CATCH A FALLING STAR: Chapters One & Two
THE COLD OPEN
From USA Today’s 2021 Pre-season High School All-America Team
Second Team
Daniel Murphy
Rochester North
Rochester, NY
Senior
At 6-feet-4 and 230 pounds, Daniel is a pro-sized tight end who figures to step directly into the line-up of almost any D-1 powerhouse. With a 4.65 40, he has the speed to get downfield, a major reason that he ranked fourth in the nation among all receivers and first among tight ends with 27 TDs. A four-year starter, Daniel has received offers from Ohio State, Penn State, BYU, Louisville and Clemson. Daniel also plays basketball and last season was named to the Western New York all-region team at small forward.
From the Xerox-Webster Campus internal newsletter for September 2023
… Also to be honored at the dinner is Francis Murphy, who this summer celebrated his 25th anniversary in our communications and marketing offices.
From the IMDB.com, the Internet Movie Data Base
Created by Bryan Morton and Al Toyne,The Fabulous Freshmenwas broadcast from August 20, 1989 to May 22, 1994 on NBC. The show follows a group of teenage friends and the quirky staff at the fictional Mary Lincoln High in Zanesville, Illinois. While The Fabulous Freshmen focused primarily on lighthearted comedic situations, it occasionally visited serious social issues, such as drug use, drunk driving, poverty, divorce and empowerment of women. Targeted at kids and teens, The Fabulous Freshmen (a.k.a. The Fab Frosh) aired on Saturday mornings. Along with its inevitable spin-offs, regrettable reunion shows and a star-crossed series reboot in 2006,The Fabulous Freshmenin syndication developed an unusually devout cult following of nostalgic Gen Xers and millennials. From the New York Times review: “One of television’s great mysteries is the enduring appeal of this well-fermented corn decades after the fact. No doubt the later real-life travails of its not so fabulously fractious cast contributes its addictive watchability.”
CHAPTER 1
Shit, I can’t find the keys to my car, the Clown Car, which is what I call my PT Cruiser and my father calls the “PT Loser.” Time is tight. I gotta find the keys.
I dig through the pockets of the jeans I was wearing which I threw in a pile of laundry. Nope. I check all eight pockets of my beat-up army jacket that I was wearing even though my mother says it makes me look like a school shooter. I find $2.56 in change but no keys. I reach down between the cushions of the ratty old couch that I have here in
The Netherworld, which Is What My Parents Call My Basement Bedroom, which Seems about Right, because Their Bedroom & My Brother’s Have Nice Views of Our Yard & All I See Are Trash Cans, the Garden Shed & Weeds
Still, no keys. I need one of those metal detectors you see the guys walking around with on the beach.
I’m getting freaked about it. It’s like the stars in the movie posters on the wall are staring at me. No, Pete Davidson, I’m not high. Are you laughing at me, Austin Powers? Don’t look so happy about it, Pee-Wee Herman.
This is about the one time I do wish The Netherworld was organized. I file my precious vinyl in approximately alphabetical order and most of my books and old DVDs are on the shelves but I’ve got to keep some out and handy even though they do get kicked ‘round the floor. My mother always beats me up about it. She always drops a line like: “I’ll take a picture of it and say that a tornado hit Rochester, that way we might get federal disaster relief.” Or: “I’d hand you a broom, but you really should start with a shovel.” Or: “How can you get a good night’s sleep in here? Just the peeking through the door gives me nightmares.” My old man just says, “We should seal it up so the whole house doesn’t get condemned. I won’t go down there without a Hazmat suit.”
So, I’m not going to ask my parents if they’ve seen the keys to the Clown Car lying around because it’d be a 3-2-1 count-down to another lecture about cleaning up The Netherworld. I’m not going to pass out that invitation to an argument that I can’t win, not when against my better judgment I didn’t skip my last class at school which has me running late.
Of course, I find things that I’m not looking for first, things I figured were lost and gone forever.
The tuxedo t-shirt that was my gag birthday gift from my brother, Dan the Man: Yeah, a gag gift ‘cause it made me gag and my mother won’t let me throw it out because, she says, “Your brother meant well.”
A baseball my father got signed by Cal Ripken Jr. when he came to Rochester the year he went into the Hall of Fame: My father took me and my brother to Opening Day that time but I’m too young to remember and, honestly, I don’t give a shit.
The Last Sane Man in the Room: How to Write for Late-Night Comedy and How Not To! by Bill Tollson: I found this beat-up copy in a used-book store, published 30 years ago, which is about how long the guy’s been dead, but it has all the stories of all the shows going back to the ancient black-and-white days and I’ve tracked down a bunch of them on YouTube.
“Le voila.” There, my keys. I didn’t waste my last class, which is French.
I probably rolled off my single mattress in the morning and not even half awake I kicked my keys under the coffee table, which might look familiar given that it was scratched up in our living room my entire life until last week when my parents bought a new one. “I left it to you in my will, so you might as well take it now,” my father said. In our family, recycling is a big deal and anything that once was useful and maybe even looked good winds up in the Netherworld. My room is really just a bunch of Hand-Me-Downstairs.
Keys in my hand, I go up the stairs which leads directly to
Our Kitchen, which Is Probably Closer to a Real-life Version of the Simpson’s than Anything My Mother Finds in the Home Beautiful Magazines & Waves at My Father Who Yawns & Says, “When Did We Hit the Powerball Numbers?”
I’ve wasted 20 minutes and I’m tight for time so I’m trying to make a clean getaway. No dice. My father spots me. He’s wearing all red, the colors of Rochester North.
“Where are you going to sit?” he says. “Do you want us to give you a ride over to the stadium? Or is it too humiliating to be seen with us?”
“I’m going to Trip’s place,” I say. “We’re going over our lines.”
“Then you’re going to the game from there,” he says. “Just keep in mind … if you don’t get there early you might not get a seat. You know it will be packed. You can sit with us in the parents’ section if you want.”
“Well, I’ll try to make it. It’s not easy memorizing lines and I want to do a good job. I mean, my theatre mark is really riding on my performance.”
“It doesn’t seem like it’s a tough one to get down.”
“It’s Death of a Salesman. If you don’t get it just right, it can go real bad.”
“Yeah, but you’re playing Biff.”
My brother yells from the living room: “He’s the understudy for Biff.”
My brother, the good teammate. Thanks. Fifteen yards for unsportsmanlike conduct.
My father sniffs. “It’s the big game tonight,” he says.
“Against St Jude? That’s the big game? St Jude’s the patron saint of winless seasons.” Okay, not my original joke, but it’s a great punchline about the worst team in the league.
“It’s the homecoming game,” my father says. “Your brother is the homecoming king.”
“That doesn’t make us royalty.”
I mean, I would be going to the game, just because Stella will be singing The Star-Spangled Banner. Then again, I’ll watch it on YouTube and I won’t feel any less a friend or patriot.
“You’re not going to go the game, are you?” he says.
“Like I say, I’m gonna try to make it.”
I look into the fruit bowl for a banana or something that might be a reasonable substitute for dinner, but Dan has emptied it, just like he emptied all the cupboards. He’d clean out the root cellar if we had one.
Four steps and I’m out the door. I do a silent prayer that the Clown Car starts. Of course, I’m not going to the game. I’m not going to Trip’s place either.
CHAPTER 2
I pray again when I get on the ramp to the New York State Thruway. God, just let me get there. I’ve watched the commercials for luxury cars where they talk about “getting away from it all” and “the freedom of the road.” That’s not me. I take a ticket from a woman in a toll booth who gives me a look like she doubts that I’ll make it to the next exit, never mnd where I’m planning to go. Yeah, I’m getting judged and pitied by someone who stands in a booth for eight hours, ducking her head out of the window, making change. By the time I get there she’s used up all her smiles and have-a-nice-days and small talk she saves for daily regulars.
Ten minutes out of Rochester I spot a speed trap. Just what I was worried about. Not that I’d get pulled over for going too fast—everyone’s going 20 over the limit. No, last time I was on the Thruway I got pulled over for going too slow, holding up traffic—the Clown Car wheezes and shakes like it’s going to fall apart into pieces when I get past 55. “You’re both 17-years old,” the state trooper said when he looked at my license and ownership. I was by myself and I didn’t get it but then I did. I was born the same year the Clown Car rolled off the production line in Detroit.
This trooper was a giant. My passenger window only came up to his crotch. He had to duck down to match me to the photo on my license and in a couple of seconds he shone his flashlight in my eyes from about six inches from my face.
“You on drugs, boy?”
I knew that one’s coming. I got asked by my dentist, the optometrist. Even my friends noticed. About a year ago I got a virus that went in my eye, Adies Topic virus, a one-in-a-thousand thing where it knocks out the nerve in your eye that controls the size of your pupil. Permanently. So, my right pupil never shrinks. It’s always stuck wide open, like I’m really high, except that I actually am never high. Bright lights mess me up. My doctor told me that I should get a medical-alert bracelet because if I ever get knocked out or something, someone at emerg might think I’m having a stroke or something.
Because I’m afraid of getting pulled over again and having to explain that, no, I’m not high and I’ve just got a bum pupil, I decided against dressing up as a janitor. I thought, if a cop pulled me over and asked where I’m going, do I tell him that I’m going to Comic-Con? “Yes, officer, this thing I’m wearing, it’s what Lew Fonseca wore in The Fabulous Freshmen. Murray the Janitor. The guy with the masks. You remember the series, right?” Yeah, right.
Or do I just pretend like I actually am a janitor? A janitor would be driving something like this rust-bucket PT Cruiser with 148,567 miles on it that I found on Kijiji, that I spent my life savings on to get brake shoes for. A clown would be in a clown car, right?But when the cop looks at my license and sees I turned 16 a month back, he’s going to be suspicious. Nobody hires a 16-year-old to do anything but work the take-out window, right? What 16-year-old drives all the way from Rochester to Buffalo to work a night shift for minimum wage?
SO, I’m here standing on
The Sidewalk outside the Buffalo Convention Center, which Looks like the Marvel Universe Colliding with the DC Universe Colliding with the Pixar Universe Colliding with the Star Trek Universe Colliding with Whatever Universe the Pro Wrestlers Live in
I feel like everyone is looking at me the same way the lady at the toll booth did. I’m wearing in jeans and an old-school-looking Nirvana t-shirt and Vans, like any greasy boarder who has stepped out of the Rochester North High School yearbook. I’m the only one not dressed up in this line-up of nerds and geeks outside Convention Center.
No one’s dressed as a janitor, so I guess no one else in this parade of fanboys is here for Lew. No, they’re coming for everyone else who used to be somebody.
I’m standing behind a dozen Trekkies who are here for William Shatner, for George Takei, for Data and a bunch from Next Generation. Not Sir Patrick Stewart. Supposedly he’s doing Shakespeare or something. And I’m standing in front of four guys dressed as the Joker for the Cosplay contest. Yeah, the Joker, the ultimate loner, moving in packs. One’s shooting me a dirty look. I want to say, “Dude, the girl in theatre class I want to ask out on a date is at the game waving pom-poms, cheering on—and crushing on—my dumbass brother, the all-state tight end and homecoming king. So you and I have a lot in common.”
The line stops moving when I’m standing next to a sign listing all stars inside. Some of it is really old-school. The cast of Major League, my old man’s favorite baseball movie—everyone’s here except Charlie Sheen, because when you’ve made two million bucks an episode for Two and a Half Men, well, you don’t need Comic Con. Others do, though. Urkell is here. Blossom’s brother. The cast of That 70s Show. The cast of Gotham. Whatever you might be streaming,
I’m not being judge-y about nerds and geeks in the line outside because, let’s face it, these are my people. If you love any TV show or movie a little too much, you buy a ticket to Comic-Con. You can get a selfie with a star. You can get a signed photo. You can get merch. T-shirts. Hats. Action figures. You just have to pay. Cash only accepted. No cards. Cold hard cash.
I can’t get anything signed. All I’ve got in my pocket is enough to get my car out of the lot, gas money and a slice of pizza for the drive home. Maybe I blew my bank account just to get in the door. My ticket for Friday night was $75. No way I could do the $275 VIP weekend pass.
I’m way, way back in a line that snakes around the block. Worse than that, the line’s moving at a crawl because everyone has to pass through a metal detector. I get it—too many Goth Cosplayers look way too much like school shooters. Frisk’em, please! Problem is, everybody is tripping the metal detector. Everybody’s getting wanded.
The doors opened at six and last call for selfies and merch is 10:30. At seven o’clock I’m still 100 yards from the door. I know the Fab Frosh reunion panel show with Lew, a free thing for all ticketholders, is listed at 7:30 on the schedule. At the pace things are going I’m going to miss the opening of the show. I don’t see any way around it until …
Okay, look, before I tell you about it, I have to ask you: Please don’t judge me harshly.
Okay, so there’s a much shorter, sadder line beside ours: a line of kids brought from Children’s Hospital. No running them through the metal detector in their wheelchairs, with their oxygen tanks, with IV needles, metal joints, whatever. The kids are being pushed by nurses. They are being pushed by family members. They are being pushed by volunteers.
I spot one little kid sitting alone in his wheelchair in a Spiderman outfit. I figure he might be 14. It has to be his brother, maybe 17 or 18, who has pushed him up to the door. His brother has two of his friends with him they’re trying to crash the party for nothing. They’re about tenth in line, when the brother and his friends walk away and leave the kid sitting there—my guess is a bathroom break, maybe hot dogs from a vendor down the block. The kid in the wheelchair is all alone and sad looking.
So, so … I walk over to the kid in the wheelchair and did a speed round of small talk.
“First time at Comic-Con?” I say. Nothing.
“It’s sold out,” I say. Nothing.
“Where do you want to go first?” I say. Something.
“Neil Patrick Harris,” the kid says, like he’s giving a taxi driver a destination. “He voiced Spidey, you know. And, y’know, Doogie Howser is a real meaningful show to us at the hospital.”
“Do you mind if we stop in at The Fabulous Freshmen reunion show first?”
“Oh-(pause)-kay,” he says, not happy about it but just wanting to get rolling.
“Don’t worry about your brother and his buddies,” I say as I grab the kid’s handles. “They’ll catch up to us.”
“Whatever,” he says, “My brother is taking a weed break.” Yeah, he’s not going to bother checking his rear-view mirror if we get to Neil Patrick Harris.
I don’t have the heart to ask him if it’s his medical marijuana. At this point we don’t know each other well enough for me to get personal.
At the front of the line, the kid turns on the charm. He does what I’m sure is a fake cough and he makes his voice all weak. It’s like they were shooting a fund-raising commercial or a PSA and I almost tear up. Almost.
I say to the security guy as he let us in: “If my brother and his friends come back here and ask where we’ve gone, tell him we’ll come back after The Fabulous Freshmen panel show.”
“We’ll get them t-shirts,” the kid chirps, getting completely into the spirit of the thing.
They hand us programs. The Fabulous Freshmen panel is at 7:30 in on the second floor of the Convention Centre. The elevator for the physically challenged is lined up so I wedge the kid’s wheelchair onto the escalator and put my shoulder into it—a little risky but we make it.
We get to the doors to the hall—it’s practically full. “This poor kid’s eyesight and hearing are failing,” I tell a volunteer at the door. “He’s gotta be up close.”
Again, the kid turns on the adopt-a-puppy look and we’re shown right up to the very front, at the side of the stage where where his wheelchair won’t be blocking anyone’s view.
I have a view of the cast backstage. Nobody seems to be talking to one another. They’re looking at their iPhones. And there’s Lew Fonseca, in his full janitor’s uniform, crushing a hot dogs in two great big bites. He chugs a beer just as they introduce him and he walks …
On Stage, under the Bright Lights, where Make-up Doesn’t Hide All the Ugly
The seat that Lew Fonseca sits in rocks when his ass lands in it. It almost tips over, which everyone sees and gets a laugh. Wasn’t a gag—I’m close enough to see the WTF expression in his eyes. The guys running Comic-Con almost have a big fat lawsuit on its hands. Imagine the headline: Troubled Sitcom Star from 90s Dies in Freak Accident Witnessed by Horrified Fans
The chant of “Lew-Lew-Lew” goes up when he drops a great big equipment bag in front of him. If you ever watched The Fabulous Freshmen you know exactly what’s inside. Just the bag gets a laugh but he works it with a look at the crowd and a wink. “Lew can do a take like no one else,” my father always says, pretty much always through gritted teeth.
While Lew hams it up I spot an eye roll from Richard Garrioch, the actor who played Kenardley, the math teacher. He’s pissed, like he’s saying: “What about me? I’m a trained Shakespearean actor.” Yeah, go tell it to Sir Patrick Stewart.
The host of the panel is Ben Therean. He used to be host of The Hollywood Squares. He has his own stall at Comic-Con. Who’d want to go? I don’t know anyone who watches the Game Show Network but somebody has to, I guess.
So Ben Therean asks everyone on the panel a couple of questions. We learn: 1. Richard Garrioch says he auditioned for the role of Becky’s father; 2. Elaine Garrett, who played honor student Sara Prizley, says she went to college and did her Ph D in physics; 3. Bud DeLeon, who played the football coach, says he based his character on his gym teacher in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. Finally Lew. Lew reaches into his bag. “These are all the actual masks from the show. Something on eBay that they’re selling the real ones, don’t buy ‘em. They’re fake.”
He puts the welding mask on. “You remember this. Season 3, Episode 1.”
Someone yells: “’Everything under the Sun.’”
“You got it. ‘Everything under the Sun’ … that was the episode, when I stood in the parking lot, waiting for the total eclipse of the sun …”
Same guy yells: “And the clouds …”
“Yeah, the clouds blew in and I couldn’t see anything. Then I couldn’t get the mask off the whole episode. Buddy, you seem to know a lot ‘bout the episode. You wanna get up here?”
Thing is, this mask is real dark. I couldn’t see anything through the eye slot, not even with the studio lights. I was bumping into people and things—that wasn’t scripted.”
Then Lew Fonseca goes to take the mask off and he pretends that he can’t get the clasps undone in the back, just like in the episode. That gets a huge laugh. “It actually happened at the Comic-Con in Providence,” he says.
Ben Therean asks everyone on the panel what they’re doing now. Richard Garrioch says he’s doing a one-man show in Pittsburgh. “I hope to get it to Broadway,” he says. Elaine Garrett has been doing voice work. “I’m Sheila Sheetrock in Pixar’s Home Sweet Dumpster.” Bud DeLeon says he lives in Hawaii, surfs and golfs. “I do a few Comic-Cons but mostly I run my inn and restaurant in Maui.” Finally Lew’s up.
“Well, you know I’ve had some problems over the years. TMZ named me Hollywood train-wreck of the year. I moved right back here to South Buffalo five years ago. Same street I grew up on. I’m just three exits down I-295. I got my club in the Falls. The Janitor’s Closet. I tour the Northeast. Still grinding the stand-up grind. I’m not Vegas or anything but I have my fun.”
Lew holds up the diving mask, the goalie mask and the Elvis mask while the fans keep clapping. The kid in the wheelchair turns around and says: “Okay, Neil Patrick Harris. Now.”
“Wait,” I tell him.
Ben Therean then hands a wireless mic to a volunteer. “We have a few minutes for questions from our audience. Anyone have questions?”
I shoot up my hand, Because we’re right in the front the volunteer hands me the mic.
“My question’s for Lew,” I say. “Did writers come up with the masks bits or did you?”
Lew smiles and says: “Thanks for the question. And thanks for bringing your brother out. What’s his name?”
“What’s his name?” I say. I can hardly spit the words out.
“His name is what’s-his-name?” Lew says. “You doing material?”
That gets a big laugh. The laugh drowns out the kid who yells, “Jake.”
Lew’s too busy mugging for the crowd and laughing at his own joke to hear the kid.
“Thing is, the first time, the diver’s mask and snorkel when I was doing the plumbing,
that was the writers’ idea but I came up with most of them. The welding mask was mine. So was the goalie mask when I was using the chainsaw in the carpentry shop.”
That gets a round of applause and at that point Jake turns his head and says: “Do we have to stick around for this? You told me you’d take me to see Neil Patrick Harris.”
After a few more questions, I turn the wheelchair around and say “Excuse me” a dozen times and push our way through the crowd to …
The Stage where Neil Patrick Harris Is Posing for Photos & Doing Magic Tricks
I use the wheelchair as a battering ram, but the kid doesn’t seem to mind. From our place in line, I see the entrance again—the kid’s brother who is trying to talk his way past security and from the looks at it having no luck. I don’t mention it to the kid because I don’t want to spoil his fun.
The line of fans waiting for Neil Patrick Harris’s autograph and selfies seems as long as the line outside the Comic-Con. Probably a hundred people, a mix of kids and adults. Neil Patrick Harris is sitting at a table. His manager is up front. He’s got a roll of twenties and hundreds that he can’t get his hand around it when has to peel off change.
Unfortunately we’re at the end of a line of kids from the hospital waiting to see Neil Patrick Harris. It might take an hour.
At this point, though, Jake’s brother arrives. Yeah, awkward.
“What the f--- are you doing with my brother?”
“They were looking for volunteers and he was sitting there alone,” I say. “Don’t get so pissed at me. That must be some shitty weed.”
“Brett, shut up,” Jake says. “I didn’t even know if you were coming back. At least this guy got me in though I had to sit through a lame panel— for what was the name of the show?”
“The Fabulous Freshmen,” I say.
“That show sucks,” the brother says.
“Well, it’s better than sitting at security alone,” Jake says.
Ok, now, I’m just looking to get out of there. “I’ll hand Jake back to you, Brett,” I say. I lean the wheelchair back and spin it 180 degrees.
“I’m telling the cops,” Brett says.
“Let it go,” Jake says. “I just want my picture with Neil Patrick Harris.”
I leave Jake arguing with Brett. I take my cue. The perfect time to wander around Comic-Con, to disappear into the crowd, especially if Brett actually does talk to the cops. I head to …
The Sorriest Sight in Show Biz, Namely a Stall at a Comic-Con where a Celeb Sits Alone
And there’s Lew. He’s sitting there by himself. Fake smile. No manager counting his money. No line to see him. He has his equipment bag on the table but no one is asking him to pull out his masks. He has ten copies of the book he wrote, Behind the Mask: Mopping up in Hollywood. It came out 20 years ago, after The Fabulous Freshmen series finale, after he was in court, but before a lot of the other stuff. Behind the Mask is collector’s item now or at least really hard to find but, yeah, I’ve got a copy. I didn’t bring it because I knew I couldn’t afford to get it signed.
Yeah, should I at least go up and tell him that I have a copy of his book and that I’ve read it and just leave it at that? He’s heard it 100 times. He might get pissed. He might blow up. Wouldn’t be the first time. Then again, I did drive from Rochester and I did buy a ticket and I’ve got nothing to show for it. Go for it. And after all, Lew did say in Behind the Mask:
“The only thing worse than people bothering you is when people can’t be bothered with you.”
I walk up to his table and before I can say a word, Lew asks me: “You’re the one who asked about the masks? The brother of the kid in the wheelchair. Where is her?”
Gulp. “Our dad’s taking him for a bathroom break,” I say, the best I can come up with.
“Well, let me sign something for him,” Lew says, taking the cap off a Sharpie and grabbing an 8 by 10. I must look worried because Lew throws in: “It’s on the house. Least I can do. What’s your brother’s name?”
“Make it out to ‘David’” I say. Lightning does not strike.
“Tell David to come by before he goes,” Lew says.
“I’ll do my best but he’s gotta be back at Children’s Hospital by 10,” I say.
Then Lew pulls a couple of tickets from the chest pocket of his janitor’s overalls. “If you and David ever want to come by my club in Niagara Falls, be my guests.”
“Your club, it’s like a stand-up club, right?” I ask him.
“Yeah, so you like standup?,” he says. “I’ll give you an 8 by 10 too. What did you say your name was?”
“James,” I say. “Uh, I’ve dpne standup in theatre class. We had to do monologues. Supposed to be dramatic. Our teacher said mine was funny, too funny to get an A.”
“Don’t sweat it. When I was a kid, school was always a tough room.”
We keep talking. I tell Lew about winning Rochester’s Funniest, the amateur first-timers contest at Guffaws. I don’t tell him the whole story—seven entered and a couple of first-timers didn’t get a laugh. Lew seems more impressed by it than he should be.
“I never won an amateur contest … in a few when I started out … my first trip to New York I finished second in one at Catch a Rising Star and I made the finals in New York’s Funniest tournament. Come out to our open mic on Tuesdays. I’ll get you up. I’m out on the road most weekends. Bring your friends and bring your brother.”
My brother. Did someone turn the heat on in here?
“You have wheelchair access?” I ask him, hoping it’s up three flights of stairs.
No luck. “I got a ramp put in last year,” he says. “Gotta think of my future.”
Right then, some old guy walks up to Lew’s table with the 12-DVD boxed set of The Fabulous Freshmen, looking for an autograph. He peels off three tens. Lew smiles a little and says: “Great that you’re a fan, but that box you got—they sold thousands of units and I didn’t see a dime.”
I stick around Lew’s table, listening to him talk to other fans. When the announcement goes out that the doors will close in 15 minutes, I say bye and head to …
The Parking Lot where Guys in Batman Suits Climb into Cars that Aren’t the Batmobile
I turn the key and thankfully my PT Cruiser huffs and puffs and finally starts. I drive away like I’m leaving the scene of a crime. I’m not saying that I floor it when I pull out of the parking lot. The clown car isn’t much of a getaway car. It does zero-to-60 in about the same time it takes to hard-boil an egg. Still, I feel guilty. A bit guilty, anyway. Not really guilty, though.
Exactly what was it that I got away with anyway? I didn’t break any laws. I wasn’t trespassing, right? I mean, I bought a ticket. I didn’t break into the show. I definitely didn’t steal anything. Lew Fonseca gave me those 8 by 10s.
And the part about pushing the kid in the wheelchair through security, look, I didn’t say I was the kid’s big brother. That’s just what the security guard assumed when he waved us in. I just grabbed the kid’s handles and did what I thought was the right thing for him. That it worked out for me too, well, yeah, but that’s not the point.
Okay, I’ll admit, I did jump the line when I walked over to wheelchair row. I left the Jokers, the Trekkies, the Luke Skywalkers and Princess Leias, the fat guys dressed as Super-heroes . You want to wait in line with the misfits … that’s your business, not mine. If you saw an opportunity, any opportunity, to beat the line, you’d run to daylight too. Don’t lie to yourself.
I know, I know … I did fake it when I told Lew I was poor little Jake’s brother, that our dad was with him. Right, so I have to come up with a some sort of story if I'm talking to Lew at the Janitor’s Closet. "Oh David, yeah, David, the doctors said that he couldn't come," I can say. "Can you sign something else for him?" That should work.
And yeah, I left out the whole thing about my real-life father, which would be real awkward. I don’t know what would have happened but it might have ended up on TMZ.