Sitting at Marv’s childhood home, waiting for Old lady
Carson to return from the kitchen with the iced tea he had flatly refused, Dr.
Johnson began to get impatient. He
looked at the walls covered with the pictorial diary of Marvin Carson’s
life. At least up until he moved away
shortly after Dr. Johnson had met him.
Coming into the front room from the kitchen, carrying a tray
of iced tea glasses and a pitcher and all that, Mrs. Carson yelled, “No I haven’t
seen him in about 15 years. Of course, I
always get the birthday and Mother’s day calls.
He’s a good boy. Just busy. You understand that, don’t you Herman? Big smooth walking Dr like yourself?
So the old lady still had that same old ornery streak. Well two can play at that game, thought
Johnson as they fell into their same old routine from nearly 2 decades ago …
“Why don’t you stuff it you crusty old bitty!” Herman shouted
playfully, grabbing a glass from the tray, causing old lady Carson to nearly
topple the whole thing with the unexpected weight shift.
“Suck the shit out of my ass, you scrawny little so and so …”
shot back the good lady Carson.
But now, Dr Johnson couldn’t continue. He was here on serious business. As much as he’d love to finish the game, he
needed information. Mrs. Carson, sensing
his somber mood, became concerned.
“What is it, baby?
You know you can always tell mama Carson anything,” Mrs. Carson
incorrectly stated.
Because no he couldn’t tell her that sweet Marv was not a big
exec out West, but a cross dressing, hash slinging waitress down at Cecil’s. Except he wasn’t slinging hash today. Today he was in the ICU from accidentally
poisoning himself trying to kill the good Dr.
Oh yeah, and also he was only being kept alive by an experimental
genetic concoction thrown together by a brilliant, but careless young
veterinary student. This same concoction
that will eventually turn Marvin the cross dressing waitress into Marvin the
frog if Dr Johnson cannot decipher the contents of the poison immediately and
somehow reverse the effect. And this
bitch wants to make tea and chat!
“I need to find Butch,” Dr. Johnson finally blurted out.
“Oh him,” Mrs. Carson believed that Butch was somehow
responsible for Marvin going away and she’s held a grudge since. Luckily for the Dr., she had no idea that
Marvin was actually all gay for him and Butch had nothing to do with Marv’s
relocation.
“I suppose you can find him at his hangout. I hear from his mother, whose heart he’s
repeatedly broken, that he spends most days and nights down at The Original
Chico’s”
“Never was much of a talker was
he?” Johnson said.
Note: The Italicized
stuff really really happened.
Jack slowly walked the
center aisle of the movie theatre looking for any signs of disruption. He paused nearly imperceptibly as he reached
row 19. This row was currently being
nicknamed in Jack’s mind. “Row Trouble”
was his working title. A light sniff of the air in the direction of
the ne’er-do-wells to his left served as subtle, but powerful warning that not
only was good behavior expected, it would be enforced at any cost. Unfortunately, the boys were too busy looking
for their toilet paper to worry about “Porky, the rent-a-pig.”
Dejected, Jack moved
on to the very front of the movie theatre.
As he made a left turn in front of the screen to walk back up the left
side aisle, an unfortunate little accident happened. Jack was aware that he was walking in front
of the screen, partially blocking the view.
This was a test. It was
intentional. What he didn’t know was
that nobody in the theatre gave a shit.
This was “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”. Most of these kids had seen it dozens of
times.
So Jack thought he himself was being addressed when at the
moment he chose to walk in front of the screen, “The Criminologist, An Expert”
appeared to the traditional screams from the crowd of “ASSHOLE!!!”
With catlike blubbery agility, Jack spun to face the yelling
crowd. Incredibly, they were still
yelling. How can this be? Saddened by his total lack of affect on the
crowd, he slumped into a seat in the front row, defeated. Head in his hands wrecking his carefully
designed combover, Jack began to quietly weep.
“You’re weak, bruiser,” Jack thought, using his high school
nickname on himself, “You just can’t put the fear in them anymore. Why are they still yelling?” Pulling out of his man-breast pocket one of
those nasty old snotrag things old guys always carried around with them, he
dried his eyes and looked around. “Ah,
they’re yelling at the screen, dummy,” with a relieved chuckle and long blow
into the snotrag, Jack regained composure, hurriedly readjusted his combover
with the fingernails of his right hand and replaced his rent-a-cop hat. Standing again to partially block the screen,
Jack noticed that some of the kids had newspapers draped over their heads. “What the …” That’s when Jack became aware of
a light mist mysteriously falling as if it were raining in the theater.
Which, um,
precipitated the great sprayer bottle confiscation of 1983.
While Jack and a couple of ushers went row by row,
collecting spray bottles, Jack noticed he was tapping his toe to the beat. He found himself humming, something about the
“Pelvic thrust.”
Just as Jack reached the very back of the theater, it
happened. His favorite midnight movie
sound in the world. The sound of an
empty beer bottle rolling to the front, underneath the seats. Jack and his crew had exhaustively
experimented with empty beer bottles in the theater’s off hours. They could pinpoint with amazing accuracy
ground zero if they could find where the bottle came to rest. Midnight movie protocol dictates that if you
hear a beer bottle rolling your way, you must raise your feet to allow gravity
to naturally take the beer bottle as far as it can before being stopped usually
by a theater chair leg. Giggling is
optional, but always appreciated. A few
seconds after it began. The rolling sound stopped with the obvious clank
against a seat leg somewhere. Over
Jack’s earpiece, he got the news he needed.
“27 R, left. Repeat 2 – 7 – Romeo,
Lima.” No surprise there. “27R left” decoded to 19 M or N, depending on
release with the bottle pointing left or right.
Accurate enough to indict the flophead gang.
“Nice going Boomer.
Now he’s coming over here,” Cube complained.
“Then I guess we better get rid of the evidence, then, huh?”
At that, every bottle in the row was released to the general
vicinity of row 27 making, well, a glorious ringing noise that caused Jack’s
blood pressure to venture to new heights, his ears, an extraordinary vibrant
glowing red.
“Hey Flopheads. Consider this a warning. Any more floppiness out of any of you, and
you’ll be outta here.”
“Sorry sir,” Butch
attempted.
“Don’t ‘sorry sir’
me. Just settle down and stop your
flopping,” Jack simultaneously yelled
and whispered, spraying the boys with enough saliva that Cube pulled the
newspaper back out for protection. “And
give me that paper!”
Unfortunately for the
boys, they would never get to yell Cube’s favorite line. The Criminologist, An Expert appeared on the
screen at exactly the same moment Jack was demanding the contraband from
Cube. Cube was a purest and had no
choice. He was forced by tradition to
scream “ASSHOLE!” at that exact
moment. It totally had nothing to do
with Jack Hughes. You think that
mattered? You think Jack Hughes believed
him?
“No Louise, I didn’t believe him,” Jack, proudly confessed
to his gal Louise, bacon grease running down his chin, “I grabbed that little punk by the ear and
threw him out of the theater. For
good. The rest of them just got up and
left. Problem solved. I doubt those boys will ever be back to my 6
West Theater. You know I might be the
best thing that ever happened to that place.
With me around to keep the peace, The 6 West Theater will enjoy years
and years of success. I’ve actually gone
from embarrassed by my role to proud to be a part of the most successful movie
chain of all time.”
Louise’s love for Jack had never been greater. “My hero,” she
said at last, back turned to Old man Hughes as she prepared a “little more” cheesy
scrambled bacon lard eggs and coffee.
With a nod and a chuckle, Jack sipped at his coffee,
pensively staring off into the distance at a future that looked brighter than
it had in nearly a decade.
“You know what, Weezy?
Whaddya say we get the bikes out of the garage and go for a spin around
the park?”
Raising her head to look up at the cupboards above the stove
and prevent her tears from dripping into the frying pan, Louise, voice trembling in joyful disbelief,
said, “That will be just fine, Mr. Hughes.”
And they lived happily ever after.
--
Ok I’m officially lost.
I don’t recognize any of these places.
Of course it doesn’t help that I’m such a dummy. Literally. Essentially a block of wood with a clever
series of mechanisms designed to facilitate the illusion of speech and
emotion. But I have neither. Nor do I have thoughts. I do not exist except in a purely physical
form. I’d argue that you are no
different, but I am also incapable of arguing.
Where did I get off track?
I just wanted to step outside and clear my little wooden head. After furball escaped my grasp and ran loose at
the hospital, I tried to do the right thing.
I reported it immediately. Well,
I tried to. But the nurses at their
station thought it was all some elaborate joke.
“Who’s making the dummy walk?” I
may not have a soul or feelings or a brain or a heart, but some things are just
mean. Looking at my ridiculous reflection
in the plate glass of some unknown Jewelry store, I realize I just need to sit
down somewhere and be quiet for a while.
I continue down the rain-slicked sidewalk, ignoring the stares and gasps
of horror from all the people regarding my approach. I know.
It’s a miracle someone like me is walking at all. And granted, it doesn’t look very realistic
when I do it. Something about the way my
legs bend looks unnatural to humans. Maybe
it’s the fact that my knees are actually just a seam where the pantleg fabric
has been sewn straight across so my legs hang “naturally” in the seated
position. I was not made for walking. I was made to be seated on a man’s lap. “Dummies are to be seen and not heard,” they
all say. Or “There’s just something
inherently creepy about a dummy.” Yeah
thanks for that one. Feels great. Fortunately, I don’t have tear ducts or my
face would warp. Hey, what’s this bar up
ahead? Maybe they don’t care if a guy
comes in and just wants to keep to himself …
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