Pipsqueak (2 page)

Glass crunched underfoot as I cautiously advanced into the room. Biker Boy, decked out in matching black jeans and T-shirt, was sprawled on his back, his hairy bare arms badly glass-gashed and responsible for a lot of extraneous blood. He had long messy dark hair, sideburns, and thick black-framed glasses half wrenched from his face. I scanned the floor for the gun: zip.

There was a canvas folder tucked in his belt, a small shaft of silver metal sticking out of it. I thought it was a knife at first, but then recognized the metal for what it was: a tuning fork. Hell’s Piano Tuners?

The loon lay in front of the counter, legs broken, head pulverized. But the perch and fake rock still looked useful. On the wall behind the counter there was only a dust shadow where Pipsqueak had been.

I stepped over a smashed porcelain poodle lamp. Biker Boy was still breathing, barely, but had stopped moaning or moving. My idea was to try to bind up some of his leaks before calling the cops, so I grabbed a stack of linen commemorative Bicentennial napkins from the floor, took the biker’s hand, and lifted his arm. That’s when I saw another, more dramatic wound near his armpit. Though I couldn’t get a good gander at it through the tear in his T-shirt, it looked very nasty, with meat or something sticking out of it.

The room suddenly got a little dim and began to twist. I dropped the biker’s arm and braced myself against a bookshelf. Without having much of a chance to be grossed out, I realized I was about to faint and struggled past the bathroom and into the small efficiency dwelling beyond. I sat on a nicely ruffled bed, slapped myself a couple times, and picked up the phone.

Chalk one up for steering clear of strangers’ driveways.

Chapter 2

B
ack in the dark ages when I was but a lad, back before the felling of rabbit ears in favor of the kudzu of coaxial cables and the gibbous shadows of satellite dishes, TV audiences were limited to a “broadcast area.” Afternoon programming was provided by the three networks airing soaps, soaps, and more soaps. All other after-school programming emanated from cinder-block bunkers dotting the outskirts of town; the independent stations scraped together what they could to tap into the local ad market. In my area, we had Station 10, which ran saggy-scripted B flicks interspersed with an unctuous host pulling postcards and phone numbers for lucky daily winners. The prize: dinner-theater tickets to what had to be the longest-running
Brigadoon
in North America. Another station, Channel 3, had soap reruns from caveman days when TVs were round. Another was VHF, Public Television Station 22, which due to vagaries of the stratosphere or something couldn’t be tuned in until after my bedtime.

Though the sun might be shining and the lawns might be freshly mowed invitations to a rousing game of capture the flag, kids’ bicycles in a thirty-mile radius were tossed aside for the rec-room sanctuary offered by Channel 8:
The General Buster Show
.

In a word, this homegrown program was a five out of ten on the
Captain Kangaroo
scale. I think we even knew that back then. But at the same time, I think we were keenly aware that
The General Buster Show
was broadcast only in our area and, for all its technical and talent shortcomings, it was
our
show. It helped that we were encouraged to send in artwork and postcards, which eventually got shown or read on TV. In return we got on the mailing list and were kept abreast of local shopping centers where Buster and cast would be making appearances.

Now, I don’t mean to upset all the General Buster fans out there. Buster put a lot of heart into the show, I’ll grant him that, though he was clearly a middling clown/ventriloquist who didn’t know when to quit. Valiant, too, were the writers, designers, and crew, despite lousy equipment that constantly tripped up their best efforts. There were collapsing sets, klieg fires, and miscued cameras that accidentally showed the puppeteers, or Buster adjusting his gargantuan white muttonchops.

The premise was a mélange (some might say rip-off) of many contemporary cartoon and kiddie shows. General Buster commanded Blast-Off Air Force Base in some remote location called the North Woods. He wore a red uniform, a cascade of medals, a white gun belt complete with a gold-plated .45, and a white pith helmet with a red parrot named Gussie on top. His retinue was comprised of three puppet pilots: Howlie the Wolf, sidekick Possum, and Pipsqueak the Nutty Nut. The set looked like the inside of a Quonset hut, a painted canvas airfield outside the window. Inside were the Magic File Drawers, the Milkshake Saloon, and Sergeant Desk, who spoke in squeaks that only Buster could understand.

Each show would open with a bugle sounding retreat over the roar of a jet landing. Buster made his entrance as though he’d just come back from a flight. He’d take off his parachute and greet the live kiddie audience. Gussie the red parrot would then say hello to the kids and hit the General with a lame knock-knock joke. The rest of the cast then popped up in the window and matched wits with General Buster. Without fail, each episode’s suspense centered on Howlie and Possum’s scheme to eat or annihilate Pipsqueak—if only they could: a) get Buster to fall asleep; b) send Buster off to fly a wild-goose-chase mission; or c) prove Pipsqueak was a traitor so that Buster would have to shoot him. The result was usually that: a) Buster woke up in the nick of time (kid audience screaming, “Wake Up!”); b) Buster returned in the nick of time (kid audience screaming, “Come Back!”); or c) Sergeant Desk or the Magic File Drawers would produce evidence clearing Pipsqueak of treason. Howlie and Possum would be sent to the Brig without a milkshake. The End.

And how’s this for a little Cold War nostalgia? Buster’s troop had a greater nemesis, simply referred to as “the Enemy.” This thinly guised Slavic empire inspired air-raid drills on the show during which kids at home were supposed to duck and cover.

And of course, there were low-rent cartoons on the show.
Roger Ramjet
was the main ingredient, plus a portion of
King Leonardo
, a dash of
Ruff and Reddy
, and a pinch of
Crusader Rabbit
.
Clutch Cargo
cliff-hangers were the garnish to the show’s end.

Barring nuclear winter, the show went off every weekday with the not-so-subtle mission of promoting Gutterman’s Taffy Cremes, confections so gooey they peeled from their wrappers like slugs from hot macadam. Every kid I knew found the cremes themselves utterly horrible, as well as the company name, which made us all think of sauerkraut or pickles. But against all odds, the entire cast of
General Buster
worshipped Gutterman’s Taffy Cremes. Pipsqueak naturally favored Gutterman’s Peanut Butter and Jelly Taffy Cremes, and his dopey likeness even appeared on the package. Predictably, we kids caved in to the pressure of advertising and bought the chews regularly, despite the fact that we made “yechh” faces as we scraped the taffy from our teeth.

Perhaps the most novel aspect of
The General Buster Show
was that a taxidermist had made the puppets from real animals, though I think Howlie must have been fashioned from a coyote rather than a wolf. Possum was a stuffed opossum, looking fiendishly like a rat. Terribly un-PC by today’s standards, granted, but this was the dark ages, when a bacon-and-egg breakfast was de rigueur and TV drunks were funny.

Our happy hero—Pipsqueak—was made from a real squirrel. He was a good-natured goof, who through sheer luck managed not to get killed between the hours of three and four-thirty every weekday afternoon. And for some reason Pipsqueak riveted us kids.

In many ways, I’d have to say the puppets on
The General Buster Show
inspired my appreciation for taxidermy, perhaps because the five-and-dime plush replicas of Pipsqueak never did the genuine puppet justice. The closest I ever got to meeting the real Pipsqueak was at the grand opening of a new Buster Brown shoe store. But thanks to my little brother’s penchant for petty crime (he’d siphoned and sold the gas from our car to local go-carters), the parental bus ran late and a sizable herd of kids kept me separated from the Nutty Nut by several hundred feet.

So when I saw Pipsqueak in that glass case, a flood of boyhood aspirations instantly disarmed me. Was it possible that I could—not just touch, not just manipulate—but be
the sole possessor of
Pipsqueak? Alas, it was too good to be true.

Chapter 3

T
he local Sussex County papers dubbed it
The T3 Murder,
and the best efforts of the state police were to no avail in solving the case quickly, although I give them credit for finding Marti Folsom, the actual owner of the little curio shop, in a coat closet at the store. A hook-nosed woman, fifties, with blond beehive hair, she was trussed with duct tape, gagged, and bound by the wrists to the hanger rod. She was very much alive, especially after being unbound. I was still there when they found her, and you haven’t heard such screaming and wailing in all your life. “Thieves! Violated by thieves! What kind of country do we live in where people tape you in a closet! Where are the police? Sleeping in their cars, that’s where they are!” Like that.

Biker Boy was identified as Tyler Loomis, alias Gut Wrench, former punk-rock devotee, Greenwich Village roustabout, perennial record/poster store employee, and more recently a card-carrying sonopuncturist (that is, an acupuncturist who doesn’t puncture, using tuning forks instead of needles). His activities and association with Cola Woman—presumed murderess—remained a mystery. However, had he not arrived when he did, the cops surmised that Cola Woman might have done me harm.

As you can imagine, my ordeal with the police was lengthy. I had to go down to the state police barracks. That is to say, they asked me to come down and recite my statement again. Now, you don’t have to go if you’re not under arrest. But the cops have a really annoying way of insinuating that if you have nothing to hide, you’ll go. I don’t know who trains them in this skeezy tactic, but they’re very good at it. It’s as rudimentary—and effective—as saying, “Chicken?”

So you go, kidding yourself that if you do, the whole thing will pass by like a sun shower. They act all chummy, give you coffee, chitchat about sports, and sit you down in the room with the glass wall, behind which stands a platoon of assistant district attorneys and other animal behaviorists ready to judge your performance. One thing they knew for sure was that whoever did the crime had to be there to do it, and I was there.

Yeah, well, I know from past experiences with the law—and just from reading the papers—that the innocent can royally botch such interviews, inviting unwarranted suspicion and time in the jug. They want a statement at the precinct, fine, but the right thing to do is get a lawyer, if only to keep you from having an anxiety attack. Sure, the cops will give you the “Chicken?” treatment again, but give them a “Pound sand!” smile and drop a dime on your barrister.

It helps, of course, if you’ve got one to call. I didn’t. But a New Jersey friend, Bob Martinez, recently sued his garbage collectors and was therefore tight with his lawyer. Dammit—he wasn’t in, so I left a message and hung up. I noted someone standing behind me.

“Waiting for the phone?” I frowned.

“Go ahead,” he smiled. A shortish brown man, he had a leathery complexion, high cheekbones, silver hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a bolo tie. Large features and button eyes betrayed a kindly spirit. I guessed him to be Native American.

“Thanks.” I started punching the two dozen digits for my calling card and a line home to Angie, when the man behind me tapped my elbow.

“Sorry to bother you, but I couldn’t help but overhear. You looking for a lawyer?”

“Yup. You know one?”

He smiled again, and I looked at his shoes. I’ve got a theory about how to size up people’s characters. It’s all in the smile. And the shoes. I liked the beneficent smile. Who wouldn’t? I followed his bowed legs down to the shoes: suede cowboy boots, the lived-in kind, not the line-dancing kind.

“I’m an attorney,” he said almost bashfully. “Not in Jersey. In New York. But did I hear right? You just want someone to sit in on your statement?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, I can advise you, you know. It’s not like you’re going before the Court.” His voice was soothing, but deep and soothing, like the distant hum of a lawn mower on a summer day.

Yikes, would this be convenient or what? “How much?”

“You from New York? The City?”

I nodded, expecting that his price had just jumped.

A slow shrug worked up his body and spilled over his shoulders. After a slow blink, he said, “It’s a freebie. Maybe in the city you’ll need a lawyer sometime.” He handed over a card, which read:
Roger Elk, Attorney, 115 East 23
^rd
St., Suite 403, N.Y., N.Y.

“I couldn’t ask you to take time out to—”

He waved away my objections and led me by the elbow away from the phone. “I’m only here to report that someone backed into my car in a parking lot. And, you know, once in a while you have to commit random acts of kindness. I may have read that on a bumper sticker, but it’s true.”

“Well, this would be really, really good of you, Mr. Elk, really.”

He winced. “Call me Roger, er . . . ?”

“Carson. Garth Carson.”

“So, Garth Carson, tell me what happened and then let’s talk to the police together, hmmm?”

My lucky day.