Who Killed the Fonz?

by James Boice

  Sealock helped her out. “He wrote Welcome to Henderson County.”

  “Of course,” she said. She got her bearings. “Of course. What a pleasure.” She took Richard’s hand and leaned in, saying to him, “We own it on LaserDisc. I think this one’s watched it a thousand times. Which means I’ve watched it a thousand times. Which is fine by me. It’s a beautiful film.”

  Sealock said, “How did you know Fonzie?”

  “We grew up together.”

  “We all did,” said Ralph.

  An aide was pulling Sealock away. “I’m sorry to have to run,” he said. “We have a campaign event at the hospital. Richard, it was a pleasure.” They all shook hands. Sealock had not gotten very far before he turned and came back.

  “I have an idea,” he said. “Richard, how long are you in town?”

  “I fly back tomorrow,” Richard said.

  “Oh. That’s too bad.”

  “Why?”

  “The polls say this election is going to be the closest race in state history. We need every advantage we can get. My team is telling me we need one final television ad to run this weekend to, we hope, put us over the top. I wouldn’t be able to face all the people working themselves to the bone for this campaign if I knew I missed the chance to have the great Richard Cunningham write it for us. What do you think? Would you consider it?”

  It would be the chance he needed to make peace with the place and people that had raised him. It would also be a good distraction to work again.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “Where are you staying? I’ll give you a call tonight to talk more.”

  “I’m staying at my sister’s.”

  “What’s the number?”

  Richard gave it to him, and the aide took it down.

  Martin and Margo Sealock left again. Potsie half turned to Richard. “Making business moves at a memorial service? Real nice.”

  He felt a sharp pain in his side. “Come on,” he said, “that’s not what it was.”

  Potsie said, “Whatever you say.”

  Ralph said, “Yeah, whatever you say, Richard.”

  • • •

  RICHARD STEPPED OUTSIDE. THE COOL, fresh air tasted good after the air inside—hot from the crowd, sour from the animosity of jilted old friends, repressive all around. He would have stayed longer if not for Potsie and Ralph. What could he do to make them see he wasn’t as coldhearted as they had made him out to be in their minds over all these years? How could he shatter that mythical version of him they had created? How could he become their friend again?

  The already capacity crowd for the memorial service had grown since Richard had arrived. With no more legal spaces remaining, the latecomers were forced to park their cars in front of fire hydrants, in bus lanes—even up on the sidewalk. Richard stood there for a moment, moved at this testament to Fonzie’s popularity. Sealock was still there, arguing with a police officer. The cops were there ticketing the illegally parked cars.

  “You can’t ticket cars at a memorial service, Kirk. It’s not right.”

  “What’s not right is parking where you’re not allowed. And it’s Lieutenant Kirk.”

  “For now, maybe,” Sealock said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Kirk said.

  “Figure it out,” said Sealock, turning and walking away to his waiting Town Car. There was a ticket on the windshield. He snatched it off, shaking his head in anger.

  In the 1960s, Officer Kirk had spent most of his hours as a patrol officer hounding Richard and his teenage friends over any petty grievance he could dig up—or make up if he had to. He was hardest on Fonzie. He was always arresting him or doing his best to harass him out of town—usually for nothing more than liking motorcycles and rock and roll. Richard walked in the other direction, going out of his way to avoid the cop.

  He was still within earshot as he crossed the street. “Forget the tickets,” he heard Kirk saying to his subordinates, “call in the tow trucks.”

  Richard took one last look over his shoulder. Kirk was looking right at him. He turned and picked up the pace.

  • • •

  HE DROVE AROUND FOR A while, looking for a Sushi place. He had never even heard of sushi when he was growing up—now he was addicted. The closest he could find was a Long John Silver’s. He almost did it too—he went inside and got all the way up to the counter before admitting that he did not have the guts.

  Instead he went to Arnold’s Drive-In.

  The Bennigan’s across the street had people standing on the sidewalk out front waiting for tables. Its lot was full. The lot at Arnold’s had only a few cars—Hondas, mostly, and Volkswagens. Foreign made. In Richard’s day a foreign car was anything made outside Detroit. Back then, this lot would have been filled with American hot rods or the Ford Falcons kids had begged, borrowed, or stolen from their parents.

  Richard stepped out of his car and into a day from the past. It was an unremarkable day in 1958 or ’59. An afternoon, after school. He was behind the wheel of his father’s car. The windows were down. The sun was out. Bobby Darin was singing “Splish Splash” on the radio. A girl was in the passenger seat—Mary Lou Milligan, maybe, or Cindy Shellenberger. Outside across the lot his friends were waiting for him, Potsie itchy to lay out whatever latest new hustle he had in mind. An unremarkable day, one that at the time would have seemed to mean very little. But now he could see those were the best kind. They were everything.

  He went inside.

  The old soda fountain that had once served milk shakes and root beer floats now also served booze. Bellied up to it were factory guys in blue jumpsuits holding cans of beer. Some wore SEALOCK FOR GOVERNOR hats. The beer was Shotz. What his father used to drink. Fonzie had had two friends who worked at the brewery, Laverne and somebody—Pinky, it might have been.

  No matter. He found an empty stool, and the bartender came over.

  “What’ll it be?”

  “Milk shake.”

  The guys at the bar glanced at him. One of them muttered something he did not hear. It made the others snicker.

  Richard took in the room around him. It had been perfectly preserved. The mottled gray floor, the wood paneling on the walls, the green swinging door into the kitchen, the college pennants everywhere. Those aluminum napkin dispensers, those brown pads on the booths. All the little things he had forgotten he remembered.

  In one of the booths were Potsie and Ralph. They did not notice him, and he did not go join them. He knew they did not want to talk to him.

  He saw the jukebox.

  He stood and went over to it. This jukebox and Fonzie had always had a special relationship. He was the only one who could work it. Kids like Richie would pump in the quarters, push the buttons, and get nothing. But one cool knock from Fonzie’s elbow and it would whir to life and they’d all dance to “Rock Around the Clock.”

  Richard tried it now. Banged his elbow against it. Nothing—just pins and needles in his pinky. He put in a quarter and tried again. The factory guys were snickering at him again.

  “That thing doesn’t play Madonna, buddy.” They laughed.

  Richard laughed too, like a good sport. He didn’t try to explain. He gave up, leaving the jukebox sitting silently, and went back to his barstool.

  “This is a local legend you’re messing with,” said a voice behind him.

  It was Ralph. He and Potsie had come over for another round and overheard. It was one thing for them to give their old friend a hard time, but it was another to see others do it.

  “Oh yeah?” one of them said.

  “Yeah. He’s a writer. A famous one, out in Hollywood. He won an Oscar.”

  “Nominated,” said Richard.

  “He was nominated for an Oscar,” Ralph said. “And he was coming to Arnold’s when you knuckleheads were still in diapers.”

  Potsie gestured to the one on the far end of the bar and said, “Course we all know Jeff here’s still in diapers.”

&nbs
p; The others cackled.

  “Only for Packers games,” Jeff said. “So I don’t have to get up and go to the bathroom. It’s smart.”

  The others started in on Jeff as the bartender gave Richard his milk shake.

  Potsie and Ralph got their beers. Richard expected them to go back to their booths, but they stayed there, standing on either side of him.

  Richard did not know which direction to go in with them. What to say. Start simple. “You know these guys?”

  “We work together.”

  “Sackett-Wilhelm, right? What do you do there?”

  “Me, I operate a crane,” Ralph said. “Potsie here sleeps under his desk and eats lunch.”

  Potsie rose to his own defense. “I oversee quality control.”

  Then it fell quiet. They did not have much to say to each other. Or maybe they had too much. It was all logjammed somewhere inside them. Nothing could get out.

  “We were sorry to hear about your dad,” Ralph said.

  Richard said, “Thanks. It was a long time ago.”

  “Doesn’t matter how long ago it was.”

  Richard said, “No. It doesn’t.”

  “He was a great guy.”

  “He was,” Richard said, too quickly, dismissively. Then he said again, more slowly. “Thank you. He was.”

  Then it fell quiet again. There were so many years between them. In each of those years were hundreds of things they had known deeply and intimately that the other hadn’t and never would. Their kids’ faces. Their wives’ voices. The jobs they went off to. The insides of their own heads. Richard was seeing his own two previous decades scroll past—the various LA apartments where he and Lori Beth had lived. His daughter crying right after she was born. The friends out there, who themselves were old friends now. He didn’t know what he had in common with Potsie and Ralph anymore. They had shared so much once. They had sharing everything. Then they had shared nothing. It made Richard feel upside down.

  Then—what was he thinking? Of course. They still shared something. The obvious.

  “To Fonzie,” Richard said.

  He raised his milk shake. Ralph and Potsie lifted their beer cans.

  “To Fonzie,” they said.

  The logjam was broken. Potsie laughed. “Hey, remember when he got my bicycle back from that gang after they stole it from me?”

  “Not before we tried to get it back ourselves,” Ralph said.

  “The Dukes,” Richard said.

  “I can’t believe you remember their name,” said Potsie.

  He ran a hand over his face, appalled at his own youthful idiocy. “We showed up at their hangout.”

  “That pool hall, over on Seventeenth Street.”

  “ ‘Give it back!’ They would have murdered us.”

  “But then Fonzie showed up,” Richard said. “Out of nowhere. Had a dozen of the toughest guys in town with him. They were only there to play pool or something, but the Dukes thought they were there to fight them. Which is what Fonzie wanted. It worked. The Dukes were scared out of their minds.”

  Potsie laughed, shoulders shaking, eyes squinted. “They vanished quick, didn’t they?”

  “Left your bike for you.”

  “Yes they did. Yes they did.”

  “Richard,” Ralph said, “remember when you were home alone and someone broke into your house?”

  “Geez,” Richard said, shuddering, as if the horror was fresh, “yes, now I do.”

  “And somehow you managed to call Fonzie? How’d you call Fonzie?”

  Richard said, “The guy made me order a pizza. He was hungry or something, who knows. I dialed Fonzie’s number instead. ‘Hello, I’d like one large pepperoni pizza please.’ At first Fonzie goes, ‘Are you out of your mind, Cunningham, what are you doing?’ Then he figured out I was in trouble.”

  Ralph snorted and shook his head in disbelief.

  Richard said, “He came over and locked the guy in a closet, and the cops came and got him. And the kicker? He brought the pizza.”

  They were laughing hard now.

  Ralph said, “Remember when he jumped the shark?”

  “On the water skis?” Potsie said. “Who could forget? It was out on Lake Michigan. The shark was in a tank, Fonzie was going to jump over it, there was a ramp set up. There was no way Fonzie would make it over. We all thought he would be bait. Remember, Richard?”

  Richard said, “Are you kidding? Who do you think was driving the speedboat? You might have thought he’d be bait. I never had any doubt he’d make it.”

  “And he made it,” said Ralph. “He jumped it.”

  “Jumped the hell out of that shark,” said Potsie.

  Ralph said, “Kept his leather jacket on too.”

  “Kept it dry,” said Richard. “I told Spielberg that story.”

  “Steven Spielberg?”

  “Steven Spielberg.” Ralph and Potsie sat up and turned toward Richard, giving him all their attention. “In fact, Jaws? The original draft of the screenplay? Had that story in it. There was a scene where a guy on water skis jumps a shark.”

  Potsie slapped the bar. “No kidding. Why’d they cut it?”

  “The robot shark ended up being more expensive than they thought, and they didn’t have money to shoot that scene.”

  Ralph said, “Wait a minute, that’s a robot shark?” Potsie and Richard gave each other a look, smirking. “The shark in Jaws? That’s not a real shark?”

  “No,” said Richard, “it’s real.”

  Ralph looked relieved. “Okay, good, because I was going to say: if it’s a robot shark, the movie completely falls apart. All they’d have to do is take its batteries out.”

  Potsie turned to Richard. “How’s work?”

  Richard said, “Work? It’s good. Work is good.” He thought his voice sounded artificially cheerful. He felt as though they were picking up on it.

  “Yeah?” Potsie said. “Got any movies coming out?”

  “Sure,” he lied, “sure.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well,” said Richard, “a few things. They’re, you know, in various stages of development.”

  “Yeah, development,” echoed Potsie knowingly, as if fluent in industry jargon.

  “What are they?”

  “Well, okay, one of them is kind of a sci-fi project.” He hoped that would satisfy them, but they stared at him, waiting for more. “There’s a wicked kingdom, an underdog hero, a foxy princess—and get this: it’s in space.”

  “Wait wait wait,” Ralph said. “You’re—” He covered his mouth as though there was something vulgar in there he did not want coming out. He lowered his voice. “You’re doing a new Star Wars?”

  Potsie said, “Oh, man, Star Wars. That’s why he’s being so coy about it. They’re real secretive about that stuff out there in Hollywood.”

  Richard could not bear to disappoint them. And maybe he wished too much it was true, that he was the kind of guy who would get such a job.

  “You got me.”

  Ralph turned to the guy at the bar next to him and nudged him. “This guy’s writing the next Star Wars. He’s my buddy. We’re buddies.”

  Richard changed the subject. He asked them about their families. Potsie had two girls, both in high school. Ralph had a fifteen-year-old son.

  “I’m teaching him how to play bass,” Ralph said.

  Potsie said to him, “You should learn first.”

  “You guys still play?” Richard said.

  Potsie grinned. “We got the band back together. Remember the band?”

  Richard said, “We weren’t bad, were we? Played a pretty mean ‘Splish Splash.’ ”

  “Still do,” said Potsie. “Me and Ralph and a couple of guys from work. We jam in Ralph’s basement a couple nights a week. Drives Jeanette bonkers. All she wants is some peace and quiet to do her Jane Fonda workout tape. Instead she gets us and our racket.”

  “Come on,” said Ralph. “It’s not that bad.”

  “Not
that bad? She walks around with tissue stuffed in her ears.”

  “It’s your singing, is what it is.”

  “Oh please.”

  “Playing out anywhere?” asked Richard.

  “Sure, sure,” said Ralph.

  “No,” said Potsie.

  Ralph said, “Not yet, no, but soon, probably. We’ve got a vision, Richard. This isn’t just for fun. This has a real shot. We’ve got a sound. In fact, I just blew a bunch of money on recording equipment. A real high-end microphone and reel-to-reel tape system. We’re gonna record a demo tape, bring it around to some record labels. You should hear us, we’re good, we’re real good, it’s a slam dunk that we’ll get a record deal. We sound like Springsteen.”

  Potsie said, “Better. We sound better. Know why? Because we’re the genuine article.” Ralph nodded, looking off at nothing, full of himself. Potsie continued, “Springsteen—what does that guy know about the working life? He’s never set foot in a mill. We do it every day. So we figure, if he can make millions singing about the working life, why can’t we?”

  “That’s right,” said Ralph.

  Richard said, “Gosh that was fun, being in that band. We had fun back then. I don’t have fun like that anymore.”

  Potsie said, “Still play at all, Richard?”

  “Not really. I sold my sax when I got to LA for rent money. Maybe every now and again, I’ll take the guitar out of the basement, but, you know, the strings are all rusted and out of tune, and I can never get around to putting new ones on. I’ll play long enough to cut my fingers up then put it away.” He said, “You have a name?”

  “We do,” Ralph said proudly.

  “Men Who Work,” said Potsie. “Originally we wanted Men at Work, but it was already taken.”

  Richard said to him, “Remember when Fonzie filled in for you, when you couldn’t make the gig? Man, he was so nervous about singing in front of all those people. I’d never seen him like that. But once we started up on ‘Heartbreak Hotel,’ man, he brought the house down. The guy was unbelievable. He could do anything he wanted. The world was his, you know?” Richard continued, “There are so many things I want to ask him. I wish I knew his life. What was he doing all these years?” Potsie and Ralph did not say anything. “I mean, what had he been doing? You know? How did he turn out?” Potsie and Ralph looked at each other. “What?”