Not one of the boys, if asked on a good day,
would scratch the tops of their heads and be able to tell you just when or
where this predilection for excessive caffeine came from. VonB was the first to
start ingesting his stomach lining with hideous vats of the Columbian
insomniac-attacks due to what he at the time referred to as his rising
intellects, VonB, giving up on dice and comic books and becoming more adult
like and deeming this or that immature all at fifteen, drinking watered down
cheap brew the way Mrs. And Mr. Mooney preferred thanks to Dave Hale back in
the day. Patrick knee jitters non stop-twenty-four-seven/365+ due to five
summers ago when he decided pretty much to say ‘fuck it’ to everything and move
into Lums, setting up camp beneath tables legs after hours, reminding the Treasure
Troll that bottomless cups does indeed mean bottom less cups as he points to
the glossed menu, saying it says so right there, tapping his sneaker, trying to
keep the beat to the overhead late-seventies Carol King songs chirping out of
the loud speaker above him, writing poem after poem to either Amber or
Laurianne, wondering out loud when Kristina is going to get physically sick of
VonB and his shit and asking Mary/Kara/Jodi/Amy if he thinks he might just have
a chance with either of them. Patrick has managed to evade cool Jerome rigid
LUMS security. Three times he has even crashed at LUMS
Tim often laughs and repeats to VonBehren about how he
claims hat everyone is a pretty good guy.
The first time Dave and Kristina
dry humped they were in Hale’s driveway (on the hood of Sandy’s Buick) in late
April, a week or two before prom. Although Kristina would never let Dave go all
the way with her, she would often remind him that, indeed, her Christian Clit
has needs to and God never pillaged Sodom and Gomorrah for dry humping. On
three or four occasions, David ahs spontaneously showed up to LUMS with
corduroy burns chewed into the top of his forehead.’
“So, let me get this straight.”
Offers Hale, who, ever since Patrick’s three week counseling sessions with his
a week past, has been calling himself doctor,
Sandy strutted outside while David was about
ready to cop a feel and prematurely blow a load (an impediment usually reserved
for the likes of Pat). A peevish Hale followed by a nonplussed Sandy and a
surprisingly sober drug free only in ‘Drea’s presence Strickler began yelping,
“Jeezus people. Of all the frickin’ places. Come on now.” Come on now they
did-discreetly tiptoeing to David-Joseph’s bedroom to finish the rushed moment
of ardor and physical intimacy on his mattress. Turning paragraphs of passion
into pages inked with sunset longing:
 |
| 8th grade graduation circa 1992 |
Here
is a partial transcript form one of David Joseph Hale’s and David Von Behren’s
many multifarious weekly phone conversations-evidence supporting just how much
of a devious little shit Hale was @ this time.
David-Joseph: (doing his best to
jocularly piss off his best friend): “No, Dave, I know what you and Kristine
really did when she took you to that prayer meeting for the second time this
week to pray for each others long term chastity.”
David: (Still somewhat pissed off
that he told Hale about the whole prayer meeting thing in the first place.)
“What Dave.”
David-Joseph: (Emitting obnoxious
juvenile fornication sounds which slightly resemble the slurred squeak of a
rocking chair but are meant to sound like the pounced creak of slinkyesque
metallic springs found at the bottom of a mattress.) “E-e-e-e-e-e”.
Kristina’s Dave: “Fuck you. She’s a
sweetie. She made me diner last night.”
David-Joseph:
(Quickly snapping back.) “ Oh yeah, she made me dessert,”
Kristina’s
Dave: “Fuck you.”
David-Joseph: “With a little cherry
on top. Lots of whip cream, too. Funny. (Hale takes a long Winston Churchill
drag from his cigar over the phone.) I had no trouble at all whatsoever finding
that cherry on top. Ahh, that cherry. Love that cherry. Dave, have you found
her cherry on top? That sweet, succulent maraschino cherry. The type of cherry
they serve on top of Sunday’s. Ah. Love that cherry, Dave. Love it.”
Kristina’s David: (Sounding more
and more like a disgruntled ‘I thought you guys were my friends’ Pat) “Dave, just shut the fuck up alright………”
Hale: (Sounding uncannily like John
Candy and mentally clapping his hands together and chomping down harder on his
stogie in a manner which suggests he is just getting started in quashing his
best friend’s sexual inefficacy with a girl who as Hale so subtly states) “I’ve
never seen panties with pictures of the Pope on them before.”
Kristina’s David: “Shut up, Dave.”
Hale: “Let alone have them wreathed
around my neck like I was at a luau and she was the lei. Komeoneelickeelotta.”
Kristina’s Dave:(So pissed off he
chooses not to humor Hale with his own acerbic retort and strongly thinks about
insinuating to his best friend now of ten years the age old Hallmark adage that
if you can’t say anything real nice…) “…………….”
Little Shit Would You Please
Shut-the-Fuck-Up-Right-Now Hale: (Swaying into the telephone like it is a
karaoke mike.) “Kristinayouain’tgotta.”
Kristina’s still ruefully
cogitating David: (...then you probably shouldn’t say anything)
LSWYPSF-URK Hale: (Once again he pictures this
tidal tirade as if he is center stage at the Sydney Opera. His invectives
become timeless overtures. The large audience's pattered palms ensign him an
aura of classical antiquity. The bravos. The bows. He saunters left and right
on stage, embraces the director, acknowledges the orchestral pit, faces stage
left, smiles, blows a kiss to his faithful- rich-uppity cult following,
collects rose petals and bravura’s, pretends like he is Pavarotti on stage.
Once more now, for an encore.) “E-e-e-e-e-e.
Lickiulikeatwinkie.
Kristina’s David: (at) “……….”
Halieoratti-the superlative Verona
tenor: “…..and beaded rosary negligee. Whew-Hoo. Hail Mary, I’m going down
seven nights a week on my knee’s for that boy.”
K’s.D.: (all.) “…………..”
Halieoratti, i.e., Little-Shit
Hale, i.e., Alright, enough already, you’ve won Hale, i.e., Please quit making
David look like more of a sexual-inept eunuch than-he-already-is Hale:
(Laughing to himself) Don’t worry Dave, Jesus wept too. (Hale’s laugh sounds
like the masculine pronoun being quoted by a vedic monk who in another life
form was a chimpanzee): “HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE
HAAAAAHHHE OHHHH HE HE HE HE HEHE HE HE HE HE HE HE HEH EH HE HE HE HE HE HE
HE.”
Kristina’s David: (Sounding more
and more like Patrick who, at this particular moment, he would much rather be
talking to) “SHUT Up Dave.”
Little SHIT Hale: (Coughing
stately-sounding as if perhaps he swallowed the cherry-lit end of his cigar.)
“Where did she order those panties from? St. Victoria’s Secret???
Kristina’s
David: Alright boy that was funny.
Only Hale, being the incorrigible
little shit that he is, just doesn’t know when to stop. The little shit doesn’t
realize just how much of a little shit he actually is. When Hale was four he
cozened his sister to step in a hidden mousetrap while Grandpa Harvey fell off
his John Deer tractor in laughter. When Hale hears about Jenny’s pregnancy he
politely asks Pat if the incumbent child will be male, female, or perhaps by
chance hermaphrodite. This is the same boy who made a girl name Slena
(pronounced Selena) pee herself at a church gathering in St. Louis when he
asked her if she had happened to hear the one about the Jap and the Yiddish
priest who had two circumcised shlongs and only one kielbasa. Hence, Hale continues to pounce me with his
astute, somewhat skewed, observations.
He is the friend who will always be
there for you with a damn fine cigar, lighter fluid and levity. The sole friend
whom so compassionately offered his condolences to DVB three summers ago, when
no one else in the world seemed to understand. When no one else in the world
seemed even to care. David Hale was there. And he would always be there. Both
DVB and Pat knew this. He was the sole frozen microwaveable entrée found in the
back of the ice box that you fear not throw away for case of a food shortage.
It was the summer DVB had planned to escape to Seattle to be with Harmony, who
Dave Hale always referred to as Herman. DVB had fallen head-over-DR. Martens in
love with Herman during a brief stint in London, 1993. Herman was winsome,
short, slightly stately, her tan skin poured into her fleshy frame like a
plastic bear-shaped honey bottle. But, as what always seems to be the recurring
motif in all of our heroes lives -with the anomalous exception of Dave Hale
himself, who, rumor has it is currently dating a stripper-he’s not saying
anything at all whatsoever to either confirm or deny allegations-he just struts
around with a smile tattooed to his visage, a more expensive cigar protruding
from his lips, rubbing either DVB or P.A.M’s navels and saying, in his
inflected Shaman-esque patois, “Someone will get laid tonight.” Then following
his adumbration with the rejoinder, “too bad it isn’t you.”
Suffice it to say, Herman ended up
somehow getting engaged to a short-haired merkin coated side burned eagle-scout
leader who volunteered two Sundays a month as a church usher and always made it
a priority to arrive at any sporting event an hour early so he could sing along
with the National anthem, while making a public display of removing his
Colorado Rockies cap and telling those who sat on either shoulder that, you
know, many people gave their life for that there flag up-there, and it’s just
sad that more people don’t realize this. Herman had written DVB about her newly
acquired jingoism and the internal fireworks he seemed to ignite off in her, as
if Herman had been Betsy White in another life. She had invited DVB to come fly
out to Spokane for the ceremony telling him that if he was up to it he could
give the first toast at the reception.
DVB could not have been more
deflated had his heart been the Hindenburg and Herman the hydrogen.
On the sweltering August night of
her wedding Dave and Dave sipped Fuzzy navels and smoked Swisher sweets as DVB
told DJH, sounding very sad with a James Herriot dead lamb docility tinged in
his tears that, today Dave, something in me died. “A part of me died today.”
That was verbatim.
To which
David Hale so acutely finished his lament, “Well, technically Dave, a part of
you dies every day.”
Fucker. Gotta love him. Even if he is always right.
“Besides Dave,” Little Shit Hale
amends, “Herman had a penis. You don’t want to date a girl whose name is Herman
and who gives too much Dick and offers not enough Moby for your meat.”
He was right. Herman probably did have a penis.
“I wouldn’t have minded.” VonB
said, both crying and laughing at the same time.
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