King Dork

available in stores, we would sell our story and make a million dollars.

C H I-MOS AR E R EAL RO C K AN D ROLL

My mom had come to visit at the hospital briefly during one of my most out-of-it phases. I hardly remember it, but I know I asked her to bring me the CEH library. She had passed the task along to Little Big Tom.

So Mr. Aquino started moaning, then wheezing, and then—well, in a way this was one of the bigger surprises of the whole affair. Little Big Tom and Amanda walked in together, and they seemed to be getting along pretty well. It’s not like they came in holding hands and skipping or anything. But Amanda was acting civil toward him, almost friendly, which was quite something. I mean, her eyes were rolling less than usual, and you’d be surprised at what a difference a small thing like that can make. She even pretended to laugh, just a little, when he said “Calling Dr. Howard!” Now, I have no idea why that was supposed to be funny, but you could tell by the look on his face that it was supposed to be a riot. I had never seen Amanda humor LBT like that. As for him, he was clearly in fake-dad heaven. Say what you will about Little Big Tom: it doesn’t take much. And a hospital visit can really help pull a fake family together.

One thing about being in the hospital: people always feel they should bring you something when they visit. Amanda brought in this impressive series of drawings illustrating the Chi-Mos story, kind of like the Bayeux Tapestry, except instead of William the Conqueror and the Pope and so forth, the main characters were me, Sam Hellerman, and Mr.

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Teone, whom she had drawn as a kind of effeminate Satan.

The last one depicted a wailing Mr. Teone being crushed under huge granite letters that spelled “Chi-Mos Are Real Rock and Roll!”

The drawings were childlike and brilliant, almost like real art. I totally wanted to use them for the first Chi-Mos album.

Actually we had already tentatively changed the name to the Elephants of Style, me on guitar, Sam Enchanted Evening on bass and animal husbandry, first album Devil Warship. Well, there was plenty of time to talk about it. I kissed Amanda on the forehead when she leaned over. She said: “You’re the most famous person I know,” which was sweet. She was being all Phoebe-esque and nicer-than-usual to me, too. Weird.

Little Big Tom had put two and two together and had realized I had been doing research into my dad’s youth reading list. So he decided, helpfully, to provide me with a comple-mentary LBT library. He had been impressed that I had swiped his Che Guevara T-shirt, so the LBT books were tilted toward impenetrable and/or goofy books on radical politics that no one would ever read voluntarily anymore. Among them was a beat-up copy of The Little Red Book, which is a collection of retarded sayings by this chubby mass murderer from China. (He made an appearance earlier in this story on Sam Hellerman’s hand-lettered T-shirt—guy by the name of Mao.) People in the sixties liked to be seen carrying this book around, hoping it would make them appear more radical and cutting-edge and sexy and intellectual. I guess you started out carrying around The Catcher in the Rye, and then, when you got a little older and the thrill was gone, you “turned political”

and switched to The Little Red Book instead. The funny thing is, by all accounts, doing this really could get you dates. With the hairy women of the time, perhaps, but still.

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There was of course no need to investigate Little Big Tom: he was already an open book, and there wasn’t even one little thing about him that wasn’t painfully obvious. That was part of his charm, maybe, but it made the LBT library a bit less compelling than he probably imagined. I nodded politely, though, and went along with it.

“Kill the bourgeois pigs,” I said. “And the running dogs of the imperial yo-yo or whatever. Except for you and Mom.

We need you to hang in there long enough to pay for our college.” Amanda nodded solemnly and put her arm around me, and we both flashed him sardonic peace signs.

You’ve got to hand it to Little Big Tom, though: he was either too clueless or too “centered” to let anything like that bother him. He just smiled back and rumpled our hair.

“Kids today,” he said, and we all laughed. I mean, he did.

Just before they left, as I was saying good-bye to Amanda, I made a sudden decision and handed her the bloodstained Brighton Rock.

“It was Dad’s book,” I said. “It’s the best book ever written.”

As she walked out, she had the book open and was staring at the inside front cover, at the bloody CEH 1965, and I had a pretty good idea what she was thinking. Maybe I’d even tell her the whole story one day if she played her cards right. And if I ever figured it out.

Whatever they were giving me in the hospital was pretty outstanding. They should put it in the water supply or something: the world would be a more peaceful and rewarding place. Life flies by in a nice breeze, and you remember stuff as if none of the boring or unpleasant parts even happened.

So I’m not sure if it was before or after the LBT/Amanda visit, and in fact I may be mixing up or joining a couple of dif-284

ferent episodes, but there was at least one other significant hospital event, and here’s how I remember it.

Mr. Aquino started moaning, then wheezing, and then I saw Shinefield, Syndie Duffy’s floppy boyfriend, coming past the curtain. He was followed by Celeste Fletcher and Syndie Duffy. Yasmynne Schmick and Sam Hellerman came in a couple of minutes later. Sam Hellerman discreetly handed me two sealed envelopes as he walked by.

So was Sam Hellerman hanging out with the drama people again? Or had he been all along? Or maybe they had just given him a lift. At any rate, the scene was very much as it had been during his hippie lunch phase. They weren’t paying too much attention to Sam Hellerman, though they didn’t seem to mind that he was hanging around. And the whole time, even when he was talking to me, he just stared at Celeste Fletcher’s ass, even going so far as to reposition himself so as to get a better view whenever she happened to move it out of his line of sight.