down and dirty with the harry the happy hobo

 

I couldn’t stop thinking about Fanny. All the way home. It’s like I was obsessed or something. Like I said before: once you get a woman on your mind, there’s no getting rid of her.

Besides all the feelings that had a stranglehold on me, I couldn’t stop thinking about how at ease I felt when I was with her. That whole time we were together, watching TV, never once did it bother me that television actually adds stress to your life, and that ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder, can be directly linked to watching endless hours of mindless, television programming cut up into bite-size portions, all to ensure the brain never does get to concentrating too hard. Just like in the story Harrison Bergeron, by Kurt Vonnegut.

It didn’t bother me that reality television was nothing more than a modern-day freak show. The only difference between Reality TV and a good old-fashioned circus is that the freaks on TV get paid more.

All those TV series with fat people, midgets and freaks, they weren’t made to promote a better understanding of alternative lifestyles; but so “regular people” could sit around ridiculing them, while at the same time feeling better about themselves. Whether you know it or not, in showbiz, the whole premise of “The Misfit” is the mocking of someone else, and that person not knowing it.

Just like Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis, the people on those reality shows, all the real housewives, bridezillas, and teen moms, everyone is just making fun of them. But there’s a big difference. Hope, Lewis, even Don Knotts, were just actors playing a part. They knew exactly what they were doing: they knew they were acting the schmuck.

Today’s misfits, just like the Tom Thumb and the Elephant Man before them, are being laughed at for real; but now, thanks to the magic of television, they don’t even know it.

Reality TV is an oxymoron, anyway. You know, like Military Intelligence, or Anarchy Rules. Or my personal favorite: Peacekeeper Missile.

I went by Le Étron, stopping outside and staring through the window at all the nice couples as they passed the time together. Like Barbara Stanwyck in Stella Dallas. Only this time, I was Barbara Stanwyck.

What I wouldn’t give for an order of frog legs right about now. I even found myself missing that God-awful vise. I still had it, somewhere. I wonder if I clamped it back down on my head, if by some magic it might take me back home, like Dorothy and her ruby slippers.

I even found myself at that same intersection, just standing there light after light, not because I was afraid of crossing the street, but because I started thinking maybe if I jumped out into traffic again, maybe if I got hit by a car again, maybe, just maybe, the whole thing would start all over and I’d get another chance.

It wasn’t that I was scared of falling into a coma again. I wasn’t scared of the coma police, either. But no more hospitals. No how; no way. Fanny was going to have to show up somewhere, sometime. I knew, as long as I was patient, I’d find her eventually.

Then, just about a block from home, I stopped to take a long look at this homeless guy. He was your typical wino, all rolled up in old newspapers and toilet paper. Nothing special. I must have seen a thousand just like him before. But this time was different. This time I had what you might call, perspective.

I must have been standing there at least a full minute before he woke up; and when he did, of course he hit me up for money.

I told him: if anything, he should be helping me out.

Disregarding my Hobophobia entirely, I knelt down and placed my hand on his head. I had never been this close to such little neurotransmission in all my life. I looked deep into his eyes. There was nothing there, not even a flashing neon Vacancy sign.

This hobo was so brain dead, in fact, it didn’t bother him one bit that he was sitting in a puddle of his own urine. What bliss.

Nothing bothered this guy, not the stink, not the flies, not even the fact that he’d just shit his pants. I mean, I could’ve beaten him within an inch of his life and he wouldn’t have even noticed. This imbecile had reached such a state of sublime ignorance that looking straight through him, for just one fleeting moment, it was like I was looking straight into ding-dong heaven.

“You lucky bastard,” I told him. “You Lucky Bastard.”

How did he do it? What was his secret? The truth was, he’d be the last to know.

The first thing I did when I got home was toss my clothes in the incinerator. Then, of course, I took my usual bath, and was off to bed.