stuff and was willing to play the host to the guests, even if they were tourists—a breed of people which he obviously did not personally care for, simply because they rarely respected such treasures of his homeland of which he was so proud.
So Star decided to respond appropriately, “Nowhere else?” she mused.
“And how come there’s no sign?” asked Basil.
“There was a sign once and a restaurant announcing the Polo Magnetico, but they fell into disuse. Everyone knows that it is there. We take small children to it to amuse them, but that is the extent of it.”
“It’s like the eighth wonder of the world!” exclaimed Star. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Nor will you,” said the desk clerk, and he turned away to answer a call on the hotel phone, for he had had drummed into him the universal reasoning of all innkeepers: these people have already paid; perhaps this is yet another customer who needs a place to stay.
Up in their well-appointed new room, Basil was already at work. “Magnetic World!” he tried, looking at Star.
She glared back at him with an eye more critical than he had wished. “Bo, it’s on a hill. A hill with a steep incline with neither side usable. A hill on a public highway. You think they’re gonna let you set up shop on a hillside road?”
Even he could not deny she was right. “What a missed opportunity,” he said glumly.
But Star was thinking. “Not necessarily. I’m getting an idea.”
Basil grabbed hold of the tail of his fleeting hope. “Whatcha got, honey?”
“I’m thinking about some jewelry I saw a couple of years ago.”
“Jewelry?”
“Yeah. Something about magnetic hemma-something. It was like ankle bracelets or something. I can’t remember it exactly. But, it claimed to have some kind of healthy stuff radiating out of it—you know, like healing properties. I don’t remember exactly, but it was claiming it was good for headaches and hypertension, and I don’t know what all.”
“Wow, you’re thinking about some kind of snake oil sales thing,” enthused Basil, getting into the swing of things. “But, wait a second,” he paused. “How exactly are we gonna mine this stuff? Remember, it’s under a public road on the side of a steep hill. . . .”
“Who says we’re gonna mine it? We can buy metal bracelets or pendants or earrings wholesale from anywhere and tell the suckers we got ’em from the hill.”
“That’s right, we could! So, what are you thinking, set up a little shop nearby and sell ’em? You don’t think the locals would see through this?”
“Right now, I’m just thinking,” said Star. “We gotta find the angle to it.”
“That’s my girl!” said Basil, proudly.
That encouragement was all she needed. The next morning at a supermarket in town, standing next to the magazine rack at the checkout where they had bought a meager amount of lunch supplies (and surreptitiously slipped a few other items into their pockets or big tote bag), it suddenly came to her almost completely full blown.
She was glancing at a woman’s magazine while she waited for the checker, who was leisurely servicing a friend buying a basketload of baby items, when she flipped a page and discovered a horoscope in the back. Automatically, she searched for Virgo and translated that “something big was about to happen to you, so keep your eyes open.”
“Horoscopes, new agey stuff—magnetic jewelry!” she cried, and then, “I got it!” The two women looked at her and then the clerk picked up her speed checking out the baby food jars. Basil, who was standing there holding some ham and cheese and bread and sodas and wondering if there was still enough room for one of these to disappear in his pants pocket, leaped an inch into the air and almost dropped everything.
“You got what?”
“The angle!”
“Wow! Really?”
“You bet!”
Out on a bench at the local central park, as they sat with the food between them, awkwardly brushing off flies while trying to cram some ham and cheese into little white rolls, she unfolded the plan before him. “Something new-agey,” she said.
“New-agey?”
“Yup.”
“That’s not a little passé?”
“Nope.”
“You sure?”
“They got it in the women’s magazines, so it’s still hot enough.”
“Okay,” said Basil, knowing this was turf he did not ordinarily trek. “So, what’s the angle? How’s it work?”
“We find a cheap little place somewhere nearby we can renovate.”
“We got to have a partner for that, because you know we’re broke,” cautioned Basil.
“Of course,” said Star. “That goes without saying. Some place people can stay. The angle is the healing power of the pole—see?”
“It’s got healing power?”
“It does now!”
“Oh, right!”
“Then we come up with a name and a slogan.”
“Like the ‘magnetites?’”
Star glared at him. “No!”
“Okay,” said Basil, “the Magnetic Healers, uhh, the Healers of no—no—something to do with the pole . . .”
“The Polarians!” cried Star.
“The Polarians! Oh, that’s good! That’s really good!” said Basil, gazing at her proudly. “I really, really like it.”
“Make it like a quasi-religion.”
“Yeah, yeah—like people could orient their lives around it.”
“Or with it!”
“Of course! We could come up with a slogan like ‘May the Pole orient you!’”
They both broke up with laughter.
“This is great!” said Basil. “These kinds of religions are popping up all the time. You can’t lose. It’s better than a real estate scam—it’s like a heavenly real estate thing. Who’s to say if you’re right or wrong? I mean, look at all those motivational speakers. What sounds like a load of positive thinking proverbs gets a new twist and suddenly they’re speaking at convention centers and making money hand over fist. We could even write a book: How the Pole Oriented My Life, by Basil and Star Heitz.”
“Who needs a book? You commit
