The Banana

There is a true story of a demented boy sticking a cat into a microwave, the cat dying. But that isn’t this story.

Instead of a microwave, we have a dishwasher, and the cat doesn’t die. It just gets sick, really sick.

But, this story isn’t about the cat, either.

Jim Stewart, electrician, strode up to the hardware store, looking warily to the right and left at every second moment. Reaching the door, his blue jumpsuit brushed the doorjamb as he sidled past an old wood hobbyist pushing a dolly loaded with woodworking machinery out the door. The dolly’s wheels click-clonked over the metal strip on the floor between the door sills, and almost crushed Jim’s foot, but he whisked it away at the last minute.

Inside, he walked straight to the plumbing section. When an old teller that he usually chatted with – Jim was in the store often, picking up electrical supplies – smiled and looked as if he were going to say something, Jim half-smiled back, and quietly offered, “Sorry, I’m in a bit of a hurry today.”

The plumbing aisle was lined with boxes of gray, number-stamped PVC pipe, of all shapes and sizes. He quick-stepped down the aisle, consulting a slip of paper, and grabbed a small, thick pipe, then headed toward another aisle. He grabbed a couple of fuses, copper wire, washers and nuts, super glue, and butane. He paid with cash.

After he pulled into his driveway, he took his supplies and shut himself into the basement and didn’t come out for several hours.

He was out of money. If his bank account had not gone bust on him, he could have made his plans more elaborate, less obvious.

Concealing his project in his tool bag, he headed off to work. An old friend had called in to get his dishwasher fixed, and Jim had offered to take the job. The opportunity fit perfectly – if he could rig it right.

It turned out his friend’s dishwasher had a switched circuit board, and he spent the next hour weeding out which wire went where. By this time, his friend had left the room, and was working on business. At this moment of opportunity, Jim fused his pipe bomb behind the floor plate. As soon, as the dishwasher was used, the whole thing would blow.

Jim stood and straightened, his heart light as a feather, and gathered his tools. He stopped by his friend’s office, bid him good-bye, and left the house.

The explosion would be attributed to an accident with the wiring.

Jim arrived at work the next morning, waiting to be sent out to a job. His boss walked by, donut in hand.  “Did you hear the news today, Jim? Lexis Inc. recalled a whole line of dishwashers last night; something about confused wiring. Company said they’d pay for any repairs the owners had done to the washers in the meantime. Bet they’re only doing that for political reasons.”

“Didn’t you work on one of them Lexis’s yesterday?” Someone called the boss’s name, and he left the room.

Jim slid down into his chair, hands raking through his hair. Why? Why did his plan never succeed?

Something always funked up his scheme: people would come in and interrupt him at the last minute, his bank account went bust, and now the pipe bomb failed. For all the years he had been trying, his plans had never worked. His friend was impossible to murder!

He and his friend used to be close. They had met in college and gotten along swell, but when they had been playing a prank – his friend’s idea! – they had been caught. His friend was let off easy, but Jim was expelled and thereafter became an electrician, the other completing his degree and becoming a successful stock broker. Ever since that day, Jim had held a burning resentment, and though he masked it while being chummy with the friend’s family, he spent his uneventful nights toying with the ideas of revenge until a spectacular idea would come to him that he would try. To this day, none of them had succeeded….

Jim went home from work early that day, citing illness.  As he walked into the living room, he thought he saw a scampering figure race behind his couch. Clambering down on his hands and knees, he peered behind the couch. Yes, it was a mouse, all right.

Sighing, he straightened and headed toward the cupboard where he kept the pest poison. His hand was on the bottle of “Rat and Rodent Poison (rats, mice, squirrels, flying squirrels, moles, and bats)” when he had his epiphany. He quickly set down the bottle and ran to his cooking supplies drawer, pulling out a meat injector.

He grabbed the poison and drove to his friend’s house.

He knocked on the door. When his friend answered, he stated that he had heard about the recall and wanted to help move the dishwasher. His friend agreed to it, (“I haven’t even used it since you fixed it”), and let him in. As Jim was walking past a leather couch, the house’s monstrous cat leapt from the seat and nearly bowled him over, running into the next room.

“Something wrong with your cat?” Jim asked.

“He does that sometimes. I followed him once, and all he does is go into the bedroom and stare at the wall. I don’t want to know….”

The friend led Jim into the kitchen. “I wasn’t going to move it just yet. Would you like something to eat, by the way? I was just about to make something: banana and peanut butter? Jim nodded a “yes”.

Jim watched his friend pull the peanut butter and two bananas out and begin to peel back the first banana peel. He had taken a bite from the first banana and handed the second to Jim, when from somewhere in the back, a loud crash sounded with a high-pitched shattering.

“The dang cat! I don’t know why she keeps it!” His friend hurried off to clean up the mess.

As soon as he had left, Jim yanked out the injector – he had filled and stoppered it with rat poison – and squeezed the fluid into the bitten-off banana. He tugged out the injector, and re-capped the needle.

“Hey, Jim, can you help me with this? The cat just knocked over a cabinet. I don’t know how….” he trailed off. Leaving his handiwork behind, Jim headed to the bedroom, almost being run over by the monster-cat again.

Cabinet set back on its feet and the glass mostly cleaned up, the two headed back to the kitchen to finish their meals. Jim looked at the table.

And the banana was gone.

Jim’s friend came to his plate, glancing down. “The dang cat ate my banana again!”