Timmy’s Christmas Telethon


    Little Igor Nelson jolts awake.  “Igor, Igor, get up!”

    “Aw granma, it’s Saturday.” 

    “I don’t give a shit if it’s Saturday, you gotta go sell chocolate almonds!” 

    Little Igor put on his Steel Wheels tape and scratched his balls.

    “Igor, somebody’s on the phone!  Answer it, will ya!”

    Igor stumbled to the hall phone as fast as his little legs would carry him. 

    “Yello.”

    “You’re a man now.”

     “What the fuck is this all about?!”

     “You got to learn, son. This is a first step to understanding. It’s about taking that blindfold from your eyes.”

     Little Igor Nelson slowly walked into the front room.  Granny was watching The Dating Game and doing her latest Chippendale’s jigsaw puzzle.  “Sit down a spell. This is a good one today,” she chortled invitingly.  Igor plopped down onto the couch: another Saturday.  The people on the TV were stupidly grinning with sub IQ 100 excitement.  Igor’s eye wandered to the puzzle: a face, a nipple and a  bit of pec, and of course the crotch area.  Granny always knocked these things off in the same sequence.  They couldn’t fool her.  Thank Christ, a commercial.  A medium distance shot of a used car lot, a friendly and trustworthy voice enquiring “Isn’t time you talked to Jimmy?”  Igor screamed.

     “Will you shut the fuck up,” barked Granny.  “What the hell’s gotten into you lately?  Ever since Ted walked out on your Mom, I know she has to work that really, really late shift at the cocktail bar, but whaddya gonna do?  Get over it, Hamlet.” 

     The phone rings again.  “I’m not gettin’ that,” thought Igor. 

     “Iggy, it’s the unreal Jimmy!”

      Whew. 

     “Hey Jim, what’s happenin’?”
     “Hey Iggy, you wanna come over and play D&D?”
     “Shit man, wish I could, but I gotta go do the fuckin’ Timmy’s Christmas Telethon.”
     “Again?!”
     “Yeah.  As if losing the leg wasn’t bad enough, but having to sit through that garbage dreck yap without being able to change the channel, man you got no idea.  On top of that, I gotta be up on stage for part of it.”

     “Well, we’ll all be watchin’.”

     “Yeah, and laughin’ your Jimmy Van Allen Hilt guts out.  Later.”

     Timmy’s that year was as dreary as Igor imagined it would be.  After all, it was the same dreck every year.  If they could at least get some spazz like Gary Davids onboard, there’d be some entertainment value. But Ted fuckin’ Slobinson!

    Anyway, Igor heard his cue. Time to put an extra brave hobble into his gait as he made his way down the aisle to the stage steps.  Then up those riser and tread relationship stairs, steps.  Weird.  His peg started buzzing when it hit that first step.  Hope the ledger strips are solid.  Igor’s ladder.

     At the top of his ascent, he was greeted by Ted Slobinson, the boy-king himself.  And there stood Lions’ kicker Lui Passaglia and Canucks legends Stan Smyl and Tiger Butler Yeats.  Oh brother.  Oh well, may as well line up with the other members of the Vancouver crippled kid glitterati and get it over with.  Oh yeah.  Bravely smile and weakly wave to the audience. 

     Ted Slobinson stepped up to the mike. “Now, we’re going to bring out somebody very special at this point.  Someone who is like a mom to all of you kids.”

    Igor thought, “Fuck, my metal leg is buzzing like crazy.  I feel kinda weird, too.” 

    “Let’s give a big Timmy’s Christmas Telethon welcome to Biffy Oxgoad!”

     The leg was now vibrating like a dentist’s drill on a molar. 

     Biffy Oxgoad entered, regally, cabalistically, from stage right, waving benignly at the TV cameras. 

     “Welcome, Mrs. Oxgoad,” suck-holed Slobinson.

     “Helloo Ted.  It’s nice to be back.  Hello children.”

      The leg was starting to move of its own volition.  What the.

     “My son Jerry died for all of you.  Always fight the good fight.”

      Igor’s metal leg was half stepping, half clawing its way out of the line up of kids toward where Oxgoad stood.  Funny, Igor didn’t feel like fighting it.  Indeed, his meat leg quickly joined the metal in stride, though it had trouble keeping up.

     “Jerry Oxgoad, my son, was a hero.  Don’t you ever, ever forget it.” 

     Miraculously, Iggy had almost made it to the mike without anyone noticing. But count on that schmuck Slobinson not to mind his own business.  “Hey kid, what are you doing?  Get the fuck back in line.”

     Igor felt his voice box making sounds outside of his conscious control: “Fuck you Slobinson, ya hack.”  The metal leg struck Ted’s instep, then ground in with the ferocity of a hydraulic shingle splitter. Slobinson screamed, white light blazing everywhere.  He fell over, grabbing his foot in agony.

     Iggy dashed for the mike.  He grabbed it and began snarling in a voice half man, half animal.  “Fever is a hero. He actually did it. Oxgoad, you cabalistic wasp bitch, your son died!  Died I say!  Fever is the real hero!”

    As if on Pavlovian cue, the audience began booing.  Instantly, Lui smiled and waved to the crowd, Tiger grabbed the mike stand and rode it across the stage like a symbolically rich occult bucking bronco; and Smyl just stood there with the same stupid Punky Meadows grin on his face. 

     “Gee whiz,” thought Ted, “this is worse than the Beatles and Jerry Lee Lewis combined.” 

     A couple of off-duty Save-On-Foods goons were already on the stage, grabbing Iggy, trying to get the mike away from him.  Biffy Oxgoad had fainted.  Iggy managed to scream, “And by the way, ‘Timmy’s’ name is actually Wendel! Wendel!  Wendel Schmitkee!  Ha ha ha! And he picks his snot and eats it!”  Everything went black as the chokehold put on him by one of the goons caused Igor to lose consciousness. Backstage, ratbag Vancouver used car tycoon J. B. sat with three very expensive and glittering whores of dubious age, watching it all on the monitor.  “Shit, that’s the most interesting kid they’ve had on there since that one that started to take her clothes off.  Hey hon, can you pass me the coke tray?”

This tale is an x-ray diffraction, but of what? The next morning, my fear returned.