Рита Браун - The Tail Of The Tip-Off

Leaning forward he grasped for the closet door handle but he couldn't quite make it. He tried to pick one foot up but it wasn't budging.

"Dammit to hell!"

"I'm not coming down the stairs," Elocution called out.

"You're missing a good one." Cazenovia laughed out loud.

"He's opened the closet?"

"No, he's stuck in the glue and he's got it all over his hands, too. He can't even untie his shoes and step out of them until he cleans off his hands. Oh, it's not a pretty sight."

Elocution, curiosity raging, crept to the top of the stairs. "If he falls backwards he'll knock over the drum and the carpet tacks."

"He's in a pickle," Cazenovia guffawed.

"If he has any sense he'll stay where he is until JoJo and Carl come back." Elocution tried not to laugh at Herb's predicament, but it was funny.

"What are you looking at?" Herb roared as he beheld the cat peering down at him through the banisters.

"You. I came down for a closer look." She slipped halfway through the white banisters.

"Elo. Don't you dare. Stay where you are." Herb had visions of Elocution getting stuck in the glue with him.

A knock on the front door startled them.

"I'll see who it is." Cazenovia turned, her long hair swirling out from the speed.

"I'm in here!" Herb bellowed.

The door opened and Harry gingerly stepped through, accompanied by Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker. Cazenovia quickly filled them in-except for Harry, of course.

The animals rushed forward to see. Harry didn't lag behind.

"Rev."

"This goddamned carpet has been nothing but a trial!" He lurched to and fro.

"Uh, well, let me go find cardboard or something so you can step onto it."

"I can't pick my feet up."

"No, but you can untie your shoes."

He held up his fingers. "The laces are too thin."

"Can't you pull that stuff off your hands?"

"What do you think I've been trying to do!" he crossly said. "It just transfers from one hand to the other and then my fingers get stuck."

"Okay, okay. I'll find something I can kneel on and I'll untie your shoes. Then you can step out."

"Does he know?" Mrs. Murphy asked the church cats.

"Not yet," Elocution answered in a singsong voice.

"Boy, will you all be in trouble." Tucker affected an innocent air.

"You lying sack of you-know-what! You ate as much as we did." Pewter boxed her ears.

"Prove it." Tucker loved tormenting the cats.

"I have ways to get even." The gray cat flattened her ears. Quite a scary sight.

Harry, who had dashed to the little kitchen, came back with Coke cartons she'd flattened. She carefully put them on the rubber cement then stepped onto them. She only had two and she put them side by side so she could kneel down on one knee. She slipped a little, her arms flailing, but righted herself.

"That's all we need, two of us stuck. I will wring their necks! I will bless them in every language I know."

"Right." Harry put one knee down, holding her foot over the goo. It wasn't that easy. She quickly untied both shoes, secretly thankful that he hadn't been able to bend over and try it himself because he would have smeared the powerful glue over the laces and then she would have had to cut him out. She stretched out the laces so he could step out, then she slowly stood up on one foot while bringing the other foot over and down onto the red Coke cardboard carton.

Nimbly she stepped back onto the safe part of the hall holding out her hand for a grateful but angry Herb.

"Thank you."

"It was an adventure."

"I will kill them." He stomped to the kitchen to try and peel off the cement.

The animals stayed behind to gossip.

Harry walked into the kitchen. "Can I help get that stuff off? If you have rubber gloves maybe I can pull it off more easily."

"No. It's worse with rubber. I think that's why I got stuck in the LaBrea Tar Pits. Rubber-soled shoes." His sense of humor was returning. "Of all the damned, dumb things. To walk off and leave that shit on the floor. Sorry." He apologized for swearing in front of a lady.

"I'd say worse."

"Is there worse?" He used a paring knife to peel off the blackish stuff.

"Oh sure," she cheerfully replied.

"Where do you hear such stuff? Your mother would have been horrified."

"All you have to do is tune into rap music. Every other word is the F-word and it's filled with romantic notions of rape, pillage, and revenge. It's probably what the Norsemen would have sung in the seventh century A.D. if they'd known how to rap."

"I see. A true cultural advance." He'd cleaned one hand, holding it under the cold tap because it burned a little.

"Hey, we can't take all the credit. The English went to an art museum to see a dead sheep."

"I thought they got over that. The dead sheep. I remember reading about that."

"Maybe they have but as I said Americans can't take all the credit for these cultural improvements."

"You're right. My patriotism got the better of me." He'd held the other hand under the water now even though little round bits adhered between his fingers. "This stuff is nasty."

"I'll say. Got any hand cream?"

"Charlotte has some on her desk."

Harry walked outside to Charlotte's office, nabbed a blue jar of Nivea off her desk, and came back to Herb. He rubbed the soothing cream onto his hands.

The door opened, and JoJo and Carl, full and happy, clomped down the hall. Herb emerged from his kitchen, keeping his temper in check. He described his ordeal.

Blushing, they apologized, said not another word and immediately returned to their task. The first thing they had to do was liberate Herb's shoes, ruined.

All four cats watched from the stairway. Tucker, who couldn't leap over the glue, watched from behind the brothers.

"Can't even give those to the Salvation Army," Pewter remarked.

"Since when have you given anything to the Salvation Army?" Mrs. Murphy said.

"I haven't. Humans can take care of themselves. These guys are sure working fast, aren't they?"

"Fear and guilt will do that to you." Elocution wanted to bat JoJo's ponytail.

"Look who's talking." Cazenovia then informed the others about Elocution racing up the stairs when Herb headed for the closet.

Back in the kitchen, Herb made Harry a cup of tea, one for himself, too. They sat down to go over the calendar. Since Harry was on the Parish Guild, the calendar wasn't her responsibility but Herb wanted feedback so she dutifully listened.

"-tricky."

"April is. Why don't you have the church picnic the first weekend in May? It shouldn't be too hot and the only real worry you'll have is rain. If it rains we'll have it here."

"I like to get the jump on spring but-you're right. On a day like today you have to have faith to believe in spring. 'O ye of little faith,'?" he mused. "Uh, tomorrow's Gospel reading." He had told her of his two choices.

"Jesus and the disciples in the boat and the waves crash over. They wake Him up and He calms the wind and the waves. My vote." Harry smiled.

"I guess I suffered my own tempest," he sheepishly admitted.

She whispered, "They were dumb. I mean I like the Gentrys but they can't chew gum and walk at the same time."

He laughed. "Let's see how far they've gotten."

They both walked into the hall. The brothers had gotten the padding down to the foot of the stairs. Next would come the carpet.

"It's going to make such a difference."

The four cats watched with apprehension as the two humans approached the closet. Tucker, on the stairs with the cats, lowered her head.

The Gentry brothers were now at the vestibule end of the hall. On their knees, they were unrolling the lovely carpet.

"You know, I started down the hall to check on communion wafers. I can't remember if Charlotte reordered some or not. I've got enough to get through tomorrow but I'd better check. That's how I got stuck."