Warren's New Couch and Michael's New Moped

When I met my second husband he was renting the lower apartment of a two family house in the Greeneville section of Norwich, Connecticut where I also lived after we were engaged. The house was on Route 12 which runs parallel to the Shetucket River in Greeneville which is a working class village with several narrow streets running perpendicular to the four main streets that lead to the other areas of town.  Running between these side streets are dirt alleyways that cross from street to street behind the houses within some of the blocks. Because our apartment house was close to the bank of the Shetucket and part of a row of  houses parallel to Route 12 with railroad tracks that ran along the river, the dirt road began at his house and ended about a quarter of a mile north in the parking lot of what used to be a "massage parlor." By the time I moved into the area the building was vacant and abandoned.

 Because the dirt road behind the house was so secluded it attracted many homeless people in the summer where they would set up camp on the river bank behind the old massage parlor. It also became a regular dumping ground for tenants getting rid of junk they didn't want to move with them and irresponsible  landlords cleaning out their rentals. One time someone actually dumped a pile of trash right behind our garage in our yard! At least the others went as far as the river or found a spot within the trees.

Anyway, my husband and I would often take strolls down the dirt road for a little exercise or to see what was going on in the neighborhood. When no one was living in the homeless camp we would sit there and enjoy the view of the river and sometimes fish there. We couldn't help but notice all the junk that other people had dumped into the river over the years and that a lot of the junk consisted of old couches and mopeds. We would entertain ourselves by making up stories as to how so many couches and mopeds ended up in that part of the river.

When I wrote King Warren the Moron I wondered how poor people, or people who reserved all of their cash for beer and cigarettes, would wash their clothes. I thought they might wash them in the river like the pioneer people. Then I thought it would be funny to have Warren and Michael perceive this junk as treasure and want to take them home. The way they move their treasures from the river to the shed is pretty funny, not to mention dangerous, but it gets the job done.