Of Moles and Men

The deafening, silent march of time continued to resonate

unheard in my ears and all of a sudden I was in my late twenties. I
was
shocked to realize I was getting so “old” that some my siblings,
friends and acquaintances were getting married. When my sister Ann
(second youngest to me in the family of six kids) announced she was
bringing home her serious boyfriend from Oklahoma, we all knew this
wasn’t just a fly-by. It was over the Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday
that Frank, the “new boy in town”, would make his debut, and I vividly
recalled praying very devoutly for him.

My family was a very individualistic, independent and unique

collection of humanoids. I can safely say they all possessed a
wicked, dry and sometimes bizarre sense of humor and their rapier
wits left no one unscathed. Holidays were always anticipated with
unbridled glee
as a time to share with family, as well as a time to thrust and parry
swords of humor and visit practical jokes upon the unsuspecting. We
would discover that Frank, with his droll accent and laconic grace
under the unblinking eye of our scrutiny, was the perfect
unsuspecting victim.

The whole damn clan (circa1975) minus Jack- plus Frank (hiding
behind Ann in graduation garb) and cousin Barb, second from right. I
must have been playing some sport that day. From left to right: Ken,
Ma Acker, Frank, Ann, Pop Acker, Dave, Barb and Marilyn. That’s
Gopher’s Glen in the background.

Sitting around the massive Thanksgiving table, just recently

introduced to the entire family for the first time, Frank could feel my
leopard-like glances as he tried to enjoy his turkey and dressing.

The entire dining room was already decorated for Christmas and
as I gazed about admiring the decorations I continued to size up my
prey, Frank. I was pleasantly surprised and a bit sexually aroused
when I realized Frank looked like a deaf mouse with a pronounced
limp. What was happening to me? What little joke could I spring on
Frankie Boy?

Pre-dinner small talk before Frank’s Thanksgiving surprise. That’s

me on far left, then sister Marilyn, then Ma and Pa Acker. Frank was
seated where Pa Acker is when served that very special plate of
Thanksgiving “seconds”. It all appears so innocently festive.

Rising to leave the table for more bird and goods, I politely asked
Frank if he would like a little more turkey and gravy. Frank
responded with alacrity that he would be happy to accept. I exited
the dining room with Frank’s plate and entered the kitchen that
abutted the back porch. After slapping some turkey, dressing and
mashers onto Frank’s plate, I heard quite a commotion out in the
enclosed back porch. My mother owned three or four cats at the time
and it was obvious they’d found some prey out there. I put down the
gravy ladle and proceeded to investigate.

Pure naked luck intervened once again, and like a Beef Heart
from Hell, my problem of how to torture Frank was solved. Opening
the porch door I was shocked to see William, the Alpha cat of my
mother’s clouder, triumphantly holding court (well, actually grasping it
in those glistening white teeth) with his prey. Drooping from his
mouth like a Fu Man Chu moustache of death, “Little Bill” the Killer
Cat held in his mouth the seldom seen, much maligned, almost
mythical Star-Nosed Mole.

With a nose thats a fleshy geyser of pink, waving fronds of flesh;

huge, scaly front “paws” with massive talons for dirt-digging, the great
Star-Nosed mole is an atavistic tribute to a subterranean world that
only the blind mole can enjoy.

Although totally blind, the great star-nosed has a characteristic

hairless snout with 22 fleshy tentacles that allows the mole to feel its
way through dark tunnels and murky water. Laboratory tests have
shown that the star-nosed mole seems to be drawn to faint electrical
signals from its aquatic prey. If true, the star-noser and the platypus
are the only known mammals to possess this ability.

It seems my mole was a rogue, aberration of a mole that could,

even after death, detect faint electrical signals from the soon-to-be-
bro-in-law Frank, who wasn’t “aquatic” at all. Go Mole! Kill Frank!

I quickly realized this was a golden opportunity and wrested the

blind (as well as dead) bestard from the feline’s implacable jaws
before any extensive tissue damage or loss of limb occurred. This
was a lucky break of extraordinary, almost mythical proportions. I
couldn’t have hunted down a star nosed mole on such short notice in
summer! Unbelievably, one was delivered to my back door! This
was surely meant to be, and Frank was the predestined victim.

Distracting King William with a haphazardly tossed turkey gizzard

down the outside stairs, I hurriedly spread his “starry” mole out on a
towel and pondered the mole’s “dead” future and my next move.
Well, I thought, Frank said he wanted more turkey and gravy, so
more turkey and gravy he was gonna’ get, along with a little, furry
surprise. I was simply beside myself with anticipatory mirth.

I grabbed Frank’s plate and slapped the dead mole down smack-
dab in the center. Covering the star-nosed beauty with the slices of
turkey and sides of mashed taters and dressing, I finished Frank’s
dish off with two ladles of gravy. Making sure the mole’s little tail and
huge shovel-like forepaws weren’t peeking from beneath the
mountain of turkey and gravy, I padded into the dining room like a
panther and gleefully popped the plate-of-plenty in front of Frankie
Boy.

“Here you go Frank, and you’d better finish all of it, no wasting of
food around here; it’s a family tradition,” I said.

I gave “the look” to my brothers and Father to let them know this
was no ordinary “second-helping” for Frank and quickly slid onto my
chair.

“Thanks, Jack” said Frank as he lifted knife and fork and plowed
in.

We men could hardly stand it. Even though my Dad and bros
didn’t know exactly what was in store, they knew it was on Frank and
it was somehow connected to his plate. I almost swooned as I
mused at what point Frank would uncover the carcass and learn what
holiday traditions were really about.

Frank began sawing into the slab of turkey with grim

determination and holiday hunger as I literally squirmed in my chair.
Frank’s knife
finally hit china, and like a Thanksgiving miracle the sliced turkey
flipped over like a book page and there, in all its exploded pink-nosed
glory was the mole. Lying in the puddle of gravy, the mole’s giant
clawed forelegs made it appear it was actually swimming towards
Frank. That’s when the screaming began.

“Don’t touch it!” my sister Ann screeched. “My God, what is it?”
muttered Frank in his Oklahoma drawl. His look of absolute
bewilderment and revulsion was breathtaking. “Jack you sick perv”
another sister cried. My mother simply sat in stunned silence, put her
head in her hands and sobbed in submission.

“Jack, for God’s sake, where did you get that mole?’ cried Pops
through coughs of laughter, all the while trying to look stern and
disapproving.

The women folk cries of disgust and horror echoed throughout the
dining room as me, my Dad and brothers laughed so hard tears were
streaming down our faces. Coming from Oklahoma, Frank had never
seen a star nosed mole before and as far as he was concerned it
could have been a Martian’s pet he was staring at.

Glorious! This is what Frank found underneath his slice of turkey in a

puddle of gravy… (Correct me if I’m wrong; but doesn’t it appear the
mole has had a manicure ?) The crowd went wild; what a fabulous
Thanksgiving memory!

Well, needless to say it was quite a moment for Frank and his
fiancée, my sister Ann. By the time things quieted down and the
mole was given back to “Little Bill”, the feline killer, Frank had decided
against eating his “seconds” of turkey and gravy.
 I really couldn’t fault him, so we all raised a glass to his courage
and good humor for facing the great star-nosed mole. What a
magnificent joke it was. I wasn’t sure if my sister’s and mother
shared this viewpoint, but I was sure this was truly an indelible
Thanksgiving memory. Isn’t that what the holidays are all about?

"Longneck" Lewis and "The Blind Robin"

Another incredible character in the scheme of my life and one of

my best friends was Barry "Longneck" Lewis. Arguably the laziest
man in the world, his innate sense of sloth was remarkable. Once on
a
bet, after playing a strenuous game of Jarts, Barry "raced" a garden
slug back to the patio. The slug won by an antenna.

Barry's life style was the inspiration for the Broyhill "Lazy Boy"
chairs, but in a cruel twist of irony, he never made a dime from them.
Asked time and again to be their spokesman (like the once fat, now
skinny guy named Jared for Subway sandwiches or the lucky Verizon
Super-Nerd with black-rimmed glasses) Barry blew it when he was
"too tired" to take their phone calls.

His indolent life style was only matched by his remarkable thirst
for beer (longneck Budweiser’s) and high cholesterol, super-saturated
fat loaded foods. Longneck's diet was a cholesterol-laden,
gastronomic nightmare that defied any and all dietary guidelines
endorsed over the last 200 years. Eating only a very limited number
of foodstuffs and
drinking only beer, his being alive was a modern medical miracle.

THE DIET: Pork - Ribs, loin roast, tenderloin, chops.

Beef - Standing Rib, all steaks, hamburgers, smokies.
Chicken - Thighs, wings, breasts, whole rotisserie.
Sausage- (mostly breakfast and Italian) bacon
(Canadian and regular).
 Pizza - Double cheese and sausage, NO
VEGETABLES EVER. Pepperoni if pushed.
Potatoes - Mashed, baked with one half stick of real
butter, Tots, occasional French fries.
Chips, Cheese Doodles, Fritos, peanuts.
Salad - Plain salad with lemon, consumed two times in
over 50 years.
Beverages - Budweiser, any other kind of beer if Bud
unavailable. ****** In 47 years I’d seen Barry drink
maybe 40 cans of cola and saw him partake of water maybe five
times. This is no exaggeration and is why he is such a remarkable
individual.

ABOVE Left: Jack’s roommate Barry with unknown wench in “The

Cave” in mid-eighties. Guess what he’s drinking? Correcto,
BUDWEISER! ABOVE Right: The Zogman, the greatest wheelman
eve,( telling us how he got back to Earth on a bobsled from Saturn)
basking in his fame and fortune.

For years we all marveled at this walking "Meat Eating-Beer

Bomb", wondering how his system could withstand the constant
cholesterol/alcohol inundation. It wasn't until years later the mystery
was unraveled. Trying to give blood and make a quick buck, Barry
was as shocked as the Red Cross nurses when they discovered he
didn't HAVE BLOOD!

No red or white corpuscles flowed through this human beer keg's

vessels at all. When analyzed, the Red Cross lab was horrified to
find Barry's "blood" was a thin, amber colored liquid that contained
just enough trace elements to sustain crude motor skills and
vision, but was comprised mostly of barley and hops - the very
ingredients used to make beer! What a fabulous, living testimony to
Budweiser beer.

I couldn’t drink that much beer, but I did okay with Scotch. Once
while enjoying copious libations at Mick’s I observed Longneck
“goose-necking” yet another Budweiser. Watching his Adams apple
bobbing up and down at a furious rate, I ventured to ask; “Barry; how
many beers can you drink in an hour - at a good, healthy pace I
mean?”

He looked up pensively and poured more beer down that

Budweiser Black Diamond ski slope of a gullet. Wiping some
Beachwood aged froth from around his pie hole, he belched out
“Mebbe five-six if I’m a little thirsty. How many Scotch’s can you
down
an hour” he parried.

“Longneck,” I said, “ It not a race and it isn’t ‘cause I’m thirsty or

not…. But someday kid, you’re gonna’ have to hit the long ball and
learn how to drink some whiskey.” I doubt if that was good advice in
any way, shape or form; but its all I had at the time. If the glove fits,
wear it.

Barry's other passion in life, (that he euphemistically referred to

as a "hobby"), was betting. High school games, pro games, horses,
horseshoes, overs, unders, parlays, teasers - it didn't matter what the
event; Barry would bet it. Of course, when you lose bets you have to
pay the bookie and there lies the rub.

Definition: Blind Robin n. A smoked herring snack served in

bars and saloons.
OR: "Blind Robin ", as in Robin Rigatoni - the biggest, baddest
bookie in Gopher's Glen.

Barely preceded in birth by his fraternal twin brother Salvatore,

Robin was the youngest of fourteen children that comprised the huge
Rigatoni clan. Robin and Sal were the only boys in the family and
paid a dear price. Surrounded by screaming, overemotional, short
tempered young women who were constantly ovulating, both boys’
psyches were severely damaged at an early age. Living in a small
bungalow of a house that reeked of hairspray, nail polish, perfume
and garlic that had only one bathroom and one telephone was a
nightmare.

Poor Robin was "blinded" at eight years old while dueling with
Sal over the last meatball atop a mound of linguine. Fencing with
knives and forks over the sauce smothered savory that was jarred off
the table, Robin bobbed when he should have weaved and Sal's
fork inadvertently yanked Robin's eye clean out of the socket. Falling
to the floor with a "thup" alongside the meatball, both combatants
were stunned into silence for a moment before Robin's high wail of
pain tore through the house.

"My freakin' eye!" screamed Robbie. "You stole my eye!"

At that moment the Rigatoni's family dog, a dachshund named

"Ravioli", came tearing around the corner like a brown torpedo. As
the Rigatoni sisters shrieked, "no Ravioli, nooooo!' the dog bee lined
into
the kitchen with ear flaps down and claws digging for purchase on the
slick linoleum floor

Ravioli, on a mission from God, eyes glued to the fallen prize,

swooped in for the meatball and slipped on Robbie's eye like it was a
juicy, loose marble. Needless to say that was the end of any remote
possibility of reattaching the eye, and in the blink of an eyeball, poor
Robin became "Blind Robin". Neither of the Rigatoni brothers got
the meatball, Robin got a glass eye, Sal was grounded for a week,
while Ravioli, the "meatball bandit", slept like a baby.
 Though fraternal twins, the Rigatoni brothers grew up to be very
different from each other. The Blind Robin ate like a bird and drank
like a fish, while Salvatore (nicknamed the "Crisco Kid") ate anything
that moved, wasn't frozen or was deep fried. The Blind Robin
managed very well with his glass eye, though it became a bit
"undersized" as his head grew larger with age. This presented a
small, at times embarrassing problem as it tended to shoot out of his
eye socket when he sneezed.

Years later our gang would meet at Mick's Cafe for a few
beers
and we’d take turns dusting the floor with pepper when Robin was
unawares. Sooner than later he'd have a sneezing fit whereupon that
glass eye would fly out of the socket like a frozen pea. Bouncing
around the bar like a magician’s cheap prop, we had many a laugh
chasing after the Blind Robin's eye after a good sneeze.

As for Big Sal, he grew up (and mostly out) to become Chief

Taste Tester for Krispy Kreme Donuts while Robin became a big
bookie in a small pond. Big bookie, small pond or not, Barry owed
Blind Robin a boatload of money and payment was due.

Longneck, my fake wife Nancy, Wayne and Garry “Noodles”

MacNeil in the Cave circa mid 1990’s.

My phone rang, I picked it up and it was Longneck.

"Hey Jack, I gotta’ go down to Mick's (one of our favorite bars)

tonight to pay the Blind Robin, and I thought you may want to join
me," he said. Barry had been moaning all week about how much
money he owed the Robin, so this might be mildly entertaining and
worth a few free drinks.

"Join you as in lending you the "payment part" or am I just joining

you for a convivial adult beverage or two?" I asked.

"Well no, not the payment part, and actually I don't have the
money right now but I have a plan." Oh God, I thought "a plan".
Every time anyone of us had "a plan" it somehow transmogrified into
"a disaster".

“I’ll pick you up in five minutes and you can tell me "the plan"
on
the way to the joint," I said.

Cruising down to Mick's, Barry outlined his plan.

"Here's what I'm thinking, Jack. You know how The Robin
sneezes that eye out of his dry socket? “Barry asked. I mumbled in
assent. "Well this is kind of a rough plan, but I'm figuring, if I sit on
his blind side and make him sneeze that fake eyeball out and grab it,
I can hold it hostage for the money I owe him."

He looked at me somewhat expectantly and not a little hopefully.

"Let me get this absolutely straight," I said slowly. "You're gonna’

hold the Blind Robin's glass eye hostage? That's IF you can get him
to sneeze, and IF his eye pops out, and IF you're lucky enough to
grab it." I shook my head in disbelief and said, "Longneck, this is a
long shot. I have to ask; are you gonna’ hold the eye hostage right
then and there - just bust out and say 'Hey man, I got your eye...I'll
give it back to you if we're even on the bets.' You know Barry,
maybe I'll just drop you off," I said.
 "Well what else can I do? I don't have the cash," he whined.

"You're gonna’ have to tell him the truth and hope he tacks on
more interest and gives you a payment plan. This hostage eyeball
thing is ridiculous," I concluded.

Nevertheless, we entered Mick’s to Sinatra’s “Summer Wind” and

sure enough, there was the Blind Robin, sitting at the far end of the
bar, hunched over his scotch like a monkey-eating eagle sucking on a
Camel regular.

His huge bodyguard, Bo Konkey, sat next to him clad in a white

silk shirt the size of a bed sheet like a monolith from Stonehenge. As
we approached, “King Konkey” swung towards us, a veritable bank
vault door, his beef-brisket shoulder muscles bunching underneath a
silk façade. A smoldering, bellicose brute of a man, hatred dripped
from him like used motor oil.

His head was so wide it looked like an anvil and it was amazing
there was no brain matter in all that width of a head. All that meat
and no potatoes, “King Konkey” was a loose nightmare floating about
on an endless Halloween.

The Blind Robin's scruffy, too long hair appeared as a ruff of

feathers around his avian neck, and as Longneck and I drew closer
he turned his good eye towards us and smiled a nicotine smile. “Bo,
go find something to eat, at least fifty feet away” said Robin.

A calved glacier, “King Konkey” drifted into the dining room

towards the All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet. Reeling about the buffet line, he
was a great white whale, tethered by the invisible harpoon of his
addiction; food.

"Gentlemen," Robin rasped, "what brings you here?” Like he

didn’t know it was “pay the piper” time.

“Tommy," he told the bartender, “set 'em up here, on me."

“Thank God” I thought, “at least I get a free snap out of this.”
Barry quickly took the stool on the Robin's blind side as I took the
other. The Robin turned his good eye to me and said, “I haven't seen
you in while Jack, how 'ya been?" I could see Barry in the mirror
behind the bar grab a pepper shaker and furiously begin to shake it.

"Good Robbie, good," I replied, "And thanks for the drink."

Longneck was still pistoning the pepper shaker up and down as

fast as he could, desperately goin' for the Big Sneeze.

The Blind Robin swiveled suddenly towards Barry and said

"What the f--- are you doin' with that goddamn pepper shaker?!!"

"I...I...how did you see me," stammered Longneck.

"You idiot, there's a mirror behind the bar; you've only been
drinking here for a hundred years," cried Robin. "Put that freakin’
pepper down and let's talk bidness."

Expecting the worst, the evening ended rather calmly and

Longneck's stupid "plan" died a deservedly ignominious, unspoken
death. Barry told the truth, the Blind Robin never sneezed and
“kindly” extended Longneck's payment plan, and I consumed three
free drinks. But I wasn't the big winner in this fiasco; it was “Lucky
Longneck”.

God works in strange ways, at times for strange people.

Three nights after Barry and I were at Mick's with the Blind
Robin, we and the whole town was stunned and saddened to learn
Robin Rigatoni, while leaving Mick's, had been killed immediately
when he was plowed over by a runaway meat truck. Big Bo Konkey
(according to witnesses) bounced unharmed off the truck‘s bumper
and fled after stuffing innumerable steaks down his pants never to be
seen again.

Surely the only one-eyed bookie ever run over by a load of strip
steaks, his memory lives on, his bets and vigorish uncollected. Barry
was saddened, of course, but not overly so. Bad luck for the Robin,
scoreboard for Barry.

Cat People and Pussies Galore