True Story

This is a true story,” says McKuen, who should know better.  Seeing Ritter’s the only one listening, he wisely stops. Ritter knows how McKuen feels because, as a fellow non-coach, he can’t get a word in, either. Once Tex and Mongo start reminiscing about football, forget it. The four high school teachers are in the Corn Crib. It’s happy hour.

Savoring smoke, half-priced drinks and junk collage décor, Ritter wonders what does that make the other twenty-three? Or twenty-two, if you count the fact that happy hour actually lasts two hours. Whatever.

Drinking and half-listening to their talk of Xs and Os, he’s been staring up at posters of Marilyn Monroe, Hopalong Cassidy, King Kong and Brando from “The Wild One.” He considers bringing the matter up for actual, real discussion. It is, after all, Friday afternoon of a long aggravating week in October and the four of them are sitting on upturned oak barrels around a table built of sawhorses and railroad ties.  And drinking.  What better time?

Ritter’s drinking beer. Everybody is, except McKuen, who’s sipping rum, passion fruit and crème de menthe.  Every time they finish off a pitcher, which is often, this auburn-haired Irish beauty asks if they’d like another. They would. Oh yes, indeed.

“And bring me another one of these,” McKuen snaps. “Quick.” McKuen grins nastily at the barmaid, daring her to be offended. But she just takes away the empty. 

A real charmer, this guy. Suave, in a navy blazer and black turtleneck, with iron gray disdainful eyes, a neat moustache. Mostly seems lost in his own world of thought, except when his cracked, pedantic voice whipsaws through the silence with a snide observation or angry witticism. Not as physically intimidating as the others, but quietly deadly. He’s clever too, this high school sociology teacher. When the barmaid returns, she plonks down the pitcher and McKuen’s drink. 

 “Don’t mind McKuen. He’s just upset because nobody wants to hear his goddamn story,” Ritter says.

The waitress’ smile gladdens Ritter’s heart. Suddenly she’s standing beside him and pressing her chest against his cheek. It’s all about annoying McKuen, and it works.  Riled up like he’s found a bug in his drink, he seems to notice Ritter for the first time. 

“That’s not funny,” McKuen says.

The barmaid thinks it is, though. She just stands there, cheek to chest with Ritter, who loves every minute of this game. He smiles and smiles. Smiles till his jaw aches. Till it falls off on the floor and back up at him. Smiles until the barmaid walks away. 

“I said that’s not funny,” McKuen repeats.

“Who’s laughing?” says Ritter, aware he’s had a few too many and should watch his mouth before it gets him into trouble again.

The frustration in their voices finally penetrates the cloud of coach-talk.

“What’s this?” asks Tex, who’s about Ritter’s age, 25, and nicknamed for his handlebar moustache and cowboy boots. 

“He thinks he’s a comedian,” McKuen says. 

“I must have missed the joke,” Tex says.

“Yeah, I’m a comedian, and I guess you’re Errol fucking Flynn,” Ritter says.

“Knock it off, you two,” Mongo says.

He’s older, in his late thirties, and the group’s center of gravity. Although he hides the fury that high school teaching engenders in them all beneath a calm surface, one look at his enormity, his goatee and his gleaming shaved head is all it takes to know you don’t want to cross him. 

Carefully taking another sip of his beer, Ritter watches McKuen work his jaw muscles. It is this barely suppressed rage that they all share. The Corn Crib is decorated with empty feedbags and assorted relics, like the old wood coffee grinder on the bar, the butter churn in the corner and the kerosene lantern hanging from exposed rafters. Rustic, Ritter thinks. Damned rustic.

“This is a true story—”

“Another pitcher?” asks the barmaid, inadvertently interrupting McKuen.

Hell yeah.

“This is a true—”

Ritter cuts him off. “Hey, did you guys hear about the papers?”

“God damn it!” McKuen explodes.

Mongo says, “Hold it, Mac. Don’t interrupt.”

Ritter loves it. Mongo’s impishness is wonderful—when directed at others.

“The papers are in trouble because nobody reads them anymore. Know why?  Because nobody can read,” Ritter says.

“All too true. Now tell us your story, Mac,” Mongo says.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Tex says.

“This is a true story,” McKuen begins, with a menacing look at Ritter, who is momentarily distracted by a plate full of free chicken wings.

“I was drinking with a buddy of mine, a guy so weird you’d have to know him to really appreciate him,” McKuen is saying.

“Ever hear of Mad Dog Dimino?” Ritter interrupts. “Built like Atlas. Incredible body. A real physical specimen. First time I met him down at Western, he tackled a tree.  Swear to God. We’d been having a few beers and, on the way back to the dorm, Mad Dog tackles this tree. More of a roll block actually.”

“Was he any good as a ballplayer?” Mongo asks.

“Well, he sure stopped that tree for no gain,” Ritter grins.

This gets a good laugh all around. Ritter swills his beer triumphantly. But McKuen won’t give up.

“This is a true story,” he insists. “My buddy and I were on this beautiful hillside overlooking this deep blue lake. You’d have to know this place to appreciate it.”

“Like your buddy,” Ritter says.

Ignoring him, McKuen continues, “On this hillside overlooking the lake, this odd character appears to us. He’s wearing a Captain Midnight T-shirt and clutching a mysterious looking black box.”

“Mysterious looking,” Ritter repeats.

“Overhearing our philosophical discussion, he draws nearer. Suddenly he springs at us and begins screaming a high, piercing scream almost a whistle. He says, ‘You all don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ll never know the truth.’ And with that, he hurls the black box into the deep blue lake. Now if you were there, what would you do?”

McKuen sits back, gratified at last. When no one speaks, he says, “Well?”

“I’d go get the box,” Tex says.

“Aha! You would, would you?” McKuen says.

“If it wasn’t too cold in there, I would.”

“How about you, Mongo?” McKuen asks.

Leaping to his feet, Mongo clicks his heels together smartly, gives a Nazi salute, and yells in a surprisingly good German accent, “Heil! No true son of the fatherland would fail in his duty. Of curse I vould fetch der box.”

He sits down, folds his muscular arms and stares down gapers at other tables. Ritter’s not surprised because he knows how much Mongo loves mind games. You didn’t get to be Mongo’s friend without passing a few tests, both physical and intellectual.

“Now you,” McKuen says, looking at Ritter.

“No.”

“Come on, say what you would do.”

“Why?”

“Just answer Mac’s question, Joe, will you?”

“Okay, Mongo. Here’s my answer then. Go fetch your own goddamn crate, McKuen.”

Exasperated, McKuen frowns at Ritter.

“Get on with it, Mac,” Tex urges.

Sighing, McKuen says, “All right, but first, let us make no mistake about this. Tell us once more what you would do. Tex?”

“I’d go get it.”

“Mongo?”

“Me, too.”

“Very well. What I did was go down there and get the black box out of the lake.”

“What was in it?” Tex inquires.

“The truth.”

“The truth was in that box?”

McKuen nods.

“What did it look like?” Ritter asks, surprising himself for caring.

“You’ll never know,” McKuen says, “because you wouldn’t go fetch the box.”

Ritter suppresses his rage, goes home, and writes his own version of McKuen’s story—but with a new ending: “I leapt up, kicked over the table and shouted, ‘You lie, guru!’ Pitcher and mugs crashed to the floor. In a flash, I was on McKuen, kneeing him in the groin. The others watched in disbelief as I savaged McKuen thoroughly. Grabbing him by his ear lobe, I dragged him out of the Corn Crib. Nobody tried to stop me.

“When we got to my truck, I slammed McKuen into the back and returned to the bar to get one of those barrels we’d been sitting on. I heaved it into the truck and raised the tailgate so it wouldn’t roll out on the drive to the lake. When we got there, I stuffed McKuen into the barrel and rolled it to the top of the green hillside overlooking the deep blue lake. Then I kicked it.

“As the barrel went rolling down the hillside, I screamed, ‘You didn’t know what you were talking about, but now you do. Here’s some truth for you.’ And I watched as the lake swallowed him.”

On Monday morning at school, Ritter places a copy of his tale in the mailboxes of Tex, Mongo, and McKuen. He’s waiting for the others in the teachers’ lounge when they come in at lunchtime. Ritter’s expecting McKuen to be angry—maybe mad enough for a fistfight. But the odd sociology teacher smiles and says, “I see you were paying attention after all. I enjoyed your story.”

A puzzle, that McKuen. Later, he proposed that Ritter try out one of McKuen’s sociology experiments on his English students. Tired of his grade-slave students’ sheep-like behavior, McKuen offers them this choice: “Do your work and receive a grade under normal conditions, or come into class each day, get down on all fours and baa like a sheep for an A.”

“How many of them did?”

“All of them.”

“None of my kids will do that,” Ritter says.

To prove it, he agrees to offer them McKuen’s choice—and is dumbfounded when all of them baa. After one day, Ritter halts the experiment in disgust—partly with them, partly with himself.

Still, when McKuen is fired (or quits, take your pick) after telling an administrator to, “Get your ass out of my classroom,” Ritter is sorry to see him go.

This is a true story.

© 2024 Rick Neumayer

“True Story” will appear in the forthcoming THREE FOGGY MORNINGS: Stories by Rick Neumayer. If you like this one, I’d love to hear from you.