With Hairy Legs and Un-brushed Teeth

Pete and Natalie, a young, childless couple, have just gotten up on a Saturday morning. Pete is looking for his tooth brush to complete his daily ablutions. Natalie has just stepped out of the shower. As they jostle for position at the vanity, this is their conversation:
“I don’t know what to tell you, Pete. I haven’t seen your toothbrush.”
“Are you sure?”
“Only fools are sure, Pete.”
“So you have seen it.”
“No! I have not. “
“Then what was that about fools?”
“It was a quip.”
“A what?”
“Never mind. Look, just use my tooth brush for now and I’ll pick up some new ones when I go to town later.”
“I’m not using your tooth brush, Natalie. That’s gross.”
“It isn’t any grosser than you sticking your tongue in my mouth when we kiss.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“I don’t scrape plaque off your teeth with my tongue.”
“Ah.”
“What does that mean?”
“I believe it means I see.”
“I know it means I see, Natalie. What I meant was what do you see?”
“I see your point.”
“And I believe that it means I won the argument.”
“We weren’t arguing.”
“Yea, but I was right.”
“Yep, Hon, you were right.”
“I can’t believe you’re conceding so easily.”
“There’s nothing to concede. I’m just agreeing with you.”
“I won. I won. I won.”
“Don’t be so puerile.”
“Speak English.”
“Have you seen my razor?”
“No. Use mine.”
“Yours is dull.”
“It better not be.”
“Well, it is. I used it yesterday.”
“You used my razor?”
“Is that a problem?”
“Tell me you didn’t shave your pits with it.”
“Just my legs.”
“Good, ‘cause I don’t want you shaving your pits with my razor.”
“It’s not like I’m scraping plaque off my teeth with it.”
“I should hope not.”
“Okay, where’s your razor?”
“In my shaving kit.”
“No, it’s not.”
“That’s where it’s supposed to be.”
“Well, it isn’t in there. Your toothbrush, however, is.”
“What’s my tooth brush doing in my shaving kit?”
“How should I know? You put it there.”
“I did not.”
“Well, who did?’
“That should be obvious.”
“I didn’t put your tooth brush in your shaving kit. Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’re puerile, too.”
“Oh, brother!”
“Nat?”
“Yes?”
“Let’s go back to bed.”
“With hairy legs and un-brushed teeth?”
“Sure.”
“Okay.”

A Subtle Knife

It’s not like he had never seen a dead body before. He’d seen lots of them. But they were always laid out in fancy coffins, wearing their Sunday best and made up to look like they were sleeping. At least that’s what everybody always said, “Looks like he’s just gone for a nap, doesn’t it, Vinny?” Looked more like they dropped dead on a stage somewhere with all that makeup troweled on their faces. But Vince always nodded solemnly, the way he was supposed to, and then went in search of the cookie table. There was always a cookie table at a proper funeral.

This body, though, was not in a coffin, not wearing its Sunday best and definitely not made up to look like it was sleeping. This body was sprawled behind a dumpster with a look of shock on its face and blood all over its shirt. It stared blankly up at the sky with its mouth open and a knife sticking out of its neck. Before it was an it, while it was still a he, it must have made a feeble attempt to remove the offending knife, for its hand lay with curled fingers underneath the blood-soaked handle.

Vince staggered back and groped for his cell phone. He had spotted the body’s legs sticking out from behind the dumpster when he went into the alley to throw out a bag of garbage from Martinelli’s, his current place of employment. It took three attempts at dialing before a nasal voice informed him that he had reached 911 and asked how he could be helped. Before he could say he would like to report a murder, his lunch decided to vacate his stomach and he hurled the Martinelli’s special all over the body’s feet. The nasal voice waited for him to finish and repeated the offer of assistance.

Wiping his chin with his sleeve, Vince stammered, “There’s a dead body in the alley behind Martinelli’s. I think it was murdered.”

“Please stay on the line, sir,” the nasal voice directed calm as a cucumber.

An eternity passed. Then the nasal voice began asking rapid fire questions, most of which Vince answered correctly. The body was that of a male. No he didn’t feel for a pulse. Yes, he was sure the guy was dead. No, he didn’t know the victim. No, he didn’t think he’d seen him before. No, he didn’t see anybody else in the alley. He was there to throw out some garbage from the restaurant. He just arrived. No, he didn’t touch anything – he wasn’t sure if vomiting on the body counted, so he left that part out.

The sound of sirens filled the air and suddenly Vince found himself surrounded by cop cars and cops. The nasal voice wished him a good day and disconnected.

“You the guy that called it in?”

Vince spun around to face a large man with a grey crew cut, grey eyes, grey suit and brown shoes standing in the alley. Several uniformed officers were bustling about, erecting barriers to the alley and stringing crime-scene tape like streamers at a wedding. A short man in khaki pants and a blue polo shirt started snapping photos of everything but the body, including Vince.

“Yes,” Vince said.

“You know the guy?” the large man asked.

“No,” Vince said.

A balding man in a white lab coat, carrying an enormous metal case, sauntered up from behind the large man and passed Vince on his way to the body. The photographer greeted him with a smile and a click of the shutter. “Emergency tracheotomy gone real bad,” he said. The bald man was not amused. He muttered something that rhymed with duck and doff and proceeded to shout orders to the uniforms to move the damned dumpster so he could get to work.

The large man motioned Vince to follow him. His grey eyes never rested on anything for more than a second, but Vince had no doubt that he had been thoroughly examined and every detail had been neatly filed away in some memory bank for later total recall. He followed the man away from the body and the cursing bald man, who was now demanding to know who had wasted a perfectly good lunch special all over his crime scene. Vince blushed, but did not confess. He decided he felt safer with the large man in the mix-matched wardrobe.

“Name,” the large man grunted.

“Vince Hemmingway,” Vince grunted back.

“Tell me everything,” the large man said.

Vince described in as much detail as he could how he had come out to the alley to throw a bag of garbage away, how he noticed the legs sticking out from behind the dumpster, how he thought it might have been a homeless guy passed out and was going to tell him to move along and how he was shocked to see that it wasn’t a homeless guy and how he wasn’t going to move along anywhere of his own accord. He told the large man that the body had not been there two hours ago. He would have noticed it on his way in to work. He always entered the restaurant from the alley. Martinelli didn’t like his employees using the customer’s entrance. He didn’t mention the lunch special’s reappearance.

Speaking of Martinelli, it was at that point that he emerged on the scene, ripping mad and screaming at Vince to get his ass back inside and quit doing terrible things to dogs. What was he paying Vince for anyway? Obviously it wasn’t doing dishes!

The large man approached the irate restaurant owner and, steering him back toward the door, spoke a few quiet words to him. When the large man returned, he assured Vince that Martinelli was okay with Vince taking as much time as he needed. No problem.

“Now what time did you get to work?” The large man asked.

“Ten o’clock.”

“And you came in the alley from which way?”

Vince pointed east toward 33 Avenue. “That way.”

“Is that the way you always come?”

Vince nodded. “I live on Denver. It’s the shortest route.”

“Of course. And did you see anyone? Anyone at all?”

“No, sir,” Vince said. “The alley was empty.”

“You’re sure, now?”

“Yes, sir. There was no one here. I got here at ten o’clock like I said and the alley was deserted.”

“Very good, Vince. I think that will do for now. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.” He large man patted Vince on the shoulder, turned and walked out of the alley.

Vince watched him go. That’s odd, he thought.

Just as he was about to enter Martinelli’s Restaurant and get back to work, he was stopped by a stocky man in a battered fedora and a tall woman of Amazonian proportions wearing a stark and ill-fitting business suit. They, too, both wore brown shoes.

“I’m Detective O’Donnell,” the man said, “and this is Detective Warshanski. Are you the young man who called this in?”

Needless to say, Vince quit his job, moved out of his apartment on Denver and failed conveniently to leave a forwarding address.

A Crossword Routine

“What are you looking for?” Duncan snapped from behind his morning paper.

“I need a pencil.” Hillary said as she rummaged through drawers and shifted papers around the phone on the kitchen counter.

“There’s a pen right beside the phone,” Duncan pointed out.

“I need a pencil. I’m doing the crossword in the paper and a pen won’t do.” Hillary continued to rummage.

“It would if you had any idea what the clues meant,” Duncan mumbled behind his paper.

“What did you say?” Hillary asked absentmindedly as she opened the silverware drawer for some unknown reason. “Aha! Found one.”

Duncan peeked out from behind his newspaper and frowned. Only Hillary could find a pencil among the spoons, he thought to himself. “Before you lose yourself in your puzzle, would you mind pouring me another cup of coffee?”

Hillary didn’t respond. She already had the paper in her hand folded to expose the blank crossword puzzle and was tapping the bent eraser band against her teeth. She put the pencil in her mouth as she poured Duncan’s coffee. “Utt’s a or-le’er urd or ha’y?” she said around the battered writing utensil.

Duncan sighed. He hated it when Hillary did the Sunday crossword. More accurately, he hated having to do it for her. “I can’t understand you with that thing in your mouth,” he admonished.

Hillary returned the coffee pot to its stand and removed the pencil. “I only have two hands,” she defended herself.

“Well I have no idea what you just said, so I can’t very well respond properly to you,” Duncan said.

“What’s a four-letter word for happy?” Hillary repeated her question.

“Glad.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“As are you.”

“For what?”

“For the coffee.”

“Oh, er, yes. Thank you, my dear.” Duncan raised his newspaper hoping it would be a strong enough barrier between him and Hillary and her crossword puzzle.

Several minutes passed in silence. Duncan could hear Hillary’s pencil scratching against the newsprint. He tried to concentrate on the golf scores in the sports section, but kept bracing himself for Hillary’s next request for assistance. He read the same score over and over, unable to concentrate.

After a while he peeked out again to find Hillary hunched over the crossword, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth and brows furrowed in deep absorption. Must be an extra, extra easy crossword this week, he thought, and, relieved to see his wife of thirty-six years finally able to do a simple puzzle on her own, returned to his sports scores. But as the time passed on without Hillary asking for help, Duncan grew increasingly irritated. He folded his own paper and plunked it down on the table.

“So, how’s it going?” he asked.

“Hmmm?” Hillary did not look up from her furious scribbling.

“The puzzle. How’s it going?”

“Oh, almost done,” Hillary said with such confidence that Duncan was stunned.

“Really?” he asked.

“Yep. Just need one more word.”

Duncan leaned forward in his chair, waiting for Hillary to tell him the clue, but she just tapped the eraser band of the pencil against her teeth a few times until at last the answer presented itself and she wrote it down.

“There,” Hillary said with satisfaction. “I love the Sunday crossword.” With that she pushed the paper aside, got up and left the room.

Duncan couldn’t help himself. He reached across the table and pulled the abandoned paper towards himself. Amazingly the crossword was indeed complete. There were a few eraser marks, but it was done. And it was right.

“By golly,” Duncan said aloud. “I think the old girl’s finally getting it.” He smiled and pushed the paper back to the spot where Hillary had left it. When he finished his now cool coffee, he decided to go out to the garage to putter for a while.

The following Sunday, Duncan and Hillary sat as usual at their kitchen table. As Duncan settled into the sports scores, Hillary started searching for a pencil. A few minutes passed before her rummaging annoyed him enough to ask what she was looking for.

“A pencil for the crossword puzzle.”

“There’s a pen right next to the phone. Use that.”

“I can’t do the crossword with a pen. You know that.” This time she opened the cereal cupboard.

“Aha!”

“Did you just find a pencil in the cereal cupboard?” Duncan asked, incredulous.

“Yeah. Weird, huh?” Hillary returned to the table and read the first clue. “What’s a three-letter word for mischievous child?”

Duncan sighed. “Imp.” He shook his head.

Just like the previous week, Hillary filled in answers without asking for help and Duncan read the same scores over and over, waiting to be interrupted. Whenever he peeked around his paper, Hillary was either writing or tapping her teeth while she reasoned out an answer. After fifteen minutes, Duncan couldn’t stand it any more. He put down his paper and was just about to ask Hillary how she was making out with the puzzle when the phone rang. Hillary jumped up to answer it and was instantly lost in a deep conversation with the neighbour over another neighbour’s dog.

Duncan reached across the table and pulled the crossword closer so he could check her answers. The puzzle was a little more than half done and two of her answers were incorrect, leaving a couple of blank spots where her mistakes made the next answer impossible. Duncan retrieved the pencil, erased the errors and inserted the right answers. He didn’t mean to keep working on the puzzle, but before he knew it, all the answers had been filled in. Except 108 across. And Duncan had no idea what the answer was.

He was tapping the eraser band against his teeth when Hillary swept back into the room. “You didn’t finish my puzzle did you?” she asked, a little alarmed.

“Uh, well... Not quite.” Duncan put the pencil down and picked up the sports section again as Hillary approached the table.

“Duncan! How could you?”

“I didn’t do it all! I didn’t get one-oh-eight across; a six-letter word for a monarch who’s coronation took place in 1937.”

Hillary sighed. “George,” she said.

“Hmph,” Duncan said, training his eyes on the golf scores. “Before you sit down, could you please pour me another cup of coffee?”

An Effigy of Taste

“So, show me what you got for your birthday,” Joyce demanded as she swept into my kitchen in a flurry of pink cashmere and silver spandex. Her newly dyed and viciously back-combed do was as stiff as her freshly botoxed smile. She wore more make-up than I bought in a year and her stiletto heels were leaving little dimples in my linoleum. “Well, come on. I’m dying to see this precious antique Sam’s been going on about.”

I beckoned her to follow me through to the front hallway. As we entered the foyer, I stepped aside and gestured with a flourish at a raised plinth next to the door. Joyce gasped.

“What the hell is that?” she wheezed through lips so augmented they could be used as floatation devices.

“That,” I said, “is the precious antique.”

Joyce, frowned as much as her botulinum brows would allow. “It looks like the head from an ancient Greek version of a blow-up doll. What are you thinking displaying it here where everyone can see it?”

Her perma-pout looked like it was about to burst. I had to get her away from the granite bust that my beloved husband, Sam, had bought at an auction for three thousand dollars. I wasn’t sure I could stand nursing her through another recovery if her face cracked. And if her jaw dropped any further, it certainly would.
I grabbed her arm and dragged her back to the kitchen. “I tried to convince him it would look good out back on the far side of the pond, but he insisted that it had to go where – as you say – everyone can see it.” I poured us each a cup of coffee and served Joyce’s with a straw.

“Danielle, honey,” Joyce said in deep sympathy, “what are you going to do?”

Joyce was my best friend and had been since grade school. She had married money. Lots of money. Three times. And her taste was both expensive and flamboyant. Sam was, sadly, jealous of her and did things – like buy hideous antique busts at auctions – in a vain attempt to keep up with the Jones’s. Or the Joyce’s as the case may be.

“This is all your fault,” I said.

“My fault? How is this my fault?” Joyce was incredulous.

The one thing that Sam failed to realize was that Joyce’s grandiosity had nothing to do with hubris. She simply had tons of money and loved to spend it. Her only concession to pride was the myriad plastic surgeries she had undergone in order to achieve her goal of becoming Sophia Loren’s doppelganger.

“He’s jealous of your money. And he thinks I am too, so he buys this stuff to impress you. To make you think that he’s as rich as you are.”

Joyce laughed. I could tell because a distinct ha-ha-ha sound emanated from between her the thickened appendages (they could only be called appendages) of her lips. “That’s ridiculous.”

“But it’s true.” I sipped my coffee the normal adult way.

“But that thing out there is... is... God, Danielle! What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to give it to you.” I smiled, because I still could.

Joyce nearly choked on her coffee. “Jeeze, Danielle. Couldn’t you just accidentally knock it off the pedestal and be done with it. What am I supposed to do with it?”

“You are going to donate it to charity.”

“I am?”

“Absolutely.”

“Why would I do that? When I donate to charities I tend to give nice things. Like cash.” Joyce sipped a bit of the hair of the dog to clear her throat of the lingering tickle from her recent brush with death.

“I know. But Sam thinks that bust is beautiful. And valuable. If I tell him that you all but did back flip when you saw it, he’ll think that he was right about it and giving it to charity would put him in the same league as you as a philanthropist. He’ll be thrilled. And everyone won’t have to see it in my foyer.”

Joyce’s eyebrows moved the entire fraction of an inch that they were able. I sensed more than saw the look of surprise she endeavoured to project. “But, Danielle, wouldn’t it be kinder to just tell him the truth? Wouldn’t this plan of yours just cater to his fantasy?”

“Mmm. I suppose, but I just can’t break his heart like that. He really does mean well.” I tried to look contrite, but my lips just couldn’t pout with the same enthusiasm as my friend’s.

“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” Joyce said. I could see the wheels spinning behind her wrinkle-free features.

“I have,” I agreed. “And it’s the best solution. It really is.”

“Well....”

I waited.

“Okay. But I’m doing this under protest. I don’t like manipulating Sam that way. It’s not right.”

Sam bought the story, hook, line and sinker. He was so excited about the idea of donating something valuable to charity that Joyce approved of that he could hardly contain himself. He insisted that he be the one to make the donation and even delivered the bust to the hall where the auction was to take place.

“They were ecstatic when I gave it to them.” Sam was vibrating as he spoke. “They even said that Joyce herself had only donated a thousand dollars. After the auction, they’ll send me a tax receipt for the amount it sells for. Isn’t it great to be able to give such a valuable item to charity?”

“It truly is,” I concurred.

Two weeks after the charity auction, a letter arrived addressed to Sam. He tore it open and looked at the enclosed receipt. He mouth dropped open and he staggered, having to support himself with a hand on the counter.

“What is it?” I asked.

Sam passed me the receipt and I took it with some trepidation. Then my own mouth dropped open and I had to brace myself against the counter to keep my own knees from buckling.

The receipt was made out for one hundred thousand dollars.

A matter of perspective

Sarah limped into the house and hobbled to her bedroom. She could not believe how much pain she was in. Her feet were, she thought, literally killing her and she couldn’t get the source of the torment off fast enough. One after the other two suede sling-backs were flung into the far reaches of Sarah’s closet, hopefully, to be forgotten forever. This whole bra, make-up, hair and high-heels things was not all it was cracked up to be.

Sarah often wondered why she had been so eager for any of it. It was all just a great big pain in the...

“Sarah, don’t forget to hang up your dress. I don’t want to find it in a heap on your floor in the morning.” Sarah’s mother called out from down the hall.

She retrieved the dress that had followed the shoes to the bottom of the closet and dutifully hung it up. That was another thing! Dresses! Particularly pink frilly ones with itchy crinoline, or whatever her mother had called the stupid stuff. And then there was the panty hose. What woman-hating person came up with those? Sarah balled the pair that she had been wearing and tossed them, runs and all, into the trash can next to her computer desk.

She pulled on a comfy pair of jeans and a blissfully baggy t-shirt. She wanted to lose the bra too, but her mother would probably notice and embarrass the crap out of her in front of her dad or something. A walk passed the mirror on her wall stopped Sarah short. She touched the up-do she had been forced to suffer for two and a half hours at the hair dressers that morning to achieve and decided that if she never washed her hair again, she would also never have to wear a bike or hockey helmet again either. She wondered if simple shampoo and water was going to be enough to get all that gunk out. Oh, and the war paint, as her dad so aptly called it, had to go too. Next stop – bathroom.

Fifteen minutes later, cheeks scrubbed clean and pink and hair freed from the super glue that had held it in place, Sarah sat down at her desk and booted up her computer. In seconds the screen lit up, she opened her browser and clicked on the link to Facebook in her favourites list.

Hmmm... not many people on line, she noticed. Ah, well, some quality time in Farmville would take the edge off. Sarah found a stray kitten in the hay loft and posted it for adoption. She cleaned up and rearranged and added and rearranged...

Suddenly, a chat box opened up. Sarah looked at it and her mouth dropped open. It was Jeff Cooper.

Jeff "freakin’ gorgeous" Cooper was saying Hi to her on Facebook.

Oh, my God! Oh, my God!

And Amy wasn’t even on line to tell.

With sweaty hands, Sarah typed a casual Hi back and held her breath. Several long, long seconds passed while Sarah stared at the chat box waiting for a reply. Finally, the little icon by Jeff’s name became animated, indicating that he was writing a reply.

“How RU”

“OK U”

“OK”

Now what? Sarah’s panic doubled as she tried to think of something to write. Then a new message popped up: “U looked nice 2day”

Sarah froze. How did he know? When did he see her? She had been at her sister’s wedding all day, dressed in a gross pink bride’s maid’s dress and feet-killing high heels with her hair all done up and her face rouged and lip-sticked... How could he even have recognizer her?

“Thx”

“Wanna hang 2morrow?”

Was she dreaming? Hang with Jeff Cooper?

“Sure”

“I’ll call U”

Then he was gone.

Farmville forgotten, Sarah dashed across her room to her closet and dove in head-first, looking for the feet-killing shoes. With a wince, she jammed her aching appendages into the unforgiving sling-backs and limped out of her room and back into the bathroom. An hour later she emerged with her hair swept up and held in place with a clip. Her eyes were lined and her lashes lengthened. Her smile was a glossy, pale pink.

“Wow,” said her mother meeting her in the hall way. “I thought you couldn’t wait to get all that stuff off.”

“I changed my mind,” Sarah said, stepping gingerly around her mom and returning to her room. First order of business was to call Amy. They had a lot to talk about!

A Fishy Little Tale

“Mom, what did you do with Charlie?” The question drifted into the kitchen from the far corners of the universe, namely the playroom in the basement.

I paused from chopping the vegetables for supper to think about what I was being asked. While it seemed like a straight forward query, I had to consider the source. Tyler, who was the one who had asked the question, is my son. At the time he was four years old and had taken to naming all of his toys. The problem was that the names were often plucked out of thin air in the moment and could change from hour to hour. I didn’t even try to keep up anymore, having been chastised on several occasions for calling George Kevin and Martin Rudy and Thomas Sydney. But I took a leap of faith and, because it had featured prominently in Tyler’s play that day, assumed that Charlie was a teddy bear.

“I haven’t seen him,” I called back. “Did you look in your bedroom?” Chop, chop, chop. I dropped the carrots into a pot.

No further reply seemed to be forthcoming, so I continued chopping vegetables and preparing biscuits for the evening repast. While the biscuits baked and the veggies simmered in the soup pot, I settled down at the kitchen table to read my book. I could hear Tyler in the play room no doubt saving the world from some vicious monster and set my Mom antennae to monitor in the background. As long as he was neither too quiet nor too loud, I felt relatively safe leaving him and his imagination to conquer whatever villain they were, at present, busy vanquishing.

The soup bubbled aromatically on the stove and the biscuits plumped to perfection in the oven while the characters in my book cleverly escaped some wild, page-turning peril and extracted a confession from the least-obvious suspect. I was just about to get up and stir the soup, when Tyler popped around the corner brandishing a sword made out of an old tennis racket.

“You,” he said, pointing his makeshift weapon at me, “are under arrest!”

I raised my hands in surrender and asked what the charges were.

“You kidnapped Charlie!” Tyler accused. He stood with his feet apart and his free hand on his hip. His lips were pursed and his eyes squinted menacingly at me.

“I’m innocent,” I said. “I haven’t seen Charlie since this morning.” Didn’t I pick up the teddy bear from the bathroom floor and put it back on Tyler’s bed right after breakfast?

“I’m taking you to headquarters and you’re gonna tell me what you did with him.” He pointed in the general direction of the basement.

Just then the timer rang to let me know that the biscuits were done. Tyler graciously gave me time to get them out of the oven before completing my arrest. I gave the soup a stir while I had the chance, and then I went peacefully to headquarters to face the charges before me.

In the playroom, I was greeted by what appeared to be the aftermath of an explosion. Toys were strewn from one end of the room to the other. The only neat and tidy places were the empty toy box and shelves. I suppressed a sigh. It never ceased to amaze me how messy saving the world was.

Tyler began his interrogation by offering me an animal cracker from a container he had obviously helped himself to at some point when I wasn’t paying enough attention. He did it unapologetically, oblivious to the look of consternation that I was giving him. Apparently, it was a ‘good cop’ day and I decided to get in the spirit of the game and not make a big deal out of the breach of rules. After all the stolen crackers came from another universe and I couldn’t be at all sure what effect bringing it up might have on the space/time continuum. I took the proffered treat and thanked my captor for his kindness.

“So, where is he?” Tyler asked after chewing and swallowing a lion.

“I swear I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t have him.”

“I have a witness that says you do!” he said.

“Who?” I asked.

Tyler looked around the room and zoned in on a headless action figure a few feet away from where we sat amid the shambolic array of toys. He retrieved it and held it up in front of his own mouth. In a high-pitched voice he spoke for the witness, “She’s fibbing! I saw her put Charlie in her pocket.”

Ah! A light was beginning to dawn. Tyler wasn’t looking for a missing teddy bear at all.

I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out what I now knew Charlie to be; a small, carved, wooden fish from a set of eight that my father had made for Tyler for his birthday. I had found it under a sofa cushion that morning while cleaning and had stuck it in my pocket. I had intended to put it in Tyler’s room with the others, but had forgotten all about it. Tyler must have seen me pick it up and created this game. I handed him the toy fish, Charlie.

“Thanks, Mom!” Tyler said, pulling a matching fish out of his own pocket and spinning off into another new world.

“Oh, Charlie,” said the other fish in a squeaky voice, “I’m so glad you’re safe.”

“Me too, Roger,” said Charlie in a deeper, more growly tone. “Now let’s get back to the ranch before Mr. Baddo attacks again.”

Charlie, Roger and Tyler galloped off on wild ponies bent on thwarting Mr. Baddo’s evil plan.

I looked at the toys littering the play room floor and thought very briefly about cleaning it up. Then I realized that I didn’t want to risk getting arrested again and left it all right where it was.

The Legend of Brendan Ward

It was Jesus Week, the first week of summer vacation when Brendan Ward came to town to perform his street magic. We called it Jesus Week because on the last night in town, Brendan performed an illusion where he walked on water. It never failed, even after eleven straight years, to wow the audience. We just never got tired of seeing him tread barefoot across the pond in Angel Park. It might not have been so spectacular if he’d brought his own body of water and set it up. This was just plain old Angel Pond in Angel Park in downtown Angel Falls.

My friends and I worshiped Brendan. We’d literally grown up with him kicking off each and every summer since grade one. And we were all in love with him. Even in our senior year at high school with boyfriends draping their hopeful arms around our shoulders, we all secretly hoped that Brendan felt some measure of reciprocation for our adolescent devotion and we’d made sure that we were where he was all week long. Our boyfriends were so jealous by the end of the week, what with all the Brendan this’s and Brendan thats, that they were either clinging to us or openly eyeballing our competition. We weren’t all that worried, though. We all knew we’d be making it up to them after Brendan left town.

As usual just about the whole town came out to see Brendan walk on water. The park was packed with expectant towns folk jostling for position and speculating on how it was done. The only cloud was... Well, a huge black cloud gathering in the eastern sky that threatened to break open and spill its cold, wet contents on the party of the year! The speculation started to include whether or not Brendan would even be able to do the trick at all and as the evening inched forward in a race between the storm and the magic, the crowd began to get restless.

But Brendan would not be hurried. He would appear out of nowhere at precisely eight o’clock and walk through the crowd toward the pond. Along the way he would shake hands and sign autographs and pull coins from out of toddler’s ears. Everyone would “Ooh” and “Ahh” and either hope he’d stop and do a trick for them, or pray he wouldn’t. It was difficult to decide where to stand because no one ever knew for sure where he’d suddenly appear. “The real trick,” my father always said, “was to be in the right place at the right time.”

The clock ticked slowly toward the appointed hour. The people kept a close watch on the gathering storm and bobbed up on down on tip-toes scanning for any sign of the magician they were braving the weather to see. A cold wind blew up, whipping hair and skirts around and driving couples into the shelter of each other’s arms. Parents wrapped babies and toddlers tighter in blankets and coats, but no one was giving up. There was a fair bit of threatening to do so, though.

Finally someone on the far side of the pond yelled out, “He’s here,” and heads began to turn in the direction of the original shout, which was echoed back and out until all eyes were on the giant cottonwood tree on the north side of the pond. A puff of smoke and a blur of bright red cloth and Brendan Ward was at last among us. A cheer rose up from the crowd just as a distant rumble of thunder rolled over us. It was going to be close. Very, very close.

Brendan made his way toward the edge of the pond. He didn’t stop to shake hands or sign autographs or pull coins from anyone’s ears. He knew that the audience was in a bit of a hurry and he didn’t want to disappoint. My friends and I were close to the pond at nine o’clock to Brendan’s entrance. We had a perfect view and, in spite of the protection our boyfriends were giving us from the wind, we all stepped forward to get as close as we could to the action. My eyes were locked on Brendan’s handsome face and I swear that for just a second, right before he reached the edge of the pond, he looked right at me and smiled. I couldn’t help myself; I swooned.

With my back to the storm, I sensed rather than saw its final approach, but my attention was glued to Brendan as he slipped off his sneakers and put one tentative toe in the water. Little white caps had formed on the surface and the pond looked like the ocean in miniature during a hurricane. I gasped when Brendan took his first hesitant step onto that choppy little tarn, waiting to see if the waves would hold him. They did and he put one beautiful foot carefully in front of the other, teetering slightly as if the wind was about to knock him off balance. The crowd was silent. Only the howl of the wind could be heard as we watched the magician feel his way toward the center of the pond.
The first drops of rain hit just as Brendan reached the halfway point. He stopped. He looked up and our eyes met. There was something wrong. I could see the fear in his eyes and I screamed. But my scream went unheard. A bolt of lightning cracked across the sky and a deafening peal of thunder shook the earth and Brendan fell straight down into the pond. I watched in horror as the frothy water closed over his head.

Minutes passed and Brendan didn’t surface. At first people were too shocked to move. There seemed to be a collective internal debate going on between taking shelter and rescuing Brendan. It felt like forever, but I’m sure it was only a few seconds, before someone took action. That someone was my father, who stripped off his coat and shoes and dove into the pond. Another eternity passed before he came back up for air and dove again. The pond, murky at the best of times, was a turbulent soup of mud. Visibility was zero. Three more men joined my dad in the fruitless search for the missing magician.

By the time they were forced to give up, most of the crowd had left the park. Half of the women were crying. A few of the men were too, safe to do so in the driving rain that disguised their bitter feelings of loss. My boyfriend tried to make me leave, and when I refused, he simply left without me. I wasn’t going to give up. I wasn’t going to leave until Brendan was found – dead or alive.

It was late when my father finally made me return home, cold and drenched and grief stricken, while he rallied a search team together to meet at the fire hall. I made my way into the living room where my mother was busy dusting the contents of a curio cabinet. She did this sort of thing whenever she was upset. I wasn’t surprised to find her polishing her precious antique plates in the middle of the night. The loss of Brendan was met with no less sorrow than the loss of any close friend or relative would be. Never mind that he didn’t know us from Adam. He was a part of us, a part of our community and he would be missed.

I was just about to wrap my soggy arms around her when she screamed and dropped the plate she was polishing with a soft cloth. The plate, an expensive antique, shattered on the hardwood floor. For a minute I thought I had knocked it out of her hand, but when I looked at her, my mother was pointing at the door behind me. I turned and there stood Brendan Ward. Bone dry and smiling.

“That,” I said, forgetting my grief, my adoration and just about everything else that I had ever felt for the man, “was a priceless Chinese willow pattern porcelain plate from the sixteenth century. It’s irreplaceable.”

Now I loved Brendan Ward. But I loved my mother more and I think it was that precise moment when I realized just how much she meant to me. Her antique plates had always been a source of pride for her and an equal source of consternation for the rest of us. Seeing one in shards on the floor, though, there was no contest between this crazy traveling street magician and my dear old Mom. Of course, the fact that he was seeing me dripping wet with mascara smudged all over my face and my hair plastered to my skull in snaky tendrils while he looked like a million bucks didn’t exactly help his case.

“My plate,” my mother cried out after the shock of seeing Brendan materialize had worn off. “Look at my plate! It’s ruined.”

Ruined? This wasn’t an evening gown. It was a rare antique. Destroyed was the more appropriate adjective, I thought.

“I can fix that,” Brendan said. He walked into our house like he was a welcome guest and knelt down next to the smashed porcelain pieces. “I’ll need a broom and dust pan, a paper bag, some glue and a table cloth – preferably black or red.”

My mother, like an obedient child, went in search of the items Brendan had asked for. I stood with arms crossed and heart crosser glaring at his insolence.

“You can’t fix it,” I said. “This isn’t one of your tricks. What are you doing here anyway? And do you have any idea how worried people are about you? What the hell happened out there?”

Brendan stood up. He took a knitted afghan off the back of the couch and wrapped it around my shoulders. “You’re shivering,” he said as he led me to the piano bench to sit down. He may not have been concerned about giving the whole town a fright, but he certainly didn’t want me dripping on the sofa.

“Of course, I’m shivering,” I shouted. “I just spent the last three hours in the pouring rain trying to find your dead body.” This wasn’t how I fantasized our first real meeting would be like.

“And I’m sorry about that. I really am,” he said gently. “I didn’t mean for things to turn out the way they did. I shouldn’t have done what I did.”

“No you shouldn’t have.” I refused to look at him. “But I think you should leave. Mom’s been through enough for one night.”

“I had to see you,” he said.

I remained aloof.

“Do you remember when you were eight and you gave me that card that you made?”

Oh, dear God! He remembered that? Could this day get any worse?

I was in grade three and on the last day of school my teacher asked us all to make a card for someone just to tell them how special they were. She had hinted strongly that she might be a good candidate for recipient and many of the kids, hoping, perhaps, for better grades, obliged her. But my card was for Brendan. It was a picture of him walking on water surrounded by hearts and it said: Dear Brendan, you are a miracle. You make it summer. I love you.

Still not looking at him, I nodded.

“Well, I still have that card. I carry it everywhere I go.” He reached into his coat pocket and extracted the tattered remnants of the card. “And since I’m retiring – Angel Falls is my last street performance – I wanted to tell you how much that card meant to me.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, looking up finally. “You’re retiring?”

“Yeah,” he laughed. “Didn’t quite plan on going out with such a splash, though.”

“But why?” Just as suddenly as my anger had risen, my great love for this guy, who was way too old for me anyway, returned. I couldn’t imagine not starting summer without Jesus Week.
“It’s time,” was all he said.

Just then my mother returned. “I’m afraid I don’t have a red or black table cloth. This is the best I could do.” She handed Brendan a broom, a dust pan, a paper bag a bottle of white glue and a green plaid table cloth.

“It will work fine,” he said and began sweeping the broken pieces of the plate into the dust pan.

When he had swept up every last bit of plate, he dumped it into the paper bag, poured in a bunch of glue and then neatly folded the top over three times. He shook the bag vigorously before placing it on the coffee table and then, with a flourish only magicians can manage, flipped the table cloth into the air and let it settle covering the bag. Mom and I watched, mesmerized and expectant, hopeful and wary at the same time as he busied himself tucking the table cloth under the bag. He walked around the table twice, frowning down at the lump under the cloth as if he wasn’t quite sure which magic words to utter. Then he suddenly spun around, clapping his hands and stamping his feet and did a cartwheel right over the coffee table. As he landed on the other side, he grabbed a corner of the cloth and whipped it into the air. Where the bag of broken bits had been, there sat my mom’s plate. Intact. Whole. Unmarred. Unbroken.

Mom squealed like a little girl who had just got a pony for her birthday. I just sat there too stunned to even shiver.

“Thank you!” Mom cried. “Thank you so, so much. You’re so amazing. Can I get you a cup of cocoa?” She bustled off into the kitchen without waiting for an answer.

Cocoa? Seriously?

“How...” I pointed at the plate.

“I can’t tell you how it’s done.” Brendan reached down and touched the plate with his finger.

It crossed my mind that he really couldn’t tell me how he did it; such was the look of amazement on his own face.

“I have to go,” he said and headed to the door.

“But, you can’t just leave. There are people who are looking for you. Right now they are organizing a proper search of the pond for as soon as the rain stops. You can’t just leave. I think they deserve an explanation at least.”

“Tell them I screwed up tonight. Tell them I’m sorry I frightened them. Tell them good-bye.” Then he walked out of the house and into the night.

By the time I reached the door behind him he was nowhere in sight. I called out his name, but only the sound of the rain falling hard against the roof tops and pavement answered me. I never saw Brendan Ward again.

His last performance became the stuff of legend and some people firmly believe that he died in Angel Pond in Angel Park in Angel Falls and it was his ghost that came to our home and fixed the willow pattern plate that still sits in Mom’s curio cabinet. But I know that no ghost would carry around a silly card made by an eight year old fan.

Or would it?