A Random Armload (Prose Poem)

When the police arrived at his apartment in Greenwich Village, Paul Pannkuk didn’t know what they were talking about.

Someone had entered the apartment next door, taken a random armload of the tenant’s belongings — photo albums, a doormat, a shoe holder — and dumped it all with the garbage in the basement. The burglar was captured on security camera, and he looked an awful lot like Mr. Pannkuk.

Michael Wilson. NYT.

A random armload is all I can carry at one time.

I once tried carrying a full wardrobe trunk on my back,

but that didn't turn out very well.

An armload of oranges, or of turtles, say,

is not very interesting, or fun.

But when you've got a random armload

of stuff, walking around randomly,

it's a real  hoot.

For instance, last Saturday I grabbed 

a random armload out of my neighbor's

garage

and walked around the neighborhood

with it for several hours.

It took only minutes for somebody to

post me on Instagram,

and then the mega-bloggers showed up

to demand to know what I was doing.

I told them I was campaigning for Bernie Sanders.

They seemed to buy that, the ninnyhammers.

I took my random armload back to my neighbor,

who was used to that sort of thing from me

so he didn't put up a fuss.

Early this morning I went into a 7-11

to grab a random armload of stuff;

I told the gaping clerk I'd be back to pay

for it all in a few hours.

But he chose to sic the police on me.

Very unsporting, if you ask me.

"Hey" said the cop as he got out of his squad car.

"Watcha doin' with all that merchandise, fellah?"

"I'm a random armload artist" I told him, "and I walk about with random armloads of stuff as performance art."

The cop got excited all of a sudden.

"Hey" he said. "I seen you on Huffington Post -- you're that famous guy . . . " He just gazed at me, lost in admiration.

"Would you like to take a selfie with me?" I offered.

"You betcha!" he exclaimed. Afterwards he made me promise to pay for everything I had, which I had always fully intended to do anyways, and then he drove off, with his lights flashing and his siren wailing. 

It's fun to make new friends, isn't it?

A group of small Asian children fell in line behind me as I paraded down the street with my random armload. I think they were waiting for something to fall out of my grasp. But that rarely happens -- practice makes perfect, you know.

When I got back to the 7-11 I dumped my random armload on the counter and told the clerk to ring me up. He looked a bit ashamed for being such a Doubting Thomas, so I told him that if the world had more random acts of carrying it would be a much better place.

"Is that some kind of religion or something?" he asked me fervently, the light of zealotry beginning to kindle in his eyes.

"No, son" I replied gently. "I'm just making up stuff as I go along. You just stick to your job and work hard and someday you'll find your own special brand of randomness."

"Oh, snap" he said.

"Snap, indeed!" I replied with a laugh. Then I had him bag my stuff, because my career as a random armload artist was over.