Before we could get out there to help Joe, we heard him yelling in his
singing voice, “HELP MEEEEE!!!!!! HEELLLP MEEEEEE!â?
Magically, the lights came on in the neighborâs back yard. John, a Jamaican man, who lived with his English wife, emerged from their house in a full length silk bathrobe that only he and David Niven could have worn and gotten away with.
As the lights came on what we saw out of our kitchen window was Joe âthe Bartenderâ? lying on his stomach, his belly stuck in the middle of a six- foot high piece of jungle gym equipment that the neighborâs kids played on.
Joe was waving his arms and feet like he was flying and singing his “HELP MEEEE” song!!
(To get stuck in the jungle gym, Joe would have had to climb over a four-foot fence, roll over a two-foot wide hawkâs cage before he was captured by the complex piece of kidâs play equipment. In explanation, all I can say is, it was really dark out there!)
We all helped Joe out of the tangle of the jungle gym equipment, and listing to the right and left, he vanished into the night. You really didn’t want to stop an emotional drunk anyway and tell them what to do. It did occur to me, though, as Joe disappeared into the night that he was no longer wondering “What am I going to do.â?
Four days later Joe called and asked if we had seen his car.
We had wondered whose car it was and were happy to tell him yes it
was here. So you see, there was a happy ending: Joe didnât get the girl, but he did find his car!