Tad Peckish loved the “Bullnose”, his 1982 raven black Ford F-Series 250 pickup truck.

OPINION: I’m a joker, not a thief

I was a bit of a cowboy in my younger years and always liked a good joke. I remember the days when my bachelor neighbour Casey Ryan left the front door unlocked, and partly ajar. We had just been talking about the spate of break-ins in town. Casey didn’t pay much attention to local news but this intrigued him. He lived alone. The woman he almost married cut off their engagement, saying he was too unorganized, too scattered to plan a schedule and stick to it.

Casey, a lone-wolf mechanic, was the kind of man who could coax a dying lawnmower back to life with a prayer and a pair of pliers. He custom-combined fields from dawn until the fireflies came out. His hands were maps of grease and calluses; his mind, however, was a filing cabinet that had been tipped over in an earthquake. No wonder, then, that Casey’s front door often hung open like a loose tooth, inviting the world in with the casual confidence of a man who believed the universe would eventually put his socks back in pairs.

Yes, a string of break-ins had punctured the dimly-lit streets of our quiet, little town, leaving nervous folks locking doors that had never known a key. But not Casey. So, when I arrived at Casey’s open front door and no Casey within shouting distance I immediately forgot why I was there.

Something mischievous stirred within me. Practical jokes were the best fodder for Friday night storytelling at the pub and I realized I had hooked a whopper. An idea was percolating in my mind like steam whistling in a kettle before the water had boiled. I sneaked into the house like a shadow wearing sneakers and stealthily locked my eyes on anything of prominence. I picked up the music cassette tapes, the toaster, the blender and microwave and hauled them downstairs. Then I wrestled the stereo to the basement and stacked my loot behind the furnace. The last target was the old TV. It was a monster — a cathode-ray dinosaur that weighed as much as a small calf. I finally, slow-slid it down the stairs and covered it with a blanket. Then I did a little re-arranging to give the house that “an intruder was here” feel.

Sweat was now streaming down my forehead and I took a last look at my masterpiece. The kitchen table looked like it had a tantrum and kicked over the chairs. The dishes looked like they had lost it too and blew open the cupboard doors. Definitely, a break-in. I tilted a framed photo of the aerial view of the farm to complete my work. Then I fled.

About three hours later my wife looked out the kitchen window.

“Police are at Casey Ryan’s again,” she shouted.

“Probably a break-in,” I replied, trying desperately not to sound interested, from my living room recliner.

“Probably drunk,” she retorted.

“Probably a break-in!”

“Drunk!”

I waited until the police left and phoned over to discover a drunk and a break-in.

Casey was a Montreal Canadiens fan and there was a big playoff game that night. So, I had my opening. “Hey, Casey, you watching the game?”

“No, man! I got robbed.”

“What?”

“Yes, they took everything.”

“No way!”

“Stereo, microwave, toaster. Even the freaking TV.”

“No, way!”

‘Yes, everything.”

“No!”

“Yes! And the police were here.”

“What?!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

“Yes, man! Stereo and TV are gone.”

“No way!” I said. The conversation went back and forth like that for a few minutes.

When the excitement died down Casey sighed deeply and fell silent, so I spilled the beans.

“Listen, Casey, did you check the basement?”

“What?”

“Did you check the basement? Maybe you should check the basement and lock your door next time.”

“Why would I…” and he stopped. He put down the phone and walked away, his feet stomping on the stairs until they faded into silence.

Suddenly, there was a dull pounding, then the floor boomed. I heard the phone plucked from the table like it had been sucked up by the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner.

“I am going to kill you! I am going to kill you!”

I was laughing too hard to speak.

“I am going to kill you!”

Then my wife called from the kitchen. “Well?” she asked.

“You were right. He’s drunk.”

“Told you,” she said.

“I am going to kill you!” Casey kept repeating. He slammed down the phone when I asked him if he thought thieves might be living in his basement.

I ran into Casey a few days later at the gas station. We both laughed.

“That was a good one,” he said but then he warned me. “Peckish, I am going to get you. But I am not going to get you now. I am going to wait and when I am ready, and you are not, I am going to get you good.”

I was looking over my shoulder for the next six weeks. I began to think he had forgotten about it when “it” happened.

My wife had gone into town with friends and I pulled up to my front door in my 1982 raven black Ford F-Series 250 heavy duty diesel engine bullnose. I loved that truck. I left the motor running and ran into the house to get my wallet and then made a pitstop to the bathroom. When I got back outside the truck was gone.

“That son of a bitch,” I said aloud to myself. “He took the Bullnose.”

Now, I was late and not very amused at having to eat my own pie. I figured I’d wait for my wife to come back with the car but, after 20 minutes, I jumped on my bike and headed over to Casey’s. I could see the truck wasn’t there but I looked into his garage and behind it anyway. I headed into town to get the car from wifey. To my surprise, I saw the truck in the grocery store parking lot. Casey was nowhere to be seen so I put my bike in the back of the pickup, lifted up the rubber mat on the driver’s side and grabbed my extra key and drove home.

The phone was ringing when I walked in the door. It was wifey.

“Tad, someone stole the pick up truck.”

“I know sweetheart. I got it back. It was Casey Ryan”

“What?”

“It was Casey. It was a practical joke. He stole the truck.”

“Well, come pick me up. I’m at the grocery store.”

Now, that’s weird, I thought to myself, and I furrowed my brow all the way into town. I found my wife with a cart full of groceries.

“How did you know the truck was stolen?” I asked.

“How did you get the truck?” she replied.

To make a long story digestible, Casey was out of town. There was a change of plans and my wife didn’t go anywhere. The car was in our garage and I didn’t think to check. When I stopped in at the house, I didn’t know wifey was home and didn’t hear her leave. She thought I had just left the engine running because I forgot the running engine the day before and she uses the truck for groceries. I assumed Casey was the thief so I stole the truck from my wife.

Casey had a well-deserved laugh when I told him. It seems that Casey’s great plan was to do nothing at all and let the paranoia set in until I finally stumbled into a mess of my own doing. It worked.

Theodore “Tad” Peckish is an Ontario farmer writing under a pseudonym in order “to avoid getting myself and anyone else into trouble.”