Free Death of a Pumpkin Carver by Lee Hollis Page B

bubbling on the stove ready to be served and after another round of cocktails we were fresh out of bourbon.
    I could not believe how long it was taking the boys to carry in a few pumpkins. At that moment, the police scanner sitting up on top of the refrigerator sounded off (pretty much everyone in town has one) and through the crackling we heard the dispatcher mention “Frenchman’s Bay,” “Coast Guard,” “old Ford truck,” “Fire and Rescue,” “crane,” and the key word, “pumpkins”!
    Tori and I jumped up and shot out of the house.
    Sure enough, outside there was no sign of Otis or Danny or Otis’s truck and all those pumpkins. Tori and I scrambled into my car and we tore through town like a bullet train to the town pier. Tori spent the whole ride wailing about what she would do if she lost the love of her life, completely forgetting she had just spent the previous hour bashing him.
    I squealed the car to a stop and slammed the gear into park once we hit the town pier, and we both jumped out and joined a large crowd gathered at the bottom of Main Street staring down into the water. I frantically pushed my way through, a sobbing Tori clinging to me all the way until we reached the edge.
    We both gasped in shock at the sight of Otis’s truck submerged in the water, just the back end sticking out surrounded by fifteen pumpkins floating around it. We spotted a small rescue skiff with rescue divers on board off a Coast Guard boat out in the bay heading full tilt toward the upended truck. Meanwhile, on land a large semi with a massive crane was being backed up to the end of the pier. Some firemen were setting up a few floodlights facing the water and the police force was placing barriers to keep back the crowd of onlookers.
    Tori lost it, screaming over losing such a sweet and devoted husband!
    I was in a state of shock.
    What would I tell the kids?
    They were so young.
    The crowd watched me hugging Tori, all with looks of profound pity.
    A few neighbors and friends who were there gave us a quick hug or offered an encouraging word.
    â€œWhat’s going on here?” a man behind me asked.
    It was a familiar voice.
    It was my Danny.
    I spun around and there he was standing with Uncle Otis, craning his neck to get a good look at what everyone was staring at. He was surprised to see me. “Hey, babe, what are you doing here?”
    Before I could answer him, Tori let out a shriek to rival the nine o’clock whistle and then fainted dead away to the ground. Otis remarked he had never seen her so quiet as he poked her sides with his fishing boot to revive her.
    Well, it turned out, Danny and Otis conspired to take a quick trip to Geddy’s Pub for a beer or two before unloading all the pumpkins. Otis parked his old junky truck on the hill across the street from the bar, pointing down toward the water, and apparently in his haste to get his hands on a cold Budweiser, put the gear in neutral instead of park. The rest, as they say, is history.
    A few of my friends pointed to that night as the beginning of the end of my marriage to Danny. But it wasn’t quite over yet and there would be many more stories like this to tell. But that little gem was the talk of the town all the way into the New Year until Matt Gray had a few too many beers and took his snowmobile for a midnight spin after a fresh snowfall up and down the main streets in town, leading the police on a merry chase before crashing into a snowplow. He was fine, but I must say, I was rather relieved that people finally had a new topic to discuss.
    The only thing good that came out of that night was once the Coast Guard fished all those pumpkins out of the bay I had plenty extra to make more of my Pumpkin Soup and a whole season’s worth of Pumpkin Cocktails!
    Â 
    Pumpkin Soup
    Ingredients
6 cups chicken stock (homemade or
store-bought)
1 ½ teaspoon salt
4 cups pumpkin puree
1 cup chopped