INCOMMUNICADO Hood has been my first-ever goal in life I love being a first-ever like I was the first-ever girl to take off her dress in a school cafeteria Hey I painted those lions eyeballs crost-eyed Make me Town Hood I pipe up The sheriff looks at me and says I guess you might have a crack at being our first girl Town Hood someday But not today What about Billy McCormick Just last week he snuck into the Majestic Theater and lifted a box of Milk Duds Rex says How do you know she asks lighting another cigarette and swishing away the smoke I was standing right next to him when he did it Well as of now it’s your fault You know how this works Rex As the T H you’re officially to blame for any delinquent behavior Make sure all the boys get wind of this Some boys send around a memo Sheriff Hillary says Jerry Adams even took out an ad in the Sea Park Sentinel Then she turns to me and says And you missy You of all people need to straighten up and fly right If I got two bits for every time someone has told me that I could buy those stupid lion statues and paint them yellow with little pink polka dots But this whole Town Hood thing is Draconian Rex says About the most uncivilized thing I’ve ever heard of And I’ll bet it’s unconstitutional I know it’s unethical Even England did away with whipping boys centuries ago 5
RANDALL PLATT That’s Rex all over I never understand half of what he says like he swallowed a dictionary But Rex can go on and on about his political opinions which he has on everything and pretty soon my own eyes go crost just like those lion statues Get yourself a soap box and head over to the park son Sheriff Hillary says shuffling some papers around on her desk And Rex goes on guilt by association is not guilt It’s association and nothing more What are you a lawyer she asks giving him a look of disgust No but I will be someday And then I’m coming back here and suing everyone he barks Fine Until then Clarence Darrow you’ll have to settle for Town Hood Aw come on Sheriff Hillary I’m too busy with my senior year to babysit all those other kids Give a guy a break She makes like she’s playing an invisible violin Rex points a finger at her and says You know what you are You’re an autocrat No a fascist No a dictator That’s what you are A regular Hitler She looks up at him and there’s something kind of sad in her face No son I’m just a small-town cop filling in until her husband’s hitch is up See her husband Sheriff Norm Dutton joined the Navy over a year ago the summer of 1940 and Hillary 6
INCOMMUNICADO stepped in since his uniform fit her and she had a gun and knew how to use it and all Temporary or not she keeps a tight rule over the town and I think this Town Hood thing is one reason why She tells us to get out and warns the new Town Hood to make sure I repaint the eyeballs of those two lion statues so they look normal and not like constipated clowns I thought crossing the lions eyeballs was funny and heck kids have done that every year since those stupid lions were put there Same thing with that black jockey statue standing in front of Mayor Schmidtke’s house That poor iron jockey looks pretty darn confused standing where he is on a pedestal in a town where the blackest person anyone has ever seen is leathery ol Babs Bishop after a summer on the beach soaked in her own personal concoction of baby oil and iodine And the closest thing to a racehorse we have is an eighteen-year-old beach nag named Florence Look you don’t go putting up any statues in a town like Sea Park and not expect kids to express themselves with a little paint Then again if I hadn’t been so bored and looking for a way to express myself and some ol biddy Lioness butinski lady hadn’t caught me red-handed then my brother probably wouldn’t suddenly be wearing the badge of Town Hood The badge I deserve 7
