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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Character Based
- Published: 08/13/2024
Misfeasance, Nonfeasance, Malfeasance
Born 1945, M, from Boston/MA, United StatesLucas Weston did something flagrantly dishonest. He acted swiftly, methodically and felt no remorse whatsoever. And now, by contacting his daughter, Olivia, he was expanding the pasty spider’s net of complicity. Because she attended Catholic Mass Sunday mornings, Lucas Weston waited until his daughter returned from church before dialing her cell phone. “Are you going to be around today?”
“Brian’s at the tennis club all afternoon so I’m home with Lisa.”
“Well, it’s my granddaughter I need to see.” He switched the phone to his other hand. “I’ve got an early Christmas present.”
“It’s mid-August,” Olivia noted.
Lucas cleared his throat of a non-existent obstruction. “I’ll explain things when I get there.”
On the ride to his daughter’s house, Lucas assured himself he had done nothing morally wrong. He had already discussed the issue with his wife, who understood his predicament and promised to stand by him no matter what the outcome. If Olivia refused the gift, he would keep it; she was in no way complicit in what happened the previous day.
Fifteen minutes later, Lucas pulled into his daughter’s driveway. He fished a small cardboard box from the rear seat and made his way to the front door. “Where’s my favorite granddaughter?”
“Only granddaughter as of this visit,” Olivia qualified. “She’s playing in the back yard.” A flaxen-hair woman with thin lips and pale blue eyes, acquaintances could never quite decide if she was pretty or plain. The problem stemmed from a jumble of appealing adolescent features that never quite transitioned into womanly good looks let alone glamour. Pretty or plain – no one quite knew for sure.
Lucas carried the box straight through the living room and out the kitchen door. Gingerly placing it on the picnic table, he pulled back the cardboard flaps. In the bottom of the box resting on a plush terry cloth towel lay a tiny beagle puppy.
“Oh, my God!” Gently lifting the dog from the box, Lisa cradled it in her arms. A mass of curly brown hair framed a plump face and wide nose; with her sturdy frame and swarthy complexion, the child clearly favored the father.
“His name is Max. If you don’t like beagles, I can always trade him in for a Dalmatian or Saint Bernard,” Lucas joked.
The child had already transferred the dog to the lawn and the puppy was rushing about pell-mell sniffing flowers and peeing on the shrubbery. The yard was self-contained with a sturdy cedar fence butting up against the back of the house.
Olivia shook her head up and down. “Sure is a cutie. Where did you get Max?”
“The pet store at the mall.”
Olivia glanced up at the sky where a scattering of cottony clouds was drifting in slow motion across an otherwise azure sky. “Anderson’s?”
“What’s that?” Lucas had been watching his granddaughter racing about the lawn with the newfound love of her life.
“Anderson’s Pet Store… the one at the Midland Mall where you purchased the dog.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Olivia retrieved the tiny dog, held it up at arm’s length then kissed it on the black and brown spotted forehead before relinquishing it back to her insistent daughter. “Thackeray’s… that’s the name of the pet store at the mall.” She spoke in a breezy, offhand manner.
“Spoken like a true paralegal,” Lucas noted, the brisk humor having abruptly departed from his voice.
Olivia worked for a law firm on State Street in downtown Boston where she did judicial research, interviewed clients, gathered facts and retrieves information. With her broad knowledge of legal procedures and civil statutes Lucas viewed his daughter as more knowledgeable than the bulk of lawyers billing a hundred and fifty dollars an hour to provide their clients the correct time of day.
“I stole the dog.” Lucas reported in an unapologetic tone.
After a brief pause, his daughter blurted, “Isn’t it a bit late to be pursuing a life in crime?” There was no reply. The puppy, which was becoming quite rambunctious barked several times then let out a deep-throated howl resembling a police siren. “Why don’t we go inside, have a nice cup of coffee and sort things out.”
* * * * *
Lucas had visited the community park the previous day. There were several baseball diamonds, a playground with swings, slides, and jungle gyms for toddlers as well as walking trails nestled in several acres of lush woodlands. As he entered the parking lot, he noticed a dark-haired, middle-aged woman dressed in culottes and a paisley blouse walking a small dog on a leash.
“Marion Thurman,” Lucas muttered. He recognized the woman by the protuberant lower lip and bulgy eyes. Marion was the head of the local school committee. A loquacious firebrand she was frequently at odds with school officials and local politicians who challenged either her policies or liberal agenda. The woman and her volatile antics had been written up in the editorial pages of the newspaper. She was a crazed dingbat, a political gooney bird who always managed to get reelected when her term expired.
Another woman approached. They knew each other, kissed and hugged. Marion immediately whisked the tiny dog off the pavement, deposited him on the rear seat of her car and the two women hurried off together in the direction of a clump of alders at the far end of the walking trail.
Lucas chose the same walking trail but never saw Marion or her friend. Twenty minutes later, when he returned to the scene of the crime, Marion was still nowhere to be found. The car was resting in the blistering sun, the temperature having increased several degrees. Lucas approached the metallic bronze Honda CRV. Breathing in short, spasmodic bursts, the puppy was lying prostrate on the floor. Lucas cracked the car door, transferred the wilted creature to his own vehicle; revving the air conditioner to full blast, he drove away.
* * * * *
“Where did you get the beagle?” his wife asked when Lucas returned from the park.
“From Marion Thurman’s car,” he replied. The dog was lapping up water by the mouthfuls from a bowl Lucas placed on the kitchen floor.
“You stole a dog.” After what seemed an eternity the puppy finally pulled away from the water and threw himself down on the floor. “It would be nice if you could be just a tad bit more specific.”
Lucas told his wife what had happened at the park. “You could have dropped the dog off at the pound.”
“The dingbat abandoned the dog in an overheated car. I’m not giving it back.”
“Beagle puppies run upward of fifteen to twenty-five hundred bucks from a certified kennel,” his wife noted. “I know because Olivia was researching the cost on the internet a few months back.”
“Well,” Luke quipped, “I guess we won’t be expanding our pet sanctuary in the near future.”
“Like I said, you could have dropped him off at an animal shelter.”
“And they would have promptly returned the puppy to Marion so she could lock him in an overheated car again. It’s a moral issue.”
By way of response, Mrs. Weston cracked a cabinet door and removed a bag of white rice from the middle shelf. Then she retrieved a package of ground hamburger from the refrigerator. “What are you doing?”
“As I see it,” his wife replied, “our furry friend will be spending quality time with us, so I’m fixing his dinner.” “Unfortunately,” she put a pan of water on to boil, “the puppy will be eating our lunch.”
* * * * *
Lucas told his daughter about Marion Thurmond’s stolen puppy. Olivia sipped at her coffee and stared out the sliding door at Lisa and the frisky beagle. “Nonfeasance is when a person fails to do something which they ought to like calling the police when Marion Thurmond recklessly abandons her pet in a hot car at the community park. You didn’t do the proper thing.”
“Okay,” Luke replied meekly. “Anything else?”
“Malfeasance is when you act in a way that incurs potential damages. Breaking into someone’s unlocked car and running off with their dog could be construed as a criminal rather than civil offense.”
“I’m sure you learned all this in your prelaw class,” Luke noted in a demoralized tone.”
“Misfeasance,” Olivia ignored his dour observation, “is the act of engaging in an action or duty but failing to perform the duty correctly. Misfeasance may be unintentional, but that doesn’t necessarily get you off the judicial hook. You were physically present and had an ethical obligation to chase the moronic woman down and demand that she remove the defenseless puppy from the car.”
“Abandoning the dog she proved herself an unfit pet owner. I’ve got the moral high ground.”
“Yes, of course.” Olivia assumed a papery-thin, legalistic tone. “But from a strictly judicial standpoint she’s the property owner and you’re the troublemaker.”
“So Max is no longer a puppy but property… chattel.”
“Misfeasance, nonfeasance, malfeasance … Congratulations! You just broke all the rules!”
Lucas blew his cheeks out in exasperation. “I wonder if old-fashioned curbstone justice might be preferable to our current legal system.
His daughter eyed him uncomfortably. Her father never talked this way in the past. “In ancient times,” Olivia observed, “we had the Ten Commandments, the Justinian and Hammurabi Codes.”
“They were coarse and cruel,” Lucas added, “but in many ways superior to our judicial gobbledygook.”
“Point well taken,” Olivia interjected, “but let’s not forget that the Code of Hammurabi includes many harsh punishments, sometimes demanding the removal of the guilty party's tongue, hands, breasts, eye or ear.” “Back to Colonial times we padlocked transgressors in wooden stocks in the town square… put them on display for public disgrace and humiliation.”
Lucas tried to imagine Marion Thurman decked out in Colonial garb not unlike Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter fame. In lieu of the ‘A’ for adultery Marion would sport a crimson ‘PA’ for puppy abuser on her fashionable paisley blouse.
* * * * *
From the backyard the dog let out a playful howl, scurrying into the kitchen through the open doorway with Lisa bringing up the rear. Reaching down, Lucas scooped the puppy up and held him under his daughter’s nose. “You’re the paralegal… no, better yet, you’re the judge in a pending courtroom case. Would you find in favor of the plaintiff and send this adorable creature back to Marion Thurman?”
“Moral high ground,” Olivia tossed his own words back in Lucas’ face, “frequently counts for nothing in an American court of law.”
“Even if she posted a ‘missing dog’ notice in the paper, you live three towns away; there’s no distribution this far away.”
“What if I say no?” Olivia refused to budge.
“Then I’ll take the pooch home to live with me.”
“And what if the harebrained Marion Thurman nails ‘Missing Dog!’ pictures of Max on every telephone pole within a twenty mile radius?”
“If she eventually found the dog and hauled me into court, I’d threaten to contact the local press and tell them why I did what I did.” Lucas cracked a mean-spirited, evil grin. “The only thing that egomaniac values more than her pedigree puppy is her unsullied reputation.” He made a wry face. “She wouldn’t sacrifice that for anything.” Lucas pushed the empty coffee cup aside. “I’m going home now. If you don’t want the risk, put the dog back in the box.”
Lisa suddenly rushed back in the house. “Max just pooped in the flower bed.”
“Which flowers?”
“The yellow ones.”
Olivia grabbed her daughter’s arm and bent down so she could look the child full in the face. “You like Max?”
“No, I loooove Max!” She crowed, drawing the vowel out for dramatic effect before rushing back out into the yard.
Olivia leaned forward and kissed her father on the cheek. “Misfeasance, nonfeasance, malfeasance, … I’d love to continue this scintillating conversation, but my new puppy just crapped on the marigolds and I’ve got to go clean the mess.”
Misfeasance, Nonfeasance, Malfeasance(Barry)
Lucas Weston did something flagrantly dishonest. He acted swiftly, methodically and felt no remorse whatsoever. And now, by contacting his daughter, Olivia, he was expanding the pasty spider’s net of complicity. Because she attended Catholic Mass Sunday mornings, Lucas Weston waited until his daughter returned from church before dialing her cell phone. “Are you going to be around today?”
“Brian’s at the tennis club all afternoon so I’m home with Lisa.”
“Well, it’s my granddaughter I need to see.” He switched the phone to his other hand. “I’ve got an early Christmas present.”
“It’s mid-August,” Olivia noted.
Lucas cleared his throat of a non-existent obstruction. “I’ll explain things when I get there.”
On the ride to his daughter’s house, Lucas assured himself he had done nothing morally wrong. He had already discussed the issue with his wife, who understood his predicament and promised to stand by him no matter what the outcome. If Olivia refused the gift, he would keep it; she was in no way complicit in what happened the previous day.
Fifteen minutes later, Lucas pulled into his daughter’s driveway. He fished a small cardboard box from the rear seat and made his way to the front door. “Where’s my favorite granddaughter?”
“Only granddaughter as of this visit,” Olivia qualified. “She’s playing in the back yard.” A flaxen-hair woman with thin lips and pale blue eyes, acquaintances could never quite decide if she was pretty or plain. The problem stemmed from a jumble of appealing adolescent features that never quite transitioned into womanly good looks let alone glamour. Pretty or plain – no one quite knew for sure.
Lucas carried the box straight through the living room and out the kitchen door. Gingerly placing it on the picnic table, he pulled back the cardboard flaps. In the bottom of the box resting on a plush terry cloth towel lay a tiny beagle puppy.
“Oh, my God!” Gently lifting the dog from the box, Lisa cradled it in her arms. A mass of curly brown hair framed a plump face and wide nose; with her sturdy frame and swarthy complexion, the child clearly favored the father.
“His name is Max. If you don’t like beagles, I can always trade him in for a Dalmatian or Saint Bernard,” Lucas joked.
The child had already transferred the dog to the lawn and the puppy was rushing about pell-mell sniffing flowers and peeing on the shrubbery. The yard was self-contained with a sturdy cedar fence butting up against the back of the house.
Olivia shook her head up and down. “Sure is a cutie. Where did you get Max?”
“The pet store at the mall.”
Olivia glanced up at the sky where a scattering of cottony clouds was drifting in slow motion across an otherwise azure sky. “Anderson’s?”
“What’s that?” Lucas had been watching his granddaughter racing about the lawn with the newfound love of her life.
“Anderson’s Pet Store… the one at the Midland Mall where you purchased the dog.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Olivia retrieved the tiny dog, held it up at arm’s length then kissed it on the black and brown spotted forehead before relinquishing it back to her insistent daughter. “Thackeray’s… that’s the name of the pet store at the mall.” She spoke in a breezy, offhand manner.
“Spoken like a true paralegal,” Lucas noted, the brisk humor having abruptly departed from his voice.
Olivia worked for a law firm on State Street in downtown Boston where she did judicial research, interviewed clients, gathered facts and retrieves information. With her broad knowledge of legal procedures and civil statutes Lucas viewed his daughter as more knowledgeable than the bulk of lawyers billing a hundred and fifty dollars an hour to provide their clients the correct time of day.
“I stole the dog.” Lucas reported in an unapologetic tone.
After a brief pause, his daughter blurted, “Isn’t it a bit late to be pursuing a life in crime?” There was no reply. The puppy, which was becoming quite rambunctious barked several times then let out a deep-throated howl resembling a police siren. “Why don’t we go inside, have a nice cup of coffee and sort things out.”
* * * * *
Lucas had visited the community park the previous day. There were several baseball diamonds, a playground with swings, slides, and jungle gyms for toddlers as well as walking trails nestled in several acres of lush woodlands. As he entered the parking lot, he noticed a dark-haired, middle-aged woman dressed in culottes and a paisley blouse walking a small dog on a leash.
“Marion Thurman,” Lucas muttered. He recognized the woman by the protuberant lower lip and bulgy eyes. Marion was the head of the local school committee. A loquacious firebrand she was frequently at odds with school officials and local politicians who challenged either her policies or liberal agenda. The woman and her volatile antics had been written up in the editorial pages of the newspaper. She was a crazed dingbat, a political gooney bird who always managed to get reelected when her term expired.
Another woman approached. They knew each other, kissed and hugged. Marion immediately whisked the tiny dog off the pavement, deposited him on the rear seat of her car and the two women hurried off together in the direction of a clump of alders at the far end of the walking trail.
Lucas chose the same walking trail but never saw Marion or her friend. Twenty minutes later, when he returned to the scene of the crime, Marion was still nowhere to be found. The car was resting in the blistering sun, the temperature having increased several degrees. Lucas approached the metallic bronze Honda CRV. Breathing in short, spasmodic bursts, the puppy was lying prostrate on the floor. Lucas cracked the car door, transferred the wilted creature to his own vehicle; revving the air conditioner to full blast, he drove away.
* * * * *
“Where did you get the beagle?” his wife asked when Lucas returned from the park.
“From Marion Thurman’s car,” he replied. The dog was lapping up water by the mouthfuls from a bowl Lucas placed on the kitchen floor.
“You stole a dog.” After what seemed an eternity the puppy finally pulled away from the water and threw himself down on the floor. “It would be nice if you could be just a tad bit more specific.”
Lucas told his wife what had happened at the park. “You could have dropped the dog off at the pound.”
“The dingbat abandoned the dog in an overheated car. I’m not giving it back.”
“Beagle puppies run upward of fifteen to twenty-five hundred bucks from a certified kennel,” his wife noted. “I know because Olivia was researching the cost on the internet a few months back.”
“Well,” Luke quipped, “I guess we won’t be expanding our pet sanctuary in the near future.”
“Like I said, you could have dropped him off at an animal shelter.”
“And they would have promptly returned the puppy to Marion so she could lock him in an overheated car again. It’s a moral issue.”
By way of response, Mrs. Weston cracked a cabinet door and removed a bag of white rice from the middle shelf. Then she retrieved a package of ground hamburger from the refrigerator. “What are you doing?”
“As I see it,” his wife replied, “our furry friend will be spending quality time with us, so I’m fixing his dinner.” “Unfortunately,” she put a pan of water on to boil, “the puppy will be eating our lunch.”
* * * * *
Lucas told his daughter about Marion Thurmond’s stolen puppy. Olivia sipped at her coffee and stared out the sliding door at Lisa and the frisky beagle. “Nonfeasance is when a person fails to do something which they ought to like calling the police when Marion Thurmond recklessly abandons her pet in a hot car at the community park. You didn’t do the proper thing.”
“Okay,” Luke replied meekly. “Anything else?”
“Malfeasance is when you act in a way that incurs potential damages. Breaking into someone’s unlocked car and running off with their dog could be construed as a criminal rather than civil offense.”
“I’m sure you learned all this in your prelaw class,” Luke noted in a demoralized tone.”
“Misfeasance,” Olivia ignored his dour observation, “is the act of engaging in an action or duty but failing to perform the duty correctly. Misfeasance may be unintentional, but that doesn’t necessarily get you off the judicial hook. You were physically present and had an ethical obligation to chase the moronic woman down and demand that she remove the defenseless puppy from the car.”
“Abandoning the dog she proved herself an unfit pet owner. I’ve got the moral high ground.”
“Yes, of course.” Olivia assumed a papery-thin, legalistic tone. “But from a strictly judicial standpoint she’s the property owner and you’re the troublemaker.”
“So Max is no longer a puppy but property… chattel.”
“Misfeasance, nonfeasance, malfeasance … Congratulations! You just broke all the rules!”
Lucas blew his cheeks out in exasperation. “I wonder if old-fashioned curbstone justice might be preferable to our current legal system.
His daughter eyed him uncomfortably. Her father never talked this way in the past. “In ancient times,” Olivia observed, “we had the Ten Commandments, the Justinian and Hammurabi Codes.”
“They were coarse and cruel,” Lucas added, “but in many ways superior to our judicial gobbledygook.”
“Point well taken,” Olivia interjected, “but let’s not forget that the Code of Hammurabi includes many harsh punishments, sometimes demanding the removal of the guilty party's tongue, hands, breasts, eye or ear.” “Back to Colonial times we padlocked transgressors in wooden stocks in the town square… put them on display for public disgrace and humiliation.”
Lucas tried to imagine Marion Thurman decked out in Colonial garb not unlike Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter fame. In lieu of the ‘A’ for adultery Marion would sport a crimson ‘PA’ for puppy abuser on her fashionable paisley blouse.
* * * * *
From the backyard the dog let out a playful howl, scurrying into the kitchen through the open doorway with Lisa bringing up the rear. Reaching down, Lucas scooped the puppy up and held him under his daughter’s nose. “You’re the paralegal… no, better yet, you’re the judge in a pending courtroom case. Would you find in favor of the plaintiff and send this adorable creature back to Marion Thurman?”
“Moral high ground,” Olivia tossed his own words back in Lucas’ face, “frequently counts for nothing in an American court of law.”
“Even if she posted a ‘missing dog’ notice in the paper, you live three towns away; there’s no distribution this far away.”
“What if I say no?” Olivia refused to budge.
“Then I’ll take the pooch home to live with me.”
“And what if the harebrained Marion Thurman nails ‘Missing Dog!’ pictures of Max on every telephone pole within a twenty mile radius?”
“If she eventually found the dog and hauled me into court, I’d threaten to contact the local press and tell them why I did what I did.” Lucas cracked a mean-spirited, evil grin. “The only thing that egomaniac values more than her pedigree puppy is her unsullied reputation.” He made a wry face. “She wouldn’t sacrifice that for anything.” Lucas pushed the empty coffee cup aside. “I’m going home now. If you don’t want the risk, put the dog back in the box.”
Lisa suddenly rushed back in the house. “Max just pooped in the flower bed.”
“Which flowers?”
“The yellow ones.”
Olivia grabbed her daughter’s arm and bent down so she could look the child full in the face. “You like Max?”
“No, I loooove Max!” She crowed, drawing the vowel out for dramatic effect before rushing back out into the yard.
Olivia leaned forward and kissed her father on the cheek. “Misfeasance, nonfeasance, malfeasance, … I’d love to continue this scintillating conversation, but my new puppy just crapped on the marigolds and I’ve got to go clean the mess.”
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Denise Arnault
08/16/2024Barry, you came up with a very inventive theme for this one. It will be interesting to see if enough people will comment on it, especially with an opinion. There is no doubt that the puppy needed to be saved, but my opinion is that it should not have been taken from its owner.
Marion Thurman made a terrible decision to put a puppy (or even a child) into a parked vehicle in the sun. We all know the probable outcome here, and Lucas made the correct decision to rescue it after it had been in the car for the twenty minutes. Lucas himself saw the problem unfolding and did nothing until twenty minutes later which fortunately was not too late. In this story, it is not clear why Marion did not return immediately either. Did she intent to, but suffered a massive heart attack when she and her friend got where they were going? Who knows.
Saving the puppy was correct. Taking the puppy was wrong, morally and legally in my opinion. Like Marla, I look forward to further discussion here.
Help Us Understand What's Happening
Barry
08/16/2024I agree with you that it is very easy to argue against what Lucas did. The man may have been acting on a heartfelt conviction that Marion was no better than an unfit/abusive parent. That notion, in and of itself, is no justification for running off with someone's property just as his daughter, the legal scholar, points out. But the man clearly doesn't care. He feels that the dogs welfare - past, present and future - supersedes all conventional logic. He simply doesn't trust Marion to do the right thing by the dog and is more than willing to go to jail to defend that potentially misguided belief.
Help Us Understand What's Happening
Marla
08/13/2024Interesting story that raises a lot of questions. This would be great for discussion in a group! :)
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
Barry
08/16/2024Thanks for reading my story and your feedback. Also, take a look at what I said to Denise (directly above) about Lucas' dilemma. As I noted, his actions are indefensible, but the man doesn't care. Lucas' logic is totally outside the mainstream and cultural norm. He is a middle-aged man with strong personal convictions that side step what society normally dictates.
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