by Paul Hawkins
*
Moments later, a hotdog-costumed figure emerged from the front door of the abandoned sausage factory, a cloud of waddling wiener dogs at his feet. The figure had his hands raised. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” he said. “It’s me!”
The chief of police shone a flashlight at him. “Wainwright! I thought I told you to stay out of this!”
“My dog was at stake,” he coughed. “I couldn’t.” He bent over and turned away.
“You all right?”
“Fellow roughed me up pretty bad – took a punch to the wind-pipe. But I’m okay – you should see the other guy. Fell off the scaffolding. He’s still in there and crazy as hell. Hope your boys are ready.”
“You just leave him to us – and stay the hell out of the way! I’ll deal with you tomorrow.”
“Sure Chief.” He nodded and began to walk off, shoulders hunched.
The Chief was not sufficiently impressed by his rectitude. “I mean it Wainwright – 9:00 a.m. at my office tomorrow. We’re gonna have us a little refresher course on the do’s and don’ts of masked vigilantism! You’ve got a reputation to think about.”
The man waved back over his shoulder. “Understood Chief – see you tomorrow.”
The Chief scowled at the retreating figure and his pack of pooches until he had departed, then he turned to his lieutenant.
“Damn, he’s nuts.”
The lieutenant nodded and set his jaw grimly. “This world’s a freakshow.”
They both stood there silently pondering the possibility of their small-to-medium-sized community turning into a four-color comic book world splashed with senseless costumed violence when a second figure emerged in the factory doorway, and a creepy scary laugh emerged from his grotesque ketchup-smeared burger head.
“Ready for a long night, coppers? Hahahaha!”
“It’s Burger Guy!” someone shouted. Twenty rifles immediately snapped to twenty shoulders, and twenty fingers quivered at their triggers.
“Wait! Wait!” The Burger Guy said, raising his hands over his head. “Don’t shoot. It’s me – it’s Wainwright!”
The Chief and the lieutenant looked at each other as a dozen flashlights fell on the figure, who slowly removed his giant head.
“Dadgum – it is Wainwright!”
Wainwright propped up his glasses and the rifles lowered a little.
“Wainwright!” the Chief yelled, striding towards him. “What the hell is the meaning of this?”
Wainwright shrugged. “I talked it out with him. I figured the kid needed a second chance, so we switched costumes. I promise to make full restitution for all his burglaries.”
The Chief stood there and fumed. He was speechless. He stammered, stomped, turned and looked at Wainwright. Finally the words he needed came to him, and he whirled and pointed a quivering finger at the wiener dog man in a blind fury.
“You’ll never work in this town again, Wainwright! You hear me! Your name is dead is this town – dead! I’ll have you locked away for twenty years!”
“You do what you need to do.”
Two men in blue put the cuffs on him and led him to a squad car. He offered no resistance, and the Chief just stood there as the black and white containing Wainwright slipped into the night. He could only shake his head.
“He made us look like fools, lieutenant – fools!”
The lieutenant nodded. “Whole damn world’s gone nuts - hard to tell the perps from the freaks.”
The Chief nodded. The lieutenant always talked like. He understood this crazy mixed up world; he cracked his knuckles; he imagined himself in the Chief’s comfy office chair sooner rather than later.
*
Wainwright’s trial was the event of the century – or the decade, or at least of the week – an old lady drove her car through the front window of a Bed Bath and Beyond the day after it started and kind of stole his thunder. But in any case Wainwright’s lawyer had an ace in the hole. He called to the stand the loveable dachshunds, which had been returned to Wainwright surreptitiously after helping Burger Guy escape. Once the jury saw their big brown eyes and wagging tails, it melted their hearts. With Wainwright’s promise of full restitution, all was forgiven. And so his life went on, once more a free man, but never again to be the celebrity he had been briefly.
*
The Chief’s prediction that he would never work in that town again, however, proved untrue. He did find work, but not of the high prestige he’d enjoyed before. Instead, he found himself flipping burgers. But Wainwright didn’t mind. It paid the rent, and there were always plenty of leftovers for his dogs.
“Nora, I’m home!”
He had finally stopped to talk to Dora the cat lady one day, and it turned out he actually liked her. She liked his dogs and he liked her cats, and it turned out that they liked each other. And so within a year they were a couple.
As he came home he hung his burger hat and apron on the peg inside the doorway, and the cloud of dogs (and cats) greeted him as he sank into his chair. Nora brought him a glass of tea and asked him, “Seen the news?”
He looked at her. “You mean..?”
“Yes – he’s at it again.”
They flipped on the set to see the latest report on Hot Dog guy, who had thwarted a jewelry heist with his seven vicious wiener dogs assisting him, latching onto the sleeves of the bandits until the police arrived. And then, of course, the Hot Dog vigilante had vanished into the shadows, ever mysterious and ever vigilant, ready to thwart crime should it rear its ugly head again.
“He makes you proud?” she asked as she sat on the arm of his chair.
He looked at her and smiled. “You bet he does.”
She settled in beside him, and the two of them and their menagerie basked in each other’s company late into that evening and many evenings thereafter. And in his heart Alan Wainwright felt great pride and great peace, as if the lesson he had been trying to teach in all the years of his kids’ TV show had been communicated in one moment, and he had was as much the student as the master. And yes he had a burger-flipping life for the rest of his days. But it was a good life.