Happy As Larry

By Joan Keiter

Slim Fitz has just turned 50. She is busy planning her wedding, her 6th marriage, to Larry Famosa. He is the love of her life, even though he shot her the year before. The wedding is to take place in the Florida State Prison, where Larry is a prisoner. Soooo romantic.

After an altercation at the local Costco, Slim is sent to a mental hospital, in hope that after some treatment, she will be sane enough to stand trial for assault. Being trapped in the nuthouse is terrible timing, because she has so much to do to get ready for her big day. To pass the time, Slim becomes lovers with her cellmate Libby and her most trusted psychiatrist.

Unable to find Slim, her parents work the media, to gain attention as grieving parents. But, their 15 minutes are up when Slim comes back into their lives.

Slim escapes the mental hospital, only to find out that she no longer has a home. So, she moves into a room over a Chinese restaurant owned by Wing, a master businessman. There she finds her calling, as a Country & Western singer.

It’s hard to focus on wedding plans through the haze of booze and drugs, the seedy sex, shootings and car chases. So much to do when you’re working with a Cuban crime gang.

Happy as Larry is a fun-filled romp through the modern times of greed, reality TV and social networking. A gender-bending morality tale, about life and death. What ever you do, don’t trust anyone. Particularly those you’re closest to.
A satire that cuts to the bone.
And a bloody good laugh!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joan Keiter
• Release date: Mar 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781452442198

Joan Keiter

Joan Keiter is an American writer, comic, clown and bouffon currently residing in York, England. Joan worked as a stand-up comic in New York for 10 years before moving to Europe. She lived in Paris for two years where she studied and performed clown with The Clown Companie, Ira Seidenstein’s International School of Acting and Clown and The Improfessionals. She studied and performed bouffon with the International Performing Arts Network. Her teacher was Eric Davis, a clown with Cirque du Soliel and master bouffon, The Red Bastard. In Paris Joan developed her bouffon, the Joan Six Pack, which parodied the stereotype of how the obnoxious American tourist is perceived abroad. She is still working with this character in England and the US. Happy as Larry is Keiter’s first novel, reuniting her with Larry, her boyfriend in her stage act, for many years.

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Happy as Larry

By Joan Keiter

All rights reserved

Copyright 2012 Joan Keiter

Worldwide

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If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Thank you for reading my book. If you would like any more information on Joan Keiter please contact:

http://joankeiter.com/

Dedicated to Larry

Thanks for 20 great years, It’s been a real laugh!

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - The Phone Call

Chapter 2 - Give ‘em the Finger

Chapter 3 - Off To The Nuthouse

Chapter 4 - The Headshrinker

Chapter 5 - Meeting Larry

Chapter 6 - Business As Usual

Chapter 7 - I Woke Up Dead

Chapter 8 - The Great Escape

Chapter 9 - My New Digs

Chapter 10 - Memorial Service

Chapter 11 - Drowning My Sorrows

Chapter 12 - Visiting Day

Chapter 13 - I Get A Gig

Chapter 14 - Look who I Found

Chapter 15 - Disaster Area

Chapter 16 - Change of Identity

Chapter 17 - The Doctor Will See You Now

Chapter 18 - Last Minute Preparations

Chapter 19 - My Wedding Day

Chapter 20 - Captured On Tape

Chapter 21 - Hasta Luego

"Some people never go crazy.

What truly horrible lives they must lead."

Charles Bukowski

Chapter 1

The Phone Call

If you think for one minute that my daughter’s going to get married in a federal prison, then you’ve got another thing coming, Slim. My God, if this get’s out I’ll never live it down.

My mother’s screaming blew out my left eardrum, so I jabbed the speaker phone button and let her take to the air, while I slid back onto my shredded leather sofa, out of my sweatshirt and into a warm beer.

You still haven’t told me what’s wrong with the Ferncliff Country Club. I thought you liked the Ferncliff Country Club?

I set my phone down on the coffee table and watched it vibrate and bounce with mother’s staccato screeching. I was almost wishing I hadn’t sent her that ‘save this date’ card.

Mother, I’ve been married three times already at Ferncliff Country Club. How many times can a person do the same thing? I groaned and then bit into my knuckle.

My point exactly. You have five failed marriages under your belt. Maybe that should tell you it’s not something you’re cut out for. My God, Slim. You're over fifty, give it a rest.

I bit harder on my finger and it burst open like a sausage and blood squirted out across the coffee table.

Are you eating, Slim? Is that why you’re muffled? she continued.

I’m not muffled.

If I say you’re muffled, you’re muffled.

You muffle when you eat. What are you eating?

I’m not eating.

What in the world would you wear in prison to get married? Certainly not a gown. Do they wear gowns in prison? I really doubt it. Wouldn’t it get dirty? I always imagined prisons being dirty, wouldn’t you? Have you thought of shoes? Certainly they would get dirty.

I nodded my head robotically and took another slug of beer.

Have you thought about the cake? Do they let you have a cake, dear? Certainly knives are not permitted in prison. Are you allowed knives? I doubt it. They must have some way to cut a cake. Maybe they cut it for you in a side room and bring it out on paper plates. Now that’s not very romantic is it?

I yawned and sat up to dig around in the full ashtray, searching for a joint that was still big enough to light.

Slim, are you there? Please keep making some kind of sound when we’re on the phone dear, even if it’s an occasional grunting or an ‘un-humm’ because you remember the last time you were quiet and I called the police to go over to your house to check if you were still alive. You always hate when I call the police on you Slim. Don’t you hate when I call the police? Talk to me.

Mother must have covered the receiver because she was muffling to my father, Tim, Should I call the police? I don’t hear anything.

Did she hang up? Is there a dial tone?

No.

Do you hear breathing?

No.

Well, maybe you should call them.

I cracked open my last tin of beer and it sprayed all over the musty carpet.

Did you hear that, Tim? It sounded like a last gasp.

What does a last gasp sound like?

Like that, a pop and then a fizz.

I didn’t hear that.

Turn up your hearing aid and you’ll see that she’s dead.

Call the police, then

She hates when I call the police.

If she’s dead she won’t be mad at you for calling them. I would think she’d be happy about it.

What if she’s not dead? I mean, why would she be dead? Every time she goes quiet doesn’t mean she’s dead. I think she’s eating. She could have just choked. Or, maybe she’s in the bathroom.

"Did she tell you she was going to the bathroom?

No, she just stopped talking.

Why did she stop talking?

I think she was angry with me because I was upset about her getting married in a prison.

She what? What did you say?

Fiddling with the ashes, found a cigarette burnt down to the filter and tried to light it. It wouldn’t take. I got up and paced around the room.

I said she’s marrying someone in a prison.

Who the hell does that sort of thing unless they’re a complete and total idiot? Are you sure that’s what she said?

My gentle and frail father must have pulled the phone out of my mother’s hand, because his spit was spraying me across the digital cable, drenching me in vile hatred, If you think a daughter of mine is going to marry someone in a goddamn prison then you’ve got another thing coming, young lady!

I like that. Fifty. Young lady. Ha. Always treating me like a child. Taking the last swill out of my can. I got up and pulled my coat on.

Don’t yell at her if she’s dead. You’re going to regret that your last words to her were angry.

Well, who is she marrying anyway?

Oh, I don’t know. I think it must be that toothless wonder she met at the liquor store a while back. If I’ve told her once, I’ve told her a thousand times, don’t marry someone you meet in a liquor store. But, does she listen?

Isn’t that the same guy that shot her?

You know, I think you might be right, Tim. I didn’t put two and two together.

SLIIIMMMMMM! ARE YOU THERE? ANSWER ME!! my father yelled into the phone.

Tim, she can’t hear you, she’s dead.

She’s gonna be dead when I get a hold of her.

There was a fumbling and a wrestling of the phone and mother got back on the line. Slim, it’s your mother. If you’re choking on something, listen to me. Stand up and throw yourself backwards against some furniture and that will dislodge the food stuck in your throat.

There was a long pause.

Do you hear her getting up and throwing herself against anything?

No, do you?

All this talk about food was making me ravenous and not a damn thing to eat in the house. And, I was dead broke.

I left the phone on the table so the misery twins could bark and beg me back to life. In an empty room with, flick, no lights on.

I didn’t even bother to shut the door behind me and was halfway down the stairs, when I heard,

That’s it, I’m calling the police.

Chapter 2

Give ‘em The Finger

The sun punched me in the face as I opened the front door. It was that low November sun that had such a strong horizontal blast that I pulled back in a wince.

Ouch! squinting and spinning around to regain my bearings, hands holding my head.

I held my arm up to shield my eyes and gingerly stepped off the curve on into a fast moving stream of oncoming traffic.

Yeow!

Blaring horns and screeching tires engulfed the intersection and trapped me in the center of a four-lane road, at rush hour. I stuck out one toe, then swung round the other and continued to tightrope walk down the double white lines of First Avenue.

I could do this trip blindfold.

It’s the same thing every night. Follow First Avenue three blocks, left on Sycamore, across Thirty Second Street, right on Broadway, duck through the Texaco parking lot, North on Madison and then straight down Monterey to Costco at the traffic circle.

Or, should I say, I could do this trip blindfold, since I did it every night of the past two months, starting the night of my 50th birthday. The very night I was thrown headlong into a life of abject poverty, by the creatures that spawned me.

My pivotal birthday. 50 years on this planet. Half a century. Certainly mother and dad would spring for a really big gift this year. I checked the mailbox everyday for the ten days leading up to my birthday, springing down the front steps, two at a time, with the key to the mailbox, poised between thumb and forefinger.

Each morning I sat there, in my apartment waiting, peeking out through the lace curtains to get a glimpse of the mailman. Did he come at ten or eleven? Sometimes he was late as twelve? Well, I guess I’ll just have to sit here and wait for him then, won’t I?

I would set the alarm for nine, run a comb through my hair, crack open a beer and poke my nose through the cigarette smoke to the window pane beyond, waiting for the pitter patter of the mailman, bringing my birthday card from my dear mother and father, with a really huge check or tickets for a round the world cruise or whatever someone gave their only daughter for her 50th birthday.

There’s the mailman! I squealed with delight and danced around in a little circle.

I could see him down the road, pushing his little cart. I would hop and giggle, all but wetting my pants. Each day was a little party there at the window, beer after beer, after cigarette after joint. So, by the time, each day, when I saw the mailman turning the corner from Maple Street, down past, what felt like, thousands of houses on First Avenue until he got to my house, I was hammered.

With all the popping and twirling of delight, I would loose my balance and have to grab some piece of furniture, as I had all but lost the functioning in my limbs altogether. In fact, it would not be uncommon for me to actually fall down the steps from my apartment, which was on the second floor, to the first floor landing where the mailman would be delivering my big 50th birthday bootie. Crash, bang, scrape!

Landing in a heap this side of the outside door, I would stand up, brush myself off and say, So, anything for me today, sir?

Always polite. No hassle. When he said No I would slap him on his bald head, with the back of my hand and wrestle his bag off of him, frantically digging, snapping rubber bands, throwing mail on the ground, searching for the card with my mother’s meticulous handwriting, addressed Ms. Slim Fitz.

This went on until I had myself lathered into such a tizzy, by the day of my actual birthday, I was almost ready to be hospitalized. I was so stressed, so drunk and high and beside myself, that on the day, of said birthday, I wanted to jump out of the window and land on the mailman as he approached my front door. I wanted to die and that bastard was going with me. But, I just fell down the steps and he was waiting there poised with pepper spray and dog biscuits.

No, nothing. I swear, now get back! spraying at me and throwing a biscuit behind me to deflect me, little fairy like he was.

I punched at him through the spray. The door had slammed and I was left to slump down in the foyer, with my lone biscuit, which was no use to me because my sorrow had dampened my appetite.

What a fucking day.

I lay prone on the sofa, waiting for sundown, only occasionally prying open my puffy eyes, with all ten fingers, to check the clock. I stared at the phone, monster that it was. Surely they would call with some explanation as to why the parcel or huge check didn't arrive.

The vapors of the day,