Written By Brad Harness
That scuffle in Riffles Diner between Tom Hardy and Wilber Nugent ended then and there.
Once the constable had had a stern word with each man - Nugent had been the one to strike Hardy - it became clear that Hardy wouldn’t be pressing charges.
“Just keep that lunatic away from me!” he told the constable who had separated the two brawling men.
Lila Jenkins contacted each man afterwards. At first she did not know where they lived or how to get in touch with them individually. So she asked Annie, who ran the diner, and discovered where each man lived. Then she popped by their homes. Today she was at the home of Wilber Nugent. She drew herself tall, took a deep breath, and knocked on the front door.
Wilber was nearly sixty so she expected she would take his time answering a stranger’s knock at his door. Finally it opened, but only halfway. He stuck out a grumpy face and asked Lila what she wanted.
“Well, Wilber…I happened to be in the diner when the scuffle broke out, and, I think I can help you…”
“Help me?? More like you should help him!”
She considered his words. “I have already paid Tom Hardy a visit and had the same discussion with him.”
“Listen…miss…I don’t know you from Adam…”.
She smiled. “No, of course you wouldn’t know me at all”, reaching in her purse and presenting him with her business card.
Wilber took it and disappeared inside for a moment, returning wearing a pair of reading glasses.
“Says here you’re a behaviour counsellor…”
“Yes, that’s right. It is what I do. I help people whose behaviour has gotten them in trouble. I’d like to help you, Wilber.”
He opened the door wide and motioned to her to enter. “Well, in that case,” he looked down at the card again, “Lila…you’d better come in.”
For the next hour they talked over coffee that he offered her, and the discussion revolved around her invention, a new type of pill.
“So you call this new tablet an Emotion Leveller?” he asked.
She nodded in agreement.
“Patients who take this discover that their urges to act irrationally, anti-socially, even violently, vanish. They behave properly and have no problems with other people - or the police - any more.”
NEXT WEEK: PART 3
