On Friday morning Sammy—with his brother’s car that is fast becoming his, what with his impending decision about leaving town—picked up Boyce and I so we could get to Dr. Keegman’s office before anyone could show up and get the Camaro out of the way. We parked at a dentist office just down the way and crouched in some hedges to watch from the corner of the parking lot. We were there a while before anyone showed up, and we got to talking. Sammy said he has to make a decision very soon. Boyce had a couple come to the house to look it over for a second time. I didn’t want to talk about these things so I told them that once I asked my father if there was such a thing as reincarnation. He said no, but if there was, he’d come back as a cricket so he could be eaten by a bird. I asked him what if he was eaten by a frog instead, and he just shrugged his shoulders. Sammy said if there was reincarnation he’d come back as a cloud. He’d spend all day making people nervous in planes and raining on birds—because where the hell do they go in a rainstorm anyway? I tried to answer Sammy but Boyce chimed in that he would be a snake but only if he could live near a day care playground. We talked about it so much that we almost missed Dr. Keegman’s receptionist.
She walked up to the Camaro like she was expecting it. She stared for a few minutes at the car and then suddenly broke into loud, kind of horrifying, sobbing. We both looked at Sammy since he has been the guy behind all the deliveries to Keegman’s office—the old Arby’s food, the pornographic magazines, the pet store snakes, the mail order brides, the reams and reams of Zionist pamphlets. Sammy looked like he accidentally set someone’s lawn on fire. And that receptionist, oh mamma, she was still crying hard. It was getting really uncomfortable there. We nudged Sammy to do something, but he questioned whether a strange man emerging from the hedges to accost her sobbing at an engine-less Camaro in front of her work would actually be helpful. Boyce told him if he ever wanted to be reincarnated as a cloud, this is the kind of thing he needed to do.
Sammy stood up and walked out of the hedges. The receptionist saw him walk forward and she must have recognized him from some of the first deliveries. She started shaking her fist at him, and then began rifling through her purse. Boyce and I stood up out of the hedges while Sammy started walking backward. None of us were sure what she was going to pull out of that purse. Turns out it was pepper spray. She said that we’ve made her life a living hell, and she started spraying. Really though, Sammy was a good twenty yards from her, so the spray just kind of floated around her. Then she dropped it and started screaming and holding her eyes, and the sobbing started all over again. Sammy went up to her but she was kind of a wreck at that point. So he backed away toward us, and shouted, “Your boss is a douche!” and then we left.
We drove back about five minutes later and she was sitting on the curb by herself. She was still crying, but we couldn't tell if that was from the Camaro or macing herself. It didn’t look like she had called the cops, so that was pretty great. Of course if she did, maybe we could find out the real owner of the Camaro. Boyce thought we should just assume Dr. Keegman was the original owner, and the universe made sure he got stuck with it.
Reincarnation isn’t real, but I sure wish Boyce could be a snake in a day care center. He deserves it.
