I'm Just The Bell Ringer Here

“Hi dad, I was just call’in ta find out if you’d maybe like ta go out for breakfast or someth’in like that? Could be nice, you know. We could go ta Lennie’s maybe, get two Big Scams with the works... bacon; sausage; hash browns, whaddaya say? I haven’t seen ya in a while, you know. How long’s it been anyway?”

“Oh... about twenty years I’d say, give or take. But in answer ta your question, I guess I could do breakfast. Pick me up, I’ll wait in front, an don’t keep me wait’in all day.”

Later that morning, father and son sat down at one of the comfortable booths the restaurant had to offer and began scanning over the large breakfast menu. They soon decided to treat themselves to the Super Big Scams for $6.99 that came complete with pancakes, but when the waiter arrived to take their order, he could tell something was amiss, and the sneaking suspicion that the pair were more then slightly dysfunctional seemed to pervade the diner just as plainly as the odor of any food source in the room.

“Good morning,” said the waiter, as he walked up to the table. “My name is Carl and I’ll be your waiter today. Are you ready to order, or would you like a few more minutes to decide?”

“Ah, we know what we want, don’t we dad? We want two Super Big Scams. That makes it easy don’t it?” replied Reid. But food orders from Robert, his father were much more involved and consisted of all the delightful little eccentricities of old age and rough times put together. “Listen, you piss ass bitch... I shit bigger chunks then guys like you every day. Now I’m only gonna say this once, so listen up. I want my eggs scrambled lightly, not that overcooked crap ya pound nails with, got it?”

“Ahh,” was all Carl could say, dreading the moment he’d gotten out of bed that day and plainly showing the growing pain he was feeling through the new expressions forming on his face.

“An I want my bacon crispy, not greasy. That limp shit’s no good for your stomach or your heart. An I want rye toast, lightly buttered. If I see it swimm’in in butter, I’m go’in straight ta your boss, got it?”

“Yes sir, I’ve got it, I think,” were all the words the waiter could push out. But as he slunk away, conversation between Reid and his World War Two vintage father began to lighten up, as Reid recalled a joke he’d once heard. “Hey dad, I got a joke. It’s funny as hell, you’ll love it.”

“Yeah, a joke. Okay, lets hear it. Make it fast wouldya? Ah’m not in a real joke mood right now.”

“Oh, come on. You’ll love it. It’s hilarious.”

“Okay, lets hear it already.”

“Alright, alright, ahh... just gimme a second ta remember it.”

“Do ya know it or don’tcha? First ya tell me ya got a joke, then ya can’t remember it. Ya know, me an your mother could never reach you. You were always somewhere out there in outer space or someth’in, like Sputnik. Go ahead already, make my day.”

“Well, there’s this church bell ringer see... an he does a great job ring’in this bell like he’s supposed to, like clockwork, everyday. Only, like, he’s got no arms! Everyday, he runs inta that damn bell with his head, only one day... he misses it completely, I mean he runs right past it, flies right over the side a the bell tower, an bam, he’s gone.”

“That’s hilarious,” replied Reid’s father. “Bam, he’s gone. Ya got anymore like that? Hey, were’s our food, ah’m starv’in here.”

“No dad, that’s not the end a the joke, ya see,” Reid continued, doing his best to elaborate on the unfinished piece of satire but as luck would have it, the pair’s food order had just arrived and took priority to any jest. “Good Carl,” remarked Robert. “Ah’m so glad you could make it. Have trouble finding us?”

“No sir, I didn’t. I got here just as soon as I...”

“Then why’d it take so damn long?”

“Hey dad, come on. Give the guy a break,” interjected Reid. “Everything’s cool Carl. You done good. All we gotta do is eat this stuff now, right dad. Looks good, don’t it?” But like any of the minor bumps and bruises in life that we all seem to have to endure from time to time, a problem had already begun to brew in Reid’s mind and set a precedence to any other. “Ahh, dad,” he began. “Someth’in’s not right here.”

“Yeah, yeah. So what else is new. Pass the salt.”

“No, I mean. I just know, someth’in’s miss’in here,” and staring at a blank spot on the table where his pancakes should have been, but were not, Reid slowly but most certainly, zeroed in on the problem. “My pancakes... they forgot my fuck’in pancakes. I can’t fuck’in believe it. An I told that fuck’in guy everything was cool. What, am I crazy or what?”

“Relax wouldja? What is this, Anzio or what? You gonna make me sorry I met you now aren’t you? Just lemme eat this in piece. You an your mother, ya both gimme indigestion you know that? God, sit down,” protested Robert, but it was too late, and as Reid began to rise from the table, he opened his suit coat to reveal two shoulder holstered .45 automatic weapons, retrieved them from their resting positions and brandished them, one in each hand as he walked up and down the long aisle of the restaurant, screaming for retribution and the pancakes he was promised but nay, did not receive. “I want my fuck’in pancakes, an I want ‘em now,” he shouted, turning around in circles as he spoke, aiming the two loaded guns for emphasis and waiting, as if for some answer from a crowd of desperately scared patrons who could only vomit with fear, and look on in astonishment at the real life spectacle now unfolding before them on the strangest stage of all - real life. But just as he was wondering who to shoot and what difference that would make to his pancake order, the waiter emerged from the kitchen, offering Reid the side order he’d been waiting for, and thanked him for his patience. Holstering one of the weapons in order to take the plate, Reid returned to his table and calmly slid back into his seat at the booth, resting the other gun he’d been carrying on the table surface with a thud and began to divide up the stack of three pancakes with a fork as his astounded father sat and watched. “Anyways,” began Reid, snapping in and out of rage as simply as one might change a hat or coat. “The bell ringer, remember,” he said, as he poured maple sirup over the three, hard won pancakes. “He fell remember, right?”

“Are you nuts?” asked his father. “You just scared the shit outta these poor people and now you’re gonna tell me a joke? Well I got news for you. The cops are here buddy, an I don’t think they’re in the mood for jokes. You got some explain’in ta do.” But in seeing the squad cars pull up, all Reid could think of doing was to bite into those pancakes, and what would go with them better then a thin strip of crispy bacon smothered in sirup.

“Come out with your hands up,” shouted one of the policemen on a megaphone, loud enough to wake the dead. But Reid still sat and calmly ate until he’d finished much of what the waiter had brought. Then finally, just as the police were about to do something drastic, he rose from his seat once more with his hands in the air, told his father, “I’ll write. Hey, don’t be such a stranger.” And walked to the door, pushing it open with his waist until he could turn his body and make it out to the four squad cars of waiting police.

In the aftermath of all the unrest, two officers remained behind to question Reid’s father, but when asked why he thought his son had pulled the guns out in anger, he could really not say. “I got no fuck’in idea,” said the old man. “I was hop’in you could tell me.”

“Well, what was the last thing he told you?” answered one of the officers. “Sometimes, that gives us a clue as to what the person had on their mind at the time.”

“Just some dumb ass joke about a bell ringer with no arms, that’s all. Hey, he never was Einstein ya know what I mean?”

“Hank,” said one officer to another. “You know any joke like that?”

“Hey, ya know. Now that you mention it, I do. Ya see, this guy who rings this church bell, he’s got no arms, so he rings the bell by runn’in right into it with his head. But when he misses it one day, he goes fly’in right over the edge a the tower and dies. Then one day a cop shows up an gives the priest pictures a the guy. The priest takes one of ‘em, scratches his head for a minute an he says, “hmm, the name’s not familiar but his face rings a bell.”

“So what the hell is that supposed ta mean?” asked the eighty-one year old man.

“Well, I’m no profiler, but if you ask me,” remarked one of the cops. “I don’t think you spent enough time with your son. He feels you hardly know him.”

“Now he tells me.”