Fun House

they can talk about what furniture they should take with them when they move to Ohio. If Rita’s feeling the way I am right now, she might be ready to split, because she doesn’t recognize Sea Haven anymore. The TV has taken everything we love and flattened it out or glossed it up.

And still I can’t stop watching this drek.

We see Paulie and the gang having fun at Big Kahuna’s. “What should have been the most amazing dance competition ever,” says Chip, “waltzed off the floor and out the door when Paulie left the club with an adoring fan.”

We see Mandy Keenan flirting with Paulie, who, in the edit, looks like he only tugged up his T-shirt to flash her his pecs because Mandy kept begging for him to do it.

In one angle they cut to, in the background I can see Ponytail and his whole three-man crew. Now we go tight on Mandy’s face. I’m thinking Ponytail’s team got that shot.

“Meet Mandy Keenan,” the announcer continues. “A young woman who had a little too much to drink last Friday night. An eager admirer Paulie had hoped to let down gently, gracefully.”

“WTF?” I think so I don’t have to bleep my brain. Paulie had hoped to bang her, pardon my French, not “let her down gently.”

“Paulie Braciole was the sweetest man I ever met,” says Mandy, all dolled up for the cameras, a squiggle of black mascara trickling down her cheek. Somebody must have brought in a bulldozer and cleaned all the crap out of her living room. Instead of crusty Frappuccino cups and crinkled Cheetos bags, I see fresh-cut flowers and one of those Kinkade cottage paintings.

As I’m shaking my head in disbelief, I see Mr. America, the white-haired white supremacist from the French-fried version of Candyland. He’s at the bar, signaling for the bartender. She gestures back. Wants the guy to cool his jets, probably till the next commercial break. She’s glued to the TV screen.

Me, too, mostly because I can’t believe how unreal this week’s version of reality has turned out.

“He, like, walked me home,” says Mandy.

Yes, in the background, they are playing a slow, piano-only instrumental version of the Barry Manilow number. “Mandy.” Pure dentist-office music.

We see grainy, handheld camera footage of Paulie and Mandy stumbling up the walkway to her front door. They cut out before Paulie flips Ponytail the finger.

“I made us both some coffee,” says Mandy with a slight giggle. “Believe me, we needed it. Well, I did. I drank more than I usually do, because I was so excited about meeting a celebrity. Anyways, Paulie, was a total gentleman. He looked at me with those big brown Bambi eyes and told me his heart was already spoken for. He said he didn’t come to the Fun House to find love but, at the Fun House, love found him.”

Soft dissolve to Soozy K and Paulie all tangled up together when they played Twister on the beach during Episode Four. Cross-dissolve to gauzy footage of the two them splashing each other in the hot tub. Another dissolve, and they’re playing Frisbee with a puppy-but that footage is shot so you can’t see “Paulie’s” face, because I think they shot it after Paulie died with a body double and a rented dog.

“Soozy K and he were hoping to take their relationship to the next level,” says Mandy. “I respected that. Sure, I wanted him all to myself; what woman wouldn’t? But his heart could never be mine. I could see that. I felt it. Here.” She taps her own chest, I guess to give the camera a reason to go in tighter on her bazoombas. “So, seeing how Paulie was sober and I was still kind of blitzed, I lent him the keys to my car so he could run home and be with Soozy. His soulmate.”

Geeze-o, man.

At least the next thing the hidden manipulators of reality cut to is a snapshot of the car we’re really looking for: Mandy’s silver Mustang coupe, the car she calls Butch. We’re treated to several cheesecake shots. Seems Mandy liked to pose next to her car in several different bikinis in several different seasons, so this segment about the missing Mustang resembles a video version of one of those pinup calendars hanging in the oil-change bay at a skuzzy gas station.

“I hope someone finds my car,” says Mandy when they cut back to her. “I hope it helps the police catch Skeletor.”

Up comes a black-and-white title: WHO IS SKELETOR?

Back comes Mandy with the answer: “He’s the man who murdered Paulie Braciole.”

Boom! She’s wiped off the screen by the “To Catch a Killer” graphics.

“More from the funeral,” says the breathlessly excited announcer, “and how you can help the police catch Paulie’s killer-after the break!”

Then, believe it or not, they roll a Ford car commercial.

For their new Mustang model.

I’ve seen enough. I’m ready to head for home.

But when I turn to leave, Mr. Deep Fried Pepsi Balls is standing there, two beers in one hand. He head-bobs toward the other chair at my table.

“Anybody sitting there?”

“Nope. You can have both seats. I’m out of here.”

He holds out one of the beers.

“I bought you a beer.”

I check out the bottle gripped between his fingers, mostly so I can check out those knuckles Ceepak noticed. Yep. They’re both there. 8 and 8.

“Thanks,” I say, “but I’m not really thirsty.”

“I talked to Thomas.”

“Who?”

“Skeletor.”

22

Okay.

The guy knows how to get my attention. I sit back down.

The man from the All American Snack Shack looks exhausted and sort of sick. Maybe he has a queasy stomach from inhaling coconut-oil fumes all day. He’s wearing a navy blue polo shirt, his bottle-brush white hair looks like it’s wilting and needs watering, and, when he takes off his black-rimmed glasses, I can see bright red marks the nose pads have left behind. He takes the seat across from me.

On the TV screen over his head, I can see Elton John playing the pipe organ inside Our Lady of the Seas Catholic Church. Wow. He was really there.

Now my unexpected visitor takes a long pull on his beer. It’s beechwood-aged Budweiser, of course. No fancy European import brewskis for this patriotic American. I guess as the day drags on, I’m losing my edge. I don’t bust his chops about Bud being a Belgian beer, seeing how the folks in St. Louis sold out to InBev, a company based in some place called Leuven, which I’m told is near Brussels, home of the sprouts. And their CEO is a Brazilian.

“Thomas did not kill Mr. Braciole,” the guy says when the beer has given him enough courage to talk.

“So why doesn’t he turn himself in?”

“He’s scared.”

“How come?”

“They ostracized him.”

“The Creed?”

He nods.

“So,” I say, “what exactly does that mean? Ostracization or whatever.”