Wasn't it Dickens who wrote "A Tale of Two Cities?" No, you say? OK, I'll write it.

Saturday, March 11, 8 a.m. I head out the front door of my east-side Detroit home to get the paper, have a little quiet time, read the sports section and suck down coffee while my wife, Kathleen, gets the rare chance to sleep in.

But to my dumbfoundment -- I can't quite believe what I'm not seeing -- our old Chrysler Town and Country van, with 130,000 miles on it, isn't there. There's this blank space of oil-stained concrete staring at me.

The van's been stolen, and with it everything we keep inside: two pairs of cross-country skis, three sets of snowshoes, two bags full of clothing changes, three or four pairs of running shoes. And, attached to it, such other necessary things in our lives as a pair of top-of-the-line kayak racks on the roof and a $300 tow hitch on the back that hooks up to the trailer we use to haul antiques around for our moonlighting/hobby.

Oh yeah, did I mention how stupid I am? That I keep my checkbook in the glove box and my paycheck has just been direct-deposited? And that my cell phone is in there, too?

Kathleen wakes up, not to a waiting newspaper, but to the bad news.

Detroit has closed most of its police precincts and the nearest one is now many miles away, on Gratiot Avenue. Many miles and several worlds away. We live in a neighborhood rather stupidly known as East English Village. It's just across Mack Avenue from Grosse Pointe and the houses are old and stately, wet-plaster walls, fireplaces, parquet floors, brick and stone.

It might look like Grosse Pointe, but Grosse Pointe it ain't. It ain't English, either.

The Eastern District headquarters sits amid urban decay the likes of which you won't find elsewhere in this hemisphere. There are eight persons waiting to file police reports ahead of us. Most have had their cars stolen too, I can see from the sign-in sheet.

Through a big glass window we can see into the command center, 10-12 cops shooting bull and eating out of the biggest -- I'm not making this up -- box of Dunkin' Donuts the world has seen. It's as big as a travel trunk, the kind the wealthy used to take across the Atlantic on the Queen Elizabeth.

Those cops shoot the bull, wipe jelly and powder off their lips, and keep raising the box lid to snag another. There's one cop out in the lobby taking reports at the pace of a slug going up a screen on a summer night, one tiny bit forward at a time. Ask a question, go get a donut. Shoot the breeze back in the command center, come back, ask a question, hit strokes on the keyboard, go to the bathroom, come back, ask a question, make a personal call to her mother, ask a question, go get a donut.

After 90 minutes and she's still taking her first report, my wife and I realize this is going to be a long morning and we head out on personal business. We drive into Grosse Pointe, open a bank account, come back 90 minutes later and find five are still ahead of us on the sign-in sheet.

We drive home, get the dog, take her for a long walk, come back, sit around. After three hours, we answer the six official questions -- name, time, location, do you have a copy of registration, do you have your driver's license, vehicle description -- and leave.

There are now 40 people sitting in rows of seats in the lobby, most there to report car thefts. The last few to arrive should have brought cots; no way they'll be outta there before Monday.

Back home the phone rings. It's the antique mall up north in Elk Rapids. Woman working the counter there tells me she just called me on my cell phone, but some guy answered who seemed clueless when she asked what price we would settle for on some collectible or other.

The cell phone! I'd forgotten it. The thief's answering it! I give him a call.

"Yeah?"

"Dude, sell me my stuff back."

"Who is this?"

"Who do you think? I'm calling you on my cell phone."

"Whaddaya want?"

"I want my stuff back. What are you going to do with snowshoes? There ain't no snow."

"Well, come on over."

"Where?"

Click.

I call him back. No one answers.

That's Saturday's tale. Half of one tale of a city.

~~~

Sunday, March 12, 11:30 a.m, Corktown. Ah, a grand and glorious day at a grand and glorious event.

It's sunny and 60 degrees, the nicest day since October. Feels like the nicest day ever, the way days do in early March when some honking south wind briefly blows spring into Michigan. An easy winter is still winter, all grays and chills, but here we are massing in heat and light for the 24th annual Corktown St. Patrick's Day Parade races.

Never mind it's not really St. Paddy's day. There's a parade and a race and a ton of people already gathered at the old Tiger Stadium, hundreds drinking beer, hundreds registering for either the kids' quarter-mile, the 1.5-mile walk or the 4-mile run.

The Motor City Striders are there, as they have been since the start in 1983, but only to help out. You'd think new race director Doug Kurtis was named O'Kurtis the way the fates and the sun are shining. Cars keep pulling off the freeway and filling every spare bit of on-street or parking-lot space.

Eventually, 1,408 register for one event or another, an all-time record by about 200. A friendly old face is there to start the kids' race, Strider President Ed Kozloff. My 11-year-old grandson, Daron, finishes in the top 10. Hooray!

A little later, the 4-miler starts on a new course that heads straight downtown, loops around the new Campus Martius, past the new Compuware headquarters, out Woodward and past its new lofts in rehabbed buildings, past the new Chris Chelios restaurant, past Comerica Park, then returning the way we came, going past Tiger Stadium to finish in front of the old Michigan Central Station, one of the world's most famous ruins, a monument to both architecture and civic neglect, impossible to imagine that, as recently as 1988, people were still pouring in and trains were still chugging out.

People come from around the world to look at this building and we've only had to run four miles to get to it.

As usual these days, I run with Maddie, my young, mostly-lab dog. She loves watching races and running in them. She looks at me and barks joyously and repeatedly before the start, awaiting the surge that signifies things have begun.

We go slow and steady, her black fur absorbing heat. With a half-mile to go, she puts on the brakes, done running, happy to walk along the curb, happy to look at everyone going by. She's hot and thirsty.

"Your dog needs a beer, man," hollers a spectator, clutching his tightly.

We finish in 40 minutes or so. We get water and cheer for stragglers. Cheer the news that another familiar, but not so old, face has won: Paul Aufdemberge, age 41, 20 years at the top of the local running scene and still going strong.

We slowly make our way through the throngs to our car, the one that wasn't stolen. Daron, who has run four or five one-mile races over the years, has never shown interest in going further. But the event and the day have fired him up. "I'd like to try a 5K this summer," he says. "Is it all right to walk if you have to?"

It's all right. It's better than that: it's great. The dog and I would love to have him.

That's the second tale of the city.

~~~

Tale one, part two. We get home from the run. We have a snack, take a nap. I call the car thief back.

"Yeah?" he answers.

"Dude, sell me my stuff," I repeat my line of the day before.

"Man, this is bull ... You're going to bring the police."

"Do you live in Detroit?"

"Yeah."

"Then you tell me. If I called the police right now and said I was meeting you somewhere, how long do you think it would take them to show up?"

He laughs. The real answer is never; they wouldn't show up. If you called and said an armed man was climbing in through your window, it would be the next day before a squad car showed up. Something involving an old van? Forget it.

So he laughs, realizes the truth of what I'm saying and asks if I'll pay $100 for all my stuff. I will. He says he still has the van, hasn't taken it to a chop shop, just been driving it around. Do I wanna pay for that, too? I do. $200? Too much. $100? Fine. It's agreed then, $200 for the stuff and car.

He says to come alone and meet him in an hour, at 8 p.m., at Skateland, a roller rink a mile away.

I pick up my tough, big stepson, a stone and cement worker who brings a softball bat and follows me in his truck.

We get there early. Skateland is too dark. I call the thief and tell him we need a Plan B, somewhere bright, lots of people. He picks a corner on Harper Avenue with a KFC, Clark gas station, grocery store and lots of lights.

I tell him to have the van running and for him and whoever he's with to be standing outside. He asks what I'm driving.

"I'm not telling you that. I want to see you and the van. If I decide to go through with this, then I'll let you know who I am. Hey, a dumb question for you."

"Yeah?"

"I assume you didn't have a key that worked the ignition."

"We punched it out."

"So if you leave the van running, how do I turn it off and re-start it?"

"Flat-head screwdriver."

"OK."

I get there two minutes later. It's night out but bright as day. Lots of traffic, people going in and out of the gas station and KFC. The van's on a sidestreet off Harper, running, two dudes standing on the sidewalk.

I pull up at the corner, 50 feet in front of them, and get out. I wave their way. They both slouch down, stick their hands in waists and start ghetto walking toward me, exaggerated strides, making sure the way their hands are bulging in their waists that I'll think they're packing heat. I figure they're just packing their hands.

"Stop!" I holler. They do. "Get your hands up where I can see them."

They raise their hands skyward, as if I were packing heat and aiming it at them.

"You too," one of them says.

I thrust my hands skyward, and there we are, the three of us, six arms in the air. Wonder what onlookers might be thinking. Or, if in Detroit, they think anything at the sight.

My stepson has pulled up behind them and parked. They didn't notice him or his truck. I'd made him promise not to run anyone down.

They tell me to lift my shirt, show them what I'm hiding. I tell them to lift theirs. Once we all know we're not about to start shooting each other, I tell them, "Open the van door and let me see my stuff."

One of them slides the door open. There's our stuff.

"Close the door. Come get your money."

They walk up slowly. I hold out the cash, folded into a little ball. It's all there. They grab it and run, without counting.

I get in the van and pull up to the stop sign. The brakes screech, pads shot. They'd been going anyway, but not like this. Then I remember, crap, I forgot the cell phone.

I dial it. "Yeah," says the thief, panting on the run.

"I forgot the phone."

"Ain't part of the deal."

"What the hell did you do to my brakes?"

"Lot of fast starts and stops. You know Ken's?"

"Ken's?"

"On Harper. He does brakes. He'll give you a deal."

Click.

Funny world. Getting repair advice from thieves on the run, talking to me on my cell phone.

The van was on empty when they took it. Has a quarter tank now. Checkbook's in the glove box, no checks missing.

My lucky day. MR