|
|
||
|
|
Miller's Tales Editor's Note: When The Review started corresponding with noted screen and short-story writer Chris Miller (Animal House, Multiplicity, and The National Lampoon) he send us an intriguing offer that we could not refuse. Currently living and teaching in California, Miller noted how he had been procrastinating on his creative writing for quite some time and had enjoyed writing the baseball story (The Mick's First High, Issue #526). "So -- why don't you ask me to write something every so often," wrote Miller. "Pay me what you can. The key thing is that - if I'm asked - I actually write. Want to try this experiment with me? The one stipulation is that you be specific in what you ask for. It'll work better that way than if you say, "Just write anything you want." Ask me for specifics. "Give me an appreciation of Bo Diddley." Or, "How's it feel, being this New York guy, living in LA? Whatever". Feeling incredibly fortunate to have such a gifted humorist willing to offer his compositional talents to The Review, we asked Miller to write a tale about his most 'memorable summer vacation.' What follows below is that reminiscence, which we hope you enjoy. Robert E. Martin Editor & Publisher ______________________________________________________________________________ A VACATION MEMORY By Chris Miller The most memorable organic substance of the delightful summer vacation of my eleventh year was puke, or boot, as I learned to call it in college. Well, the two words aren't actually precise synonyms -- boot implies recreational vomiting, and the puke that emerged, blinking stupidly in the daylight, was anything but recreational. Indeed, most of this booting took place inside a '53 Studebaker and was a total assault on the senses. The atmosphere became moist and odoriferous as a rain forest. And the sounds! Between the booting noises themselves and my father's cries of outrage, noises were produced that would have been savored by the avant-garde jazzmen of the sixties. "Yeah, that's something else!" I can hear John Coltrane commenting, and then running off with his tenor to see if he could duplicate them. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I was part of one of those cute fifties suburban families. Dad took the train to work each day (where he did God knows what) and returned each evening looking tired, with a copy of the New York World-Telegram & Sun under his arm, expertly folded so it could be read in crowded commuter trains. Mom cooked pot roasts, tuna casseroles, and other fifties food. And my little brother, Willy, was alternately a good guy and a pain in the ass, as little brothers will be. There were also two tabby cats named Ike and Nixon, which hints at my father's political persuasion. (But not mine. Ever.) The kitties did not join us on that year's summer vacation. Well, actually, it was the same summer vacation we did every year: We'd drive from our humble abode on Long Island to Great Aunt Elsie's hundred acre farm. Big pretty house, flower garden, vegetable garden, cows up the wazoo, a gurgling brook with swarms of minnows, a silo of cow food (shit level corn cobs), a swing suspended from a tree limb, and a snorting, stomping bull we'd inevitably be warned to steer clear of. >From this splendid slice of kid heaven in Clinton, New Jersey, we would then proceed to Altoona, Pennsylvania, a boring though hilly medium-sized city with two saving graces -- blue popsicles and a pinball gallery. (Back in the day, pinball was defined as "gambling" in New York, and hence totally verboten, so I'd have to wait all year for my annual pinball fix.) And that is what we would do. Year after year, visiting ancient relatives with sour breath and faces that looked like they'd suffered from recent earthquakes, so deep were their wrinkles. Willy and I would drop subtle hints that perhaps Jamaica would be nice, or Key West, or even Pittsburgh. But no soap. So, once again, we were off to see the old folks. Well, I rationalized, at least at the farm, we could watch the cows, all lined up to be milked, crap in the concrete gutter that lay beneath their bums. Willy would get hysterical laughing as the animals' sizable anuses would open wide and emit impossibly large globs of...well, you know. So -- to get where we were going, we would drive to Manhattan, where we'd somehow find the Holland Tunnel, through which you could reach Jersey. (In New York, you don't say New Jersey -- just "Jersey.") This year, as we were passing through the Lower East Side, tunnel-bound, the unexpected abruptly occurred. "My tummy hurts," my brother announced. This statement seemed complete in itself, so no one replied. "My tummy hurts!" Willy reiterated, seeing no response forthcoming. "There, there, dear," said Mom, continuing with her knitting, as if she had somehow solved the problem. After a pause, my brother looked from one to the other of us in exasperation. "What, you don't believe me?" He tilted his head back and, whale-like, spouted an arc of yellow-gray organic matter which landed atop of the front seat-back. A lump bounced from said seat-back to land in Dad's lap. "JESUS CHRIST!" Dad howled, writhing and scrunching as if he'd dropped a lit cigar down there. "SCREEEEE!" went the car as Dad's foot reflexively slammed down on the brake pedal, bringing us to a dead stop in the middle of Canal Street. "SCREEEE! HONK! SQUEAL!" went the vehicles in our wake. "Hey, you asshole!" yelled a burly guy in a Buick directly behind us. "Shit!" responded Dad. Rolling down his window and sticking out his head, he smiled sheepishly at the sudden traffic jam he had created and waved at the cars, trucks, and what have you. "HONK HONK HONK!" they replied. Gulping, Dad pulled his head back in the car and zipped to the curb. The vehicles behind us sprang forward, their passengers howling choice obscenities as they passed. "Bet they'll pay attention to me now," my brother whispered to me, with a nod towards Mom and Dad Willy was right. "For Christ's sake, Benelux!" Dad implored Mom, eyeing the boot puddle. "Do something!" He leapt from the car, doing his best to flick my brother's gift from within from the crotch of his trousers. "Hey, man, he beatin' off!" commented a black pedestrian delightedly. Unhappily, my mother thrust her knitting in the glove compartment. "Willy," she asked, "does it feel like you're going to have to be sick agai -- ?" "HUALP!" went my brother. This time it was a spray boot rather than an arc. "YAHHHHH!" Mom and I screamed, cringing as far from Willy as possible. I jumped out of the car. Did I mention that it was raining pretty good out there? Hell, it would have been out of our day's character to be sunny and nice. I knelt by the gutter, splashing handfuls of gutter water in my face and hair. My mother's path of action differed from mine. She'd always been admirably game about cleaning up kid boot, despite the fact that the job inevitably made her throw up, too. After a few swipes at the coat of boot with the New York Times, she got that familiar look on her face and began rapidly rolling down her window. As it reached midpoint, she proceeded to perform a simultaneous spit and nose boot. Only years later, when I'd joined a fraternity in college, did I learn how rare this was. But it just added to our troubles, as very little boot made it out the window, the rest making a cake-icing like layer on the unopened part of the window. "I don't feel good!" shrilled my brother. "I'm sick!" He unleashed a power boot that reached the windshield. "JESUS H. CHRIST!" roared Dad, who was spattered, bank shot-wise, by this latest effort in the vomit Olympics. Dragging Willy from the car, he held his face above a sewer opening. But Willy by now was empty and Dad's tactic went for naught. By this time a rather sizable crowd had gathered, huddled beneath their umbrellas, to view the odd happenings as they unfolded. "Mm-mm," observed one woman, "that boy sho' nuff can blow hiz lunch." She sounded impressed. "Send him to Korea," sniggered a ducktailed teenage hood. "That'll take care of those commies." "At this point, I'm ready to do exactly that," my father replied. "Whut kinna father is you?" said a woman indignantly, hitting Dad with her umbrella. "JESUS CHRIST!" my father wailed. Mom, meanwhile, was still working with the New York Times. Luckily, it was Sunday, so she had a lot to work with. Dipping balled-up pages in the gutter water, she wiped the besmirched portions of the car interior furiously. "How about a little help," she said, looking at me. "Uh, I can't," I improvised. "Dr. Chinwhistle told me I'm allergic to throw-up. I could die!" "GOD DAMN IT," roared my father. "GET OFF YOUR ASS AND HELP YOUR MOTHER!" I recognized the tone of voice. It implied "Obey immediately or I'll thrust barbeque skewers up your nose." I zipped into action, cleaning boot like a muthaf@#9. And I was cool, too. Didn't boot, even once. Gagged a little, was all. The crowed commented favorably and gave me a round of applause. "Yeah, clean that spit-up," encouraged a black kid in a Brooklyn Dodgers cap. "You a pro, man!" I gave him a weak smile. So this went on maybe fifteen more minutes until Dad pronounced the car habitable again. We all got back in, soaking wet by now. Willy was holding his stomach, his expression reminiscent of the Mask of Tragedy. Dad took stock of the situation, nodded, and turned the key in the ignition. "Rr-rr-rr-rr," went the car, but did not start. "CHRIST ON A CRUTCH!" Dad roared. "'ey, no problem," said the guy who'd mentioned Korea. He gave the front of our poor car a good kick with his boot and -- ROARRRRR! -- the car started. Greatly relieved, my father waved a thank you to the pompadoured hood and pulled from the curb, the crowd now cheering and whistling. Within minutes we had reached the tiled interior of the Holland Tunnel, Jersey-bound, sincerely believing our boot problems were over. Well, as my Grandma used to say, "Man proposes, God disposes." During our entire two-week vacation we played tennis with Willy's stomach virus, first one, then another of us getting sick as shit. In Altoona, Dad booted so much he broke the toilet. I suppose the best that could be said about our 1953 vacation was that it definitely was not boring. Ah, halcyon days....
|
|
|
|
Enable frames | |
|
home | out/about | events | personal | store | classified | real estate | forums | archives | contact |
||
