The Myth of Wile E

Landlocked

A truck from "Good Fences" was parked at the top of my hill, and a couple of guys in matching "Good Fences" baseball hats and work shirts were inspecting my spool table.

I told the men I wasn't interested in buying or selling any stolen merchandise, but they assured me that I was thinking of the wrong kind of "fences" entirely. One of the guys (whose embroidered shirt pocket read "Dave") told me his company had been hired to put in a fence at the property line, but first they had to remove some junk that had been illegally dumped in their client's plot. I told them that sounded like quite a chore and to let me know if they would like some cider or elderberry tea.

As it turned out, the "junk" was my farm stand. They told me if I didn't move the spool table, they'd have to haul it away.

"Well, where do I have to move it to?" I asked.

"Back that way," Dave told me, pointing down the hill toward my house.

I grabbed the edge and dragged it a few feet.

"Farther back," Dave said.

I went around to the street side and gave the farm stand a shove, pushing it a little closer to the edge, making the spool table tilt precariously downhill.

"More," he said.

"More?"

"Behind the property line."

"Where?"

"Down thataway."

"I don't see any lines."

"Basically, see down there, where the hill starts? Where that house is? There."

I explained that it would be kind of a lot of trouble for my customers to walk all the way down the hill to get to the farm stand.

"Aw, don't you worry about that," Dave said.

"No?"

"No. They won't be walking down there at all, not if they don't want to get arrested for trespassing."

"You mean I'll have to carry their poems and food all the way up to them?"

"I don't think you're grasping the situation, here. You see, your plot down there is what we like to call, 'landlocked.' You understand what that means?"

"Of course," I said. "It means there's no shore."

Dave chuckled. "Let me guess. You got that land for a song, right? Never wondered why it was such a steal, right? I mean damn. You bought yourself any New York bridges lately?"

"No," I said. "What would I want a bridge in New York for?" (Although on the plus side, I suppose it wouldn't be landlocked.)

Dave went on to say that he'd maybe feel bad for me a tiny bit if it weren't for the fact that because of me, the whole development project was way behind schedule, and did I realize I was personally responsible for depriving tri-county residents of easy access to fashionable clothing, cell phone accessories, frozen yogurt drinks, and pizza by the slice?

Then he asked me if I wanted to leave before he put up the fence.

"I don't think so," I said.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Suit yourself. Oh, and the mailbox has gotta go too."

I asked Dave if he might lend me a hand getting my spool table down the hill.

"Sure," Dave said.

He grabbed an edge and pushed the spool table up onto its side, so it was once again a wheel.

Then he gave it a shove and it took off down the hill, wobbling at first but gaining speed the whole way down, until it hit a rock near the bottom of the hill, launched airborne over my house, and crashed into the woodpile, knocking logs every which way and breaking one side of the spool table into more of a D shape.

"There ya go," Dave said, brushing off his hands. He turned to me. "Now, need help with that mailbox?"