A Bird Named Nuthin'
Not continued from last week.... yet.
By the time he got outside his car was gone.
He had heard the front fender he left hanging precariously against the fire hydrant shrieking and clanging to the ground as the engine rumbled to life on his old beat up Crown Victoria. The Crown Victoria was a joke gift from an old friend that they both had gotten a kick out of, back when they were both flush with money from retiring early from the force and rosy with promise for what the future held. Ten years later the damn thing was his primary mode of transportation and the bits and pieces falling from almost every corner of the thing became his security against it getting stolen. The unholy clatter from outside came as he was sitting down with a cup of coffee and the newspaper.
The coffee and the newspaper made it to the kitchen table, Fob didn't. He sprinted to the door and flung it open on to the hallway and was barreling down the staircase to the entryway in a matter of seconds.
He noted, as he bolted out the door, the funeral march, by Chopin, he thought, blaring from one of the apartments up the stairway somewhere.
There was no sign of his car by the time he got to the fire hydrant, nor of his fender, which he was pretty sure would have come right off had anyone tried to drive without removing it from perched atop the fire hydrant, nor of the couple tickets or so he was sure to have accumulated for having parked too close to a fire hydrant. He saw a band of kids clustered around one side of the building, in a circle, looking down at something.
The street was quiet, otherwise. One man continued walking his dog a few blocks away, either unaware or, and this was the more likely case, uninterested in getting involved in Fob's problem of the now missing car.
He decided to try the kids.
Which was a good plan, as he could see, as he got closer and closer, that the band of kids were circled around a few of their number, fighting over rights to the grubby fender that occasionally clattered when one of them got pushed back in the general vicinity... or when one of the crowd got a little overanxious and joined the fray, inadvertently, by getting too close and tripping into the fight as he lost his balance on the fender.
And the kids still hadn't fled, as they usually did when an adult approached, thanks to the mesmerising fight going on in front of them. So all was going well.
Until Fob heard the dull, echoing thud from three to four block away. At which he sprinted off in this new direction.
And found the man, hanging around the front of the car, obviously not familiar with what to do when you've got an old Crown Victoria whose steering fluid leaked to such a degree that it made it difficult to make turns of any kind every three to four days... this being the fourth day since a touch up on the old steering fluid.
disclaimer:
That and a lot more. Thanks, babe.
This week's issue is a little late because, once again, we give you a little sneak peek at William Murphy's first novel, Curious, a novel. And William, being William, which is to say, a writer, a temperamental writer, and a temperamental writer whose desk is entirely too close, we now understand, to the fire extinguisher on the floor, well, he played several roles in keeping it from getting out in a timely fashion.
And then you wouldn't believe the hoops you have to jump through to get fire extinguishers refilled. You think it'd be a crime, the fees they charge and then the ridiculous waiting periods.
But that's all foam under the bridge, now, and the issue is out, and languishing in that late Tuesday evening glow, the same way we'd hope it would be languishing in the late Monday evening glow.
Enjoy.