Mr. Winky-dink

The guitars were gone thanks to an unlocked door and my son’s trusting nature. I was having a rough month money-wise and there would be no replacing them. The scene of the crime was three thousand miles away. There seemed to be nothing I could do.

The phone rang, an unwelcome interruption to my one-woman pity party. Before I could say hello, B.J’s voice came on. “Good, you’re in. I’m coming up, she said.”

Her perfume, flowery with just a hint of musk, reached the top of the stairs before B.J. did. She was dressed in a clinging paisley shirt of bright purples and blues, the cut leaving little to be imagined about the shape and lively bounce of her pert breasts. Her denim jeans matched exactly the pale blue of her blouse and also fit snugly on her slim legs and tight tush. Her red hair hung in short curls that framed her face. She smiled, but lines of concern crossed her forehead.

“Darling, I just couldn’t let you suffer another minute over those darn guitars.” She grabbed me by the forearms, her French-manicured nails biting into my skin for emphasis. "Do you have a candle up here?"

I shook my head, but then remembered. “How about that penis-shaped candle you gave me for laughs?” I asked. “Will that do?”

She nodded, pulling me out of the landing and through the door into my office. I broke free and dug into my bottom desk drawer. “Here it is.”

I put the candle on the table. Slender and about four inches high, the top shape was clearly the heft and curve of the head of a phallus, but with whimsical eyes, up-turned nose, and grinning mouth. I pulled on the top and the wick sprung out, an ejaculation in waxed string.

“Ah, the winky-dink,” B.J. sighed. “I hope you’ve got some matches. I don’t smoke, you know.”

I had a pack of restaurant matches, pale blue and bearing the name of Atlanta’s Landmark Diner. “What do we do now?"

“Light the candle, silly. Then, come here.”

At the second stroke, the paper match lit and I joined B.J. in the middle of the office. She held both my hands and closed her eyes. “My friend’s son has had both of his guitars stolen. If he and his roommate are meant to have their music back, we are asking the Universe to return them.” She said this about four times in four different ways, but I don’t remember exactly what she said each time.

After a moment or two, my attention wandered and I closed my eyes, waiting for her to finish the ceremony. It didn’t take too long. Mr. Winky-dink only had one drop of wax trailing down the edge of his column when B. J. said, “and so it is.”

#

“B.J., you’re not going to believe it. The guitars are back.”

“You mean the universe returned them,” my friend corrected me, her voice cheerful and as lifting as a warm breeze on a spring day.

“The thiefs tried to hock them over the state line, right across the street from where his roommate works. One call to the police, and they had the guitars back.”

“Did they catch the thief,” B.J. asked.

“No, he left a fake address.”

“No matter. At least the kids have their music back.”

“Yes, that’s all I care about. Thanks, B.J.”

“Don’t thank me. Give the universe some credit, will you?”

“Sure,” I said, marveling at the power of my friend’s belief.

[Approximately 600 words; thanks, B.J., for the real-life experience.]