[Cont.]
Now having helped the policeman avert his crime-in-progress, Monica and Anna and Fernando and Jeanette and I say “Goodbye, Officer X,” and hang up the phone. We climb in bed with the plan to finish sleeping; for it is the middle of the night. But no sooner do we pull the covers up to our noses when the telephone rings again.
“I’ll get it,” sez Monica Vitti.
“Are you sure?” say the rest of us.
“Yeah, you guys go ahead and sleep — I’ll deal with the next problem.”
“OK, thanks,” we all say. Then everyone immediately begins snoozing except I myself, who remain awake to ask a follow-up question of Monica, as she stands in her nightgown in the moonlight with her hand on the receiver, ready to pick up and answer but not yet doing so because she’s waiting for me to deliver my line, and the phone continues to ring and ring and ring. Then finally, with childlike wonderment, I ask:
“How do you know that the call will be a problem?”
“It’s always a problem,” sez Monica. Then she lifts the receiver: “Hello?”
“Yes, hello, this is Mary Magdalene from Refurbished Virgin Houseplants.”
“Oh, hi, Mary!” Monica smiles and waves despite the fact that Mary cannot see her (but I can see her, for I’d rather watch her than fall asleep); “What seems to be the problem?”
“Well, I was just wondering,” Mary begins; then she stops abruptly to say: “Wait — how’d you know there was a problem?”
“There’s always a problem,” sez Monica Vitti. “Think about it.”
There is a crackly silence on the line for a pregnant moment; then Mary murmurs: “Jeez, you’re right. I can’t even remember the last time that anyone phoned me for a reason that was even remotely non-problematic.”
“I’m always right,” sez Monica. “Now, how can I satisfy you sensually?”
“Sensually?”
“I just said that as a joke, because your last name is Magdalene.”
“Oh, hee-hee,” Mary giggles. “I get it.”
“Plus you work at a wholesaler of houseplants called The Refurbished Virgin.”
Mary’s giggling stops: “Ah, you’re right.”
“As I said, I’m always right,” replies Monica Vitti. “Now what’s your beef?”
“Oh,” Mary tries to remember why she called — then she sez: “yes, I was just wondering if all of you suburban herdsmen who work for Bryan Ray’s Beast-Watchers carry deer among your inventory.”
“We don’t work FOR Bryan,” Monica explains; “he’s not our boss — this is a co-op. We work with him. And we live in his house.”
“Ah, I see — sorry I said it wrong.”
“And we all share the same bedroom. But as to your question about whether we have any deer: Let me see if my co-herdsmen Bryan is still awake — he’d know better than I (I’m mostly just along for the ride, with this whole suburban livestock-tending business: Anna Karina and I were college professors teaching a graduate class in herdsmanship, but we decided to walk away and burn all our bridges when we met Fernando and Bryan; doing so caused us even to lose our benefit packages, including our top-tier pensions; but it was worth it, cuz everything’s fun now) — Bryan’s right here, just a second: I’ll ask him…” Monica places her hand over the receiver to mute the line as she leans toward the bed and sez: “Psst! Bry… hey, Bry! are you awake?”
“Yes, I’m lying here fully clothed as usual, wide awake,” I reply. “What’s the problem?”
Still hand-muting the phone, Monica sez: “How’d you know there was a prob—” Then she stops short and we both share a laugh. “Mary Mag’s on the line and she’s wondering if we herd deer. I said I’d ask you.”
“Mary Mag, from The Refurbished Virgin Plant Shop?” I say. “That Mary?”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“And she wants to know if we have heard any deer tonight?”
“No, she’s not asking if we’ve perceived audible proof that deer exist,” Monica explains; “she’s wondering if deer are one of the types of animal that we are herdsmen of, protectors of, keepers of… Do we watch over them with our staffs and rods, on the hillside, while quail whistle about us their spontaneous cries, etc.”
“Deer?” I say. “Like, regular deer from the woods?”
“One minute,” Monica removes her hand from muting the phone and speaks into the receiver, “Mary? Do you mean just regular deer, like the kind that are found in the Nighttime Forest?”
“Yes, yes: those deer that walk upon our mountains and also bear live young in the wilderness,” Mary confirms.
Monica Vitti claps her hand over the phone receiver again and relays Miss Magdalene’s answer.
“No,” I say, being sure to speak in a low voice, because the rest of my bedmates are snoozing, “we have reindeer from either pole, but not regular midwestern white-tails. Nobody has ever figured out how to herd those common deer — they’re just too smart: ‘they flee from whoso list to hunt them, and they’re wild for to hold’, as Sir Thomas Wyatt always sez. So you can’t corral them. And that’s also why they never keep deer in zoos.”
“OK, I’ll tell her,” Monica unmutes the phone so as to address Mary Magdalene; however, before beginning, in a fit of curiosity she turns back to me and sez: “Is that really true — there’s no deer in zoos?”
I nod firmly: “Think about it. When have you ever seen a deer in a cage, or a submenu dedicated to ‘regular deer’ on any State Zoo’s website?”
“Huh,” Monica ponders this for a moment; then she returns to her phone call with Mary: “Yeah, no; we don’t carry deer. Reindeer, yes; but not the normal, white-tailed kind. May I ask why you ask?”
“Ah, darn,” sez Mary Magdalene of Houseplant Wholesalers, “I was hoping that you’d be able to help me; but now it seems like I’m on my own. The reason I called is that a herd of deer, which I assumed is yours, has trotted into our warehouse here, because the sliding French glass double-doors at our entryway open automatically; and now these deer are eating all the most pretty blooms from our flowering plants. If the beasts belonged to your Herdsman Co-op, I could send you the bill, and everything would be all right. But now it looks like I’m going to have to read our corporate insurance contract and see if it covers ‘acts of God’, because most of our products are ruined now.”
“Ah, sad,” Monica empathizes with the Magdalene’s loss of innocence; “but, if I were you, I’d check if you’re insured against ‘acts of the Devil’ instead, because deer are more of a diabolical type of species. ‘Acts of God’ would normally apply only to damage caused by cows or sheep.”
“Oh, good point,” sez Mary Magdalene, “I’ll write that down.”
“You don’t need to write it down,” sez Monica; “just use your memory.”
Mary sighs: “But ever since the deity Thoth taught us employees of the Refurbished Virgin how to use our pocket-sized detective’s notepads, none of us can remember a bloody thing via the old-fashioned method. It’s almost a curse, this gift of writing — tho it’s better than smart-phones.”
“Amen to that,” Monica laughs.
“What’s going on,” I whisper to Monica Vitti from under the covers in bed. “Did you finally solve the mystery?”
Monica presses her finger to her lips to shush me; then she mouths the words: “No — Mary’s got a deer infestation, and they’re eating all her flowers.”
I nod and mouth the words “Oh, I see!” Then I pull back the covers and climb out of bed and stretch.
Monica mouths: “What are you doing?”
I mouth: “I’m going to take a fully clothed bath in the cold pond out back real quick and then head over to Burnsville to help Mary Magdalene exterminate all her deer.”
Monica Vitti is aghast: “Exterminate!?” — she sez this accidentally aloud, thus causing our three other co-herdsmen to awake in the bed. Luckily they all just readjust their position and fall back to sleep again immediately.
Monica is careful to whisper now: “Do you mean that you’re going to cause the entire species of deer to go extinct?”
I now gently press my own finger to Monica Vitti’s lips, which shushes her up; then I mouth the words: “Of course not — there are far too many deer living in these hills: it would take more than just one heroic herdsman from Hades to extirpate them all overnight. No, no, no: what I’m thinking of doing is simply shooing away those herds that have entered unbidden into The Refurbished Virgin Plant Shop — didn’t Miss Magdalene say they’re deflowering the place?”
“I can read lips, you know,” Mary’s voice from the phone’s receiver delivers this quip.
Now I gaze at Monica in distress and mouth the words: “But Mary’s trapped in the phone — she shouldn’t be able to see what we’re saying in silence!”
“There’s more to heaven and earth than is contained in your philosophy, Horatio,” the echoing laugh of the Magdalene somehow pervades our whole bedroom.
§
[To be continued...]
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