A DICK AND JANE STORY.
THE STORY OF DICK AND THE STEAMSHOVEL
Dick was homeless but he had a steam shovel.
During the day he would cruise down the highway honking his horn at all the cars going the other way and then he would wave. But the cars going the same way as he, they would honk their horns too, hoping he would put his slow-moving, bright, red, steam shovel with its big, red, box trailer on the shoulder of the road so they could pass.
But Dick liked honking and didn’t mind other people honking at him. He would just wave as they finally found a way to pass him on the left side of the highway. Yes, Dick was a nice guy.
In the evening, he would wait until everybody was sound asleep and then he would rumble down a dark alley, move the lever on the shovel, and smash it into a grocery market’s big display window, rev the engine and plow through the wall, and scoop up lots of food. Then he would look for cameras, but in the small towns there were none. Then he would withdraw the shovel over his head and listen to the food plunging into the trailer. It was a nice sound over the loud engine, like a tinkling brook in a forest. Then he would rev the engine, ram himself off another wall and disappear.
In the late, late evening he would rumble up a dirt road, put his rope ladder down, and climb out of the cab with his trusty hand-carried flood light and clean out the glass shards in his trailer, as well as the other debris, eat a bit of food and snuggle up with all the fruits and vegetables in the back of the trailer and, sleep, his body blanketed with food, his face staring at the stars.
The next morning he would get back on the road go twenty miles or more and sell some of his food at a farm, buy some diesel for his souped up engine that could travel up to 35 miles an hour, and continue on the highway honking and waving at passing vehicles, his diesel fumes clouding his rear, spurring massive honking sounds. And when they passed, Dick would wave.
Of course, there was a police or sheriff department in most rural towns, sometimes only one or two officers, and they were trying to find out who was smashing windows and walls in grocery stores and taking away giant trays of food. But because Dick was always on the move, no one really knew who was breaking in the windows and walls and there were no fingerprints or anything that might suggest this happy steam shovel driver was the culprit. And most of the rural markets didn’t have alarm systems. They were all good country folk. They thought, who would steal?
Dick always drove the two-lane highways. He didn’t like four-lane roads much and big roads like freeways scared him. He drove through Iowa, then Nebraska, then Colorado, then Utah, and then he found Page, Arizona, the most beautiful spot he had ever seen. It was sort of a desert, but with wild rock formations, immense mountains surrounding the plateau and endless dirt roads for camping and a giant beautiful lake and four grocery stores including a giant super market, Safeway, and a Piggly Wiggly. To Dick, it seemed like heaven.
Dick thought. It likely wouldn’t snow too bad in the winter, and he decided he could avoid the rain and sleet and snow all the year around and snuggle in his big heated cab if it got too cold, and just cruise the lonely dirt roads of this beautiful desert area. The dirt roads were everywhere, and all the roads led through these exotic rock formations.
But Dick was lonely. It was rare to find a four-wheel-drive, the only kind of vehicle who could drive these sand dune roads. And so he didn’t get a chance to wave and honk his horn too much. And the only other road was a highway across the big Glen Canyon Damn and police and weigh stations insisted his steam shovel was too heavy to cross the bridge. So he was stuck on these back roads, though he wondered why he couldn’t cross a damn that was damn enough to take the mighty Colorado River and make it into a wimpy little creek. So he was forced to take a detour and go around the shore of the giant lake and talk to people on house boats, give them food and stuff and of course, at night, he circled the lake and rumbled down a side street in Page, Arizona, smashed down some grocery store window and the wall, found the cameras and pounded them into crumbs, and took away lots of food and, then he scooted out through another wall.
Then he went up a dirt road, cleaned out all the glass shards and debris in his trailer with his trusty flood light, nibbled on some free food and snuggled up and went to sleep between the vegetables and fruits while staring at the stars in the sky. Dick was in a lonely heaven.
Now of course, this couldn’t keep happening. There had to be an obsessed detective hired by an insurance company who underwrote other insurance company’s glass claims and structure claims somewhere, and who would follow Dick to the ends of the earth to catch the bastard grocery store robber that was causing all these broken structures and glass claims. I mean this insurance company was making a killing. What thief would go to the trouble to destroy the structures of grocery stores, and this insurance company had so few glass claims, the boss was buying yachts and cruising the Atlantic laughing at his bonanza of lack of insurance claims. And then came Dick. And then came another Dick, detective Dick.
Detective Dick knew how thieves thought. And he was a dick. He mapped out the robbery path and noticed the distance and the direction Dick was traveling and was sure Dick was going to Prescott, Arizona next or a town near Prescott to rob a market. So while he was hiding in a food market dumpster in Prescott, Arizona, with the whole police force on alert, Dick was staying in Page robbing his second food market in two days. A change in the pattern.
Detective Dick took personal offense to Dick staying in Page for a second robbery. He must be real slippery Detective Dick thought. He must have figured out where I would be. The Police departments weren’t too happy either. They had invested a lot of overtime trying to catch the grocery robber because detective Dick assured them he was about to crush and rob a nearby market in Prescott.
So the next night detective Dick stayed in Prescott hiding in another dumpster thinking, he knows I’ve gone back to Page, I’ll trick ‘em. He looked for a suspicious black car with masks on the driver and passenger heads. He knew thieves always drove dark cars and wore masks and must be carrying sledgehammers to break down all these grocery walls. But once again word came back another Page supermarket had been robbed. And this time it was a massive haul.
Detective Dick thought, I know if I go back to Page, the robbers, by now he suspected there was a mob of robbers because of the huge haul in Page. I mean they had taken a barrel of olive oil, three trays of oranges, twenty cases of beer, twenty-two gallons of milk, sixty burrito packs, a whole half of a steer, and three cases of Cheerios, a case of pancake mix, and, five or six other items that were too messy to read after detective Dick, aghast, puked on the police report.
Detective Dick thought it must be a mob breaking into the markets, how can I corral such a huge swab of humanity with just one little gun. They must have a semi or rent a huge trailer or something. And what if they had machine guns.
Detective Dick called the rental places. He called the highway patrol and told them to investigate all semis within a hundred-mile radius for the stolen items. He even called the train station wondering who might have rented a rail car in Page to haul away such a massive booty.
But the reason for the bigger steal was Dick had gone down the almost dry riverbed of the once mighty Colorado River the day before and found lots of new friends on the Indian reservation. And it was near the end of the month and the food stamps had run out, they looked starving, and they looked like they would like lots of food, and they even volunteered to cook it for him! Dick was happy. And so were the Indians. So, he cruised the dirt roads after giving the Indians the great bounty of food and went down the river bed that next night to the Indian reservation for a party with his new friends. That was the first night Dick didn’t break in a grocery store. Why? They had plenty of food from the big haul and Dick had been invited to a party. Why bother a grocery store?
Wouldn’t you know it, detective Dick finally came back to Page, Arizona and hid in another food market dumpster while the entire seven police officers of Page worked overtime all night waiting for a bunch of lowlifes with a semi that were gonna break in to a food market.
About four o’clock in the morning everybody got tired except detective Dick and detective Dick went back to Prescott, Arizona, thinking if they didn’t rob Page, Arizona, those tricky bastards must be in Prescott, Arizona.
Of course, Dick was still partying with his new friends on the Indian reservation and didn’t ever think of driving this drunk down to Prescott or even a mile into Page. He showed his friends his steam shovel and they were excited to see such a marvelous machine with eight-foot-high wheels, a bright red spiffy paint job, a cab bigger than a trailer bedroom and all the trailer of goodies. And Dick got to sleep with the sheep that night in government made housing and the sheep were warm and cuddly and they didn’t mind sleeping in the house next to a human. Why? ‘ Cause the sheep had a government made house and thus they thought if the government was stupid enough to give sheep a house, why not turn human. Cause humans had better privileges than sheep.
It was quite an adventure. And female sheep laid on their back waiting for a human.
Now, there was this Eskimo girl named Jane. She didn’t like the cold so she came to this nice warm Indian reservation from Alaska, hitching a ride all the way. The Indians in Page didn’t like the name Jane, not very Indian, I mean this is a Dick and Jane story, yet, so impressed with the great distance Jane had hitched, they renamed Jane, Hitchie. Hitchie liked to sleep with the sheep at night in the government housing. It was nice and cuddly. She had noticed Dick at dinner and said, “What the hell.” She went up to Dick and said, “Hi.” And they made love in between the sheep and it was glorious. Glorious. They fell in love that very night. Dick and Hitchie.
Dick was a hero. I should mention before the steam shovel Dick wasn’t a hero. He was kicked out of school for sucking on his pretty teacher’s apples, you know what I mean, and when his father went crazy mad and the police came calling, he stole his father’s famous historic steam shovel, the father’s pride and joy with the bright red paint job, a souped up engine and a bright red trailer bigger than a horse trailer and, went out hiding from his father and police. Then he got hungry. And, wow, the steam shovel was the perfect utensil. Now he was a hero to the Indian folk and had a beautiful Eskimo girl looking up to him. It was marvelous. And she had a wonderful figure and nice breasts, and didn’t mind him sucking on them.
The world is so neat when you find your place within it. And Dick had found his place. He was in Page, Arizona for life with his love, Hitchie.
Detective Dick didn’t have a wife, or a girlfriend so he couldn’t suck on any breasts. He was lost. He just wanted justice. He didn’t care a flying fuck to be a person, and if he knew Dick was happy, he would have vomited again. He didn’t even think Dick was Dick. He thought some gangster mob with Uzis and sledgehammers were robbing one grocery store after another in a semi. And whoever they were they knew what he was doing. Detective Dick looked. He looked here. He looked there. He couldn’t see any suspicious lowlifes with Uzis. They must be really good, these mobsters. He got nervous. What if they had him in their sights? He kept looking around, wondering. Where are they?
Something happened to Dick when he realized he could lose everything, his beautiful girl, and his wonderful new friends, if he got caught. He confessed to Hitchie. “I love you, through everything.”
Hitchie said, “We need to be together, forever. But to stay together forever we need to go somewhere else with the steam shovel. They know you are here. They will catch you here. We need to go elsewhere.”
Dick said, “But I like it here.”
Hitchie said, “Let’s go to Flagstaff.”
Dick said, “That’s a big town. It has big highways and they got lots of police.”
Hitchie said, “They won’t bother you. You are safe there. And then we can come back to Page and sleep with the sheep.”
So Dick took his steam shovel and the beautiful Hitchie to Flagstaff. It was a long five-hour journey with honking horns. She seemed oblivious to the horns. And like Dick, she waved at everybody along the way.
Hitchie raised her arms to the sky, bellowing at the stars “The town is waiting to be wiped out. This is our right. This is our night. Take it, Dick.”
Dick listened. He went crazy. He broke into four supermarkets and stole and stole and stole. Alarms went off everywhere and as soon as an alarm went off sirens went speeding and turning corners on screeching wheels. Then they would get out of their cars in shock, aghast at the damage to the super market, I mean it looked like an earthquake had hit it, and then they would rush back into their cars because Dick and Hitchie were already at another super market setting off another alarm, and the police actually started getting dizzy, chasing them, I mean the police were so disturbed, they actually looked to the sky, looking for the suspects. The destruction was so massive the police thought the destruction must have come from the sky, like a torpedo had flown out of the ocean sailed a thousand miles and creamed one super market after another.
Oh, oh, what love can do.
Then Dick and Hitchie headed back to Page. It was a long journey and with the great booty, food stacked high in the trailer and the lovely Hitchie sitting on top of the load so it wouldn’t fall out, and more food high up on the shovel, and still more food crammed into the cab, the steam shovel was moving along extra slowly. Dick waved to all the people coming the other way on the road even though it was the dead of the night and Hitchie did the same from perched on top of the food, and they waved to the people that passed them in the passing lane.
Detective Dick had got antsy and had gone back to Prescott and now at four in the morning was heading back to Page when he saw this red, giant, blinking thing on the highway moving like a snail. “What the fuck, is that?” He honked and honked, I mean it was taking up almost two full lanes.
Yes, the Other Dick was racing back to Page before he got the shocking news Flagstaff was under siege. “I got to get past this massive idiot.” He didn’t even see pretty Hitchie on top of all that food waving at him as he burnt rubber passing.
When Dick got back to the reservation everybody rejoiced. Dick was a hero. He had more food and a woman who thought he was a God.
That’s what Dick thought, but Hitchie really didn’t think that. She thought he needed help, and her people needed help, and he was the best bet to help them. And she loved his innocence. She really did love him. He was alright, and no one else she knew was as good. She was glad she had fucked him.
With the great bounty Dick stayed on the reservation for twelve days. The Other Dick grew despondent, no robberies anywhere and his boss in New Jersey, the insurance company that underwrote other insurance companies glass and structure claims, told him he was wasting time in Page, Arizona looking for a mobster gang that was obviously back in Mexico with their great booty, their Uzis and their sledgehammers.
But detective Dick didn’t like his boss’s idea. He knew why the mob wasn’t robbing supermarkets anymore. They knew he was in town. So, he went to an Indian reservation and got a disguise, a tomahawk, a bandanna and, a Mohawk. Then he went to a detail shop and got a spray gun to paint his skin brown. Satisfied that he was totally undercover, that he would never be recognized by the mobsters, he jumped in a dumpster next to the Safeway market in Page and waited night after night.
And the food ran out and Dick needed to go to a supermarket in Page and get some more food before food stamps kicked in two days later. But Hitchie was wise and she told Dick you need a diversion if you are going back to Page for more food. So, they went back to the giant Safeway supe market and started a diversion pretending to be doing construction and moving dirt from behind the Safeway and putting it in the dumpster with the steam shovel.
The detective Dick, who was now hiding in the dumpster, was upset.
Who would rob a supermarket with some crazy construction guy in the parking lot in the middle of the night. He sputtered and sputtered, took his hand and tried to get the dirt out of his mouth and when the steam shovel was getting more dirt decided to go hide in a dumpster in Piggy Wiggly instead. So, he slipped out of the dumpster, did some Indian dance and yelling to act as a decoy, and also to try and clear his lungs, left his car behind, Indians don’t drive cars he thought, looked for his horse, shit, I forgot to get a horse, and went whooping down the street nine blocks to the Piggly Wiggly supermarket’s dumpster.
Then it happened. The detective Dick heard it. The shattering of a giant window. Then the alarm blaring and lots of rumbling, probably the store aisles being raped; he leaped out of the dumpster and sprinted back to the Safeway a long nine blocks away, waving his tomahawk and whooping so he wouldn’t be recognized by the mobsters; only to find debris everywhere and lots of food flung all over the place. And where was the steam shovel, his witness?
But detective Dick was happy. The mob wasn’t in Mexico partying with their great bounty. They were still in Page, Arizona. He kept whooping.
A police car grudgingly came out of the police station at 3am and went looking for the idiot alarm that had gone off, probably because some big semi had passed by. He comes to the Safeway and sees this Indian with a tomahawk who had totally shattered a giant five-thousand-dollar window, crushed a wall and made the food aisles into a wreck, whooping about. He called his boss the sheriff and told him a mad Indian had broken in Safeway, destroyed the front wall and the massive front window with a tomahawk and was madly waving his tomahawk around—still.
The sheriff wasn’t too happy about being disturbed in the middle of the night by some psycho Indian and told the officer in a slow deliberate manner, “If that mad Indian doesn’t stop waving that tomahawk…..shoot em.”
Fortunately, detective Dick was getting tired of whooping and decided it was time for some detective work, and then he saw the police car and waved to the policeman to come to him.
The officer, relieved he didn’t have to shoot a stupid Indian, approached him carefully, shit he smells like a dumpster. He told him to put the tomahawk on the ground. He frisked him, found a pistol, handcuffed him and hauled detective Dick back to the station in the back seat of his vehicle
Detective Dick told the policeman to call his boss in New Jersey, that he was undercover trying to catch the supermarket gang.
The policeman said, “Well, we will talk about that in the morning when the sheriff gets here, meanwhile you can rest behind bars with all these other Indians.”
The policeman then went out and sprayed his car with air freshener.
Detective Dick didn’t know what to do as he entered the jail that had one open toilet in the middle of the cell and six other prisoners, five of which were real Indians. Detective Dick said, with his right hand in the air, “How”
The five Indians looked at each other, shook their heads and went “Pow, Pow, Pow, Pow, Pow” and Detective Dick went tumbling into the toilet getting his head and Mohawk soaked while coughing and sputtering again.
The policeman came back in satisfied everything was quiet in the cell. Just someone shitting in the can.
Meanwhile Dick is back with the sheep and those lovely breasts and his steam shovel and the trailer filled to the brim with food from the Safeway supermarket.
In the morning detective Dick gets to talk to his boss and excitedly tells him the mobster gang with Uzis is still in Page. “They haven’t gone over the border yet. Were gonna catch ‘em. I was just being undercover, that Indian stuff.”
The Boss says, “Let me talk to the sheriff.”
The sheriff comes on the line. The boss says, “Who’s that fuckin’ Indian?”
The sheriff says, “He says he works for you.”
“Sheriff, I live in New Jersey. I’ve never seen a fuckin’ Indian in my life. That culprit insurance company has lost enough money with that idiot on the loose. Yeah, I’ll prosecute.”
The End
. So I added one paragraph, made the corrections and turned it in to the teacher the next day.
The paragraph: THE MORAL
“Now this is a lovely children story, but we know children stories need a moral. We need upstanding kids in life who need to learn to read and get the full dose of how we want them to behave. Yeah? Now, just in case your kid didn’t get the moral of this story, I thought I should remind him or her. Well, the moral of the story is:
It is real tuff being an Indian. And even harder being a fake Indian.
“Kids,, now, don’t get fakey, Don’t be what you aren’t.”
Oops, I didn’t graduate, the end of my education. Instead, I went to graduation with my mother and listened to my cousin give the valedictory speech.
My mother, an English Major, wass obsessed with European authors especially Longfellow, and Robert Louis Stenvenson. She told me all my life that I would be a great writer. I guess time will tell. Certainly not agents who sell books to publishers. My Query letters dance om the wind never landing. No agent even looked or felt my words on a page. Never saw the depth. Never felt the rage that burns me to the core. So, I guess, my new book Mirrors of Creation is going to be self published in a few months , today being November 16, 2025.
