Chapter 03

Fri., Jun 22, 11:20 a.m., Dos Jefe’s Bar

After securing the red wagon with a bicycle lock to the bus stop sign on the corner of Joseph and Tchoupitoulas streets, Art follows Sunshine into Dos Jefe’s Bar.

“Jackson,” she barks to the bartender, “have you forgotten what awaits us today?”

“What is the what?” a bewildered Jackson replies.

“Press Your Luck. It’s the marathon.”

“Right.” Jackson fumbles with the remote until it finds the Game Show Network on the menu. “Doesn’t start until noon.”

“I know. But I made sure to get here early so I wouldn’t miss anything.”

Jackson shakes his head and wanders off.

Arthur Cole believes Sunshine is an abandoned mine field and he is a foot soldier.

“Why on Earth are you so intent on watching this show?” he asks.


Sunshine nods several times confidently, eyes on the bar, and then cocks her head back up to meet Art’s eyes. “Have you seen the movie Quiz Show?”

“Yes.”

“And are you aware that it is based on a true story?”

“Vaguely.”

“Well, in that movie, there was this game show in the fifties, I believe it was called Twenty-One, and this game show was hugely popular.”

“I recall.”

“Yes, but the reason it is so popular is because it is rigged. See, the producers put somebody in who is compelling for some reason or another, in the case of the movie, it is at first because the guy is ugly and Jewish. When the ratings start to sag, they replace him with a guy who is a wasp and is also happens to be a brilliant historian or English professor, or some such nonsense.”

“Right, and when the ugly Jew is told he has to purposefully lose, he goes batshit and all hell breaks loose.”

“Correct, but that’s not the point in this instance. The point is that the movie is a true story and that the show was rigged.”

“Okay, go on.”

“Anywhoo. So these same producers, in real life, the same guys who produced Twenty-one in real life, also produced…”

“Press Your Luck,” Art says.

“Ding, ding.”

“Great to know. But how is that compelling? Now we’re going to watch reruns of an eighties game show that was rigged? That smacks of Sisyphus, and you know how I am averse to tragedy of any kind.”

“Liz and I watched an entire season of Press Your Luck reruns, in order, on the USA network during college, instead of going to class.”

“Of course.”

Arthur Cole now believes that Sunshine is no longer a minefield, but instead has morphed into one giant bomb cluster bomb, destined eradicate his personal airport’s runway, fragmenting his life’s aviation-life-giving pavement into a million little pieces at any moment.

Sunshine is becoming giddy with excitement. “So the host, a guy by the name of Peter Tomarken, who is, in my opinion, the best and wittiest host in the history of game shows, the host, well, one day, this girl, her name is Paige, she comes on the show. The lights go up, their eyes meet, and they fall in love. Big money, no whammies.”

“I remember the whammies.”

“So, for the next month or so, this Paige girl goes on a quote-unquote miraculous winning streak, and the whole time, Peter Tomarken and Paige are flirting, literally non-stop. And it gets so bad that, after a few shows go by, the other contestants are getting cranky—they’ve seen through the charade and realize they’re nothing more than window dressing; they don’t have an Eskimo’s chance in hell of winning because, of course, during commercial breaks, Tomarken and Paige are probably doing it in the janitor’s closet.”

“So does she ever lose?”

“Well, that’s the thing. One day, she’s just gone and there’s no mention of her ever having been on the show. She has this remarkable, month-long winning streak and then, boom, it’s as if she never existed.”

“Heh.”

“But I could see it in the host’s eyes. He no longer had the lust for the game. The jokes were flat and he just looked sad, the show’s momentum abruptly and forever halted. I felt terrible for him.”

“I wonder what happened?”

“Well, Artie, that’s what we’re here today and for the next week to find out. I need clues. I need to see when it appears their relationship is faltering, body language, that sort of thing.”

“And you’re including me in this, why?”

“Because I am certain there are life lessons to be learned.”

Arthur Cole can see the lack of irony oozing out of Sunshine’s lips. “You can’t be serious. Life lessons? Considering your conduct last night, you’d probably qualify for a remedial course on life lessons.”

“Speaking of last night,” Sunshine says, “I wonder if Earl is out of jail yet?”

Fri., Jun 22, 11:40 a.m., Judge Mule’s Private Chambers

The stench from the cloves always made Deidre a little sick, and the way the judge is puffing away today, she is pretty sure she is going to hurl all over his desk, right there on top of all of the legal papers she doesn’t really understand; being his personal secretary and not one of his legal assistants, she’s not particularly versed, nor does she care what that stuff is and does. It’s the law, and the law bores her.

“Deidre,” the judge says, waving his stinking lit clove in the air in little semicircles, “just what is the world coming to?”

“I’m not sure, sir.”

“Seriously. Do you think we’re at the cusp of Armageddon?”

“Sir, I usually leave that kind of stuff to the priests and the Pope and those kind of people. I don’t really know what the coming of an Armageddon is supposed to look like.”

“Well, Deidre, I’ll tell you. Just six months ago, to the day, mind you, I woke up for my morning cigarette and found my car sitting in my front lawn, and not by my doing, mind you. Somebody had broken into my house while I was sleeping, gone into the garage and rolled the car into the yard.”

“Did they take anything?”

“No, nothing was stolen, but that’s irrelevant.”

“Well I’m glad you didn’t get robbed.”

“Nothing gone, and again, Deidre, that’s not the point. So, last evening, around two in the morning, I thought I heard a rustle in my house. I didn’t think anything of it at first because, well, when one is sleeping and in and out of consciousness, one tends not to be in a one hundred percent realistic state of mind. But then I realized, in some sort of moment of clarity, that today, when I did the math in my semi-conscious head, was the six month anniversary, to the day, of the morning I found my car had been moved to the lawn.”

“You must be really good with dates. I used to forget my ex-husband’s birthday…”

“So now, recognizing the symmetry, I dart out of bed, down the hall and into the living room. And do you know what I see there, raiding the liquor at the wet bar?”

“No?”

“An ostrich.”

Deidre draws back in confusion. “An ostrich?”

Judge Mule emits and angry cackle and leans forward on his desk. “Not just any ostrich. This one was wearing a top hat and a bow tie and was singing to himself a little song, ‘Archibald loves cocktails, other peoples’ cocktails,’ and making himself a toddy off of my twenty-year-old scotch.”

“Sir?”

“The ostrich was a little startled when I walked into the room and noticed him at my bar. So do you know what he said?”

“I didn’t know that ostriches could speak.”

“This one could.”

“Oh.”

“So do you know what he said?”

“I have no idea.”

“He says, ‘Oh, I forgot to turn this on,’ at which point he reaches with his claw to a button on his top hat and vanishes, right there into thin air, like he was never there in the first place. When he vanished, this ostrich, the cocktail glass he was drinking from disappeared with him.”

“Sir?”

“I know it sounds insane, but Deidre, you’ve been with me for how many years?”

“Going on twelve, sir.”

“And you know me to be a grounded man, one not to wander into hyperbole.”

“Hyperbole, sir?”

“Exaggerations, crazy stuff.”

“No, not in my experience, sir.”

Judge Mule lights up another one of his repugnant clove cigarettes. “So, in that context, I decide, sure, I’m still dreaming.”

“That’s a relief.”

“It would be.”

“Sir?”

“So I wander to my front window, and what do I see, but my Bentley parked right there, in my front yard.”

“Again?”

“As if on cue.”

Deidre is confused. “But wait, you’re dreaming, right?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“Sir?”

Judge Mule takes a deep puff from his cigarette. “What I’m trying to say, Deidre, is that I am not sure that I didn’t see the ostrich. I wasn’t dreaming. He is a hallucination to be sure, but I am not sure that the two aren’t connected.”

Deidre says nothing and allows her boss to collect his thoughts and continue.

“Although the fact that I saw the ostrich before I saw my car in the lawn is a little disconcerting to me, to say the least.”

“Maybe you were sleepwalking and seeing the car woke you up.”

“No, Deidre, I’m convinced it’s LSD.”

Deidre gasps. “LSD, sir?”

“I haven’t finished the story. So I call the police to tell them that, yet again, some pranksters have put my car in the front lawn, and that this time, I want them found and apprehended.”

“So did they find them?”

“Well, yes, and that’s where the story gets even more disturbing.”

“Oh, no.”

“Yes. So the police arrive and you know what they found in my car?”

“What.”

“There is a young man in there who had stripped off all of his clothes and duck taped himself to my steering wheel.”

“He did what?”

“Obviously, this disturbed young man was on the influence of something, LSD if you ask my personal opinion.”

“Drugs are going to ruin this country.”

“And I’m convinced that, in his drug crazed frenzy, this young… scoundrel came into my house and injected me, while I was sleeping, with one of his LSD pills. That’s the only thing that would explain both the ostrich and his bizarre behavior.”

“Sir, you’ve been through a lot.”

“Deidre, you’re right. But you know what they say, adversity breeds character.”

“That it does, sir. That it does.”