Peg laughed. It was a sharp, percussive sound, like a pinball hitting a bumper. “I don’t get buffaloed. I do the buffaloing.”
Sixty days later, Peg walked out into a March snow squall. She had no job, no license, and a restraining order from three used car lots.
“Your Honor,” Peg began, “the motorcycle in question was purchased with funds stolen from my mother’s nursing home fund. I have bank statements, a sworn affidavit from a psychic who saw the whole thing, and a photograph of the defendant wearing a T-shirt that says ‘I ❤️ Fraud.’ The shirt is arguably the strongest evidence.”
Her court-appointed lawyer was a man named Wozniak who smelled like bologna and hopelessness. “Plead guilty,” he said, not looking up from his phone. “Thirty days, community service. You’ll be out by spring.” buffaloed 2019
She smiled.
“Tactical,” Peg said. “Not mischief. Tactical.”
In the end, she got sixty days. Double the offer. As the bailiff led her away, Peg looked over her shoulder at the courtroom—the flaking ceiling tiles, the flickering fluorescent light, the portrait of some forgotten mayor with a face like a disappointed potato. Peg laughed
The last time Peg Dahl felt truly alive, she was holding a counterfeit parking ticket and a straight face.
The judge pinched the bridge of her nose. “Ms. Dahl. You glued a lego to the gas pedal of his other car.”
“You could’ve just taken the bike,” said the cop, Officer Griswold, a man whose mustache had more authority than he did. I do the buffaloing
“Spring in Buffalo is just winter lying,” Peg said. “No deal.”
But that was the problem. Buffalo, New York, had buffaloed her. The city was a grimy, snow-choked funnel of dead-end streets and cheaper-by-the-dozen lawyers. Peg had tried to leave twice—once for New York City, where she was too loud; once for Chicago, where she was too honest about being dishonest. Both times, the city had pulled her back like a rubber band. Here, she was a big fish in a puddle. A grifter with a GED and a gift for small-claims chaos.