It was a dreary Monday evening and I was trying to get the cats to come in out of the rain. They must have been out partying with the wild deer who eat from our apple tree in the summer time, because neither Sigmond nor Mister Meme would show his face even after half an hour of yelling for them.

From the direction of my neighbors' house, I heard, "You looking for your so-called pets? They're up on the highway rolling around and fighting over a bottle of peppermint Schnapps and two lovely lady-cats."

Before I could thank the "mysterious voice" for info that was classic Citizen Jim, Citizen Jim came sauntering out of the woods. "Yes, that's right. I fooled you again," he said. "Sometimes I think an empty box wrapped in the Sunday comics has more brains than you - standing in the rain calling for those cats when you could do it from the porch!"

I wanted to throw my arms around him in greeting, but Citizen Jim was too fast for me, leaping from the ground to the porch railing like a leopard and crouching there until I made my way toward him. "Enough with the love, now, Stimpy. I'm here to tell you something important."

With my arms crossed, fighting the urge to hug Jim's neck, I asked what he had to tell me.

"Remember when we found that treasure map and finally put our hands on all that gold where G marked the spot underneath the kitchen of the Last Nacho?"

I drew a blank. "I'm drawing a blank on that one," I said. "Wasn't the Last Nacho the Mexican restaurant where Xxxx Xxxxx worked?"

"Yeah, see? You remember," he said.

"Sure, I remember Xxxx, but I don't remember anything about a treasure map or gold," I said.

"I can't help whatever damage the nicotine has done to your long-term memory," Jim shrugged. "But you'd better find a new hiding place for all that booty, because old Sparky Jokes-a-Lot's gonna be knocking on your door in a day or two."

"Why would Citizen Dan be knocking on my door?"

"He needs money, you fool! To settle that lawsuit," Jim said. "God, are you not reading the gossip blogs anymore?"

"Citizen Dan is hardly fodder for a gossip blog," I said. "I think he's pretty strait-laced."

"I guess that would depend who you talk to," Jim said. "For example, if you asked Olivia Newton-John what she thinks about Sparky, she'd say he's a prince of a guy. Nicole Kidman, on the other hand, would not have a kind word to say about him."

I was somewhat sure that Citizen Dan, in turn, had very few kind words to say about Nicole Kidman. In fact, they hated each other. For more than two decades they'd been locked in what a lesser writer might call "a seething cycle of endless enmity," since an incident at the fall dance in 1988, when Citizen Dan, a freshman, had coaxed Kidman, a senior, to give him her underwear. This was a mistake on Kidman's part, as Citizen Dan set about creating and maintaining the illusion amongst his friends that he and "Nic the Stic" had been intimate.

But that seemed beside the point. I asked, "Is that so? And when was the last time you talked to either of those women?"

"Listen, sister Kristy, all I need is a web browser and Perez Hilton to tell me everything I need to know about the celebrity scene," he said. "Believe me when I say: Olivia Newton-John loves her some Citizen Dan, and Nicole Kidman is suing his ass for being a bad influence on her husband."

"And you read this on Perez Hilton? When?" I asked.

"Maybe it wasn't that exact blog, but it was something like it," he admitted, then smacked my arm. "And since when are you in the business of questioning me? Keith Urban is in rehab as we speak, and it's all the fault of your friend down under."

I'd read some recent accounts of Urban's backslide into abuse, plus his apologies to family and friends, but I'd read nothing about Citizen Dan's part in it. Obviously, this clued me in to the fact that Citizen Dan most likely had no part in it. It was becoming increasingly clear to me that Citizen Jim was full of caca. This realization made me hell-bent on getting Citizen Jim to admit his lie - but not before seeing how far he would take such an outlandish story.

I snapped my fingers. "You know what - come to think of it, I do remember reading something about Keith Urban and a friend of his going out on the town! And that Nicole was mad at the friend. I wonder - "

Citizen Jim leapt off the porch railing, coming close to tackling me before I jumped out of the way. "That's it! That was Citizen Dan," he said, struggling to stand. "You never believe a damned word I say, even when you know I'm not lying. What else did you hear?"

I looked at my fingernails for a long time, then said, "I don't know. What else did you hear?"

"I wanna know what you heard!" he said, then grabbed me by the arm. "Tell me!"

"Your story is probably better," I said. "I'd rather hear the truth than repeat a rumor."

"Is that so?"

"Certainly," I said.

"Well, what I heard was that Citizen Dan took Keith Urban out horseback riding the night before Urban and Kidman were getting married, and they ended up on a cruise ship by mistake," he started. "Not only that, but they rode onto the ship while still astride their horses!"

I knew what would reel Citizen Jim out of the water and have him flopping in the net. "No way!" I said, clapping my hand over my mouth.

"WAY!" he shouted excitedly. "They were both on horseback, drunk as Cooter Brown, and Citizen Dan decided - yeah, that they should - yeah, so he said - Sparky - he said, 'Hey, man, let's see if we can't find Olivia Newton-John's missing boyfriend out there in the ocean,' and Keith was like, 'Fuckin' A, Sparky! Wah hoooo!'"

"Do you think that's really what was said?" I asked.

"That is exactly what was said, trust me," Jim said. "So, anyway, they got their horses up to speed, and jumped right over the railing of the ocean liner!"

"O my God - it's lucky they didn't drown," I said, holding tightly to Jim's arm.

"Well, you know, they couldn't drown, because the ship hadn't left the port and they jumped over the railing onto the dock," he said, throwing his thumb toward the porch railing where he'd been perched moments before. "They were so drunk, though, that they had no idea, and thought they were somehow galloping across the Tasman sea. Next thing they knew, they were back in Citizen Dan's subdivision, but they thought they were on the island of Tasmania. And as maniacal as the evening had already been, this bit of confusion was no surprise!"

I thought that was a nice flourish to add to his cockamamie tale.

"So did they get busted right then and there?" I asked.

"No, see, that's the whole thing: Nicole never found out about the drunken horseback riding until right before Keith went into rehab! But after that night on the town with your friend Citizen Dan, old Keith just never got sober."

I shook my head. "That's a damned shame."

"It is," Citizen Jim said. "But the fact remains: Citizen Dan is being sued, and he'll probably come to you for money. So you'd better just give me your checkbook and wallet and all those bags full of gold coins you've got hidden in your closet. For safe keeping, you know."

"Safe keeping, eh?" I said, and raised an eyebrow.

Citizen Jim's head dropped. "Okay, maybe Keith didn't go, "Wah hoooo!' when they jumped over the deck of the ship," he said. "But everything else is TRUE, you awful bitch!"

"You are my best friend in the world," I said, and smiled widely. "Wait right here and I'll go get that stuff for you to keep an eye on."

"Fine, but don't dilly dally around in there," he said. "I've got places to be and people to see. And, no, they didn't EXACTLY end up in Citizen Dan's subdivision. But they were close to it. Now GO!"

"Thanks, Jim," I said, and tried to hug him.

He drew back his fist and scowled at me. "Just hurry up!"

"I will," I assured him as I walked inside. I slammed the door, locked the deadbolt and secured the chain before throwing myself on the couch and channel surfing for the rest of the night.

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