File Under: Arc for Art's Sake

It was six p.m. and I needed a sugar fix so I jumped in my car and headed toward Vanilla Bakery on Wilshire.  Making my way through traffic, I got a creepy feeling and it grew creepier and creepier, like disembodied fingers massaging my neck.  And as I pulled up to Vanilla I realized the reason: I was being followed.  A black Escalade with tinted windows and blinding hi-beams had been close on my tail for the past six blocks and as I backed into a parking spot by the curb, it sidled up next to my car.

This, I thought, is not a good thing.

Then I remembered Myron’s suspicion that his new bosses were following him around in black BMWs. I had assumed this was the paranoid delusion of a man who had missed his matutinal meds, but it turned out he was right. After all, Myron is now in the business of escorting valuable goods into the U.S. for the purpose of underwriting film projects. Why shouldn’t the bosses put a tail on him and his friends? I called Myron on his cell phone but it went to voice mail so I called the house. His grouchy Czechoslovakian maid, Fanny answered.

“No, Meester Charles,” she wheezed, “Meester Myron is not here. He vas called avay dis afternoon. He is having a meeting with der hoodlums he now vorks for.  I hef not met these people but the whole ting smells bad, very bad. Like donkey goulash.  Very bad smell, yah! Smell is bad, taste is worse. If offered, do not eat!”

“I’ll remember that, the next time I’m at Spago,” I said.  If Myron’s goons were following me around, it probably wasn’t to get my autograph.  But since I had nothing to hide, there was nothing to worry about.  I opened my door and as I did the front passenger window of the SUV slid down.

“Mister Yarborough,” came a woman’s stern voice.  It was Miss Feather, my daughter’s kindergarten teacher. “Mister Yarborough, come here,” she commanded.  I went up to the window, half relieved and half anxious.  I had blown off our parent/teacher meeting again last week after promising to change my ways and become an “involved” parent.  And now, since I had ignored her numerous calls, she had gotten in her car and followed me. With gray hair pulled together and choked into a bun atop her head, Miss Feather sat primly in her seat, shooting disdain over the rim of her glasses. “Come closer,” she said. “We need to talk!” I came closer and, no sooner had I set my hands on the door when she swatted my knuckles with two great cracks of a wooden ruler.

“That’s for your unexcused absence on Friday,” she said.

“But Miss Feather, I had to go to a very important--”

“No excuses!” she said. “I expect to see you in my classroom at 5 p.m. sharp, next Friday for our parent/teacher meeting. Understood? Are you aware that your daughter showed up at school dressed as Joan of Arc this week and started a bonfire in the trash can?”

“She did?" I said.  "What’s wrong with that?  We all started fires as kids.”

“At your reform school?”

How did she know about that, I wondered.  “Look, it’s just a little trash can fire,” I said.

Miss Feather’s face grew red. “She was standing in it at the time.”

Damn, I thought.  What a towering talent!  Meryl is only five years old and she’s already got Method Acting down cold.  Yale Drama School will be lucky to have her.  “Okay,” I said, pulling back from Miss Feather and heading toward Vanilla.  “I’ll see you on Friday.”

“You’d better.”

Brilliant, I thought, brilliant.  Meryl gets a bourbon cupcake and fifty bucks for this one.