Danny cleans up his mess for once

Danny threw the last egg into the blender along with a handful of wheat germ, a squirt of honey, a dollop of yogurt, and the frozen banana that was guaranteed to make the whole mess taste like a milkshake. Unfortunately,  Danny did not break up the banana nor did he think of putting the lid on the blender in a practical or a philosophical way. The resulting adventure in practical physics put Danny in that child-like frame of mind that seeks someone anyone--to blame.  Shit!!  What a mess. Things needed to change around here, he looked at the clock it was, 11:11 am.

His girlfriend and his mother passed through his mind in rapid succession along with his mother's mutt, barking and yapping  on the rim of the cauldron that was his mind. While his girlfriend lacked sympathy for his physical needs, selfishly concentrating on her own marital needs, it was hard to associate her with the blender. Irritating as the dog was and guilty of many things, Tiffany was not around and had never exhibited an interest in the blender which was clearly not a can opener. Danny's  mind rested on his mother who did not need to be around to attract blame. She owned the damned blender, after all, and she was always getting on his case about nutrition and not smoking and junk like that and then when he drops in for some healthy stuff, she isn't even here and he has to make the whole damn thing himself! Women were all selfish. Having solved his most pressing problem to his own satisfaction, he lit a cigarette, threw the match on the floor and stomped out of the house, leaving his mother to deduce his visit and feel guilty for missing him, let alone the mess she would have to clean up around the kitchen counter, walls and floor.

an eventful morning  was waiting outside the door for Danny. The stone path, which should have been firm beneath his manly tread, gave a soft and ominous squish. This reminder of Tiffany's existence drew his wrath and strained his meager vocabulary which could only vocalize  itself in volume and intensity. Stooping to remove the bit of dog doo  that had not been removed by his war dance around the yard, he noted a glitter of gold and extracted from between the stones, a thin, gold chain, the catch twisted and broken.  "where did that come from?"  Certain his mother had no gold chains, he pocketed it, and walked thoughtfully away, fingering the links in his pocket.

As he descended the stairs into the subway, a faint barking from the other end of the subway, failed to penetrate his consciousness in part because he was intent on scowling at a policeman who was keeping an eye on the slouching, unkempt youth. What up?! he thought, you don't wash your hair for a coupla weeks and they act like you're a bank robber or something."  His scowl relaxed when the policeman could no longer see his face and the yipping, frantic now dog penetrated his thick skull and finally drew his attention.

"Tiffany!" he cried, "What are you doing here?" Tiffany leaped  from the stranger's arms into his. Since Tiffany was small even for a Maltese and the stranger was large even for a grown man with bulging biceps, golden chains and a really first class pony tail, Tiffany was still able to leap from his arms.  Danny looked down on his mother's pup, she was obviously terrified.

The stranger's look of alarm turned to a threatening glower when he got a good look at Danny.
 
"Buzz off!" he growled.


Danny's, self-absorption was penetrated by the din and his usually hidden intelligence rose to the surface. Tiffany was being kidnapped. Tiffany might be the dumbest, ugliest dog in the world whose owner paid more attention to it, than she did to her own son, but the dog's obvious belief that Danny could and would rescue it spurred him on to make the valiant attempt.

"Hey, you f@#king  thief," he said in a voice that contained not the slightest trace of a whine.  "That's my god damned dog you had there."

The dognapper's confidence in the wimpiness of the youth before him, wavered slightly but not sufficiently to be afraid of him.

"You leave right now," he growled, "and you can leave in one piece."

Danny  had never been in a confrontation before--not counting a small altercation in second grade with Jason, a pitch fork short of the devil,  from next door that resulted in a bloody nose. He had lost that one though his mother thought everyone sitting down to cookies and Kool Aid was a happy ending. His dad when told the story had merely snorted. Danny decided to never venture into the fighting world again.

"I warn you, sir," he said with all the dignity of a Rosenberg on the way to the gas chamber, "if you don't hand over my mother's dog instantly, I will yell for the 5 O  right down the path there...." Danny pointed.

The dognapper's next puzzled growl was merely pro forma and though Danny's Latin was as non-existent as most other phases of his education, Robert intuitively knew this. Raising his voice above the volume of Tiffany's yelping, he yelled, "Police!" Police!  Help help Police!!"

The policeman, happily justified in his belief that that boy was trouble, raced to the scene to arrest him. The dog's yapping, the boy's yelling, the gathering crowd eager to provide misinformation all failed to confuse the policeman who was really a decent, hard-working professional who promptly figured out the situation. Setting his own preferences aside, he proceeded to do his duty.

The man took off like a bat outa hell. The dog and boy ran for each other and were united with all the wet, licking joy one can expect of a dog of any size. The policeman ran after the man and caught him with little trouble. Danny  explained the situation with a coherence that would have astonished the academic world.   The dognapper tried to look like someone killing time while waiting for a train which was difficult with his hands cuffed behind his back and became impossible when  Danny slowly pulled out the gold chain from his pocket. His eyes bulged. Then a lifetime of criminal behavior came to his aid.

"Hey, cop, the kid stole my chain. I was just tryin' to get it back."

The policeman searched the now cursing dognapper, while Tiffany and Danny licked their lips and watched with the excitement that came with safety--until the policeman held out diamond wedding and engagement rings--the familiar rings of the hand that made cookies and Kool Aid. Panic flooded him.

"Hey, that's my mother's stuff!"  yelled Danny. Now fear set in, "Where's my mother?" he
blubbered.

The policeman was also kind and knew that punks could love their mothers. Didn't Scar Face? The policeman called for help for someone to take the thief in. He also ran a check on Danny and his heart softened as much as such a stalwart heart could soften when he saw there was absolutely nothing on him.

They found Danny's mother in the closet, tied up with a telephone cord and with a possible concussion. She was taken to the hospital for overnight observation full of rapture at the story told by the kind policeman of her son's  heroic rescue of Tiffany. Danny's  quiet, modest demeanor during the telling was as surprising as his heroism.

Danny really did feel the policeman was exaggerating and he was appalled that his mother had been locked in the closet while he had been fighting with the blender and making a god awful mess. "Might as well clean up the mess for when she gets back," he mumbled to the adoring dog as he slouched  with a sponge to scrub the kitchen floor.