Larry’s Bad Night



Yes, it was to be the best night of Larry’s life but as often happens things turned bad. Larry did not see things turning bad. He never saw things turning bad. They just turned bad without him seeing them and then they were.

Bad.

And there he was. Larry.

People yelling at him, angry faces all around him. His life in pieces. It was hard to be Larry. To be better than anyone else, to be smarter than everyone else, but there you are. That is Larry.

Total Larryness is hard to come by these days. Take the uniform. To be Larry you need to wear two shirts. A Hanes white v-neck T bought by your mom in Frost Circus, Minnesota. Most important of all you need an oversize Colorado Avalanche jersey with the name FORSBERG emblazoned across the back. This jersey is to be worn every waking day of your Larry life.

For pant wear the choice is obvious in its Larrytude. Nothing will suffice but to wear dark blue standard issue sweat pants (white drawstring preferred) with the waistband pulled up to within four inches of your Larry armpits. It goes without saying of course that you tightly tuck in the aforementioned Avalanche jersey with FORSBERG emblazoned across the back. You tuck and stuff and pull and tug up the sweat pants until only the peak of the giant A for Avalanche, visible.

As Larry your socks are black. Well brown. They are stylishly striped across the top. Sometimes Larry liked to mix it up and wear one double red stripe and one double yellow stripe. But nobody noticed.

Nobody. Noticed.

Not that it was a conscious decision to be different. No, Larry is not capable of such guile. His needs are urgent and friendless. His thought process or rather thought procedures are feebly scheming at best. The rest was all mole-like egotism.

Mole is what kids called Larry and it really fucking pissed him off. He did not think he resembled a mole in the least but he did. He was pretty sure he looked just like Ricky Martin, his hero. Yeah, it was sweet.

In fact he looked comically like a mole. His head was slightly pointed and his black hair was combed over to the side in a fashionable My-Three-Sons 1966 pompadour. It was his squinty eyes and heavy jaw however that sealed his animalistic comparison designation. He was also short and squat. He was well over four feet. He didn’t look thirty but he was.

Sure they all laughed at him. At Larry.

They laughed but Larry would get even. Vengeance was strong in him. He liked to lie in the ruin of his boyhood racecar bed with the crusty sheets that smelled like the zoo. He liked the daydreams of turning the tables on them all. On showing them that he Larry was smarter and handsomer than they were. He outwitted them all anyway, every day of his stinking life.



But that has nothing to do with Larry’s extremely bad night. The night he was going to fuck the retarded dwarf named Patty. She was about forty-five with dirty brown wispy remnants of a head of hair and perpetually half shut eyes.

Larry showed up early to Special Olympics practice because Patty was coming early too. Larry had ridden his ten-speed bike all the way from the Lincoln Plaza apartments and he was winded but confidently horny. He was determined to fuck Patty tonight. He had relentlessly pleaded with her all week to let him fuck her and she had finally wearily acquiesced. Larry did not detect the note of weariness; such subtleties were invisible to him. All he knew was he was going to get fucked.

Larry loved to get fucked. He was supposed to not want to do it anymore when they changed the pills but it made no difference. Larry did not know nor did he care whether or not fucking caused children. The two had no connection whatsoever in his mind. Which is just as well because his mutant sperm was so toxic that no issue could ever be forthcoming, mercifully.

It was the only thing in his life that felt pure, and good. It was the only window in this life that he could crawl through and feel complete even though Larry didn’t truly understand the concept of completeness. He never felt guilty about the consequences of his squirtings because the good feeling came First. Before anything else. He was always ready with his logical hard-ons for he was Larry a brave fornicator in the new millennium, and now he was catching his breath at the bike rack at Buzz Aldrin elementary school where the Special Olympics met every Tuesday and Thursdays night to play basketball.

Larry played ball with the retards but he wasn’t one of them.

He wasn’t.

They were retards and he was not. He was Larry. He whipped their asses at basketball. He was by far the best player and everyone knew it.

Even Joe.




Joe was a fucking asshole retard and Larry hated him and if you’re going to be like Larry you have to hate Joe too. That’s number one right there. You have to hate Joe and you have to love the Avalanche and you have to love Ricky Martin because, man he’s the best and man Larry can see a certain resemblance and Larry knows damn well no one every called Ricky Martin a mole.

Where was she?

Larry grows frantic. It is already four thirty. Of course, Special Olympics practice doesn’t start until six thirty but Larry distinctly told her to come early. Early to Larry is two hours. Remember that. It’s real easy. Larry tells time in two-hour increments. It’s just easier that way.

This is the all-encompassing Larryattitude. He is unto himself as we all are but he has no inner brake. It’s Larry’s way or the freeway, yet Larry had not known ever anyone who took anything he said seriously. Larry had an awareness that he was inside a system he couldn’t control and he rages through it with his Larryness. This enraged him for sure.

It was a wistful rage also named Larry. This rage was indecisive and paranoid, but it was strong and vibrant. It channeled Larry’s life. He passed most of his time dreaming about getting even with various people and institutions. He enjoyed lying on his wrecked racecar bed in the three-room frame house his mother had abandoned him in. It was hard to be abandoned by your mother at the tender age of twenty-nine. But screw her.

Screw. Her.

Larry didn’t need anyone. Well he needed the guy with the ponytail at special services that handled his check. And he needed women to fuck. But other than that he was self-contained in his total Larryness.

He knew the world revolved around him and this was confirmed to him one time when he was riding his bike and he stopped for a light and he looked down into the gutter and there was a smashed CD. You know what it said? It said “Electric Larryland.” By the Butthead Surfers. Larry immediately went to Hastings and bought his own copy and played it at home in anticipation. Perhaps this was his signal. The message he had been vaguely waiting for all his life.

The music however, was not to Larry’s liking at all, harsh and hollering and he filed it away, intending to get back to it and his destiny later, preferring to play Ricky Martin or Backstreet Boys. He sang along to these CDs at top volume and he was enchanted by the sound of his own voice blending so well and effortlessly with the others.
For Larry’s neighbors however the effect was quite different.



And now we are back to Larry’s bad night. Let me set the scene. It is Tuesday or Thursday evening. It is almost Halloween because the school is decorated in orange and brown. It is 4:30 and Special Olympics basketball practice starts at 6:30. You’re early because you’re going to meet the love of your life, Patty the middle aged balding dwarf woman who has wearily agreed to fuck you tonight after a ravenous dinner of fish sticks from Safeway and pre-prepared applesauce cups and some 3.2 beer. The Ricky Martin tape is all ready to go.
But Patty was not there yet. This, the best night of his life was off to a disturbing start. But being Larry one must persevere. He knows the way to get women to fuck him is be sure of two things. They’re retarded and you just keep asking until they get tired and say yes.

Larry gets tired of pacing back and forth in front of the bike rack and he fails to notice the beautiful pink and blue sunset before him. He never notices things like sunsets or full moons. He looked at the sun one time and had a headache for two days and that was the end of Larry’s curiosity about the world around him.


Larry makes sure his bike is securely locked to the bike rack then he enters Buzz Aldrin elementary school. He immediately plants himself on the iron braced wooden slatted bench where he clamps his headphones on his head and listens to Backstreet Boys or the Avalanche game and returns the flinty glances of wary teachers and hostile janitors.

One of the janitors is named Dan and he indeed eyes Larry suspiciously. Dan He wears a black Pantera t-shirt and has long blonde hair tied in a ponytail. He immediately approaches and starts questioning Larry but Larry is smarter than some dumb janitor.

“Are you here for Special Olympics?”

“Basketball. I’m a coach.” Larry lied.

“What’s your name?”

“Larry.”

“Well you know you don’t have the gym until 6:30.”

“Yeah.”

“Well if you want to sit on that bench for two hours be my guest. You just can’t be like wandering around. The teachers will get nervous.”

“Yeah.”


Larry hated the janitor for trying to tell him, Larry, what to do. But he wanted to stay where he was in case Patty came early and let him feel her up. His heart was bursting with love for Patty. He was going to ask her to marry him. She would be his sweet bride.

He hated the janitor who kept walking by jangling by with his big ring of keys jingling at least Larry thought I’ll always know when he’s coming like a cat on a bell.

“How come you come so early man?”

“I just like to.”

“Well don’t you have anything better to do?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

Larry noticed while Dan the janitor was gone away that the gym was empty. He liked to work on his game because he prided himself immensely on his athletic skills. So he went in and starting shooting baskets. The janitor appeared as if by magic, his face angry.

“Get out of here. You don’t have this gym until 6:30. There are liability issues here Larry. What if you fall and break your neck? Who’s going to pay for it?”

“I was just shooting baskets.”

“Look man I’m not even supposed to let you into the building and I let you sit on that bench and now you take advantage of me. I thought we were friends Larry. I thought I could trust you to sit on that hard bench for two hours until the rest of the Special Olympics people came. But I guess you’d rather be violating my trust than keeping your word to me.”

Larry was temporarily speechless. No one had ever spoken to him this way, attacking him on all fronts simultaneously. “I didn’t know.”

“Now you know. I got rules to follow. If it was up to me you could shoot all the baskets you want but if you get caught it ain’t you they’re gonna fire it’s me.”


Dan the janitor loved fucking with Larry. He had noticed Larry coming in early on Tuesdays and Thursdays and sitting on the bench rocking back and forth to his Walkman sometimes for two hours. Larry even tried to sit on the kung fu class ahead of basketball and one night the kung fu teacher asked Dan who that weird guy was and Dan explained he was a guy named Larry who was with Special Olympics. Raised eyebrows. The kung fu teacher a decent sort of guy named Mike said he was kind of creepy so Dan kicked Larry out of kung fu class the next Tuesday.

Dan knew Larry was playing some kind of feeble game and he saw how Larry strutted around. He was fascinated with him and he tried to get Larry to talk to him. What he learned was that Larry lived with his mom and he loved girls and the Avs.

Being a janitor is a lonely job, a job where people constantly misjudge everything about you. They play their games and you play yours.

“Tonight I’m gonna get fucked and I’m getting married. Looks like we might go to Pueblo and get married. Then live in New Mexico where her family is. The group home won’t let her see me or talk to me or call me on the phone. I’m supposed to stay away from her but I know she’s coming here and we’re sneaking away. Don’t tell Forrest.”

Forrest was the manly, dead eyed little woman who ran the basketball practices with an iron fist. Larry hated her because she spoke to him in tones that induced fear, an emotion he was loath to admit to or even face. Forrest had threatened to throw him off the team several times because of what she called his ‘arrogance” whatever that meant. In any case, Larry knew an enemy when he saw one and he tried to steer clear of Forrest whenever he could. But that was becoming difficult.


“You’re really getting married?” Dan asked. Impressed. Larry’s chest filled with blood and his heart pounded with friendship.

“I love her,” he blurted perhaps a bit too passionately. And he did. He did love her. He loved her with all his heart.

“Well how come they won’t let you guys, you know, be together.”

“ Oh the people who run her group home say I’m a bad influence. Me Larry. Can you believe it? Just because I had some trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Just some trouble. With the police.”

“Legal trouble? What kind?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”



Larry resumed his seat on the hard bench and he clamped his headphones down on his ears. People he didn’t know passed by and looked at him the way people always look at him. Like they know everything. But they don’t. They don’t know anything. Like how he, Larry, is really a supergenius. That’s right. He just knew he was a supergenius deep down. That’s why he had so much trouble getting along with people. A man like Larry has ideas. For instance, there’s Asperteeth, which are dentures made out of aspirin for people who drink and get hangovers. Then there are rubber books for bathtub reading. And diet water for calories conscious exercisers. And his speed sleeping course, which he was developing in his mind. No one knew he was a super genius except his mother. His mother had explained it all to him before she left.




She walked straight up the hallway, towards him. The tile floor and the shiny cinderblock walls resonated with the click of her shoes. He hair was short and her face was open and smiling. Her chest was perfect and erect and Larry liked that because tits were the first things he looked at. He just couldn’t help it. Was she walking toward him? Was she smiling at him?

She was bearing down on him as he sat helpless on his hard bench listening to an Avs game over his headphones. She looked right at him with her cat eyes and smiled and her mouth said “Hi.” But what Larry heard was “That was a dirty check by Knezevitch whose on his way to the penalty box for that one.”

Larry was instantly and deeply in love with this teacher who had just sashayed into his life. Her smile had opened his heart, which was bursting with love. She passed him on the bench and went into the adjoining teacher’s workroom where she busied herself with various Xerox duties.

Her smell lingered in his nose, a giddy mixture of soaps and perfumes and shampoos and something else under it; a coppery woman smell that Larry’s hypothalamus knew and responded to quite without Larry’s knowledge. Larry, being a creature of his desires didn’t care why he suddenly felt the surge of blood through his body and now Larry wasn’t even listening to the game anymore. Sure, he still loved Patty and he was for sure going to fuck her tonight and he was probably going to ask her to marry him. He would buy a ring tomorrow.

‘Yes?” She asked puzzled but still with a smile. Larry did not notice the pasted on natured of the aforementioned smile.
“Do you like basketball?” he asked her, his voice husky with love and lust.

“No. Not really.”

“Well I got two tickets to UNY basketball. Would you like to go with me as my date? It’ll be sweet”

And now there is what is called a pregnant pause, while the teacher, a Ms. Justinian, considers her options. A survivor of incestuous childhood abuse, which she mentions every chance she gets, (“I knew what the word cock meant when I was five years old,”) Ms. Justinian is not the pushover she seems. She has taken an Israeli army self-defense courses for just this situation, being cornered in a windowless room by a hunched, mole-faced middle-aged retard with a visible erection beneath his pulled up to the armpits sweat pants.

“Excuse me won’t you?” she says sweetly as she gathers her papers and leaves the room, brushing past Larry who inhales her in and memorizes her with his mind for later use.

She can feel his squinty mole-like eyes on her ass as she makes her way back to her room. But with each step back she feels safer and soon she is brushing off her instinctual fears with rationalizations and by the time she is all the way back down the hall she has relaxed her psyche. As she turns to switch on her lights she is shocked to see Larry right behind her smiling.

“Is this your room?”

“Yes. No. My room is, um, on the other end.”

“Well what are you doing in this room for then?”

“Well, I’m taking these papers..”

She does not know what to do now. He is obviously impaired in some way and she has no way of knowing if he’s dangerous or not. She realized too late not to let him know that this was her classroom. So far he is harmless so she decides to treat him with kindness and give him the benefit of the doubt. There is deep behind her eyes though a dull ache of alarm. The same ache of alarm she got whenever she saw a picture of her father, the motherfucker.

Daughterfucker.

“It’s all the way from the gym.”

“Yes.”

“What’s you’re name lady?”

(Pointedly) “Ms Justinian.”

“Same name as on the chalkboard. I thought you said this wasn’t your room. Ah ha! Caught you! My name is Larry. What about that basketball game? I could make us dinner. Fish sticks and applesauce cups.”

“Well. No thank you Larry.”

“Why not? How come?”

“Well, I’m not really a basketball fan.”

“Well I have a house and you could come over. We could watch my TV and fuck.”

“LARRY!”

It is Dan, the janitor. Larry stops and takes his face away from Ms. Justinian to Dan. Dan looks hard and unfriendly and Ms. Justinian looks flushed and her eyes are dull and glassy. She is surprised to find her heart beating fast and sweat from her underarms dripping down her sides.


“It’s alright Dan. Larry was just leaving.”

“No I wasn’t.” Larry said. “I was going to get fucked and you blew it for me.”

Dan raised his eyebrows at stared at Ms. Justinian. Why had she brought him down to her room? Dan wondered. Jesus Christ these horny teachers were something else. Dan had seen a lot in his capacity as assistant head janitor, but he had never seen a teacher horny enough to fuck a retard. Look at her panting and sweating.

“What about that basketball game?” Larry pleads for his techniques are tried and true.

“C’mon Larry let’s go. I gotta kick you out.”



Larry comes along silently at the indignity of being given the bum rush by a dumb janitor. Dan shook his head sadly.

“You just keep violating my trust Larry. Now I cannot trust you in my school. Am I supposed to risk my job so you can hit on teachers? You stupid fuck. I ought to call the cops on you.”

“Go ahead.” Larry retorted hotly. “I’m not scared of cops.”

Dan shoved him out the door and Larry started to lose his temper. His face got red but even then Dan somehow found a way to cut him off.

“Hey man don’t get all red faced at me. It’s not my fault you’re a fuck up.”




Larry was outside now, by the bike rack. In his fury he kicked a bike which was of course his own. The tire fell off because the steel forks that held the wheel on snapped when Larry kicked the bike. This does not usually happen and in fact one can usually kick bikes all day long with little or no damage. But these steel bike wheel forks were both flawed in their metallurgical construction rendering them susceptible to fracture. Larry is indeed lucky not to have hit the right bump and the wrong time.

But as it is, Larry has no bike. His steel forks are broken and even Larry knows this means he needs a new bike and he knows Special Services will give him a hard time about the money for a new one.


“What happened to your old bike Larry?”

“It broke.”

“How did it break Larry?”

“I kicked it.”

“Are you taking you anger management pills Larry?”

“Yes. No. Maybe I don’t know.”




As was noted before, Larry is basically vengeance based in his thinking and the ignominy of being thrown out while on the verge of beautiful love has left him enraged at the world and at Dan the Janitor. Just as he was thinking of a way to kill Dan or have him killed by others, Larry noticed it was dark outside. Night. Where was Patty? She was still going to let him fuck her wasn’t she? She promised.

She. Promised.

But now Larry was locked out of the school and he had to wait the 38 minutes until six thirty and basketball practice. He paced outside, circling the school, doing his counting thing where he counted his footsteps in increments of two, each time he went around the school and then tried to do it in less steps the next time. It was one of his supergenius things. No one understood.

And now he had to go to the bathroom. Larry had an abnormal fear of exploding if he didn’t go to the bathroom. This held for number one or number two it didn’t matter. Although he did not know the origin of his horror it was traced back to his mother, who tried to potty train him at the age of seven with gruesome tales of bladder burstings and colon ruptures.

Larry frantically circled the school looking for a place to pee. He knew that if he went into the school, Brian the janitor would tell Forrest and he just didn’t feel like that kind of hassle tonight.

Tonight. The. Best. Night. Of. His. Life.


There was the corner he was looking for. Blind on three sides thanks to mid seventies cinderblock architectural stylings. Larry pulled his pants down. It was Larry’s custom to pull his pants all the way down when he took a whiz. The problem was that he then had to hold up the long tail of his Avs jersey. It was a very complicated procedure. But with pants down around ankles and Avs jersey held up over his slightly protruding belly, Larry achieved complete pissitude in the sheltered corner of Buzz Aldrin elementary school at approximately five fifteen on a darkening October night. We know it is October because of all the pumpkin motif artwork and witches silhouettes in home windows.

And yet..and yet just as Larry had made a most satisfying puddle in the corner where the cement of the sidewalk meets the cinderblock of the school trisecting walls, just as Larry, a vengeful god drowns a complete settlement of small black ants with his mutant urine, retribution launches itself at him in the form of a slavering snarling black rotweiller dog named Cantinflas owned by August Perez Jr., 49, an employee at the sugar beet factory.

It was August’s routine to walk his beloved rotweiller Cantinflas around Buzz Aldrin elementary every night at dusk so that Cantinflas could piss and shit and August could relax and watch Baywatch. Dan the janitor had repeatedly warned August that his dog was a menace who charged every person he saw, but August assumed a look of hurt pride and said “He wasn’t charging he was juts coming up to you.”

But now Cantinflas was “juts” coming up to Larry, growling and barking and snapping and August was too far behind him and out of sight from the aforementioned architectural anomaly which rendered this particular corner of Buzz Aldrin elementary unseen. By the time he got there this is what he saw.

A short, burly moleish man with his pants down around his knees. In one hand he was holding up a too large Avs jersey and in the other he was protecting his testicles from Cantinflas who was standing in front of him growling and snarling and snapping. The man had a crazed look on his face and there was a huge puddle of piss forming around his feet. It ran like a miniature river, full of hundreds of small dead ants toward Cantinflas’s feet.

“What are you doing to my dog!” August shouted.

Larry clutched his small penis and protected his testicles from the dog’s fearful jaws whole this short balding Mexican man shouted for help. Soon enough, Dan the janitor came running around the corner followed closely by Patty, the sloe eyed middle aged dwarf with hardly any hair left and her best friend Beth, a tall husky girl with no upper teeth at all and thick eyeglasses which magnified her eyes so much she looked like an alien owl and who spoke in shouting tones all the time.

“I want him arrested! He molested my dog. What did he do to you Cantinflas! What did he do to you baby?” August was on one knee kissing the snarling dog on the mouth. It seemed incredibly dangerous and he was practically French kissing the dog which paid him no attention at all, just kept snarling at Larry, who stood hiding his shame and remaining indecisive.

“You better get off school grounds right now,” Dan said in a low, hard voice. August stopped kissing. The dog stopped snarling. “There’s fucking kids that play here and someday that fucking dog is going to kill one of them. If I see either of you on school grounds again I’ll mace you.” Dan pulled out a can of pepper spray from his pocket.

August grumbled and picked up Cantinflas’s unused leash. “I’m gonna call the cops,” he wined. “You threatened me.”

“Call the cops,” Dan called back after him. “I’ll fix it so they take your dog away.”

August didn’t reply for Dan had touched on his greatest fear. Now he and Cantinflas would have to hide in their trailer for a week or so when the coast was clear. He would walk Cantinflas at night when there was no one around to bother him.

“LARRY PUT YOUR PANTS ON!” Beth hollered, he voice thick with an oversized tongue and no upper teeth whatsoever. Patty as usual was silent and sleepy-eyed. She was dressed in a tube top and shorts and was not a pretty sight.

Overjoyed and without the least bit of self consciousness Larry went over to her and pulled up his sweat pants and tucked and tugged his jersey until it was tightly tucked down at the sweat pants were at their familiar armpit level.

“My sweet baby’s here! It’s going to happen tonight! Did Patty tell you Beth? Did she tell you?”

Beth frowned. “NO.”

“We’re going to my place and we’re going to fuck tonight. Huh Patty. Aren’t we.”

Patty did not acknowledge him. “YOU CAN’T TONIGHT BECAUSE THE BACKSTREET BOYS ARE ON THE DISNEY CHANNEL.” Beth hollered.

“What time?” Larry was electrified.


“Biiitch!”


Everyone wheeled but they knew who it was. It was Joe with his brother Jim. Jim and Joe were pretty retarded, with Jim having the edge over Joe in total retardation. Both the brothers were short and extremely simian in appearance. Jim especially had long arms and a huge drooping bottom lip that accentuated his ape-like persona. While Jim was sweet natured, Joe danced on the dark side, fixing in his head a vision of himself as a badass. Both brothers lifted weights and ran stairs for wrestling practice and Joe, especially like to try and bully those weaker than himself. Joe’s tactic was simple. He called the guy a bitch until a fight ensued.

”You bitch,” Joe whined at Larry, a practiced Elvis-like sneer on his face. Joe idolized Elvis to such an extent that he and Jim had matching Elvis costumes that they wore on any special occasional. Joe’s Elvisness was stronger than Jim’s however. Jim preferred to be John Elway.

Both brothers were incredibly girl crazy and horny, but while Jim lived in a fantasy world where he was married to multiple cheerleaders, Joe actually talked to girls and asked them for hugs and back rubs. At his own mother’s funeral, Joe made sure to demand hugs to ease his nonexistent grief from the strutting high shoed cheerleaders whose teacher made them come. Joe even copped a few feels, ass and tits and it solidified it in his heart as the very best day of his whole entire life.

But that was then and this is now and Jim and Joe are standing just inside Buzz Aldrin elementary watching Larry finish pulling his pants up, Dan the Janitor, Patty and Beth who all seemed to stop and just wait for whatever was going to happen next. Joe advanced with his Elvis sneer with Jim following behind him like a pet monkey.

“Bitch. You’re my little bitch Larry.”

Larry snapped to. “You better not mess me with tonight Joe.”

“I’ll do what I want. Because you’re my little bitch.”

“Joe!” Jim said sharply for he saw himself as a stern peacemaker, being the elder by two years.

“Shut up.” Joe snapped back to his brother and returned his attention to Larry.

“I might just kick your ass tonight Larry. I might just hurt your fuckin’ ass.”

Larry narrowed his mole like eyes and pulled Patty close to him. She did not respond.

“Alright take it outside.” Dan said. “You guys fight in here and I’ll call the cops. You want to fight outside I’ll sell tickets. Shit I’d like to see that fight.”

“I can’t fight.” Larry said bravely.

“Yeah because you’re a pussy.” Joe said.

“Joe!” Jim reprimanded.

“Shut up.” Joe said to his brother. Then he returned his attention to Larry.

“I said I can’t fight. I’m not allowed. It’s too dangerous. “

“Yeah right,” Joe sneered and everyone else smiled. Even Larry in his eternal cluelessness knew they didn’t believe him.

“I said I can’t fight people. But I can fight other stuff.”

“Like pillows?” Jim asked seriously.

“Like big mean dogs.” Larry replied solemnly. “Laugh all you want. The Coward brothers are paying me five bucks to fight their dog.”

“How come you didn’t fight that dog just now then.”

Larry pulled himself up to his full five feet. “Because I wasn’t being paid to.”


Joe sensing a loss of momentum quickly changed the subject. He knocked Larry’s hand off of his beloved’s bosom.

“Let go of my woman.”

Larry turned livid. “Your woman! You’re just a retard! This is MY woman! We’re spending the night together tonight! We’re engaged to be married you asshole!”

Larry fiercely licked the ear of the nonresponsive dwarf and got a mouthful of her falling hair in return. So he hugged her close and cooed baby talk to her while shooting Joe menacing looks.

“I can’t fight because I’m on probation.” Larry said.

“LARRY YOU BETTER NOT FIGHT HIM.” Beth said in her loud voice. Although she spoke in conversational tones she talked as if addressing one from inside a jet engine. “LARRY YOU CAN’T.”

“This is my night with my woman,” Larry said. “I'll fight you Thursday.”

Joe lifted his arms in the gangsta style whatup gesture. “Let’s go right now bitch.” He said in his high whining voice that perfectly matched Beth’s in annoying sounds.

“DON’T DO IT LARRY!” Beth counseled. “IT’S NOT WORTH IT LARRY,” She bellowed. Patty was, as usual nonresponsive.

“She may be your woman but I fucked her earlier.” Joe smirked.

“JOE!” Beth said.

“I did.” Joe said sweetly to Larry who was flinching and twitching with raw ragged jealously. “Ask her.” Joe said.

Larry looked down at his sweet baby who looked back at him.

Patty grasped the question on everyone’s mind and shoved her hand down the front of her pants. She felt around a little then withdrew the hand, smelling the fingers. She looked at Beth and then at Larry.

Larry howled in pain as Joe snickered and pointed. Joe in fact had not fucked Patty. He had only a hazy grip on just exactly fucking was. It had something to do with rubbing the tits and..Well he tried not to think about it until he was alone and thinking of hugging all those cheerleaders.

Lost in his sweet reverie, Joe failed to respond to Larry’s blind charge toward him. Everyone was suddenly in action, Dan moved to stop him, Beth drew Patty to her and they began waddling down the hall away from the trouble they knew was coming. Joe stood there his arms outstretched from his sides, palms up. Jim stood behind him, watching dispassionately as Larry ran toward him.


“KNOCK IT OFF LARRY!” A sharp voice stopped everything dead. Forrest emerged from the gym door and everyone snapped to attention.

“What are you all doing out here?” Forrest demanded. “Do you know they’ll kick us out of here at the slightest thing. Did you know that Larry? Would you like to not have any basketball practice to go to Larry?”

“I don’t care,” Larry said to his shoes. Women in authority always intimidated him. First there was his mother, then his psychiatrist Dr. Julebo, and his probation officer Gina. They all lorded over him as if he was a child and he was sick and tired of it. Tonight was going to be the best night of his life. His loins ached for Patty the balding dwarf and her sleepy eyed sexiness.

“Bitch,” Joe whispered and he and Jim walked by Larry into the gym.

“What was that Joe?” Forrest demanded like any good guard. She was short and blonde with a squished face and hard, little eyes. Her four hundred-pound Husband Cecil stood behind her, face benign eyes serene. Cecil and Forrest had a sweet deal going where they would take in and care for as many retarded people as their house could hold. They averaged three thousand dollars a month profit per person.

“Ladies where are you supposed to be?” Forrest demanded like a Minnesotan drill sergeant. Before they could answer she said, “Patty you need to call the group home. They want you back right away.”

“No!” Larry said, his eyes blazing. Patty remained emotionless.

“You have nothing to say about it Larry. I believe you’re violating a restraining order as we speak now.” Forrest said crisply.

Larry turned to Patty but Beth wheeled her away and they started off again down the hall.

“BYE LARRY.” Beth called and Patty looked sleepily after her. Larry kept his head down and walked into the gym.



“Tonight was going to be Larry’s big night.” Dan told Forrest who didn’t return his smile or his ironic tone.

“Larry’s a big pain in the butt,” she began. “He’s obnoxious and he’s always hitting on the women.”

“He hit on a teacher today.”

Forrest narrowed her eyes. “He did?”

“Yeah. She took care of it.”

“Well Larry has stalker issues. Never give him your phone number and never let him use a phone.”


Larry came to play. Tonight was going to be his night. His sweet beloved was sitting courtside with her best friend Beth to watch him in his moment of triumph. For it was true, Larry indeed was by far the best player on both teams. Second to Larry was…Joe. Because of this rivalry, Forrest always made sure to put Larry and Joe on the same team. Tonight was different however. Larry refused to play on the same team as Joe.

“Puuss,” Joe sneered.

“Alright go ahead,” Said Forrest in an exasperated tone. She really didn’t give a fuck but she knew they were on thin ice with the school district. There had been thefts and acts of vandalism and she didn’t trust Dan the janitor who she felt despite his friendly attitude hated them. She was right. Dan did hate the Special Olympics. He hated them because they stayed until nine and he couldn’t smoke weed or watch TV until they were all gone.


The game that night was fierce and brutal. Larry was rattled badly by the encounter beforehand and it showed in his playing. His three point shot was now an embarrassing wind ball that sometimes didn’t even make it all the way to the rim. Joe seemed super confident and even Jim managed to run all the way down the court without dropping his glasses or stopping to talk to a pretty girl.

Joe taunted Larry, who was distracted by watching his fiancée watch him. The others there seemed to try and distract him as well. Leroy, a man of sixty came up to Larry and talked into his face. His words smelled like peanuts.

“Alls you need is to sniff the breath of a girl to stay strong,” he said and winked.


But Larry persevered. Every shot he made he yelled loudly and danced with his arms thrust up into the air. He chanted at the top of his lungs a chorus from a popular and extremely annoying rap song.

“Who let the dogs out? Who Who!”


The game wasn’t even close and in the third quarter things came to an ugly and ignominious end. Joe had just stolen the ball from Larry by calling him a “Beeawtch” like he heard on TV. He then pivoted and despite the fact that his brother Jim stood directly in front of him, arms hanging down, lost in thought, Joe pitched it for three points in a perfect parody of Larry’s patented three point shot. Then Joe grinned at Larry and pulled his pants up by the waist as far as they would go and imitated Larry’s bowlegged gait. Even Forrest, who hated Joe as much as she hated Larry, was impressed.

When Larry saw Patty clapping and smiling a decaying smile at Joe’s feat and crude satire something in him exploded. He retrieved the ball and flung it with both hands into the face of a twelve-year-old blind girl named Sissy, breaking her nose and creating such a puddle of black blood on the gym floor that Dan the janitor went ballistic.

Game over.

Forrest had Larry out in the hallway up against the wall. She was yelling. The gist of what she said was that he was no longer welcome to play basketball with them ever again. As she was yelling, Larry saw Sissy’s mother take her crying moaning daughter out the front door and on the way to the emergency room. She shot Larry a withering look and pointed her finger at him and said something but the chaos of his mind was too loud for him to hear it.

He offered her a smile, which only seemed to enrage her further. He saw Jim and Joe walk out with Beth and Patty; Joe had his arm draped over Patty’s shoulder, which was awkward because he was so much taller that she was. As they walked out the door, he heard Joe say, “C’mon you were going to do it for that Dickhead Larry. Do it for me. And my brother too.”

“Yeah!” Said Jim enthusiastically.

“Shut up Jim,” Said Joe.



Larry did not notice the crisp smell of fireplaces in the October air outside by the bike rack. He looked for his lock key on a string around his neck and noticed it was gone. He went back to the front doors but Dan had already locked them for the night. He could see Dan, headphones clamped to his head, and he pounded on the door but Dan could not hear him. Or would not hear him. But Larry did not understand the difference.

So here is Larry on a very bad night sitting cross-legged in front of the bike rack, head down, crying like a baby.

When he finally reached his mother’s house, he retreated to his boyhood room and rocked alone on his bed in a dark room filled with shadows, trying to arrange the events and consequences of his bad night into some kind of understanding. He concluded after careful review and deep thought that Joe had been responsible for it all. Tomorrow he would see if the Coward brothers would kill Joe for money and he Larry could reassume his rightful place in the cosmos, a wish which did not prevent him from enjoying the solace of his unltraprivate thoughts and feelings.