The phone was jangling off the hook.  Sounded like a long distance ring. Who could be calling me long distance at two o'clock in the morning?  I fumbled for my glasses and switched on the light. The blasted thing kept ringing.

        "All right! All right!"  I yelled at the noisy Southern Bell, trying to extricate my phone hand from under the pillow case.  "Just a minute, will you."

        I got free and grabbed the receiver just as it went dead.  "Well I'll be, that was the most uninteresting conversation I've ever had."

        I hung up the blasted noisemaker, removed my spectacles and switched off the light.  I turned over and laid my head on the pillow, closed my sleepy blues and let my mind wander into dreamland. Huh! I leapt up, fumbling for my glasses.   Maybe that was my daughter Julie.   But she's in Jersey. Has she got troubles again?  I dangled my feet over the edge of the sheets and reached for the lamp switch, knocking lamp, switch, shade and all down to where the wall meets the floor.  Sometimes these things happen.

        I rose out of bed like a wrinkled-up old rag and staggered toward the light switch by the door.   I tripped on my baggy pajama leg and I think I dinged in the edge of the dresser.   Oh well, it's an old antique anyway.  Just as I reached for the knob, the phone started jangling again.  I raced back to the nightstand, dragging my baggy legs and managed to lift the receiver nonchalantly to my ear.

        "Who's this?"  I shouted.

        "Dis is Jake."

        "J...Jake? I don't know any Jake."

        "You know 'dis Jake and don't try pullin' any funny stuff 'cause you know what happens to funny guys."

        "I never pulled anything funny in my life except that time we ripped the neighbors pickets off his fence."

        "Dis is concernin' a fence but not one with pickets on it.  Get it?"

        "Look here. You call me at 2:00 a.m. wanting to sell me a fence.  If I needed one I wouldn't trust you to build it.   Now make yourself clear or I'll be hanging up."

        "You hang up on me and you'll be hung up by th' neck, get it?  Now I want you to stuff th' $50,000 simoleons you owe us into a gunny sack and trow it over the ditch into th' weeds by 'dat big magnolia tree near Bozo's Bar at th' edge of town.  I'll give you 'till tomorrow night at 11:00 or it'll be your last breath alive."

        "Well, wait a minute.  I don't go out after dark anymore because the lights glare in my eyes.  I had my cataracts lasered and now every light looks like it's twinkling on a Christmas tree.  And I don't have a gunny sack and I don't have $50,000 dollars."

        "Maybe you don't have $50,000 smackers now but you'd better have it by 11:00 tomorrow night. Get it?  You owe th' mob or you're gonna get it."

        "I don't know what mob you belong to but you sure are an insistent bunch.  I can't get the $50,000 bucks but would it be all right if I threw an empty gunny sack over the ditch?"

        "Listen to 'dis.  I'm done listenin' to your shabby wisecracks and 'dis is th' end o' 'dat.  I'll be standin' behind 'dat big magnolia and make no mistake.  11:00 p.m., hear?"

        The phone went dead.

        "But...But."

        No answer.  I hung up.  I got into bed and didn't have to switch off the light being as it was busted.  My mind zoomed in on 'dis and 'dat.  Who was 'dis Jake?   I never knew a Jake in my life.  The more I thought, the wearier I got. I didn't sleep any more, wondering where I'd get a gunnysack. The alarm went off at 7:30 and I sluggishly crawled out of the sack.

        The hot ovaltine and bagel renewed my vigor but not my poise.  How could I get in touch with 'dis Jake.  He sounded like a weirdo and I didn't know his last name.  I looked in the yellow pages under mobs but it was unenlightening.  I bustled out in the car to get my mind off of this puzzle and didn't get back until evening.

        I watched Tom Brokaw on Channel 2 and that didn't settle my stomach any, seeing the mess the world's in and finding out that O.J. doesn't have $33.5 million bucks and all I need is $50,000.  Maybe I could...the phone started it's jingling.

        "Hello."

        "Dis is Jake callin'.  I'm sorry I called you last night man and messed you up.  I got th' wrong number."

"Well, Jake, thanks for calling.  And by the way, I found an old gunnysack out behind Home Depot. Would you guys have any use for it?"

The End