CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Foreword
The Second Foreword
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Introduction: How To Know If You’re Decent Trash
CHAPTER 1: WORK
CHAPTER II: MONEY AND FINANCE
CHAPTER III: ROMANCE THE WHITE TRASH WAY
CHAPTER IV: MARRIAGE
CHAPTER V: HOME AND FAMILY
CHAPTER VI: RECREATION
CHAPTER VII: FINALLY, THIS DAMN BOOK IS DONE
CLOSING PRAYER: THE WHITE TRASH TEN COMMANDMENTS
About the Author
Copyright Page
To my beloved wife Toni,
who’s prettier than a shot of Jim Beam after you
just hijacked a truckload of patio furniture
Foreword
MEET DR. VERNE
How do?
The name’s Dr. Verne Edstrom, Esq. This here’s my book.
Now you’re probably wondering how wholesome White Trash like me got to be a famous book author, hanging around Deep Literary Guys who don’t even own tool belts.
Since you asked, this here’s the story:
I was born in St. Cloud, Minnesota, which is over by Wisconsin and Canada. Like most decent trash, I got me a good upbringing.
My ma worked at the quarry and had a sweet AFDC scam going on the side, which taught me good finance at an early age. The old man, he had a union job for about three months when I was six. But mostly he burglarized chicken farms so he could pickle the eggs and sell ’em to bars.
He was a good earner and a good father—until he got shot by Mr. Johansson, who was our neighbor, who wasn’t partial to the old man playing hide the power tool with Mrs. Johansson while he was out spearfishing.
The family estate was the envy of St. Cloud. We had a double-wide on 40 acres and more refrigerators on our porch than anybody in town. Some folks might say we was well-to-do.
That’s how I got me this prestigious education. I graduated third in my class at the Red Wing Boys Reformatory, which people from them parts will tell you is the Harvard of the Minnesota juvenile correctional system. I also attended the Stillwater State Prison, where I majored in pipefitting.
My first wedding was to Alice. I met her one day while I was robbing a Denny’s. You never seen a woman look finer emptying a cash register. Her great big hair was glistening like a clump of jewels. I figured it might be worth something at the pawnshop. Problem is, I couldn’t get it unattached from her head.
As it turns out, me and Alice got to sparking and next thing you know we’s married with four or six kids—I can’t remember which.
But then Alice run off with my brother Hal, who only got one ear cuz the other got bit off by a northern pike in an ice fishing accident. I figured Alice felt sorry for him. That’s why I only tried to shoot Hal once.
Then I got married to Karicia, who got a bad name but a good body. She was what you call your performing artist. Guys still remember her show over at the Palomino Club. She could do some amazing things with a plate of mixed vegetables.
Karicia wasn’t partial to having no kids, which is why we only ended up with three. But then I caught her with this guy Sammy in the Palomino men’s room. I was pissed, seeing as how he wasn’t even kin. So I smacked Sammy with a towel dispenser.
Well, the blood got to flowing and Karicia got to squealing like a lawyer with a scraped knee. So I went home, grabbed the young ones, and headed for Milwaukee. Which is in Wisconsin. Which is where guys is known to wear big globs of cheese on their head. Which is why I figured the law wouldn’t catch me. You never seen no cheese police busting nobody on Cops, am I right?
Milwaukee’s a fine place to raise kids. There ain’t no jobs, which means you can stay on unemployment without them social workers squawking at you. It also got a lot of good places to rob, since most people got power tools.
Me and the kids, we was living in paradise.
The Second Foreword
(ON ACCOUNT OF WE COULDN’T AFFORD ALL THE FIRST SO WE HAD TO PUT THIS ONE ON LAYAWAY)
Anyways, I raised them kids right. Taught ’em all my worldly knowledge, like how to hotwire snowmobiles and poach deer.
By junior high, they already had their own scam selling my used Hustlers to fifth graders for fifteen bucks a pop. You might say they was born entrepreneurs.
But then I got to figuring the kids needed one of them feminine presences around, someone to teach ’em the fineries of life, like how to cook a decent potpie. So I got hitched to Marci.
If a guy was being charitable, you could say Marci is a fine-looking woman—kind of a female John Goodman, only with more facial hair.
But me being the sensitive kind, I can say with a true heart that it wasn’t looks I was after.
Nope, I first got to sparking with Marci when I seen her win the wood-splitting contest at Lumberjack Days. She had the muscles of a beer truck driver. Which meant I could branch out into stealing sofas, on account of them hide-a-beds is damn heavy, so you need a partner with decent pipes.
Marci was a Christian woman. She never used the Lord’s name in vain unless she was drunk or shot herself with a nail gun. But she wasn’t partial to my thieving ways.
So we up and moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where the jobs was good. I got me work handling cargo at the airport.
It wasn’t a bad job—outside of the actual work. I was making union money and got free steel-toes. It was also good for stealing luggage. (If there’s anybody out there needing a set of them Corinthian leather Samsonites with the fruity wheels on the bottom, give me a call. Everything’s priced to move.)
But like most decent trash, me and jobs ain’t a good mix. I got what you call disillusioned, which is fancy talk for saying the job sucked. I wanted more from life than stealing suitcases and sleeping in cargo holds. I wanted some of that enrichment and reward, like they’s always talking about on infomercials.
So I did what any God-fearing White Trash would do: I faked a back injury.
Soon I was dipping my beak in that sweet nectar of workers’ comp. I convinced the old lady we should move to Green Bay, where the fishing was better and the insurance guys wouldn’t try to videotape me a butchering moose when I was supposed to be laid up.
But like they say in them Hallmark cards, “Life has a way of ramming a shiv in your neck sometimes.” Next thing you know, them pointy-heads from the state says I gotta join one of them retraining programs.
So I got to enrolling in the White Trash Studies program at University of Wisconsin–Green Bay, known by academias as one of the finest colleges that got a hyphen in its name. Eleven years later, out comes Dr. Verne Edstrom, Esq.
Now most folks ain’t never seen no White Trash doctor—especially one who got a Esq. on top of it. You might say I was a celebrity. Pretty soon, people was coming from near and far to get answers on all their important questions—like what’s the classiest whisky for bringing to a job interview, or how to rob a SuperAmerica when you done lost your gun. I got to feelin’ so good about helping people out, I decided to start posting my helpful advice where everyone in town could see it so’s they could all learn a little bit of class. Which is why I hung the letters up at the racetrack. Pretty soon, people started readin’ ’em and writing more letters back. I started getting letters from all over the country. I was like Dr. Phil, only you could trust what I got to say, on account of I didn’t wear no candy-assed suit.
Problem is, Marci ain’t the kind to impress easy. I hate speaking ill of the woman, but she was putting on airs. If I was such a celebrity, she got to saying, why was we still living in a shack behind the post office?
But Marci can be real persuasive, especially when she uses a busted hockey stick to make her point. By the time I got outta the hospital, I was seeing things her way. So’s I gathered up the brood and says, “Brood, we’re going to the homeland of our people, the Paris of the White Trash Nation, Cleveland, Ohio.”
I was fixing to become a world-famous author.
Now most folks know Cleveland is your epicenter of the White Trash literary scene, on account of it got lots of abandoned buildings, so’s a guy could shack up in some solitude while contemplating his latest works. I figured since I was already giving people my scientific advice for free, I’d just make up some new crap and turn ’er into a book. It’s what you call your valuable public service.
See, most of your self-help these days gets written up by dainty guys who’s always squawking about their saturated fat. But there wasn’t no self-help for decent trash.
Say you got an important question, like how to make your fourteen-year-old cousin unpregnant, or who you should kidnap if you’re aiming to impress a woman. You think you’re gonna ask Dr. Laura about that? Her face would explode and her makeup would catch fire. Pretty soon you burned down eleven states, but you still don’t know who you’re supposed to abduct.
Me, I was figuring to help folks rise up from under the viaduct—teach ’em a little etiquette, help ’em get a little class—so they could do better robberies, get themselves more marriages, and start living the life of luxury in a nice double-wide where the heat always works and the cupboards is always filled with liquor and ammo.
You might say I was just giving something back to the community.
And if you ain’t buying that explanation, here’s a better one: I got eight or ten kids. Seeing as how Marci’s built like them ore boats on the Cuyahoga River, the smart money says she’s good for a half-dozen more. So if you don’t buy my book, I don’t get no money, which means eight to ten kids is gonna be loose on the streets, stealing your car stereo.
And any moron knows a book is cheaper than a car stereo. That’s just good financial thinking.
Dr. Verne Edstrom, Esq.
Cleveland, America
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to my editor at Broadway, Beth Datlowe Adams, who plucked my ass outta obscurity, and don’t even make me pay rent to sleep in her car. I’d also like to thank my agent, but I don’t got one on account of I fired him, ’cause he didn’t buy me no whiskey. What’s the point of having an agent if he don’t kiss your ass? Most important, I’d like to thank all the little people I stepped on to get famous. (No, kid, you ain’t getting your bike back. If you want a bike, steal one like a decent American.)
Author’s Note
All letters in this book is real. Some locations got changed to protect the writers from bill collectors, parole officers, ex-husbands, and the guy whose Lynyrd Skynyrd 8-track they borrowed and never brought back.
Introduction
HOW TO KNOW IF YOU’RE DECENT TRASH
What you’re looking at is one of them scientific tests, invented by authentic pointy-heads with lab coats, so you know it’s good. It’s designed to see if you’re decent trash—which means you’re worthy of finding out my patented system for success—or if you’re some kinda lowlife, like a congressman or a CEO, who we don’t want polluting this book.
Check your score at the end. If you gotta get somebody to read it for you, add two points.
1. What makes you and your old man fight the most?
A. When you catch him tomcatting with the lady from apartment 314, who got a better mustache than Tom Selleck.
B. When he leaves the toilet seat up, and the kids start using it as a swimming pool.
C. When he forgets to tape the strongman competition on ESPN while you’re working the graveyard shift.
2. Yuppies is good for:
A. Charging $17,000 for a new tranny on their Acura, on account of they don’t know better.
B. Chopping up and selling for bait on the pier.
C. When you run out of clay pigeons.
3. What’s the most important thing to teach your kids?
A. How to read so they can understand the racing form.
B. Chemistry, just in case they need to make pipe bombs sometime.
C. Math. Cuz that’s the lie you always use during parent-teacher conferences.
4. What’s the most important thing to look for in a fourth husband?
A. He’s gotta be good in bed, so you’ll have something to do when the TV gets repossessed.
B. He’s gotta have a job, or at least a good personal injury case going.
C. He’s gotta be handy with a nail gun, just in case your bookie comes around looking for the money you owe him.
5. What’s the most important thing to look for in a fourth wife?
A. She’s gotta know not to talk when the Bengals is on.
B. Her butt’s gotta be small enough to fit in a movie theater seat.
C. She’s gotta be good at lying to the bill collectors, on account of you shouldn’t have to do all the damn work around here.
6. Which old country did your ancestors came from?
A. Greece.
B. Newark.
C. The Greyhound terminal.
7. Your kid takes a small helping for supper. What do you do?
A. Question his sexual preference.
B. Search his room to see if he’s buying cologne, too.
C. Tell him to eat up, on account of you ain’t raising him to be no supermodel.
8. If you was to win a free vacation from the door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, and you could go anywhere, which place would you get your ass to?
A. Germany, cuz they got a good supply of beer.
B. Palm Springs, cuz there’s lots of old rich people who’s easy to mug.
C. Vegas, cuz the old lady loves that Wayne Newton, which means she’ll cut you some slack next time she catches you with her sister behind the Dumpster.
9. Say one of your trees falls on the neighbor’s property. You and him got a beef over who should clean it up. What do you do?
A. Forget about it. He never used the part of his house that got crushed anyways.
B. Shoot him. It ain’t polite manners that he’s bothering you during the TNT Clint Eastwood marathon.
C. Tell him he owes you $200, on account of that tree’s worth a lotta lumber, then sue ’im when he don’t pay.
10. You get a call from the school counselor. Your kid got in a fight. Your first response is:
A. “Unless you can prove the kid’s mine, quit calling.”
B. “You wanna buy some night crawlers?”
C. “Don’t worry. He’s just coming down from a meth bender.”
11. Your sixteen-year-old daughter tells you she’s pregnant. What do you do?
A. Tell her it’s about time.
B. Do the loving parent thing and let her put it on your tab at Planned Parenthood.
C. Tell her she’s gotta move out. She’s an adult now and should get her own damned AFDC scam.
12. You just won the lottery. What do you do?
A. Hire one of them pointy-heads with the cute little glasses to invest it wisely.
B. Pay off your delinquent child support, which’ll leave enough money left for a carton of Winstons.
C. Blow it on slot machines, Jim Beam, and chicken.
13. You just got sentenced to eighteen months for your third drunk driving. Now is a good time to:
A. Stab somebody, on account of the food ain’t bad here and you’ll get to stay longer.
B. Turn your life over to God. Maybe He’ll pay your lawyer bill.
C. Sweet-talk that lady guard. She’s making union money and probably got a nice house with shag carpet and them matador paintings. It’d be a good place for layi
ng on the couch once you get paroled.
14. You’re out on your first date with the cute guy from the loading dock. He asks what you want to drink. What do you do?
A. Order one of them top-shelf liqueurs. A man’s attractiveness is directly related to how much loot he’s willing to blow on you.
B. Only order a double-shot of Wild Turkey, cuz you wanna seem ladylike.
C. Order Diet Pepsi. It’ll be easier to get yourself knocked up if he don’t think you’re gonna turn into John Madden once you get hitched.
15. The landlord calls about the rent being late. Pick the proper White Trash response:
A. “My deepest apologies. I will inform the trust fund administrator at once.”
B. “Aw, $#@&. My mailman musta got cut down in one of them postal shootings again.”
C. “What &%$#@$#% rent check? I paid you cash two months ago when I hit on the Fireball machine at the Indian casino! Are you trying to %$#@ me here? I got witnesses, mother%$#@$%! You want a piece of me?”
16. If you could shack up with any movie star, who would it be?
A. Burt Reynolds, on account of you lost your dishrag, and his wig would make a good replacement.
B. Hugh Grant. He talks funny. Your kids could take him to Show and Tell.
C. Robert Duvall, on account of he’s handsome like Steve Buscemi, but he played a Mafia guy in The Godfather, so he could probably get you a five-finger discount on a camcorder.
17. You’re short on jack for Christmas. What’s the best way to score quick cash?
A. Mug a FedEx guy. You might score something big, like the payroll checks from an International House of Pancakes.
B. Rob a deli. You ain’t done one for a couple weeks, and the Job Corps counselor is always saying how you should keep your skills fresh.
White Trash Etiquette Page 1
