One Mukluk

By Barry G. Gale

They found his Mukluks, but not his body. Actually, only one Mukluk. It was floating in the Potomac River near Chain Bridge, several miles upstream from the White House. This is also where the witnesses said they saw him go down. The papers and the local television stations reported that there were several witnesses. None saw him fall, if he did fall. Each saw him go under, rise up from the river, shout something into the air, then disappear forever under the churning Potomac waters.

There was disagreement among the witnesses as to what he said. TV and newspaper coverage was extensive. Various reporters, led by Able Intruder of the Washington Clarion, interviewed the witnesses.

"I didn't realize there were shepherds along the Potomac," Intruder said to the person described as the Shepherd (also known as Nick).

"Oh, yes," the Shepherd responded. "I started here 1933 as part of WPA, but my ancestors were here 200 years before Christ. You see, sheep love natural salt that is found in rocks."

"That's amazing," a second reporter said, shaking his head. "Every year I'm in Washington I learn more about...."

"Yes, is true, is true," Nick (also known as the Shepherd) protested.

"We believe you," Intruder assured him.

"Look at them lick on rocks," Nick the Shepherd pointed out. The TV camera panned to the sheep which were casually standing on the cold riverbank, munching on whatever few blades of grass they could find amid the patches of snow and ice, and occasionally looking back at the commotion up above them.

"Sometime about 1000 after Christ — is hard to know exact date — many to Greece, others to Chicago," Nick the Shepherd continued. "Our people, you see, shepherd in Chicago area long before Indian and Norse invaders."

"Is that so?" another reporter asked.

"Yes, is so," Nick the Shepherd responded, as if he were being challenged, which perhaps he was. "To this day, my nephew and his family live in Chicago. He shepherd over 20 years at Stockyards. My great-nephew, Archie, short for Achilles, he work there, too."

"But what about the man, Nick?" Intruder intruded. "Did you hear him say something?"

"Yes, I did. But I no remember right now. I'm too excited." Nick the Shepherd wiped the perspiration off his forehead with a large blue handkerchief. "You know, all of this very exciting to poor old shepherd person. Maybe I remember later."

Another eyewitness interviewed that same day was a Mrs. Dillydally, a wealthy widow who lived in a large, white-glazed terra cotta mansion along the Potomac, on the Virginia side of the river, just above Chain Bridge.

"I had just watered my dog and was taking my flowers for a walk when...," Mrs. Dillydally said, with obviously more charm than thought.

"Taking your flowers for a...?" interrupted Intruder.

"Shhh," cautioned another reporter at the scene, "let her talk."

"Yes," continued Mrs. Dillydally, with obviously more thought than charm, though very little more, "when all of a sudden... all of a sudden..." Losing her point, she became flustered and, looking intently into the crowd that had gathered around her, she proclaimed in a rather unsteady but apparently sincere voice: "Don't y'all just luuuve Ronald Reagan?"

It was later learned that Mrs. Dillydally was forever seeking solace. Asked if that were a full-time profession by one of the reporters, she replied that indeed it was, especially since her husband, Barrington Bridgenips Dillydally, the world-famous explorer of the east coast of Chile and a life-long consultant to the Organization of Anti-American States, one of the largest and best-funded international organizations in Washington, died some seven years before.

It was never learned what, if anything, she had heard or seen that day.

I was shocked by what happened, my wife, Emily, was shocked, my kids — my son, whom we call Rooster, and my daughter, whose name is Ballie — were also shocked. Even my Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier, Yates, was shocked, and he isn't easily shocked by anything. We were all just really, really shocked. I'm still shocked. Just shocked right out of my ever-loving gourd.

My wife, Emily, said that after my friend and colleague Metro Adams disappeared, I moped around the house for several weeks, and she believes that the reason I began to write the story of Adams's life was because this was my way of dealing with my grief over his loss. Perhaps, but I always thought I did it, because Clarissa and Jocelyn, Adams's live-in girlfriends, asked me to. See more below.

Soon after Adams's disappearance, a great controversy arose about who would move into his newly vacant office at the US Department of Science, Technology and Assorted Other Stuff (DOST) in Washington, D.C. where he and I worked. I'm not exactly sure what the controversy was about, but I was told by more than several people, some of whom I actually believed, that it was surely great.