One of many versions of the semi-autobiographical sketch below ran earlier this year in the April 4 issue of Hoots & Howling Madness. While he knows it is far too soon to republish it, your editor is kept up nights worrying over how many people out there still haven’t read it yet. So, another version is published here for your entertainment and edification.
I pedaled my bike home from school one day and ran upstairs to talk to my big brother. As soon as I entered our room I said, “Gee, Wally, I have a problem.”
He said, “Go away and stop calling me Wally.”
I said, “Well, gee, Wally, I’ve got a really big problem and need some advice.”
He threw a model airplane at my head, yelling, “Go tell someone who cares, and stop calling me Wally.”
So I went downstairs and found Dad sitting in his recliner watching Bonanza.
I said, “Gee, Dad, do you have a minute? I have a problem and I need some advice.”
Dad yelled, “What? Did you say something? Stop that mumbling and speak up.”
So I repeated, “Do you have a minute? I have a problem and I need some advice.”
“What?” he said, again. “Speak up.”
The TV was playing pretty loudly, so this time I yelled, “Gee, Dad, do you have a minute? I have a problem and I need some advice.”
“Don’t you raise your voice to me,” he said. “I’ll slap the snot out of you. Don’t think I won’t.”
Dad reached for the remote to turn down the TV and tipped over his glass of iced tea. He cursed at his iced tea glass on the floor, saying, “Damn it! I knew you’d do that.” Then he threw the remote at the TV.
He grabbed a pillow out of the chair where Mom usually sat, and while he used that to mop up the spilled tea, he asked, “What did you want?”
By then I was standing close enough to him I wouldn’t have to yell, but still far enough away he couldn’t reach me.
I said, “Gee, Dad, there’s this big kid at school who keeps picking on me.”
“So?” Dad asked. “How’s that my problem?”
I said, “Well, gee, Dad, I guess it’s not. I just thought maybe you could give me some advice on how to deal with him.”
“Hmmm,” Dad thought for a second. “You got a knife?”
“Gee, no,” I said.
“As old as you are and you don’t have a knife?” he asked.
I shrugged, and he began rummaging around in the table drawer between his chair and Mom’s.
He pulled out a blade that was at least 8 inches long. “It’s you mother’s knife, but she never uses it,” he said.
He handed it to me and told me to keep it in my pants with my shirttail over it.
“No one will notice,” he said.
I got to school early the next day before anyone else, hoping to get inside before the big kids got there, but all of the doors were locked. It wasn’t long before I saw Opie Taylor, the big kid who had been picking on me, ride up on his bike.
Right away, he made straight for me and began pushing me. I told him to stop, but he didn’t. So I pulled out my knife and stabbed him in the gut over and over until he went down.
I looked around, and no one else had arrived at school yet. So I grabbed Opie’s feet and dragged him over behind the cafeteria where the dumpsters were, but he was too big for me to pick up by myself. I kept an eye out for anyone who might help. Then I saw my friend Lumpy pedal up. I waved him over, and when he saw Opie’s body laying there, he got scared.
Lumpy said, “Gee, I don’t know, Beaver.”
So I pulled out my knife again and said, “Look, you fat tub of lard, you grab Opie’s feet and help me put him in the dumpster, or I swear, you’ll be next.”
Lumpy did what I told him, then he stood there looking down at Opie in the dumpster for a long time. I knew Lumpy would squeal. Plus, I had Opie’s blood all over my shirt. So I picked up a loose brick and bashed Lumpy a good one over the head. I pulled off his shirt and hoisted him over into the dumpster on top of Opie. Then I ran to the boys room to wash up and change shirts. I put on Lumpy’s shirt and wrapped mine up in paper towels and pushed it down to the bottom of the trash can.
Everything went smoothly after that until I got home. As soon as I walked in the door Dad asked me, “Where’d you get that shirt?”
I should have known the jig was up, but I tried to play it cool, you know.
“Gee, Dad, I don’t know. It’s just a shirt.”
“Don’t give me that,” Dad said. “The principal at your school just called and said they found two bodies in the dumpsters behind the cafeteria and wanted to know if I knew anything about it. He mentioned your friend Lumpy was one of them and he didn’t have a shirt on.”
“Gee, Dad,” I said, “I just did like you told me.”
Dad yelled, “Damn it! You didn’t tell me the big kid who was giving you trouble was the sheriff’s son. What the hell were you thinking?”
All I could do was shrug. Dad told me to go upstairs to my room and wait while he found his belt.
Upstairs, I looked out of the window and saw Wally over at Eddie Haskell’s house. They were sitting out back getting stoned. So I climbed out of the window, ran over to the Haskells’ and stole Eddie’s van.
I drove to New York City, where I got a job as head writer for the Alan Brady Show.
Those were great days, working with Buddy and Sally. We laughed all the time. The commute from New Rochelle was a nuisance, and that kid Richie was a huge nuisance. I never liked him at all. He whined more than Cindy Brady. But I was married to Mary Tyler Moore, so that made it okay.
Then the Korean War broke out, except it was a conflict and not a war, and I got drafted. They made me a doctor in a M*A*S*H unit. I told the Army I wasn’t a doctor, but they said that didn’t matter as long as I could be funny. “Laughter is the best medicine,” they said. So, who am I to argue with the Army?
So I practiced meatball surgery and cracked wise for nearly 12 years in Korea, even though the Korean War lasted only 3 years, and I argued with the Army the whole time.
When I finally got back to the States, I moved into a trailer on a beach in Malibu and worked as a private investigator. I charge $200 a day, plus expenses, and I drove a super cool gold Pontiac Firebird that I wrecked almost every other week for 9 years. But every time I wrecked it, by the very next week it was repaired and good as new.
Looking back on it now I realize I could have bought a nice house in Malibu and a new car for the money I spent repairing that old Firebird, but at the time it made sense to keep repairing the car and stay in the old trailer. I can’t remember why, though.
I ran into Wally once during that time, and a few years before I tried telling old jokes and teaching history to the Sweathogs.
He said to stop calling him Wally and that he and Laurie Partridge had married and had a few kids. Wally said Keith and Danny never amounted to anything. Keith lived in their basement, and Danny was doing 20 to life.
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