Lucas and Christopher had been acquaintances first, then friends after fighting over Rainy Cappabianco, the daughter of Italian American hippies in 7th grade. The fought for her affections and settled their differences after she ultimately chose Arthur Denton as her boyfriend and as the recipient of an awkward hand-job during the holiday field trip to Trinity Rep for a Christmas Carol. They both noticed at the same time that Arthur’s jacket, draped over his lap, was rising and falling with no noticeable rhythm, guided by the hand of Rainy. That was that. Arthur became a legend, Rainy became hated by the girls and lusted over by the boys and Lucas and Christopher became best buds. They also settled on nicknames for each other that they thought was the cat’s ass. Tougher and Cusser. Better than Luke and Chris by a million miles. However “Tougher” came out in the New England accent as “Tuffah” and Cusser uncomfortably evolved into “Cussy” by the end of that first year of real friendship.
“Tuffah” was putting the final touches on Cussy’s disguise as they stood in Tuffah’s basement apartment. Well, disguise was too strong a word. It was more like his East Greenwich camouflage. Something that would keep him anonymous in the fairly affluent, certainly snobbish township. It consisted of an wrinkled pair of khakis and a black cable knit. It was topped off with a “3 Time Super Bowl Champion” Patriots cap that had certainly seen better days.
“Let’s go over this again.” Said Tuffah, stepping back and giving Cussy the once over. Cus looked less than enthusiastic but nodded agreement. In the back of his mind was the voice of legendary Red Sox broadcaster Jerry Remy “There’s 2 strikes on the batter and one more… HE’LL SPEND A DOZEN YEARS BEHIND BARS!” Don Orsillo, Remy’s partner in the booth takes over “And if you remember his New Years bust for half a gram of blow, you’ll recall he’s a little bitch that will end up catching more than Veritek!” Remy laughed “You can say that again Don! This kid’s sweet cushion is ripe for pushin!”
“CUS!” Tuffah yelled. “Wake up man! You can’t zone out like this at game time.” Tuffah hadn’t realized “game time” was a poor metaphor to use right now.
“Man, I have two strikes on me. I’m going to have a 12 year bid if I…” Tuffah cut him off. “That’s why we’re doing it THIS way! You’ll never get caught because I’m going to catch you, Knucklehead!”
Cus stepped back and looked into Tuff’s full length mirror, slightly shaking his head. If this worked, they had potential to make a dozen little scores before anyone got wise. If it didn’t, or worse, if something unplanned for came up… “Strike THREE! Grease ‘em up! Bubba’s going balls deep!”
As they walked out to the car Tuff went over the plan. Slowly and surely Cus was losing confidence in the plan (strike one!), in Tuff (strike two!) and in maybe in himself.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
RELEASE (MRS.) KRAKEN!!
Unquestionably, one of the most universally funny things in the human condition is flatulence. Said another way; Farts are funny. This, although we may not freely admit it, we all know and agree on. It’s the first thing we laugh at as children and last thing that make the elderly entertaining. Farts have no language barrier and have left their mark (say sorry, but I can’t resist the left their ‘mark’ pun) on history. Allegedly the literal translation of pumpernickel is “Devil’s Fart” and the story of its origin is pretty entertaining folklore on its own. In the 19th century a famous French performer Le Petomane was the world’s first (maybe not first but reportedly its finest) “Fartiste” ripping his way through the world’s great musical pieces to adoring crowds. Of course, it would be the French that would unleash this master on the rest of the planet. It seems like such a… well, French thing to do.
Categorizing farts is as old as methane, so I won’t waste valuable time and energy rehashing it for the sake of this short tale. I will mention one thing on the subject though, because it is pertinent to the tale that follows.
Friend’s farts have their own interesting dynamics. I had a friend in my 20’s that was a great guy. Loyal and compassionate, funny and ‘low-key cool’ but the problem may have rested in the fact that he was as Portuguese as an Azores’ outhouse. His ethnicity might seem inconsequential unless you know a few Port-a-gees and their eating habits.
Normally when a buddy farts in front of you it will elicit a humorous barb or a tete a tete with a blast from your own French horn, as it were. Ignoring it completely or with a slight snicker is even an option, particularly if you’re in a heated game of Madden or NHL hockey on the gaming system du jour. It’s clear those efforts are designed to distract rather than entertain. However, on occasion a friend’s fart can cross an undrawn but very real line of, well for lack of a better term, decorum.
Rarely, but a very serious breach of etiquette when it does happen, a friends fart can actually make you very, VERY angry! Case in point, my Pawtagee buddy, Paulie. It was an uncomfortably frequent circumstance that Paulie would come by to play a few games at night after a traditional Portuguese dinner, and given the potency of its culinary delights, I would go from welcoming friend and host to unwitting victim in under 2 hours. He even went so far one night as to warn me in advance and said he took the courtesy to wear warm up pants that gathered at the ankle with a zipper. He literally ripped ass for two hours, kept it IN his pants and waited for a 6-6 tie in double overtime, as we played that year’s NHL game. He then proceeded to “call time” stand up, unzip the bottom of his pants and SHAKE the leg… unleashing an aroma that was absolutely sickening. I’m not going to try and describe it further because my limited vocabulary couldn’t do this injustice justice. I think when I came to, I kicked him out. Seriously.
All of this had lead, somewhat indirectly to part two of the Trinity of stories involving the F-word. Part one, as you might recall was the tale of Gary Fonce and the coffee charged curse. This story is about the first adult to, in anger, swear at me. As if I weren’t intimidated by Maria Forte…
Growing up on Crompton Ave had had its own set of dynamics and interesting folks. There was the Constance family at the top of the block that collected motor cross bikes, gigantic aerial antennas and strange looks from the neighbors. The Q-Tip from Hell at the end of the street who was the first kid with the Sega Master System and the one and only Star Wars video game at the time. He also had a wrist-rocket sling shot. An item my parents had the forethought to not buy me allowing me to avoid incarceration for assault with a deadly. And then in the dead center… there was the Forte family. A quintet of people that fell straight out of a post WWII family comedy, landed in a vat of LSD and moved next door to Arnold the wife beating drunk with the sauciest ‘stache you never wanted to touch. Which just so happened to be right across the street from me.
Now, if you were a physiotherapist with a colleague’s prescription pad and about 60 years to write it up, the Forte’s would be a case study in hysterical. From the patriarch’s Paw Sox hat and constant calls to his sons to “pick up the cah-key in the yahd” to the (alleged) Mardi Gras parties and constant showing of “Enter the Dragon” playing on the basement TV, these people were comedy gold before I knew what comedy gold was. However, at the helm of this family and the literal head of the table, sat Maria Forte. A 2 pack a day mom, with a plastic covered sofa. A physical description is relatively easy, even though it dregs up visions of a moment of pure fright for me. For the perspective of another adult, I suppose she stands as follows: Mildly overweight with stringy blonde hair and a consistency of dress that was completely unremarkable. From the perspective of the youngster that I was, she stood 11 feet tall, weighed roughly 430 pounds and could kill a man with a look that made Medusa from the Harry Hamlin vehicle “Clash of the Titans” look like Mother Theresa. Clash of the Titans is apt here because I would swear that very late on one cold night in 1986 I could hear “Release the KRAKEN!” as she got into her uber-van (the Forte bus) and drove off. When I heard that cry I looked like Poseidon when he actually does release the Kraken in the movie – horrified and astounded… and in slow motion as I looked up awe.
One of the great things about the Forte family was that, no matter the circumstance, Mike and Paul, the Forte boys, were the best audience a funny kid could have. They laughed at nearly everything I said and made me repeat my limited material daily so I rarely needed to develop more. Yet, herein lies a problem. If you spend over 6 hours with your audience and have a limited amount of material to draw on, you can get into a comedic jam. Luckily, as any good comedian knows, with an audience craving more, a well timed fart is an absolute show stopper. But one person’s show stopper could be another person’s indication that you are a “disgusting bastard!”
On this day, Mike and I were with our class on a trip to a museum in Boston that included a visit to Friendly’s, located conveniently on the third floor of said museum. Fries and vinegar, Awful Awful and hot dogs, people worth making fun of and just the guy to do it. This trip had it ALL! I was in my glory. Paul, a year behind us in school, wasn’t on the trip but Mike was and I had him going from the moment we arrived at school and laughed at him for bringing a lunch on a field trip. I brought cash, baby and then as it is now, cash is indeed king. As I counted my ten ones, I thought aloud if I would pick up a fridge magnet for my mom, or maybe some other trinket to mess around with. Maybe I’d save it up and hit the restaurant and buy Tanya Sylvestri a cone… Man, she was a 4th grade babe of the highest order, I’ll tell you! She was the first girl with boobs, and they were spectacular! A girl in the gifted class had a moderate rack too but hers came with the early onset of acne and that would not do. Ultimately I ended up completely famished and blowing eight of the ten on my own lunch and snacks. I figured to hell with trinkets and Tanya’s rack. Her boobs would be as useless to me as a fridge magnet anyway. Lunch did provide the fireworks, as it were, due for the most part because my hot dog had a serious amount of onions. Those were free and placed on the table so I ate them like I was at a Vidalia buffet.
The bus ride home found most of my classmates napping and myself sitting with a passed out Mike Forte. Although this is also an opportunity to cause all manner of havoc, I was required to sit next to a chaperone. That’s probably the only reason Mike was comfortable enough to sleep anywhere near me. The ride was uneventful.
Returning to school, I remembered that my mom wasn’t going to pick me up and, since the Forte clan lived across the street, I asked Mike if his mom would give me a ride home. I was informed that that wouldn’t be a problem. On the way over to the huge silver Ford Econo-line van that Paul was already sitting in, Mike and I started laughing about the funny things I said during the day.
“Hey, remember that fat guy in front of the painting of fruit and you laughed and he knew you were laughing at him cuz he was so fat and you looked at him and started to laugh louder and how you said don’t eat that and we laughed harder and he called you a jerk and said ‘I’m as God made me’ and you said ‘then you should switch Gods’ and the guy turned red and stuff… that was funny.” I’m paraphrasing but you get the idea.
When we got into the van we were greeted by an eager Paul, just dying to find out what was so funny, and the less than docile tones of Maria. Her “Hello, boys. Was it fun?” sounded more like snapping a leg trap on a coked up transvestite than a motherly greeting but she was a peach. An ass kicking, van driving, chain smoking peach. She looked tired from smoking and doing nothing all day. I totally related to her. I sat in the passenger seat and the boys in the first of the 20 some-odd rows in the back.
Maria sat quietly wheezing behind the wheel as we filled in Paul about the day’s events. We were absolutely tearing it up! Total fever pitch and it was building! The fat guy, the kid I tripped in the bathroom, the tour guide I mimicked! It was all there. When we got to lunch Paul asked through gasps of laughter “What did you have?” and I knew… now was the time…
I said “You tell me!” in a game show host cadence and proceeded to lift my right leg and let rip what could only be described as a quake-inducing blast that absolutely cost me a good pair of briefs – but NO MATTER! It was for comedy! I turned to the boys expecting an absolute eruption of pure laughter… and was met with a complete and total and terrible silence. The boys sat, slack-jawed as I watched all four eyes slowly drift toward the driver seat, the air was sucked out of, not just the Forte bus, but the atmosphere itself. They looked EXACTLY like Poseidon watching the horrible glory of the Kraken swim from its underwater prison. My fart, it seemed, might as well have been the trigger mechanism of a bomb that could scorch the Earth in a nano-second.
My eyes followed the boy’s eyes and I met Maria’s. Maria’s blood red face with laser bright retinas staring back at me in cold, cold hatred. I was, in no uncertain terms, screwed.
“How… DARE… YOU…” Those three short words took over 30 seconds to come out of her maw at an increasing volume for every second. Was she… growing? Not sure. I am sure I was shrinking. Shrinking in mortal terror.
The boys, in what would be awkward at any other time, clutched hands in the back seat. For mutual support and the love of their friend Ted, that surely would die at the hands of their mother’s hands, I guessed. Then Maria grabbed the wheel at the 10 and 2 position as started to turn toward the task of driving, but it seemed there was one more thing she needed to say.
“You… are… FUCKING… disgusting.” She said and continued “Fucking disgusting bastard…” We were not out of the school parking lot yet and I was MORE than ready to slink out of the Forte van and crawl the three miles to my house… on broken glass… soaked in kerosene. It would have way more comfortable than that ride home.
Now does this story have a moral? No. Not unless the moral is “always ask your friends if it’s OK to fart in front of their mothers” but it acts as a bridge. A bridge from Gary Fonce to my first use of the F-Bomb on my own terms and for that it is necessary.
- Thank you and God Bless you Maria Forte, wherever you are –
The names on this and other stories will now be altered to avoid any uncomfortable situations or well deserved punches to the face…
Categorizing farts is as old as methane, so I won’t waste valuable time and energy rehashing it for the sake of this short tale. I will mention one thing on the subject though, because it is pertinent to the tale that follows.
Friend’s farts have their own interesting dynamics. I had a friend in my 20’s that was a great guy. Loyal and compassionate, funny and ‘low-key cool’ but the problem may have rested in the fact that he was as Portuguese as an Azores’ outhouse. His ethnicity might seem inconsequential unless you know a few Port-a-gees and their eating habits.
Normally when a buddy farts in front of you it will elicit a humorous barb or a tete a tete with a blast from your own French horn, as it were. Ignoring it completely or with a slight snicker is even an option, particularly if you’re in a heated game of Madden or NHL hockey on the gaming system du jour. It’s clear those efforts are designed to distract rather than entertain. However, on occasion a friend’s fart can cross an undrawn but very real line of, well for lack of a better term, decorum.
Rarely, but a very serious breach of etiquette when it does happen, a friends fart can actually make you very, VERY angry! Case in point, my Pawtagee buddy, Paulie. It was an uncomfortably frequent circumstance that Paulie would come by to play a few games at night after a traditional Portuguese dinner, and given the potency of its culinary delights, I would go from welcoming friend and host to unwitting victim in under 2 hours. He even went so far one night as to warn me in advance and said he took the courtesy to wear warm up pants that gathered at the ankle with a zipper. He literally ripped ass for two hours, kept it IN his pants and waited for a 6-6 tie in double overtime, as we played that year’s NHL game. He then proceeded to “call time” stand up, unzip the bottom of his pants and SHAKE the leg… unleashing an aroma that was absolutely sickening. I’m not going to try and describe it further because my limited vocabulary couldn’t do this injustice justice. I think when I came to, I kicked him out. Seriously.
All of this had lead, somewhat indirectly to part two of the Trinity of stories involving the F-word. Part one, as you might recall was the tale of Gary Fonce and the coffee charged curse. This story is about the first adult to, in anger, swear at me. As if I weren’t intimidated by Maria Forte…
Growing up on Crompton Ave had had its own set of dynamics and interesting folks. There was the Constance family at the top of the block that collected motor cross bikes, gigantic aerial antennas and strange looks from the neighbors. The Q-Tip from Hell at the end of the street who was the first kid with the Sega Master System and the one and only Star Wars video game at the time. He also had a wrist-rocket sling shot. An item my parents had the forethought to not buy me allowing me to avoid incarceration for assault with a deadly. And then in the dead center… there was the Forte family. A quintet of people that fell straight out of a post WWII family comedy, landed in a vat of LSD and moved next door to Arnold the wife beating drunk with the sauciest ‘stache you never wanted to touch. Which just so happened to be right across the street from me.
Now, if you were a physiotherapist with a colleague’s prescription pad and about 60 years to write it up, the Forte’s would be a case study in hysterical. From the patriarch’s Paw Sox hat and constant calls to his sons to “pick up the cah-key in the yahd” to the (alleged) Mardi Gras parties and constant showing of “Enter the Dragon” playing on the basement TV, these people were comedy gold before I knew what comedy gold was. However, at the helm of this family and the literal head of the table, sat Maria Forte. A 2 pack a day mom, with a plastic covered sofa. A physical description is relatively easy, even though it dregs up visions of a moment of pure fright for me. For the perspective of another adult, I suppose she stands as follows: Mildly overweight with stringy blonde hair and a consistency of dress that was completely unremarkable. From the perspective of the youngster that I was, she stood 11 feet tall, weighed roughly 430 pounds and could kill a man with a look that made Medusa from the Harry Hamlin vehicle “Clash of the Titans” look like Mother Theresa. Clash of the Titans is apt here because I would swear that very late on one cold night in 1986 I could hear “Release the KRAKEN!” as she got into her uber-van (the Forte bus) and drove off. When I heard that cry I looked like Poseidon when he actually does release the Kraken in the movie – horrified and astounded… and in slow motion as I looked up awe.
One of the great things about the Forte family was that, no matter the circumstance, Mike and Paul, the Forte boys, were the best audience a funny kid could have. They laughed at nearly everything I said and made me repeat my limited material daily so I rarely needed to develop more. Yet, herein lies a problem. If you spend over 6 hours with your audience and have a limited amount of material to draw on, you can get into a comedic jam. Luckily, as any good comedian knows, with an audience craving more, a well timed fart is an absolute show stopper. But one person’s show stopper could be another person’s indication that you are a “disgusting bastard!”
On this day, Mike and I were with our class on a trip to a museum in Boston that included a visit to Friendly’s, located conveniently on the third floor of said museum. Fries and vinegar, Awful Awful and hot dogs, people worth making fun of and just the guy to do it. This trip had it ALL! I was in my glory. Paul, a year behind us in school, wasn’t on the trip but Mike was and I had him going from the moment we arrived at school and laughed at him for bringing a lunch on a field trip. I brought cash, baby and then as it is now, cash is indeed king. As I counted my ten ones, I thought aloud if I would pick up a fridge magnet for my mom, or maybe some other trinket to mess around with. Maybe I’d save it up and hit the restaurant and buy Tanya Sylvestri a cone… Man, she was a 4th grade babe of the highest order, I’ll tell you! She was the first girl with boobs, and they were spectacular! A girl in the gifted class had a moderate rack too but hers came with the early onset of acne and that would not do. Ultimately I ended up completely famished and blowing eight of the ten on my own lunch and snacks. I figured to hell with trinkets and Tanya’s rack. Her boobs would be as useless to me as a fridge magnet anyway. Lunch did provide the fireworks, as it were, due for the most part because my hot dog had a serious amount of onions. Those were free and placed on the table so I ate them like I was at a Vidalia buffet.
The bus ride home found most of my classmates napping and myself sitting with a passed out Mike Forte. Although this is also an opportunity to cause all manner of havoc, I was required to sit next to a chaperone. That’s probably the only reason Mike was comfortable enough to sleep anywhere near me. The ride was uneventful.
Returning to school, I remembered that my mom wasn’t going to pick me up and, since the Forte clan lived across the street, I asked Mike if his mom would give me a ride home. I was informed that that wouldn’t be a problem. On the way over to the huge silver Ford Econo-line van that Paul was already sitting in, Mike and I started laughing about the funny things I said during the day.
“Hey, remember that fat guy in front of the painting of fruit and you laughed and he knew you were laughing at him cuz he was so fat and you looked at him and started to laugh louder and how you said don’t eat that and we laughed harder and he called you a jerk and said ‘I’m as God made me’ and you said ‘then you should switch Gods’ and the guy turned red and stuff… that was funny.” I’m paraphrasing but you get the idea.
When we got into the van we were greeted by an eager Paul, just dying to find out what was so funny, and the less than docile tones of Maria. Her “Hello, boys. Was it fun?” sounded more like snapping a leg trap on a coked up transvestite than a motherly greeting but she was a peach. An ass kicking, van driving, chain smoking peach. She looked tired from smoking and doing nothing all day. I totally related to her. I sat in the passenger seat and the boys in the first of the 20 some-odd rows in the back.
Maria sat quietly wheezing behind the wheel as we filled in Paul about the day’s events. We were absolutely tearing it up! Total fever pitch and it was building! The fat guy, the kid I tripped in the bathroom, the tour guide I mimicked! It was all there. When we got to lunch Paul asked through gasps of laughter “What did you have?” and I knew… now was the time…
I said “You tell me!” in a game show host cadence and proceeded to lift my right leg and let rip what could only be described as a quake-inducing blast that absolutely cost me a good pair of briefs – but NO MATTER! It was for comedy! I turned to the boys expecting an absolute eruption of pure laughter… and was met with a complete and total and terrible silence. The boys sat, slack-jawed as I watched all four eyes slowly drift toward the driver seat, the air was sucked out of, not just the Forte bus, but the atmosphere itself. They looked EXACTLY like Poseidon watching the horrible glory of the Kraken swim from its underwater prison. My fart, it seemed, might as well have been the trigger mechanism of a bomb that could scorch the Earth in a nano-second.
My eyes followed the boy’s eyes and I met Maria’s. Maria’s blood red face with laser bright retinas staring back at me in cold, cold hatred. I was, in no uncertain terms, screwed.
“How… DARE… YOU…” Those three short words took over 30 seconds to come out of her maw at an increasing volume for every second. Was she… growing? Not sure. I am sure I was shrinking. Shrinking in mortal terror.
The boys, in what would be awkward at any other time, clutched hands in the back seat. For mutual support and the love of their friend Ted, that surely would die at the hands of their mother’s hands, I guessed. Then Maria grabbed the wheel at the 10 and 2 position as started to turn toward the task of driving, but it seemed there was one more thing she needed to say.
“You… are… FUCKING… disgusting.” She said and continued “Fucking disgusting bastard…” We were not out of the school parking lot yet and I was MORE than ready to slink out of the Forte van and crawl the three miles to my house… on broken glass… soaked in kerosene. It would have way more comfortable than that ride home.
Now does this story have a moral? No. Not unless the moral is “always ask your friends if it’s OK to fart in front of their mothers” but it acts as a bridge. A bridge from Gary Fonce to my first use of the F-Bomb on my own terms and for that it is necessary.
- Thank you and God Bless you Maria Forte, wherever you are –
The names on this and other stories will now be altered to avoid any uncomfortable situations or well deserved punches to the face…
Friday, September 4, 2009
The Most Famous Headbutt in Rhode Island History
* Author's Note: Today will begin a serialized short story that is a complete work of fiction. You'll recognize some places and maybe even some people, but again it is fiction. It'll be in (roughly) 500 word segments and be updated every few days. So, here's Episode 1 of:
The Most Famous Headbutt in Rhode Island History
“THISSSS… IsRyanRandalrepoerting” The last four words coming out in one quick burst. The first word accompanied by a dip of the chin and a sharp rise of the right eyebrow.
“That won’t work” Randal muttered under his breath. He was looking into the passenger side vanity mirror of the WPER Action News van, applying rouge lightly to his cheeks and practicing the all important “eyebrow inflection” his broadcasting mentor at New England Tech had always referred to.
“This is RYAN Randal… reporting.” A little better. “This is Ryan RanDAL RE…porting.” Randal sat hard at work developing his signature signoff. Like Edward R. Murrow’s “Good night and good luck” or Dan Rather’s “Courage” That took balls. Those guys were pros. Not like the WPER Action News Team. Those rambling douche bags Walter Valentine and Marcia Sterns or that Pre-ESPN dinosaur with hair plugs Mike “The Cannon” Cantoro. A third rate NFL kicker in the late ‘80’s with a lifetime field goal percentage of around 60. His claim to fame was a game winning kick in the driving rain at the old Veteran’s Stadium to beat the Eagles in the playoffs. After that he floated to one training camp after another, never getting another starting gig for a pro team. He even tried Canada for a while but, you can put a jackass on a train in Providence and it won’t get off the train in Toronto a thoroughbred.
The big fish at WPER however, was that diminutive twerp Harry Cane. The meteorologist and highest paid member of the WPER Action News Team (“WPER Action News… We give you 100 PERcent!”). He was 6 feet of asshole in a 5’2” body. Harry Cane… yeah right. He maintains that is his real name but seriously his real name is probably Larry Lipshitz or something.
None of this really mattered to Randal though. He knew it was just a matter of time before he made either anchor or, better yet, got a network gig! Randal day dreamed as he took out a little comb and brushed it through his eyebrows. His Abe Vagoda-like eyebrows. “His” camera man, in fact Carl Cordeiro was the station’s senior videographer but was only a year from retirement and just didn’t care anymore, sat in the back of the van not giving a shit. He’d covered the Blizzard of ’78 and Hurricane Gloria nearly ten years later. He’s covered Presidential visits and state funerals. Sitting with this turd just got him one day closer to getting in the Holiday Rambler and cruising the nation with Ginny so it made everything A-OK with him.
The WPER Action News van sat in the parking lot of another nameless plaza in East Greenwich. These frigging plazas seemed to overrun the RI landscape in the last decade making an otherwise pretty place look like those asshole developments in Indiana or some other fly-over state. The two of them had stopped at a local wiener joint for gaggahs, and coffee milk and Randal’s sat untouched. Carl’s was gone. Well on its way to becoming loud and pungent flatulence he would spring on Ginny about half an hour after bed time. Randal, although trying to stay positive and vigilant, knew if he couldn’t separate himself from the herd of industry assholes in local news, he’s be stuck here forever. He thought to himself “Nothing is ever going to happen in this friggin’ state…”
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Coffee Makes the Fonce Grow Harder
Several things about Gary Fonce never really fit. For starters, by the time we’d gotten to Mrs. Clark’s 3rd grade he had, allegedly, stayed back TWICE making him the only kid at Maisie E. Quinn Elementary that possibly shaved weekly. There was speculation, based on the poor math taught at Quinn that if Gary stayed with us through the 6th grade, he could drive by and pick us up on the way to school. Next he was just a hair too dapper to be, not only living in West Warwick, Rhode Island, but to be a 3rd grader. Something about his penchant for green ribbed turtlenecks and tight fitting slacks made him stand out. If I had know what a NARC was at the time, I totally would have made sure the other kids sniffed glue well away from the watchful eye of Gary Fonce, I’ll tell you. He didn’t seem to have any close friends but was certainly not an outsider. Being roughly 26 years-old I guess made the dearth of 9 year-olds seem lame. He had a tendency to sit by and watch our daily kickball like he was above such activities, however in Mr. Terangelo’s gym class, the kid could cave in the side of the cafeteria wall with a well aimed kick. Even while Mr. T was dropping one of his fabled side-arm bouncers, that even the vaunted skills of one Mike Jenks couldn’t boot with consistency.
(On a side note, Mike Jenks skill at ripping a kickball from the school yard, over two fences and into Amby Smith field would deserve its own short story)
Now Gary’s smart sweater/pants and casual but saucy attitude was only a precursor to the real reason he’s stuck with me over the decades. Gary, was the first “kid” to use the uber-swear to me and not only with perfect inflection and conviction but (as I’d find out later when it became one of the top ten words in my own lexicon) in perfect context.
September in New England is a glorious time for a 3rd grader. The mornings are crisp and cool, recess is still warm enough to dump the Izod v-neck sweater your mom forced you to wear, and you’re only in 3rd grade so your complete hatred for learning and the school environment is still in its infancy. This particular morning found me on the outskirts of the recess yard clutching the fence as far away from the building as possible. Like NARC, had I understood foreshadowing I would have seen that as the moment my hatred of school began. The recess yard was nothing more than an asphalt plot with the requisite cracks giving rise to the final gasp of weeds pushing through and painted with every manner of “court”- kick ball, basketball, that lame-ass tether ball thing that was only good for drilling unsuspecting classmates. Now, it’s unclear in my memory if I wandered toward Gary or if I were sought out but I would think the former. He wasn’t the type to take pains to be social. Today he was adorned in a sharp turtleneck, a lime green affair, with tight fitting corduroy pants cinched at the hip by a thick brown leather belt. Don’t think I didn’t notice one of his sleeves was slightly pulled up revealing an awesome rope bracelet. The same one you searched for on any seaside vacation and that shrunk to fit you by summer’s end. The absolute apex of 70’s kid-cool. Damn! I was never sure if I really liked Gary Fonce, but the man had 3rd grade pizzazz down pat!
Gary gave me one of those nods of greeting. The one where you just jut your chin out and back very fast. It’s nearly a twitch if you pull it off right. Gary’s was so slick I thought he had to practice that one in the mirror… and I reminded myself to start my own reps as soon as I got home. At this point I’d expect at a minimum a “What’s up, man?” which is, in essence the unspoken but passively agreed upon greeting for the boys of WW. Instead Gary cut right to the chase. The first words out of his mouth at the moment our eyes met was “What did you have for breakfast?” I remember being silent for at least a few seconds with confusion and reflection. What did I eat less than 35 minutes ago?
My reply was assuredly either “Oatmeal and bananas” or if I was talking to a kid that would be jealous that I wasn’t on welfare AND my parents were married I would have said “After my parents kissed goodbye, my dad took me to McDonalds and I had an Egg McMuffin, hash browns and a large OJ.” Hey, sometimes kids are cruel. On this day I’m sure I went with oatmeal and bananas.
I think that Gary was looking for me to ask “And how about you?” but I think I was stunned enough at the question simply provide the answer. Gary geared up.
“You know what I had? Huh?” and not waiting for me to reply barked out “Coffee and toast!” Totally confident. Totally defiant. Slightly twitchy.
“You didn’t have coffee!” I said. There was only so far that the garb of a seventies porn producer on a 3rd grader would go, and this was far enough. No 3rd grade drank COFFEE for God’s sake! And then… it happened. Gary took a deep breath which made him look as though he was growing right before my eyes, his face came forward and he near shouted 9 inches from my face “You wanna make a HUNDRED DOLLAR FUCKING BET!?” I actually hear screeching tires and the unmistakable sound of a high speed collision in my head. Everything slowed down. As a matter of fact even the word “BET” seemed like it was coming from a 45 record playing on 33 1/3 RPM. It was like getting punched in the most impressive fashion imaginable. I was nothing short of awe-struck. Of course I had heard the word a million times from movies or my sisters even my dad. However, my dad’s use of it was as a complete sentence and usually had to do directly with my sisters. “Fuck!” But for a kid… IN MY CLASS!? Astounding. If the clothes, attitude and overall air of “screw you” smug that dripped off Gary Fonce wasn’t enough to set him apart, his masterful use of the most powerful word in the English language, not to mention the fact that a guy that committed to you trusting that he did in-fact drink coffee, made Gary Fonce one of the most impactful guys I’ve ever met.
No sooner did I come back from the shock, the morning bell rang. Gary, obviously hopped up on some Maxwell House Master Blend, jetted off to get in line while I walked flummoxed back toward school. Tanya Sylvester, on her jog to the line saw me and asked, “What’s the matter Teddy?” I could only reply, “I just became a man…” and made my way to the first day of the rest of my life.
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