Murder and Mayhem

(AP, Littleton, Colorado)

Terror has returned to this small community once again.

Shortly after dawn this morning, Mayor Curt awoke to find one of its long term residents, Frog, brutally disfigured and disemboweled in the living room. Rogers alerted authorities but after viewing the crime scene, none seemed optimistic about solving the crime.

"It's no wonder," Rogers was quoted as saying. "Two years ago Percy the Penguin suffered a similar fate , being ripped limb from limb. The poor soul never recovered and has been in intensive care ever since." Bah-Bah, our pacifist sheep, was pushed from a balcony and found dead the next morning. Authorities have long suspected that Bah-Bah was pushed as a means of silencing him before he could reveal the identity of Percy's atacker.

Clues to these crimes have been scarce, as Officer Bobster the Lobster, chief detective on the scene reported. "Whoever is committing these atrocities is doing them under cover of darkness while the locals are asleep. No eyewitnesses, no fingerprints, no nuthin'."

The only link between the three victims is their good friend and trusted playmate, Duncan "Roo" Rogers, who claims to have been in bed asleep at the time of the murder. A source close to Mr. Roo says he is beside himself with grief and is too shocked to leave bed and make a statement at this time.

Whether or not Duncan "Roo" is a suspect, Officer Bobster will not say. Rather, he and other members of the police force urge anyone with any information to come forward.

The Sentimental Fool

There are more balls in this little apartment than you'd think possible and nearly every day our collection grows even bigger. It seems we cannot leave the apartment without Duncan stumbling upon a golf ball right below my window (the golf course is about thirty feet from where I live and quite often we're jolted out of our peace and tranquility when some errant golfer knocks his ball right into the side of my building, rattling the windows and scattering the cats). During the summer it's not uncommon to return home after a quick walk with four or five of them filling my pockets, which I then empty into the small bureau where I keep all of Duncan's toys. I pick the golf balls up because I worry about their size; they're just small enough that a dog could easily choke on one. I don't throw them over the fence because if I did our walk would cease and Duncan would sit and pine for the ball beyond his reach. And every walk thereafter he would pause and look longingly out in the tall grass at the edge of the course and whine at what could have been.

And so, reluctantly, I've turned into a bit of collector. The bureau gets more and more full each day and I'm not exactly sure what to do about it. You see, I'm a sentimental fool. I'm not a hoarder, but I do tend to hold on to things longer than I should. Not big things––those are easily disposed of––but the little things, which are quite often more important than the big ones. I have nearly all of Duncan's toys, even the ones chewed beyond recognition (remember Percy, the penguin Duncan disemboweled which I never got around to repairing? He's tucked away should I ever decide to fix him up and reintroduce him to the gang). I have the baby blanket he was sitting on when Ken first brought him home as well as a single unused puppy pad that's been lurking in a box since 2004. I have all the food and water bowls we've fed him from and each and every one of his collars. I have nearly everything, especially these drawers of balls and balls and more balls.

I took Roo out for our morning excursion to the park while it was still dim and very early, when it seemed only the birds were up, lazy and drowzy in the uppermost branches of the trees. I grabbed his tennis ball and the bright blue Chuckit Launcher I keep by the door and we walked across the street for our usual game of fetch. We played for nearly an hour: me throwing the ball as far as I could and Duncan chasing after it, returning it to my feet for his reward. For a Retriever fetch was not a game that came naturally to him so I worked long and hard on training him to bring the ball back by bribing him with goodies. He drops the ball and waits patiently for the treat he's earned. And if by chance there are no treats he very clearly lets me know there will be no game of fetch by running to the ball and laying down on it while he looks at me like, "I've got this thing you threw away. Better come and get it if you want it back."

On our last throw Duncan returned with a different ball, a bright green one, new and unscuffed. He was a bit dodgy about dropping it and meandered around me in a lazy, distant circle, his head down, the ball firmly and selfishly clasped between his jaws. When I finally wrestled it from him I asked where his old ball was. He rolled on his back, indifferent to my question, and tried to distract me with his bright pink belly instead. I tossed the ball for him and then walked back in the direction I'd thrown the original ball. I found it among the frosted grass, buried among the leaves, its color long gone, its surface old and matted from years of being tossed and retrieved, poked and gnawed on by Duncan's teeth

"What about this ball?" I asked him, kicking it beside the new ball. He looked down at them then back up at me. "Don't you want your old ball? It's been so good to you." He looked back and forth between the two, laid down, mouthed one then the other. "Think of all the miles you've run to get it and bring it back? It has been there every time you wanted to play and has come home with you, waiting by the door until you're ready to take it out again." He mouthed his old ball, his tail stirring the leaves behind him. "It's been a good ball, Roo. Do you really want to exchange it for this newer, prettier ball, a ball you hardly know?"

He whined at me, pawed at the old thing then looked nervously at the new one.

"The choice is all yours, Dunc. It's either the reliable, trusty old ball who has been your friend for a very long time or this shiny, new one you've only just met. And who knows where it's been! You decide. You can't have them both."

I watched him and waited, knowing in my heart he'd do the right thing. He went back and forth between the two, picking them up, biting once or twice then spitting them out to be replaced by the other. He pawed at them, sniffed them, rolled across both of them, marking each with the sweet smell of his back. He looked up at me for guidance then stared at them both.

And then he made his choice. He grabbed the ball, stood up and trotted away to the edge of the road where he waits for me to leash him up, the bright, new one firmly held in his mouth, the old one abandoned and forgotten. 

"Well, old friend," I told the ball we've played with for years. "The decision is made. It looks like it's up to you now to find a new home." I stared at it a moment longer, fought my urge to pick it up and put it in my pocket and bring it back home where it belongs, but turned my back and walked away, leaving it tucked among this morning's hard frosted grass.

Duncan, no sentimental fool, didn't look back once. And so I think the day is soon coming when I'll be cleaning out those drawers and getting rid of our many balls.

Unless I go back and rescue it later, an act that will certainly doom me.

Crime and Punishment Revisited

It was another grisly morning here. It seems that some time during the night Duncan tried, convicted and punished another of his friends. While Percy the Penguin is still recovering from last month's horrific disemboweling, Duncan has struck again, this time casting judgment on the closest of pals, his treasured and beloved Bah-Bah.

I'm not exactly sure what the crime was, or if one was even committed, or if perhaps this isn't a message meant for me, but Bah-Bah has literally fallen out of favor.

What I do know is this: some time between midnight and 6 AM, Bah-Bah, who was last seen resting beside Duncan on his pillow, fell three stories to the hard concrete below.

I didn't realize Duncan's most trusted friend was even missing. It wasn't until we walked this morning that I discovered the mangled body laying in a heap below our balcony.

Bah-Bah, legless, deaf and helpless, had been dropped thirty feet to a spot just outside our neighbor's garage. Duncan strolled casually by, acting as though he was oblivious to the mangled corpse of his friend, who has been with him nightly for the past two years. Duncan, who remembers every place he's ever seen a squirrel. Duncan, who can locate a golf ball under a foot of snow. Duncan, who hunts out lilacs and sunflowers from miles away and can spot a bunny in the thickest of shrubs or concealed deep in the tallest grass.

Bah-Bah, the truest and most loyal of buddies, was found on his side, his eyes open, the stitched-on smile still on his face. I gasped and rushed to his side. Thankfully––despite the tremendous wound in his side––he was still alive. I scooped him up and turned to Roo, who had taken a sudden very intense interest in a gum wrapper. We climbed the stairs and delivered Bah-Bah to the ICU with Percy before returning outside for our walk. Dunc kept a low profile, ambling quietly beside me, head down, as though nothing had happened.

The events of last night have rocked our apartment. Despite my assurances Buddy and Beaker, Baby and the Blue Buddha are terrified that they're next on the hit list.

I think it's time to pull in some outside help.

Crime and Punishment

Despite the fact that nearly all of them have had their limbs removed, and most lack faces, Duncan is quite gentle with his toys. I keep a drawer full of them, a sort of asylum for friends loved nearly to death, and switch them out every few weeks so that he doesn't get bored and restless. But when I wait too long he wastes no time in letting me know that the time has come to mix things up.

Percy, the first of his friends whose name did not start with a "B," joined our clan a few months back and quickly became a favorite. A terrycloth penguin with a bright yellow beak, eyelid-soft wings and two awkward little feet, Percy went wherever Roo went, and whenever he wasn't being tenderly carried back and forth across the apartment in Duncan's mouth, he was tucked protectively under a paw where he received a nearly constant bath. And because he was vaguely football-shaped I enjoyed him because he could be thrown with a nice spin, black and white whirling through the air hypnotically. Each night Dunc took him to bed, pulling his blanket over him to keep him safe and warm and each morning it became more and more difficult to take Percy away and put him up until I returned from work.

I don't know why exactly he fell out of favor but this evening after our walk, while I tended first to Facebook, then to dinner and a small glass of wine, Duncan made it perfectly clear that Percy had somehow offended and needed to be relocated into the witness protection program, replaced by Leon, the plush fuzzy red bone our friend Nik sent to us. I discovered the hapless penguin dismembered on the floor not far from the water dish, his wings and flappy feet forcibly removed from his body and missing entirely, his belly torn open, stuffing spilling out onto the carpet like cottage cheese. I quickly re-stuffed him and placed him on a high shelf where he will be safe until I can sew him up and tuck him into the asylum for a few months, at least until Dunc has forgiven him his crimes.

Until then he has Bah-Bah, his legless lamb, and Leon to see him through. Here's hoping no further infractions have been committed and Duncan won't be preoccupied with punishing the conspirators.

Morning Mischief Managed

Perhaps because I never saw my basket of yarn as anything other than benevolent until it turned on me and almost destroyed my dog, I now look at every object I own with a suspicious eye. What if the couch––solid and immovable––were to suddenly tip under the soft weight of Winnie and fall back and crush the children in one, quick blow? What if I left the stove on and cooked every animal and beloved object not only in my apartment but the entire building? Or what if I didn't make the bed and the cats crawled under the covers and, trapped by a maze of twisted blankets and a wall of pillows, suffocated, their plaintive cries unheard by the only person who could save them? It's absurd (and more than a bit of an exaggeration, I might add!) but after the skein of red yarn I bought for a scarf intended for my sister ended up in Duncan's intestines, let's just say I'm cautious.

That's why every morning, after making my tea and preparing my five fruit breakfast, I take all of Duncan's toys––Percy, his penguin, the Bah-Bah, the Birdy, Buddy and the Baby, and perch them atop my DVD shelf where he can't get to them, rip them open and choke on their fluffy innards. He doesn't like it one bit and upon my arrival home in the evening,  insists emphatically that they all immediately be returned to the ground where he can play with and terrorize them. I leave only the tennis balls for him to play with, while I'm gone and perhaps, if he's very sly, a stray kiwi.

This morning after tending to my rituals I went in search of the toys and discovered that Duncan had taken action while I showered, spending that valuable time hiding his little, armless and legless, and sometimes faceless friends, all over the apartment. Percy was tucked away on his pillow, nestled down between the blanket Chelsea gave him for Christmas and the throw mom knitted for him. If it hadn't been for Percy's bright yellow beak I may not have noticed him at all. The blue bone was concealed in Winnie's fort, an old shoe box I keep under an end table where she hides for hours, peeking up slowly and carefully so that just the green of her big eyes are visible. Buddy was stashed between the bed and the window, down among the blankets where it would've been all too easy to miss him. After a careful search of the entire apartment I'd rounded everyone up except Bah-Bah, who remained unaccounted for. Duncan ate his breakfast, indifferent to my search, or so it seemed, until I returned to the bedroom to find him curled up on the bed, the mangled lamb tucked under one paw while he received a very attentive and thorough bath.

He was not happy when I took him away and placed him up on the tower with the rest of them. He sighed loudly, harumphed and wouldn't look at me when I left. I'll make it up to him and stop by Hero's for a bully stick before I come home.

It's the time away from home that alarms me. He and the cats have all day to plot and plan and I'm beginning to doubt I'm smart enough to keep up with them.