Schrödinger's Pinkie

A great work week. Next week will probably suck.... It's been one of those special weeks where everything has worked out well. Excluding my new eyeglasses breaking and losing one of my new contacts while swimming. But, besides those two minor incidents, smooth sailing.

I have had several inquiries from readers (okay, just my aunt asking three times) as to the true story about the loss of the pinkie. So in order to disabuse any false notions and to put all rumors to rest I now present the real tale; the veracity of which cannot be disproved.

It was a dark and stormy night (no, really, it was) in Cleveland, Ohio on that fateful date, January 16, 2001. I was wandering alone along the docks, my hands deep in my coat's pockets and its collar turned up against the wind and snow. It was as cold as the heart of the waitress I had met the night before. I thought the extra fifty buck tip I slipped her would provide the kind of entertainment that I read about in Penthouse, but all she wanted to do was talk.

"My name is Kat," she said. "Kat Schrödinger. I need your help. I think someone is trying to kill me. I found some hydrocyanic acid and a Geiger counter in my room. I need you to find out who it could be."

"Look, Doll Face, you're making as much sense as String Theory. Just tell me who you think it could be and give me my fifty bucks back," I replied.

With my fifty and a couple of new C notes keeping it company in my wallet, I found myself looking for Tony "The Nose" Luchelli. He was also known as "The Quantum Mechanic" because those who displeased him would feel pain down to the subatomic level.

That is how I found myself wandering in the dark on a snowy night in Cleveland following a guy who would appear in one place, disappear, and then be somewhere else instantly. After an hour of feeling the nether regions of my body turning into ice cubes I found myself standing outside a dive named "Causality".

A deep, gravelly voice behind me snarled, "Who are you and whatta you want?"

"I'm just an average guy doing his job," I answered. I turned and found myself face to face with Tony "The Nose" aka "The Quantum Mechanic." He was so fat he could bend light and his breath made the liverwurst on onion roll sandwich I had for lunch come back up. I added, "Followin' you was easy, real easy. I just played the odds."

"Used probability, eh? Well, pal, since you seem to be a sportin' man, lemme show you a little game we play wit' smart guys like you." With those words, his two goons, Erwin and Max, grabbed me from behind and dragged me into the back room of the bar. "Make sure he's comfortable," Tony said. That's when everything went black.

When I woke up, I found my right hand encased in a metal box. Tony and his sidekicks were standing there. Tony said, "Inside this box is a mousetrap with a spring strong enough to cut through a broom stick. Your little finger is strapped to that mousetrap. Holding the spring down is a piece of cheese. Also inside the box is a sedated mouse. The question is how long will the mouse stay asleep? And when it wakes up, how long will it take to eat the cheese? I know what you're thinkin', punk. Is your finger still there? Or, is it gone? Or, is it both at the same time? Well, to tell you the truth, in all the excitement I forgot. Why don't we open the box to find out?"

Everything went black again. And, when I woke up I was in the gutter grasping a bottle of bad gin in a paper bag. A cop was pushing me with the toe of his boot, "Go on, ya lousy three fingered bum. Get yerself home before I run ya in!"

And that is the true story of how I became Three Fingered Frank. I never saw Kat again, nor the 250 bucks that Tony lifted from my wallet.