Frankenstory 12/14/2002, round 1, #1

36  "Clear as..."

1   My name is Mudd. People who don't know me affectionately call me Muddy. 
3   Kind of like a river, which don't make much sense livin' here in the desert. I got a story to tell.  
14  I'm a rebel without a pause. Once, at school I freaked in music class 
16  and invented disco dancing which later became very popular and Johnny T. was in the movie. 
12  That got me in a week's detention and my picture in the paper. I thought 
13  having to sit there in those cramped little desks listening to Strauss was bad, but then it topped 95, bad  
10  enough to melt the wax in your ears - and we called that a cool spell. Good thing Clara 
17  left a message for when I got home.  We had been on the outs lately, and I was fixing to 
21  put a mortgage on the trailer - my beloved Muddmobile, as soon as I graduated, but Clara 
23  quickly disabused me of that idea. She had future plans that not even the Muddmobile - or me - figured in.  
4        It was around this time that I met Grubber, he 
7   showed up on my doorstep selling Fuller Brushes. He had a goofy smile. 
19  We started an uneasy relationship, right then and there. I 
22  grabbed him because he looked wimpy, and he started scrubbing my pants till they really shined. I grabbed back 
20  my pants and wiped them off, but he didn't notice. Clara did, and mocked me for 
32  my stained tighty-whities. I sliced her to shreds with my razor blade wit, the Muddman 
37  Special, I called it. It took her two weeks to recover, but she came over right away. 
6   When Clara shouted after me 'Your name is going to be mud," it was a paradox of irony that 
5   Proust would've agreed with. But then Clara always told me Proust was a cretin 
8   and in any case, she cared more about Grubber than me or Proust or his madeleines.  
28  When her cat got stuck in the water tank, she went to him. Right in plain sight of me. It hurt.  
15       Now Grubber, with his Fuller Brushes, knew just what to do, but his 
27  sleeve got caught in the door knob. He wrestled free, panting. You see 
26  he was determined to see me break down in an Oscar-winning fit of tears, but I 
35  just stood there, sleeves intact, while he worked up to a monologue, tearing up himself.  
29  "Know why I hate you? My daddy was called Mudd too - nothing like you" Grubber bawled  
9   reproachfully, "or Muddy or Mudface or Mucky or Randolph 
11  Muddenheim-Schmidt, but the one thing he would not tolerate was being called 
24  Mud-muck-muddy-Mc-muck-a-lot." Grubber sucked in a breath. 
30  Just then, Clara entered quietly, broken glasses in hand. Thinking she might 
25  be one of the wrong ones after all.  He put the brushes down and beamed at her, 
33  and she at him, and why not? He had my build. I was about to 
31  tell her that I'd graduated AND gotten a job in Memphis, and I would've if 
38  she hadn't been my parole officer. It didn't matter. I was almost out of this joint. 
18  As usual, there's a tragic twist. Myopic and cruel, she confused him with me.  I watched, disgusted, as  
2   Clara hugged him and said, "You're finally free!" 

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