As many of you may know, Mr. Barnum has been away from Bridgeport through most of this underwear-soaked, mosquito-infested summer.
I’ve been doing secret work for the government. But, now the economic salvation stimulus campaign “Cash For Clunkers” has ended after successfully putting millions of underemployed Americans behind the wheel of a new Japanese car they can’t possibly afford.
Only now can I reveal my important, highly covert role in the Obama administration’s plan to rid the streets of Studebakers and the highways of Hummers. I was possibly the most successful uncover operative since Chuck Barris worked for the CIA.
Many more details of my adventures to are to come, but let me quickly reveal that my key role in the covert “Gone in 60 Seconds” segment of the Clunkers program repo unit was critical in removing hundreds of rusted Chevys and Fords on cinder blocks from the front yards of rural Arkansas, West Virginia, and from the front lawn of Bridgeport mayor Bill Finch. (The only “green” thing in the garage of the “green mayor” was his rusted Earl Schieb repaint 1970 Buick Skylark Belair complete with 8 track player.)
Throughout my months on assignment with Cash For Clunkers, I was often reminded of my previous covert government work for the Reagan administration.
Soon to come to this blog – excerpts from my upcoming memoir My Life In The Black Market Government Cheese Trade: A Coming of Age Tale of Politics, Intrigue, Glamour and Gorgonzola in the 1980s.
It’s kind of like Catcher in The Rye with lots of references to cheddar. (Interesting sidenote: J.D Salinger and I are both lactose-intolerant.)
I know – you’re excited. I’m excited. We’re all excited. The folks at the Cheese Oddities Museum in Waukesha, Wisconsin? Not so much excited as nervous. As well they should be.
Until then, here’s a sneak peek of this upcoming major literary work. This tale involves a neighbor circus sideshow geek wanna-be from my Catholic schoolboy days in Chicago.
Enjoy a peek at this tale I like to call “Whatever Happened To Chicken Boy Todd?” (Alternate title: “Cash For Cluckers”.)
Whatever Happened To Chicken Boy Todd?
There was only one strange boy in our neighborhood.
For 4th grade show and tell, he brought in his vast collection of sideshow geek memorabilia and a live chicken.
He passed out handwritten “Todd The Odd” business cards to the whole class. I still have that card. I keep it in the same cigar box where I keep the unopened pack of Juicy Fruit gum my drunken father gave to me as some sort of bribe when he followed us to Chicago for a handout from the wife he abandoned for a fellow named Jack Daniels.
He wore ski pajamas covered with cotton candy feathers stuck on with Elmer’s Glue. Todd, not my father.
When Todd brought the live chicken’s head to his lips, girls pressed hands over their mouths and Sister Rose Helene fell to the checkerboard linoleum like a taxidermy penguin. But Todd didn’t bite off the chicken’s head. He simply kissed it on the pecker and took a flamboyant bow to his stunned and horrified fourth grade audience.
That’s how he earned his nickname – Chicken Boy Todd. He was also referred in some circles as “pecker kisser”, but that’s another story. The boys in our class had many dreams of their future life. Some kids wanted to be fireman, some policemen, and some criminals. Some wanted to be just like Dad, some wanted to be anything other than their Dad.
As you might guess, Chicken Boy Todd dreamed of becoming a sideshow geek. Only one problem… Todd loved animals too much to eat them, let alone bite off their heads. Especially chickens. He proclaimed himself to be one with the chicken. He idolized Foghorn Leghorn, kept a large coop in his backyard, and named his chickens after members of the 1969 Chicago Cubs.
(Insert passage of time here)
In the 1980s, I heard of a performer who had a brief career in a traveling pseudo-nouveau sideshow performance art troupe. This performer billed himself as “The Vegan Geek”, biting the heads off oddly shaped gourds, turnips, and iceberg lettuces.
Back then, I thought ketchup was a vegetable, so I didn’t attend the show… but I wondered.
Back then, I was peripherally employed as a shadow operative in the Reagan administration, with a special focus on government cheese, and had no interest in things smacking of sideshow subversion.
Back then, I still believed that dreams were things that are often just within your reach. Now, I know that they are always just beyond your reach… often as close as a pack of unopened gum.
Chicken Boy Todd was forever torn between his dream of geekdom and his love of live poultry. He is my constant reminder that it’s our dreams that make us live, and our love that makes our dreams so painful when they slip away. You might wish that all dreams stick to the bottom of your shoe – wherever you go, but some don’t. Some merely go untasted in a cheap cigar box.
There’s not enough room within this tiny tale to tell you about my dream. Funny how everyone else’s dream is so much smaller than your own.
Anyway, this is Todd’s story, not mine.
I wonder whatever happened to Chicken Boy Todd.
I wonder whatever happened to me.
End of Story
As always, the thought of poultry brings me back to the words of the great Delman Mangrove from his essential work, “The Layman’s Guide To Perspicacity”.
“Chickens are brave, do-dos are smart. Death is a free ride. Life it is not. Special this week on General Tao’s Chicken. Dine in only. No substitutions”.
Saying # 673 from “My Life in The Black Market Fortune Cookie Writing Trade”
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PT