This is the city Hollywood, California. I’m a cop assigned to the cold case of Mary’s little lamb. Most people know Mary through the version her public relations people put out. The lamb followed Mary to school; it was against the rules, the teacher put it out, end of story. Mary spent the rest of the day in class.

Could be.

Everyone agrees Mary had a little lamb. The operative word is had.
Her lawyers blame the teacher for its disappearance.

“Back off, copper,” one said, “you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
Maybe.

But I got my eye on Mary.

How it came about is, without much schooling but plenty of brawn, I became a bounty hunter. I started on the more minor cases; the car thieves, the burglars, used them to gain experience in the ways of the criminal mind.

John Peters of the Acme Bail Bond Company was the boss. Eventually, I became his right-hand man. It was then he gave me two dogs, bloodhounds, he said.

“Good for tracking.”

The crazy thing about those dogs, they talked in their sleep. At first, I listened, but before long, I realized them sleeping dogs did lie.

I let them.

I’d let you stay at my place if I don’t have to be there with you.   

When I’m into another person, I get the feeling of wow! But I get that same feeling with a doobie and a Hendrix album.

When I hang out, it’s mainly with the people in my head. They have wonderful stories to tell. Curious little tales with twist endings. Never see it coming. Perhaps you’d like to hear one.

Come in.

Don’t mind the people there, don’t stare, bring refreshments.  

A story is about to being.

Quiet!   

Phone off.

Don’t tell your friends the ending.

Van Gouh was an artist with amateurish talent, but his paintings sold for millions. Stick figure men, mostly.

Critic Peter Souse felt the art world, pretentious as it was, needed a fraud, provided Van Gouh, and advanced his career.

Only when Souse, envious of his own creation, flooded the market with his own stick figure men -did the former friends became bitter rivals. Art critics debated who was the worse of the two.

The market for Gouh’s and Souce’s collapsed; each died penniless.

The stick figure men went on to have a minor but long-lasting role in children’s art.

An ice cream truck approached Yankee Stadium. It was the bottom of the ninth, two outs, full count, Yanks down by one.

The truck sounded the same few notes while not ten feet away, a purse snatcher plied his trade on the oldest-looking, whitest-haired, most wrinkled, bony-fingered, four-eyed woman, wearing the largest pink-framed sunglasses I ever saw.

I wondered if I should call 911 or walk away when her knee, aimed like her life depended on it, met the space below his baseball bat.

Her problem solved.

Meanwhile, the last Yankee standing, with the crowd cheering behind him, struck out.

Thanks for Reading

One Halloween, the devil, disguised as an old man, came to earth and saw a car and a boy about to collide.

That kid was about to become history.

Having saved the child’s life, the devil asked for candy in return.

     “For needy children,” he said.

The boy refused.

Soon he was a dead kid in a tiny pine box.  

“Another chance?” he asked.

Next day, he and a car were about to meet.    

The devil did what the devil does.

It was a sight to behold.

Remarkable.

The little boy’s legs crossed the street.

His upper half drove the car.

One day worse came to worse. He figured they had a lot in common, and after a period of getting to know each other, they’d live happily ever after. And for a while they did.

But an unintended consequence arose Each brought out the best in each other, and whatever they once saw in each other was gone They fought regularly; they gave each other no peace.

“You are!”

Over time, they returned to their old worse, and worser, selves But that’s not what encouraged them to give it another try.

It seems a “little worse” was on the way.

One thing you could count on, same as death, taxes, win some, lose some, was Frankie Diperino was one mean dude. Shoot you for looking at him wrong. When he turned nice, there had to be an explanation. “Diperino,” said the doctors, ” You’re dying. Got a month at most.”

Humpty and Dumpty lied; did so, hoping the news would calm him.

When Diperino caught on it was ready, aim and fire. Bullet met target, bodies fell, things looked grim.

You can guess the rest.
None of their doctors, and none of their friends could put Humpty or Dumpty together again.

I spent the summer working on a Mr. Bean’s ice cream truck and when I was through, he paid me with a rain check.

“Sorry,” said Mr. Potter of First National City, “we cash only papers checks here.”

I had a similar problem at each bank, and check casher, I called on.

“Too wet to cash,” they told me. Dispirited, I sat on the curb, had a takeout cheeseburger, fries and a diet cola.

I was famished; the food was delicious.

Didn’t notice it until it was too late.

While I ate, my summer earnings evaporated in the August sun.