Outrageous Lies

With Nico Q. in the Rip Van Winkle Coffee House explaining how to con whole generations of young readers...

Basically, what I tell him is: "I am slavishly imitating the writing style of Damon Runyon, which I always wish I had invented rather than discovered. None of these kids in The Square even remember what the domino theory was - much less where they were before birth, when JFK died. Damon Runyon is ancient lost knowledge to such children."

Nico Q. says just then, "Who was Damon Runyon?"

Sarcastically, I explain that Damon Runyons are fish in California that come up on the beach at high tide and lay eggs in the sand. "Their tails are shaped like post-hole diggers and they bore into Pismo Beach by spinning rapidly. But you only catch them when the Runyon are grunning."

He's like: "Somewhere before I heard about that."

Now, Nico is a very big, ham-fisted guy even for a gonzo journalist, which he is. Putting him on without any mercy could get me pounded and/or roasted. Therefore I relent. "Damon Runyon is the writer I'm gonna steal jokes from. People will think I'm a literary genius."

"Instead of a criminal genius."

"Exactly. When it comes to getting away with stealing jokes, grave robbery is the best policy. Damon Runyon was a great and lavishly successful writer who has been forgotten along with Hemingway, Shakespeare and Francis Bacon."

"I heard Shakespeare really was Francis Bacon," says Nico.

"I heard he was England's ham. You set yourself up for that one."

Displaying no sense of humor, Nico ignores me. "Yeah, steal a joke from a living genius such as Ivan Stang or Steve Jackson and get sued."

Ivan Stang, in case you don't know, operates a religion for misfits out of Dallas. Steve Jackson is the board game publisher who copyrighted something about the Illuminati and now thinks he owns the eye in the pyramid symbol. Steal a glance at either one and you get sued.

So Nico is like: "I, too, have been contemplating a great swindle. Remember the Million Man March? Next time it will be in Atlanta. Then we party big time. And I will invite babes."

"That con has been thought of already. They called it the Olympic Games. They'll sue you, too."

So he's like: "Okay, I will make it better than the Olympics. I will invite nobody but babes at a time when the dudes won t be here marching."

"Odds like that will make for world-class luck in Little Five."

"That's the idea," he says, like I'm a retard.

Later, slouching deep into Candler park, I say to myself, "Self, you can never write without lying - or it won't be funny enough. So I vow to write an embellished version. But people will think it is true. People think everything is true. Sherlock Holmes. Tara. Kerry Thornley."