Billboard NJ26845W is on Route 46 just west of Traveler’s Diner, where the bridge rises over the NJ Transit M&E Lines and the Rockaway River. A sixty-foot climb up the stanchion isn’t bad, as billboards go. He thought of the one next to the Turnpike that was two hundred fifty feet in the air. He parked on Bassett Highway, near the Unemployment Office, and carted his tools along the railroad tracks to the pole. On each trip he had to climb to pole to secure his tools. If he left them at the bottom, they might disappear. The bridge people were scavengers. He knew Pete, whose turf this was, and even brought him a coffee, but he didn’t trust him to watch his tools.

Most of the tools and paint went up the pole on a hoist. When you actually paint the billboard, there could be a lot of paint involved. The Acura ad he was painting over was in good condition, so the job proceeded quickly. Four hours and five gallons of paint later (it seemed an inordinate amount of pink paint!) he was done. He stepped back to admire/proofread his work. “Missing: Finchley Flamingo” (and here the giant portrait that took so much pink paint), and the e-mail address. ‘Well done’ he thought. He also wondered just who this Finchley Flamingo was. His was not to question why.

As he leaned against the railing of the platform that he worked from, his ladder tipped over. The ladder made a brief contact with the catenary wire that supplied the electricity that powered the train. A loud buzz was heard, and the ladder dropped to the ground below.

Pete was down by the river when he heard the buzz, and heard the ladder clatter to the ground. He looked up, and could see the motionless body lying on the steel grid of the platform. He quickly climbed up the hill to the diner. They’d call the emergency squad for him. Twenty minutes later the emergency squad arrive, and climbed the pole. Another twenty minutes passed before the painter was lowered in a cage by the hoist. He was taken by the waiting ambulance to the hospital. ‘What a waste of time’, Pete thought. ‘There used to be a perfectly good hospital up the hill till they merged.’

A month passed. The painter recovered from his injuries, and returned to the billboard. The pink flamingo was still staring out from the billboard. “I wonder if they ever found Finchley”, he mused. He was here, however, to thank Pete for calling the emergency squad. He didn’t see Pete. Someone else was living here now.

“Pete? He moved on up the tracks. Dunno where he is now.”