Corrections to my Memoirs

by Michael Kun

  “Ralph” is an important character in my memoirs, particularly during World War II, in which he lost his right hand due to a malfunctioning hand grenade. While you will certainly want to quote some of his charming and pithy comments at home or work, you should know that, technically speaking, I do not actually have a brother named “Ralph.” I do not have a brother at all since my parents apparently didn’t think it was important for me to be able to relate to anyone other than them. “Ralph” is a composite character based upon my imaginary brother, “Scooter,” and a man I once met named Tom Something-or-Other. “Scooter” does not appear in my memoirs as he is imaginary, which I now understand. Thank you, Dr. Deborah Pullari. You’ve been like the mother I never had.

  Regarding the incident at the Copacabana in chapter 54 involving a showgirl named “Lola,” I’m afraid that’s a combination of actual events and the events that occur in a popular song written by Barry Manilow. Mostly, the song.

  My sisters, “Sally” and “Coco,” were not involved in drug smuggling in Thailand, as readers might wrongly conclude after reading chapter 35. I do not have sisters named “Sally” and “Coco.” In fact, I don’t have any sisters at all. “Sally” and “Coco” are fictional characters whose actions throughout my memoirs are the actions I imagine my sisters would have engaged in under the same circumstances, had they existed. Had my parents not felt it was important to keep me isolated from human contact by depriving me of siblings and putting a color TV in my bedroom instead, right next to the computer. Had they not come up with the excuse that my mother was “injured” during childbirth and through some hocus-pocus couldn’t have any more children.

  “Pajamas” is the fictional name I have chosen to give my golden retriever for the purposes of my memoirs. He died in the middle of the night because of my parents’ shameful neglect, and I am moved to tears whenever I even think of his real name or picture his cold, unblinking eyes staring at the ceiling, like I’m doing at this very moment. Oh, and he was actually a goldfish, not a dog, so I’ve used a little of that “poetic license.” But everything else about him is entirely accurate except for the description of his burial, which I’m sure the reader will understand.

  Although I’ve written in chapter 41 tha tmy parents “completely forgot” my fourth birthday, truth be told, they actually had a party for me in our backyard with a clown and a pony. But the clown hardly knew any good tricks, and once it began to rain, the pony smelled like its skin was rotting, so in my mind, it feels like they forgot my birthday altogether. It would’ve been better if they had.

  Technically, my father did not stab me with a knife. But you could tell he was thinking about it. You could see it in his eyes.

  Please ignore chapter 21. I really don’t know much about tuberculosis.

  “Sally” and “Coco” did not get sent away to boarding school since they did not exist, technically speaking, but had they existed, I feel certain that my parents would’ve sent them away just to deprive me of the love and attention I so dearly needed.

  I did not actually hit a grand-slam home run in my first Little League game, nor was my father sitting in the stands drinking bourbon and fingering the hem of a strange woman’s skirt when he should have been celebrating my achievement. If memory serves, I hit a weak ground ball and we eventually lost the game, after which my father took me to Burger King in Midland Park to get a hamburger and french fries. Who feeds that kind of food to a growing boy? Feed a boy that kind of food, then try to figure out why he ends up fat and out-of-shape with acne on his face and his shoulder blades! Try to figure out why he has no self-confidence and girls won’t talk to him! Try to figure out why he plays poker with his computer club buddies every Friday night instead of going to parties! So, the truth is actually worse than that which I’ve depicted, isn’t it?

  My mother sang “What’s New Pussycat” at Parents’ Talent Night at school, not standing on the coffee table at a dinner party. And she was probably wearing underwear. But, to a six-year-old, the embarrassment is the same, don’t you agree?

  I was not married to Charlize Theron in the 1990s. She is an excellent actress though, and quite a looker!

  Why don’t we go ahead and change “Charlize Theron” to “Ruth Heimer” throughout chapters 23 through 27. And let’s change “beautiful movie star” to “suprisingly passable transvestite.” Please change “loved her with all my heart” to “located through a Web site.”

  When I wrote that I was robbed at gunpoint and had to turn over $500 to a stinking thief, what I should have said was that some money was missing from my trust fund. And if someone took it, that’s a crime! That’s the same as taking money right out of my pocket. Importantly, you should know that no one has ever been able to adequately explain the disappearance of the $500 from my trust fund. Money doesn’t just disappear, as “Ralph” would say. Money doesn’t just get up and walk away, he’d say. If he were here.

  When I speak of my father’s time in “prison,” I am referring to the occasion on which he was given a speeding ticket on the Garden State Parkway two years ago. I wasn’t in the car at the time, but what if I had been? What then? And what if he’d been drinking? And what if it had occurred forty years ago, when I was just a toddler? That would be called “child endangerment.” Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t go to prison for that, because you can.

  In chapter 39, please change “Harvard” to “Hartford,” and “University” to “Technical School.” Please change “medical” to “refrigeration.” Please change “graduated with honors” to “attended for one and a half semesters.” Please change “scholarship” to “outstanding student loans that have adversely affected my credit rating.”

  Regarding chapter 112, while it is true that my father served in the Army during the Korean War, I cannot say with any certainty which side he was on. Although the curled photographs appear to show him wearing the garb of the American forces, isn’t that precisely what those crafty South Koreans would do—dress up like Americans and put American flags on their uniforms in order to try to infiltrate our troops? Or maybe it was the North Koreans. I’m not a history buff. Anyway, please ignore any references to “treason.”

  You don’t think anyone’s mother would admit to working in a strip club, do you? But until she can prove otherwise…

  While they referred to it as an “allowance,” I believe I earned that money—and more—through various services performed within the household. Most were likely in violation of applicable child labor laws, I should add.

  “Take a sweater, sweetheart; it could get chilly.” “Take a sweater, sweetheart; it could get chilly.” God knows how many times I heard my mother speak those damning words. I can still hear those words in my head, rattling around like a ball bearing. Telling me to take a sweater was nothing more than the most basic reverse psychology: She knew that I would rebel and choose not to take a sweater, thereby catching a cold. So when I say in chapter 4 that she suffered from “Munchausen by proxy,” a mental disorder by which an individual attempts to gain sympathy by purposefully causing injury or illness to his or her child, I’m referring to the sweaters. The damn sweaters.

  No one could prove I started the fire.

  Or this fire.

  Or that I broke the windows, even if those were my fingerprints on that thing I threw. Or, should I say, “allegedly” threw. Yes, let’s say “allegedly.”

  What kind of parents buy their son a racing car bed then won’t let him drive their car? Think about that for a minute.

  The incident involving the jump rope and the mail truck in chapter 33 actually occurred, but it happened to Teddy Abernathy, with whom I worked at Stone Harbor Refrigeration, not to me. But he told the story so vividly that I felt as if it happened to me, and my therapist seemed to believe it happened to me when I told her.

  I did not win a Grammy Award in 1988.

  I did not star in Woody Allen’s 2004 film Melinda and Melinda as suggested in chapter 78. Not tha
t anyone would know.

  My father’s “illness”? Nothing but a ploy to keep me from writing my memoirs and exposing him for the agile monster he is. Well, dear father, you did not raise a fool for a son. (I’m speaking of me, not “Ralph.” You did not raise “Ralph” at all, did you? Did you?) I’m sure that you’re sitting in some secluded little room in the hospital, drinking martinis with your “Army” buddies when you’re supposedly getting “radiation” treatments. I’m sure you’re getting some big laugh out of that, using “radiation” as a code word to mean “martini.” I’m sure you’re all laughing about how you’ve used all your connections to keep my memoirs from being published. Well, I’m not laughing. You can put an end to all of this nonsense by just putting the $500—plus interest—back in the trust fund and co-signing for that town house in Red Bank. All will be forgiven. Except for “Pajamas.” That will never be forgiven.

  Poor “Pajamas.” Poor, poor “Pajamas.”

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  The next story is Michael Kun at his bravest, digging deep to touch the hearts of his loyal readers.

  Titled “One Last Story About Girls and Chocolate,” the story won the coveted Breadland Moore Prize, as well as the Circle Around the King Award. It is the first story ever to win both awards.

  Historians will note that “One Last Story About Girls and Chocolate” was written by the author in a hotel room in Seattle, Washington. It is the only story he has ever written in that beautiful, haunted city, though not the only one he has written in a hotel room. The author has spent much time in hotel rooms.

  Like his seminal novels The Locklear Letters and You Poor Monster, the author paints a harsh and unforgiving portrait of lawyers in “One Last Story About Girls and Chocolate.” In every one of his books, and many of his stories, lawyers appear as scoundrels, crooks, jackasses, and worse.

  As canny readers are aware, Michael is himself a lawyer.

  We will leave it to the same historians to decipher what that says about Michael’s opinion of himself.

  Enjoy.

  ONE LAST STORY ABOUT GIRLS AND CHOCOLATE

  Billy Corwell was laughing and slapping his knee. Haw-haw-haw. Slap. Haw-haw. Slap.

  “That’s very funny,” he said, between haws and slaps, and he showed his white teeth. His teeth were like piano keys. “It’s all very, very funny. I mean that. Funny. Funny.”

  The boy smacked his knee again with the flat of his hand, producing a sound like a baker slapping bread dough. In the high-backed chair across the table, across the cooling remains of a large meal, Margie blushed at the attention the boy was paying her, laughing like that. Laughing, laughing, laughing. She pretended to wipe something from her lips with the corner of her napkin—a speck of food, a drop of wine, something—to obscure her reddening face. Then she pretended she was thirsty and took a drink from her water glass. The boy was laughing, laughing, laughing, his eyes on her all the while.

  “Funny,” the boy said, and he shook his head side to side.

  Margie was a pretty woman by all accounts, pretty with black hair the color of freshly poured tar and the blue-green eyes that ran in her family. Though she could no longer be considered young, she had a nice figure. She was, as her husband, Carl, described it, a “sweater girl,” one of those high-breasted women who looked lovely in sweaters—she was wearing a red-and-white holiday sweater now—who could send the heart racing and always looked as if she’d just returned from a stroll along some grassy, idle pasture or just finished the last drops of a tall, cool glass of milk. She was the type of woman who, from her freshly scrubbed appearance, could have been anywhere from twenty-five to forty—she was, in fact, forty years old—which was why people still called her Margie, rather than Margaret, which was her given name, or Mrs. Peel, which was not. Even her children, both of them, called her Margie.

  As Billy Corwell laughed and laughed, his eyes grew moist, and he continued to stare at Margie. Finally, his laughter gave way to the hacking cough that marks a smoker. Ack-ack-ack, ack-ack-ack. His head bobbed, and Margie stole a glance at his hand as he covered his fat, wet mouth; his index and middle fingers were yellow with nicotine. The middle finger was so yellow it was nearly brown, like a bruise healing.

  “Please,” he said, when his coughing subsided. He raised an open hand to his face to acknowledge that he was fine. “Please, go on with your story.”

  Margie turned to look at Carl. He hadn’t been paying attention when she’d started her story or he’d have known that the story had been about him, about how he’d behaved when he’d been sick in bed with the flu many years before. He wasn’t paying attention now either, his head tipped back slightly, his eyes half-lidded in thoughts so deep he dared not share them. When he did open his eyes, he focused on the china cabinet across from him, studying it.

  “Yes, Margie, please go on,” Nate Allen said. Nate Allen was a lawyer in Carl’s firm. He was a serious-minded man, built like a bagpipe, with pinkish eyelids, a fleshy nose, and the beginnings of a second chin. He was a man who rarely seemed pleased, but now he smiled more broadly than Margie had ever seen him smile, smiling as if she were not merely telling a little story but poking him in the ribs too. “Please.”

  Everyone at the dinner was either a lawyer or the spouse of a lawyer at the firm. Everyone except the boy, Billy Corwell. Carl and Margie had never met him before. He was a relative of the Steinbergs, Walt and Nancy Steinberg, whom he was visiting for the weekend. Nancy Steinberg had telephoned that morning, before the birds were even awake, to see if it would be inconvenient to set another place for dinner, and Margie had said, “Oh, no, of course not.” She was used to setting extra places for her children’s friends. The boy, Billy Corwell, was from somewhere in New Jersey. And he was not a boy, really. He was twenty-four years old and had graduated from a college in New England. He’d told Margie that he was in a management training program at a bank. He was thin and wore his hair short, like a Marine, with very little in the way of sideburns. Billy Corwell had gray eyes that, moist with laughter, seemed to shine like ball bearings.

  “Please,” the boy said again, and Margie obliged: “So there Carl was in bed, sick as a dog, and he kept a little dinner bell on the nightstand. It was a little dinner bell in the shape of the Liberty Bell. We’d bought it when we visited the Liberty Bell—the real one—with the kids. It’s bronze and it’s about this big.”

  Margie made a circle with the thumb and index finger of her right hand.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “he kept the Liberty Bell on the nightstand and he’d ring it whenever he wanted me to perform some act, like I was a trained seal. Ring-ring-ring, all day long. Ring-ring—‘Margie, can you get me an apple?’ Ring-ring—‘Margie, honey, can you get me some aspirin tablets?’ Ring-ring—‘Margie, honey, sweetie, sugarpie, will you stand on your head and sing “The Girl from Ipanema”?’”

  They were all laughing, especially the boy; he couldn’t possibly know what “The Girl from Ipanema” was—he was too young—but still he laughed. Carl wasn’t listening. His eyes were on the china cabinet. Had he noticed the small scratch on the side? He tipped his head to the side a bit.

  “Well, one day I was sitting in the bedroom with him while he was sleeping, and all of a sudden he woke up. He sat up straight and said, ‘Margie, honey, what if chocolate were poisonous? I’d bet people wouldn’t eat so much of it.’ Then, just like that”—she snapped her fingers—“he fell back into a sweaty, dreamy sleep.”

  Billy Corwell laughed his haw-haw laugh. It was not the silent, forbidden laughter of dinner parties and country clubs, but a raucous, rumbling laugh that was an invitation to some secret society. The others joined him, laughing, laughing, laughing.

  “But wait, that’s not all,” Margie said, her voice rising, not to the level of a shriek, but merely becoming more persuasive. “Wait, wait, there’s more. A couple minutes later, a couple minutes after he made his grand pronouncement about the dangers of chocolate, he started talki
ng in his sleep. He was smiling, smiling in his sleep, and all he said was girls’ names, one after the other, calling the names out like this: ‘Deborah.’ ‘Cynthia.’ ‘Katherine.’ ‘Shellie.’ ‘Francine.’ Name after name after name after name. The whole time he had that huge smile on his face, the cat who swallowed the canary. The sick, sweaty cat who swallowed the canary.”

  Billy Corwell was laughing and laughing, and, as before, his laughs turned to coughs. Ack-ack-ack, ack-ack-ack. His head fell forward, his forehead nearly touching the table, and when it snapped back, his cheeks were the color of a ripe plum. Margie rose halfway from her seat, the napkin falling from her lap to the floor, before the boy let loose with a single, final cough that popped like gunfire. The cough seemed to awaken Carl; he knew what gunfire sounded like. He’d been in a war and he’d told Margie about gunfire. “It sounds like this,” he’d told her one night under the covers. “Bap-a-bap-a-bap. Bap-a-bap-a-bap.”

  Billy Corwell breathed in deeply, his chest expanding noticeably. Tears rolled down his cheeks like happy skiers. He placed a hand flat against his chest as if to confirm that his heart was still beating, took a long drink of water, then looked into Margie’s eyes and saw something there that set him off laughing again, more lightly this time, like the small breeze that follows a storm. The others joined him in laughing, occasionally turning toward Carl, whose sudden, puzzled expression only inspired more laughter.