“Don’t I get a last meal?” I said. “I want Swiss steak, mashed potatoes, baby peas with onions-frozen, not canned-pickled beet salad, hot yeast rolls with real butter and strawberry jam-Hey, aren’t you going to tell me to shut up?” My plan wasn’t going to work without getting her temper up to its boiling point.
“I want to hear what you’d have for dessert-
“That depends; are you a good cook?”
“This is theoretical, Miss Yoder. Now tell me.”
“No can do, dear. For something as important as the last part of my last meal, I need to deal in facts. Can you cook?”
“No! But I can get something from the bakery, ding dang it!”
“I’ll thank you not to swear in front of me, Tiny-although in this case, it is behind me. Which is exactly where I tell the Devil to go stand whenever he tries to tempt me. Tell me, Tiny, do you see the Prince of Darkness back there?”
“Hunh?”
“Don’t worry; you will soon enough. Would it be a Mennonite bakery, or one owned by someone from another denomination?”
“What difference does that make?”
“In all modesty, Mennonites excel when it comes to cooking. Eating too. If you want the very best, go to a Mennonite bakery-but you probably won’t find a devil’s food cake there. Ha-ha.”
“Very funny-not! And now you’re babbling. Just shut up, Miss Yoder, or I’ll shoot. I swear that I will.”
“Well, that
“Yes,” she hissed. Good, she was getting up a proper head of steam, of the kind that made her less likely to see straight, much less shoot straight.
“Say, Tiny, I’ve been thinking: if you shoot me at this close range, it’s going to be really, really messy. Brains and blood everywhere.”
“That’s okay; I’m washable.”
“No doubt that you are, but did Melvin tell you that bleached blond hair absorbs blood like a sponge, and that unless you do something to protect those beautiful locks of yours, you’ll be carting my scarlet DNA around in your ponytail until you snip it off, or it grows out. In fact, you’re going to have to shave your head starting in about five minutes if you don’t want my murder to be traced back to you. You see, the
“Why, that rat,” she said, hissing again, despite the dearth of “S”s.
“Indeedymouse.” I think it’s important to point out that lying to save one’s life is a whole lot different from lying just for the sake of lying; it certainly isn’t as much fun. Besides, I really can’t be faulted for the fact that Tiny was so gullible.
Or was she? “Where did you learn all that medical terminology, Miss Yoder?”
“I’ve donated extensively to the Bedford County Memorial Hospital,” I said. At least that part was true.
She thought a moment, and all the while the gun barrel never left its soft nest behind my ear. “Well, if you think-even for an instant-that I’m going to go after Melvin now, instead of you, you’ve got another think coming.”
What was it about that man that gave him so much power over women? Allow me to amend that:
“Very well,” I said. “Suit yourself. I’m sure, what with your moderately good looks, you’ll have no trouble making friends in prison.”
“Well, I’m not going to prison, so there! You’re going to help me protect my hair.”
“And then you’ll kill me? That hardly seems fair!”
“You do a lot of whining, Miss Yoder. It’s no wonder your cousin doesn’t like you.”
“Why, that is an absolutely true, but unnecessary, thing for you to say! But, since I’m at your mercy, what choice do I have, but to protect those bleached blond locks of yours?”
“Miss Yoder! That’s the second time you’ve referred to my hair as ‘bleached blond.’ How dare you be so presumptuous?”
“Hey, if it looks like a dead woodchuck-I mean, what are the chances it’s not, right?”
“Grrr!”
I reckoned that was the precise moment that Tiny was at the zenith of her tizzy. Keeping my hands straight down to my sides, I leaned back, slowly and stiffly, a veritable sinking tower of Yoder - and I mean sinking, not stinking. The farther back I went, the more I felt the tip of the pistol barrel move in relation to my ear. First it seemed to be caught in the soft spot, and then it slid over the hump to graze along my temple.
There are only so many degrees a body can lean without falling altogether, but it wasn’t until I came close to reaching the critical point that Tiny seemed to notice what was going on. “Hey,” she yelled. “What the-”
“Timber!” I cried, and took her down with me as I plummeted backward.
As for what happened next, I owe it all to my parents, who were dairy farmers. You see, what most folks don’t realize is that the milk you buy in the supermarket is taken from a cow that has given birth in the not too distant past, and that is being kept in a perpetual state of nursing. We refer to these cows as “freshened.” At any rate, in order for there to be milk available to sell, the calves must be removed from their mothers and weaned early. It was my job, after school, to care for these unhappy “orphans,” and more often than not, this job required a good deal of wrangling.
Papa had an uncanny ability to communicate with his cows. Most of this communication was unspoken, although he used a few grunts and hand signals. Occasionally, he had to deal with a wayward calf by throwing it to the ground and dragging it to where he wanted it-all by just using his bare hands. (Papa eschewed ropes.) I, on the other hand, had to get a headlock on my charges just to turn them around in their stalls so that they faced the feed bucket.
But Papa never had to manhandle a bank robber
“If you’ve broken my implants, I’ll sue,” she screamed from beneath me.
I could see the gun glinting in the grass about a dozen feet away, so I was no longer in any physical danger, but I still gave her tit for tat. “Well, I can sue you; I expected a softer landing.”
“Get off me, you big oaf! You Mennonite country bumpkin.”
I sat up on her sternum, just south of the Rockies, with my legs splayed outward to hold her arms down. “Why, Tiny Timms, how you talk! And I always thought you were the sweetest of the bunch.”
“You were a fool! Melvin said that you once married a bigamist, and I read in the National Revealer that you had a love affair with a real-life Bigfoot.”
“It was inadvertent adultery,” I wailed, and this was my very last wail-I promise! “And as for Bigfoot, what they say about men with big feet is absolutely true, so how could I resist?”
“Huh? You don’t deny it?”
“ ‘If you read it in black- and-white, it must be right.’ Stories written in colored ink are not to be trusted.”
“Yeah, I guess. Hey, what you doing?”
I’d done a complete about-face so that I could hold both her tiny hands in one of mine, while the other performed a necessary function. “I’m removing my over-the-shoulder boulder holder,” I said, exhibiting far more patience than she would have, had the tables been turned.
“What? You’re taking off your bra?”
“Don’t worry; I’m just going to tie you up with it.”
“But you can’t! I’ll absolutely freak out. In fact, I’m freaking out now with you holding my hands.”
“Well, dear, you should have thought about that before you embarked on a life of crime.” I emitted a long, drawn-out sigh. “And if I can’t even hold your hand, what chance do we have?”
“
“I suppose we could move to Iowa; gay marriage is legal there now. Plus which, I hear that folks are more taciturn there-especially out on the farms. We could get ourselves a nineteenth-century farmhouse with a working windmill-I’ve always wanted one of those-and raise pigs and corn. Do you know how to call pigs, Tiny?”
“Miss Yoder, you’re crazy! I mean like
“Oh phooey on pills. All I need is clean Midwestern air and-ding, dang, St. Louis International Airport, Concourse A!”
I wasn’t getting very far in removing my flopper stopper. Not without letting go of Tiny’s hands for a second or two. Not all of the petroleum by- products Tiny owned had been affixed internally. Attached to her tiny fingers were the longest fake nails I’d ever seen in all my born days. Ruby red garden rakes-that was what they were! If I let go of Tiny’s hands, those claws could grate my flesh like a head of cabbage.
“Miss Yoder, you just swore!”
“Indeed, I did. Please remind me later to apologize.”
“But you have such a foul mouth! I’ve been to Terminal A. On a Sunday evening. I had three hours to wait before my next flight. I’m not religious, but I prayed that God would take me-that’s how boring I found the place.”
“You too?”
She nodded vigorously. “So maybe we can make a truce?”
“A truce?” I said. “Like what?”
“I’ll promise not to struggle, and you can take me somewhere and lock me up-but just don’t tie me up, because that will really freak me out.”
Sometimes one has to go with one’s gut. (Judging by what I saw at the shore last summer, there sure are a lot of people going very far in life.) Call me silly and ship me off to boarding school, but I had a feeling-in my large intestine-that Tiny was so terrified of bondage that she would indeed cooperate. Of course I would have to hold the gun on her. However, she did not have to know that, as a practicing Mennonite, I would never, ever use it.
I got a death grip on one of her frail wrists and we both stood up. After a couple of steps, and a quick bob to get the gun, I dragged her straight into my laundry. I swung her up in front of the dryer and pried open the door with the end of the gun barrel.
“Climb in, dear,” I whispered. The laundry room is an add-on behind the kitchen and has its own rear door so that one can head directly out to the clothesline if a genuinely fresh scent is desired. (I particularly love the faint smell of nearby cow patties.) You can be sure that I immediately shoved a chair under the doorknob that led to the kitchen.
“What?”
“It’s a jumbo-size, commercial machine; there’s plenty of room.”
“But I’ll suffocate!”
“No, you won’t. I just cleaned the lint trap; stick your nose up against it. By the way, I clean all my lint traps before and after using my dryers, don’t you? A lot of people are lazy about cleaning them, which is a good way to get your house burned down.”
“I don’t do laundry,” Tiny said. “I get Peewee to do it.”
“Well, I’ll be dippety-doodled! How on earth do you get a man into the laundry room?”
“Look at me, Miss Yoder; I could have any man I want. Why would I be with someone like Peewee unless there were some perks-you know, special services?”
“Hop in,” I said, “and start praying that I don’t send you for a short spin.”
