ARR 1988 - Flipbook - Page 55
mention Pink Floyd and Hanna-Barbera. Now that breakfast was consumed, he was ready to face the day.
Just as he stepped into the shower, the phone rang. As this was the
most inconvenient of possible times for the phone to ring, he knew it would
be, could only be one person: Larry.
"Hello, Larry. I'm not able to come to the phone right now, but ifyou11
kindly never bother me, 111 see that I don't stage a protest at your funeral.
Please piss off at the tone."
"Hey, Tony, I hear you like to drink Tequila. Well, I'll be right over
with a bottle. Of course, I hope you don't mind if it's filtered through my
kidneys?"
"Listen, Larry, 111 have to call you back. See, I've got your mother over
here, and as you probably know, she's not used to waiting."
"Tony, you have got to be the rudest, nastiest, most disrespectful sonof-a-bitch who ever crawled out from under a mother's skirt. Hell, I bet half
the bull-dykes in 'Frisco would buy you a beer, and the other half would
probably throw it in your face. But, hey, anyway, give me time for the three
S's of hygiene, then, perhaps, RIVERBOUND?"
"Larry, the day you get over here within two hours of the time you say,
at least close to sober, is the day I buy you a drink. See-Ya!"
"G'day."
He stepped back in the shower.
Larry was, Tony thought, a fine human being.
Of course, in the same thought he considered Richard Nixon innocent
of Watergate, Tommy Smothers a well-balanced, emotionally secure guy,
Richard Dawson a great humanitarian, and Tammy Faye a natural beauty,
an unspoiled flower, an innocently gushing fountain of sentiment, and darn
lucky to have such a caring, strong, and sexually endowed husband. Tony's
best friend Pat was always admonishing him for his lack ofjudgment, as well
as his taste in women: "Tony, man,just because she's the lead singer of the
Sex Blots doesn't mean she's a well-rounded girl; although she does look
rather nice in plaid spandex. At least she's not like that last one, the one who
thought you were James Dean in a previous existence. She was loonier than
Larry, and scarier looking, too."
Pat had been right. He was always right, though he usually kept his
opinions to himself. He was sensible; that was his survival ethic. The son
of a heavy alcoholic, he needed that edge of control in his otherwise chaotic
world. Larry and Tony's lives had been cakewalks and daffodils in compari-
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