The Psycho Squad

Part 1 of 30 -- Psycho Squad

We have wreckers for cars that break down. And ambulances for nervous breakdowns. That's basically what you need to know. And people to drive them and ride along.

I've had wreckers come help me; that's a complicated business. You'd think, hook the hook to the bumper and drag it in, simple. But, no, there's lots of different cars, the places where the hook needs to go varies. You even have to have it so when the wrecker stops, the car stops. Get that? It has to be cinched up real good and tight. Then the other thing, they have to be able to turn corners without it flipping off or getting twisted at the chain, etc. It's so complicated, if you have the slightest qualms about having what it takes, go into brain surgery instead. It's easier and the pay's better.

That's where I come in, one of society's heroes, somewhere between the wrecker guy and a brain surgeon. In fact, that'd be a terrific logo, a wrecker pulling a head to the service station. That'd be a funny logo, something everyone would remember. And it tells our story in its basics; just as a car breaks down, we break down. It's nothing to be ashamed of. No one blames a car when it has problems. I guess I have, but it doesn't do any good. But who among us hasn't kicked a car or even taken a sledge hammer to one?

With people though -- and I'm a people person, not a cannibal but I love people -- I treat them as well as possible. The least little thing, of course, and they'll sue the pants off you. Especially if the problems are more mental and not observable, just the symptoms. They can imagine you did all kinds of things. And say they've got split personality disorder, they think they know what you did from five different angles. Tough to disprove even if you have a split personality guy as sideman.

Anyway, it's a tough business, but gratifying. It's good to know you're doing something everyone else only dreams about. But those folks can wake up and take a sedative and go back to sleep. We have to face it, this is the reality of life, terrible, boiling over crazy, you wake up with the heeby-jeebies and that's the way you go to bed. Half the time I'm afraid to face another day, but then I think, at least days are twice as nice as nights. Especially with a full moon. It's been a while since I was surrounded by psychos on the highway. Say you're threatened, just howl yourself, keep 'em confused, they don't know who they're looking for. Then phone for backup. 

I wanted to do this job since I was a kid. I also wanted to marry a redhead. Three redhead wives later, I thought, try a blonde. So here I am, doing the job. The ambulance is a seductive mistress, also redheaded, a red light twisting the night away.

One of my old classmate friends wanted to help people when he graduated. So he went to work for a home with mental cases. They were locked in, he was locked in with them. He showed me the bite marks on his skin one day, even dropped his pants a couple inches. Teeth marks from people with teeth better than mine! I thought the obvious, you gotta be crazy. I’d really hate to be their dentist...

These are my adventures. Which I try to keep tame. If nothing interesting happens on any given day, that's good, that makes me happy. The more boring, the better. Lack of bite marks, my goal. Avoiding redheads? Lock me up and throw away the key if I cave. Bald's better.

My Favorite Ex-Wife and Their Club

Like most guys my age (61), I have a messy history, especially in the area known as love. You think you have just the right gal, then it turns out she's not that great and you need another. Then another. Then another. It's a little principle I guess I'll call Live and Learn.

Then -- and this makes for a messy present as well -- they all have to still be alive, and as luck would have it, right in this area, so they (and I) can't help but run into each other from time to time. But I've gotten pretty good about sneaking around grocery stores, holding cereal boxes up to my head when I peek around corners, and keeping my eyes down in the checkout line. But accidents do happen.

It just so happened the other day I ran into my favorite ex-wife, the one I doted on, and she informed me that the four of them have been meeting. Apparently there's a website that helps ex-wives form their own club, along with bylaws, officers, new business, and, especially, old business. Letting old business resurface, and thereby giving them the opportunity to crap on me all over again -- their goal -- when the spirit moves. Little things, like stealing the ex-husband's paper, keying his car, all the way up to uber reputational despoilage.

But it was kind of good running into her, Polli Marie. Since I loved her most of all, until it all went to hell. My right eye has this thing where it involuntarily wanders -- which no one believes -- so they all got the wrong idea when I'm looking around. That I have an attitude, that I'm the roving type, etc.

My first three wives were all high school chums, who thought they wanted me. So I gave in, one at a time. I saw a huge benefit in that they were all big-boned women and obviously suited for service. I had the property here, my grandparents', and all the things from their successful household, wash tubs, clotheslines, dressing tables, and everything. So it was an easy choice to marry them and put them to work. Definitely freed up time for me and my wandering eye.

Of course I'd come home -- let's say after hunting and fishing -- and get meals from them (we were married sequentially, which should go without saying) -- and drop off fresh game and fish for them to clean. I thought it was a happy way to do things, but all I ever got was guff. Too much work, not enough sex, was their main complaint. But I could hardly stand the gamey smell. So we divorced: First Cindy Jane, then Linda Jane, then Myrtle Jane ... I told myself I had to get off the Jane gang. Three strikes, they're out!

Well, it just so happened that when Myrt and me were married, my wandering eye landed one day on the sexiest little so-and-so I'd ever seen thus far. Small-boned, lithe, flexible, not naturally given to the wash basin and game. And that's how I treated her, as though she were incapable of actual work. I made her my little queen. Had her propped up on the couch -- her throne -- with pillows and Grandma's old nicknacks for her palace.

I doted on that beautiful woman, Polli Marie. "O my Polli Marie, Polli Marie, Polli Marie!," her name still gives me the world's worst hots. She'd been a farmer's daughter, so I suppose she could've done some work. But you gotta understand, I'd already worked myself out of three wives, naturally I'm going the other way on my sweet, precious Polli Marie!

Then it happened, I came home one day laden with game and fish -- set to clean them myself, thanks to having been abandoned by the big-boned ones -- and Polli Marie was nowhere in sight. I checked her throne, I checked the other throne, everywhere, but she was gone! With my wandering eye, also a source of her grief, I scoured the town and finally found her applying for a job at the library. Of course I threw the book at her. I probably shouldn't have, but I did. No small-boned wife of mine will ever work! She left me and ever since I've been single.

Now that I hear they're caught up in this internet crap, forming an ex-wives club, I'm beside myself with grief. Frankly, if I can't have them -- three of them for work and the precious one on her throne -- I don't want to hear about them at all. (That's why I burnt the edges of the above graphic, symbolically burning away the past.) If, though, I do have to hear about them .... If I have to suffer the slings and arrows of this club ... I definitely hope Polli Marie is elected president. The others, with their big bones, aren't fit to lead, only to take orders from my queen, and work.

Good News -- You're Being Blackmailed

We all know what blackmail is. You've had a little bit of fun, then, wham, someone blackmails you. Then it's time to pay. Of course you're all nervous when the call comes. "What?" you tremble, knowing if you pay, that won't be the end of it. The guy gives his instructions, you're in terror, but you can't realistically do anything but pay.

Some of our regulars were at the hotel this afternoon, not for the hookers, but just sitting in the lounge having coffee. In my place as the head of the Organization's prostitution operation, I have a bank of TVs to keep track of people's comings and goings, no pun intended. I saw among them a couple of the ones who said one of their fetishes was wanting "the danger" of being blackmailed.

Of course I like to make people happy. That's the business I'm in. So I thought I'd play around with this one guy, a guy named Rutledge. He's the kind of guy who would probably scare easily. And who knows how happy that might make him!

I dialed his number and watched as he answered the phone. "Mr. Rutledge," I said calmly, disguising my voice, "don't hang up..." He goes, "Who is this? What do you want?"

"What-do-I-want?" I repeated, adding a menacing chuckle. "You tell me ... You've been a very bad boy. I've been watching you." He sounded like he was getting sick. "What's this all about?" I just chuckled again, like a cat with a mouse, then said, "You know what it's about, you being a very bad boy."

In the give and take, definitely fevered at his end, I finally described the monetary payment I would need "to keep my big yap shut" and where he should make the drop. Of course I added a few snarling remarks about "What a terrible pity" it'd be for his wife to find out, especially considering all the child support he'd be liable for, with eight kids. "That'd wipe me out," he complained, to which I only replied, "I know."

He wanted to meet me face to face. It was a confused conversation because in there somewhere he started thinking maybe it was me. "Is this you, Ricky? Is this what we were just talking about?" I expressed that I didn't know anyone named Ricky. Probably more unbelievably, in spite of Ricky Ricardo and Ricky Nelson being famous Rickys, I said I'd never even heard the name before. Before he could interrupt, I cleared my throat.

"Mr. Rutledge,"  I said, "The plain truth is, I know where you go, and I know what you do there. And if you don't do exactly as I tell you, I will be sharing some very interesting facts with your lovely wife..."

"OK, dammit to hell," he blustered, "what do you want?" I explained a complicated procedure that he must perform. He should put $300 in small unmarked bills in a package, come to the hotel, catch a taxi to a particular corner, walk to a mailbox, take another taxi from there to where he started from, walk to a fire hydrant, catch a taxi back to the same particular corner, clap three times, and catch a taxi back to where he started. Then he would re-enter to the hotel and say to the receptionis, "Give this package to Mr. X when he arrives."

"That's all, then you can go back home ... to your loving wife and kids ... or carry on as you've been doing."

I could see in the monitor he was sweating a rainforest. But he was relieved, it appeared, that it was only $300. Could he be so fortunate? I brought him back to earth with a dispiriting promise, "I'll talk to you again ... next week!"

UPDATE: Rutledge did exactly as I commanded. Later, I called him up to my office and gave him back his money. He was pleasantly surprised and said, "Don't ever do that again!" and was totally relieved. I was laughing my ass off and asked how he liked it, since it was his fetish. He laughed, too, and said, "Not as much!"