Welcome to the website of Award-Winning Crime Author, Michael Berish. www.realmiamivice.com “The world is full of stories, not atoms.”

"One Summer Night" was originally published in Cynic Magazine in 2007. "Everyone Comes to Vic’s" was first published in Cynic Magazine in June 2006 (Volume 8, Issue 6). It was republished in the January 2007 issue as one of Cynic Magazine’s Best Stories of 2006 (only 15 of 143 features were selected that year for Best Stories). It is also featured as one of the stories in my book, “Reflections from the Pit”. “Just Back from the Constellation Orion Nebula” won First Prize in Fiction (Short Story) in the 2006 Public Safety Writers Association’s Annual Writing Competition. It is also featured as one of the stories in my book, “Reflections from the Pit”.

“To be buried in lava and not turn a hair,
it is then a man shows what
stuff he is made of.”

From “Malone Dies” by Samuel Beckett

“ONE SUMMER NIGHT”
by MICHAEL BERISH

It all started one summer night when Buzz—a.k.a. the Buzzard—Foonut shot the little missus, Bobbi Sue. Oh, he didn’t kill her outright, though he might have been trying to; he just sort of nicked her in the left arm; winged her, to use a pun. It kind of makes you wonder though: What would drive a man to wanta murder his wife? But, I wouldn’t know; I’m not a “modern man,” according to the ex-wife. I’m “old-fashioned.” I grew up in an age when boys had peashooters and girls had cooties, we amused ourselves with Lincoln logs and Erector sets, it only cost five cents for a pack of baseball cards and a pink slab of stale gum came with it, milk was delivered to your house in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers. War was a card game; it took five minutes for your TV set to warm-up, so you could watch Howdy Dowdy, Buffalo Bob and be part of the Peanut Gallery. We talked over party lines, listened to 45 RPM records, used metal ice cube trays with levers on them and stored them in an ICE BOX. Nobody had a purebred dog, but we had roller-skate keys, tinker toys, slingshots, and played with popguns that shot corks. We rode in a Studebaker to the drive-in’s and watched the picture shows, and you got two of ‘em along with cartoons, newsreels, and a travelogue, usually with pretty gals water skiing at Florida’s Cypress Gardens while holding flags with one hand with one leg in the air. And, while we were busy doing all that, we drank powered Kool-Aid with granulated sugar and chewed on Bazooka bubblegum.

Today, kids drink beer while watching porn in their rooms over their satellite TV’s, and have every electronic gismo in the universe. They have mobile telephones that can dial-up anyone in the world; stores memos, notes, books, photos, plays games, movies, holds every recorded song since the beginning of time, has a calculator, plus a global positioning device that can track a person to within one foot of their real-time location, anywhere in the cosmos. It can tell you the weather in Bombay, how the stock market is doing, connects you to the Internet to surf the web for world news, sports information about your favorite teams in any sport, checks your e-mail, and it doubles as a camera that takes both still pictures and video, in living color! It has maps that can tell you where the nearest gas station, restaurant, hotel, or amusement park is, along with directions on how to get there. And, it can be waved over any barcode device, in any store, in any country, to complete any credit card purchase—all this in a phone that’s flatter than a flapjack and fits into the palm of your hand.

As for women today: women have their nails manicured, their toes pedicured, their hairs waxed, their backs massaged, their asses and abs buffed, and all are in search of the “Big O.”

And men: men wear their daughter’s placenta’s around their necks, can’t drink wine because it makes them too sensitive, and carry a vial of their girlfriend’s blood around their necks to prove their love and devotion.

And me? The wife divorced me, and NOW! I’m the “modern man”: lonely, depressed, by myself, insensitive to women, and I openly participate in debates with my fellow man as to whether or not women have a soul.

I’m Officer Corky Smidlap of the Manatee Springs P.D., but most people just refer to me as “the Cork.” I was summoned to the scene of a “happening” to take the reports, along with my partner, Bucko Johnson, but we just call him, “Junior.” I guess I’d better start at the beginning, that’s usually the best place to start…at the beginning.

This all happened in Manatee Springs: it’s a small town, in the middle of Florida, right above Lake Okeechobee, next to Coconut Gardens. Most of the people here live in manufactured homes; they don’t call ’em…mobile homes any more—gives off the wrong impression, it does. People always poke fun at those kinda folks: trailer trash and all that. I’m sure you know what I mean. Manufactured home sounds so much more refined when you say it: “I live in a…manufactured home!” See what I mean?

Well, anyway, this all happened in one of those trashy trailer parks with one of those heavenly sounding names: this one being Paradise Cove, which sat right smack on Hagfish Bay and consisted exclusively of retirees: fifty-five years of age and older—no children.

It all started one summer night in mid-September. The Foonuts, who lived at 13 Lower Whacker Drive, were watching the weatherman on Channel 6 with their bloodhound, “Old Blue,” when—Surprise! Surprise!—he told them—the weatherman, not the bloodhound—“to expect sum sorta unexpected cold snap durin’ the night.” The temperature was going to dip down into the low 40’s. This, in and of itself, wasn’t interesting news, it’s just that Bobbi Sue had just bought herself a few of those Clivia miniatas—is how you say it, I think: it’s one of those variegated houseplants that grow those orange flowers with yella throats on ’em. I’m sure you know what I mean. Real pretty, but real sensitive to the cold…and they cost a pretty penny too! She had several of them outside on the porch of her manufactured home, just getting the fresh air, but when she heard that news report—about the cold snap—she got to speculating as to whether or not she should fetch ‘em inside.

“So’s, whatcha think?” wondered Bobbi Sue.

“‘Bout what?” replied her husband, as he continued to watch the news and simultaneously read the newspaper.

“‘Bout what!?’ ‘Bout what the weatherman’s bin talkin’ ‘bout, and what we been discussin’ fer the past five minutes; that’s “‘bout what!’”

The Buzzard peered over the sports page; he had this one milky eye that was pointed all wrong: it looked out of his head at an odd angle and made him appear as if he had something real important working on his mind. “Well, run it by me one more time.”

“It’s ‘bout my Clivia miniatas.”

“What about ’em?”

“My back teeth! Fer land’s sake, Buzz, are ya payin’ attention ta me or not?”

“Course I am, Peaches.” Bobbi Sue was a Georgia transplant; the Buzzard nicknamed her his Georgia Peach, but most of the time he called her Peaches. “It’s about your…Clivia mini-sumthin’ or other…Well, what’d Doc Procter say?”

“What in the world has the Doc gotta do with this?”

“Well, ya went ta see him, didn’t ya?”

“Bout what?”

“Now who ain’t payin’ attention?” replied Buzz with a smirk on his face, as if he had her but good now.

“You! That’s who! Why in the world would I go see Doctor Procter about my Clivia miniatas?”

There and then, the man peering over the sports page knew he had stepped into a big wiz of a cow turd; his mother hadn’t raised a completely foolish son. In actuality, he had no idea what she was talking about; marriage to him was like a bike race: sometimes you’re out in front, but most of the time you’re just trying to catch up. So, he just continued to smirk, hoping he could bluff his way through this prattling-on of hers.

“Should I bring in my potted plants or not!?”

A light bulb went on inside Foonut’s head. “Of course, of course. Didn’t I jest say ta bring ‘em in. Weren’t ya listenin’ ta me?”

Exasperated, Bobbi Sue dragged herself up from her chair in the living room. “Alright, already. I’ll go and git ‘em.”

“Meanwhile, I’m gonna take me a shower,” shot back Buzz, as he sauntered down the hallway.

Several minutes later, Bobbi Sue returned, lugging in one Clivia miniata, went outside, then lugged in another. As she re-seated herself in front of the TV, she spotted one of those little, green, garden, grass snakes scoot under her couch; it must have been hidden in one of the potted plants and once it warmed up, it came slithering out and under the sofa.

Most people don’t know a lot of things in life: most people don’t know that there are more chickens than people in the world; that peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite; that tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur; that women blink nearly twice as much as men; that it’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open; that butterflies taste with their feet; that babies are born without kneecaps—they don’t appear until the child’s between two to six years of age; and most people, including the Georgia Peach, have no idea if snakes—whether they were big or little—are poisonous or not: they just assume ALL snakes are venomous.

“Dadgummit! I am surely headed straight fer damnation. God Almighty Jesus, protect me fer I am doomed now. It’s the Devil hisself!” Bobbi Sue screamed at the top of her lungs, as she jumped on top of a lounge chair and started to recite the Act of Contrition: “Oh my God, I am heart-ly sorry fer havin’ offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of—” It was about here, that the Buzzard came charging into the living room in flip-flops with a towel wrapped around his waist. “What in tunderation is goin’ on in here!?” he demanded to know.

“It’s the Devil, it’s Satan, it’s Lucifer—”

“They’re all here?...Where?”

“Under the couch. Quick, look!”

The Buzzard got down on his hands and knees, and surreptitiously peeked under the sofa. It was just about that time that Old Blue came up behind him, sniffing, and cold-nosed him under the towel on his most private of parts. Buzz thought he’d been snake-bit. Oh, I forgot to include on that “What most people don’t know” list—that I just mentioned before—that most people don’t know that a jiffy is an actual measure of time: it’s exactly 1/100th of a second and that’s exactly how long—a jiffy—it took for the Buzzard’s sphincter muscle to tighten up to the size of a pinhead; then he fainted—dead away.

Peaches thought he’d had a heart attack—what with the suddenness of his seizure—and dialed 911.

Being the small town that Manatee Springs is, with everybody knowing everyone else and where everyone else lives, the Emergency Medical Technicians—Stubby Butterbolt and Hans Glicker (a fifth generation German)—were there within minutes.

“Ah, we’ve been fighting again, have we, Mrs. Foonut?” said the German as he surveyed the scene within the manufactured home.

Immediately defensive, Bobbi Sue retorted with: “No, we ain’t bin fightin’ again, Hans Glicker!; it jest so happens that Mr. Foonut—there on the floor—had a heart attack, is all.”

“Oh! is that all; I thought it might be something serious,” interjected Stubby, as he helped Hans load the Buzzard onto the stretcher.

“On three,” said Hans, followed by: “One, two, and…a three.” It was on “a three” that Stubby saw the little, green, garden, grass snake and—straight away—dropped his end of the gurney. If Buzz Foonut didn’t have to go to the hospital before, he most certainly had to now, for Buzz Foonut had two broken ankles.

After profusely apologizing, Stubby slammed the ambulance doors closed, flipped on the emergency lights, and off they went to the Manatee Springs General Hospital.

The Georgia Peach still had the same problem, though: What to do with that little, green, garden, grass snake in her manufactured home? Improvising, she ran next door to her neighbor, Tony Pipatoni, a.k.a. “the Pip.”

“Now, where did you last see this thing?” he wanted to know, as he strutted into the living room with his macho swagger—sort of an Italian thing—dressed in shorts with Palm tree on them and a wife-beater undershirt.

“Right there,” she said, pointing under the couch.

“No problemo,” said the Pip as he rolled up a newspaper, got on all fours, and began poking around under the sofa. “I’m an old country boy at heart.”

“I thought ya was from the Bronx.”

“I was. But, it was the upper Bronx, where it’s more wilder and untamed.”

“Oh.”

“Well, it looks safe now. This must be some sort of trick snake, but they know when they’re up against a hard case like me,” said Tony as he stuck out his chest, then smiled with teeth that were all white and square, like those of a baby shark.

Feeling relaxed, Bobbi Sue sat down on the couch with a sigh of relief. She stretched out, her hand dangling down between the sofa cushions where—Surprise! Surprise!—she suddenly felt the reptile, wiggling around.

That did it. That! sent her over the edge. She screamed, then fainted—just like her husband had done—and the reptile slinked back under the couch. Tony Pipatoni thought she had a heart attack and dialed 911.

“Two heart attacks…in one day! From the same address!! Impossible!!!” exclaimed the dispatcher.

The Pip knelt down, and realizing that Bobbi Sue had only blacked out, tried to revive her by administering C.P.R. It was right about here that Tony’s wife, another New York retread named Bad Betty (appropriately named for her uncontrollable jealous streak), walked by—on her way home from the market—in a pair of Daisy Dukes, pony boots, and a red and orange Hawaiian shirt made out of faux fur with exploding volcanoes on it, like she was the opening act for Don Ho. Daisy Dukes on a sixty-five year old woman with stringy bleached-blond hair, wearing this heavy, heavy make-up, made her look like a Kabuki hooker! She dressed this way because her fantasy in life was to become a pole dancer down at the Tingle Tangle Club, probably inspired from her many nights in a seaman’s bar. I’m sure you know the type I mean: the psycho bitch from Hell with a butt as big as a weather balloon, who has skin like leather—similar to that of a Galapagos turtle—who thinks she’s hotter than a Swedish meatball, and smells like a French whore; it’s enough to make your toes cool.

And dumb?...Oh yeah! She’s the type who can’t figure out how to do long division and doesn’t have the sense God gave a turkey. The only chance her husband had of living a contented retirement was if he took her to Monkey Jungle and prayed that a baboon would kidnap her and make her his queen.

Anyway, she sees her husband in the doorway of the manufactured home, lying prone over their neighbor—his mouth to her mouth—in what she assumed to be an extremely passionate embrace. Well, she swelled up like a toad with Mad Cow Disease, rushed into the trailer—elbow-a-pumpin’—like something out of a Japanese monster flick, and proceeded to bash her husband over the head with a bag of canned goods. DING DONG!—like he was a human piñata—she lacerated his scalp and knocked him unconscious. Then—seeing all the damage she’d inflicted—Bad Betty, having a change of heart and temperament, decided to dial 911 in an effort to show the compassionate side of her nature—just in case she needed to plea for mercy if Manslaughter charges were ever brought against her by the State.

“Another…HEART ATTACK?!” the dispatcher wanted to know.

“What heart attacks are you talking about?” inquired the distraught neighbor.

The two Emergency Medical Technicians—Stubby Butterbolt and Hans Glicker—got this call too; they barged back into the trailer—irritated to say the least—and woke the Georgia Peach up from her slumber.

Stubby looked at Tony’s wound, “This is gonna need sum stitches,” then turned to Bobbi Sue: “Hey, this ain’t no taxi service we’re runnin’ here, ya know.”

The Georgia Peach managed to get herself upright, saw Bad Betty bent over her husband, but still dazed and thinking he’d been snake-bit too, went into the kitchen, returned with a bottle of whiskey and began pouring it down the Pip’s throat.

By now—what with all the commotion taking place in the trailer park: sirens blaring away, ambulances coming and going, and people screaming and hollering—the police were summoned. That’s where I came into the picture. Remember me, “the Cork”: Officer Corky Smidlap of the Manatee Springs P.D. I arrived, along with my partner—Bucko Johnson—but we just call him, “Junior.”

Anyway, when I first got there, the place reeked of hootch and I thought to myself—what with all the mayhem and blood—that this was some kind of drunken brawl between neighbors: what with Mr. Pipatoni unconscious and gushing people juice all over the floor, Bad Betty picking up the remains from a broken bag of canned goods that were sprawled about the floor, and Mrs. Foonut having this big knot—‘bout the size of a cow’s bladder—on the back of her head.

“I’m taking you all down to the station house and let the captain on duty sort through this mess,” was my first reaction.

“Let me explain,” said Bad Betty. “I’m Mrs. Betty Pipatoni and that there on the stretcher is my husband, my Tony, but we all just refer to him as ‘the Pip.’”

“How quaint.”

“Actually, if you really want to know—for the record—he calls me “Hot Pants” and I call him ‘the Big Babalooha.’”

“Well, Hot Pants, what went on here?...For the record.”

“Well, I was on my way home from the market—I do my shopping there every Friday night—and I looked in here, as I’m scooting by, and I see my husband—the one being attended to by Stubby and Hans there—and naturally, I just assumed, when I saw my husband—the Big Babalooha—the one hemorrhaging on the stretcher over there, passed out, and smelling of hard liquor—that he was up to no good—

“Naturally.”

“—because he was kneeling over Bobbi Sue there and was tonguing her, like a wild dog in heat, he was. Or, what I thought—at the time—was tonguing her. Course he wasn’t passed out then. But, I come to find out now that he was just giving her CPR. I’m still a little suspicious though, as this CPR business sounds like something a man would make up when he was caught red-handed by his wife being up to no good. Men, sometimes, can fool the stripes off a Zebra." Then, seeing all the blood flowing profusely from her husband’s head wound, she began to snivel, “I just hope I didn’t kill him, is all.”

This just keeps getting better and better, I thought to myself. Shaking my head, I turned towards Mrs. Foonut: “Now, how’d you get that big knot on your head there, Mrs. Foonut?”

“Jest call me Bobbi Sue…everybody else does…except my husband: he calls me ‘Peaches,’” then she turned and glared at Mrs. Pipatoni, “which is a little more dignified than…”Hot Pants,” as far as pet names go.”

“Well, Bobbi Sue, what happened here?”

“I hate ta bust up a great party, but we gotta be goin’, officer,” interrupted Stubby. “This guy needs sum serious medical attention. I ain’t seen nutin’ this bad since old man Flucker—that weirdo on the other side of town with those gigantic carbuncles—got puffer poisonin’ from all them puffer fish he ett last month. When we finally got ta his place, out on Clownfish Sound, he opens the door—naked—with an axe in one hand and a bottle of Jack Daniels in the other. This guy here, now, he needs sum antibodics and he may be concussed, which means we might havta do a brain scandal on him.” With that, E.V.A.C. departed with the unconscious Big Babalooha, along with the sobbing Hot Pants.

"Well, Bobbi Sue, what happened here?” I repeated

“Well, it all started when I was watchin’ the weatherman on Channel 6. He said ‘to expect sum sorta unexpected cold snap durin’ the night,’ is what he said.”

A long pause.

“So…”

“So, I asked Buzz if I should bring in my new Clivia miniatas and he seys I should go see Doc Procter.”

“Doc Procter? What in the world has the Doc got to do with this?”

“Thems my very words ta him!”

“To who? Doc Procter?”

“No, my husband. I seys ta him: ‘What in the world has Doc Procter gotta do with this?’”

A long pause.

“Well…”

“Well, he jest wasn’t payin’ attention is all. Soon as he realized what I was a talkin’ ‘bout, he seys: ‘Of course, of course.’”

“‘Of course’…meaning what?”

“‘Of course,’ meaning: I should bring in my Clivia miniatas.”

“Of course.”

A long pause.

“So…”

“So…I did.”

A longer pause.

“And…”

“And…that’s when I spotted one of them little, green, garden, grass snakes—that musta been hidden in one of them potted plants—slither out and scoot under my couch.”

A long pause.

“And…”

“And…that’s when this long nightmare began.”

This was like pulling teeth with your fingers, I thought; but, before I could go any further with my interrogation about the little, green, garden, grass snake that Bobby Sue was talking about, it crawled out from under the sofa. And before I could say anything, Bobby Sue screamed and my partner slapped leather: he drew and fired faster than my ex-wife and her shyster lawyer could calculate how much back alimony I owed them. Too bad Junior’s aim wasn’t as good as his draw: he missed the reptile and hit the leg on the coffee table next to the couch. The table fell on its side, sending the lamp—that was on it—pitching into the drapes, which imploded the bulb within the lamp, which—in turn—set the curtains on fire.

Officer Bucko Johnson to the rescue: he tried to beat out the flames—with his nightstick, of all things—but only managed to smash through the window behind the curtains. Then, he tumbled through the opening—where the window used to be—and onto Old Blue, who was stretched out in the yard trying to escape all the pandemonium inside.

The bloodhound was startled out of his sleep, for Junior was big. Actually, Junior was fat, not big. Well, maybe he was more like…big and fat. To put it bluntly, his shorts were the size of the cover I put over my car at night: he was literally one corn dog away from a heart transplant.

Anyway, Old Blue jumped up—so he wouldn’t get trampled on—and ran into the street, howling; an oncoming car swerved to avoid hitting him and plowed into our squad car, which instantaneously ignited, turned into a roaring inferno, and promptly burned to the ground—tires and all. It was like watching some fiery train wreck in slow motion.

Meanwhile, inside, the fire from the drapes spread onto the wall and the entire manufactured home quickly became unrecognizable as a habitat. The neighbors immediately dialed 911 and the Manatee Springs Fire Department was dispatched. The firefighters were Johnny-on-the-spot. So quick, in fact, were they to the scene, that they started raising the ladder on the fire engine when they were halfway down the street. The hook-and-ladder tore out the overhead electrical lines, which knocked out the power to Coconut Gardens and disconnected all the phone service within a twenty-block radius of Paradise Cove.

It was about this time that the two Emergency Medical Technicians—Stubby Butterbolt and Hans Glicker—returned…with Mr. Foonut. They were at the hospital when they got the call for another EVAC—guess where?—and it was also, about that time, that Mr. Foonut was being released; they figured, “Why not? We’re goin’ that way, anyhow.”

As Buzz stumbled out of the ambulance, on his new set of crutches, and tried to amble around his front yard on his two broken ankles—both in casts as big as snowshoes (he was only too happy to have two broken ankles, instead of being snake-bit on the head of his privates, as he originally thought)—his face went slack and turned the color of meringue. All the hairs on his head stood out: they looked like something you scoured out pans with. As he stood there in a general state of anomie—micturating in a pair of hospital pajamas while gritting his teeth down to the knubs, as if he had some kind of a rodent inside him trying to get out, his breath smelling like hot garbage,—he had this distant look on his face like the Creator had allowed him a glimpse into another world, like maybe the Seventh Circle of Hell. Either that or he was straining to remember the formula for plastic barf. The only possible other alternative being that he had some sort of deformed bug up his ass. With that one milky eye, he gave off a real intense, fixed stare as if nothing was gonna work, ever again. He had lost his capacity to speak, and lapsed into aphasia; you would have needed a marching band just to get him to blink. This was not a “Eureka!” moment. You could almost see his brain sizzling, like spit on a griddle, as he tried to control the lepers in his head; he was wound up tighter than a crab’s ass and didn’t need any sharp surprises about now; a fall would have broken him like glass. I’m sure you know what I mean. He was more than a little dinged-up: he couldn’t count the legs on a three-legged cat; all that was needed now was for someone to come along and hose him down like some old circus animal. THIS! was Buzz Foonut: “modern man.”

The Georgia Peach ran up to him, clutching one of her Clivia miniatas. The Buzzard looked around the neighborhood, at the disaster, at his burnt-to-the-ground manufactured home, at Peaches clutching that ridiculous plant to her breast, and he thought ta himself: All this because of a potted plant!

And then…it began to rain.

Buzz kicked something in the ashes of—what used to be—his home. It was the .22 automatic that he always kept on the nightstand in his bedroom, or what was left of his bedroom. He very gingerly bent down—like a man with a roll of quarters up his ass—and slowly picked up the handgun, and without even a thought being given or taken, he turned, yelled: “HOO-YA!” in this hellish high-pitched squeal like his nuts were caught in his fly, and fired: nicking Bobbi Sue in her left arm. And that, my friends, is how it came to pass that Buzz Foonut shot the little missus one summer night in Manatee Springs.

I know what you’re all probably wondering: How is old Foonut doing these days? Well, not to worry; he’s doing just fine up there at the Barnacle Bay Sanitarium for the Mentally Insane. I’m not much for all that psychobabble bullshit they talk up there, but from what I hear, he has some sort of “situational disorder” involving a spastic colon that limits his social skills; and he needs to be helmeted at all times, as they consider him a danger to himself. Whenever somebody comes up behind him, he has a tendency to jump as if he was spring-loaded. He ain’t good for much, nowadays; could never hold a job again, unless it was guessing people’s weight at a carnival, or braiding ropes, maybe; that, or working with a rake and birdseed, somewhere. Most days, he just quietly toddles around the grounds, singing softly to himself: “You gave me nuts, now that’s all I am.” I’m not one to psychoanalyze him, but he certainly seems to be a good subject for a professional.

And me? I will never forget that look of surprise on Buzz Foonut’s face as he stood there that summer night in all that rubble—up to his knees—in what used to be his home, clutching that .22 automatic which was all charred—the wooden grips singed and still smoking. His last remark, as we led him away to our demolished squad car, was: “Hey, it still works!” Well, actually, that wasn’t his last remark. As we were filling out the paperwork afterwards—amidst the Buzzard’s periodic, but rather intense giggling—I did overhear Buzz mumbling to himself in the back of our police cruiser, in a rather loud tone of voice, over and over again: “UN-F---ING-BE-LIEVE-ABLE!”

(To order a personalized, autographed copy of either “REFLECTIONS FROM THE PIT” or “BAD COP, NO DONUT,” click on the following blue link that says:  STORE ,or go to the top of this page, and click on the tab that says:  STORE.)

© Copyright w/Library of Congress
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1/29/07
All Rights Reserved

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure of the former.”

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

“EVERYBODY COMES TO VIC’S”
by MICHAEL BERISH

“DID YOU CALL THE POLICE?” I yelled—over the band—to the White/male in the yellow short-sleeved shirt with green palm trees all over it, who was sitting atop a bar stool.

I’d gotten a call from the dispatcher reference a 29 (robbery) at Vic’s. Contact a White/male tourist at the bar. No further information. It had to be this doofus in the high chair, swaying back and forth—like a bobble doll—to the rhythm of the music while singing to himself. He was a little glazed over, but he wasn’t behind the cork…not yet, and he was the only White/male at the bar. He had to be a tourist, considering the shirt he was dressed in. It was the middle of January; I was wearing my M.P.D. (Miami Police Department) winter jacket and this kid (he couldn’t have been more than twenty-three or four) was in a short-sleeved shirt. And he was White, all right. Most definitely White. He couldn’t have been a paler shade of white if he’d painted himself the color of china. John Doe had either been living in a coffin like Dracula, or else he’d been chained to his bed since Hector was a pup and only recently chewed through his leg irons and went over the wall.

It was the early 70’s and Miami was a big/little town back then. The tallest building was the courthouse on West Flagler Street and Northwest First Avenue, which was under twenty stories, not like the seventy-story plus hotels they have today. I’d just cleared probation and was working “C” shift in 40 sector and Vic’s was the only nightspot in downtown Miami still open at two in the morning; that shows you how small Miami was in the 70’s.

I looked around. The gin joint was filled with smoke as thick as a wrestler’s arm, louder than a convention of daquifried Shriners, and filled to the rafters with the dregs of society: small-time chiselers, big-time swindlers, dope dealers, streetwalkers, pimps, burglars, smugglers, pickpockets, and snowbirds. The typical night trade in this muckheap consisted of the beaten and the dispossessed; it was a place where the riff-raff and alcoholics could go to bond. I was reminded of that line from Casablanca—starring Humphrey Bogart as the owner and namesake of Rick’s Place—when Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains) says, while looking for a suspect, “There’s no hurry. Tonight he’ll be at Rick’s. Everybody comes to Rick’s.” In addition to being the Cocaine Capitol of the World, Miami was fast becoming Casablanca West.

Numbnuts cupped his hand over his right ear and yelled back, “WHAT?” which was followed by, “YOU MUST BE LOOKIN’ FER ME.” It was late and I had done my fair share of yelling for the night. I signaled the complainant to follow me outside where it was quieter.

“You call the police?” I asked when we hit the street.

“Yes, officer.”

At least, he was a polite kid. “What’s your name?”

“Jamie. Jamie Baluster.”

He looked like a Jamie, too: pale and underweight. “Somebody rob you, Jamie?”

“Yes, sir.”

I pulled out my notebook. “Okay, tell me about it.”

“This Black guy, he made me write him a check for ten dollars.”

Ten dollars was worth a lot more back in those days. “What’d he do? Pull a gun on you? Threaten you with a knife?”

“No.”

This inauspicious beginning gave me considerable pause for thought. “What d’ya mean: ‘No?’ He musta had some type of weapon to make you write him a check.”

“He didn’t have any weapon.”

“Did he make any verbal threats against you, or your life?”

“No, sir.”

I put my pad in my back pocket and tried concentrating on whom I was dealing with. “You know, Jamie, I’m trying awfully hard, but I just don’t seem to be getting this. If he didn’t make threats against your life, or use any type of weapon, I’m sorta in the soup here as to precisely how he made you write him a check.”

“I felt I had to.”

“Why?”

“I felt if I didn’t, something would happen to me.”

“Something? Something like what?”

“I don’t know exactly…But, it wasn’t something good.”

“What’d this guy do with your check after he made you write it?”

“He put it in his wallet.”

“That’s it? He just put it in his wallet and resumed drinking?”

“Yeah.”

Shaking my head, I continued. “So, then what’d you do?”

“I called the police, of course.”

“Of course,” I repeated—very skeptically—then rocked back on my heels for a second or two wondering if I should Baker Act (transport to the psycho ward) this lounge lizard or “check a 12” (go to supper) when the fool with goose bumps all over his arms piped up: “Why don’t you ask him?”

For a moment, I thought he’d suddenly turned into one of those smart aleck Bowery bums who spew out brickbats and which most cops usually bump into at two on a Saturday morning. And here he’d been so polite…up to now. “That’d be nice, Jamie, but how in the world do you expect me to find him now?”

“You walked right past him. He was the brother sitting next to me.”

“WHAT?!” Flabbergasted, I tried to get my tongue under control as I spoke. “Wh…Why didn’t you say something?”

“I did.”

“I mean before he left!”

“He didn’t leave. He’s still there. Sitting at the bar, smoking a cigarette, right next to my drink.”

I peeked through the window. “You mean the bro in red bellbottoms with a yellow Superfly hat on?”

Doofus looked through the same pane of glass, then stepped back. “Yeah, that’s him.”

“UN—F---ING—BELIEVABLE! All I’m missing here is a monkey and a crank handle,” blurted out of me. “Wait here,” I told Baluster as I stepped inside and approached the Black/male. At least, the band was on a break. “Excuse me, sir,” I began, “but I’ve got a bit of a problem, and maybe you could help me out.”

“If I can, officer.” Another polite soul, I thought to myself. Everyone’s so polite tonight. I wonder how long this is gonna last.

“What’s your name, by the way?”

“Willie. Willie Charles.”

“Well Willie, you see that White huckleberry outside there, peeping through the windowpane?”

“Yeah.”

“You know him?”

“No, I don’t know him. He was sitting next to me before, drinking, and we talked back and forth for a while. But, that’s all. I don’t actually know him.”

“Right. Well, look…This is my problem. He claims you made him sign over a check for ten dollars.”

Superfly stared at me, as if I had two heads, and one of them just caught fire. Then, he burst out laughing. “You’re kiddin’, right?”

I shook my head, no. “I wish I were.”

“This is some kinda joke, right? I mean, you White guys really got some kinda weird sense of humor at times.”

“Well Willie, that may be, but this ain’t one of those times.”

All the blood suddenly drained out of Mr. Charles’ black face; he turned as white as my complainant. “You’re serious, ain’t ya?”

“‘Fraid so, Willie.” Then, he got belligerent.

“Hey! I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout no check. Nuthin’, ya hear me. NUTHIN’! And I don’t appreciate some White honky framin’ me up!”

“Nobody said you did anything, Willie.”

“That White dude did! He said I MADE him write me a check for…for what?”

“Ten dollars.”

“Yeah. Ten dollars. Ten dollars ain’t nuthin’, that’s SUMTHIN’!; otherwise, you wouldn’t be standin’ here askin’ me all about it, if it weren’t NUTHIN’!”

Superfly’s voice was so high pitched and fast, it sounded like he was talking in Mandarin Chinese, and his eyes were as big as buggy wheels. “Settle down!...Settle down!,” I said, “Don’t go getting all excitable on me now.”

“It’s just that I ain’t taken my medicine today, and I get all sorta fizzed up when I’m being falsely accused of sumthin’ I didn’t do.”

“I’ll tell you what.”

“What?” inquired Mr. Charles rather suspiciously, as if he’d been down this road before…Quite a few times before.

“There’s one way we can clear this mess up, once and for all,” I told him.

“How’s that?”

“Since you say you don’t know anything about this guy and his check,—

“Which I don’t!”

“—then you wouldn’t mind if I gave your wallet a quick thumb check, just to see if there’s anything in there belonging to a Jamie Baluster. Since you didn’t do anything, then you wouldn’t mind, would you?”

“No, I wouldn’t mind.” Mr. Charles pulled out his poke and emptied the contents on the bar; some currency, paperclips, a condom, but mostly bits and pieces of paper and matchbook covers with phone numbers, addresses (one even had his blood type on it), and other miscellaneous, useless information spilled out. I eyeballed a lone, folded piece of paper, then opened it. Bingo! It was a check for ten dollars, drawn on a bank account in Maryland, belonging to a Mr. James Baluster. I looked at the check, then at Willie Charles. Willie Charles looked at the check, then at me. Then, we both looked at the check, then at each other.

“I suppose you don’t know how this got in there?”

Mr. Charles looked at me as if I were speaking in tongues, all of which he didn’t understand.

“Look, Willie. I wouldn’t want to get you ‘all sorta fizzed up’ or anything, especially since you ‘ain’t taken your medicine today’ and all. But, it seems to me I remember you telling me you ‘don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout no check,’ so—and I’m just guessing here—you probably have absolutely no idea how this check for ten dollars—signed by that White honky freezing his ass off out there on the sidewalk—got in your wallet.”

Mr. Charles took a deep breath and a large gulp. “I have no idea.”

“I didn’t think so…But, I got one. It just came to me, sort of like an epiphany you’d get while in church. You do go to church don’t you, Willie?” Superfly had a look on his face that said: If I get through this, I’m gonna start this Sunday.

“I’ll bet you,” I continued, “that’s how that slick White dude—who falsely accused you before—carried out his frame-up of you. He put his check in your wallet when you weren’t looking. I’ll bet you that’s how this all happened.”

“You think so?” Even Superfly sounded like he kinda half-assed believed that story.

“Sure. But, I’ll tell you what. We ain’t gonna let him out-fox us.”

“We ain’t?”

“Nah. Here’s what we do. Since this check really isn’t even supposed to be in your wallet anyhow, I’ll wager you wouldn’t mind me tearing it up. That way, Jamie out there, can’t get away with this frame-up.”

“No, I wouldn’t mind.”

“I didn’t think you would. There ain’t no flies on you, Willie.” I ripped the check into several pieces, tipped my eight-cornered police hat, and walked outside. “Here,” I said to the halfwit in the tropical shirt, then handed him the shredded pieces of his check.

“Oh, thank you. Thank you, officer.”

“No problem. But, I’d call it a night if I were you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean: I wouldn’t go in there, sit back down next to that buckaroo, and start drinking all over again as if nothing happened. I don’t think he’d be real happy to see you.”

“Oh. Yeah. Maybe you’re right…I better not do that…Thanks again.”

“No problem.”

By now, several police units had swung by to back me up; they were gathered on the corner, talking. I strolled over and joined them. Several minutes later, Pinhead traipsed-up and thanked me again for my help. I told him, again, to forget about it, then lumbered across the street to one of those all night open-air cafeterias that sling hash. When I turned around after ordering, he was back with a bang; there stood my complainant who proceeded to thank me profusely—again. “No problem,” I told him for the umpteenth time.

Ten minutes later, I was back on the corner with my sidekicks when along came Numbnuts, AGAIN! He threw his right arm around my shoulder as if I was his long lost buddy, as if we’d gone to boot camp together on Parris Island. There’s nothing worse in life than having some rum pot—who’s walking around like he’s got gum on the bottom of his shoes—horse collar you and blow his hot, drunken breath into your ear while you stand there, cold-stone sober, trying to eat your supper—a hot dog—and drink your Coke in peace. Suddenly, the thought struck me: This bozo must think we’ve got some kinda relationship going here; I’d better nip this in the bud.

I turned on him.  “Show me some I.D., Jamie.”

Usually, police officers never run the complainant of a call, but this kid really aggravated me. Who knows, I reasoned, he might come back a hit reference a bench warrant from an old ticket, or maybe he’d be wanted on some bygone misdemeanor like pilfering an altar cloth from a monastery.

He grinned from ear to ear. “‘No problem,’ as you say,” and whipped out a Maryland driver’s license.

I ran him through N.C.I.C. (National Crime Information Center: a computerized index of criminal justice information run by the F.B.I.) which took about ten minutes. He stood there, right next to me the entire time—chatting incessantly—oblivious to the universe around him. Finally, N.C.I.C. came back. He was a hit, alright. But, not reference a bench warrant, or anything as trivial as that. He was wanted for escaping from the Maryland State Penitentiary where he was doing twenty years for armed robbery. Whoa! No wonder he was so pale looking.

Later, I surmised what must have happened. Superfly was a pimp and had offered to procure a prostitute for my stick-up artist, and Numbnuts—who must have been short of cash—wrote him a check. Once Willie had the check, he simply reneged on the hooker.

As I cuffed Baluster and put him in the back of my squad car, I couldn’t help but think: If I’d just escaped from the big house, the last thing I’d do was call a cop…FOR ANYTHING!

Jamie must have been a lot more bemused from the boilermakers he’d been drinking than I first thought, or else he had rubber cajones the size of Florida. But, let’s say I was soused to the gills and didn’t have any common sense, like my escapee here. After a police officer helped me out of whatever problem I might have had, I surely wouldn’t have hung around and cheesed him off (especially after he hinted to me—three times—to disappear) to the point of running a background inquiry on me. Then, give him my real name on a valid driver’s license, along with a current bank account! What was he thinking? As a fugitive from a federal prison, he wouldn’t be in the computer? I knew two things for sure though (other than he certainly made a hash of this vacation): This would be his last evening with the living and that shirt with the palm trees all over it might even be back in style when he finally got out of the slammer. I guess it’s true what they say: Some criminals just want to get caught.

I peered back at the entrance to the dive and there—standing by the door—was Willie, smiling. What a pimp he must be! I mean: What flesh peddler takes a check, then denies—to a cop—that he took it; then, lets the same cop rummage through his wallet and ferret out the check he isn’t supposed to have taken! I couldn’t decide which of these two losers was more in need of a brain transplant.

I squinted back through the cage into my cruiser; there sat Jamie, jabbering away. It was as if he lived a life without consequences, impervious to any of its dangers. I shook my head. The cosmos is full of idiots and nutters, and they all—I mean—Everybody comes to Vic’s.

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"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast a space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition.”
Rod Sterling, 1924-1975
(Creator/Writer of The Twilight Zone)

“JUST BACK FROM THE CONSTELLATION ORION NEBULA”
by MICHAEL BERISH

“Whatcha got, Mose?”

Mose—short for Moses—Tuggle was the bartender and owner of the Galaxy Club; had been for the last forty years. He was a genteel Black man in his late 70’s with gray hair, balding on top, who perpetually sported a white bar apron around a fifty-two inch girth. The Galaxy was a Black bar, an institution almost, that stood on the edge of “the Pit”—the Black ghetto in downtown Miami.

Me? I was the cop that rode that sector; had been for the last ten years. Mose called the station reference a Signal 43 (a mental case).

“Joker over there…at the end of the bar.”

I was expecting some loudmouth, wobbling atop a stool and blowing hard for a fight. Instead, as I peered down the length of the dark saloon, my eyes adjusted on the only White dude in the place. The patron was about 5’4”, weighed-in at no more than a hundred and thirty pounds, and was dressed in a tweed jacket with cargo shorts and a wool scarf (in Florida, no less). He sported a hoity-toity shirt with French cuffs, white socks—almost to his knees—with red stripes around the tops, wingtips on his feet, and the entire ensemble was topped off by a Tyrolean hat with a peacock feather in it; all of said flippery making him resemble some Napoleonic dandy. The fop was tapping his teeth with a sharp pencil, rather intensely, and thinking distant thoughts (a minor peccadillo considering his droll mode of dress); he was most definitely out of place among the local denizens—hookers, thieves, and drug addicts—that frequented this frowzy gin mill.

“At least he doesn’t have a tail,” I cracked. “So, what’s the problem?”

“Wanted me to stick a hot poker in his drink…to cool it down…‘a tad,’ is what he wanted.”

Always one to run with a good gag line, I countered with: “So, what’s wrong with that? Using a hot poker to cool down a nice cool drink? I often do that myself: put a hot poker in my Bud, many a night at home, to cool it down…‘a tad’…after a hard night’s work.”

Mose glowered at me with an expression that translated to: I’ve had a rough night. I don’t need no shit from you, smartass; instead, he just said: “Claims he just got back from the constellation Orion Nebula. Wherever the hell that is.”

“Ah, the fourth extraterrestrial this week from there. What’s he drinkin’, anyway?”

“Water. Water with ice cubes in it…with a twist of lemon.”

“Yup, that’s what they usually drink when they’re just back from the constellation Orion Nebula. After a couple of light years beamin’ around the cosmos, E.T. can run up a powerful thirst. At least, he came to the right spot for his glass of water…The Galaxy (Here, I tittered; but, just ‘a tad’) Club.”

I strolled down the hardwood floor of the tavern, then casually sauntered up to the voyager to the stars, so as not to spook him; coming up behind him, all of a sudden-like, might strike the wrong note.

“Mose tells me you just got back from the constellation Orion Nebula. How is it out there?”

The celestial being turned and inspected everything around him: the floor, up in the air, under and behind his chair—as if I wasn’t even there.

I cleared my throat, “Ahem, Ahem,” twice (inadvertently hacking up some phlegm along the way), thinking maybe he couldn’t see me and the sound of my voice could possibly attract his attention; I’d seen that on one of those old episodes of that TV series, The Outer Limits.

The cough did it. His gaze focused on me, and I repeated my original question: “Mose tells me you just got back from the constellation Orion Nebula. How is it out there?”

“Entropy,” was all the patron said.

Not wanting to appear too ignorant, I responded with: “Excuse me? Would you mind runnin’ that by me again?”

He took a gander over his shoulder, making sure no one was eavesdropping, then whispered: “Quiet.”

“Sounds great! Me and the little missus been on the lookout for a nice (and here I whispered back) ‘quiet’ vacation spot for two…away from it all. The wife—the second one, that is—says she needs a vacation…BAD. Wants to spend more time with the voices in her head, if you know what I mean, (I gave an exaggerated wink at my new-found friend, along with the A-OKAY thumbs-up sign)…out in say…(here, I scanned over my shoulder—as he had done—and there not being any reporters or loudspeakers around, I murmured) deep space.” Starting to have a good time, I continued: “What’d ya do for a livin’, buddy?”

“My name is Jason, not Buddy, and I’m a jazz drummer. I play the skins, man.”

“No kiddin’. I play the spoons myself, at parties, man…when I’m soused to the gills. I can pound out a pretty mean rendition of “Boola Boola”; you know, the Yale fight song. The wife—the first one, that is—said she expected me to fill a drunkard’s grave.

“What’d ya have a gig out there in the Orion Nebula or something?” Then, I got to thinking: Hey! maybe this goofball is a musician, just high on pot or something, and is playing at a club named the Orion Nebula. But, his next sentence signaled me otherwise.

“I didn’t go by choice.”

“Really?”

“Really. I was abducted.”

“Ya know, I was gonna guess that next. You wouldn’t believe how many calls a week I get in here reference alien abductions. Sightseers on their way back from Alpha Centauri and all those exotic, hot—to use a pun—spots. For some unknown reason, this seems to be ‘X marks the spot’ on the interplanetary atlas for the Mother Ships. I had one U.F.O. set down, back in the alley there, and out popped this drunken dwarf wearin’ a red fez, if you can believe that!”

“I don’t feel so good.”

“What’s the matter?”

“My heart’s all a thither.”

You never know. The S.O.P.’s (Standard Operating Procedure Manual) require an officer to request an ambulance—for safety’s sake—when, either a victim or an offender, claim they’re not feeling well. The City doesn’t want anyone 06-ing (transferring off-duty) on them; that’s a lawsuit. Let ‘em check-out on their own time. I keyed my microphone and contacted Communications. “341 to Operator. Send Rescue to my QTH (location). My 43’s (mental patient) complainin’ his heart’s ‘all a thither.’”

“His heart’s all a what?” answered the voice of Ms. Octavia Jones—a young, Black dispatcher on the midnight shift.

“His words, not mine.”

“Soin as I gets this here right. Does that mean: He’s havin’, what we woulds normally call, a heart attack?”

“Not being a cardiologist—and possessing neither extrasensory perception, nor a Ouija board—I really couldn’t give you an accurate diagnosis, so I’ll just answer with a…could be. Better expedite, though.”

“You got any prior medical history on the complainant?”

“His origins are a bit of a mystery to me, at the moment.”

“QSL (copy). Rescue enroute.”

Acute static poured out of the radio as various units repeatedly clicked their mikes, on and off. Cops’ll do that, occasionally, when they hear a mega-whacky call come over the air; that or they’ll try to disguise their voices, so as not to be recognized when they utter a tasteless, bizarre and usually suggestive remark which may subject them to discipline under the D.O.’s (Department Orders) for conduct unbecoming an officer.

“I’m just glad to be back,” continued the jazz drummer.

“I’ll bet. So, tell me what happened, buddy?…I mean, Jason.”

“Well, it was spooky.”

“So’s this.”

“These people, they’re from the planet Clarion.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. Don’t you think you ought to begin this little fairy-tale with: Once Upon A Time?”

Jason just looked at me, bewildered.

“Never mind. Go ahead,” I said.

“It was a week ago Tuesday. I remember it well. I was just coming out of the Baskin-Robbins with a double dip—”

“Okay, okay. Let’s just get to the abduction part.”

“I knew I should never have trusted him.”

“Trusted who?”

“He said his name was Twitter.”

“TWITTER?! ‘He said his name was Twitter?’ and that didn’t set off alarm bells?”

“Not really. I thought he might have been related somehow to Conway Twitty…like a cousin or something.”

“Or something?”

“I’m a big county western fan, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know. But, be that as it may, let’s just cut to the crux of this fable.”

“So, I get into this pod behind Baskin-Rob—”

“Pod?”

“My heart doesn’t feel so good, again.”

Not wanting to have this yahoo die on me, I figured I’d better come up with something fast to, at least, keep him upright until Rescue arrived; let him flat-line on the medics.

“Jason, see this shield on my uniform?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, it’s not just any old ordinary badge; it’s special. If you touch it, it’ll help you get better.”

“It will?”

“Absolutely! I use it whenever I catch a slug or two from some bad guys. I just reach up and grab hold of it and, Voila! All better.”

“You wouldn’t be poofing me now, would you?”

“Do I look like I’d kid you?” I said, trying ever so hard to keep a straight face.

“Where’d you get it?”

“Remember, how I told you we get a lot of alien abductions dropped here by the Mother Ships?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yeah, well, one of the abductees that came back here—”

“Who?”

“Who?” I heard myself repeat.

“What was the name of the abductee, as you call him, that came back here?”

“Oh.” He would ask that. Trying to think fast on my feet, I blurted out: “Al…Yeah…Al Hooti was his name. Close pals called him, Snookie.”

“Nookie?”

“Snookie! Anyway, Al had this piece of tin with him with all these healin’ powers when he came back. I got it from him”

“Where’d this Snookie get it?”

Momentarily stumped, I repeated the question: ‘Where’d Snookie get it?’ Ah…he got it from…one of those little saucer men, named…Nah-9, from the planet…Sintar…in the Andromeda Galaxy. But, enough of this. What’s a pod, anyway?”

Jason must have believed me because he reached up and grabbed hold of my shield…with both hands. This bupkis had to be nuttier than an entire pecan orchard to believe this twaddle. “It’s like a small rocket ship that only holds a crew of three. It beams you up to the interstellar spaceship which is really big: they hold hordes of aliens.”

“I’ve always suspected that myself.”

“Now, where was I?”

“Last Tuesday. Behind Baskin-Robbins. You got into a ‘POD’ with a guy named Twitter and were, somehow, beamed up to their Mother Ship.”

“Anyway, they took me—”

“Who’s ‘they?’”

“I don’t remember all their names, but there was Balmiston, Joopah, Rhombus 4-D, Awis and—”

“Avis? Did you say, Avis, like in the car rental place?”

“No. AWIS. Big difference. Awis was the one who sedated me.”

“Sedated you? For what?”

“The trip, of course.”

“Of course. Silly me. Where’d you go?’

“To the planet Clarion. I already told you that.”

“Right. Did it take long?”

“Not really. We went through a wormhole. What with the nanotechnology today, intergalactic space travel approaches warp speed along a spatiotemporal continuum while traveling in the 4th dimension, don’t you know.”

“No, I didn’t know…A wormhole…Of course.”

“You didn’t know that? Where’ve you been living?”

“I gotta divorce couple years back. The wife—the first one, that is—picked me clean; been livin’ in the bottom of a coal mine as a result. But, enough about me; let’s get on with this flapdoodle.”

“It’s when we got to Clarion that my problems began.”

“To tell you the truth, Jason, I think they began long before then.” Here was one space-traveling dude that had slipped outta the command module into outer space a long time ago.

My astronaut friend appeared mystified; he had no idea what I was referring to, so he just continued with his commentary, ignoring my last comment. “They operated on me.”

“Don’t tell me!; let me guess. Your brain! They cut open your brain, right?”

“No. My testicles, actually.”

“Good God! Why’d they do that?”

“They were interested in knowing how Earth people breed. They think we’re peculiar.”

“I could have told them that; they didn’t need to examine your balls to find that out. I’ve been on this job for twenty years now and I know just how ‘peculiar’ Earth people can be; I hope they knocked you out for that one.”

“Actually, it didn’t hurt. I had this nice couple working on me: UUOO-120 and his wife, Jill. The problem now is, since I’ve gotten back, I’ve had to wear this special brand of underwear that is lined with titanium; it’s to prevent the radiation on Earth from cooking my gonads.”

“Your BVD’s must weigh a ton! You’re lucky you don’t get a double hernia from just luggin’ your shorts around. How in the world did you ever find out you needed those particular kinda skivvies in the first place?”

“I was engaged to get married and my premarital blood test came back in a lead bag.”

“Good Lord! This only confirms what I’ve always said: You’ve gotta have nuts of steel to get through this life.”

“I wasn’t alone, you know.”

“I know. You told me. You were with YUPO-120—”

“No. UUOO-120 and his wife, Jill.”

“Right. They were with you.”

“No. I mean, there were other Earthlings there, too. There was this woman from Kansas named Buffy Beebitch. They put a micro transmitter in her uterus.”

“I betcha that had ta hurt!”

“Nah, as long as you didn’t get Nementu the Slaughterer dissecting you. Those mini-chips are small, anyway. Sometimes, they put ‘em in your teeth.”

“Didn’t this Beebitch’s husband report her missing?”

“You know, I asked her about that. She said as long as there was beer in the refrigerator, he probably wouldn’t miss her for another two weeks.”

“WOW! Sounds like a real grab-bag of people in that spaceship with you there.”

“Maybe you two should get a room,” Mose interjected with a snicker on his face as he scrutinized me, then Jason—who still had both hands firmly clasped around my badge. “Your ride’s here.”

Ignoring the bartender, I turned to my space-traveling friend: “I’d like to hear more; I truly would, but it’s time to go.”

Now, it was Mose’s turn to harangue me with his flippant remarks. “You two engaged or something? If you’re needin’ a place for the weddin’ reception, you could always come over here, I suppose.”

I lifted Jason, who was pretty much still attached to my badge, off the bar stool and out the door. The two attendants were just opening the rear door of the ambulance. Jason saw the flashing overhead lights on the square vehicle and seemed to have a sudden epiphany. “That looks just like the last pod I got in.”

“I’ll bet. I’d also be willin’ ta bet it’s goin’ to the same place the last one took ya to…J.M.H. (Jackson Memorial Hospital).”

“I ain’t getting in!”

“Why not?”

“The last thing the Commander on the pod that dropped me off— Ameni of the Flashing Knives—said to me was: ‘It’ll only be kosher to—’”

“KOSHER?! He actually used that word: kosher?”

“Yes, sir. He said: ‘It’ll only be kosher to get into the next pod if you’re ordered to by Command Central.’ Those were his exact words.”

Sensing a calamity emerging, I re-contacted Communications. “341. I’ve got ‘a tad’ of a problem here.”

A very suspicious Ms. Jones clicked back. “Go ahead, 341.”

“It seems my 43 won’t get into the pod unless you, Command Central, order him into it. So, I’m gonna hold my radio over by Jason’s ear now…” and I deliberately let my words trail off, so she had time to contemplate my meaning.

The mike keyed and a sonorous voice (the disguised voice of an anonymous cop—somewhat akin to Darth Vader’s) spoke: “We got us another BAD boy here! Sounds like just your type, Octavia.” There was a hidden message there, somewhere.

An extended silence.

Finally, I heard the radio being keyed, a “Un-hum,” followed by a clearing of the throat, and then Ms. Jones spoke: “This is Command Central. Get in the pod! Jason, I’m ORDERING you to get in the POD! NOW!!”

I just shrugged my shoulders to signify: What can ya do? An order is an order. He got in.

The two attendants strapped him to a stretcher, then one began taking his blood pressure as the driver got back into the cab. “Where to?” he wanted to know.

“J.M.H. reference a Baker Act (a statute granting authority for an involuntary psychiatric review of a disturbed person). Just drop him off; I’ll swing by later with the paperwork.”

I keyed my mike: “341 to Operator. Be advised I’m gonna check a 12 (eat supper) and refuel my pod before I head over to J.M.H.”

A long pause.

As I got into my squad car, the dispatcher raised me back. “341. Stop by the sergeant’s office. 340’s worried about…your well-being.”

“QSL. Advise him that I gotta stop by my locker first and put on some titanium underwear.”

The microphone keyed and someone whistled the eerie theme song from the early 60’s TV series, The Twilight Zone, which was followed by the LOUD and PERSISTENT clicking of radio mikes.

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