Jonathots Daily Blog
(4170)
6.
Walt
The name “Walter” was quickly selected by two frightened young folk, who found out that his had mixed with hers, to suddenly produce an us.
Walter was the name of the uncle who had purchased her a Volkswagen Beetle the summer before she headed off to college with aspirations of becoming a marine biologist. Instead, she ended up pregnant before the first semester was done. He and she decided that “Baby Three” deserved to have a Mom and Dad instead of a live-in boyfriend or a Baby Mama.
So Walter began his life with parents who worked two jobs while trying fervently to pursue college degrees. By the time he began school, he had already discovered that his name was different than most of the young kids who frequented his personal sandbox space. As his education began, the atmosphere of “Biancas, Brians, Alicias and Brocks” left very little air for a “Walter” to breathe.
Immediately, by consensus, the first-grade class unanimously agreed that Walter was a “stupid name.”
By the third grade they began to rhyme it: Falter, Halter (as in “one who halts”).
By the fifth grade, when he insisted they call him Walt, for some reason the class clown changed it to Wait. Yes—W-A-I-T.
Then, in the seventh grade, it became a joke, as people began to poke him with phrases like “losing Wait,” or “Wait a second.” Then there was “worth the Wait…”
Well, you get the idea.
By the time Walt graduated from high school and had finished his second year in college, he decided to spend a year traveling through Europe. There he discovered that the name Walter was not worthy of persecution, which caused him to yearn stay on the continent for the rest of his life. But instead, he returned home to finish his education, still socially stunted.
So much had he missed that by the time he was twenty-five years old, he had no driver’s license.
People found this odd, and often questioned him. “How did you get to be twenty-five and have no driver’s license?”
He tried several answers, searching for one that would satisfy the questioner but make him look as good as possible. He eventually landed on a pair of possible purposes:
- “I never had to drive anywhere.”
- “I didn’t want to get a driver’s license until I could buy my own car.”
Exactly nine days after his twenty-fifth birthday, Walt took the bus over to the local DMV to take his driver’s test. It was a Tuesday morning. (One might call it a beautiful Tuesday morning if one were not frightened to overuse the word “beautiful.”)
As Walt stepped into the DMV and glanced around, he surmised that there were about thirty-five people. Sure enough when he walked up to take a paper number—his place in line—it was 37.
Walt would wait.
In the midst of the sitting and trying to make a four-year-old magazine seem interesting, a young man burst through the door, walked immediately to the front desk and began to argue with the receptionist.
This would not have been horribly unusual, but it became louder and louder. Then they began to hit each other.
When a guy in a chair nearby stood to his feet, attempting to become the knight in shining armor to rescue the damsel in the dress, the shouting dude grabbed a letter opener on the counter and thrust it to the girl’s throat.
The room was suddenly chilled in a freeze frame. No one could breathe. No one could think. Speech was absent.
Walt, on the other hand, was pissed. Walt was done.
Maybe it was the countless years of criticism over his name. Perhaps it was regretting that he hadn’t stayed in France.
All he knew for sure was that he had come to the DMV to get his license, and godamn it, he was going to leave with permission from the State of South Dakota to drive a car.
He stood to his feet and began quickly walking toward the door, as if to leave.
“What the hell are you doing?” called out one of the astonished sitters.
The holder of the letter opener screamed at him. “You sit back down!”
Walt did not listen. He kept heading for the exit.
“Where are you going?” screeched the attacker.
And then, Walt stopped dead in his tracks, pivoted toward the accoster, and spoke calmly. “Well, it’s real simple. You see, there’s a gun store just two doors down. I’m gonna go and buy myself a pistol, get some bullets, and come back here and blow your ass away.”
“Quit it! Quit it! You’re gonna make him mad!” shivered a lady directly across from the action.
“I’ll kill’er! I’ll kill’er!” shouted the boyfriend.
Walt asked, “What’s your name?”
The young man paused for a moment, then said, “None of your business.”
Walt tilted his head back, examining the ceiling. “Okay. We’ll call you Angry Boyfriend, which is too long, so you’re just A. B.”
Completely baffled, the man slowly nodded his head as if approving the name selection.
Meanwhile, Walt turned to the girlfriend. “Now,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Mandy,” the little lamb said sheepishly.
A. B. squeezed her neck tighter. “Don’t tell him your name!”
“Why not?” she said, mousy.
This completely stalled A. B., yet not wanting to appear indecisive, he recovered quickly. “Because then they’ll know!”
While A. B. was busy arguing with Mandy, Walt had turned back toward the door, walking again, ready to make his departure.
“Wait! Wait!” pleaded the angry boyfriend.
Walt giggled a little inside at hearing the word “wait.” Brought back some memories. Still, without turning back toward A. B., he said, “I’m sorry. I’ve gotta go get my gun.”
A. B., mustering as much macho-sinister tone as possible, spat, “But I’ll kill’er.”
Walt chuckled. Yes, he did. He turned around slowly, and said, “A. B., I don’t think so. You see, what you’ve got there in your hand is a letter opener—and by the way, I didn’t even know they made’em anymore. Who’s opening letters?”
Mandy piped up. “just every once in a while, it’s nice to have one around.”
A. B. shook her. “Shut up!”
Walt continued. “Well you see, back to what I was saying. What you have is a letter opener, which is supposed to be dull, so people don’t cut themselves and bleed all over their desks.”
A. B. glanced down at the letter opener and threatened, “I’ll make it cut.”
Walt laughed. “Well, if you want my opinion, and you want to come off as really dangerous, you better go ahead and test it. You know—find a place on her arm or her leg and see if you can even puncture the skin with it.”
From way across the room, a man’s voice objected. “Don’t give him ideas!”
A. B. thought for a second, ran his finger across the blade and had to agree—it was too dull to cut anything. He changed his strategy. “Then I’ll strangle her with my arm!”
Walt couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing. This caused the whole room to gasp, fearing he was going to taunt the boyfriend into mayhem.
“Come on, A. B.,” chided Walt. “By the time you tried to strangle her, three or four of us would be all over you.”
Suddenly, in the midst of the conversation, the front door burst open, breaking glass everywhere, and in came two policemen in full riot garb, each carrying a shotgun. Walt was barely able to jump out of the way and escape the spray of glass as it flew through the entranceway.
The policeman noticed Walt standing there and turned the shotgun in his direction. Nice and easy, Walt reached over, pushed it away and said, “No, no, no. It’s not me. It’s that guy over there with the letter opener, trying to decide if he wants to be the DMV Strangler.”
The policeman, confused, just peered at Walt.
The second cop spoke up. “What’s his name?” he said, shotgun pointed at the offender.
“Good question,” said Walt. “We’ve decided to call him A. B.”
“Abee?” challenged the cop. “Is he an Arab terrorist?”
Walt shook his head. “No, no. He’s a whole lot of fussin’ from ever creating terror.”
Walt again tried to leave, but all at once, A. B. beckoned to him from his unholy stance. “You stay! I can talk to you! Don’t go! I don’t know these cops—and they already got guns! All I’ve got is a…”
Walt turned around, stepped past the policeman and interrupted. “Yeah! All you got is a letter opener!”
The first policeman leaned in and whispered to Walt. “Would you mind staying? You seem to have a calming influence.”
Walt leaned back and glanced at him. The policeman repeated his request, much more loudly. “Would you stay? I’d like you to help us talk to this fellow.”
The whole room seemed to nod in mutual agreement. Walt was needed. Walt was valuable. Walt suddenly was worth the wait.
He smiled. Never before had he been honored or appreciated for anything. But now, Walt was not only the center of attention, but his abilities were required to diffuse the danger.
Walt nodded and slowly approached A. B., one foot at a time, as he spoke. “A. B., what you’ve got here is a situation where you’re in the middle of a fox hunt. You know much about fox hunts? If you don’t, in this fox hunt, y would be the dog. It works this way—when gentlemen go out on horses over there in England, and hunt for foxes, it’s the dog that does all the work. The dog gets dirty. It is the dog that crawls through holes, gets stuck by bramble bushes, and finally corners the fox, leaving it no place to go. And then the good men of the county show up with their guns and blow the furry creature away.”
Walt stopped his walking and looked squarely into A. B.’s eyes. He reached up and scratched his head. “Now, wait a second,” he said. “Maybe I’ve got this wrong. I mean, the story’s good. But maybe you’re not the dog. Maybe you’re the fox they’re gonna blow away. It’s just so hard to tell. You know what I mean, A. B.? But either way, if you’re not careful, you’re either gonna walk out of here completely as a stinkin’ dog—or a dead fox.”
A still fell over the room while A. B. considered his dilemma. Suddenly he let his arm fall to his side, as the letter opener fell from his hand to the ground. A. B. looked out across the room and spoke to the entire gathering. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was just trying to argue with my girlfriend.” He glanced over at Mandy. “My cheatin’ girlfriend.”
Mandy suddenly gained full voice. “I was not cheating!” she said indignantly. “You never gave me time to explain! The guy I was hugging was my older brother, who just came back from basic training. Support the troops, loser!”
A. B.’s mouth dropped open. He wanted to object, but realized her story was not only possible, but likely. He hung his head, then lifted his eyes. “Well,” he muttered, “it sure looked like cheatin’.”
At this point, the two policemen stepped over quickly, apprehended A. B. and cuffed him.
The whole roomful of DMV-waiters, greatly relieved, burst into applause. As they took the angry boyfriend (A. B.) away, and the traumatized girlfriend to the hospital, the people turned and stared at Walt.
Yes, Walter who didn’t falter.
He, on the other hand, realized it was an excellent moment to gain some turf. He held up his tiny piece of paper that read “37.”
He walked slowly around the room. Then, speaking with a firm and deliberate tone, said, “Listen,” he said. “I don’t know who has Number 1—but get this straight. Whoever you are, you’re trading with me.”
He looked around and concluded, “Today I’m going first.”
The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly donation for this inspirational opportunity
Like this:
Like Loading...
