3 Picking his nose so engrossed John Pus while he waited for a blueberry smoothie that he didn't hear how heavily the mayor of San Anselmo had loaded "Like . . ." with sarcasm.
John silently said, "Winner!" Gratified, his ears warmed and opened and he heard the rest of the mayor's pronouncement, ". . . San Anselmo really needs another restaurant."
He thought it was insider information. It was just the thing! He needed to do something fast with the bequest he'd gotten from The Crazy Lady. For a few years he'd hung around her house close to town--as filthy as his own ramshackle habitat, Alder Avenue's anathema--letting the crazy old bat cook meals for him, loan him coffee change he never repayed, and give him the keys to her late model Saab convertible for drives by himself to the bars of west Marin. He also had convinced her that he was Elvis.
"I love Elvis!" she said.
"Then . . ." said John, rolling his wrist, leaning close to the old lady, who had no other friends.
"You're Elvis? You didn't die? Can you still sing 'Love Me Tender'?"
"One thought at a time, Edna. You love Elvis, so . . ."
"I love Elvis so. Yes. Indeed. Yes indeedeedo." She hummed.
Maybe harmony instead of logic, John mused. He hummed along until she switched suddenly to "The Red Red Robin Goes Bob Bob Bobbin Along."
"I never performed that one. Not even in Vegas."
"Huh? That hearing aid you sold me isn't all you cracked it up to be, John."
"Elvis."
"Elvis?"
"You were saying about Elvis, that you love Elvis . . ."
"I do love Elvis."
"And who am I? . . ." He crooned, "And who are you? And who am I? And who is Elvis? Elvis is who? Who am I? I am Elvis. You are Edna. Elvis and Edna. Edna and Elvis. And so, and so, and so. . . . And so?"
"I love Elvis."
"And so!" he crooned still, wih Sergio Franchi-like phonemes to drive the case home. In many ways, Edna was pre-Elvis. It went on interminably, and John thought he was going to be late for his son, Andrew's, christening party.
But finally she said, "I love you!"
"And I love you, Edna! You're the mother I never had! Oh, I love you, too!"
Liar! Granny Pus lived and swatted bugs just a ten minute walk away. But the brief renouncement paid the vast dividend of half a million dollars cash, plus the Saab, bequeathed in Edna's will to John Pus (an assumed name, he had assured her, in order to protect Lisa Marie).
Long standing ambitions thus could come true.