duty one night, Dudley and I went to hear him play cornet with a jazz band at 10 th Avenue Grill.
“I’m still in touch with Guido. Mostly through his band’s mailings. I stop in on him now and then. He plays in both a swing band and a rockabilly band.”
“I find it hard to believe Vito is a retro.” We used to kid him about his trademark moth-eaten sweaters.
“Naw. Career musicians are adaptable. They play the music that sells. Bet you didn’t know he plays a trumpet at the Renaissance festival in Tuxedo, upstate, every year. Doesn’t mean he goes around wearing a codpiece to the feed store.”
“He playing anytime soon?”
“Tomorrow night at the Buckboard Bar, a rockabilly venue. But lemme get something straight here, Gawth. You have a mind to have Vito hound-dog Cola Woman?”
“Sort of.”
Dudley crushed his health-drink can like so much plush toy. “May I ask why?”
I made a face, thinking.
“You want that squirrel, now, don’t you?” he said.
I purposely ignored his last statement and snapped my fingers. “I know. We’ll celebrate your engagement at the Buckboard, couples, the four of us.”
His pug face wrinkled up into a smile, and he barked a laugh. “Gawth, like you say. What I like about you? Always something crazy going on up underneath that wild blond hair.”
Chapter 9
W hen I think back on Dudley’s “crazy” comment, I have to concur. What in the hell was I thinking? And ultimately I come back to the same answer: I fancied I might still have a shot at owning Pipsqueak. I mean, there he was in that shop, and had I skipped a leisurely Scranton breakfast, I might have arrived there before Cola Woman and bought him. At the time of the T3 incident, I tried to ask Marti Folsom, the shop owner who’d been locked in the closet, how much she would have sold him for had he not been stolen. But my tactless approach was for naught. She was beside herself, alternating weepy hysteria with reproach for the police. I couldn’t get an answer.
So at this stage of the game you’d think I’d have had all the warning signs I needed to steer clear of Pipsqueak. Alas, I’m not without my foibles.
Pipsqueak represented a certain magic, a time of life back when the most important thing in your life was today. The Nutty Nut epitomized my youth. There’s a special appreciation you acquire for those feckless days of youth as you approach midlife and the long, slow slide. You know, the slide to a time when the most important thing in any given day is a good bowel movement. Yeah, okay, I’m a half year shy of forty-six and the more deeply middle-aged scoff. But there’s a noticeable deterioration from ten years back that probably (gads, let’s hope not) won’t be as profound in the next ten years. Gone are the days when I could eat jalapeños, for example. So long to dependable, nightlong slumber. Bye-bye to hair-free nostrils and ears. Hello, allergies, two-pint hangovers, lower-back pain, and a size-36 waist.
Then there’s the dealer’s natural competitiveness, the need to score. What a coup that would have been! I mean, I see a dirty old buggy loon in a store window, reluctantly investigate, and discover the find of a lifetime, a piece with a history, like a penguin mount that belonged to Admiral Byrd or the pelts worn by terriers in
Attack of the Giant Shrews
. Or were those beat-down rugs? Nutty as it sounds, other devout collectors—whether of stamps, Barbies, or striptease highball glasses—find there’s something special about a storied piece. In the fine-art world, they call it
provenance
. Yeah, I know Pipsqueak ain’t exactly Mr. Ed. But the only mildly famous piece I have is a crow that used to be in a wax-museum display accompanied by the paraffin likeness of Alfred Hitchcock.
What if Marti had sold me Pipsqueak for sixty bucks? The knees go wobbly at the thought.
But what chance did I have of getting Pipsqueak once the
Grease
desperadoes had absconded with him? Well, I
“I’m still in touch with Guido. Mostly through his band’s mailings. I stop in on him now and then. He plays in both a swing band and a rockabilly band.”
“I find it hard to believe Vito is a retro.” We used to kid him about his trademark moth-eaten sweaters.
“Naw. Career musicians are adaptable. They play the music that sells. Bet you didn’t know he plays a trumpet at the Renaissance festival in Tuxedo, upstate, every year. Doesn’t mean he goes around wearing a codpiece to the feed store.”
“He playing anytime soon?”
“Tomorrow night at the Buckboard Bar, a rockabilly venue. But lemme get something straight here, Gawth. You have a mind to have Vito hound-dog Cola Woman?”
“Sort of.”
Dudley crushed his health-drink can like so much plush toy. “May I ask why?”
I made a face, thinking.
“You want that squirrel, now, don’t you?” he said.
I purposely ignored his last statement and snapped my fingers. “I know. We’ll celebrate your engagement at the Buckboard, couples, the four of us.”
His pug face wrinkled up into a smile, and he barked a laugh. “Gawth, like you say. What I like about you? Always something crazy going on up underneath that wild blond hair.”
Chapter 9
W hen I think back on Dudley’s “crazy” comment, I have to concur. What in the hell was I thinking? And ultimately I come back to the same answer: I fancied I might still have a shot at owning Pipsqueak. I mean, there he was in that shop, and had I skipped a leisurely Scranton breakfast, I might have arrived there before Cola Woman and bought him. At the time of the T3 incident, I tried to ask Marti Folsom, the shop owner who’d been locked in the closet, how much she would have sold him for had he not been stolen. But my tactless approach was for naught. She was beside herself, alternating weepy hysteria with reproach for the police. I couldn’t get an answer.
So at this stage of the game you’d think I’d have had all the warning signs I needed to steer clear of Pipsqueak. Alas, I’m not without my foibles.
Pipsqueak represented a certain magic, a time of life back when the most important thing in your life was today. The Nutty Nut epitomized my youth. There’s a special appreciation you acquire for those feckless days of youth as you approach midlife and the long, slow slide. You know, the slide to a time when the most important thing in any given day is a good bowel movement. Yeah, okay, I’m a half year shy of forty-six and the more deeply middle-aged scoff. But there’s a noticeable deterioration from ten years back that probably (gads, let’s hope not) won’t be as profound in the next ten years. Gone are the days when I could eat jalapeños, for example. So long to dependable, nightlong slumber. Bye-bye to hair-free nostrils and ears. Hello, allergies, two-pint hangovers, lower-back pain, and a size-36 waist.
Then there’s the dealer’s natural competitiveness, the need to score. What a coup that would have been! I mean, I see a dirty old buggy loon in a store window, reluctantly investigate, and discover the find of a lifetime, a piece with a history, like a penguin mount that belonged to Admiral Byrd or the pelts worn by terriers in
Attack of the Giant Shrews
. Or were those beat-down rugs? Nutty as it sounds, other devout collectors—whether of stamps, Barbies, or striptease highball glasses—find there’s something special about a storied piece. In the fine-art world, they call it
provenance
. Yeah, I know Pipsqueak ain’t exactly Mr. Ed. But the only mildly famous piece I have is a crow that used to be in a wax-museum display accompanied by the paraffin likeness of Alfred Hitchcock.
What if Marti had sold me Pipsqueak for sixty bucks? The knees go wobbly at the thought.
But what chance did I have of getting Pipsqueak once the
Grease
desperadoes had absconded with him? Well, I
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