Chapter One.
I met "Charlie Brown" in a booze dive one cold slushy night in East Orange New Jersey. It was Christmas Eve 1950. He was face down in a bowl of clam chowder, and bleeding from where an unhappy patron had smashed a chair over his head.
Hey shit happens.
I sat down, and ordered a Cognac Boutelleau,...vintage 1919. That, and a can of steamed Alpo. I had every intention of minding my own business however the guy in the soup began going into some sort of seizure.
I found out later that his name was "Charlie", and a profound manic depressive schizophrenic a-sexual alcoholic repressed cross dresser with suicidal tendencies eating disorders an expensive heroin, and speed addiction with a barley controlled case of tourette syndrome.
He wet his bed too.
Anyhow my experience as a "Marine Medical Dog" kicked in. I saw a lot of this sort of thing in the Pacific. After a couple of weeks on the line the guys would freak out, and have to be withdrawn.
That was my job. Going in, and dragging the shell shocked marines from harms way. I got three "K-9 Fido Gold Stars" for my troubles. That, and a roll of toilet paper will wipe your butt.
I leapt off my stool spilling vintage Cognac. I grabbed him with my teeth by the scruff of his neck, and dragged this lunatic across the street to the "Booze Alley" infirmary.
The male nurses pumped him out, and stitched him up.
As it turned out they was medic vets too. Cool. I waited around to make sure our patient would live. After that I was gonna beat it the hell out'a there.
However fate, and that psychotic junkie bed wetter Charlie Brown had other ideas.
He asked...pleaded really for me front him a bottle of "Jack Daniels", and drive him home.
You pay for every good bleeping deed...when the hell will I learn.
Right so I pours this human wreck into the back seat of my '49 Buick with 20 payments to go on it, and drives the guy home. So began a far too interesting relationship of over 50 years
(...More chapters as they occur to me.)
(...Okay a vignette occurred to me.)
The Saga Continues.
Chapter Two,...kinda.
A month or two into Snoopy, and Charlie Brown's relationship there was that "FBI entanglement". Remember this was the early 1950's. Seems Charlie Brown stupidly was a member of the "Young Communists", and was holding "Cell" meetings in his basement.
The heat got wind of this, and raided his house.
Poor Charlie got the shit beat out of him,...again, and was thrown into the slammer. He was surprised when he made new, and very sudden friends in the Rikers Island shower that didn't take 'no' for an answer. Later with his only phone call he contacted Snoopy who was giving a lecture at City College. This on his theory that Human Beings are in fact "...Talking Dogs that pay taxes, and wear socks".
Well Snoopy had to use his honorarium to bail Charlie out, and then drive him to a commie safe house on Goat Island. This so a Soviet sub could pick Charlie up. That, and sail him out to international waters where he was debriefed. This is to say he got the crap kicked out of him again.
Snoopy went along for the ride, and the fresh perogies.
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