To Be Or Not To Be

Harry couldn't shake the notion of flunking out. There were practical matters to consider like, what next? But more important, there were matters of the psyche to consider, like how to survive and recover from it all? The Fate of the Flunkers lay heavy on his soul.

True, Harry's expulsion had come at a far more advanced stage than the three famous neighborhood flunkers he knew of, and now secretly compared himself to. That trio never made it out of high school.

Beno Wax, who flunked third grade, got run over at nineteen by a pizza delivery car while crossing the street on the way to Pooties's in Fort Lauderdale, the first time he had ever been to Florida. He never lived to see that Wet T contest.

Kenny Frick, who flunked fifth grade, was shot dead by police at twenty-one while breaking into the home of Principal Cheswick, after taking a dump on the desk in his oak-paneled study. He never lived to savor that attack.

One-Ball Speigel, St. Clair Pool's famed belly-flop artist who flunked sixth grade, met an untimely death at twenty-three, choking on a chicken bone at Tito's Bar-B-Q during his annual bowling banquet. He never lived to hold his MVP trophy of the  St. Clair Adult Bowling league.

If there was some cruel and mystical pattern attached to scholastic failure in Harry's humble neighborhood, then his days were short-numbered.

In the meantime, Harry had to do something -- anything -- to take his mind off of The Curse, even if that meant working for cousin Alvy Shugar with the crooked pinkies, the country's self-proclaimed Belt King.

"So what's the famous actor doing now? I missed you at the Oscars." Alvy asked Harry while chomping on a burnt potato knish.

Harry cringed and regretted going to the wedding. Family affairs were really nothing more than shooting galleries, acquisition showcases and career fairs. Who really gave a shit about how your life was going? And while Harry was forced to play the game, at least it gave him the chance to temporarily resuscitate the acting talents that were once fodder for his dreams. On that occasion he would play the polite but alienated Dustin Hoffman character in The Graduate, only there'd be no fucking any Mrs. Robinsons. Alvy's wife Frema, had the face of a salmon and the complexion of a plucked chicken.

"I'm in between things," Harry answered while counting the knish flakes pasted to Alvy's face, praying that the divine Belt King would finish the overcooked finger-food before spraying him in the face with errant knish shrapnel.

"So you're doing nothing. To be or not to be," he snickered while wiping the sweat off his upper lip with the sleeve of his Hugo Boss cashmere jacket. "Come work for me and put your thespian talents to use."