that? They can’t live outa the water, Joe. How they gonna crawl up the side of a ship?" He laughed loudly, but quit laughing when Joe reminded him the bugs that ate the Oso de la Norte spilled cargo weren’t their bugs. They were something Charlie had created. Both men stood and told the ladies to stay where they were. They’d be back in a few minutes.

Joe dialed the number for the Houston lab. "Charlie, tell me it ain’t your bugs that ate that oil."

"What are you talkin’ about?"

"Don’t you watch TV or read the paper, Charlie? I’m talkin’ about that tanker up in the bay that lost all its cargo. It didn’t spill, it just disappeared."

There was silence on the other end of the conversation for some time, then a quiet, "Shit."

"Shit what, Charlie?"

"That other bug I crossed your bug with? Hey, you gotta remember, I ain’t really no damned scientist with this sorta stuff. What I know about microbiology, I got from reading on my own. That cross breeding just worked by pure chance, man."

"Get to the damned point, Charlie. Why’d you say shit?"

"You know that portable generator we have out back for emergencies? Dick filled it up the other day, then, this morning, we started to test run it, just like we do twice a week. Well, the gas was gone. Eighty gallons. First, we thought someone had siphoned the tank. Then, we see this tiny trail of slick stuff leading right back to the tanks in the lab. I put a sample of the goo under the scope. They were my bugs."

Now, there was silence on Joe’s end of the conversation. "You there, Joe?"

"Yeah. Now, whataya gonna do? You gotta get rid of them things, Charlie."

"We already did. At least all of them here in the lab."

"You have to figure out how to get rid of the ones that ate that cargo."

"Uh, Joe… I hate to say this, but that trail of slime leading from the lab to the power generator? From the generator, it went right to the edge of the water in the ship channel behind the lab."

"What the hell you gonna do?"

"I don’t know. We killed the lab bugs with bleach. Kills ‘em real fast. How the hell we gonna fill the channel with bleach, or Prudoe bay?"

Joe’s answer was simply, "Shit."

In the following week, every tanker in the channel and anchored at the unloading station off the coast ran dry not only of their cargo, but all their fuel. Huge masses of the bugs came over the sides of the ships and though they didn’t bother the people, at first, there was no stopping them. Then, the first fatalities were reported. At least it was assumed there were fatalities. Three ships moving out of the Persian Gulf toward the open sea were found mysteriously bereft of not only their cargo, but everything that wasn’t made of steel or iron. Every single piece of fabric, plastic, glass, wood, everything was gone, including the crews.

Joe and Dan had returned to a befuddled and half-deserted Houston when they heard the reports of the ships without crews. They had to do something. Even though Charlie had created the monster bug, it was their bug that started it all. Or, more rightly, the bug they inherited from Professor Merit. The waterfront was gone. Plain and simply gone! Only steel girders and beams remained of once massive warehouses. Docks had collapsed into the water, and ships lay deserted everywhere.

The army units were slowly retreating from a ten feet thick glob that was devouring everything in its path. It was moving at a speed of two miles an hour. And, it was spreading out in all directions from Houston and Alaska. Television reports on the TV in their motel room, which they had for free because the place had been deserted, were coming in from all along the gulf coast. It seems the hybrid bug had traveled inland along the coast as far as Georgia and Northern Florida.

Joe looked at Dan and said, "I don’t think there’s any way to stop it. We gotta get out of here."

They stopped at a supermarket and bought a whole pickup load of bleach and non-perishable provisions. As they drove toward San Antonio, Dan suddenly said, "Dammit! Those damned things are goin’ ta eat up all our money."

Joe laughed and pulled into an appliance store.

"What are you stopping here for?"

"Gonna get a portable TV and some extra batteries."

They continued toward West Texas, not really knowing where they were going, except, Joe had figured out the remotest, most barren spot possible might be the safest. Seemed the bugs didn’t eat stuff like rocks and dirt, or sand. He had visited the Davis Mountains as a kid and remembered the area as being pretty darned barren.

So, they wound up here, sitting atop the highest, most barren peak they could find, and everything was okay for some days, but what Joe had forgotten was the Rio Grande running through the mountains, dividing the US from Mexico. When he awakened one morning after living atop the peak for a week, Joe simply said, "Shit," and awakened Dan. He punched and rocked him awake.

"Whatsa matter?"

Joe pointed at the mass of goo creeping up the mountain, covering everything in its path. It was about a mile away and Joe figured that gave them about an hour. The problem was, the road to the top was covered with the mass of bugs. The other route, to the west, was far too steep to try to cover on foot or in a vehicle.

Joe munched on an oat and honey breakfast bar and made a pot of coffee on the portable propane camp stove they’d picked up in San Antonio.

Dan stood watching the mass, mesmerized. Then, he suddenly ran for the truck and yelled, "Joe, get your ass over here and help me!"

He grabbed two gallon bottles of bleach and started pouring them in a circle about their camp. Joe figured out what he was doing and joined in. "Figure we got enough bleach here to do any good?"

"I don’t know, but it beats doin’ nuthin’."

They had emptied all sixty some odd bottles around their camp by the time the wall of squishy, gooey stuff got to their only line of defense and stopped abruptly. It seemed to turn the whole mass into something like a coral reef. Where it had been grayish, now, it became a light gray-pink and seemed to become rigid.

Joe and Dan stood watching to see what would happen, but by sundown, the wall was just there, and there was no further movement by the mass.

Awake all night, with their small stove burning and the gas lantern glowing against the ten feet high wall of pinkish-gray, it was a welcome sight when the sky to the east began to lighten. What they saw came as a big surprise. The wall was still there, but in the night, the entire mass behind it had retreated and was nowhere in sight.

"What the hell you make of that, Joe?"

"I think they decided our skinny butts weren’t worth it. I’m gonna make some coffee."

As he readied the coffeepot, Joe turned on the television. The station from El Paso he’d been watching the previous evening wasn’t coming in. He’d been able to pick up twelve stations at this high altitude last night, today there were none on the air. Nothing but static greeted his twisting the dial from one end to the other.

Staring out at the land below, laid barren by the oil eating bugs, Joe smiled and said, "I wonder if there’s anyone alive anywhere else."

"How the hell did we get inta this mess Joe?"

"Question is, what are we gonna do now?"

"What can we do? We might be the last two people alive on Earth."

***

Joe popped up to a sitting position, wringing wet with sweat, the phone on the night stand ringing. When he grabbed it to stop the horrible noise, Dan said, "Hey, Joe, where the hell are you, buddy? That party last night too much for you? I thought we were goin’ fishin’ and woman chasin’ down at South Padre. We gotta get goin’ if we wanta get there while there’s still women on the beach."

Joe shook and swung his head from side to side, trying to figure if this was real.

"You there, Joe?"

"I don’t want no part of killin’ off the whole world."

"Now, what the hell you talkin’ about, buddy?"

"Dan, I want out. I’m gonna call Red and see if he’ll give me my job back."

"What’s wrong with you?"

"Nuthin’. Aw, hell, man, I just had the damnedest dream you ever heard of. We didn’t quit workin' for Red, did we?

"You crazy or somethin’, Joe? Red pays us twice as much as we’ve ever made. Man, you musta really got smashed last night. How soon’ll you be ready to go?"

They were about an hour from Port Isabel, when they passed a car on the side of the road with its hood open. A man in a suit and tie stood beside the car looking helpless. Dan glanced up in the mirror and said, "Shit, I can’t leave that idiot stranded out here."

When he started to apply the brake, Joe yelled, "The hell you can’t! Don’t you dare stop! I don’t want nuthin’ to do with no bugs."

Dan looked at his buddy, wondering if he was still suffering from last night’s booze, or if he had gone off the deep end. But, they’d been friends a long time, and if Joe didn’t want him to stop, well, to hell with it.

Later, out on the beach, scoping out the few women strolling by, Dan asked Joe, "Uh, hey, buddy, what’d you mean you don’t want nuthin’ to do with no bugs?"

Joe stared at him a minute and asked, "You think some kinda little bugs could be trained to eat oil spills?"

Dan shook his head and said, "That’s the dumbest idea I ever heard of. Where’d you get such a crazy idea?"

"Just a thought. Whooeee, looka this one in the bikini."

Dan lay back on his elbows and said, "You sure come up with some strange stuff, pardner. Bugs eating oil. What an idea."

It was a bummer of a weekend as far as women went, and they left for Houston about midday. Joe was driving, and when he came to the intersection where they’d normally turn, just outside Houston, he pulled to the side of the road and shook Dan.

When Dan asked him what was up, he said, "I don’t know. Look."

Where the brightly-lit skyline of Houston should be only stark skeletons of buildings shone in the moonlight. Now, Joe knew why the women on the beach acted as if they didn’t even see or hear him and his friend. When Dan asked him what the hell was going on, he said, "I think what’s going on is, the bugs got us. We’re goners, man. We’re dead. We're ghosts. The bleach didn’t work, Joe. That, or we’re havin' some kinda awful nightmare."