manny marxx
Story genre & theme: A zany comedy about a modern-day Man of La Mancha and his quest for his Holy Grail--A father's love. And, while on his yellow brick road, like Dorothy, he encounters, here and there, some lessons in brotherhood. Well, not exactly like Dorothy's.
Our hero, Sol Woody, Junior--a pill-popping, full-blown manic depressive in his early thirties--is CEO of that prestigious Madison Avenue ad agency Isaac, Woody, Coody and Diddy, the lofty post having descended to him by way of his daddy's retirement.
Daddy, Sol Senior, learned his art of selling on New York's Lower East Side, where the litmus-test of a salesman was steering a customer from his needs to his dreams, and if it just happened to be an item from the store’s overbought stock, where commissions were double, well, so much the sweeter.
It was there, on Delancy Street, that Senior learned that fateful unwritten rule, strictly adhered to: Sunday sales--and sometimes Monday's, too--are off the books, and on the QT from you know who.
The price, now being paid for old sins, is Senior carting around haunting guilt taking the form of hang-ups--one being an over-sensitivity to the taunting tongue of his dead wife, Rebecca; another being, a sense that the IRS has hired God to get him; but the heaviest sack of potatoes is--"Rebecca, tell me true, is this meshuggenah really my kid!"
The meshuggenah kid--son Junior--as mentioned, an AC (alternating current) personality, out to prove himself worthy of job and father, and though high-minded, flawed--beyond his tics--with a tad of impulsiveness that, instead, brings down the firm, wastes to a watery grave an array of sea and air crafts, defiles an American institution, embarrasses New York City, triggers a police-race riot, and, with the help of God, gets his sole brothers in the Bronx, to decimate Central Park. But in the end, in the aftermath of all this havoc, he manages to pull a rabbit, for he gets the girl, a father's admiration, a step toward brotherhood, even bronze immortality--unfortunately, all posthumously.
Born in Brooklyn, in his teens, ventured daily--when not playing hooky at a movie--into the Bedford-Stuy ghetto to Brooklyn’s Boys' High; worked nights, weekends and summers at a hundred sweat-shop and peon jobs--toilet-paper spooler to tugboat deckhand--then served two years with Merchant Marines (US Merchant Marine Academy), a year sailing the seven seas aboard merchant freighters; six years night college at a variety of New York Universities and specialty schools, daytime dabbling in businesses, accounting, insurance, real estate etc., then Brooklyn Law and post-grad at NYU Law; opened a one-man-ghetto-storefront law office where he serviced a rainbow array of clientele. Now, semi-retired, he spends his time walking Juno beach, playing tennis, and weaving tales from past experiences and dreams.
Chapter VIII
The Ax Man . . .
Two emergency vehicles race along the Brooklyn streets. Their speed decreases, sirens whine down, wheels screech to a stop, and amid slamming doors a fire crew of two--one wielding an ax, the other a tank of CO2 with nozzle attached jump out of their vehicle--followed by EMS, medic and driver. The four rush into the lobby of the Prospect Arms co-op.
Lobby Security, grinning, holds out a key. He jingles it at the foursome barreling toward him. "14 B, right?"
The lead fireman--the one with the tank--snatches the key as he moves past.
Lobby Security calls after them, "He's got an animal now!"
EMS medic calls back, "Doberman, pitbull, or boa?"
"St. Bernard."
Now in the elevator, holding the closing door, the medic shouts back, "Name?--Know it?!"
"King!" reports Lobby Security as he watches the door close. A smile coats his face as he picks up the house phone and presses the "maintenance" button.
"Get ready to finish cleaning the windows of 14 B, our Mr. Woody should be shortly leaving again."
The elevator rides up to the 14th floor, door open, and down the hall rush the four emergency people--the boot-thumping firemen leading the way.
In front of 14 B, the fireman with the tank sets it down and fumbles getting the key into the right keyhole. The ax-man moves him aside. "Step back!"
With one whack, the door splinters off in four directions.
Trampling over it, into the dark of the penthouse suite gallop the four horsemen, the medic, first in, calling out before him, "Emergency crew coming through," then aside to his driver, he directs, "Terry, get the lights!"
The foyer lights up, and medic and the two firemen head for the kitchen, the medic calling out, "King? King boy?"
King opens an eye, takes up his gnawed-to-half-size rhino bone, and lumbers toward them.
The medic greets him, "How ya doin' fella? Where's--" He spies the gnawed-through bone in King's jaws, and having a dog of his own, stops.
The fireman with the ax does not.
King shows his teeth.
The fireman, unsure around animals, yet too macho to back off, cautiously lifts his tool. "Is that all what's left of him?"
The medic lays his hand on the ax and steps between.
"Where's your boss-man, King boy?"
King whimpers and looks toward a smoky hall.
The seams of Junior's bedroom door are oozing smoke.
All four men rush for the door.
The medic cries out, "You in there! Emergency crew coming through!" then makes for the knob to turn it, but the big, brawny ax-man and his ax are there before him. Like Moses parting the Red Sea, door number two splits down the middle and, with a rush of adrenaline, the four burst into the smog. On go the lights, and, with nozzle before him spewing its frosty white, the fireman with the tank douses everything in sight, including the bed with unconscious Junior still in it.
He then spies Junior's still-smoking toupee hanging on the bedpost, aims his nozzle there, and triple douses it, then, douses the whole of the room again, transforming the room into a winter wonderland and Junior’s hairpiece into a frosty-white, eighteenth century periwig-look-alike.
The medic, choking, waves off the tank-man. "Shut the damn thing off you’re downing him" He then, turns to his driver. "Let's get some air in here!"
The ax-man's eyes excite. "Right!" Wielding his weapon, he goes for the window. The EMS driver gets there a breath before him and throws the window open. The ax-man jams on his brakes, but for his ax it's too late, and out the window like a twirling baton it flies across the courtyard, bashing walls and sills in its downward clanking flight.
Looking on with the saddest of eyes, like a boy saying good-bye to his favorite toy, the ax-man follows its tumbling plummet floor to floor to floor. It kicks off a sill and in sync with a nightmarish scream from within, crashes through a window and disappears. Everywhere lights go on.
The ex-ax-man withdraws from the window, turns to his sidekick--now knee deep in foam and still frothing the room--and, in panic, asks, "George! What should I do?" The fireman with the hose turns it off, and out the side of his mouth rumbles, "Stick a feather you know where and make like an Indian--you jackass!"
The medic at the bed, swiping away the frosty-white bubbly stuff from Junior's submerged face, calls down to him, "Hey, Woody! Woody, ol' boy! You still with us?"
Getting no response, he dips his hand into the foam, finds Junior's neck and feels it. "He's still got a pulse.
Junior chokes and spits out a mouthful, and blowing bubbles, he grumbles, "Shut da damn light! An' get the hell out of here. I gotta get some sleep! Got big things to do tomorrow . . . " And he's again out, off somewhere with Dorothy and Toto in the Land of Oz . . .
Looking on, the fireman with the hose offers, "Smoke musta got 'im."
The EMS driver kicks something under his feet. Digging into the knee-deep frosty pudding, he pulls up the empty Absolut bottle and the pill vial and turns over to the medic. The medic smells the bottle and, wiping the vial label clear, instructs his driver, "Set the pump up in the bathroom."
With a hint of smoke still rising from him, and looking like a dropped meringue pie, drug-drunk Junior--his arms aimlessly flailing, flinging froth across the room--is dragged from bed to bathroom. He opens one eye and babbles, "H-hey! I smell smoke! Better check the roast." And he's out cold again.
Through the bathroom's closed door, comes a babbling drunken voice. "Hey! Hey! Watch it! Whata--? You can't d-do--! Hey--!" There's constriction in his voice, "Ek! Whata-ya--Eeeccccck!" He heaves up this week's breakfasts, lunches, and the rest of that pastrami on rye he couldn't find, the pickle, too.
In the bedroom, the two firemen are sifting through the frosty soup, checking for tell-tale signs of any still- simmering fire. The ex-ax-man spots something. "Isn't that smoke rising through the bed-sheets?" He draws out his three-finger scout’s pocket- knife, and with a Zorro swish, the mattress is quartered, then picked and plucked till it look like a mined cornstalk field where mines have gone off.
Satisfied there are no hiding embers, he nudges his partner. "I don't think there's much more we can do here."
The CO2-tankman looks to the splintered bedroom door, the war-torn mattress and the rest of the ax-man's arts and crafts, then, looks to the unscathed ceiling. "Are you sure?" Pointing to the ceiling, he snickers, "It's still up there."
The ex-ax-man stares at the ceiling, as if looking for a way up.
With a simper and shake of his head, the CO2-tankman calls into the bathroom, "We're leavin', OK?", and he nudges his partner, still looking at the ceiling. "Save some for the next guy!" And the two firemen head for the front door.
Exiting suite14 B into the hall, the CO2-tankman--chief of this crew--gives his sidekick a not-to-friendly poke to the ribs. "Where were you raised, in a barn? Close the damn door!"
The ex-ax-man puzzles.
The tank-man repeats, "You opened it, you close it!"
The ex-ax-man grumbles, gathers the door parts, gives them a couple of well-placed whacks, re-hangs the door, and slams it shut.
With the background sound of a crumbling door crashing to the floor, the two, in their macho elephantine boots, thump down the hall. The ex-ax-man, finding the knob in his hand, tosses it off.
