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Where's My Wife?

Zack Wentz

About a year after my mother died, God bless her soul, I was walking back to my apartment and I had to go by that Safeway where you see some pretty sketchy types every so often and it was dark out and I was alone so I was feeling a bit nervous. Anyway, I was trying to be quick about it, going by there and hoping not to run into any of those kind of folks and I could hear a shopping cart coming up behind me and I could hear a fellah hollering and he was getting closer and closer, like maybe he was going to run me over with the thing and I didn't want to hear what he was saying, but he was getting so close and he was yelling so loud so I couldn't help but hear him. He was yelling, "Where's my wife? Where's my Goddamn wife?" and then he'd stop for a second and he'd yell, "None of your Goddamn fucking business! That's where, you motherfucker! That's where, you sonofabitch!" and using all kind of foul language that anybody anywhere near could've heard and darn well gotten the daylights scared out of them. Man alive! Right out of his mind. You feel just about sorry for most of them. Out of their poor heads. And the shopping carts too. Those aren't free for the stores, I'll bet. They've got guys they pay to drive around in pick-up trucks and just gather up all those carts, so they must be worth something to them. Nothing but doing just that. I've seen them doing it outside my place. All kinds of money tied up in those carts. And you know those folks just pushing them around have all kinds of things you wouldn't believe in them either. Of course they got their clothes and things they try to sell and cans of food and bottles to take back to the grocery store and sometimes baseball bats and knives even. Why one time this one guy even had a genuine samurai sword and it turned out after he died to be worth over a couple million dollars and they put it in a museum somewhere. My God. This must have been a couple months after my mother died. Not like they don't have money stuck in those carts too. Another guy who was around for years, they found him dead down by the waterfront and he had gone and shoved his cart into the river to try to sink it, but it got snagged on a stick and when the police pulled it out to look at the stuff to figure out who the guy was they found a garbage bag all smashed up in the bottom of it and it was full of over ten thousand dollars in ten dollar bills and another bag with ones and change, but less than ten dollars worth so they figured the guy must've gotten the small money turned into tens somewhere every time he had enough saved up. God damn. But there's good stuff out there for them to get. I mean, I've never picked up anything off the street. Never have, never will, but why one time, just a few days after my mother died, I was walking down the street back to my friends where I was staying and I found a perfectly good pair of snakeskin cowboy boots, just barely fit me, and I thought, Damn if these won't be a good find for some poor soul out there, and these boots were perfectly good and they lasted about ten years until they wore out. Best boots I ever had, fit perfect, and I wear them to this day and they're just like the day they came off the shelf. Like brand spanking new. Yessir. A good find for somebody. And some people are just down on their money, so any little thing helps, and I feel just as sorry for them as the next guy, believe me. Sad how desperate people can get. Why another time I was on the bus or somewhere like that or something, just heading back home, and somebody told me something about how there was one guy and he was just going plumb crazy for a buck and he went into the 7-11 up North on Portland Boulevard and he had on a panty hose over his face that he'd found in a garbage can because he had seen movies when he was younger where people always did it that way and he went in there, no gun or nothing in his pocket even, just his finger pointed out like it was one in his pocket there so it looked like a gun or something maybe poking out, and he said to the guy at the counter, tan young looking guy, "Give me all your God damn money or I'm gonna shoot this place full of fucking God damn holes so fast it'll make your head spin you motherfucking sonofabitch!" and the kid behind the counter looked scared as hell and he was trying to get the cash register open but he was shaking and fumbling and going too damn slow and it was making the guy nervous and he was yelling, "C'mon! C'mon you God damn motherfucker! Come on!" and the kid was trying and the guy almost felt sorry for him, was really feeling bad for the kid and he didn't want to have to kill the kid, didn't want to shoot him and the guy's face was getting all hot like, like so hot you couldn't even imagine like he had never felt anything like it before, but the kid was just going too slow so the guy just started grabbing all the stuff he could, just grabbing armloads of stuff until he couldn't hold anymore and then the guy just fucking ran. The guy ran like a sonofabitch, not even looking back to see if the kid was calling the cops and he was dropping stuff all over the place, must've had a thousand bucks worth of stuff, could've sold it all for at least that much, and he ran for all he was worth until he found a good spot to hide down by the river where he ditched the panty hose in the river and watched 'em float away real slow in the current and then sink and he looked at all the stuff, must've been hundreds of dollars worth of stuff, but the guy felt like such an idiot he didn't want to try to sell the stuff to anybody, see? He just felt so bad about that damn kid and he didn't want to try to sell the stuff to anybody because the kid might've been their son or something and they'd just look at him like he was the scum of the Earth for what he put their kid through so he took all that stuff and he just threw it in the river and never told anybody ever about it and never ever went back in that store again. Man, see? Everybody is someone's kid. Everybody. Why the other day, right after I found out that my mother died, God bless her, I was sitting around at the place I was staying at and these kids come up and they're saying, "Hey mister, we found your dog! We found your dog!" and hell, I didn't know what they were talking about, so I told them, "Get out of here. You don't know what the hell you're talking about. I've never owned a dog in my life, not even when I was your age, so just get the hell out of here and leave me alone." But those kids just kept on at it, saying, "No, mister, we got your dog! It's right over here waiting for you!" and I looked and God damn! It was my dog. Right there in front of me. Plain as day. My doggie, by God. My dog. So I started calling him. Here Boy! C'mere boy! C'mon! C'mon! Here boy! C'mere! C'mere! Here boy! Don't be shy! C'mon boy! C'mon! C'mon you little rascal! C'mon! C'mere! C'mon you little varmint! C'mon! C'mere you little shit! C'mon! C'mon! C'mere God dammit! C'mere boy! C'mere! C'mon! Get over here! C'mon boy! C'mon! C'mon God dammit! C'mon! C'mon! C'mere you God damn little shit! C'mon! Get the fuck over here! C'mon! Get over here! C'mon! C'mon motherfucker! C'mon God dammit! C'mere you motherfucking sonofabitch! C'mere motherfucker! C'mon! You fucking piece of shit! C'mon! C'mon God dammit! God damn you! C'mon! C'mon Motherfucker! C'mon you motherfucking piece of shit! God dammit! C'MON MOTHERFUCKER! COME ON!

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