------------------------------- Note 10 the terminal *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/18/79 12:08 am graper / newauth / unidel Dear Friends: Must apologize for not speaking or writing in so long. What with all this TUTOR work I'm trying to do now, it just seems that when I'm on the computer I've got something else to do. I should have my sample lesson done soon, maybe. It's so scatalogical that it's silly, yet that was the way it had to be done in order for all my practice exercises to get done, you know. But enough of that. How was your christmas? Yeah, same here. Uh, hmm. The terminal. ---------------------------------------- Response 1 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/19/79 11:36 pm graper / newauth / unidel Few men ever reach the heights of stardom. Arthritis is our number one killer. Eat at McDonalds and hallucinate about clowns and talking hamburgers. These were all the messages that Uncle Frank was learning that saturday morning when his nephew came to visit him. Uncle Frank was in a nursing home, and watched a lot of television. Uncle Frank was a nice guy. Friendly with children, a witty conversationalist and strong as a bull. He was the youngest man in the nursing home, 55 years old. His only problem was that he suffered from a terrible mental problem that struck all of a sudden and made him think that he was someone that he was not. Uncle Frank used to live with his nephew until he annoyed him by doing silly things that at first were cute but finally got to be a big pain in the butt and drove him to put Frank in a nursing home. ---------------------------------------- Response 2 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/19/79 11:47 pm graper / newauth / unidel Raymond and Dwayne were homosexuals, walking hand in hand down the sidewalk in front of a big shopping center at two in the morning. Both were strong husky men, bearded and wearing fuzzy lumberjack shirts. Raymond, holding Dwayne's hand, remarked, "I just don't KNOW what she expects of ME!! You think she wants me down on my KNEES or something!!" Caroline was a meaningless female who read her astrologic reading from the newspaper every day, then drank instant coffee, smoked Virginia Slims cigarettes and went to a college class called "The Poetry of Rock Music Lyrics." She had large bosoms, and thought that everyone hated her. She wore too much makeup. Arnold Palmer was a golfer who had a pretty wife named Mariyln. No, not Marilyn. Mariyln. Mariyln appeared on television commercials about Microwave Ovens. Bob Spike was a newspaper seller, at least 59 years old, who had a big red nose from drinking too much. Jane Maysfair was a Newark resident who loved ---------------------------------------- Response 3 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/19/79 11:58 pm graper / newauth / unidel wearing a hat with a peacock feather in it. She ate what was called "natural" food, stopped doing drugs in 1974 yet still drinks. She likes listening to extremely boring "ethnic" music, supports the womens movement and feels that socialism is the only hope for america. Dr. Graper was a student at the University of Delaware. He was amusing, lacked any annoying political overtones and was generally liked. Orville Feshbach was a silly person who lived in an upstairs apartment above a garage and repaired filing cabinets for a living. The bar is one of the most common meeting places of men in existence. This was a bar. It was called, "Lumberjack Joe's" and had a bartender behind the bar dressed like a lumberjack. His name was Christopher, but you could call him "Joe" and he would understand. It was a quiet place, hardly a place any what-the- damned-hell-bustin-loose lumberjack would ever go to for fun but it did provide for a place for what many thought to be ---------------------------------------- Response 4 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/20/79 12:07 am graper / newauth / unidel a "meeting place of the minds." It was the place where the local artist-types gathered, drinking (as artist types always seem to) and sharing rehashed artsy-fartsy insights into the philistinic world outside. In one corner, three 20 year old students were talking about the contribution of Kerouac to the avant- gardes present stance in literature. By the window, some local "writers" were discussing the mode of writing used in Lowry's "Under the Volcano." Sitting at the piano, Dr. Graper (yours truly) was talking about how much he wished to have sexual relations with a 13 year old female Russian gymnast named Nadia Comaneche. Lumberjack Joe (the bartender) listened in on Dr. Graper's conversation with interest. He didn't know who the other guys around the barroom were ever talking about. He had heard of Nadia Comaneche, the Russian Gymnast. The noise at the bar was pretty steady. You could hear a person talking to you from about three feet away, but more than that made it difficult to separate from the ---------------------------------------- Response 5 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/20/79 12:20 am graper / newauth / unidel conversations of everyone else. Dr. Graper sat with his friends, speaking about this or that and feeling relatively amused by the whole sit- uation. He had thought up this whole bar in his mind, created every person in it, wrote it all up a little bit and now was sitting back and watching it go. It was raining outside. The view from the bar window was distorted by the water on it, and cars passing by outside the bar looked jumpy and jiggly. A grumpy young man named Ron came into the bar, all wet. He had a manila envelope in his hand, big and thick. It was pretty dry since he had held it close to his body. "Damn it," Ron said to someone, "rejected again." "Who by now?" "Berstein and Bernstein. That's the third company so far." Poor old Ron had had his book manuscript rejected by another book company again. Too bad. It was called, "The Acropolis Myth", and was fifteen chapters in length. ---------------------------------------- Response 6 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/20/79 12:28 am graper / newauth / unidel Each chapter was 70 pages long. It was all about a man who, across the span of fifteen chapters decides that alienation from society is not the way and that love is a bridge to the beginnings of understanding. It was in- credibly dull, and the man at the book company read only the first three pages before rejecting it. Ronald's friend smiled. "Remember, Hemingway's 'The Sun Also Rises' was rejected twenty times!!" "Yeah," Ron said. He would mail the manuscript to yet another book company the next day. It would be rejected again and again and again. Dr. Graper looked on in dismay, then went over to Ron and sat down next to him. "Ron, I'm an American." "Who the hell are you? What do you want?" "I'm Dr. Graper. I know all about your having your book rejected and I would like it if you would stop clogging up my country's mail system with it. Sending such an article that will most certainly be rejected is practically a crime, you know? A waste of stamps, a waste ---------------------------------------- Response 7 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/20/79 12:37 am graper / newauth / unidel of fuel for the mail trucks. .." "What. . .what. . ." Ron said. Dr. Graper took this as a show of misunderstanding on Ron's part. "Well, let's make it easier with an analogy. Sending your book to a publisher and expecting it to be accepted and purchased is like. . .like throwing a brick into the air and expecting it to stay there. ." Ron was angered, "Look Dr. Whoever-you-are, the last thing I need. . ." Dr. Graper went on, "You see, Ron, your book is dull. Serious, overly contemplative and totally devoid of humor. You see, that's the secret my friend." Ron stood up and pushed Dr. Graper onto the floor, which was hardly an advisable thing to do what with Dr. Graper being the only guy Lumberjack Joe even liked at his bar and Dr. Graper having created Ron and his dull old book in the first place. "Ay you!" Lumberjack Joe the bartender said, pulling out a big hard rubber stick. Ron turned and saw Lumberjack Joe coming and, like ---------------------------------------- Response 8 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/20/79 12:48 am graper / newauth / unidel the dolt he was tried to give Lumberjack Joe a "hard time." He threw a punch at Lumberjack Joe, missed and received a sharp blow on the head from the stick. He fell to his knees, got up again and threw another punch. Everyone in the bar was amazed at how stupid Ron was acting. Ron had asthma, and was wheezing when he threw yet another_______ punch at Lumberjack Joe. His body didn't need this kind of punishment. Dodging the fist, Lumberjack Joe accident- ally hit Ron at an angle, striking him moderately across the "Adam's Apple" and badly bruising his trachea. That was all the fighting Ron was going to do that day. He crawled on the ground, fighting for breath from his terribly sore trachea and his friends took him home. "You OK Doc?" Lumberjack Joe asked Dr. Graper, now sitting by the piano again. "Yeah. Thanks, Joe." Dr. Graper felt very disturbed. He had never had that happen before. "Ay, Doc, you know what this is?" Lumberjack Joe ---------------------------------------- Response 9 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/20/79 1:10 am graper / newauth / unidel asked, holding up Ron's Manila envelope. "Could you give it to me?" "Here," Joe said, throwing it across the room, "It's yours." "Thanks. I'll be going." "Ay, you're not leaving cos of that guy?" "No. Not at all. I'll be seeing you." "Yeah." Dr. Graper had had no idea that that sort of stuff could have happened. Just as well. Caroline came in, and was welcomed by a bunch of her friends. She smiled as she recognized them, but little did it matter. They were all a bunch of serious, overly contemplative and dull creeps and for all intended purposes were non-existent. Dr. Graper walked down the street, holding the envelope in his right hand and an umbrella in his left to let his stronger hand carry the much heavier manuscript. Walking down the street, he found a suitable place to put it: inside a public telephone booth. He knew that three ---------------------------------------- Response 10 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/20/79 1:19 am graper / newauth / unidel days later, two punk high school students would take it to their high school, take the manuscript out of its envelope and stuff it into the toilet in the mens room and flood the place . Here's a strange part. A young 12 year old student named Dan will really have to "go," will use the aforemen- tioned stuffed toilet, will flush it and grotesque results will occur. All three days later. The janitor, an old black man named Maxwell, will be called by the principal. The principal, wincing at the terrible smell in the bathroom, will order Maxwell to clean the place out. Maxwell, upon seeing that a thick sheaf of papers is stuffed into the toilet and refusing to actually use his hands in so grotesque a job will decide to use a machine to clean it out. Being an enterprising fellow, he spends all the next day working on a weird sort of Roto-Rooter device connecting a plumbers snake to the school's lawnmower. It takes another day for him to ---------------------------------------- Response 11 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/21/79 8:52 pm graper / newauth / unidel figure out that the lawnmower won't fit in the mens room. The next two days he will spend disconnecting the motor from the lawn mower and reconnecting the snake to the motor. Upon doing that, about a week later (counting for the weekend off) he finally gets the contraption into the mens room. He starts it up, but the snake/motor connection keeps falling apart. He keeps trying to fix it, then gets it working, starts working and then falls over dead having forgotten that you shouldn't run motors in closed spaces because of the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning. All of which did___ get the manuscript off of Dr. Graper's hands. A little girl was walking by with her mother, cute as a baby's bottom, and was talking aloud about a television show called "Snotty Drawers and the Boog-a-loos." ". . .an' then, Mommy, Mr. Snotty Drawers brings in this . . .this big bear called Cinnammon an' he scares off the bad guys with it. . ." Her mother paid little attention to her daughter, ---------------------------------------- Response 12 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/21/79 8:57 pm graper / newauth / unidel merely responding "Yes, yes, yes" like bored mothers always do to their children. Dr. Graper, watching the two walking hand in hand down the street was amazed at the mother's indifference to her daughter's story. He thought it was very exciting. "Very exciting," he murmured to himself. This was a crucial occurence, he thought. He quickly got out a piece of paper and a pencil and began scribbling, "Snottydrawers uses bear to get rid of bad guys. . . .bear is named Cinammon." ---------------------------------------- Response 13 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/21/79 9:04 pm graper / newauth / unidel Chapter 2 The Terminal Subroutine Ron, the writer, came back to Lumberjack Joe's three days after the incident with Dr. Graper to look for his missing manuscript "Bartender! Bartender!" he shouted, banging on the bar. Lumberjack Joe came out from the back room, saying "What the hell is it? . . . .Oh, it's YOU again!" He grabbed the big plastic stick. "No, no!" Ron said, "I just want to know if you found a yellow manila envelope here in the bar . . .I think I left one here the other night." "What? Oh yeah, dere was one." "Well? Where is it?" "I gave it to the Doc. Doc Graper." Ron's eyes bulged out of his head, "WHAT?? You gave it to that Dr. Whatshisname just like that?? He wanted it ---------------------------------------- Response 14 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/21/79 9:16 pm graper / newauth / unidel destroyed!!" Lumberjack Joe showed no compassion. "Damn it, what kind of idiot are you?" Needless to say, twenty two seconds later Ron found himself lying on the sidewalk. Again, it must be reiterated that Ron was so incredible a dolt that it is hard to understand. He was far too weak a human to take on even the weakest of folks, much less an ex-professional athlete like Lumberjack Joe. But that's just the way he was. He picked himself off and stormed quickly away from the area of the bar. "I've got to find that Dr. Graper!" he mumbled, pounding his fist into the palm of his other hand. Where was Dr. Graper? He was off doing something. Where was Ron's precious manuscript? Presently, after having been stolen by the highschool punks from the telephone booth, it was being stuffed into the toilet in the mens room. Where was Lumberjack Joe? At Lumberjack Joe's Bar, naturally. He was watching television, a show called ---------------------------------------- Response 15 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/21/79 9:27 pm graper / newauth / unidel "Snottydrawers and the Boog-a-loos." The bar was very dark and almost always empty during the middle of the day, so Lumberjack Joe could feel quite uninhibited when watching his show. He would laugh or shout at characters on the screen, jump and run around and generally have a good time. Right then, he was watching in stony silence. With the gentle blue light of his portable TV shining of his face, he looked like an angel. A girl came in for a moment named Mary. She left as soon as she saw no one else was there. The show ,"Snottydrawers and the Boog-a-loos" was a cartoon feature about the adventures of a animated walnut colonial dressing table who was always getting in trouble with his friends, the Boog-a-loos. They were a bunch of other pieces of furniture. In the adventure Lumberjack Joe was watching, Snottydrawers and all his Boog-a-loo friends had been bought by a gangster. Snotty- drawers and all his friends, although a bunch of rascals, did believe in law and order so they decided to turn the ---------------------------------------- Response 16 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/21/79 9:36 pm graper / newauth / unidel crook over to the authorities. It started when the gangster reached into the upper drawer of Snottydrawers for some underwear and Snottydrawers banged it shut on his fingers. Lumberjack Joe had a big laugh over that. Dr. Graper, sitting on a public bench, was very disturbed by such things as Snottydrawers. The aforementioned homosexuals, Dwayne and Raymond, were sitting together watching the show. They weren't holding hands because it was a bit too obvious. They sat only twelve feet away from Dr. Graper, giggling as they watched Snottydrawers stomp his walnut table leg on the gangster's foot. Just listening to the show, the Dr. was able to follow the plot and it disturbed him greatly. All this time he had thought that he was the originator, designer and creator of all the things and characters that were around him. Yet, not in his most perverse moments had he created the show "Snottydrawers and the Boog-a-loos." And how come that Ron the Writer fellow pushed him down in the bar those ---------------------------------------- Response 17 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/24/79 10:35 pm graper / newauth / unidel three nights before? He sat and kept on thinking while Raymond and Dwayne kept giggling in the background. Ron the writer, meanwhile, had found out where Dr. Graper always ate lunch (A local joint called "The Burger Giant") and sat gruffly in its darkest corner. "He'll be here sometime today. He always comes here to eat," he thought to himself, wearing a grumpy frown. "Oh, won't you look at THAT! It's absolutely TACKY!!" Dwayne commented to Raymond about a commercial that had temporarily interrupted the Snotty Drawers Cartoon hour. Dr. Graper sat on the bench, thinking. "Oh, I don't know a THING about that!" Raymond replied, and began playing with Dwayne's hair. This was quite enough for Dr. Graper, and he got up and started walking away. Soon he felt hungry, and began thinking about getting something to eat. "Hope the Burger Giant's open," he thought. The walk to the Burger Giant took only ten minutes, ---------------------------------------- Response 18 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/24/79 10:42 pm graper / newauth / unidel but for some reason it was taking longer today. There was a lot to think about. Ron the writer, staring out the window of the Burger Giant, saw Dr. Graper coming when he was fifty feet from the place. He ran out the front door and began running towards him. Dr. Graper heard a honking from behind and turned to see a Capris Carrera 210 Supersport pulled up beside him. "Hey, Doc, where've you been?" the man inside asked. "What?" "Come on, jump in, we can catch a bite an Sanzio's" "Sanzio's?" "Sure. Come on, my treat." This was too much to pass up. The Dr. walked to the other side and got in. Ron the writer, running now, saw Dr. Graper get into the car and saw the car speed away. "What the hell could he want to do that for??" Ron thought to himself. Then it came to him. Dr. Graper. He'd heard that name before! He was some kind of writer, he thought. Yeah, and he stole Ron's ---------------------------------------- Response 19 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/24/79 10:48 pm graper / newauth / unidel manuscript because it was great and he. . . .he wanted to pretend it was his own and make lots of money with it!! This Dr. Graper guy was a crook! Ron watched the foreign car speed away. It all fell into place for him, the whole conspiracy. "Hey Doc, why didn't you show up this morning? The whole company was worried!" the man in the drivers seat of the Carrera said. He was wearing cut-away leather gloves, an imported Gucci scarf and aviator sunglasses. He looked like a man who knew what he was doing. "What?" "Why didn't you show up this morning? Or really, why didn't you show up the last four mornings?" "Well, I. . ." The impressive looking man laughed. "Hell, I guess when you're as high up as you are, you take off whenever you want." "Yeah, I guess so." There was silence for a moment. "I didn't mean to say that you have to do . . .well, ---------------------------------------- Response 20 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/24/79 10:55 pm graper / newauth / unidel you know, you___ can take off anytime you want." "Yeah," Dr. Graper said, staring out the window. "I mean, you're the boss." "Um hmm. Where is Sanzio's?" The driver let out a sigh of relief. Evidently "The Boss" wasn't angered. "You know. Sanzio's on 12th and Market." "Oh yeah." "We did up the preliminaries while you were gone, Doc. I think they were the way you said you wanted them." "Good." He wondered what a preliminary was. The very-expensive car pulled into the parking lot of Sanzio's Restaurant. The driver opened Dr. Graper's door and everything, which was very strange. At the table, Sanzio himself came out to take the orders. "Whata you wanna to have, mister Dr.?" "Ah, I'll have a. . ." he was interruptted by a man in blue Sears suit suddenly pushing Sanzio aside. ---------------------------------------- Response 21 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/24/79 11:03 pm graper / newauth / unidel "Dr Graper!! Dr. Graper!! I've waited for four days to see you!! Listen, sir, I've got talent!! I've got the stuff that sells big Big BIG!!" Sanzio snapped his fingers and two big Italian kitchen workers began dragging the man in the blue Sears suit out. "I'm sorry, Mr. Dr., buta we have-ah problems!" "That's OK, Sanzio!" the driver of the Carrera said, "We understand." All this was very entertaining, and Dr. Graper ordered two broiled lobsters just because he wanted to see if the man who drove the Carrera and who seemed to think that he was his boss would pay for it. He did. Lumberjack Joe's Tavern closed at 12 noon that day because Lumberjack Joe had gone to visit his ailing uncle Frank on his (uncle Frank's) birthday. He drove up to the Delaware State Home for the Aged in his 1976 Chevrolet Impala with a birthday cake and a case of bourbon as a present. When he got there, he found Uncle Frank in a near ---------------------------------------- Response 22 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/24/79 11:09 pm graper / newauth / unidel catatonic state from receiving shock treatment earlier in the day. He came into the Uncle Frank's room, case of bourbon in one hand and the cake in the other singing "Happy Birthday." Uncle Frank showed no response. He was laying in bed, watching "Snottydrawers and the Boog-a- loos." Lumberjack Joe stopped singing. "Uh, happy birthday, Uncle Frank," he said quietly, setting the cake and the case of liquor beside the old man's bed. "Have you been feeling OK?" No response. "Uh. . .uh, I guess I'll go. You. . .you have yourself a happy birthday now, you hear??" Uncle Frank stared at Snottydrawers on the tele- vision. "Ok. . .bye." Uncle Frank kept staring at the tube. As soon as Lumberjack Joe had driven away, two nurses came into Uncle Frank's room and stole his cake and his liquor and had a party by themselves. ---------------------------------------- Response 23 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/24/79 11:16 pm graper / newauth / unidel Chapter Three: The Terminal Illness "Hello Dr!" everyone said as Dr. Graper walked up to his office. He could vaguely remember the place, the myriads of secretaries and sub-sub-sub-supervisors and continual noise. The man who drove the Carrerra left him with his "personal secretary," Margaret. She was unattractive, yet functional. "Dr. Graper?" "Yes?" "Your Terminal is ready." "What? Where?" "Your Terminal. In your office. The preliminaries were drawn up, and all you have to do now is the terminal work." "Of. . .of course." She pointed towards a massive ten foot oak door with the name "TERMINAL ROOM/DR. GRAPER" written on ---------------------------------------- Response 24 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/24/79 11:25 pm graper / newauth / unidel it in bronze letters. It was locked. Digging through his pockets, he found the key and unlocked the massive door. Inside, it was beautiful. A huge picture window looked out into the city, the sky was clear and the whole view was perfect. The decor of the room was entirely of colonial walnut furniture, tasteful and elegant. "Wow," Dr. Graper said. And looking out onto the terrace was a computer terminal. He sat down at it and looked at its friendly glowing face. "Ready," it said. He pressed the ATTENTION key, and the computer updated him on what was going on and what he had to do. He read it and was amused. This computer, he reasoned, was the device by which he wrote scripts for a living. From what he understood from the computer, a new script was required in two days for the show he was both writing and producing called "Snotty-drawers and the Boog-a-loos." ---------------------------------------- Response 25 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/24/79 11:31 pm graper / newauth / unidel Supposedly he had left in the middle of writing a script called, "Snottydrawers goes out West." [Snottydrawers has been bought by Black Bob, the meanest, toughest hombre in the west] [It is morning, and Black Bob is getting up] Black Bob: (Yawns) Hmm. Time to make a dishonest living. [Reaches in dresser drawer for underwear and it slams shut on his fingers] Black Bob: YOW!! [Laugh Track] And that was where it left off. "Well, here goes," he said and began working on the script once more. Ron the Writer was complaining at Lumberjack Joe's. "Damn it. He takes MY manuscript and makes a billion dollars on it and then I'm stuck without anything!" ---------------------------------------- Response 26 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/24/79 11:40 pm graper / newauth / unidel "Shh!!" Lumberjack Joe said. He was watching Snottydrawers and The Boog-a-loos and could not be dis- turbed. Ron the Writer had learned by this time not to defy Lumberjack Joe's wishes and began watching the cartoon too. Snottydrawers had been stolen by aliens who planned to invade the earth and was giving them a hard time. "Bleep bleep," went the alien, reaching into his dresser drawer for a new set of underwear. BAM went Snottydrawers as he slammed his drawer shut on the alien's tentacles. "YOW!" went the alien and "HARHAR" went the laughtrack. That evidently showed that earth would be no pushover and after leaving Snottydrawers and his other furniture friends back on earth the aliens left, never to return. "Did you see that, when he slammed his drawer shut!! I Love it when he does that!!" Lumberjack Joe giggled. "Yeah, yeah," Ron said. Then the credits rolled by. "Written and Produced by Dr. Graper," they said. ---------------------------------------- Response 27 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/24/79 11:47 pm graper / newauth / unidel "What?" Ron shouted. So that was where he had seen the name Dr. Graper before! "Why, that whole story. . .aliens picking up a set of colonial furniture. . .planning to invade earth. . . why, that's my__ story!! Yeah!! He stole it from my manu- script! The aliens were symbolizing . . .truth! Yeah! Sure, he changed it around a little, but. . ." and on and on Ron went, believing that Dr. Graper had stolen his silly story. Meanwhile, in Dr. Graper's office, the Terminal was printing out story after story to the animation staff far away in Hollywood. They would take the story, put it into cartoon form, put the voice tracks on it and send it to the networks, one ten minute feature per week. Within the space of seven hours, Dr. Graper had written twenty weeks worth of material. Now he just screwed around in his office. "Margaret?" he said over the intercom. "Yes, Dr. Graper?" ---------------------------------------- Response 28 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/24/79 11:55 pm graper / newauth / unidel "Have you made the appointment I requested?" "Everything should be in order within a few hours, sir." "Excellent!" He settled back in his electrically powered vibrator chair. Things were looking up. Ron the writer was furiously driving his Volkswagen towards the building where he had been told Dr. Graper worked. "He'll pay for what he did, dammit! He'll pay!!" The intercom in Dr. Graper's office suddenly came to life. "I made the appointment, sir." "Great!" "Your Champagne and Caviar have arrived." "It is Russian Imported Caviar and Champagne, isn't it?" "Nothing but the best, sir." "Great. Send them in!" At that, two men came in through the door carrying magnums of champagne on ice and buckets of caviar. "Set them over there, would you?" ---------------------------------------- Response 29 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/25/79 12:01 am graper / newauth / unidel The two men obliged. Ron the writer had parked his car and was now proceeding on foot. "Dammit, where's the Gama Building?" he asked, looking at a city map. He walked over to a policeman and asked for directions. After getting them, he made a bee line for the place. "Well, what do you think Margaret?" Dr. Graper's personal secretary held her chin and squinted her eyes. "It's pretty good for a bathrobe." "Bathrobe? This is a 'smoking jacket'." "Oh. Well, it looks pretty good." Dr. Graper turned around to show her every side. "I liked the color. Burgundy." "Very nice," Margaret agreed. "Did you get me the records?" "Yup. Tchaikovsky's 'Pathetique', I believe." "Fantastic! That will be all, Margaret." With that, Margaret turned and left. ---------------------------------------- Response 30 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/25/79 12:08 am graper / newauth / unidel Ron fervently looked through the office listings in the lobby. "Goodman, Goodson, Graaevor, Graper. . .Ah, there he is! Room 2333!" He began running up the stairs, too impatient to take the elevator. Dr. Graper sat in his office, the shades drawn over the windows and Tschaikovsky music playing softly in the background. IRRRKK went the intercom buzzer "Yes, Margaret?" "There's a certain someone here to see you, sir." "Oh, send them in! By all means!" he said, smiling and straightening his smoking jacket. The door slammed open and in stormed Ron. "Just who the hell do you think you are, Graper?!" "Wait a minute. . .I didn't get an appointment with you!!" "Well, I'm MAKING an appointment." "Look, I'm expecting a guest. Perhaps we could talk later." ---------------------------------------- Response 31 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/25/79 12:14 am graper / newauth / unidel "We're talking right now qbout how you stole my manuscript, buddy!" The intercom buzzer buzzed. "The person you made your appointment with has arrived, sir. . ." Margaret said. "Oh, just a minute," Dr. Graper said, a worried look on his face. "One of your buddies, Doc? Waiting to talk about how you're going to split up the profits from my__ work____??" "You've truly come at an inopportune time. . ." "Oh! Oh!! Look what we have here!!" Ron said, holding up a chilled bottle of champagne, "Nothing for the best but the best, eh? Is this where my__ money goes, into imported French Champagne?" "It's Russian champagne." "YOU get to live it up while the man whose work you STOLE is starving. . ." The intercom buzzed again. "Sir, you have the appointment, you know," Margaret said. "Yes, I'll be right with it." "The hell you will!!" Ron shouted, acting foolish ---------------------------------------- Response 32 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/25/79 12:20 am graper / newauth / unidel again. Dr. Graper took Ron by the shoulder and said, "Ron, come over here." Ron went over there. "What is it going to be, huh? A deal or something?? Well, no deals with me, buddy! I want the complete rights to my work!" "Could you step a little closer to my desk?" "Why??" Ron shouted even louder, "Is there some money there that you'll give me to keep quiet or something? Is there some kind of bribe there to keep me away from my work??" "No, it's because the trapdoor doesn't work unless you stand right there." And, after a push of a button, Ron fell through the floor into the room below. IRRRKKKK!! went the Intercom again. "Sir, your appointment. . ." "Alright," he said, "send her in. . . .oh, I don't want to be disturbed for the next three hours." ---------------------------------------- Response 33 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/25/79 12:31 am graper / newauth / unidel "Understood, sir." The door opened and in came the 13 year old female Russian gymnast, Nadia Comeneche in a string bikini. Dr. Graper turned up the Tschaikovsky and smiled, shutting the door behind them. ---------------------------------------- Response 34 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/29/79 11:05 pm graper / newauth / unidel Chapter Three: The Terminal Clone It was late at night, and Lumberjack Joe was closing up the bar. The usual old crowd acted cooperative in their usual old way, and within ten minutes after the clock had struck two o'clock, and the bar was empty. Lumberjack Joe was putting the last of the beer glasses in the washing machine when the phone rang. "Hello?" "Is this Lumberjack Joe's?" "Yes." "Who is this?" "Lumberjack Joe." "Oh. When does your place close?" "Closes every night at two o'clock." "Oh. Do you still sell liquor?" "There's no package store, just the bar." "Oh. Alright. Ah. . ." "What do you want?" ---------------------------------------- Response 35 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/29/79 11:12 pm graper / newauth / unidel "Nothing." "Then why did you call?" Dr. Menlove held his hand over the receiver and whispered to Dr. Bjork, "Why did we call?" "Tell him we're new in town." "Okay." Dr. Menlove began speaking into the phone again. "Ah, we're just new in town. That's all." Lumberjack Joe looked at the phone in consternation and hung it up. "Do you think he suspects anything?" Dr. Menlove asked Dr. Bjork. "No," Bjork replied, "nothing. I believe that he will remain busy for the rest of this evening and we can proceed with the experiment." The two doctors looked down at their subject, Uncle Frank. Uncle Frank was in the same state of shock that Lumberjack Joe had found him in three weeks before, staring straight up and quietly breathing. "Well, now we should be assured of no trouble from ---------------------------------------- Response 36 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/29/79 11:23 pm graper / newauth / unidel the subject's nephew. The experiment can begin. . ." Then the two doctors began rolling in all this weird looking equipment that were called "Cellular Bifurcators" and "Plasmoid Binaroiders" and which the doctors evidently knew a lot about. Lumberjack Joe was settling down in his big bed up in his room above the barrom. It was pretty, with brown wallpapered walls and an excellent stereo, complemented by a home video system. Standing in front of his Video Cassette recorder, he set the little "Sleeper" dial so that the whole shebang would shut off in an hour so that he could watch some recorded TV while falling asleep. Lumberjack Joe settled into his bed and watched as his television burst to colorful life. It played a specially made, secret not-available-to-the-public episode of "Snottydrawers and the Boogaloos" that he had gotten from his friend, Dr. Graper. He was more tired that he had thought, and even before Snottydrawers had slammed his drawer shut on a ---------------------------------------- Response 37 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/18/79 9:46 pm graper / udperuse / unidel single person's fingers, Joe had fallen asleep. "All ready?" Dr. Menlove asked Dr. Bnork. "Yes," Bnork answered. Dr. Menlove shuffled to the wall of electronic stuff and pulled a lever, activating the machines. Things spun around, sparks flew all over the place and weird turbine sounds began building up. Uncle Frank, strapped down to the table, didn't make a sound. He just made these wiggly movements, bumping quietly up and down on the table and dribbling a little spittle out of the side of his mouth. "How is the chicken, Dr. Menlove?" Menlove looked over to yet another table where a chicken, tightly confined in an electrified bird cage, was laying sedated on its floor. "It seems to be ready," Dr. Menlove shouted over the whine of the super-charged electro modulators. "Perfect!" Bnork shouted, "put on the cereberal exchangers!" Dr. Menlove, still watching the chicken opened the ---------------------------------------- Response 38 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/18/79 9:51 pm graper / udperuse / unidel cage, grabbed the bird's head and strapped on a leather and aluminum foil helmet with fifteen wires running out of it. Dr. Bnork in the meantime was placing a larger cerebral exchanger on the man's head. Soon the two were done and stood side by side by a large knife switch on the wall. "Alright," Bnork shouted, "I believe we are ready!" Dr. Menlove shook his head up and down violently. Bnork closed the circuit and the room lit up with flashes from the man and the chicken. "Soon," Bnork shouted, "the personalities of the man and the chicken will be exchanged!" Both of the experimental subjects were jiggling up and down violently, banging their heads against everything, making grunting sounds. Both of the experimenters were quiet while all this was going on. They were real serious about this, and cer- tainly weren't "mad" doctors. They had real doctorates upstairs which they hung up in the office of the nursing home they ran. Unfortunately, Dr. Menlove's doctorate was ---------------------------------------- Response 39 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/18/79 9:57 pm graper / udperuse / unidel in History and Dr. Bnork's was in Physical Education. "I think that'll be enough," Dr. Bnork said, cutting off the machine's power. The turbines began winding down and the two experimental subjects stopped wiggling. "Alright, Dr. Menlove, inspect the subjects." "The power is off, isn't it?" "Of course," Bnork replied, "Inspect the subjects." Menlove first approached the chicken. "Mr. Wallace? Mr. Wallace? Can you hear me?" The chicken remained silent. "He won't talk!" Menlove shouted. Bnork wasn't listening, he being busy trying to elicit a response from the man on the table. "Chickee Chickee Chickee?" Menlove walked over to Bnork and put his hand on his shoulder. "The experiment. . . .has failed." "NO! NO! I won't accept failure!" Bnork shouted, slapping Uncle Frank's face again and again. Uncle Frank was dead. So was the chicken. Too bad. For all the electronic sophistication of the two ---------------------------------------- Response 40 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/18/79 10:02 pm graper / udperuse / unidel Dr's personality exchanger device, pretty much all it was was a bunch of confusing colored wires that piped 440 volts directly into the brains of a chicken and a man. Not being educated in electronics, the device had looked pretty good to the two and was used on its visual aspects alone. It did not exchange the personalities of two animals at all, it turned out. It merely electrocuted them. "Dammit, it should have worked!" Bnork shouted, "I built it just like they showed it on Snottydrawers and the Boogaloos!" Snottydrawers and the Boogaloos, the famous cartoon feature written by Dr. Graper had taken a real serious turn in the last few months. Bored with continually having Snottydrawers the animated colonial walnut dressing table always going after bad guys and slamming his drawers on their fingers, Dr. Graper had gotten Snottydrawers involved in some more serious adventures. Having had his show expanded from half an hour to an hour and having it scheduled at eight o'clock in the evening, national network ---------------------------------------- Response 41 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/18/79 10:07 pm graper / udperuse / unidel primetime, he had started running three and four part Snottydrawers adventures, introduced contemporary themes and relevant characters in his plots and matured his scripts for the adult audience. The script about having a mad scientist electronically exchanging the personalities of Snottydrawers with a chicken was a real favorite. It had been shown only once, but was so well liked that it was rescheduled two weeks after its first appearance to run again with big companies paying big money to advertise during it. The national network was very pleased. Dr. Graper sat behind his terminal, working on the script to a full length two hour made-for-television movie about how Snottydrawers helped win world war two or something like that. "Farts, what a bad script," Dr. Graper said, reviewing the script as recorded thus far by the computer. The big network writers had come up with this whole stupid idea about Snottydrawers helping to win World War Two and had prepared a full outline of the plot for him to follow. ---------------------------------------- Response 42 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/18/79 10:13 pm graper / udperuse / unidel It was terribly atypical of his writing style, and just didn't seem to be interesting at all. There was no use trying to do anything other than the script in the outline, though. Snottydrawers and the Boogaloos had grown far too big to be solely under the control of Dr. Graper anymore. Snottydrawers and the Boogaloos had been shown to be a worldwide favorite cartoon of the human race, it seemed, and many media intellectual types stated that "when Dr. Graper catches a cold. . .the world sneezes." Wonder what that means? It's simply this: It was felt that, since the world hung on every word that came out of Dr. Graper's terminal and through the mouth of Snottydrawers, should something particularly upsetting come out of that terminal bad things would inevitably happen. Already, twenty three lawsuits were pending against Dr. Graper by people who said that Snottydrawer's adventures had made their children or wives or husbands or friends or whatevers into psychopaths who began slamming drawers on people's fingers or shooting them or something. ---------------------------------------- Response 43 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/19/79 9:00 pm graper / udperuse / unidel There was one man who lived in Southern California who believed that the words from "Snottydrawers goes to the Moon" were a personal message to him and then he went out and killed a whole lot of people on the behest of these orders from Snottydrawers. The man's lawyer wanted to call Dr. Graper as a witness but the judge didn't really think it was necessary but, as a consolation, he did let the lawyer show "Snottydrawers goes to the moon" to the court which everyone liked. "You see, Doc, it is essential that what you write be responsible, well rounded fiction," the network programmer once told Dr. Graper. "The people of the nation. . .no, the world itself look to your cartoon for stability in an unstable world." He also said a bunch of stuff about how kids were bound to imitate what they saw on the cartoon and reiterated how pleased he was that commercial air time on the new Snottydrawers Show was running at $50,000 per second. Dr. Bnork and Dr. Menlove had taken the body of ---------------------------------------- Response 44 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/19/79 9:07 pm graper / udperuse / unidel Uncle Frank and put it back in its bed. "Wow, somebody's gonna be suprised!" Menlove said, looking at Uncle Frank's clipboard that hung from the end of his bed. "Says here that his condition was improving." "What was his name?" Bnork asked "Frank Jeremiah Wallace, or 'Uncle Frank'." "I thought he was in a coma all the time he was here." "I don't know. It seemed like a steadily improving coma, though." Dr. Bnork tidied up the blankets covering Uncle Frank's body. Slowly he drew the proverbial white sheet over his head while Dr. Menlove took a red pencil and drew a sudden downward line on Uncle Frank's health graph. He got out a little rubber stamp which said DEAD in stenciled letters and stamped the sheet with all of Uncle Frank's statistics on it. "Who are we supposed to contact?" "The nephew." "The guy who owns the bar?" ---------------------------------------- Response 45 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/19/79 9:13 pm graper / udperuse / unidel "Of course." "Of course," Dr. Graper said, to Lumberjack Joe, standing behind the bar. "Of course what?" "Nothing." Actually, he had said "Of course" because it would be a really good literary bridge between Dr.'s Bnork and Menloves Nursing home and Lumberjack Joe's bar. He had a good sense of literary timing. It was midday again at Lumberjack Joe's, and the crowd at the bar was at its daily low. There was only Dr. Graper and Lumberjack Joe and Ron the Writer sitting quietly in a corner. Ron the writer was not the man he used to be, what with his falling through that trapdoor and landing on his head. He had pretty much forgotten what he had been like and how he used to write all that stuff. His writing had improved dramatically and he was writing short story endings. Those were the contest sort of things where the editors of magazines would write the beginnings to stories and leave the endings off so that the readers ---------------------------------------- Response 46 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/19/79 9:18 pm graper / udperuse / unidel could write in interesting endings. Ron the Writer had had two short story endings chosen and had made $150 from it. Dr. Graper and Lumberjack Joe were sitting at the bar, playing Bumblejack, a local game that was too trivial to waste time explaining. Ron the writer sat in his corner, trying out endings to the new unended story from the "New England Monthly." ". . .Charlie had a paper route that made him $12.50 a month. Everything on the route was just fine except for fifteen west main street. . ." Ron read aloud. That was it. That was the short story beginning provided by the magazine and now he had to end it. "Ah. . .except for fifteen west main street where. . where a real mean dog lived!" "Hey," Lumberjack Joe said from the bar, "how about 'fifteen west main street where a mad scientist lived who exchanged the personalities of men and chickens'." "I've already heard that one," Dr. Graper said. Tinkle tinkle tinkle went the little bell on the ---------------------------------------- Response 47 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/19/79 9:24 pm graper / udperuse / unidel door, and everyone looked towards it. In came a female named Caroline, a sociology student at the local university. She was neurotic, but had large breasts. "Hi everybody!" she said. Nobody answered, and she sat down at a table furthest from the others. "You wanna drink?" Lumberjack Joe shouted at Caroline. "Yeah," Caroline answered. "What?" Lumberjack Joe asked. "Ah, white wine." "Hah!" Dr. Graper shouted, banging his fist on the bar, "I score twenty eight points!" "Oh no you don't!" Lumberjack Joe said, "you lose____ a turn!" "You don't seem to remember the game of Bumblejack too well, my friend, because I just score twenty eight points!" Caroline came up to the bar and looked at the two of them. "How charming! The ethnic game of Delaware, Bumblejack! I wrote a paper on ethnic games of Delaware ---------------------------------------- Response 48 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/29/79 6:47 pm graper / udperuse / unidel once for a sociology class." Lumberjack Joe and Dr. Graper kept arguing as if she hadn't spoken at all. "Twenty eight points!" Dr. Graper maintained. "You lose a turn!" Lumberjack Joe returned. "Twenty eight points0!" "Look, this is getting us nowhere." "Indeed," Caroline mused aloud. Both Dr. Graper and Lumberjack Joe looked scathingly at her, and she went back to her table. Her neurosis about everyone hating her had been firmly reinforced. "Wasn't your Uncle Frank a great Bumblejack Player?" "Yeah, he was!" Lumberjack Joe said, scratching his chin. "I even think there was this student who inter- viewed him about the game. . .he was pleased as punch." The student he was talking about was Caroline in her under- graduate days. Caroline overheard this and felt that it was de- liberately aimed at her. She was sensitive to things like that. She quickly gathered her things and left. ---------------------------------------- Response 49 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/29/79 6:53 pm graper / udperuse / unidel "Maybe I could call up Uncle Frank and ask him," Lumberjack Joe said. "Long distance is the next best thing to being there." "Yeah, I'll call him!" With that, Lumberjack Joe dialed up the Dignity Nursing Home of Scranton, Penn. The phone rang about twelve times before it was answered. "Dignity Nursing Home, Dr. Bnork speaking. . ." "Oh, hi. I'd like to know if I could speak to Frank Wallace. 'Uncle Frank' Wallace." "Ah, just a moment. . ." the voice at the other end said, putting Lumberjack Joe on hold. Dr. Graper elbowed Lumberjack Joe and asked, "What's up?" "Nothing. They've got me on hold." "Oh." It must have been about seven full minutes before the voice on the telephone came back. "Hello?" "Yeah?" Lumberjack Joe asked. "I'm . ..I'm afraid he can't speak now. He's ---------------------------------------- Response 50 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/29/79 7:01 pm graper / udperuse / unidel indisposed." "Oh, sorry. I'll call back sometime when he's disposed. . ." Lumberjack Joe didn't really know what indisposed meant. He sort of thought it meant that Uncle Frank was going to the bathroom right then or being hosed down by a nurse. "Give me that phone!" Dr. Graper shouted, grabbing the phone out of Lumberjack Joe's hand. "Hello? Who is this? What? Well, this is Dr. Graper. . .yes, DR. GRAPER. . . .yes. . .yes, I'll hold on." "What did you do that for?" Lumberjack Joe asked. "I've got to find out how this damned Bumblejack game is scored. Any Delawarean would be ashamed to not know how to score. . .what?. . .hello. . .yes. . .I don't give in to that lousy terminology trash, Dr. . ..yes. . .hmm. .. I see. . . .I see. . . .I see.. . .I see. . . .Yes, I see. . Alright. . . Goodby. . ." and Dr. Graper handed the phone to Lumberjack Joe to hang up. "Well, what's up?" ---------------------------------------- Response 51 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/29/79 7:06 pm graper / udperuse / unidel "I'm sorry to say that Uncle Frank has played his last game of Bumblejack." "What do you mean?" "Dr. Menlove on the other side said he died two nights ago of cardiac arrest. We've got to go claim the body." "Do you know who that was!?! Do you know what that means?!" Dr. Menlove and Dr. Bjorn each shouted, pacing around the office of the nursing home. Their little experiment had been discovered. "As soon as that. . . that Dr. Graper sees the body, he'll know!! He'll know it wasn't cardiac arrest!" Dr. Menlove shouted at Dr. Bjorn. "How?" "Because he's a DR!!" "But so are we!!" Dr. Bjorn returned. "In history and physical education! He's a real DR!" "Alright, alright, we'll just have to get rid ---------------------------------------- Response 52 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/29/79 7:12 pm graper / udperuse / unidel of the body. . . .our experiments have progressed too far to be stopped by some relative of a catatonic old man!!" "But how?? What do we do with it??" Menlove screamed. Dr. Bjorn had to slap him across the face about t three times to get him to stop it. "We've got to keep cool-headed. First, we must become cool headed," Bjorn replied. "We'll. . .we'll feed him to the other patients." "What?" "Simple. We have a thousand elderly patients here, eating disgusting slop every day. Their taste is so dead they won't notice if we spice their diet with some human meal." "How?" "In the kitchen. The giant blender will do the job just fine." "Yes, of course! Of course, they'll never notice it!" Menlove giggled. ---------------------------------------- Response 53 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/29/79 7:17 pm graper / udperuse / unidel Lumberjack Joe meanwhile was sort of catatonic himself after he had heard that Uncle Frank was dead. "I can't believe it," he said quietly, over and over again. Dr. Graper got Ron to help him close up the bar and get Lumberjack Joe into his car. "We'll go deal with the body now, alright Joe?" he asked. "I can't believe it." Ron climbed into the backseat with Lumberjack Joe and put Joe's seatbelt on for him. "He's just like a record with a skip in it," Ron observed. The analogy was quite accurate. Vroom went the car, off towards Scranton, Penn. Dr. Menlove had given Carlos, the disgusting drunk/cook for the nursing home a bottle of Wild Horse Whiskey and, after watching him drink himself into oblivion pushed him into a closet. No witnesses. "Bring it in," he whispered to Dr. Bjorn, just outside the kitchen door with Uncle Frank's carcass. The two picked up the body and heaved it into the giant ---------------------------------------- Response 54 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/29/79 7:24 pm graper / udperuse / unidel 6 foot high institutional electric blender. "There. Now, what else goes in for the daily slop?" Bjorn asked. "uh, fifty gallons of water, ten boxes of powdered milk and seven case of this stuff." Dr. Menlove held up a box labelled: GRADE D ANIMAL SLOP. "Make it twelve boxes of slop and some more water. We'll whoop it up today." The two of them laughed and put all the ingredients in the giant electric blender. Dr. Menlove fastened down the cover and, after stepping back, pressed the big red LIQUIDATE button on the blender's control board. Uncle Frank's body spun around inside the clear blender chamber about twenty times before it was pulled into the blender blades. His face would slam quickly against the wall of the chamber, then pull away, then you'd see an arm or a leg flailing for a moment, then his face again, then his thigh, then ZWOORCH as the blades slowed down for a moment while they began the tough work of bashing through human femurs and shoulders and reducing ---------------------------------------- Response 55 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/29/79 7:29 pm graper / udperuse / unidel them to fine limestone and GLINCH as the spine got wrapped around the rotor for a moment but then zwooOOOOO went the motor again and everything was just fine. "Let it run for at least twenty minutes. That should be able to do it just right," Dr. Bjorn asserted. Carlos could be heard banging around in the closet, throwing up. "Let Carlos out. He has to serve the patients their meal later today, you know!" Dr. Bjorn said. Menlove opened the door and Carlos fell out, the bottle of Wild Horse totally emptied. "We made the patients' dinner today, Carlos, to experiment with a new additive. You won't have to make it today," Dr. Menlove said to the prone figure on the floor. "T'ank you very much, Doc," Carlos said, turning over to lie on his back and passing out. "I can't believe it," Lumberjack Joe kept repeating in the back seat of Dr. Graper's car. "How far are we from the Nursing Home?" Ron asked. ---------------------------------------- Response 56 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/29/79 7:34 pm graper / udperuse / unidel "About an hour away," Dr. Graper said, checking the on-board computer he had had put in his car. It told the time, humidity, speed of the car, miles to destination, air quality, temperature and could do simple calcultions with up to seven levels of parentheses. "I can't believe it," Lumberjack Joe said again. Dr. Graper had played all of his tapes on his car tape player and was now playing the first one again. He didn't really like it. It was a tape by a group called "Johnny Transistory and the Steel Belted Eyeballs," a lousy third rate rock grop that he had to get since he belonged to a lousy record club. "Man oh man, I love you babe, I love you babe, cos' only you can save me, me babe, only you can save me babe, Yeah, that's why I love ya," Johnny Transistor sang with the Steel Belted Eyeballs going "ooh, ooh" in the background. The song was so boring and the road to Scranton Pennsylvania so monotonous that Dr. Graper was using his ---------------------------------------- Response 57 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/29/79 7:39 pm graper / udperuse / unidel onboard automobile computer to do mathematics problems. "Two thousand, eight hundred and ninety three plus seventeen point nine three divided by two is. . .fourteen hundred fifty five point four six five. . ." Dr. Bjorn and Dr. Menlove sat in their adminstrative office, looking out the window and waiting for Lumberjack Joe to arrive to pick up the body. The had an ingenious plan worked out. Dr. Graper's car pulled into the Nursing Home parking lot just as his on-bord mini-computer went BZZZ, signalling that the time until they would arrive was up. Damned accurate. They parked the car and went inside. The place seemed absolutely deserted. "VISITORS," one sign said, with a big arrow under it pointing to a hallway. "I guess that's us," Ron said. "Yes," Dr. Graper said, and the three of them began walking down the hallway. The first room they came into was what was called ---------------------------------------- Response 58 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/29/79 7:46 pm graper / udperuse / unidel "The Pen." It was a huge space (the nursing home was in actuality a poorly converted Aluminum warehouse) with rows of beds running up and down the sides, back and forth, hundreds and hundreds of them. A few people had "rooms," which were beds with four wooden separators surrounding them. Every seventh bed or so, a middle-aged female nurse sat on a chair, watching television with the patients. Although this was a scandalously poorly run nursing home, the administration did provide each tenant with his own color television set. "How very abstract," Dr. Graper commented. "Sort of like 'Mission Control' during a space launch," Ron added. Every face was rivetted to the television's stroboscopic glare, and the entire place was silent. It was 1:30, and every television here, like the estimate 91.4% of the televisions in the United States, was tuned in to the daytime version of "Snottydrawers and the Boogaloos." Periodically, when Snottydrawers did something funny, the entire nursing home/warehouse ---------------------------------------- Response 59 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 6/29/79 7:51 pm graper / udperuse / unidel convulsed in simultaneous laughter; when he was in trouble it would ring with "Watch out!"s and "Oh no!"s. On the distant wall of the "Pen," Ron saw a large stencilled sign which read, "Office" and pointed it out to Dr. Graper. Lumberjack Joe had become suddenly entranced by the Snottydrawers reruns on the television and had sat down beside one of the beds to watch it. Ron and Dr. Graper decided to let him stay and watch and leave the messy job of dealing with Uncle Frank's body to them. Taking great pains to walk around each of the patients without disturbing their lines of sight to their TV's, the two finally reached the office where Dr. Menlove and Dr. Bnork worked. "Hello. I am Dr. Graper. This is Ron Hemingway. We are here to pick up the body of 'Uncle' Frank Wallace," were the first words to bounce around inside the lavish nursing home office. Both Dr. Menlove and Dr. Bnork were somewhat suprised by the remarkable clarity of these words and were quite taken aback. ---------------------------------------- Response 60 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/5/79 7:18 pm graper / udperuse / unidel "Yeah," Ron the Writer reinforced. "Ah," Dr. Menlove said, "Yes. Frank Wallace. His body." "You are Dr. Graper?" Dr. Bnork said, trying to move the conversation forwards a little bit. "Yes." "Well, you've come at quite an inconvenient time. Most of the morgue workers are watching Snottydrawers right now and. . ." "I don't care." Both Dr. Menlove and Dr. Bnork took a step back at that one. This man didn't care. "Well, you'll. . ." "Ron and I will carry the body ourselves, if necessary. . ." "Ah. . .ah, do you have a hearse?" "No." Dr. Bnork laughed at Dr. Menlove nervously and then Dr. Menlove joined in, trying to make it look spontaneous. "Well, there's a state law in Pennsylvania ---------------------------------------- Response 61 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/5/79 7:27 pm graper / udperuse / unidel that states that you must have a hearse to carry a dead body within. . ." "Bullshit." Dr.'s Menlove and Bnork took another step back, fear written across their faces. Dr. Graper, they thought, was a real medical doctor who really knew about things like that. They began to worry. Actually, Dr. Graper wasn't a medical doctor and knew absolutely nothing about things like that. He could say "Bullshit!" very convincingly, however, and that was many times good enough. "Well, do you have a van or station wagon?" Dr. Bnork asked. "No." "What did you drive here?" "An extremely expensive Austin Ferraro sports car." "Well. . .I don't think putting the body in the trunk would be . . .proper." "I don't plan to put it in the trunk." ---------------------------------------- Response 62 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/5/79 7:32 pm graper / udperuse / unidel "Well, in the back seat then. . ." "Not the back seat either. I was planning to tie it to the front fender." "What?" Dr. Bnork asked in disbelief. "If that doesn't work, I'll just tie it up on my roof mounted ski-racks." "Well. . ." "Well what?" Once again, Dr. Bnork submitted to the false show of confidence. "I guess that would be alright. You'll have to pardon Dr. Menlove and I while we go to get the. . . body." And the two nursing home directors exited through a side door to the morgue. "What do we do now!?! What do we do now!?!" Dr. Menlove shouted once they were out of earshot. "I don't know!! I don't know!!" Dr. Bnork retorted, jumping up and down. All their scheming had fallen apart. In the "Pen," and investigative television reporter named Gail Williams was posing as a nurse. She was doing a report on scandalous nursing homes and had been working ---------------------------------------- Response 63 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/5/79 7:37 pm graper / udperuse / unidel there all week with a secret TV camera. It was nearing the end of her shift, and the end of her investigative report too. It was going to be topped off with a taping of the filthy directors, Dr. Bnork and Dr. Menlove, being taken away by the police. The police were already on their way. Dr. Graper and Ron the Writer looked around in the nursing home office, playing withall the electronic gadgets that lay on all the mahogany tables. "Pure, real wood," Dr. Graper commented on the fine wood furnishings. It looked like a beautiful picture from a Furniture Catalog that would definitely cost plenty. Dr. Bnork and Dr. Menlove were now practically screaming at each other. "What do you mean, I_ thought up the idea of exchanging personalities!! You introduced me to that goddamned cartoon!!" Bnork shouted. "Me! You thought you. . ." "SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!!" Dr. Bnork screamed, holding his hands over his ears. The police that Gail Williams summoned were pulling ---------------------------------------- Response 64 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/5/79 7:44 pm graper / udperuse / unidel into the nursing home parking lot. Dr. Graper and Ron looked out the window at them. Dr. Bnork and Dr. Menlove had scurried downstairs when they heard the sirens, sweating profusely and constantly bumping into each other. "Stop bumping me!" they yelled at each other. They thought Dr. Graper had called the police and that the "jig was up." The police busted in through the main entrance and came crowding into the "Pen." There were twenty of them, big and strong. Gail Williams ran up to them and said, "They're in there!," pointing to the office in the back. They all rushed into the back office. Gail watched them run into the office, and then heard a voice from a medicine cabinet. "Come on, let me out!! Let me out!!" it said. It was the secret cameraman, secretly hidden to take the gruesome pictures of life in the "Pen" for investigative report. Gail unlocked the cabinet and let him out. After getting all his secret camera equipment out, the secret cameraman and Gail ---------------------------------------- Response 65 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/5/79 7:49 pm graper / udperuse / unidel ran to the back office to see how things were going. "Here they are," the police captain said proudly. The secret cameraman shoved his way up front and filmed the two prisoners. Dr. Graper and Ron the writer looked sheepishly into the camera, handcuffed together. "That's not them!" Gail said, "That's not them! They must be somewhere else in the building!!" The police, led by Gail and the secret-cameraman, dissappeared into the building, leaving Dr. Graper and Ron handcuffed together. They sat down together on the beautiful colonial walnut couch and waited to see what would happen next. Fifteen minutes later, the police returned with Dr. Menlove and Dr. Bnork in handcuffs. Dr. Menlove was crying while Dr. Bnork was quiet, staring continually ahead. "We didn't want to do it! We saw it on Snottydrawers and the Boogaloos!" Dr. Menlove whimpered, his blubbering testimonial being recorded continually by the secret cameraman. ---------------------------------------- Response 66 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/5/79 7:55 pm graper / udperuse / unidel THE TERMINATION: At first, the puny little story of how a nursing home was using its patients for personality exchange experiments was small potatoes. It got a 30 second spot on the four major television networks' nightly news, but that was about it. That was about it until, one night, when the entire footage of the nursing home incident was being shown on the local station's weekend newscap, somebody recognized one of the characters filmed as Dr. Graper. When this was verified, the question raised was "Was Dr. Graper in on these experiments? Did he in fact provide the impetus for the inhumanity? Was he the ringleader? The Brain? Was his show, 'Snottydrawers and the Boogaloos' some type of conspiracy?" Now the story took on momentum. Every night, for two months, each network news show led off with the latest developments in the case of the United States versus ---------------------------------------- Response 67 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/5/79 8:02 pm graper / udperuse / unidel Dr. Graper. It was destined to be a big event in broadcasting, federal law and all sorts of other stuff. The case for the prosecution: Dr. Graper had deliberately, with malice of forethought and demented genius directly and indirectly caused people to do bad things through the psychologically engineered masterpiece, "Snottydrawers and the Boogaloos." The case for the defense: That he didn't do that at all. Immediately after the trial began, Snottydrawers as well as all reruns of Snottydrawers was taken off the air. The government was suddenly very afraid. The trial went on and on, calling Lumberjack Joe as a character witness here, calling some weirdo from Utah who claimed to have murdered his mother because of Snottydrawers there, courtroom Snottydrawers viewings, listening to boring psychologists go through individual cartoons frame by frame and explaining the presence or lack of brainwashing elements and finally calling on Dr.'s Menlove and Bnork for their testimony. ---------------------------------------- Response 68 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/5/79 8:09 pm graper / udperuse / unidel It was the final day of the trial and the jury had finished deliberations. The jury had been out for three days. Snottydrawers and the Boogaloos had been returned to the air (those that federal psychologists had deemed "safe") because of riots in several West Coast cities, and many of the people in the courtroom, including the judge, were watching it on tiny Japanese televisions. The courtroom would occassionally ring with laughter as Snottydrawers pulled yet another one over on the bad guys, and would grow totally silent when it looked like Snottydrawers might be in trouble. The only person not watching a TV was Dr. Graper. He was smiling and writing on a piece of paper. He had filled three pages from the yellow legal pads that were on the table. "It is only too bad that I have misused the characters so greatly in this story," he wrote, tearing off that sheet and starting to write on yet another. "I have lecherously seduced a 13 year old female ---------------------------------------- Response 69 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/5/79 8:18 pm graper / udperuse / unidel Russian Gymnast. I have killed off a fine old man named Uncle Frank without letting him speak a word throughout this entire story. I have had a fellow human dropped through a trapdoor and banged on the head enough to alter his personality. I have. . ." The pen ran out of ink. Dr. Graper tossed it into the big trash can next to the table and began writing with his new, felt tip pen. "I have introduced a zillion characters and really described only about eight. And I have created one of the silliest cartoons ever known to man. Man being silly enough without my help, I have. . ." The jury filed back into the room. "I have screwed things up so that this cartoon will have some very awful effects in a few moments." "All rise," the plantiff said as the judge reentered his position. "I know that even now, nasty things are in the works." he scribbled down. "Please stand, Dr. Graper." ---------------------------------------- Response 70 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/5/79 8:27 pm graper / udperuse / unidel Dr. Graper stood. He scribbled off a few last words. "Uh - oh," they said. "How do you find Dr. Graper?" the judge asked the jury. "We find the defendant. . . not guilty." Everyone shouted "Whoopie!" and the cameramen from all the networks pulled in real close to Dr. Graper to get the expression on his face. It was a grin. Flashbulbs went off all over the place. Then, a grumbling started underneath the far left side of the building. It was the sound of an MIMR-70 Mobile Intercontinental Multiple Rentry Defense Missile. It was a special kind of Missile and was hidden all over some suprising places in the United States that were to be used in the case that the big missile fields in the American Mid-West were all blown up. They just had been by a Russian attack, sparked by something that Snottydrawers had said in "Snottydrawers goes Bananas," a film about Snottydrawers on a desert island. The Russians thought that the bad guy, Ivan ---------------------------------------- Response 71 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/5/79 8:35 pm graper / udperuse / unidel Terrible, was a bit too close a criticism and decided to retaliate the best way they knew how. That was stupid, because underneath Pizza Parlors and Sears Department Stores and Kodak Drive-Thru Film Developer Booths throughout the United States were zillions of these MIMR-70s which suddenly popped up and took off for various Russian targets. GRUNNCCH went the big missile through the court building's floor, scattering tiles all over the place. Everyone ran out of the chambers except Dr. Graper, who began writing on the yellow legal pads again. "Well, that's what happens," he wrote as the big cylindrical missile was lifted upright, the words UNITED STATES OF AMERICA written in bright red paint on its side. He put the cap on his pen, put it in his pocket, straightened up the papers, put a paper clip on them and sat down next to the missile which was adjusting some telemetry computers right then. The missile erector had torn a great big whole in ---------------------------------------- Response 72 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/5/79 8:39 pm graper / udperuse / unidel the ceiling and exposed a huge swatch of blue sky, already filled with the trails of zillions of other MIMR-70 and MIMR-80 & 94 missiles. Clink tlink went the relays in the telemetry circuits, and the missile was ready to go. Dr. Graper patted the big steel missile on the side. "You have a nice trip now," he said. Two tenths of a second later, the missile took off for Vladivastok, demolishing the court building and everything in it. ---------------------------------------- Response 73 of 73 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/5/79 8:39 pm graper / udperuse / unidel The End