[Cont.]
One night, a suspicious character is seen lurking in the shadows with the assumed intention of burglarizing a house in our neighborhood. So the police are called. But when their cop cars try to drive down the street that leads to the house where the robber was reported as “poised and ready to break in”, our cattle and buffalos are standing in the way, just loitering and grazing, in the streets and throughout the lawns of the suburbs; thus the way is blocked by our livestock. This angers the police: they call us herdsmen up on our landline and shout:
“Bryan! Monica! Anna! Fernando! Jeanette! You are irresponsible citizens because your cows and bulls and buffalos and bisons and other creatures are standing around, clogging all the streets of your neighborhood, while there is an attempt at robbery in progress: We were called in to prevent a burglar from committing his crime, but now we can’t drive our patrol vehicle past your livestock.”
Monica Vitti and Anna Karina and Fernando Pessoa and Jeanette MacDonald and I are all leaning in toward the receiver of our household’s black rotary telephone that is plugged into the wall-jack; and we are listening intently, because it feels alarming to receive a call from the police at night. Once we comprehend the officer’s complaint, I cup my palm over the part of the phone that you’re supposed to speak into, so that the cop doesn’t hear what I wish to be a private discussion with my fellow herdsmen, and I say to my housemates:
“Who wants to answer this kind man?”
And Anna Karina raises her hand and sez: “Let me do it.”
So I offer her the receiver carefully while uncovering the end of the phone that you’re supposed to talk into, so that it’s no longer muted; then Ms. Karina sez:
“Hello, is this Officer X?”
“Yes, speaking.”
“Hi, X; this is Anna. I’m glad you called. Now tell me if I understand you correctly: You say that there’s a burglary in progress, or at least that some robber is poised outside of a house and planning to break in and steal things? Is this correct?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“And you’re saying that you are attempting to drive to the sight of the crime — or the potential crime — and yet our livestock are blocking the road?”
“Yes, that’s the problem, exactly.”
“OK,” Anna nods, even though the cop cannot see her, “here is my recommendation. You have a siren on your police vehicle, right?”
“Right.”
“Alright, turn on the siren. This should also make the emergency bulbs light up and spin — I’m guessing that you have flashing lights, probably red white and blue in color (just like the flag of France), mounted on the top of your cop car. Am I correct about this?”
“Yes, you guessed correctly.”
“So, turn on the siren and the lights, and this shall alert any surrounding traffic that you are about to make a move that would be technically illegal if you were not an official member of the city’s police force.”
“Yes, yes — I am familiar with the procedure of using the siren and lights to get around difficult situations when in traffic, but this is a whole different ballgame: these are buffalo and cattle…”
“No, listen: I wasn’t finished,” Anna sez; “I’m not expecting that the livestock will gain any revelation from the siren and the lights — I’m sure that these things mean almost nothing to them: this emergency procedure from the vulgar world of mankind is just another obnoxious distraction to their otherwise peaceful grazing — no, the animals shall maintain their placid stance. The reason I’m telling you to flash your cherry is just in case any humans are watching. For then, if they are nearby, they can leap out of the way. Cuz we don’t want anybody to get hurt; and I’m going to ask you to do something that might seem a little reckless. Are you following me?”
“I follow you.”
“Good. Now, here’s my plan. You turn on your siren and lights; then you offroad it. Do you understand this concept of offroading?”
“Yes, it means literally and intentionally to drive off the road, away from the smooth, paved surface of the street and onto rough, irregular terrain, such as gravel, desert sand, jungle ferns, or lawns in the suburbs.”
“Excellent answer,” Anna smiles at the phone receiver; “you’ve done your homework, I can tell. So, in summary, what I’m suggesting is that, since our herds of farm animals are blocking all the main roads, you should race over the grass in order to arrive more quickly at the scene of the crime. But, first, alert any nearby pedestrians of your intent, so as to remain in compliance with the adage ‘Safety First’.”
“Yes, I understand,” sez the police officer on the other side of the line, who is calling from his car-phone, “but there’s just one problem with your solution…”
“A problem with a solution?” Anna looks perplexed. “That sounds like something that should not even be possible.”
“Well, now, consider the following,” replies the officer patiently: “You’re telling me to basically drive around the livestock that are blocking this road, which leads to the house where the burglar is poised to strike. But, even if I employ the standard emergency protocol of siren-and-lights, it cannot help me, because there are cows and bisons and bulls and goats and buffalos and sheep and even cute cats and iguanas on the closely-cropped lawns. What I’m trying to say is that they’re not just grazing and loitering on the paved suburban streets — these creatures are in all the yards as well.”
“Hm,” sez Anna Karina, frowning, “and I suppose they’re not just in the front yards, but they’re also standing in all the back yards?”
“Yes, back yards, too.”
Anna thinks for a moment, and then she perks up and sez: “How about the sidewalks!? You could get on a motorcycle, turn on your lights and siren, and just zip along until—”
“No, no, I’m afraid these animals don’t distinguish between main roads, sidewalks, and yards. They’re just grazing everywhere. Public, private; residential or commercial zones — these distinctions mean nothing to them. Either that, or they’re smarter than we credit them for being, yet they choose willfully to disrespect humankind’s attempts at establishing order in this universe.”
Monica Vitti now makes an eager-yet-desperate motion with her hand, to get Anna’s attention — it appears that Ms. Vitti has an idea, and she would like for Anna Karina to pass the phone’s receiver to her so that she can take a stab at this dilemma.
Anna passes the telephone to Monica.
“Hello, Mister Cop?” Monica sez.
“Yes, hello,” sez the officer.
“Hi, this is Monica speaking now. I have a plan that I think might work.”
There is a moment of static. Then the policeman sez: “OK, let’s hear it — I’m all ears. Anything is better than sitting trapped here in this stationary vehicle with all these farm animals surrounding me.”
“Understood. Now, first I have a question,” sez Monica Vitti. “Regarding this potential burglar, whose crime you’re aiming to circumvent — can you actually see this person from your current position?”
“Yes, affirmative.”
“Great. Now, here’s my follow-up question,” Monica pauses, takes a deep breath, and then blurts out very quickly: “This morning, when she was preparing your midday meal, did your wife happen to pack a fresh apple into your lunchbox alongside the ham sandwich?”
The police officer, after a moment of confusion, slowly turns his head to the passenger seat where his lunchbox is sitting; he reaches over and opens up its lid, then pushes the sandwich aside and discovers that, indeed, his wife packed him an apple today.
“In fact, there IS an apple,” answers the officer; “how did you know that?”
“I didn’t,” sez Monica; “that was just a lucky guess. I figured that most wives include a fresh fruit when they pack a box-lunch, especially when their husband works in the crime-fighting industry. If you hadn’t found an apple, or if it turned out that you weren’t even married, then my hope was that you’d find that you had packed your own lunch, or that you paid someone to pack it for you, and that whoever made the decision about what to include alongside the ham sandwich would have chosen at least a watermelon, a banana, one carrot, a mango, or some oranges; because livestock love to eat food — it’s like candy for them; or, actually, it’s rather like illegal drugs: they’ll do ANYthing to get their mouth on a fresh piece of food. So what I’m gonna ask you to do now is take your apple and toss it out the window. (Roll your driver-side window down, first.) Aim at the burglar — by the way, is she still poised there?”
“Yes, but it’s a he,” sez the cop, rolling the window down manually and craning his neck to make sure that he’s relaying accurate info. “Yeah, women don’t usually engage in criminal activity; I don’t know why that is. — But this guy’s still standing poised and obviously ready to commit his burglary.”
“Good, good, good,” sez Monnica Vitti; “now, like I said, take your apple and lob it at the robber. Try to arc your toss so that the fruit lands approximately three meters away from the perp and then bounces a few times and rolls even closer to him. If possible, make the fruit stop directly at the sole of his footwear, so that it just barely touches the steel toe of his boot. He’s wearing black, steel-toed boots, I assume?”
“Yes, the boots are black. His whole outfit is black.” The cop squints, to make sure. “Yes — except his mask, which appears to be forest-green. Lime-green, maybe… it’s hard to tell in this light.”
“That’s fine,” sez Monica Vitti; “green masks are fashionable. Go ahead and confiscate it, when all’s said and done; then you can wear it yourself, on your next night out. — The important thing is that you toss that fresh apple onto the grass near the potential burglar’s feet. For, what will happen after that…”
“Wait!” sez the cop. “But what if I miss?”
“You won’t miss. I believe in you,” Monica Vitti reassures the policeman. “What I’m trying to explain is that the apple that you toss forth will trigger a general stampede, because, as I said, our livestock love fresh fruit and cannot resist it; therefore they’ll see and smell the apple as you lob it from the window of your patrol car. Since the burglar is standing nearby, during the herd’s attempt to gobble up the fruit, the stampeding animals will trample this would-be villain to death. Then you can wait till the coast is clear to retrieve the criminal’s corpse, and cuff him and take him down to the station.”
The cop slowly smiles. “Ms. Vitti, you’re a genius.”
Monica Vitti rolls her eyes. “Just do the plan, NOW.”
The officer retrieves the apple from his lunchbox and hastily throws it at the house, and it hits the window directly in front of the potential burglar. The suspect flinches and trembles when hearing the sound of the crash — luckily, however, only the outer glass of the double-pane window breaks, and the apple bounces back and lands directly in front of the robber: An extreme close-up shows the fruit kissing her peep-toe shoe.
Now all the cattle and buffalos that are nearby stampede toward the treat that has appeared, in hopes of eating it; and, in the process, the suspect paces away briskly thru the path that the livestock leave open for her, because the beasts part politely to either side, like the waters of the Red Sea when Moses made his exodus from Egypt with the ancient Israelites, to allow the damsel safe passage.
So that’s how the tryst was averted. An officer of the law showed up early at the scene, before anything steamy could occur, and, by using his smarts, he thwarted the affair’s consummation, if you know what I mean.
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