The Day Stoney Cracked
by Lincoln Trudeau
There's a man I know named Jerry Mosque, but everybody calls him "Stoney." Don't ask me why -- I don't know either.He's not that bad a guy, really -- very determined and always willing to lend a helping hand. If you ever need anything, Stoney will be there...that's it, I can't lie anymore. Stoney Mosque is, without a doubt, the most aggravating, anal-retentive person I have ever had the misfortune of coming into contact with.Even before the old fart won a lifetime vacation to the local funny farm, he was not a good man to be around. He was what most people referred to as a "neatness freak", one of the lowest forms of life within the confines of the law. If anything was out of place, he threw a fit and whoever was on the receiving end soon wished they'd never been born. To further complicate matters, Stoney was my next-door neighbour.Once, in an attempt to make peace with the man, I offered to help him set up a birthday party for his son. That was a mistake.I had shown up at the house and was in the middle of arranging the cutlery on the kitchen table when Stoney marched right up to me and frowned. "What are you doing?" he asked me in a you've-really-screwed-up tone of voice."Just putting out the spoons and forks like you asked," I replied in an is-there-a-problem voice."Look at the napkin," Stoney said impatiently, pointing to the one at the far end of the table. "Tell me what you see.""Yeah, it's a napkin. What am I supposed to be seeing? Is this one of those optical illusion puzzles or somethin'?"Stoney crossed his arms and glared at me, tightening his lips. "The corner of that napkin is wrinkled.""Yes it is.""Well, unwrinkle it then!"I couldn't see what the big deal was. "Why? Who cares?""Well, it doesn't look right.""Oh, get a life, would you?" Now I was starting to get mad. "You're being such a prick."Just after I verbally attacked Stoney, his ten-year-old son Francis walked in the room. "Hi, dad!" the boy shouted. "Can I go play with my friends outside?""Oh, go play with your friends, eh?" Stoney yelled, pointing a finger within an inch of his son's face. "Sure! What comes next, huh? If your friends jumped off a cliff, I bet you'd do that too, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you?!""Jeez. Sorry, dad.""Don't 'sorry' me, smartass! Now go clean your room. And I want it spotless."Most parents didn't really mean spotless, but Stoney was serious. Once Francis had been grounded for three weeks because Stoney saw a dark spot on the boy's bedroom mirror. The spot turned out to be the reflection of a blackhead on Francis' face.After Francis had left the room, I turned to sneak out of the kitchen until I heard, "Hey, Simmons! Get your ass back here and straighten that napkin."The man apparently had little respect for the untidy. "Stoney, I didn't even wrinkle the damn thing.""That's beside the point. It's messy and I want it fixed.""Then you fix it, ya moron!"Stoney angrily opened a drawer and pulled out a cleaver, which was my cue to get the hell out of the house.I felt sorry for Francis. No kid deserves a parent like Stoney. After the birthday party, young Francis told me his goal in life was to grow up, get married, have children, and raise them like pigs to give his father a massive heart attack. Sadly, he was never able to realize his dream.Shortly after his sixteenth birthday, Francis stole his father's car and deliberately smashed it into a Dairy Queen. Then, blocking out the pain he suffered from the crash, he jogged three miles and ran off the edge of a cliff. When the police were called to the scene, they found a note in Francis' back pocket reading "Dear dad: my friends did it first."The police were given the task of trying to explain what had happened to Stoney. They knew their job would not be an easy one, so they asked me to do it instead.Obviously, that was not standard police procedure, but I had the worst luck -- one of the investigating officers was Vinny Marx. I had borrowed over two thousand dollars from Vinny years earlier to play bingo (this was before I joined Bingoholics Anonymous). With an unpaid debt (and Vinny's gun) hanging over my head, I had no choice but to talk to Stoney.I went up to Stoney's front door and rang the doorbell -- I'd have knocked, but a doorbell seemed to show more compassion. When the old man came to the door, I broke the news to him as nicely as I could manage. "Stoney," I said, "your son jumped off a cliff and went 'splat.' Life's like that sometimes."And then Stoney punched me in the nose and slammed the door in my face. To this day, I can't figure out what possessed me to say something so heartless, but it doesn't matter anymore.During the next two hours, I heard a lot of loud noises and insane laughter coming from Stoney's house. With all that racket, I couldn't sleep so I called the police and asked them to come by and shut him up.When the police arrived, they had to kick down Stoney's front door to get in. Moments later, they dragged him out -- or what was left of him anyways. His eyes were bulging out of their sockets, he was drooling all over himself and he was singing "Mess-mess-mess-your-house, messy-messy-mess" to the tune of "Row-row-row-your-boat." Quite pathetic.Stoney spent a night or two in jail before he was transferred to Westlake Psychiatric Ward where the motto was "We care more than you do." I visit him once every few weeks to laugh in his face and give him a box of the fluorescent, non-toxic Crayolas he likes. Other than that, there isn't much in my life worth writing about. All I can say is it just doesn't pay to be neat.
