Astonishingly, at least in that instance and on that day, the best laid plans of mice and men did not go awry, and by 8:45 a.m. Chestnut Avenue between 83rd and 84th Streets was completely devoid of cars.

As to the parking space that had caused so much turmoil, if you did not know the address of the building in front of which it stood, it would be impossible to detect where that rectangle of impenetrable invisibility had been.

Noah left his snowplow in the middle of the street just outside Rocco’s Bistro. As he had done the night before, he led Lilly Snow through the door to the delicious bakery smells inside. They sat at a table by the window. The very same table, although they did not know it, that previously had been occupied by Hector Van Hooft and Rosemary Thigpen.

Then by Maid Marion.

And now…

Noah helped Lilly off with her coat, pointed outside, and said, “We have front row seats.”

So they did.

And later, thanks to transportation provided by Maid Marion, Jimmy Christmas’s newly honed journalistic skills, and a Sony AX2000 video camera, so did all of the people who turned on their TV sets that day to watch the news.

The first of the demonstrators began to dribble onto Chestnut Avenue at about 9:30 a.m. They were dressed for the weather in mostly-hooded mostly-black parkas with protest signs held on sticks high above their heads.

Lilly thought they looked like ambulatory hors’ d’oeuvres.

The orange and white barricades on either end of the block were meant to keep out cars but not to repel Cadogan McClure’s acolytes, all of whom had received instructions and scripts from the Great Filmmaker via email, text message, or robot phone calls, depending upon their preference.

With few exceptions, they were the same people who materialized whenever he staged a demonstration. All of whom, recalling the rubbish-strewn chaos of the day before, were confronted by a block with nary a car, snow bank, scrap of trash, or remnant of fire cracker in sight. To say that they were stunned and confused by a now pristine street was a vast understatement.

Cadogan McClure’s van pulled up to the 83rd Street intersection at 9:45 a.m., fifteen minutes before the protest was scheduled to begin.

After being duped last night into chasing down a non-existent duplicate of Chestnut Avenue’s invisible parking space, he was blubberingly mad. His anger had become rage when he’d returned to his van to discover that not only were his protestors gone, his videographer was also among the missing, and his assistant Daisy Dalrymple was nowhere to be found.

Cadogan McClure’s rage intensified yet again when, upon arriving on Saturday morning, he observed that:

• All of the cars parked there the night before were gone.

• All of the snow that had been piled between cars and up against the curb was gone.

• Any demarcation to indicate the whereabouts of an invisible shield surrounding a parking space was gone.

• All physical remnants (debris, fire crackers fragments, torn posters, etc.) of his social protest were gone.

• All demonstrators who had responded to his “call to action” were milling about with their signs dragging behind them like dispirited tails.

Cadogan McClure slid open the door of his van, pulled out an acetylene torch, and signaled for Tallahassee Dan to follow. Neither Dan nor Cadogan knew that the other had also been tricked by a short, sharp-nosed, big-eared stranger into following non-existent leads. But the videographer, instead of feeling anger about his own credulity, was amused by what he considered Cadogan’s “Narcissistic take” on the whole thing.

The Great Director stopped on the east side of the avenue, glared up the block, and snarled, “So where is it?”

Tallahassee Dan pointed toward the 1582 building.

“There,” he said. “I’ll walk up the sidewalk and video you while you walk up the street. Stay near the curb. Stop when you bump up against the force field. Then take out your blow torch, and I’ll shoot close-ups of you burning your way into the parking space.”

Cadogan nodded.

He held the acetylene torch out in front of him like a cartoon soldier cradling a machine gun.

Slowly, he walked up the street, mere inches from the curb.

But he never got to use the acetylene torch, because the only things he encountered along the way were random flakes of snow and bitter winter wind.

No invisible barrier.

No force field.

No transparent walls, fences, or blockades.

When he looked up again minutes later, he realized that he and Tallahassee Dan were alone on the block.

Also…no people.

Once again, his carefully assembled band of protestors had drifted away.

Cadogan did not attempt to call them back. Nor did he rail against their disloyalty.

He did, however, fire Tallahassee Dan.

For the stone-faced videographer, notable for his under-reactions (he never smiled; he never cried; he never frowned; and he never grinned) observing The Great Director’s outrage and frustration…well, he just started to laugh.

And once Tallahassee Dan had started to laugh, he could not stop. He laughed so much and so hard that he collapsed onto the curb and tears rolled down his face.

All of which Jimmy Christmas, leaning against the hood of a turquoise Coupe de Ville at the blocked entrance to Chestnut, captured on the memory card of his video camera. And all of which, when he returned to the television station where he worked, he edited, and incorporated into his report for the Seven O’clock News.

Copyright © Shelly Reuben, 2021. Shelly Reuben’s books have been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more about her writing, visit www.shellyreuben.com