jaywalking with jesus part 7 2-27-11

8/7/2019 Jaywalking With Jesus Part 7 2-27-11

1/19

I think the dry ice is still potent enough for our next move I said.This was gonna be fun

Colonial Lanes was the towns bowling alley of choice. Featuringa fifty foot diameter fountain/fish pond just inside the main entrance,it really was a state of the art bowling-billiards emporium in its day.Id often marveled at the giant goldfish in the big fountain pond uponentering a bowling alley, and could never really get my head aroundthe incongruity of it.

Me and the boys werent bowlers but wed sometimes frequentthe alleys to study the female form in extension upon release of theball of bowling Wed also enjoy a few adult libations just to take theedge off.

Colonial Lanes was owned by Ortho Skiggs Muckles, a real oldcountry boy who wasnt scared of nothin but a letter from the IRSafter hed filed his tax return.

Old Man Muckles had a big grudge against Wayne from abouttwo years ago when he caught Wayne sneezing into his rentedbowling shoes for good luck. Ive no idea why Wayne believedsneezing into rented bowling shoes every second frame was lucky,

but I did know when Skiggs came around that corner and saw Wayneexploding phlegm packs into HISshoes that Wayne had rented; well,it werent pretty.

At any rate, our relationship was strained at best and in avainglorious attempt at revenge I found myself with a sack-o-dry-iceslung over my back following the intrepid forms of Wayne and Craig,identically burdened, towards Colonial Lanes front doors. (20 yearslater this is where I would surreptitiously stuff Waynes rented bowlingball finger holes with baby squid). We all had a big sack of dry and

plenty of balls we didnt have to rent and it was time for Old ManMuckles to learn what sublimation was all about.

When we each dropped about forty pounds of dry ice into thegoldfish pond, we were totally unprepared for the ferocity ofsublimation that would transpire. The pop and hiss of the dry hittinthe water was like a starters pistol at a track meet. A balloon of Co2


2/19

vapor mushroomed into the air as fish began jumping for their livesfrom the roiling waters.

I stood there aghast as bowlers fled screaming from the alleys as

giant goldfish arced out the pond in gasping disbelief. I looked intothe pond to see plates and pieces of dry spiraling and swirling aboutthe waters. My God, I thought, what have we done now. Those poorlittle fishies

Old Man Muckles came steamrollering from behind the front deskand from the look in his eyes I knew he was gonna drill me a newbowling ball. An instant before he reached me, Wayne let out ashoeless sneeze that made tomorrow shudder and all the fish jump

back into the pond. The Muckler stopped in his tracks, looked atWayne and bellowed, You stinkin shoe sneezer! Ill get you, Ill getyou!!!

Turning on a dime, Old Man Muckles had the misfortune to planthis to go foot on one of the few fish that hadnt dived back into thepond. His foot hit that fish, and doing a 360, The Muckler flew intothe pond like a flying fish after a gadfly.

His massive crew-cut head hit the the top of the fountain spraything and snapped it off like a toothpick. When the geyser of water hitthe ceiling of the alleys, all bets were off. It was now a mass exodusand a total free-for-all. Young, old, blue hairs, big hairs, flat belliesand pot-bellies were all fleeing for their lives. I saw a unusually largeKoi specimen leap with golden iridescence from the fountain thendrop at gravitys command directly into the screaming mouth of OldMan Muckles.

His gob stopped with a living, scaly cork of epic proportions and

poetic irony, Muckles screams were rendered into ineffectual gruntsof protest as a golden fish tail waved hello and goodbye from his widestretched lips.

Me and the gang had seen enough and ran out the front doorsthrough puddles of fish, piss and the din of mass hysteria punctuatedwith the crack of tenpins tumbling down the alleys.


3/19

We all three ran out of Colonial Lanes into the night whereupon Iwas stunned to see the Fazio store manager, Big Jim Schrantz, aboutto enter. I always wondered if he ever discovered it was dry ice fromhis store that started all this.

Hearing the fury and tumult behind the alley doors, looking at meand Wayne and Craig and further taking in the spectacle of SkiggsMuckles sliding about a slippery, watery floor with a goldfish stuck inhis mouth; well, he put it all together, took another look at me andsaid-once again - Get a life.

We all three eventually did get lives, but not before plentymore forays into our odyssey of idiocy and ineptitude.

Young Adulthood: Learning how toUnderachieve with Grace and Style

"This boy can become anything he wants, I remember my fourthgrade teacher saying. Dang, I thought, that even caughtmy

attention. No doubt my ma and pa looked at each other with a mix ofbewilderment and disbelief, cleared their throats and croaked,"What?"

To my parents, I was a virtual deaf-mute, or more crudely stated(but much more accurately) deaf and dumb. Of course they wereworking about 2,000 hours a week. I was never big on hearing, letalone listening to anything I was told, and my grades were certainlyindicative of that.

I was blind to the sagest advice given to me; one may as well gifta pair of binoculars to a Cyclops. My metaphysical acuity wasimpaired and no outside influences could improve the view from myprison of despair and loneliness, not unlike any teenager. Even onsunny days there were times Id turn to see myself trying to stranglemy own shadow.


4/19

Dreams gathered like dust at my feet, rotting slowly away andlosing luminescence like scales on a beached fish. Stumbling overmy dreams, inadvertently crushing them underfoot like blind,screaming kittens, I turned those dreams into nightmares like areverse alchemist. I self-destructively insisted on learning everythingthe hard way, and immediately forgot any lessons "learned", evenwhen proffered by a genius.

Robert Dover, my high school English teacher was a genius. Iwas smart and dumb enough to truly know that as fact. He wrote mea letter six or seven light years ago which should be compulsoryreading forEVERYONE, especially anyone under 24 years of age. I

was 28 or 30 years old before I began to understand the letter'sinherent wisdom and its simplicity - which he naturally made terriblycomplex. I intermittently continue to re-read this letter and continuallyget more out of it each time I do so.

ABOVE: Mr. Robert Dover, (center, seated & suited) putting on afalse smile as he desperately tries to guide this 1967 ship of foolsthrough the dangerous shoals and reefs of adolescence. Captain, ohCaptain!

I truly believe that although written in 1966, it is far from outdatedand is in fact as timeless as my memories of him and my thanks to


5/19

him. Read it and weep - or cry - or laugh...but Ill bet it makes youthink. I think I'm wiser for it, and I don't believe anyone woulddisagree.

Nov. 21, 1966

Jack J. Acker -- You young-old, wonderful-terrible, sensible-senseless, wise-foolish, good dope! Believe it or not I would like tobe in Gopher's Glen right now yelling my head off at you.Your lettersare well written and very interesting. It pleases me to know I wasright about Kelli Sue (the girlfriend) but distresses me to hear you arein such pain over the situation. You must learn to enjoy it! - even thepain - but don't enjoy it too much - that could be dangerous. Face life

with a smile or a sneer - that's your choice - but enjoy it. That's notyour choice. Life demands that you see it as incongruous andtherefore humorous and therefore as enjoyable. Nothing is tragic in aproper perspective - which is sometimes an upside-downperspective. Certainly you are capable of seeing the world upside-down! If you don't laugh at life and truly enjoy it, it will pass you by -It's temperamental, dramatic, stupid, beautiful, wise, foolish, ugly, sillyand profound - just like you! You are well suited to live it fully,foolishly and fruitfully. Welcome it with wise words and the wordsthemselves will reform your universe. (Man makes and remakes hisenvironment, you know). Be generous and good and innocent, andthen all your words and actions will be wise - even when you're adope.

Pain distilled in a good heart can become, in the spirit's alchemy,the warming liquor of life. But an essential ingredient is joy.

I'm glad you continued to write even when I didn't answer. Ihave been extremely busy and knew that you would understand.

I'm enjoying my job - seeing many interesting things - but MissAmerica and many people.

Write again soon,R. Dover

Couldn't have said it better myself!

Of course, Id endured teachers from the other side of the


6/19

spectrum, and Miss Hannah Stonebeak was one of them. The baneof the entire eighth grade and the epitome of a "crabby old schoolmarm", the "Beak" was a whirling dervish of high octane hatred witharms like a gibbon that were made for whippin' student's bodies.Wooden "pointers had been replaced by laser pointers decades ago,but "if it ain't broke, why fix it?

A bitter, purse - lipped spinster who always looked as if shewere chewing on a mouthful of carpet tacks, Miss Stonebeak'soverdeveloped right arm was always holding a pointer that, I swore,grew directly out of her boney, white-knuckled fist like a woodensword. Man, that woman could do stuff with a pointer that madeZorro look like a piker!

Whenever I did something wrong, Miss Stonebeak would alwaysbegin her reprimand by addressing me as "Jonathan". My birth namewas John but everybodyhad called me Jack from birth. ThisJonathan stuff drove me nuts. I was aching to say "Look, Granny, ifmy parents wanted to name me after an apple instead of a latrine,they would have."

The Beaks cold grey eyes were as soulless as a sharks and shehad a weird metallic smell about her. When you got to within six feetof her, her "aura" kicked in and youd swear you'd jammed yourtongue against battery terminals.

I, however, wasn't her favorite target. The favorite target of Miss

Stonebeak's wooden epee was the town bully, Duke Dehnim. Dukewas a real clod-hopper, and was more than less raised by hisreclusive "Uncle Bugs". Bugs lived outside of town in a "house"made entirely of recycled newspaper, cow manure, peat moss andmud. The house was in reality a block building made of growth

material. Like a giant, walled Petri dish, every spring Uncle Bugs'house would sprout bristles of twigs and wild clumps of grass akin tohair-studded warts on a witch's chin. As Duke had been orphaned atan early age, it fell upon Uncle Bugs to care for him as best he could.

Duke's parents, Lee and Dodie, had both perished in a freak ice-fishing accident years earlier. Carefully shuffling across a frozen


7/19

lake to deliver a thermos of hot buttered rum to Dad Dehnim, Dodiesomehow became entangled in her husband's fishing line. How thiscould have happened remains a mystery, as you don't even CASTwhen ice fishing for God's sake!

Whatever, struggling mightily to extricate herself from thismonofilament cocoon, she whapped Daddy Dehnim in the head withthe thermos whereupon he fell through the hole in the ice and sanklike an iron statue. As he was still holding onto the rod which had theline that somehow snagged Dodie, she followed him down the holefaster than a greased seal after a sardine. No bodies (nor thethermos) were ever recovered and neither parent was ever seenagain, though the lake was renamed "Lee-Dodie Dead Lake" in theirloving memory.

Duke was as mean spirited and evil as they came, and strongtoo boot. He could hold a chainsaw in each hand with arms spreadhorizontal to the ground for over four minutes and never break asweat.

I remember me and the boys walked over to Uncle Bugs toaccompany Duke to summer football workouts one day. Duke wasntout front to meet us, and when we asked Uncle Bugs (who waswrestling to pull out a weed about seven feet tall) where Duke was,he answered Hes out back practicing being mean. Practicing?Damn, he already had being mean perfected.

The only thing Id ever seen make Duke flinch was the sight of thatwiry crone Miss Stonebeak, pointer held high, her wattle quiveringwith unbridled rage, screaming like a banshee and whooshing downthe aisle towards his desk. She was a Maestro gone mad, wieldingher wooden baton with a well practiced frenzy over her "orchestra ofidiots who dutifully danced a macabre dance of educational death;

faithful to her beat until every shred of wisdom, knowledge andinitiative had been beaten out of them. Those were the good olddays

The Beaks ire towards Duke was well founded. Since fourthgrade Duke had been the ringleader of the class bullies and rebels,


8/19

but I wasnt far behind. I had the uncanny ability to imagine projectsfor teacher-torture and Duke had the uncanny size and prowess toimplement my ideas. Even before Miss Stonebeak ran our class,wed actually driven our homeroom teacher Mr. Potter to a nervousbreakdown. He literally had to quit about two weeks after being hiredto teach our all-male eighth-grade class. The all-male thing in aCatholic school was instituted to keep our minds free of temptationfrom the fairer sex. Thatworked Yeah, like it worked for the BluesBrothers.

The beginning of Mr. Potters end as our teacher began with mymonofilament fishing line idea. Another world-class idea that wastotally useless and marginally destructive.

Hey guys; right when morning recess begins meet me in the coatroom behind Potters desk I implored Wayne and Craig. The coatroom was nothing more than a painted cement block wall, open atboth ends where students would hang coats and place lunch bucketsand stuff up on a shelf. This open-ended wall was directly behind theteachers desk and thus hid any activities behind said wall from view.

Listen I said. As soon as the bell rings Potter always heads forthe teachers break room. Meet me in the coat room as soon as hewalks out the door.

The bell rung, the boys met me and I pulled a spool of clearmonofilament fishing line from my pocket.

Here I instructed Craig, take this and hold it. Im going to un-reel this line while Wayne watches out for Potter.

Unrolling the line I proceeded to loop it through every single lunchbucket handle in the entire coat room. I tied the final knot around

Toby Zablotnecks lunch pail and I was finished. This was gonna beGREAT.

Boys, as soon as that lunch bell rings and Amy Adams grabs thatfirst lunch bucketwell, Im tellin you this is going to be hilarious Ichortled.


9/19

Well, the bell rang at precisely 11:30 and when Amy Adams(everythings in alphabetical order in Catholic schools; except mygrades) grabbed her little bucket and kept on moving the whole linecame down. Thermoses exploded, lunch pail handles pinged andsnapped off, apples and oranges were rollin around everywhere.Kids were slippin on bananas and bologna and when the crowdcame streaming out of that little corral of hell more than a few kidshad smashed Twinkies, PBJs and cake frosting enshrouding theirshoes.

What a mess! It was, I must say, a plan that worked toperfection. And how you going to prove who did it? Theres no papertrail, just a clear monofilament line that rendered me and my guilt

invisible as well.

The Monofilament Massacre got the ball rolling but what reallydrove Mr. Potter over the edge were the spitballs. Im not talkinabout shooting a few spitballs around the classroom intermittentlyand haphazardly; Im talkin about serious saliva and paper pellets;world class spitballs shot out of wide diameter straws.

The idea came to me (again) like a divine revelation. Hey boys

I said. When Old Man Potter starts class after recess lets all haveour straws and balls ready for release. As soon as he turns to theblackboard to write something, lock and load and fire at the clock.Lets see if we can cover the entire clock with gruel.

The big, standard issue clock was directly above Potters head.Every time he turned his back to the class we spitters raised ourpulp laden straws like the biggest brass band in the world andimmediately fired at will at the target. Within half an hour the face of

the clock was totally covered with spitballs. Our lips were numb fromthe incessant fusillade wed released and as the spitballs dried theybegan to plop softly from the face of the clock onto Mr. Pottersshoes, arms and head; not necessarily in that order.

It took a while, but Old Man Potter eventually added two and twohundred (spitballs) together and looked up at the clock to see an


10/19

indescribable mass of coagulated spit and paper totally obscuring theface of the clock as well as a random pattern of near-misses thatformed a filthy, three-D corona around the target.

Within one hour the principal of the school, Sister MaryCelestine, took over our class after informing us that Mr. Potter hadquit due to medical reasons. Dont ask, dont tell.

Miss Stonebeak was up next as our teacher, and Im sure beforeshe even saw us she was striding down the hall with a purposefulstep like a steroid-laden Barry Bonds leaving the on-deck circle.

Confident in her ability to handle a class of eighth grade boys,

she just didnt know what she was getting into. Years later an ex-major league baseball umpire told me a little story that wasanalogous to The Beak taking over our class.

Nolan Ryan was in the twilight of his career when a rookie ballplayer (ala Stonebeak as it were) stepped into the batters box for hisfirst evermajor league at bat. Digging in and facing the Von RyanExpress, the ump queried Just up from the minors kid? The rookiedug in and answered Yessir, just called up today.

Well Ill tell ya kid; said the ump, why dont you just settle inthere and well watch these next three pitches go by together.

Thats exactly what happened. When the ump called the thirdstrike the poor, overmatched rookie looked back at him and askedAre you sure that was a strike? Yeah, it was a strike! Are youquestioning my eyesight? said the ump. No ump, I never evensawthe pitch, it was too durn fast said the rook, but it sure sounded

outside.

Well, we were too durn fast for Stonebeak and we eventuallybroke her also; banishing her to the minor leagues of teaching. Iheard years later she lived in a shack in the Cargill salt mines belowLake Erie, Im sure still clutching her beloved pointer in a vain attemptto control and dominate about 300 feral cats and rats. Good luck


11/19

Beak!

I probably spoke a bit hastily when I mentioned Duke was fearfulof only one thing. It was actually two, the second being his (andmany of the townsfolks) dentist, Dr. Dana Blackford. For Blackford,practicing dentistry in a country (our U.S. of A.) where toothpastetubes instructed "for best results squeeze from bottom up", Duke waseasy pickin's.

"Foreign" educated with a heavy accent, Dr. Dana Blackford hadthe deft touch of a drunken blacksmith and the bedside manner of aghoul conducting a mass disinterment. Rapaciously shoving hersandpaper fingers into patient's mouths looking for any excuse to

drill, grind, x-ray, veneer, jacket, crown, polish or pull, the"Transylvanian Terror" soon had a reputation around Gopher's Glenthat rivaled the Boston Strangler's.

She employed two inept, sycophantic and psychotic "dentalassistants" who were as scary as she. Vlad, as in "Vlad the Impaler",was a smiling skull of a man who floated around in a pharmaceuticalhaze making mistake after mistake after mistake. Dr. Dana's other"assistant" was a young Russian woman named Leedah, whoNEVER, EVERwore the protective apron when taking X-Rays.Leedah was one scary lady. She had a very light step, like Dracula,and didn't so much walk as glide - like she was on invisible casters.

Jamming the spit-sucker into patient's mouths like she was

gaffing a big tuna, Leedah would coo into Dr. Blackfords ear,"Gentle, oh how gentle." With blood red lips and unusually pointyteeth (odd when one worked for a dentist), one got the feeling shewas taunting you, and no matter how much "happy gas" andLidocaine was pumped into your system you never really relaxed.

Most dentists had Smiley Faces and relaxing music thatenveloped patients in a serene environment. Blackford's patients hadto stare at walls that were covered with grisly photos of oral surgeryprocedures gone awry and various mouth diseases, all the whilelistening to one of those endless Haunted House scream tapes.Never one to scrimp on equipment, the good doctor used an


12/19

industrial-grade dental drill with a triple-belt drive called the"Safecracker Seven", and when she hit the power pedal the officelights actually dimmed. It was ironic that her office was on Elm Street- it truly was a nightmare.

Duke and every other person in Gopher's Glen had plenty to bescared about. Lying in that chair and watching the ghostly Vlad floatfrom room to room, smiling his sick smile, and seeing Leedah driftpast mirrors that reflected nothing, while Dr. Dana jack-hammeredher way through your mouth wasnt a day at the beach.

Arriving early for my dental appointment once, I watched a goodlooking young man with a full head of jet-black hair and perfect teeth

disappear into the bowels of Dr. D's lair for a routine tooth cleaning.When he came out, he was still clutching the arms of the dental chairthat he'd torn clean off, huge patches of hair had fallen out of hishead, he'd shrunk about four inches and all you could see were thewhites of his eyes. Drooling out of one side of his mouth throughcracked andbleeding lips, he stumbled out of the office all the while emitting ahigh, keening wail like a boiling lobster.

No wonder the "Tooth Fairy" always demanded prepayment. Atthe end of your visit, groping your way through a haze of tooth dust,you were handed a free "European" toothbrush with a single row ofhard, wire bristles and a box of Milk Duds to promote decay and filling"pullout".

I knew I had it way better than Duke, but being the eldest of sixkids and not being rich (actually rather poor) had kept my parentsrather busy and not exactly over attentive to my delicate sensibilities,

needs and wants.

An Intro to Other Individuals along for The Ride

Howie Spitzigg... was a "Super-Nerd" by any standards. Always the


13/19

last chosen for any sport, cursed to be the most lerpy, goofy,stumbling Nimrod to ever roll a booger or pop a zit, he was thequintessential loser. After his parents made him take an aptitude testand discovering he was best suited to be a sheep herder ordishwasher, he caved in and decided "just to be himself". The worldmet his decision with a disappointment that reverberated throughoutthe hills. With dull, mud-brown eyes that were as empty as a whore'spromise, Howie faced life with a crooked grin and a mouthful ofsnaggled, tartar encrusted teeth that hadn't seen a toothbrush inyears.

Apparently as dull as Duke Dehnim, the instructions on thetoothpaste tube were far too complex for his pollywog brain tocomprehend. A walking, talking breath bomb, the fetid, malodorous

stench that steamed from his pie hole could fog a car's windows inminutes and had to be squeegeed off like fish slime. Howie had ahelluva a lot to live down to, but he was sure he could do it.

Orphaned in his teens after his father choked to death on a

mouthful of underdone, lumpy mashed potatoes, his mother soonfollowed him to the grave when her brain literally rotted from theinside out as a result of watching too many soap operas. Livingvicariously through her "soaps", Gertie Spitzigg died (while smokin' aSwisher Sweet cigar) when her hairspray ignited the Dolly Parton wigshe was modeling for her blow-up boyfriend Mitch, who/which alsoexploded during the conflagration. Pop! Goes the weasel...

Her best friend, "Bivalve Betty, had almost saved her, but whiletrying to wield the fire extinguisher and race upstairs, she becameentangled in her "Clam Queen" necklace she'd won at "The 1986Clam-Jam" clambake. Betty had consumed 116 clams with extrabutter (washed down with nine beers) then brushed her teeth withfour cobs of corn to win the Title of "Clam Queen".

Festooned in the clicking, clacking, embrace of long agoconsumed bivalves, she was a huge parody (at 290 pounds) of herclam-cramming former self, but wore the spoils of her gastronomicvictory proudly.

Betty was a stout-legged Nordic wench (destined to be my Uncle


14/19

Richards on again, off again companion) who'd worked thewaterfront bars and clam houses on the Atlantic coast (where Dutch,my uncles friend youll later meet would eventually graze). After 27years of shucking clams, oysters and mussels, Bivalve Betty's armswere corded with veins like blue cables and her sneering upper liphad more than a hint of a mustache. Actually, as the weather turnedcolder, she actually grew hairier, and by winter was covered in acoarse, wooly pelt like a wire terrier.

At 40 years old shed cracked more mirrors than Medusa, andher neighbors had seen countless barefoot men sprinting from Bettysfront door after being literally scared out of their shoes. Id alwaysfound her to be more curious than frightening, but theres no doubtshe made quite a first impression.

Sporting over-rouged cheeks with a mean slash of lipstick

smeared onto cruel, wormy lips, Betty would cruise the bars inGophers Glen and was a formidable sight come midnight. Gettingmeaner with each drink she consumed, Betty was always spoiling fora fight or a little arm wrasslin. One of the greatest arm wrestlersever, her meaty arm angled with malice aforethought on the armwrestling table that was strewn with spilled beer, Bourbon andcigarette ashes man, her ice blue eyes could freeze Old ManWinters heart. Renowned up and down the East Coast for snappingmore ulnas and popping more bursa sacks than Moby Dick, Bettywas one tough, bearded clam.

Prior to their untimely demise, Howie's parents occasionallyinvited Betty and "guest" (that at times included my favorite uncle, theGreat One, Uncle Richard) over to play cards or a board game.Other than my indomitable uncle, Howie remembered Betty alwaysbrought along a "one-time-only" date the Spitzigg's never, ever sawagain.

These men always appeared to the Howitzer as small, ineffectual

men with stunted bodies and unusually large, bespectacled,marionette-like heads. As a matter of fact, next to Betty they almostlooked "consumable" - like a beef stick or a bag of chips. Howieimagined the Valvster hauling them home and stuffing them into a


15/19

boiling pot of water, then picking them apart over a beer and a belch.One could imagine a forensic team, years later, discovering foodstained neckties nailed to her basement wall along with a slew ofbroken eyeglasses, bone fragments and men's shoes buried under apile of cat litter and clam shells. That Ole' Bivalve was a man-eaterall right.

With this eclectic array of people swimming about my primordialsoup of life, it was no wonder the strange and bizarre were myworlds common components and companions.

Getting Older: A TeenageFrankenstein in Adult Clothing

It wasn't like I was unhappy or depressed most of the time, Ireally did laugh a helluva lot; I only cried alone. But I wouldemphatically say, Im here to tell ya' again, it sucks being happy with

no cash. Poor, I was still blessed with tremendous friends, a greatbiological family and a real "fake" core family...fake wife, son,daughter (never officially married to segue into biological kids) andlots of cats.

Unbelievably, it seemed just like yesterday me and everyoneelse I knew were young lions and lionesses prowling the limitlesssavannah of youth in pursuit of phenomenally hedonistic happiness.It was kinda like a dog show; walking into one of your favorite barswithyour newest girl was just a prelude to an afternoon, evening andmorning with a sexual box of Sweet Tarts. I recalled a chanceencounter with an acquaintance in a restaurant years ago.

"Who's your new pelt?" purred Dinky Don, as he ogled one of


16/19

my latest girls. You really couldnt blame him as she was wearing adress the size of a computer chip, and wearing it well. Alwayscruising, Donny would hit as many as four or five bars a nightlooking for a little mud for his turtle. I looked down at all of four and ahalf feet that was Dinky Don Schmelt and declined to answer.Responding in any way always invited a cascade of cacophonousconversation that could bring a Cape buffalo to its knees. TheDinkster could hear the cork squeak out of a Vodka bottle from 200yards but was conveniently deaf unless he was talking, and when hewas talking paint actually peeled off walls.

Though he believed his eloquence was such that he could charmthe blue right out of the sky, the Dinkster was deaf to the sound ofhis own voice whose flat, nasal tone wasnt unlike that of a hammer

pounding on an anvil.

I recalled a conversation when Schmelt, arguing with his wife,said of a co-worker, "you don't understand, she's a full-blownalcoholic," whereupon his third wife asked rhetorically "You mean asopposed to you, whos half-blown?" Ouch, babe! Dinky Don was theonly person in the world known to survive without a liver. Years ago,during a particularly ferocious drinking binge, as Donny raised hisglass to sip a twelfth Martini, his liver had actually jumped out of hisbody, ran down the street and checked itself into a rehab clinic.

With teeny-weeny hands (and probably a teeny-weeny weenie),

teeny-weeny corn-peg teeth and short, stubby arms that invariablygrew shorter when the check arrived, Dinky Don looked like a sawed-off piata that had fallen into a men's room urinal. The arrival ofANYcheck (even at a nearby table) found him stabbing a cocktail wiener-like finger up a nostril, mining for fool's gold with that hand, whilefumbling with the other hand in a feigned quest for the real thinginside his wallet and heart; neither of which existed. He may as well

have been trying to pick up a glob of mercury. Donnys idea ofcomfort food was four olives immersed in straight vodka with avermouth float and the mere thought of buying a round was analcoholic afterthought.

The Dinkster was a notorious tightwad, and legend had it that he


17/19

and his brother Sammy had accidentally invented copper wire whilefighting over a penny they'd found in the gutter. His diminutivestature was only eclipsed by his monumental penury which ran asdeep as the Mariana trench. Here was a guy who could pick up adime with his toes but couldn't find a diamond in his eye socket whenit was his turnto buy a round of drinks. Best described as a big puppy with half ahuman brain, Dinky Don readily admitted the most influential peoplein his life had been SpongeBob SquarePants and Pee Wee Herman.

No stranger to addiction and obsessive/compulsive behavior, theTiny Toreador spent most of the eighties in a whirlwind dance withmirrors, white lines, bottles and bad broads. Adhering strictly to hismorning regimen of smoking half a blunt then downing a double

vodka with a Visine float, Dinky Don was confident he could face theday "clear-eyed" while comfortably stoned. What a pilsner.

Unable to elude his own shadow when halfsober, theDiminutive Dude was constantly gored by the horns of his ownaddictions and eventually bled nothing but false hope and promisefrom a mind, soul and personality that were as dry and silent asstone. His brother Sammy, though much taller, was as seriouslyflawed in his own, special ways.

Wales had the Wolfman, Germany had Frankenstein andGopher's Glen has slim Sammy Schmelt. Nicknamed the "Mewling",Sammy looked like a milk-fed veal calf that had been kept in awindowless shed its entire life. Unfortunately, Sammy Schmeltanswered the age old question, What came first, the chicken or theegg? Neither, it was Sammy Schmelt.

Albino-like, the Mewling's skin was a pale, Luna moth green, withan underlying, barely visible tracery of veins. With weird golden eyes

and long tree toad fingers with nails bitten to the quick, the Mewlingwas an eerie example of genetics run amuck. With a huge, bulbousnose dominating a face with extremely wide set eyes and that bizarregray-green complexion, he resembled a bottle-nose dolphin.

One big, gnarly, buck tooth protruded from his liver colored lips,


18/19

and if one didn't know, you'd swear it was the stub of a narwhale'stusk. A true "Phlegm-Head", he suffered a constant cold and hisnostrils slowly leaked twin streams of mucus he continuouslyswabbed away with his forearms. Trying to achieve a farm-boy/hip-hop look, Sammy always wore plaid shirts that were way too big forhis spindly frame, but after an entire day of street-sweeping his nose,the mucus-laden sleeves would dry and balloon until his forearmsresembled a "Plaid Popeye's". A "weeper" and cry-baby of epicproportions, he was a chronic complainer and sniveler whoseunhappiness and negativity were palpable from twenty feet, and weavoided him at all costs. No wonder he and Howie Spitzigg werebest pals.

Lets get back to Donny. As aforementioned, Sammys brother

Donny was unavoidable. The most intrusive person Id ever known,the Little General could worm his way into any conversation or socialgathering with an oily resolve that was astonishing. As clinging as linton a sweater charged with static electricity, no matter how manytimes you brushed him off he would just keep on coming; talking,talking, talking all the way, all the time. Empty-eyed and filled onlywith the false bravado his excruciatingly loud voice could engender,Dinky Don obdurately continued paddling up Shit Crick in search ofhis equal (hopefully female, but who's choosy) in the art of rudefilibuster.

An incident (a TRUEincident) while at college synopsized DinkyDon's search for his sexual/verbal Holy Grail. It was late autumn andafter a Frat party fueled by cocaine and alcohol (and the obligatorytwo-hours-in-any-bar-till-closing), Donny noticed a comely coedlurching drunkenly about his dorm building near a copse of trees andbushes. She was drop dead gorgeous and the Dinkster knew he hadno chance of getting into her pants without using "The Jaws of Life".This was a guy whose concept of romance was a bottle of Viagra and

a block of fudge. Suave Don had been known to accidently sprayhis dates with a garden hose then hurriedly offer to get you out ofthosewet clothes. Subtlety was not his forte.

Eschewing his usual pick-up line of "I know; let's go back to myplace and eat raw chicken," Donny had to come up with something


19/19

pretty good, rather quickly. Thinking fairly fast on his little feet,clomping about like a wooden-shoed dwarf, Double-D stumbled up tothe nubile nymph and slurred a barely coherent offer to "help ya'home?" The drunken damsel half fell into his embrace thenproceeded to unload about six Jell-O shots and four pieces ofunderdone pizza down his front before passing out. He was in!

Quickly assessing the situation and its myriad possibilities,Donny realized he was too drunk to carry her, so he immediatelydragged her "lucky ass" into the copse of trees where he actuallyburied her under a mound of fallen leaves and forest detritus. (Hereally did this; Im not kidding.)

Thinking like a giant squirrel after an early, vicious frost, Dinky

planned to return later and unearth his leafy prize like a big autumnacorn and crack her open with the sheer strength and pressure of hisunfulfilled lust. Just before passing out on his couch while musingover his buried sexual swizzle stick, The Dinkster had visions ofdiving into his pond of leaves, a sexy wooly-headed lamprey andattaching himself to his victim's toothsome, albeit leafy bosom.

This was just one of a myriad of friends and passers-by Id meet

on his unpredictable, fairly unenviable and astoundingly tragic-comical journey through a galaxy of personalities and memorieswhose lights shone like a billion stars. Carl Sagan is breathless withanticipation!

Family and Friends

jaywalking with jesus part 7 2-27-11

Documents