I got a phone call from my sister one evening while I was working late. She is normally quite calm but this night she was so excited and talking so fast that all I heard was snippets: “Bulk garbage day.” “St Francis of Assisi.” “Have to hurry.”
I finally got a word in edgewise. “Step away from the Red Bull,” I told her, “and start over. What on earth are you talking about?” Annoyed, she took a deep breath and started over,speaking slowly as if speaking to a particularly dull child.
Tomorrow was bulk garbage day, she said, and on the way home from work she noticed that one of the houses behind her office had a statue on the street to be carted away. She described the house to me and I knew immediately which one it was: it’s a modest little house painted in a vibrant turquoise and purple and blue palette with hot pink trim and yellow accents. I’m sure that in the right neighborhood, one inhabited primarily by gnomes, it would fit in perfectly, but in this corner of Fort Lauderdale it is kind of conspicuous.
Complementing the whimsical paint job, the property also features hundreds of wind chimes, scores of pin wheels, and dozens of pieces of poured concrete statuary. Clearly influenced by St. Peter’s Square, the owners have stocked their yard with poorly executed knock-offs of the Venus de Milo and the Pieta and Michelangelo’s ”David.” Adjacent to the carport there is a statue of a large, undraped, extremely well-endowed man who is either Poseidon or Mr. Clean. Next to the front door, obscured by the surrounding grandeur, is a 5 foot statue of St. Francis of Assisi, complete with a bird in his hand, a deer resting his head on the saint’s shoulder and a bunny at his feet. This is the statue that, inexplicably, was now on the street for bulk garbage day.
“I want that statue,” said my sister.
An awkward silence ensued. “I’m sure it will be lovely in your garden,” I said politely. “How are you planning on getting it home?” But I already knew the answer.
“You need to hurry,” said my sister, “before someone else grabs it.” I told her that this seemed unlikely and she ignored me. “The problem,” she continued, “is that the statue is at the foot of the driveway so I don’t know if it’s garbage or an artistic statement.”
“I’m sure it’s garbage,” I said unkindly.
“I want that statue,” she said again, adding unconvincingly: “It would be blasphemy to throw it away.”
I left the office that night under cover of darkness, just in case I was committing grand theft. I mentally calculated the weight of a five-foot concrete statue and debated asking my partner help me but decided against it; he is something of a pack rat himself and I was afraid if he came along that St. Francis might end up by our front door.
When I pulled up in front of the house I turned my lights off and sat for a minute, debating. The placement of the statue made me assume it was trash, but I wasn’t sure; at this address anything was possible. It occurred to me that even if I was stealing St. Francis that the neighbors would probably contribute to my legal defense fund out of sheer gratitude. Then I thought that it looked like I was casing the joint and that the neighbors were probably already calling the cops. “Just do it,” I told myself.
I opened the hatch to my SUV, grabbed the statue by the bird and the bunny, planted my feet and gave a mighty lift, falling back on my butt with St. Francis on top of me: He was made of hollow resin, not concrete.
Aggravated, I put St. Francis in my trunk and drove him to my sister’s house where I placed him on her front porch. She was delighted at her acquisition, but also critical. “He looks lonely,” she told me, “You think they’d miss Poseidon?”