Ho, Ho, Hum

I was trying my damndest to be in a holiday mood. I was, after all, on vacation, no one I knew was in jail, one of my credit cards was paid off and a coyote had carried away the cat that always doo-dooed in my workroom. I had every reason to smile.

I had even managed the Christmas malls without maiming any of the mindless, gum-popping clerks traditionally hired for the holidays, among whom was one kid who thought a menorah was a kosher cracker, and another who believed Elizabeth Arden ran the Broadway’s cosmetics department.

“You’re doing good,” my wife Cinelli said to me as we drove down Canoga Avenue in the San Fernando Valley, where the latest style among teen-age boys is to wear their father’s trousers.

They wander about with their belt lines halfway down their behinds and their pants legs dragging along under their shuffling feet, like so many demented trolls come up from under the bridge for Christmas, God keep them.

But, hey, it’s the holidays, and I believe in peace and tranquillity. I even believe in the virgin birth. I knew of a similar case in Oakland in 1956. Her name was Minerva and she asked that there be no publicity, else we might also be celebrating a child born to God and Minerva this month.

Anyhow, I was driving along Canoga Avenue wearing an expression very close to a grin when this damned fool in a pickup cut me off and almost drove me up onto the sidewalk.

That would have been bad enough, but the guy had a bumper sticker with a round, yellow smiling face and the question, “How Am I Driving?” There was a telephone number.

The “How Am I Driving?” bumper sticker is the latest fad in L.A., and I doubt that many telephone the number listed on the sticker to tell whoever answers how the individual is driving. Well, I did.

Due to the stunning generosity of management, I have a telephone in my car for just such purposes, so I called the 800 number on the sticker of the fool who had cut me off. I got the answering service of a plumbing company.

Before I could utter a word, a woman’s voice with the tonal qualities of a chain saw said, “Please state your location and your emergency.”

I said, “I’m in America and one of your drivers is driving like he’s been mainlining Jack Daniel’s.”

She said, “One moment, I’ll connect you.”

“This is ridiculous,” Cinelli said. “The guy made a little mistake and is no doubt at a curbside somewhere praying for forgiveness. Try being positive.”

“I tried it in 1988 and it didn’t work.”

“Lo?” a man said over the phone. Not “hello” but “lo,” in a grunting manner. I pictured him with long hairy arms and the kind of skull shape popular in the Lower to Middle Pleistocene.

“I’d like to report an erratic driver in Pickup Truck No. 2,” I said.

He laughed and said, “This you, Harry?”

I said, “This is not Harry. This is someone Pickup Truck No. 2 almost sent crashing into a bus stop loaded with orphaned children.”

“No. 2? That must be Otto.” He barely concealed a tolerant chuckle. “I’ll tell him you called.”

Then he hung up.

I dialed again.

“Lo?”

“What the hell good will it do to tell Otto?” I said. “He’s the transgressor.”

There was silence for a moment until I realized the word transgressor must’ve thrown him. Well, it had three syllables.

“He’s the lousy driver,” I said, simplifying, “and is not likely to change his ways just because you tell him I called.”

“What is it you want, pal?”

“I want someone to . . . “

Then I saw him again. It was Otto in Pickup No. 2. “Never mind,” I said, hanging up. I hit the accelerator.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” Cinelli said, hanging on.

“I’m going after Otto.”

He turned east on Victory. I turned east on Victory. He turned north on Winnetka. I turned north on Winnetka.

“I hate it when you’re this driven,” Cinelli said. “You act like a bull moose in rutting season. You even salivate.” He turned west on Nordhoff. I turned west on Nordhoff. Then he stopped. And got out of the car. I stared.

Otto was maybe five feet tall. He limped and used a single crutch and was barely able to carry a toolbox toward a house whose front steps he maneuvered with great difficulty.

“Go ahead,” Cinelli said, “kill Tiny Tim.”

“I can’t believe that’s Otto,” I said. “You’d think someone named Otto would at least be able to defend himself.”

“Don’t be sad,” she said as we drove away. “We’ll go back to the mall and smash a troll or two in oversized pants.”

It made me smile.