Pumpkins

A creative fiction dedicated to the fine men and women at the DPD.

The evening started in the standard way, in a hot bath. A Super One plastic grocery bag squished beneath a bath tubs worth of water and my bottom. I have to have a plastic bag with me when I take a bath, one day I plan to buy a shower mat and curtain, but for now I have to protect my buns from a minor chemical spill of a bath tub bottom. An early assumption on my part led to a series of absurd chemical based solutions intended to return a lime green bath tub back to it’s original rust stain white. The assumption was that the bathtub had a working drain, the very first time I used the bath it was to clean out some paint from my airbrush. Initial panic developed quickly into mild disinterest, (see blog post TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2010 "WHAT THE HELL?" ) and the tub remained that way for a week or so, in the mean time I bathed elsewhere, and continually put off the ten block voyage to Walgreens, when I finally decided that I wanted a good warm bath, I bought a bottle of off brand drain cleaner, and a bottle of the most caustic cleaning fluid I could find, and employed each with a reckless abandon specific to each product. I can not be sure but I think I may have invented one of the next big designer drugs in that bath tub before the drain cleaner finally forced what ever lump of matter, which had been lurking in that drain for months if not years, down to it’s final resting place. That chemical cocktail plus some poorly disposed of excess screen printing ink resulted in an unfortunate chemical burn on my butt.

            Now comfortable with my new bathing arrangement I relaxed as long as I could trying not to think about my horrific monster chemical seeping out of the tub into the water and absorbing into my flesh. When I got out shortly after I got in I dried myself out and quickly found a pile of pills I had left for myself before entering the tub. Mostly vitamins Calcium, and vitamin C, with fun additions like two pills of aderal and two pills of ginseng. A man has to prepare for what could easily turn into a quiet evening at home, so they each went down with a short gulp of water.

            Luckily a quiet evening at home was not what I was planning for, and hopped on my bike to do some last second chores before the b’ys came over for adventure, It took and absurdly short time for the Aderal to kick in and the next thing I knew I was flying down the road, peddling for broke. When cars didn’t move fast enuff for me to get to the movie drop slot and back onto the road with out stopping I cursed at them wildly. How dare anything move as slowly as a car!! I moved so fast on this expedition that I got home in time to have a half an hour to grow more insane before Anton and Bobby showed up.

When they arrived I ushered them inside in a frantic manner, picking up thing after thing to show them quickly then forget about. Anton had a sickness to attend to and quietly excused himself after we broke into a dumpster to dispose of his recycling. So Bobby and I started walking, a mini bottle of Makers Mark hanging heavy in my long jacket’s secret pocket, and a mischievous intention hanging heavy in my brain.

It wasn’t long until Bobby and I were participating in pumpkin pilfering procedures in canal park, our main target being the hotel industry which does odd things with pumpkins, spraying them down with clear coat and leaving them hanging around on hay bails as chemically preserved decorations, most of those I ignored. I prefer not to have a synthetic coating on my pumpkins if I can avoid it.  While we had initiated the procedures, we actually failed to pilfer any pumpkins in the first wave. Most hotels in Canal Park keep all of their plastic coated gourd decorations in the front, only one hotel does not, the Inn on the Lake. In addition to keeping their pumpkins on the lake side of the hotel they also have a popular fire pit out back, which foiled our early night attempts , but being soaked in speed and whiskey we went on and over the bridge into Park Point, while there I did something’s I’m proud of, and something’s I’m not, but in the end we crossed back over that bridge carrying three very large elegant pumpkins, in the least elegant way possible.

Have you ever tried to conceal a fifteen pound pumpkin under a coat? You have?! Well of course you have, but have you ever tried to conceal a fifteen pound pumpkin under a coat with one pocket filled with quesadillas and another filled with whiskey? Ha! I thought not! We had originally planned to go over to park point to borrow a poorly guarded wheel barrow. We were going to go back to the Inn on the Lake, and clear the clear coating, sons of so and so’s, out. Every last pumpkin was coming with us dangnabit. Of course we didn’t find a wheelbarrow, which is both too bad, and the reason why I’m not writing this from jail.  Still I see in my mind’s eye Bobby and I pushing a wheelbarrow heaped over with unusable pumpkins across superior street, a specialized branch of the DPD “Pumpkin Squad” emerging from their orange and white squad cars. At least there are pumpkin tarts in the interrogation room.

We finally got our pumpkins back to my place, and set them in my living room, next to my other stolen pumpkins. “it’s starting to look like a hot car lot in here” I remember thinking. I had been running low on energy while we hauled those mighty orange hulks around, so I had begun to think that my pills were wearing off; fallacy. As soon as I was relieved of my burden I was again immediately exploding with exaggerated thoughts and actions. We smoked a cigarette out back and I insisted on going to the Red Star. If a person is on accelerants and has a belly full of booze why would they not go dancing? We walked and talked furiously on the way there, bumping into my favorite bar tender in town, Erin, of Hanabi. He expressed doubts that the Red Star was open on Sundays, and pointed out my new career path as a motivational speaker. On our way back from the closed and locked Red Star we bumped into him again and we all meandered up to the kozy bar. A local legend of sorts that, at least, doesn’t match up to what I had originally imagined. It is just a small subterranean bar populated by old , long bearded cowboys, and cheap beers. I bought everyone a round of my favorite Kozy beer “Wild Cat” we chatted up the bartender, and helped a piteous miss with a couple of dollars.  Around this time the powerful mental abilities I had gained, short-circuited, and I was reduced to a heap of inarticulate brain dead.

Shortly after that everyone left to go to bed, it being somewhere near bar close, I myself stayed up twitching and talking to myself late into the morning… I love speed, and pumpkin police.