“The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.”
Harley thought of this paraphrased quote by Robert Burns on her way to the Notchey Creek Public Library the next morning. She had intended to spend the early hours in the microfiche room, poring over old newspapers, hoping she might locate the one Patrick Middleton had taken from Hazel Moses’s house. But it was not to be. As she pulled her truck into the library parking lot, her phone vibrated in her pocket. Realizing it was Tina, and knowing Tina would keep calling her until she answered, she picked up.
“Good Morning, Tina.”
“Where are you?”
“At the library.”
“Well, you better get over here to Opha Mae Shaw’s.”
Opha Mae Shaw was Tina’s next-door neighbor.
“Why?”
“She wants her toilet.”
“Her what?”
“Her toilet. You know that great big one you’ve got in the back of your truck. You think you’d be wantin’ rid of it by now. Anyway, Opha Mae came across the yard a little while ago, bangin’ on my front door, askin’ me where her toilet was. She said you were supposed to bring it by here yesterday. Said yinz promised.”
Realization at last dawned on Harley. “Oh, yes, that toilet. I’ll be right over.”
Opha Mae Shaw lived in a white clapboard house in a neighborhood of Notchey Creek known as Hogwash Alley, made locally famous during the Great Flood of 1964. According to local legend, the neighborhood’s numerous pigs were swept from their pens and carried two miles across town, finally ending up in downtown Notchey Creek, where they washed down Main Street, snorting at gawking pedestrians as they floated by.
“Where would you like this, Opha Mae?” Harley asked as she and Tina lifted the antique toilet from the truck bed.
Opha Mae pointed toward a patch of grass between a plastic birdbath and a pair of pink flamingos, a horde of twenty hens pecking at the ground beneath her feet. “Right over yonder if y’all don’t mind,” she said, a half-lit Virginia Slims cigarette dangling from her lower lip.
In order to direct them better, Opha Mae headed in the bird bath’s direction, her Michelin Man figure wobbling in a chartreuse muumuu and white terrycloth house shoes. “Right cheer,” she said, standing by the bird bath. “At least ’til I can get cleaned up from the yard sale.”
Tina groaned under the toilet’s weight. “All right, but you’re gonna have to do somethin’ about all these chickens. We can’t get through the yard.”
Opha Mae grabbed a broom from her front porch and prodded the chickens’ rear ends with the straw bristles. “Come on now, sweet babies. You move for Mama, you hear?” As Opha Mae hobbled across the yard, one of her pink plastic curlers sprang from her shower cap, smacking against her cheek. She cocked the broom at the chickens. “Now y’all don’t be makin’ Mama mess up her hair, you hear? Y’all gonna get a great big old whoopin’ if you do that.”
A giant red rooster, tightening its talons on top of the chainlink fence, crowed at them.
“Crazy old bird,” Tina said. “I swear that thing cock-a-doodle-dos at all hours of the night and day, drivin’ me nuts. Its circadian rhythms is off or somethin’.”
Opha Mae gunned her fist at the rooster. “You hush up now, Pecker. You’re gettin’ as bad as Sir Clucks-A-Lot about crowin’ at folks.”
Hoisting the toilet by its sides, Harley and Tina lowered it to the ground and shuffled through the grass, dodging splatters of chicken poop like landmines.
“I swear,” Tina said, “those things poop everywhere. You’d think with Fud bein’ a garbage man, they’d clean up all this chicken poop in their yard. And they’re projectile too, Harley. I swear they aim their cluckety old butts right at my yard and poop right through the fence.”
Reaching the patch of grass next to the birdbath, they dropped the toilet at Opha Mae’s white terrycloth house shoes, nearly crushing the brown hen that stood at her feet.
Opha Mae screamed, grabbing the chicken just in time. “Lady McBawk! What do you think you’re doin’, sweet baby? You tryin’ to be Mama’s supper tonight? Mama’s gonna pen you up, that’s what Mama’s gonna do.” Opha Mae scuttled toward the backyard, making her way to the wire-mesh chicken coop.
Harley turned to Tina. “Do all of the chickens have names?”
“Oh, yeah. Let’s see, there’s Mrs. McNugget, Chick-or-Treat, Professor Puffy Pants, and General Tsao. Heck, I can’t even remember all of their names, there’s so many.”
“What about the one that ruined your roses last year?”
“Oh, I don’t know what her name is. I just call her Mother Clucker.”
Opha Mae hobbled toward them, carrying two plastic containers of chrysanthemums. “I’m fixin’ to plant my flares, y’all.”
“Here, Opha Mae,” Harley said, taking the flowers from her with care. “Let me help you.”
She added three pints of fall flowers to the toilet bowl and filled in the remaining space with potting soil.
“Them’s is gonna be so purdy,” Opha Mae said.
“Yeah, they’re ready for the cover of House Beautiful,” Tina said.
Opha Mae smiled with warmth. “Sure do appreciate y’all helpin’ me out.”
Harley removed a green watering can from the front porch glider and poured a stream of water over the flowers, moistening the soil. As she reached down to pat the dirt, something fell from her shirt pocket and fluttered to the grass.
It was the photo of the blond girl, the one that had been in Patrick Middleton’s jacket pocket. She had placed it in her pocket that morning, planning to take it to the library for identification purposes.
“You dropped somethin’, Harley,” Opha Mae said, picking up the photo before Harley had the chance. “Well, I’ll be,” she said, staring at the photo. “That’s Susan, ain’t it?”