There's a friend whose wife I've known since the years just before the War when we both worked at Merck & Co. in the Forensics Testing Division. She told me something very troubling about him the other day. She said that one time about a year ago, while they were having dinner on their patio he reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a Triple A size battery and put it on the table, just to the right of his dessert spoon. Nothing was ever said about it and she was, quite frankly, afraid to ask. In the days that followed she one time observed him walk between the den and the living room. Now, you might think this sounds kind of mundane, and for most people you'd be correct. But you've got to understand that this is very out of character for him.
He's known throughout the Valley for sometimes making comments which strike some folks as mildly inappropriate. One of his hairs showed up in my mailbox as if by magic. You might be wondering how I knew it was his hair. That's simple: the way it tasted. No one else's hair has ever tasted like that. When I asked him if he remembered the time I lost my monogrammed handkerchief during a hurricane in Bozeman, Montana, he just smiled in a typically passive-aggressive manner, said nothing and walked away. Before he got very far I put him in a headlock and made him promise to invite me over for drinks later in the month after my cancer surgery. He hemmed and hawed and finally blurted out that he'd never considered NOT inviting me. I knew he was lying so I emptied a cup of tap water near his car. That got his attention but I have to admit, I still wasn't getting through to him.
We decided that our only recourse was to engage a formal Mediation Process at a local Center. I was called out of town the night before to have a look inside a box that was found about thirty-five and a half miles Southeast of the Hoover Dam. My cousin, Joey Rawlins, called me from Ireland and wanted to know if I've been 'keeping my hand in'. 'Keeping my hand in what?', I asked him. 'You know', he said and then hung up. Now I knew I'd have to do something—and quick! I flew to Chicago the next day, mistakenly assaulted a Police Officer, had lunch with some friends from my days in Nam and accidentally cut my forehead on a taxicab's rear view mirror. I'd like to think that someone's learned something from this whole mess, but I have my doubts. It's possible that I may have to pull a body out of a canal later today. I'll keep you posted. Hello.
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