A Twist on the Twist

The other day on a post I mentioned Howard, the man who limped, who racked the balls for the next game at Past Time Grill and Billiards. Johnny said I described who he called “Stick” who worked at the same place. And we concluded that Howard and Stick must be one in the same person.

It wouldn’t hurt to imagine you hear the vibrating sounds of a couple of harp cords as you are trying to recall the post I am talking about.

So, remember Howard, or Stick. He will surface again before this posting is over.

This weekend we rented to DVDs, AMERICAN GANGSTER and WEDDING DAZE. WEDDING DAZE is the kind of movie I like to see every once in a while as a comic relief. It is one of those funny movies that anything goes.

In the movie in one scene a man was explaining to four or five policemen that his wife’s ex-husband broke out of prison and came to their house and took the wife with him to their daughter’s wedding. The policemen were standing around listening and one was taking notes.

The man was doing something by the mantle. He did something like bent over to reshuffle the wood in the fireplace. When he bent over the policeman taking the notes put his hands on each side of the bending man’s hips – very close, but not touching, and begin hunching like wild, again, not touching.

Then he straightened out and went on with telling them what the escape prisoner did. No policeman, even the one with the notebook made an expression.

It cracked me up…. So quick, so unexpected.

It also reminded me of another incident that cracked me up, which cracked me up again, after all these years.

My friend Larry B. had an uncle that lived in a boarding house near or on the corner of Anderson Street and Waddell Street in Marietta, about a block from the Courthouse.

Once Larry was visiting his uncle and saw Howard, or Stick, in the next room. Little did Howard know he would be awakened in the middle of the night a few nights later and called to the phone and hear “RACK!!!”

Larry B.’s uncle was an alcoholic. He was a broke man. The only thing he had was his car to get him to work every day. Larry wanted to borrow his car. He told Larry, “No.”, explaining that the car was his only transportation to work. Larry was there with a friend. Larry begged his uncle. He pleaded with his uncle. He said he would swear on a stack of bibles, if he needed to, to promise he would take great care of the car.

His uncle gave in and lent him the car.

Larry and his friend had a wreck and totaled the car. Fortunately, no one was hurt. That is about all I know of the wreck.

Larry and his friend returned the keys to his uncle and told them they had a wreck and a wrecker had to pull the car in. It was totaled.

His uncle cried and cried. He said now he would lose his job because he had no way to work and without a job to pay rent for board at the boarding house they would tell him to leave.

Larry was really trying to console him and was saying he was really sorry.

The uncle turned around to Larry’s friend and continued crying and telling what a bad situation he was in.

When he turned away from Larry, Larry quickly did the Twist Dance behind his back. His friend, caught unexpectedly, cracked up… but fortunately, sometimes a laugh looks like a cry, so the uncle thought Larry’s friend was crying along with him.

When I heard that, it cracked me up… I mean, it is a sad pitiful story, but shocking that someone would do that, make fun of somebody in a desperate position that they caused, especially to their own blood-kin – well, to anybody.

Larry’s little on-the-spot irreverence caused a brief fad among us high school students. We twisted behind Lloyd Cox the principal when he was talking to another one of us, we twisted behind coaches, teachers, and people who more or less were overly serious or we felt they took themselves too seriously.

I wonder what happened to Larry B.’s uncle?