DISTINGUISHED INVALIDS

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

A canvass of the neighborhood the evening before last revealed that many men are still prevented from going outside. Mr. George Derry, the distinguished singer, and Mr. Thomas Fox, the druggist, just to name two, along with Mr. William Wilson, Mr. Nicholas Olmanza, Mr. Louis Caspar, Mr. Henry Caspar, Mr. Harold Robinson, Mr. Edward Menkens, and Mr. Stanley Rotabidel. The cost of these confinements is already being felt throughout the town. A plan to wreck a train on the line between Pointersville and Flat Falls was brought to light yesterday morning. Platelayers arriving to work discovered that a slab of timber, ten feet long, ten inches wide, and two inches thick, had been removed from a nearby mine opening and laid across the rails near Water-Bowl Bridge. Mr. Olmanza and Mr. Rotabidel are usually posted at the guard-house there, and would likely have foiled the plot. The board was smashed to bits by passing trains, and no one was harmed, but railway officials concede that a more serious outcome was possible. Similar stories were reported at the workplaces of the others. The Caspars' parking garage saw the theft of two vehicles. Mr. Menkens’ restaurant grill was turned on and several hamburgers were cooked. An employee of Mr. Fox reported that one of the pill drawers felt “lighter by half.” And a woman arriving for Mr. Derry’s late show at the Navy Club was gravely disappointed to learn that the entertainment would instead be Allan McGregor, the “singing sculptor,” who performs light opera while fashioning a likeness of an audience member selected at random. “I suppose it wasn’t all that terrible,” said the woman, Ms. Barbara Moore Davis. “But there’s nothing like hearing George Derry.” She attempted to illustrate by singing the first verse of “Carisbrook Castle,” but her effort, while game, exposed a lack of formal training.