Reginald Has a Bad Day

Sleep is a wonderful thing, Reginald wholeheartedly believes, because until this moment he was unaware of how much his neck hurt. On second thought, his head too, was beginning a steady thrum of pressure. He would have brought his hands to his temples to attempt one of those massages that never seem to work that his coworker Sherry swears by, but he couldn’t quite move his arms. When he shifted he could feel something rope-like biting into his skin, constricting his body.

All around him was dark, save for a faint line of light peeking out where a wall met the floor. It was cramped too, with shelves leaving equally spaced bruises where his back was pressed against the wood slats. Reginald could hear the clattering of his feet knocking into a plastic bucket and some kind of mop or broom more than he could feel it; his tailbone down to his toes was almost completely numb from how his knees were bent against his torso, the way he might have curled around himself as a child. He was not looking forward to the feeling of muscles stretched too far later; Reginald was hardly as spry at 43 as he was at 6, when he hid from the abuses of his nanny under overturned pots in the garden.

And if the indignity of being bound and tossed in a supply closet wasn’t enough, whoever it was also took his pants! As dim as it was, he could still see that his knees were bare. Of course, they’d left him his undershirt, checkered boxers, socks, and shiny brown shoes, but not his hat, button-down, jacket, or pants. What in the world did they take his clothes for? Surely just the wallet was enough; to make him suffer the humiliation of walking around half-naked was quite excessive in his humble opinion. But first, Reginald had to get out of the closet.

The limited light provided by the crevice was enough to reveal that the inside of the closet had no knob. Reginald wiggled with as much self-respect as he could muster to where he thought the door was and began knocking his head against it; enough to produce a sound but hopefully with less force than would cause brain damage. A concussion was the last thing he needed, assuming he didn’t already have one. The tapping would draw someone to him eventually, but he really wished that he could get to his whistle. It still hung loyally at his neck, but there was no way he’d reach it without his hands, so he’d have to settle for percussion.

Reginald might kill someone for a couple tablets of aspirin when he got out. Well no, he was a gentleman and a scholar, but he would consider it for a single dark-hearted moment.

Beyond the door he could hear the steady clacking of a train racing over tracks. Perhaps he should have wondered sooner about the sound, perhaps he should have realized sooner, given that the last thing he remembered was buying a ticket at the station. He was heading south to visit his daughter, Harriet, at school. That was the plan, anyway. However, he didn’t remember getting on any of the trains, and his ticket would have been in his pants, which someone had so generously relieved him of. How he’d ended up in a closet on a train was anybody’s guess.

***

Three. Hours. In that time, not a single person had passed his closet. The train hadn’t stopped either. He doubted he was on the south-bound rail; not only would he have been at his destination by now, but he knew for a fact that there were at least two stops at other stations on the way. Reginald cursed his ignorance; he had never cared enough about the other rails to know exactly where they went or what the journey was like on each of them. He hardly knew how many there were, much less which had continuous transits.

He wanted to cry out, but he knew it would only be a coarse strangled sound if he did. He sighed instead, knocking his head with a bit too much force that time. The smarting sensation caused him to wince and hiss simultaneously.

Then, the door gave way.

He fell on his side into the light of the narrow hallway. It wasn’t proper, but Reginald laid there and closed his eyes for a moment.

“Quick! STOP THAT MAN!”

Reginald could hear and feel the heavy footfalls approaching his location. Miserable and embarrassed, he rolled to look in the direction of the shouting.

“Hahahah! You think you’ll catch me!? The Phantom Thief of Birmingham? IN YOUR DREAMS, DETECTIVE BLAKE!”

Reginald tensed, bracing for the impact he could see coming. From the pinched expression on his face to the screaming coiled muscles of his stomach, all of him agreed that today was an awful day. Somehow it was an even worse day than when his grade-school teacher had humiliated him for being unable to speak when he was 11.

The “Phantom Thief of Birmingham” did not see his prone form barricading the hallway. Reginald noticed wryly that the thief was wearing his missing garments, beloved pants and all. The collision sent the man tumbling into the floor and dragged Reginald from laying on his right side to his left.

Another man came dashing down the corridor; he was shorter compared to the gangly thief, but not particularly small. The time the thief took to reorient himself was enough for the detective to catch him; vaulting over Reginald with a surprising elegance, he proceeded to tackle the thief wholesale. They wrestled about on the floor for a few moments before Detective Blake managed to get him into a set of metal cuffs.

Reginald waited patiently only because he would not demean himself further by wiggling about on the floor. He sighed, staring at the pair across from him. Then he heard more foot steps.

“Detective Blake! You’ve done it! You’ve caught the thief!” Cheered a woman’s voice.

“Uncle! This has been the coolest summer ever!” Cried a scrappy boy of around 12 years.

“Sir, who’s this other man?” An older male voice finally acknowledged his existence.

“Veronica, my love, I’ve done it! We can finally get married, like we vowed so many years ago beneath the wisteria tree.” He swept the woman up in his arms and swung her around. Reginald joined Mr. Phantom Thief in glowering at the couple. They continued their romantic moment in the middle of everything, ignoring all else.

Reginald turned his gaze to the the man that was probably the detective’s assistant, silently requesting to be untied. He would not beg. That would be undignified. The assistant released a long suffering sigh as he knelt beside Reginald and pulled out a pocket knife. Soon enough, Reginald was free of his restraints and quietly rubbing the feeling back into his aching body.

“Sorry about all this” the assistant speaks to him quietly as he offers a hand to help Reginald stand.

Reginald shakes his head and then nods his thanks. He mimes tipping a hat that seems to have been lost by the thief. Then he frowns; Reginald liked that hat.

Speaking of Reginald’s clothing—since the couple were becoming increasingly amorous in the corridor and the assistant was busy covering the curious eyes of the young boy—Reginald made his way towards the thief to reclaim it. Staring down at the man, he takes hold of his pants and begins yanking them down his legs. When he wrenches them free and slips them back on he feels better, even in their newly roughened state. Because of how the thief was tied, he would have to wait to reclaim the rest of his outfit.

Still, as time went on and Reginald watched the thief, he began to feel a bit vindictive. Looking over at the open closet a dark-hearted thought filled his mind. Reginald dragged the squirming thief to it and shoved him in with a self-satisfied look in his eyes. After he slammed the door shut he dusted off his hands and decided he could live without the rest of his suit; being a gentleman was overrated anyway, and he would always be a scholar. Now he just had to find his way back southward, Harriet was waiting after all.