Bob Deakin Short Stories

The straw hat weirdo. Drawing by John Coutinho

Last month, Adam, one of the artists an off-Disney studio in Orlando, Florida, after a long night at the easel realized only too late, when he was home, that he had left his iPod in the kitchen of the studio.

“If somebody finds it they’ll hold it for me,” he assured himself as he lay his head on the pillow for the night, comforted by the camaraderie of his fellow artists.

He returned to the studio in the morning and was absolutely steaming when he found his iPod stomped to a million pieces on the kitchen floor.

“Who the hell did this?” he asked, in deep angst, in no particular direction.

“It was a skinny guy with a straw hat, torn overalls and worn-out floppy shoes,” said Seth, another artist, stepping into the kitchen to counsel Adam. “I’ve seen him before. Real weirdo.”

Last Tuesday, Juan, another artist at the studio, had just completed a sculpture of LAX Airport, cut from a single piece of teak wood. It was a commissioned work and took him nearly ten weeks to complete, and was the darling of the local art scene. The sculpture sat on display in the studio gallery for all to see, awaiting shipment to the West Coast.

That afternoon at the studio, Keisha, after bidding farewell to her tap dancing students, looked up into the security monitor at her desk and couldn’t believe her eyes. There was a skinny guy wearing a straw hat, torn overalls and worn-out floppy shoes, swinging an ax at Juan’s sculpture, which was on fire. Something told her this wasn’t right and she got up to investigate.

By the time she got to the gallery he had put down the ax and was hurrying out. The sculpture was chopped in hundreds of pieces, all of them burning. The heat and smoke set off the alarm and the police and fire departments were on their way.

“He was very skinny, with a straw hat, torn overalls and worn-out floppy shoes,” Keisha said to the officer, who introduced himself as Dan Short of the Orange County P.D.

“Did you notice anything strange about his behavior?” Officer Dan asked.

“He was very weird,” she said. “When I asked, he said he was here to fix the plumbing but he wasn’t dressed like a plumber, and it didn’t look like a plumber’s ax that he was wielding.”

“That is weird,” Officer Dan responded.

Nothing more came of it until this morning when Amy brought in a brand new espresso machine for her fellow artists and proudly set it up on the kitchen counter. By noon it had been inexplicably ripped from the wall, thrashed around the room and tossed out the two-story window and splattered on the sidewalk.

Tears flooded down her cheeks when she walked into the kitchen and discovered the vile act.

“What? Who! Why?” she screamed, and was soon comforted by friends, all staring at the carnage in disbelief.

“It was the skinny guy with the straw hat, torn overalls and worn-out floppy shoes,” Seth divulged, as everyone stared at their feet in search of an answer. “I don’t know where he comes from but he’s a real weirdo.”

Just then everyone looked up, shocked to see Seth adorned in a straw hat, torn overalls and worn-out floppy shoes.

“What a weirdo!” Amy screamed at him in horror.

Copyright 2010