Bogart ran out of the street a block away, unseen by everybody at the museum. The dog ran over to the crashed car and jumped in to find Mitch, no longer in the back seat, but crumbled up in between the two front seats. He was smashed in what had to be the most painful quasi-yoga position ever. Mitch smiled at his new in-car companion.
-Hey, Bogart. Sup?
Bogart licked Mitch’s face, urging him to get up. Mitch took the suggestion to heart and slowly lifted himself up enough to move his legs back underneath him. Bogart helped push Mitch into the driver’s seat and then out of the car. Sore, bruised and scarred in more places than not, Mitch collapsed outside of the car into a sitting position against the back door. One of his shoes was missing but Bogart kept licking Mitch back to good spirits.
Mitch watched Todd de-animate the presidents from a few dozen yards away. For some reason, it wasn’t until Mitch was this far removed from the situation that he realized just how weird it was. Not that weird was a bad thing. Mitch figured he was kind of weird himself. And Lily--over there with the others--she was kind of weird too. Maybe everybody is weird, Mitch thought at his most philosophical. Everybody is weird but sometimes two people have compatible weirdness. And that compatible weirdness is called love.
It was then that Lily noticed Mitch sitting against the car and ran over to him. If Lily was only relieved Seph was still alive, she was ecstatic to see Mitch lightly smile back at her. She was so excited she basically tackled Mitch in an uninhibited, lunging embrace.
Lying on the ground, on top of Mitch, Lily kissed Mitch as passionately as she had ever kissed anybody--and Mitch returned the feelings. When Lily finally pulled her head back she looked in Mitch’s hugging eyes and smiled. In the last two days Mitch had been in two back alleys, one homeless shelter, dangled off a rooftop, slept on a city bus, tampered a car’s brakes, been 1/20th of an on-air brawl and crawled from a car wreck only to be licked all over by a missing dog and tackled into the dirt.
-You smell just absolutely awful, she said.
-Yeah, I was expecting that.
Like Lily moments earlier, when Emmit saw Bogart by the car he similarly ran over and nearly tackled the ever-gleeful dog.
-Mitch, thank you man so much for finding him!
-It was no problem.
-When we get home you’re getting so many doggy treats!
-Are you talking to me or Bogart?
-Him, but you can have some too. Treats for everybody!
Todd smiled at the reunion of the friends. He hoped his other revenge scheme worked out this well and even planned on bragging to the friends and Snow about it. As the street punks who had harassed Todd last week had an insatiable itch to obtain a car for free, Todd gave them an insatiable itch every time they ever sat in a car for the rest of their lives. Sure that punishment was a little more direct, but so were their offenses. Driving Emmit’s car across the city, they were all quite itchy at that moment and would later drive into the middle of a fountain roundabout dedicated to Jonathan Mainville.
Before Todd could say anything to anybody though, he heard police sirens and decided to run for it. Without speaking a word, Seph and Snow watched the homeless man ungainly run down the street with his cardboard tube and a plastic trash bag undoubtedly filled with magical wonders or aluminum cans. For reasons he couldn’t explain, Seph knew that he would never see Todd again; that Todd would leave the city forever and change his name, though not likely his lifestyle.
When the police officers showed up, without consulting each other, the friends and Snow blamed the former presidents--who were now back to being statues. Seph added that the wizard had run away, probably for good. Snow pushed the matter further and said the officers could arrest the wax statues but she’d prefer if they just let her put them back in the museum. The officers consulted their manual on procedures and radioed in advice but didn’t come to a conclusion before the news trucks, photographers and reporters from the Jackson Park duel showed up at the museum.
Dozens of microphones were shoved into the faces of Snow and the friends and everybody began yelling their questions over one another. However, the swarm of questions came to an abrupt halt when it was discovered that nobody was dead, nobody was getting arrested and nobody relevant had slept with anybody else relevant.
That was a close one, thought Emmit to himself and as quick as history can be forgotten, all the media people got back into the trucks and cars and drove off. Caught up in the excitement of being on TV, the police officers left with them.
-I suppose that’s it, said Seph.
-Not quite, corrected Snow. We still need to move these guys into the museum.
So Seph and Snow picked up JQA and Blair and Emmit carried Polk up the front steps of the museum and into the President Exhibit. Lily, Mitch and Bogart followed them. Once both presidents were back in their life-size dioramas, everybody took a step back. There were a lot more things to do but this seemed like a good break for everybody.
-So Blair, said Seph. Why are you wearing Emmit’s shirt?
Emmit froze, not daring to look at Seph or Blair. Blair also didn’t look at anybody. Seph, standing in between them, looked back and forth at both, more curious than accusing. Emmit and Blair unknowingly had the same internal admission: they had failed miserably at balancing two of the most important people in their lives. Emmit was afraid of Seph’s astuteness and internally pled the fifth. In any other circumstance, Blair would have coyly substituted Emmit’s name for Frank Gusenberg--who was gunned down in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and replied "nobody shot me" to the police while dying.
Unfortunately Blair didn’t have the complete coolness to brush off Seph’s interest with an obscure flip-remark. Rather, she took up the challenge of explaining the story as carefully, but truthfully, as possible. She also hoped Emmit would be listening carefully. He was.
-It’s one of those stories where nothing really happened, she said.
-Nothing?
-Nothing.
Seph accepted the somewhat cryptic answer, trusting and loving his girlfriend and best friend. Emmit felt dumped again and lowered his head, but then saw Bogart, smiling that dog smile and looking up at him. Emmit smiled back and rubbed Bogart’s head. Got to love Bogart.
Lily looked down the line of president displays and then gently shook Mitch’s hand to get his attention.
-Mitch?
-Yeah.
-Where’s Rutherford B. Hayes?
-What?
-President Hayes; he’s missing.
Lily pointed everybody to the empty diorama. Rutherford B. Hayes. 19th U.S. President: 1877 to 1881.
-Oh goddamn it!
No comments:
Post a Comment