We Brook No Nonsense

What with the long histories, insular lodginess, and weathered, wizened faces at the Dead End Club, well... there are nick-names of course.

Gotta be!

So you got your Pistol Pete, Luke The Fluke, T-bone Sam, B-b-b-buh Bob The Stammerer, etc. (The women you don't nickname, really. It's always Crazy-____ Glenda, Helen, Mary, Mrs. Cravits...)

I've been going to the club for months but I wasn't going to get a handle, because I'm quiet and the fellows rightly shy away from nicknaming quiet men. But I wanted a nickname because I figured, when we have a newcomer, then the newcomer might think, "that guy must be one of the fellows".

But you can't nickname yourself. I mean, you probably can't, or won't. I solved this by saying, "Hi, they know me back home as 'Honest John', and I'm a proud member of Alcoholics Anonymous."

Gratifying Chorus: "HELLO, HONEST JOHN! HAW HAW HAW!"


Honest John being interviewed
by the police, some years ago.

So people will ask how I came to be known as Honest John, and I of course lie, but tell them something true about myself also: That when I lie, within about thirty seconds I usually say, "Wait! Wait, wait, wait!... I,... just told a lie, I'm sorry."

This all reminds me. Actually, I did get a nickname once, a real one to live down. And it served me right, too, because I started calling my pal Zigfield "Mudhead" from an old Firesign Theatre parody of Archie and Jughead, and he returned the compliment by calling me "Porgy" for years. As in, "I got my two-tones to the floor already, Porgy!"

Now he calls me "Jinx" for the last twenty years. I've never asked him why.

Beautiful day in Coloboco, especially upt'town where the tulips are blooming and the women are dressed in the full range of 2006 styles ranging from 1920 to 1976, this year. From Zelda to Starshine. I've been admiring women for a few twenty-four hours you know (my nephew Toot once complained to my brother D. and me, "how come you guys only talk about hubba-hubba??"). So if I don't know what I'm talking about, Toot does.

Most of those ladies were very pretty! I like 1972, the Tanya/SLA look, especially.

You even start to admire the cars, somedays, upt'town, where they have to roll by you at 15 mph. I don't know the names of cars, but I recognize new models, and old models that have just been washed. Then in the parade, for comic relief almost tragic, you spot one that is clearly illegal, perhaps missing a door or a windshield or a front grill. Today, man alive. That crack-head looked scared and he was having to move so slow I was wondering if he'd pull up on the sidewalk to pass.

He was stupid to be out. He knew he was stupid to be out here, downt'town, not blending in even close with the well-monied and fully insured. And sure enough, five minutes later I turned a corner and there he was, pulled over by the police. Win/win for everyone, even him maybe.

I worked four hours and the weather was still warm and still, but the sky was dark like the end of the world, almost like an eclipse with low, heavy thunderheads. "Sensational", I said aloud. It must have been my own personal "perfect" 75 degrees.

And to reflect that it's not the end of the world. There was a hush, too, like everyone was listening to their radio and it was one voice. Maybe God's! EEEEEEE! yikes. (One of the scariest movies I ever saw as a kid was "The Next Voice You Hear").

Anyway, in closing, I want to confess that the title of this post is a lie. I came up with the title before even thinking about what I was going to write about.

But with that, it's a wrap.