Copper Pipe/Living with Ecedro

Following the barks of raised voices, I walked through the front screen door and up the stairs to my bedroom where I found a man with a penis much larger than mine, and a short woman¹ whose body has never met a razor, in a heated discussion.  But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself.

It's 7 PM and I'm out of the office a bit early.  On the walk to the station, wrestling to keep my computer bag on my raincoat shoulder, I thought about what line I would use today when I get tired of looking for an open seat on Amtrak Regional 170, save the one seat next to the woman who is feigning sleep². I was also thinking about why in the world I still wear a raincoat when it rains.  Today was what many would give a right arm for - or a right leg.  I was promoted, literally "upstairs", to a corner office with more windows - the envy of my peers.  I did not do the happy dance in the lobby, because I've learned to be humble during the highs of life and tolerant of the lows, and that maintaining an "even keel", even though I'm sailboat free, is practical and sensible.  You see, I have apparently been in training because I share a house with a man named Ecedro.

I don't have to explain, but I will tell you that it's not a romantic relationship or anything like that.  I saw a sign on a phone pole.  It said

"Need a place to live?

Lets share a place.

Good life.

Ecedro.

Cook across the street."

Much to the annoyance of the diner's manager, I asked to speak to Ecedro the cook, and we decided to spend a few Saturdays together looking for a house to rent together - two strangers who seemed to feel comfortable with each other.  Actually, that wasn't the case.  I felt comfortable with Ecedro, and he would never even think about how he was feeling.  He assumes everything will work out.  His internal tattoo probably says just that.  "Everything will work out.  Hang loose baby." Surely we looked to all like one odd couple, since I only owned business shirts and he only wife-beaters.

It was 8:22 when I walked in the door and met the naked pair in my bedroom.  We exchanged pleasantries, which mostly consisted of repetition.

"Who are you?"
"Who are you?"

Quickly realizing that the dangling schlong had no particular problem with me, or with standing naked before strangers, I explained that the bed they had been using was mine.  They expressed gratitude that Ecedro gave them a "place to crash".  I had thought that "hitchhiking across the country" was eliminated from our vocabulary in 1980, but either I was wrong, or they just stepped out of a time warp.  Here I considered either possibility equally likely³. They smiled and walked out of my room, home, and life with their clothes draped over one arm (each)⁴.  As they passed I uncontrollably stared at her beautiful left nipple; she paused and kissed my lips.  At that instant, I understood that body hair is irrelevant in life; for that instant I would have died for her.

I took off my tie and pants before heading downstairs, because this is a house tradition of sorts.  Ecedro always wears a flowered shirt and boxers in the house, and I liked the look, so I joined him on the boxer part.  I could hear him puttering in the basement, whistling and clattering.  He's been trying to figure out how a hot water heater, house heater, and washer/dryer could somehow be combined for more efficiency.

"Always thinking about the planet," he'd proclaim, "plus, there's nothing more sweet than copper pipe and melting solder.  It's a beautiful thing." 

To him, life is a beautiful thing, and I have to take him at his word, because he says it as if he knows for certain.

By the looks of the kitchen, he probably already had his favorite recipe, cup-of-chili, for dinner.  He has a set of open cans on the counter at all times, each with foil on top, and 3 baggies in the fridge - six components to cup-of-chili that get scooped into a cup that he puts directly on the burner.

Cup-of-Chili Recipe

one tablespoon black beans

one tablespoon tangy chopped tomatoes with jalapenos

one tablespoon chickpeas

one tablespoon green enchilada sauce

one tablespoon chopped onions

one teaspoon chopped jalapenos

If you'd met the cup in its previous life, you'd know it had MSU in green block letters on one side and a cartoonish Spartan character on the other, but such decorations have mostly been erased by fire except for the top of Sparty's helmet.  You might think it strange to even consider cooking in a cup, then picking it up to eat out of, but when you live in the world of Ecedro, "strange" would not be found in the S's of the house dictionary, probably in the E's.  OK, that was a stupid line.  "Strange" would not be found at all, because anything you do is what you do and requires no additional labels, I've learned.  I also learned that there is a 99.8% probability that the dirty cup currently sits on the bathroom sink - if nothing else, Ecedro is efficient in the use of his time.

We've not discussed it, but mostly we cook for ourselves - split house expenses but keep food and TP as individual purchases⁵. 

I opened the kitchen cabinet and reached for a plate, not yet knowing what said plate would eventually hold.  The cabinet was empty, as was the fridge, except for beer.  Our mismatched but extensive collection of plates, bowls, cups and saucers seem to have found a new home.

"Ecedro," I yelled down the steps, "where did you put the dishes?"

"Uh, the dishes are gone.  Sorry man.  Don't come down, OK?"

"Relax.  I won't come down.  The dishes - they grew feet?  Learn to drive?"

"We hired a new cook," he stated, as though the conversation was disrupting his concentration.

"Excuse me?"

"We hired a new cook at work.  He's Guatamalan.  Illegal.  He has two kids and a wife and nothing.  I gave the dishes to them from us.  I made sure to tell them about you.  They need to know Americans are good people.  Plates are nothing.  I'll steal plates from work.  Show love, man, eh?"

"Right, Ecedro," I respond, wearily but authentically, "Show love."

"You are my brother," he replied, followed by the scrape of a striker as he lit his blowtorch back up.

That was Ecedro's way of saying "thank you for understanding me" - you are my brother.  He tries to say it straight and simply, but he understands the consequences of the things he does, so it usually serves, at least partly, as a request as well as a statement.  Often the sentence ends not with a period but a lower case question mark.

Ecedro spent most of the night in the basement and I didn't actually see him.  I watched some American Idol as I did a little work I brought home on my laptop, and fielded two phone calls on our dirty little house phone⁶.  The first was some guy who told me to stay away from his sister, and before I could ask what her phone number was, he hung up.  The second was a squeaky woman's voice who asked if I still had dishes for sale.  I told her, for some reason that "Elvis had already left the building."  Now, I'd never say anything that deconvoluted to anyone at work or in my family, but in this house, I feel like I'm just visiting in Ecedroland , so I can be free and silly without bounds and no one particularly thinks anything of it.  It is wonderfully liberating, but sometime it's hard to keep this side of me suppressed when I'm with the straights.

The next set of interruptions for the evening was two different people who stopped by.  Neither seemed to notice the boxers.  The first was a girl in a green tank top and denim miniskirt.  I'm pretty sure she said her name was Bejewel, but I wasn't about to ask her to repeat it.  She said she stopped by to "return this plant".  I hadn't recalled seeing "this plant" before, but asking for more information in such situations, I've learned, only digs the hole deeper.  At 10 PM, on the dot⁷, the second visitor knocked or landed or whatever and, I kid you not, pointed a bandaged finger on a bandaged hand at the African violet I had sat on the TV an hour earlier and said "I came by to see if you were done with the plant yet."  I suppressed the urge to ask if I was being Punk'd, motioned that he help himself, and went back to my database with no further words spoken.

At 4:32 AM, I was awakened by a loud crack - hopefully not a gunshot.  I listen.  Silence lulls me back to sleepy-bye land.

At 4:56 AM, I swear that, as I awoke, I heard someone "shushing" someone else.  Nothing follows.

At 6 AM my alarm goes off and I sense, while my eyes are still closed, that I'm not alone.  Ecedro is sitting on the corner of my bed.  With his head cocked to see my face, his curls rest on his flannel shoulder. 

"Wake up sleepy head" he says, like a comfortable wife.  He hands me a very nice omelet, and toast.  It is a beautiful thing.  It's served in a hubcap, which has obviously been extensively scrubbed, at least on the inside.  As I stare at the omelet I detect black beans, chickpeas, onion, and at least a pepper or two.

"Sorry about the plates, Bud," he said, "but I had to do it.  I know the red plate was a favorite of yours.  We OK?"

Almost a mantra for me now, I said, "Sure, Bud, we're OK."

Then two things happened, at the same place and the same time, or so close that I can't tell you which happened first.  The one thing that happened was that I remembered looking into the fridge last night and there were no eggs in there.  The second thing that happened was that some big thing jumped out from under my bed into the hallway.

"Oh yeah," Ecedro happily said, "I traded our African violet for two chickens.  Good deal, huh?  Now eat up, you're gonna be late for work, and so am I!"

A touching moment⁸; life with Ecedro is always a surprise.  I share this breakfast-in-bed story because, for some reason, my mind has tried to accurately replay that moment in time repeatedly.  Was I thinking about the empty fridge when cluck popped out from under my bed, or did the picture of the empty Frigidaire shelves just happen to have decided to form right after the fluttering began?  We can neither understand nor control what our minds do with their free time, and it certainly seemed unimportant, but the brain returns to the scene often.  One night, Ecedro and I were swatting skeeters, sitting on the front porch with two cold ones, and I told him about how this instant had become my mind's recent obsession - replacing the "I'd like to teach the world to sing" soft drink commercial.  Ecedro turned away from me, to try and seriously think about this.  Silent minutes passed.  Then he turned back with a decision formulated. 

"You have a mind that is old and deep and knows to focus on the highest issues of man," he proclaimed.

This is when I got this the scar that you see across my lips, the same lips that beautiful nipple had earlier kissed.  I can't tell you which of us fell first - probably at the same time, but maybe me first.  We both fell off of the porch and onto the concrete below, laughing as little ones whose tummies would soon ache from laughing pains, as he explained it all to me.

"I don't know why you can't figure it out, bro.  Your mind saw this as the opportunity to determine absolutely which came first . . . (wait for it) . . . the chicken or the egg."

Reader, "I am sorry" seems so inadequate.  But as I stand here before you, I can swear on a stack of hubcaps that I kid you not.  After laughing and bleeding for almost 20 minutes, Ecedro drove me to the emergency room for my stitches.

The next day, the managers met with me to outline my new job responsibilities.  It was a perfect day except that I was really hoping to wear my one gold tie, which I love, but when I left in the morning, Ecedro was asleep on the sofa, and had it tied around his forehead.  Peace, baby.

Anyway, the managers explained that I should expect a few bumpy moments in the next few weeks, because I wasn't exactly "next in line" for a promotion, but they needed me because of my talents.  They used words like "level-headed".  They really did need me, particularly at executive meetings, because they've seen me in action.  They know that, when voices became raised, I'd not get caught up in the emotions, but could treat all people, words, and ideas with the respect that drains out of the strainer called anger⁹.  I don't think anyone at work knows I was a problem throughout school.  I had seriously hurt a kid in 8th grade because I didn't like him, and was destined for probably a not-so-good life.

But then I met a phone pole.

That night, when I walked up the front walk, home at last, I saw something new - Ecedro standing at the front door waiting for me.  I'd never seen him out of his wheelchair before, but from the smile as big as the serving plate that I used to have, I could sense that the wheelchair wasn't local, and he was somehow wireless.  There he was - standing.  I never knew he was taller than I.  As I opened the screen door, I was struck¹⁰ by the lengths, elbows, and tees, of shiny copper.

"Well, what say you?" he asked as he smirked.

All I could do was look.  He had constructed, with copper pipe, extensions for both legs, copper "feet", and an interesting pair of things that might be called crutches¹¹.

"I love copper," Ecedro said (possibly editing his inner tattoo), as a chicken crashed out the front door.

"Well go get him!"  It was the only thing I could think to say.  Lame.

I dropped my computer bag on the porch and ran to get two cold ones.  Within minutes . . . OK, tens of minutes . . . we figured out how the Ecedro/bionic man could be configured from a standing position to a sitting-on-the-porch position.  (Note to self: buy four hinges.)  This was when my cell phone rang, with the ring tone announcing that it was my mother.

"Hi, Ma, what's up?"

"Well, first I wanted to tell you that I really enjoyed Ecedro's phone call today (?) and I am happy that you live with such a nice roommate.  Your father and I did discuss your¹²  request (?, or better yet, huh ?) and we have decided that we will loan you the money for a new hot water heater."

By the time I tried to formulate a scowl for Ecedro, he had started rolling down the porch.  The rhythmic sound, alternating copper and boxers against paint-bare wood, almost reminded me of a steam engine.  It was a shame to be scuffing up all of that polished metal so early in the evening.

Fortunately, I'm still, at least for the moment, faster than he is.

FOOTNOTES___________________________________________________________

1.  She had thick black hair that flipped up on the ends.  The hair alone reminded me of a style I had seen on an old pornographic post-card.  The fact that she was naked may also have contributed.

2. Yesterday the line I used was "If I don't sit down soon, I'm going to hurl."

3. This would be a good place to apologize for the excessive use of quotation marks.

4. I never had the chance to explain to them that the wallpaper was there before we moved in.

5. I don't know what prompted me to point that out, but there you go.

6. That's what it is, and that's what we call it.

7. That's what we call the digital clock.

8.  Ignoring the "our" that preceded "African Violet" . . .

9. Pretty good, eh?  You're right - sophomoric.  For the phrase "with the respect that drains out of the strainer called anger", cross out everything but "with" and "respect".

10.  figuratively

11. These things could surely be patented.  If you're a patent lawyer, call me!

12.  your (pleural)!  You may be asking how I can distinguish in a conversation between your (singular) and your (pleural) and, well, I just can.

© 2012 John Allison

Sam the Jersey Beefsteak

Sam the Jersey Beefsteak                                               

There are a few special summer days when the Jersey sunset is an incredible combination of reds.  Tomato red, mixed with a red pepper red, streaked with a pimento red.  When it comes, my neighbors' response is to yell "Garden State" to each other, from yard to yard.  I love my neighborhood on days like this.

Saturday, 9:30 AM, Home

"Garden State," I yelled across the fence to Caesar, remembering the night before. 

"Garden State," he hollered back and smiled, flashing me a thumbs-up.

(You all know the story by now, disturbing as it has become.  I wanted to recount the real story from our own ground zero.)

I had set six tomatoes and a cucumber on the windowsill in my kitchen, having picked them a bit prematurely from my garden, now waiting for them to quickly ripen.  As I was washing the dishes, I barely noticed a few ripples, small lines, across one of the beefsteaks.  I watched the horizontal wrinkles move.  They were almost like a face.  The lower two ripples started to move like lips, and my tomato, now known to the world as Sam, started to talk.

When Sam talked, it wasn't real talk.  A kind of face was simulated on the surface for my benefit, Sam explained, and while he didn't actually make sounds, I could hear him.  I stared at him. I knew it was really happening.  I asked him the question that everyone asked - What's it like to be a tomato?

He told me what he could.  We spent our first hour trying to find a common language - a set of words we could both relate to.  There are many aspects of growing and ripening on a vine that people just don't have words for.

I called, with Sam's encouragement, everyone.  We agreed that this was an earth-shattering event.  I had access to a world-class biologist, a Nobel Laureate from The University of Pennsylvania, within 8 hours, and we were on the national TV news quickly.  Sam couldn't look into the camera and talk to people telepathically, since he had no idea who might be watching, but a long line of people confirmed what he was saying.  People had to understand it was real; tomatoes around the world had started to speak, so there was little doubt that it was not some kind of trick.

"Why now?" many asked.  After trying to field the question a few times, it was clear that Sam didn't know, so it just didn't matter.  

A new species was born, at least new to us . . . seemingly a surprise to them too.  While Sam couldn't explain it at all, he did tell me that he felt at home.  Somehow it felt like New Jersey had been chosen - they chose here and they chose him for their beginning. 

It was the most exciting time of my life.  Unfortunately, human beings were again given the opportunity to show what we are made of.

Monday, 6:00 AM, NYC

"I suppose someone had to be ground zero.  It's not like I was chosen or anything.  I was just at the right place at the right time," I explained to Robin Roberts on Good Morning America.

"Well this has been quite a week for you two," she replied.

We nodded.  (Well, I nodded.)  "It certainly had been.  And it's only Monday!"

Tuesday, D.C.

Sam talked to forty or more people on the Amtrak to D.C., where we met with an emergency joint session of Congress, which included the President.  It was organized in a day, and we all understood the urgency, but no one would verbalize it.  The House drafted, in real time, on the floor, a short declaration, that we must cease and desist doing anything to/with tomatoes besides talking to them, until we better understand them, and what is happening.  It was simulcast to the United Nations.

One question Sam was often asked was whether he looked forward to being on a salad, or in a tomato sauce.  He would never answer, but the thought of a knife slicing through his face, sacrificing him, without understanding who he was, what he was, what he felt, must have made the mere question horribly cruel.  Fortunately, the concept of cruelty wasn't in his vocabulary.

The President and lead members of Congress quickly contacted the Presidents of as many countries as they could, urging similar laws.  Most other countries fell into place before the day's end.  As a planet, we had never worked so fast to do something so good.

Wednesday, Home

Sam was a young and sweet soul.  He was a joy to interact with, until the pain became so great that he was almost unable to speak.  He could sense that, around the world, sentient tomatoes were being sliced up, torn apart - not for dinner, just because people were curious what would happen as they sliced across the almost-face.  Would they scream?  Are they still red inside?  People seemed to have no concerns over experimenting with these little captive souls.

The term vego-sadist was coined by Wolfe Blitzer.

The laws could not be enforced, of course, so anyone attempting to buy a tomato was looked at with suspicion.  Countries rapidly attempted to stop all tomato sales, trying to keep them away from people.

Thursday, the World

Piles and piles of tomatoes started to accumulate.  They kept coming off of vines but couldn't be sold, so farmers had no place to put them.  Tomatoes were talking to each other, all 7500 varieties (some with the greatest accents), not knowing quite what was happening or what to do.  They called out for help.  They called and called.  Everyone on the planet heard their cries for help, but the demand on us, to make all tomatoes comfortable, was more than we could provide.

Sam looked up at me, and asked me to hold him.  As my hands cupped his red skin, I felt it.  He was changing.  He was now past ripe.  He was getting soft, and had a particular soft spot on top.  He asked me what was happening.  I told him that tomatoes don't last forever.  He'd thought he would.  He was confused.  I tried to cool him with water, but he slowly began to shrivel a bit, and within two days, our alpha vegetable, my hero, became silent.

He did give me a gift.  As he realized that something was happening, he not only felt the pain and suffering of his own kind, but my own personal pain.  He sternly said, "John, thank you.  I know this isn't your fault.  I was happy to learn the meaning of the word friend."

Then with a weak half smile he managed to say, "Garden State?" as if he wasn't sure it was appropriate, but it was all he had.  I think I might find it difficult to live with myself now if he hadn't said those last few words to me.

Friday, 4 AM

They all became silent - the ones we had and the new ones that came along.  Silent.  There was no place in this world for a sentient vegetable, apparently, so they found a way to collectively "go away".  I hope for their sake they are gone, not still with us, hiding, suffering in self-imposed silence.

We did not do them well.  Apart from the sadists who seemed to enjoy a new chance to experiment, we were unprepared to wrestle with the choice of friend or food. 

Sam was collected from me by the FDA.  He has been well kept and preserved.  Perhaps he will help us, in death, to understand how and why he was so special.

There are a few special summer days when the Jersey sunset is an incredible combination of reds.  Tomato red, mixed with a red pepper red, streaked with a pimento red.  This was the sunset we watched on the day that they left us.

Since

Good people on the planet had a long memory of Sam and his associates.  Sales of tomatoes have never been the same since, and the Tomato Growers Association made it clear to me that they were less than pleased.  There are apparently enough decent people out there, who just decided to demonstrate that, in memory of Sam and his brood, they could live their lives without tomatoes in their diet.

Once the dust and Miracle Grow had settled and I had the opportunity to slip out of my 15 minutes of fame, I got back to a normal life, but not for long.  One day in the Farmer's Market, I swore I saw a pattern on the skin of an onion.  I picked it up, but it was, thankfully, not prepared for a conversation.

I hope for us all, new sentience was just a random event, not exemplary of things to come.  I've known no greater joy than talking to Sam, but the feelings he felt, the price he paid for being able to communicate - were painful beyond words, ours and theirs.

Since then I've told our story many dozens of times, on TV, to audiences, for magazines, and I always remember to include the color of the sky.  One day, after speaking to a group of biologists in the Atlantic City Convention Center, I was standing on the boardwalk, and several people nearby were watching the sunset.  It was just a normal sunset.  Two people next to me looked at each other, smiled, and simultaneously said "Garden State".  I heard two others repeat it - my neighbor's little occasional salutation!  I asked the two people next to me why they said it.  They said they say it every night to each other at dusk, as do many others - to remember.

© 2012 John Allison

Rocco Ate the Neighbor's Dog

Rocco ate the neighbor's dog.  Not that Rocco was in any way a problem in the neighborhood, it's just that he liked to help people, and was good with a hammer and nails.

When the widow Mrs. Davis' pine steps fell apart from weather, decay, and lack of a yearly painting, Rocco knew he had to do the right thing for his aging neighbor, and built a new set of steps to her front porch.  Of course, Mrs. Davis had to somehow pay Rocco back, but she had little money, so she lured Pa-Pow, the fluffy little dog who lived on the other side of Rocco, into her house, bopped him on the head with a little frying pan, skinned him and made a nice little lentil soup that she gave to Rocco.  Sweet thought.  Pa-Pow’s skin/fur and guts left the premises with the regular trash, and that was that.  Rocco had soup for dinner for two days, and his neighbors frantically searched for their baby puppy for close to six weeks.  No luck.

On Christmas day, the lady who lived directly across the street from Rocco, Sarah Evans, went to get a long hot shower.  When she got out, she took time to smell very good, all over.  She dried and fluffed out her hair, and, dressed only in her fluffy tan robe, came down the stairs to thank her husband of 25 years, John, for the lovely Christmas gifts.  In the months that followed, she'd repeatedly explain, to anyone who asked, that he apparently put on his coat, walked out the door and never returned.  Ever.  Too bad it wasn't a white Christmas, because if it had snowed, someone smart would have been able to trace one set of footprints from Mrs. Davis' house to John and Sarah's front door, and two sets of footprints back. 

Now one thing we know about each other on the street is when someone is getting a shower, because the bathroom windows are notorious for fogging up.  Perhaps Mrs. Davis knew one of them was in the shower when she knocked on the door requesting help with a clogged drain, or the smell of natural gas.  We can only guess why he put on his coat and accompanied her back to her little house, where he was promptly hit over the head with a little frying pan until he stopped breathing.

Mrs. Davis was very proud of herself.  She was looking for a hobby and settled on making decorative holiday candles.  She read endless articles about wax and fats and somehow stumbled onto a forensic article about people who die in bed by falling asleep with a lit cigarette in their hand.  The story was about a particular woman, an oddity even before she died, being extremely obese.  They found a big pool of her fat, that had melted in the heat and ran through the big bed springs' remains, and had resolidified on the big floor below.  Mrs. Davis had made some sticks and pine cones, covered in wax, as Christmas fire starters, and knew they would burn for a long time, with each wax-covered pinecone ear acting as a long-lasting candle.  This lead to her invention of which she was quite proud - the perpetual fireplace.  She filled her fireplace with wood.  Leaving the details to your own ghoulish imagination she somehow hung John's body inside of her chimney, probably with some kind of cable, with the plan that, as the fire burned, his melting fat would drip down onto the wood, creating small wax/fat-covered sticks that would burn for as long as John's body had something to contribute.  The first few times she burned her new fireplace, a few little buttons and a little zipper fell, and the smell was peculiar, although not unpleasant, she thought, reminding her of her Great Aunt Annie's meatloaf.

Five weeks after John's disappearance, the police spoke with each person in the little neighborhood, for the third time, trying to jog their memories.  Perhaps they might still remember something that could help crack the case of the walk-away husband.

Deputy Tom Hettinger sat in Mrs. Davis' living room.  It was she who had insisted that he light the fire as she brewed a pot of Black Powder Tea, that she insisted they share.  They sat in the twin stuffed chairs behind the glass-topped coffee table, facing the fire, drinking out of her white china cups with the gold rim trim.   "Could you have possibly seen John outside, carrying a grocery bag perhaps?"  "No," she replied, "I believe I slept in late on Christmas.  Not much reason to get up early for a lonely old lady like me."

"Oh, I'm sure Santa still comes down your chimney every year," Tom joked.  She didn't smile.  The clink, the round tone of Tom's cup returning to it's white saucer with the gold rim trim, was doubled by a much less dainty noise, a thud, as John's skull, finally free of the muscles, veins, nerves, and fat that held it to his suspended torso, fell down into the fire.  Tom looked at Mrs. Davis.  Mrs. Davis said "Oh my dear, embers on the carpet!"  With that she did her version of "moving quickly" to the kitchen.  She returned, not with a little pot of water, not a little fire extinguisher, but a little frying pan.

Rocco knew what to do with gift horses, and while it was a surprise, he certainly would never turn down Mrs. Davis' stew, much less what she had named Valentine's Day stew.  When he had emptied the Tupperware container and returned it, it came back to him with a refill!  Life is good, eh Rocco?  Why a little old woman creates such large batches of stew and soup is a mystery to everyone, but no one would ever complain.

At 4 AM, on the day after Tom visited the neighbors, the police chief was awoken by a call from Sylvia Hettinger.  Perplexed over why Tom had not come home, they were even more confused over why his police cruiser was still at the corner of the street - the street where the presumably late John Evans lived, as well as the still-missing Pa-Pow (who would have surely wagged his little tail in thankfulness if he had had the opportunity to sample this latest culinary delight).  The police chief decided to let it sit there for about a week, just to see if it made anyone nervous.  It did not, so he finally went to pick it up, only to return to the precinct with not only the car but also some stew from an appreciative neighbor.

© 2012 John Allison