The Lemonade Stand

INT. KITCHEN – MORNING

A highly strung workaholic named ERNIE crumbles a handful of Tums antacids onto a bowl of cereal. Dressed in a suit and tie, he hunches over the kitchen table like a surly Gargoyle. His wife MAUDE, a pleasant and dopey woman, tends to the breakfast being made on the stovetop.

ERNIE: (sardonic) All the colors of the rainbow. Yippie.

MAUDE: Ernie, I made you some of my trademark “Bacombos.” You’re running late, so you can eat in the car if you like.

ERNIE: Again with the bacon and Combos, Maude? My cholesterol is going through the roof and your lousy food experiments are gonna send me to an early grave. And I’m not running late. I don’t punch in at the migraine factory ‘til 9 a.m., so quit rushing me out the door, will ya?

MAUDE: Oh, but it’s already 9:30, sweetie. Today is National Clock Tinkering Day.

Ernie lurches forward and spits his Tums-speckled cereal back into the bowl.

ERNIE: Freakin’ daylight savings time! Curse you, Cronus, you damned Greek god of time. I can never hit your biannual curveball!

He snags his briefcase and rushes for the door. Maude picks up a plastic baby resting on the stove.

MAUDE: Kiss Ernie Junior goodbye.

In his haste, Ernie leans in close to the doll but catches himself.

ERNIE: That’s not a real baby! Dammit, Maude, stop dropping these hints. I’m too busy to juggle a career and a family.

MAUDE: Okay. Maybe we’ll visit you at work later today; you can kiss him then.

Ernie groans in exasperation, turns, and stomps toward the exit. Before crossing the threshold, he berates his watch.

ERNIE: You just had to spring forward this time, didn’t you? Didn’t you?!

EXT. SIDEWALK – MORNING

ROSCO stands behind the counter of a lemonade stand crafted out of wood. A cardboard signs reads: “Round the Corner Lemonade, $.50/ cup.” Like his coworker, Rosco is cranky and unable to cope with stress. He pours a cup of lemonade and disdainfully surveys the long line of customers. Among them is a conspicuous man with a puffy red beard contrasted by blonde hair.

ROSCO: Where the HELL is he?

A FEMALE PATRON is first in line, cradling what looks like a bundled baby. She clears her throat, hinting agitation.

FEMALE PATRON: I’ll thank you not to swear in front of my child, sir.

ROSCO: (sighs) Okay, okay. My mistake, ma’am. Here, this cup is half-off.

A shoebox rests on the counter. Rosco removes the lid and hands her back a quarter.

FEMALE PATRON: I would accept no less.

She walks away as Ernie rushes toward the lemonade stand, swinging his briefcase wildly. He stops suddenly and squints at the woman and her bundled baby.

ROSCO: Hey, there you are. It’s about damn time.

FEMALE PATRON: You’re swearing again.

ROSCO: Full refund!

With that he throws a quarter at the woman. Ernie intercepts it.

ERNIE: Wait!

He swats the plastic baby onto the ground and the other customers gasp in horror.

ERNIE (CONT’D): That’s not a real baby!

He drops the quarter back in the shoebox as the customers exert a collective sigh. Ernie empties his briefcase on the countertop and out come its contents: several lemons, a box of sugar, and a hammer.

ROSCO: I don’t want to hear your bogus excuse for being late until after this ungodly rush is over. We’re low on the sun-juice, so get to hammering.

Ernie smashes fitfully at the lemons. Meanwhile, a MALE PATRON approaches the lemonade stand.

MALE PATRON: Uh, hi. I’d like a cup of lemonade, please.

ROSCO: Well, aren’t you Mr. Originality? One cup of lemonade!

Ernie grabs a sleeve of paper cups and yanks at the one on top. It won’t give; the cup is stuck.

ERNIE: Lousy paper jam!

With a vicious yank, he separates the cup from its sleeve. A wad of gum is stuck to the bottom.

ERNIE: Which one of you hell-raisers stuck a wad of gum in here? I want answers!

ROSCO: To hell with your investigation, Ernie. We’ll file a police report later.

A bullish snort of air escapes from Ernie’s nostrils. He fills a cup of lemonade and hands it to the male patron. The man drops some change into the box and darts away.
A TIMID PATRON approaches, drink in hand.

TIMID PATRON: Yeah, I bought a cup not too long ago and I found a fingernail embedded in a cigarette butt at the bottom of my drink. I’m sure it was an honest mistake, but…I’d like a refund.

ROSCO: Well, goodbye profit-margins!

Furious, he steals the hammer from Ernie and slams it down on a very juicy lemon. Citric acid sprays from the fruit into the Timid Patron’s eyes. The man reels backward and rubs his stinging peepers. Ernie shoves his coworker.

ERNIE: And hello lawsuit. Now there’s a fair trade.

The Timid Patron pinches the bridge of his nose and rests his other hand on the counter.

TIMID PATRON: Guys, just calm down…

ERNIE: (to Rosco) Who’s the cross-eyed Janitard that taught you how to make lemonade? Your technique’s all wrong. LOOK.

Ernie reclaims the hammer. Aiming to crush the lemon properly, he misses by inches and hammers the Timid Patron’s finger. The man howls and nurses his finger.

ROSCO: Bravo, Professor Lemonade. Now we gotta offer him a bribe.

He dumps out the contents of the shoebox and shovels dozens of coins across the counter to the Timid Patron.

ROSCO: Don’t sue us, you rotten bastard!

The conspicuous man in line rips off his fake red beard and reveals his true identity.

DISTRICT MANAGER: All right, I’ve seen enough, gentlemen.

ERNIE: The District Manager?

DISTRICT MANAGER: That’s right, Ernie. I dropped by for a surprise inspection, incognito, and what I’ve seen has been disgraceful. The tardiness, the cuss words, citric acid in the customer’s eyes—and Ernie, what you did to that baby was sickening.

ERNIE: That wasn’t a real baby!

DISTRICT MANAGER: Really? Well, nevertheless, you’re both canned. We’re bringing in some new blood to replace the two of you. (Calls offstage) Timmy! Trisha!

Two adorable children enter the scene and establish themselves behind the counter of the lemonade stand.

ROSCO: What a load of crap. Selling lemonade is a MAN’S job.

ERNIE: Freakin’ scabs!

DISTRICT MANAGER: Settle down, gentlemen. As a key part of your severance package I am offering to drive you to the unemployment office.

ROSCO: (considering) Hmmm. What do you think?

ERNIE: I think gas costs too much to turn down a ride from this scumbag.

With that, the disgruntled workers trail behind the man who fired them, exiting the scene. After a beat, a FAT PATRON steps toward the lemonade stand, indulging the children with a pleasant grin and a melodic tone in his voice.

FAT PATRON: I’ve got two quarters for two special little persons if you’ll kindly pour me a cup of lemonade.

TRISHA: We’re on our break, fat-ass!

The customer recoils, more shocked than offended. He slinks away, forever terrified of the future.

Timmy produces a small rectangular box from his pocket and extracts two candy cigarettes.

TIMMY: Candy cancer stick?

TRISHA: (nods) Fat-ass didn’t even say “please.”

Just Tires

I was on my way to dinner with a woman at a Mexican restaurant when it occurred to me that I had no chewing gum. When I’m on a date, chewing gum is a necessity. I need an instant remedy for the dragon breath brought on by those sneezing fits and vomit burps that you never see coming.

My date would be arriving at the train stop soon, so I started looking around for a convenience store to buy gum. As I quickly scanned the skyline, I caught a glimpse of a green and yellow sign, the same color design used by BP gas stations.

In actuality, the sign was for a store called Just Tires, but that didn’t register during the first take. As I was doing a double-take, I thought to myself hopefully, “DOES THAT PLACE SELL GUM? (Disappointed sigh.) Nope. Just tires.”

Russel Stanke's Tales of Outdoorsman Glory

One.

I caught the biggest damn walleye you’ve ever seen in your life. After a two-hour tussle, I lugged the massive bastard onto the floor of my eighteen-hundred-dollar boat. Had to beat him to death ‘cause he was floppin’ around like an epileptic on a trampoline. I clubbed him with an oar—a makeshift model that was extra-God-damn-OARdinary. It had a machete hammered through the broad end of the wood. Oh…MAMA, how the sparks flew on the old work bench the night my machete, hammer, and oar had a mana ja three-way.

I swung like a Chinese immigrant at a railroad spike and clobbered him square in the gills. But the beast was tougher than I thought. He started flopping around like his scales was made of Flubber—and I’m talkin’ 'bout the top-shelf type of Flubber, not the generic kind. I can’t remember how many times I retaliated against that flagrant act of not dying—umpteen sounds about right—but eventually I forced his spirit into the Grim Reaper’s fishing net.

In the process of killing the walleye, though, I punctured roughly umpteen holes in the floor of my eighteen-hundred-dollar boat—more than enough holes to sink my treasured vessel. I lugged the beast all the way back to shore, one hand leadin’ the backstroke while the other dug in and palmed the beast’s softball-sized eye. It was a four mile swim. That’s the longest any feller in Lawn Dart County has ever swum with a machete stuck through an oar clenched between his teeth. My kill outweighed me by 25 lbs. Most people in this town will tell you that makes me one helluva fisherman. Others’ll tell you lies and say I’m just bulimic. Bunch of jealous muckrakers, they are.

My victory over the walleye was tainted slightly by the loss of my eighteen-hundred boat, but I’ll betcha my boat didn’t mind getting killed by another thing that its master loves. Plus, that walleye provided a pretty decent meal—only decent because although I’m a great fisherman, I’m not much for guttin’ and cleanin’ the scaly bastards. Don’t have the steady hands for it. On accident I discarded much of the edible parts and salvaged and cooked some of the parts that belonged in Mother Nature’s dumpster…What I did cram down my gullet, though, was downright…tolerable.

God, I miss that eighteen-hundred-dollar boat.

***

To read more about the redneck adventures of Russel, order a copy of "There Will be Blog" by me, Nick Olig.

www.xlibris.com/NickOlig.html

The Smoky Room Upstairs

Originally printed in the Advance-Titan, October 2005. Why all this malaise about going to the carnival? Why hyperbolize those lousy feelings of dread and disappointment in the documentation of a fairly decent childhood memory? “The Smoky Room Upstairs” is pretty dour, I’ll admit, but at least it conveys a sense of nonplussed honesty. For dreamlike childhood nostalgia, John Lennon had “Strawberry Fields Forever.” I have “The Smoky Room Upstairs.” What a gyp.

My dad grew up in Mt. Calvary, a tiny village not far from my hometown of Fond du Lac. Every August, the meek and frequently sloshed village of Mt. Calvary hosts a carnival at Fireman’s Park. It is aptly referred to as the Fireman’s Picnic.

It’s not my aim to deride the spirit and tradition of the Mt. Calvary faithful. The modest town treasury simply did not permit them to splurge on the crème de le crème of redneck carnival rides—namely the Gravitron and the Zipper. Throughout my childhood summers, my parents would waste their money so I could waste some tickets on a ride in which rusty carts crawled clockwise on a track fifteen feet in diameter. It’s not like I was expecting loopty-loops and laser shows, but come on, give a kid something to work with, you know?

Only one ride posed a legitimate threat to the uprising of a corn dog you had just choked down. It was a blend between a high-octane carousel and a demonic swing-set. A dozen or so seats dotted the perimeter, and they were attached to chains that dangled from propellers. Once the thing got going, the propellers spun rapidly around-and-around-and-around, and the rider got a sense of what it feels like to be an unbreakable string of snot dangling from the blade of a helicopter. If memory serves, this ride was called “Discount Nausea.”

Discount Nausea could only be tolerated in great moderation, and with little interest in the tame rides, I sought out the prize booths maintained by jabber-jawing carnies. Sadly, throwing darts at balloons and executing a pyramid of empty beer cans with a single shot from a B.B. gun were talents that eluded me. Though my ambition was to win a Bartman t-shirt, or a least a miniature poster of Don Majikowski, I usually went home with the humiliating consolation prize: an artificial clip-on feather, colored the shade of a peacock’s underbelly. Not only did the carnies take my money—okay, my dad’s money, but my frickin’ tickets—the sadistic bumpkins also had the nerve to bash my impending manhood.

“I’m an eight-year-old boy,” I’d squeak. “I play with Ninja Turtles. What the heck do you expect me to do with a frilly blue feather?

And the carnie would guffaw, opening his mouth wide to reveal five lonesome maggots jutting from his gums.

“Weeelll, I’m sure you can think of somethin’, Nancy-boy. WHO’S NEXT?!”

It’s been said that human beings alternate between afflictions of either boredom or pain for their entire lifetimes. I’m not a very optimistic person, but I think that’s nonsense, primarily because orgasms—however fleeting they might be—are neither boring nor painful.

I mention the boredom/ pain tangent because, after wandering through the confines of Fireman’s Park, yawning in brief intervals, I would whimsically attach the fake feather’s jagged and metallic clip to my pointer finger and withstand the painful pinch until I could take it no longer. At last I would remove the clip urgently, and then shake my throbbing red finger for a while. The boredom didn’t feel so bad then.

My favorite attraction at the Fireman’s Picnic was the Moonwalk Tent. (No, the Moonwalk Tent wasn’t a diabolical scheme concocted by Michael Jackson in an unsuspecting village; it was a shaded enclosure with a floor made of puffy inner tube patches. Oddly enough, though, Tito Jackson was there, making sure no one got hurt, diligently earning seven dollars an hour.) Rambunctious hopping is an activity sure to engage children. The Moonwalk Tent had its charms, but after ten minutes or so, the fetid stench of sweaty socks lingering in a roasting confinement really got to you. Plus I was always bummed out about the absence of a top rope and turnbuckles inside the Moonwalk Tent. There aren’t too many places in which a top rope and turnbuckles can be set up feasibly, but dammit, inside the Moonwalk Tent is one of those places. And since I was too young to enact that infamous “Revenge of the Nerds” fantasy, I soon bid good riddance to the Moonwalk Tent.

It was after all these unfulfilling pursuits that I at last discovered the Smoky Room Upstairs, which was maintained by the local volunteer fire department.

The Smoky Room Upstairs was the size of a two-story hobbit-house, its dimensions comparable to a doublewide trailer living room. A tube the size of a manhole cover fed into the upstairs, and it traced back to a smoke machine with a generator that churned maddeningly.

Like I stated before, the Smoky Room Upstairs was run by the volunteer fire department, in order to enlighten kids on safety precautions in the event of a household blaze. A mustachioed volunteer would usher kids up a short flight of stairs on the side of the diminutive structure, above the seemingly vacant first floor and into the upstairs room. I say “seemingly vacant” because I had a hunch the off-duty firemen used it as a windowless sanctuary to play games of Euchre and chug beer.

His shoulders and neck craning at a painful angle, golden helmet scraping against the ceiling, our guide waved us all into the cramped room. It was furnished like an oversized dollhouse. In the midst of his boring safety lecture, he scolded a careless youngster who plopped down on an artificial couch. It’s hard for kids to discern a prop from the real thing. That’s why the little buggers feel like cold-blooded assassins when they aim a Daisy rifle at the mailman’s head.

Though the interior decorator did a half-assed job, the electrician was quite ambitious. The square perimeter was plastered with about a dozen outlets, at shin level. The fireman instilled a fear of outlets into our little hearts that day, warning us of the dangers of ramming a fork in there or overloading the amplitude as the dad from “A Christmas Story” would do.

As the lecture drew to a close, the fireman attached his gasmask and cued the smoke machine. I’ll never forget gazing at that vent, watching the smoke wisp gracefully and ominously into our air supply, feeling like I was at the mercy of a deranged super-villain and his elaborate death chamber. Years later, whenever I was smoking weed in a cramped room, my thoughts sparking like microwaved tinfoil, an inverted bog hovering over the heads of my friends, I’d recall this image.

Pretty soon, when the smoke had reached a murky, almost opaque density, we were instructed to crawl out of the Smoky Room Upstairs (a trek of roughly ten feet) and rejoin the outside world. Then it was once again time to scam money from our wasted parents so we could buy tickets for rides and booths until it was time to go home.