~ Absolutely Zip: ~
A Parody Written By Christopher Clagg
Based on Copyrighted Characters and Events
by Lawrence Hertzog Productions
and Touchstone Pictures
Part I
My name is Chris Clagg...
or, at least it used to be. I had it all, or at least most of it,
discounting monthly payments to the bank. I had a ' 74 pre-owned slightly rusty chevy
chevette, an on-again-off-again girlfriend who would smile on paydays, a career in higher
education as a lowly clerk...
[Image: eyes are crying, pull back to reveal bloodshot veins in the eyes, jump to image of small bottle of Murine on the desk. Hold image for several seconds]
In a moment I lost it all, because I had purchased the last box of pre-mixed Jello Instant Chocolate Pudding in Syracuse. I had it, *They* wanted it, and *They* would do anything to get it...
I am keeping this journal on the backs of discarded cereal boxes to prove that it is real..... I know it is..... it has to be! (Nothing this weird could happen on television!) and lugging bags and bags of cereal boxes across the country is one PAIN, let me tell you!
..... It all began when I finally graduated, it had taken 30+ years to achieve it, but what I lack in talent I make up with in blind dogged persistence (If you're reading this you know what I mean) when I was approached by several attractive younger women. "Oh what meaning and depth you bring to such dull things as files!" the brunette said. I nodded politely, because I am a little dense and had no idea what she was talking about, but I didn't let on. "Ohh, your penmanship is soooo... intense!" said the blonde. I smiled my charmingly bland smile that I am renowned for.
"Please excuse me but I have to go the bathroom real bad. " I said and politely disengaged myself from her and managed to straggle across the auditorium towards my girlfriend Addison. In the background a waiter dropped an entire tray of crepe-soled touffle cakes which crashed silently to the floor (You have to have heightened senses to catch touffle cakes crashing!)
"Darling!," I smiled as graciously as I could, masking the touffle cake stuck in my teeth as un-suspiciously as possible, "The Caterer called and said She was completely out of touffle cakes!" Addison merely stared at me dumbly as if I were the greatest fool on the planet, ( Touffle cakes???) she mouthed silently, but because of my heightened perceptions it only took me about ten minutes to catch on.
So there we were, Addison doing charades and I trying to guess what she meant. "Sounds like...... Shoe? ... no, ... sole? ..... souffle??? " The man she had been in conversation with bored of the attempt and wandered off. Cleverly I nodded to Addison at the results of my brilliant plan, it works every time, then took her arm and guided her towards the door.
"How about a couple of burritos at Taco Bell?" I asked innocently.
"You just like to watch me eat," She said and smiled, her left eyebrow arching upwards, just like Spocks' from Star Trek in the ' 60s. I gulped but said nothing, (1) because this is a G-Rated show, and (2) because I hadn't a glimmer of an idea what she meant. Smiling blandly, I pushed on, whispering under my breath..... " I have to be in the john by station break and we are RUNNING OUT OF TIME!"
"Ohh, " She said and took my arm and raced towards the nearest exit.
"We're supposed to saunter!" I yelled as she dragged me along
"The audience will never know the difference, trust me!" she yelled back as she pulled me through the exit door and into the night shadows and eerie overture music that came from the sounds-effects crew perched precariously on the slanted rooftop of the auditorium.
* * * * *
When we walked into Taco Bell, over on 5th street, there was a robbery in progress, but I didn't have time to worry about that, "Over to the booth." Addison instructed me, I shrugged and went along. Slipping into the booth and waving at the extra at the counter that had been in my last series with me, I told Addison I loved her very much, didn't care for my mother and I had to dash to the boys room, but I'd be right back. She was wolfing tacos as I ran for the restroom, glancing at my watch, I still had fifteen seconds to go when I caught the voice over for the Ford Commercial coming out of the grating in the ceiling.
* * * * *
Slowly we faded in....., I always thought it would be painful, but it wasn't, just an odd tingling sensation like when your leg falls asleep, and then we were back. Popping a smoke into my mouth I lit up and paced the john, thoughts swimming in the back of my mind: Where was I going to go? How would I pay the bills? Would we get decent ratings?
Then I pushed open the door and went back out into the dining room, glaring neon signs proclaiming 2 for 1 !! Only 99¢ !!! greeted me. The dining room was empty, even the local hoodlums that had been robbing the place were gone. Addison was NoWhere to be seen, in her place sat a fat cop with a grin on his face and a double chin, slopping down a taco in each hand. I was impressed, I hadn't run across a two-fisted grubber since the old spaghetti westerns of the late ' 60s. He smiled when I walked up to the table, mildly spiced taco sauce dribbling from his lips.
"Thought I still had another 3 or 4 minutes?" He said wiping his mouth on a napkin.
"Yeah, well the sponsors changed the Telephone Commercial for The Ford Ad, and its not as long." I told him. "Where's Addison?"
The cop grinned and went back to eating and answered through a mouthful of beans and cheese, "Who?"
"Addison, " I repeated, and pulled a picture from my wallet, "My wife, you know? My reason to suffer and feel worthless as I wander from episode to episode."
"Oh yeah, " He said and waved toward the door that let out onto the asphalted parking lot and dim overhead streetlights. "She just left with a guy that had a shotgun."
"One of the Robbers?" I asked incredulously.
"Don't think so," He mumbled and took another bite and then a swig of rootbeer to top it off. I think it was one of the guys from Central Casting, but I could be wrong, it might have been the Accounting Office." My heart almost stopped with the mention of the accounting guys. They were cold-blooded, heartless and soulless things that would look at you with their dead-warmless eyes and do an audit just to watch you squirm. God I hoped it wasn't Accounting!
"I gotta go," I told him and headed for the nearest garishly decorated door.
"Wanna bite?" He said with lettuce sticking out of his teeth and raised the taco into the air as if an offering.
"No thanks!," I hollered back and bolted out into the night, "I've got a date with destiny and I want my breath to pass the test!" The overture music picked up as I ran from the parking lot and down the street, running and running, the sound of my shoes thudding hollowly against the rain-misted concrete.
* * * * *
When I reached the house, the chevette was parked in the drive beside the darkened windows with taco papers littered from the car door to the front of the house. Scattered beside the papers were 20-gauge shotgun shells as well. These Accounting guys were never really big on subtlety. When I tried my key to the house it didn't work, and by this time I was worn out, my patience was a ragged unwashed week-old tee-shirt flapping in the wind. And Accounting guys or No Accounting Guys!, Wicked Witch or No Wicked Witch! (oops wrong movie!) I was gonna see it to the end. I banged my fist on the glass inset of the door, "Addison! Addison, hey open up! I'm sorry I didn't let you win at Parchessi! I promise I won't do it again!"
Suddenly the door of the house was yanked open and there stood Addison, still pushing a last fragment of taco between her lips, cheese fell down in almost unnoticeable swirls of sharp yellow-orange cheddar colors against her housecoat.
"Like, What do you WANT!, Man?" And she placed a hand on her hip as she said this.
I stood transfixed to the spot by this apparition of beauty that had once been my wife, but was now transformed into some blathering, "Valley" talking, servant of Financial Planning.
But I was wrong...
In my worst nightmare I never would have thought it possible, but yet...
That is when the "Man" if you could call him that came to the door, shotgun in hand, complete with the obligatory cork and string stuffed into the barrel. His voice chirped sharply as I stood and stared in horror at the ears!, THE ears!!, THE EARS!!!
"Down Pluto," He quipped and pointed the shotgun into my gut. "I sug- sug- suggest you get out on the road there Mr. Clagg and pray we renew your contract next season. Don't you think so too Goofy?" And then there was this enormous dog standing there on his hind legs and nodding his head up and down, up and down and saying "Yup, yup, heh heh heh." and I felt my knees go weak.
The mouse with the shotgun just smiled. And I wondered if I had made the right decision to sign on to this series after all...
Part II
The guard at the teller counter grinned with the only two top teeth he had in his mouth when I came into the bank with my now-defunct ATM card clutched in my fist. He tossed back a touffle cake and swallowed it in one gulp and mouthed through a mouthful of crumbs, "What's up doc?"
"This thing doesn't work." I said and tossed the dead card up onto the counter. He winked back, as if he knew something I didn't, which wasn't real hard.
"Devilish..... don't you think?" and he grinned again.
I shrugged back because I didn't know what else to do and left through the front glass plated doors. I spent the night in the school file library, sandwiched in between the U and the W sections, with my head propped up on last years dead file lists. I took no comfort in the fact that I was surrounded by all the things I had spent my life working on. I plucked the carton of Jello Instant Chocolate Pudding from the inside pocket of my coat and gazed at it. Was this it? Was it really such a simple thing that I could lose my life over it?
During the night I had a nightmare, and in the nightmare I woke up, I was back home in bed with Addison and I got up to fix scrambled eggs with picante sauce, the sun was shining peacefully through the curtains of the kitchen and our pound puppy Sir Isaac Newton yelped and slobbered over me as I padded half dressed into the alcove off the bedroom.
"You would not believe this nightmare," I told her as I washed my face in the sink and rubbed Sir Isaac Newtons' fur behind the back of his ears. "It was a real doozy..." and as the words left my mouth I stared transfixed as Addison rolled over to me, her face a sudden Giant Taco with blinking eyes! I screamed and woke from the dream. I was still in the file library, slowly I detached myself from the stacks of files and started to dress. Oddly enough the V section was missing when I straightened the files before leaving.
I had to find Larry, he had been the one to first write this stuff, he would know what to do, so I called the studio and disguising my voice to sound like Tar Baby I got his secretary.
"I'm sorry, Larry is out of the office today, can I take a message?"
"What's 'e doin' out da offish in da middle uv da day?" But she had no answer, and so I gave up the fake accent because I never really was good at it and hung up. That left only his apartment in Burbank, and so I went there, watching the taxi driver carefully so I'd know how to do it when the [Talking About Her] episode came up.
I found Larry's laundry in the shower when I went up to visit, He's a very economical guy, Larry, and there was a note taped to the mirror with bold lettering that read:
"Sorry Kiddo, You're going to have to figure this one out by yourself." It was signed by Larry and initialed by 8 of the 10 executive directors of the show.
Well this was it wasn't it? Do or Die? Test the Mettle and see what I was made of? A Man or A Mouse? Well..... if I'd been a mouse things certainly would have been much simpler. At least I would know which side I was on.
The police picked me up on the way out of Larrys'. We drove downtown in a black and white that reminded me of Adam 12 with two officers that looked like Bogart and Raft. They chuckled and said a person had to do SOMETHING after the actors guild pension ran out. So I sat in a chair with Jimmy Durante singing Ole Miss Blue, until I was sweating and gave in.
"I'll talk! I'll talk!!" I screamed into the darkened room with the naked bulb glaring me in the eye. "I did it!, I found the money and didn't give it back, I did it!, I'm the one that colored on the wall and said it was David! I did It!!"
"Too bad kid," Durante chimed in that impressionable voice of his and knocked out 2 Broadway Ballads just to make sure I'd had enough. By morning Bogey and Raft had half the crimes in Los Angeles pinned on me and I'd confessed to every one of them.
"You're gonna burn Kiddo," Bogey said with a lisp and that look in his eye that had made him the bad boy of the cinema between the ' 40s and the ' 50s. Raft just grinned through a toothpick and ran a handful of marbles over and over through his fingers.
They sent me to Ronald McDonalds' Half-way house. I was crushed, I had really been hoping for something like Jack-in-the-Box, but you know sometimes you get the cut and sometimes you don't. At quarter of , we went into the last station break and I can tell you was I ever glad, The comedy was killing me and the drama was a little heavy handed, but I thought to myself as I felt the tingling of fade out beginning: If I can make it through this, then I might just last the series. That was my last thought as the room went dark.....
* * * * *
I woke up in the morning in a bed on the other side of the room from Jonathan Winters, he was doing impressions of scruffy old men, small kids and little old ladies, (and I thought I was weird!)
"Get with the Plan!" He yelled, competing with Jack La Lane on the television for the most number of jumping jacks. "Get With The Plan!, Get With The Plan!!" He yelled, but I didn't understand. All I kept thinking of was Allstate, but I didn't know why.
At noon I met with a Dr. Bellydancer, he was a passable psychiatrist, but his first true love was the dance of the 57 veils. I had to admit he was pretty good, but I couldn't watch the last 15 minutes of the dance because I was afraid I would die laughing and then there would go the series. Anyway he questioned me about Addison, insisting over and over that I might get over all of this misunderstanding if I would just give up the Jello. Something was wrong, sometimes it takes me awhile to figure things out but I KNEW I COULDN'T GIVE UP THE JELLO!
Later that night I snuck out of my room and followed Dr. BellyDancer to a Disco Bar over on 2nd Avenue, conveniently located right behind the Half-way House. We went through a sliding board in the fence and stood in an alleyway, rats scurried and fought for scraps of food from the dumpsters. At a table in the corner of the club Dr. Bellydancer sat, swishing his veils over his knees as Addison appeared next to him.
"Addison!!" I started but was stopped by two burly Bellydancers, one of which shoved a perfume stricken swab of cloth under my nose and I was out like a light.
Later Dr. Bellydancer came to my room, I heard his flip-flopped feet on the floor outside in the hallway and then the door creaking, as they always do, open.
"I understand we had a bit of an un-escorted trip last night..." he began, then discovered that I had tricked him by stuffing all of my cereal bags under the covers to look as if it were me. But it wasn't of course. I threatened him with the Jello, saying I would rip open the box and spill it all out onto the floor. He gasped at that and his face went white.
"Don't!.....My God Man Don't!!" he croaked out as I pulled him from the room and we walked out of the half-way house just as if we were going on some Sunday drive. Once inside the Burger Mobile, which is a lot like Oscar Myers' Wiener Mobile only fatter, I clubbed him with a frozen hamburger pattie that the cabbie had accidently left in the drivers seat. He collapsed back against the cushions while I drove us out the gate, smiling stupidly to the gate guard as we went out onto the main road and then disappeared around a corner.
At the school file library I tied Dr. Bellydancer onto a visitors couch with rolls and rolls of Scotch Invisible Tape and then he watched as I forged a Transcript and fake Drivers license and Sears Revolving Credit card all out of my handy-dandy all-purpose document hole puncher.
"You'll never get away with this!!" He yelled, perhaps a little too loudly, but the bad guys waiting in the wings for the scene to end had fallen asleep and I think he just needed to wake them up.
"Au Contrar, My Dear Doctor, but you see I already have" and I threw the script that I had taken from Larrys' apartment in his face. "Just check out page 86" I told him and as his eyes scanned the page his mouth went slack and he began to cry.
"This was supposed to my big break!, a regular weekly re-occurring character that would chase you episode after episode! And I could finally afford to get that mink that Clare always wanted and we could get the house up in Brentwood!... NO!! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!!!"
But the deed was already done, I might be slow but I eventually do catch on, secretly, during a commercial break when everyone was checking out the girls in the BayWatch previews I re-wrote the ending of the script. The bad guys never would burst in. I had planned it that they had followed the wrong car to the airport and gotten tickets to the Bahamas' and were right now probably comfortably somewhere over the rocky mountains on their way to sun and fun and daiquiris on small white tables in some overpriced hotel.
Smiling I picked up the Jello box from the counter top where I had put it and slipped it into my coat pocket and sauntered toward the door.
"Adios Muchacho!" I said as I went through the door as the credits started to roll, snug as a bug in a rug. All except for the thoughts I had of Addison. God what a woman! She could pack away a taco like I never seen in my life! I would miss her it was true, but now that I had Larrys' scripts I could always write her into an episode here and there just for the fun of it.
And anyway there was the rest of the season to look forward to!
I climbed into the Burger Mobile and fired up the engine, pulling a map out of the glove box. Now where was that house Dr. Bellydancer had said was up in Brentwood?
And the screen fades to black...
* * * * *
The End
/CC -3-29-96
copyright (c) Christopher Clagg
claggc@bellsouth.net