thought.
“No, no,” Ned said impatiently. “The fall was accidental.”
“Was he drunk?”
“Why would you think he was drunk?” Ned wondered.
The stranger shrugged. “He climbed on a roof to urinate on your windows.”
“He was a sick man,” Ned explained, plinking one finger against his empty glass to indicate the desire for another round.
Drawing Budweiser from the tap, Billy said, “Henry Friddle was consumed by vengeance.”
After silent communion with his brew, the tourist asked Ned Pearsall, “Vengeance? So you urinated on Friddle’s windows first?”
“It wasn’t the same thing at all,” Ned warned in a rough tone that advised the outsider to avoid being judgmental.
“Ned didn’t do it from his roof,” Billy said.
“That’s right. I walked up to his house, like a man, stood on his lawn, and aimed at his dining-room windows.”
“Henry and his wife were having dinner at the time,” Billy said.
Before the tourist might express revulsion at the timing of this assault, Ned said, “They were eating quail, for God’s sake.”
“You showered their windows because they were eating quail?”
Ned sputtered with exasperation. “No, of course not. Do I look insane to you?” He rolled his eyes at Billy.
Billy raised his eyebrows as though to say What do you expect of a tourist?
“I’m just trying to convey how pretentious they were,” Ned clarified, “always eating quail or snails, or Swiss chard.”
“Phony bastards,” the tourist said with such a light seasoning of mockery that Ned Pearsall didn’t detect it, although Billy did.
“Exactly,” Ned confirmed. “Henry Friddle drove a Jaguar, and his wife drove a car—you won’t believe this—a car made in Sweden.”
“Detroit was too common for them,” said the tourist.
“Exactly. How much of a snob do you have to be to bring a car all the way from Sweden?”
The tourist said, “I’ll wager they were wine connoisseurs.”
“Big time! Did you know them or something?”
“I just know the type. They had a lot of books.”
“You’ve got ‘em nailed,” Ned declared. “They’d sit on the front porch, sniffing their wine, reading books.”
“Right out in public. Imagine that. But if you didn’t pee on their dining-room windows because they were snobs, why did you?”
“A thousand reasons,” Ned assured him. “The incident of the skunk. The incident of the lawn fertilizer. The dead petunias.”
“And the garden gnome,” Billy added as he rinsed glasses in the bar sink.
“The garden gnome was the last straw,” Ned agreed.
“I can understand being driven to aggressive urination by pink plastic flamingos,” said the tourist, “but, frankly, not by a gnome.”
Ned scowled, remembering the affront. “Ariadne gave it my face.”
“Ariadne who?”
“Henry Friddle’s wife. You ever heard a more pretentious name?”
“Well, the Friddle part brings it down to earth.”
“She was an art professor at the same college. She sculpted the gnome, created the mold, poured the concrete, painted it herself.”
“Having a sculpture modeled after you can be an honor.”
The beer foam on Ned’s upper lip gave him a rabid appearance as he protested: “It was a gnome, pal. A drunken gnome. The nose was as red as an apple. It was carrying a beer bottle in each hand.”
“And its fly was unzipped,” Billy added.
“Thanks so much for reminding me,” Ned grumbled. “Worse, hanging out of its pants was the head and neck of a dead goose.”
“How creative,” said the tourist.
“At first I didn’t know what the hell that meant—”
“Symbolism. Metaphor.”
“Yeah, yeah. I figured it out. Everybody who walked past their place saw it, and got a laugh at my expense.”
“Wouldn’t need to see the gnome for that,” said the tourist.
Misunderstanding, Ned agreed: “Right. Just hearing about it, people were laughing. So I busted up the gnome with a sledgehammer.”
“And they sued you.”
“Worse. They set out another gnome. Figuring I’d bust up the first, Ariadne had cast and painted a second.”
“I thought life was mellow here in the wine country.”
“Then they tell me,” Ned continued, “if I bust up the second one, they’ll put a third on the lawn, plus they’ll manufacture a bunch and sell ‘em at cost to anyone who wants a Ned Pearsall gnome.”
“Sounds like an empty threat,” said the tourist. “Would there really be people who’d want such a thing?”
“Dozens,” Billy assured him.
“This town’s become a mean place since the pâté-and-brie crowd started moving in from San Francisco,” Ned said sullenly.
“So when you didn’t dare take a sledgehammer to the second gnome, you were left with no choice but to pee on their windows.”
“Exactly. But I didn’t just go off half-cocked. I thought about the situation for a week. Then I hosed them.”
“After which, Henry Friddle climbed on his roof with a full bladder, looking for justice.”
“Yeah. But he waited till I had a birthday dinner for my mom.”
“Unforgivable,” Billy judged.
“Does the Mafia attack innocent members of a man’s family?” Ned asked indignantly.
Although the question had been rhetorical, Billy played for his tip: “No. The Mafia’s got class.”
“Which is a word these professor types can’t even spell,” Ned said. “Mom was seventy-six. She could have had a heart attack.”
