Davy Rockwell raised his hand again. “Can this really be true? Can it really be true that there is no soft food available for purchase anywhere in the town of Pitcherville?”
“Of course not! That is ridiculous!” Davy’s question was answered by a tall man, whom Rodney and Wayne could not quite see at that moment except for the back of his head, which had a prominent bald spot in the middle of it. “I know where there is plenty of food matching that description.”
“Let him through!” said a man.
“Yes, let him speak!” shouted a different man. “He knows where soft food can be had.”
The crowd parted so that the tall man and a shorter man standing beside him could move to the front. Mr. Toland, Jr. stepped down from his crate and offered it to the tall man.
“Get a load of that!” said Wayne under his breath. “It’s Jackie. And lookit! Lonnie’s right with him!”
“I’ll bet those two had something to do with all the robberies last night,” said Rodney.
“Hello, my good friends and neighbors,” said Jackie, speaking in a loud and overly-formal speech-giving voice. Maybe you don’t recognize me and my business partner here. So allow us to introduce ourselves. I am Jackie Stovall — yes, your ol’ friend Jackie Stovall. And this is Lonnie Rowe.”
“You mean the same Jackie Stovall and Lonnie Rowe who turned over my Fluffy’s doghouse?” shouted Sharon, bristling.
“The same Jackie and Lonnie who let all the air out of my father’s tires?” yelled Davy.
“N’est pas? N’est pas?” asked Virgil.
Jackie lowered his outstretched palms to silence the murmurs of the small crowd of people glowering in front of him. “No, no, my friends, that was the old Jackie and Lonnie. Standing before you here today are the new Jackie and Lonnie. We have turned over a brand new leaf. For we are in the midst of a terrible crisis, ladies and gentlemen, and we must come together as one community.” Jackie joined all of his fingers together to show how a town of people could come together, provided that they all looked like fingers. “Someone, and we do not know who, has stolen all of the soft food that was for sale in the town of Pitcherville. A tragedy! An offense against nature! But I ask all of you on this dark day: will we stand idly by and allow the oldest of our citizens to starve? No, we most certainly will not!”
A woman started to clap her hands in support of what Jackie had just said but was so strongly frowned upon by the people standing around her that she immediately stopped. You see, most of the people standing around the woman had been victims of Jackie and Lonnie’s pranks and other acts of youthful vandalism, and were not yet convinced that the two had actually turned over a brand new leaf.
“So here is what Lonnie and I will do. Because we predicted that this thing might happen and prepared for it — because we had— had — now, what is the word?
“Head lice?” snickered someone in the crowd.
“No,” said Jackie, glowering at the person.
“Foresight?” offered someone else.
“Yes, foresight. Because we had the foresight, Lonnie and me, to scrape together as much money as we could to spend the last several months buying up a large quantity of soft food — food which is now sitting safe and sound in a secret location — because we have done this, ladies and gentlemen, we can now stand before you and reach out a helping hand.” Jackie reached out his hand to show how easy it was to do such a thing. “We have searched our souls, friends and neighbors, and decided that we have no right to keep that soft food to ourselves. No sir, we do not. So we will be rationing it out to all of those in need.”
“How much do you plan to take us for?” called out the man who had said “head lice.”
“Take you for?” Jackie seemed greatly offended by the question. He placed his hand on his chest to emphasize how offended and hurt and generally taken aback he was by such rudeness. “Perhaps you won’t believe me, but I don’t intend to charge you a single penny. Why? I will tell you why. Because we will use the barter system. I will give you, say a cup of Cream-of-Wheat, in exchange for something that you give me. Now, for example, I have made a bargain with my very own father, the Mayor. He has no teeth. He had teeth — false teeth, that is — but someone, regrettably, has stolen them from him.” Jackie shook his head dolefully over how such a terrible thing could happen.
“It is also regrettable that my father is now confined to his bed and can no longer carry out his duties as mayor. Nor is there anything in the house that he and my poor mother can eat. It is a most difficult situation however you look at it.
“Now, friends and neighbors, I will show all of you how this works: I will take my poor, bedridden and toothless father a cup of Malt-o-Meal. In exchange for this, he will make me, his son, the new mayor of the town of Pitcherville.”
There rose up another collective gasp from the crowd. One man shouted, “Outrage!”
“Who said that?” asked Jackie, craning his head to look around. “Whoever said that will not be doing business with me. No soft cereal, no custard, not even a squishy over-ripe plum! Now, once I have gotten myself settled into the mayor’s office at City Hall, you may all begin to form a line outside my door. I will open my door promptly at eight o’clock tomorrow morning to see the first people in the line. My deputy, Mr. Rowe, will dispense the foodstuffs after we have come to our individual agreements. I assure you all that no one will go hungry in this town, not while I am the mayor! Good day, my good friends and neighbors and bon — bon — what is the word?”
“Voyage?” asked a woman in the crowd.
“No, no. The other word. The food word.”
“Appetit,” offered Virgil confidently.
“Yes, bon appetit to you all.”
With that, Jackie stepped down from the speaking crate and departed, along with his newly appointed deputy Lonnie.
A stunned silence followed, and then a soft, whispered exchange or two, and in no time at all a big noisy, earnest and fearful buzz.
“I do not want my mother to starve in her bed!” said one woman. “I’ll give the man anything he asks for.”
“What else can we do?” said her companion.
“He certainly has us over a barrel,” said Davy Rockwell, shaking his head despondently. “I have to feed all of my grandparents. I have a grandfather who must now be nearly 130 years old! He wasn’t eating solid food even before all of this happened. I’m going over to the mayor’s office right now. I want to be first in line when he opens his door tomorrow. Goodbye, boys. It was good to see you again.”
Davy hurried off. There were others who, probably thinking the same thing, hurried off in the very same direction.