Ghost of Jerry Orbach

I guess it all started when my youngest daughter wanted some gingerbread. She begged and I relented. After I suggested ginger cakes, she begged once again for gingerbread cookies, in shapes just for her. I agreed. Who could resist those big blue eyes?

That first day I made gingerbread men. Maggie and the other kids gobbled them up when they were still piping hot, save one. That one cooled by the windowsill, and by the afternoon, was miraculously walking and talking, and my whole family stood in disbelief.

What we should have done, rather than stand slack-jawed, was close the window. The gingerbread man, once he tired of our humble kitchen and our unbelieving expressions, took to the sill and sprang down to the grass below, then sprinted off to who-knows-where. We tried to catch him, but if my eldest son Robert, with the long, fast legs, couldn’t catch him, then it was no use.

All the while, the gingerbread man was running to and fro, spouting sayings such as

“Nurny, nurny, you’re so slow,
And I thought it was me who was made of dough!”

And

“Yippee! Yippee! What a thrill!
Why does it seem like you’re standing still?”

And, most often

“You can run run run as fast as you can,
but you can’t catch me –
I’m the gingerbread man!”

For such a little guy, he sure was cocky. True, we couldn’t catch him, but sooner or later we would. Or so I thought.

By the second day, my neighbor Gladys came over, complaining madly about the racket during the night. It seems that gingerbread doesn’t tire easily, and our little man cat-called to all within earshot, up and down the street, goading people to try and catch him. We tried keeping our involvement a secret, but Maggie spilled the beans. Who can blame her? She’s only seven, and the gingerbread man was amazing. Unfortunately, he was even more obnoxious.

A week into this, and the calls were pouring in. All the neighbors complained at least once, and the police were called. They threatened to issue a citation for disturbing the peace, but came to realize the uniqueness of the situation. They gave us a twenty-four-hour grace period to solve the problem, and after they themselves chased the taunting gingerbread man around for quite a while, extended it to forty-eight.

It was the last set of taunts that gave me the idea I once considered so brilliant. It shouted to the sweaty, cussing men in blue

“Flesh and bone, bone and flesh,
You’re worn out and I am fresh!
We both have legs, both have a head,
But you’re too slow for gingerbread!

As the officers were grumbling and piling back in their squad car, with the gingerbread man bleating in the background

“Run run run! Hop hop hop!
Why don’t you try the doughnut shop?”

I already was back at it, kneading the dough and preheating the oven.

The first solution I tried was a gingerbread dog. We’d set him free and he’d either chase the gingerbread man around, or at least slow him down. The dog was so cute, and we all were sure it would work. Who could resist stopping to pet it?

We were wrong. Right away it took to the neighbor’s garden, digging up the marigolds. It barked and barked, and the gingerbread man only made it worse by throwing sticks into the neighbors’ gardens, sending the gingerbread dog into a running and digging frenzy. Oh, I’ll never forget the look Gus Winters gave me when he saw my creation tear up his irises.

I then tried a gingerbread cat. It was for two reasons – one was so that the dog would come back to chase after it, and we could then catch him. The other was for the gingerbread man himself. I crafted a little kitten, and the man had to think it was cute, and come over to pet it.

Well, being flat, it didn’t stay in the collar for long, which was attached to the leash. The kitten went sprinting away, right up a tree. It started pillaging bird nests, tossing eggs to the ground, getting both adult birds and the neighbors in an uproar. The dog started barking even louder, if that was possible, and the kitten arched its back and hissed for hours on end, up in a branch filled with cawing birds that was too high for any of us to reach. All the while, the gingerbread man was saying obnoxious things like

“My oh my, what a pity!
Who’s gonna save that cookie kitty?”

Undaunted, I took another approach. I crafted a gingerbread woman to ensnare the gingerbread man. In my excitement, I must not have baked her long enough, because what I made was a gingerbread teenager. She did chase the gingerbread man for a while, but became easily bored and distracted, as I know teenagers could get (for I currently have two – Robert and Abigail). This gingerbread teen ended up snatching my cell phone as I was busy trying to knock down the gingerbread kitten with a broomstick. She called friends for hours, wandering around the town and talking loudly. During peak hours, no less.

Next were the gingerbread bats. No, I didn’t make them. My son Jimmy did. He found some Halloween cookie cutters and made a batch while I was trying to explain to Edna Salmon why my dog left little gingerbread piles in her yard. The bats flew out the open cooling window, and it was a disaster. Only Jimmy and Maggie found it cute, high-fiving each other as they gleefully tracked the twenty or so frantically flapping bats from the open kitchen window. I wanted to yell but I didn’t have the energy.

After banishing all kids from the kitchen, I tried various gingerbread devices. The first thing, a bear trap, met with modest success. It took the leg off the gingerbread dog, slowing him a little, but it still left him with three, and as he hobbled around, still too fast for us non-gingerbread folks, he barked louder than ever.

I crafted a gingerbread television set with remote control, and tried convincing the gingerbread man to sit down and rest, and maybe watch sports. He stayed long enough to grab the controller, but not long enough for me to snatch him up. He spent the rest of the afternoon going from house to house, switching the teevees to obscure, foreign-language channels while my neighbors were tucked away inside, hoping to avoid what was going on outside.

And that’s where it is now. The cat’s still in the tree, hissing, and the angry, three-legged dog is growling like mad, and he just ran off the mailman for the second straight day. The gingerbread teen is still on the phone, talking to – who? Maybe a gingerfriend in another town. Hopefully not long distance. The gingerbats became a blessing of sorts. They’ve chased all the people away who were either yelling at me to do something, or just plain getting in the way. One even got stuck in Gladys Berching’s hair, and it caused Gladys to scream frantically, bat flapping all the while as she slapped at it wildly.

And, as all of this was going on, the untiring gingerbread man was taunting me with another variation of his “Can’t catch me!” spiel while trampling my lilies.

As I see the police car pull into the driveway, I take the last batch of gingerbread from the oven. My last hope. Army commandos, fashioned with little gingerbread nets, stun guns, and tranquilizer darts. I pray they do the trick.

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