Who Killed the Fonz?

by James Boice

  “Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend.”

  “No, no, it’s not that—”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “There’s nothing to know. It’s okay.”

  “That’s just what was printed on his invoices,” she said. “He really was the best in the business.” They came to a closed door. She knocked, opened it. Inside at a desk Martin Sealock looked up from documents he was bent over reading closely. He wore glasses that made him look older. A grin spread across his face. He took off his glasses and stood. “Richard’s here,” Margo told him. She turned to Richard. “I have to run, so I’ll leave you to it. Do you have dinner plans? Would you join us this evening?”

  “I would love to,” Richard said, “but I can’t—I have plans to meet some old friends at Arnold’s.”

  “That sounds fun,” she said. “I love Arnold’s. I’m glad to see it’s still hanging on. We need places like it in this town.”

  Sealock said, “Arnold’s will be designated a historic landmark when I’m elected. First day in office.”

  Richard smiled. “You’ve got my vote. That is, if I had one.”

  Sealock laughed, gestured with his head. “Come in.”

  • • •

  “I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING,” Sealock said after Richard autographed his LaserDisc copy of Welcome to Henderson County and they took a seat at the oak meeting table with crystal water pitchers and tumblers near the window overlooking a tennis court, a swimming pool, grass that was still more lush late in the fall than Richard could ever get his own yard, even in the peak of spring. “Populist candidate. Man of the people.”

  Richard laughed, arranging the pen, paper, and notes he’d brought with him. “It’s not exactly the home I had imagined the champion of the working class would live in, no.”

  “Yeah, me neither. It’s not me. It’s Margo. Her family’s one of those families, you know? The kind that can trace themselves to the original settlers and has a coat of arms. This is pretty average for them. If it were me? We’d be in a raised ranch out in Cudahy. That’s more my speed. That’s how I grew up. Here, they’re scandalized if they catch you mowing your own lawn.”

  “Pretty good schools though, I bet.”

  “The public elementary school, where my eleven-year-old goes? Number one in the state. He’s in fifth grade and writing papers on Catcher in the Rye. When I was his age I was shaking my teacher awake because she’d passed out at her desk. Every kid should get an education of the quality that Martin Jr. is getting. Not just kids whose parents have caught the breaks. My administration’s going to make sure of it.”

  “You grew up here?”

  “Illinois. Southeastern Illinois, almost Indiana. It was a similar kind of town as this one. Good people. Hardworking. There was a steel plant. Everyone’s dad worked there. Mine did too, until we lost him.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “Cancer. I was eleven. Mom did the best she could after that—cleaning rooms at the motel, working the cash register at the grocery store. But there were three of us kids. It was tough. One year we moved apartments four times. Makes you appreciate a home like this.” He continued, “But that’s why Fonzie and I got along so well, I think. We were kindred spirits. Always outsiders. What’s the Dylan line? ‘Always on the outside of whatever side there was.’ ”

  “That should be your campaign slogan,” Richard joked.

  Sealock laughed. “We’ll change it. Election’s a week away? Sure.”

  “I want to use this,” Richard said. “Everything you’re talking about, that’s what your commercial should be. You’re sitting here, talking to me, telling me about this upbringing. Your opponent is this stodgy, boring old guy, right? You’re the human. You’re the hero.”

  Sealock glanced away, not quite willing to accept such adulation. “I am able to help the working people in ways Johnson cannot because he never was one.”

  “You’re also energetic, young—”

  “I’m forty-five.”

  “Forty-five is young,” Richard said.

  “How old are you?”

  Richard shrugged and said, “Forty-five.”

  Sealock leaned back and clapped once, grinning. Richard was looking over Sealock’s shoulder at a mounted and framed close-up photograph of a woman with her hair pulled tightly back, staring into the camera, her gaze cold but intense, almost brutal. What was most startling was how warm and caring this same woman had been to Richard moments earlier.

  “Is that a Helmut Newton?”

  Sealock turned to look at it. “He took it in Paris, not long after Margo and I met.”

  “You met in Paris?”

  “Evanston. We were undergraduates at Northwestern. I was work-study, slopping ladles full of chow in the dining hall. She’d come through my line. I fell in love with her as soon as I saw her. Like everyone else. But I had an advantage over the rest of them: cookies. I slipped her free chocolate chip cookies until she finally noticed I was alive. We dated, and I fell only more in love with her. But then she left. To model. She went all over the world—Paris, New York. Meanwhile, I moped my way through the rest of my degree like a lovesick fool, then continued on to Kellogg and got my MBA. I had a couple of jobs with investment firms in Chicago, but partly because I did not have Margo, I burned out pretty fast. I became disillusioned with what I was doing. You ever feel like that?”

  Richard nodded.

  “That’s when junk bonds were coming along. I could see what a con the whole financial industry had become. It wasn’t about fueling business, it was about the rich getting richer. So I came here to Milwaukee and started an advisory shop. I liked the idea of helping regular, working people grow their money, save enough for a house, their kids’ education.”

  “Why Milwaukee?”

  “Because that’s where Margo was. She was supposed to do an Yves Saint Laurent campaign but turned it down. They wanted her to do some things she wasn’t comfortable with. Then she moved back home. I wasn’t the least bit surprised when I heard about it. Margo was never one of these high-maintenance fashion models—she’s a midwestern girl. Nor was I surprised when she took a job at a barely solvent homeless outreach organization here. She had that place turned around within a year and almost making a profit.” He smiled. “They would have had to change their filing status. And man, Yves Saint Laurent? That thing would have made her a star. She could have had the world. But she wanted Milwaukee.”

  “I can see why you fell in love with her.”

  “A woman like Margo, you go to the ends of the earth for. If you get the chance to love her, you do whatever you have to do to make her yours, it doesn’t matter what.”

  Richard wanted to ask, Like what, what do you mean? But he could barely keep up—he was scribbling notes so fast he did not know if he would be able to decipher them later. Sealock watched him, amused. “This is great stuff,” Richard said, “this is really great. I didn’t even have to bother coming up with these questions here.” He tapped them with his pen then resumed writing.

  Sealock said, “Johnson ran a new ad last night. Did you see it?”

  “I was having trouble falling asleep. It helped.”

  “Exactly. I don’t want to do what Johnson is doing. Talking into the camera, droning on. I don’t want to be just another politician on TV talking at people. I need something that’s going to grab them by the collar—their blue collar. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes,” Richard said.

  “Something that inspires them to get out there and vote. Doesn’t even have to be for me. Just to vote. Of course it would be nice if it was for me, but . . .” He smiled.

  “I know exactly what you mean.”

  “I don’t even want a commercial. I want a film. A thirty-second short film. Like that Apple commercial from the Super Bowl—you see it? 1984, Big Brother on the screen, woman runs in and throws the hammer, shatters him?”

  “It will be tough pulling off so
mething of that scale with our time frame. When do you need this to air?”

  “Friday night, during prime time. Maximum audience.”

  “Okay, well, whatever you do, you’ll have to shoot it tomorrow and cut it on Thursday. You’ll need a film crew who could do it—”

  “I have one. We’ve used them for other stuff. They’re good. But what about all your other projects?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You have time today to write this thing? You probably need to get back to LA, get back to your other projects, right?”

  “Well,” he lied, “I am working on a few things.”

  “Yeah?” Sealock said, leaning forward. His eyes had become wide and bright. “What are they? As your number one fan.”

  “They’re, you know, things in various stages of development.”

  “Yeah?” Sealock waited for more.

  “Yeah.” Richard shifted his weight. He remembered the lie he had told Potsie and Ralph at the bar. Then he said, “Actually, no. That’s not true. To be honest? Aside from your commercial, I’m not working on much of anything.”

  Sealock didn’t understand. “But you should be. Why not? You’re a great writer. You have an Oscar nomination.”

  “It’s a ruthless town. An Academy Award nomination from a decade ago is worth as much as having found a sticker in a box of Cracker Jacks. I’m barely hanging on out there.”

  He had never said that out loud to anybody before—not to his mother, not even to Lori Beth. He was too proud to be completely honest with them. But he needed to tell somebody. In Sealock he recognized the same drive he had, the same feeling of otherness. Since he had been back, everyone had treated him like an intruder. Even talking to Al at the memorial service he had a feeling of distance, unease, like he could imagine Al was hiding years of bitter thoughts about him for leaving. He and Sealock both knew what it was like to be underestimated, written off, and to still have the ambition, the gall to keep going anyway. He told Sealock about Suttree and the dreams he had for directing the picture but how no one would let him do that because he did not have any experience and how he needed to raise five million dollars to make the film himself. And he told Sealock about Gleb’s ultimatum.

  “Here’s an idea,” Sealock said. “This ad? Don’t just write it—direct it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You say you need experience, right? This will give you some.”

  Richard smiled at the thought. His directorial debut. He would do a fantastic job. It would win Sealock the election. The nation would notice. It would show them all that Richard Cunningham could produce work that compels and influences without compromising his aesthetic integrity. He would show it to financiers when he pitches them Suttree. He would tell them, “See? I’ve done it. I can do it. I am doing it.” And they would give him everything he needs.

  Sealock reminded him of Fonzie. They had the same inspiring effect on people. With just a few words, they could make you feel like you could do anything.

  • • •

  HE TURNED OFF THE ENGINE and stepped out. It was a clear day. He could see very far—all of Milwaukee lay out before him in a panorama. They had chosen a fine location as their teenage make-out spot, he had to admit. Tree trunks still bore bright, freshly carved initials. It made him happy to see that young romantics were still coming to Inspiration Point.

  They had tried to shut this place down once. The city planning commission wanted to bulldoze it to make way for an expressway off-ramp. The head of the commission was Howard Cunningham. He was in favor of the off-ramp. It would be good for business, would bring more customers to the store. The city would make a lot of money. Richie and Fonzie led the teenagers of Milwaukee in a protest against the brutalization of hallowed ground. Richie painted signs and held a sit-in. Fonzie chained himself to a boulder. At the public hearing before the commission was to vote, Richie appealed to them in the name of romance. He zeroed in on his father, scolding him, beseeching him like he was some wicked, faceless public official. “Do you have a family, sir?” he asked, his voice filled with indignation the way it can only when we are young.

  “I have a lovely wife, a beautiful daughter, and a smart-aleck son,” Howard said.

  “Could you please tell us how you came to buy your house?” Richard asked.

  “Oh, come on, Richard, you’ve heard this story a million times,” Howard said.

  “Please, for the commissioners.”

  “Well, we found this house and we weren’t quite sure whether we could buy it. Your mother was excited about it and I didn’t quite know whether I could afford it. So we just went and talked it over.”

  “Where?”

  “Where what?”

  “Where did you go to talk it over?”

  “Well, we drove up to . . .”

  “Up to where, Dad?”

  “Inspiration Point.”

  “I rest my case, Dad.” The crowd of mostly pro-Inspiration Point supporters behind him cheered.

  Howard called them to order. He realized what Inspiration Point meant to him. What it meant to everyone in that room and in that town. He said, “I’ve just been reminded, and pretty cleverly I would say, that there are more important things than business.” He urged the commission to vote against the off-ramp. They did—they realized that they too had made their biggest life decisions there. It was the most popular place to propose in town, to see the fireworks on the Fourth of July. In the end, nobody wanted to live in a Milwaukee with no Inspiration Point. It was essential.

  Richard now stepped to the edge of the ridge to take in the view. Something down on the dirt road made his skin tighten. It was a figure, idling on a motorcycle. He had one boot on the ground, propping himself up, and was looking up at Richard through the tinted visor of a black helmet, the same kind Fonzie used to wear for his jumps. It could have been Fonzie. The bike had a silver gas tank, no front fender, and ape-hanger handlebars—just like what Richard remembered Fonzie riding. The way the rider sat on it too even looked a little like Fonzie—same upright-and-back posture to his shoulders. But of course it was not Fonzie. Fonzie was gone. Richard waved, but the rider must not have been looking at him after all because he did not wave back. He revved the engine, lifted his boot onto the foot peg, and tore off.

  Soon the sound of the engine faded.

  Richard sat on the hood of his rental car with his notepad and tried to sketch out a script for the commercial. But he could not focus. All he could think about was what his father had said that day so long ago when Richie and Fonzie had saved this place. There are more important things than business.

  It might have been a hundred years since he had said it. The world was no longer the world. But one thing had not changed: you still did whatever you had to do, became whatever you had to become, in order to come through for your family. He wondered what his father would have said about Gleb Cooper’s offer. What would he say if he took it? Would he still call him an artist? He could hear his voice like he was here. “There are more important things than business. But there’s nothing more important than your family.”

  • • •

  “A MODEL WHO GAVE IT all up for Milwaukee,” said Potsie. “I don’t believe it.”

  They were in the parking lot outside Arnold’s, not long after night had fallen, sitting on barstools they had carried out. They were looking out onto the street, at the Bennigan’s on the other side of it.

  “I can,” said Ralph. “What does Milan or Paris have that Milwaukee doesn’t? I mean, we have Orange Julius.”

  “She has that Jackie O thing,” Richard said. “Gracious, you know. Smart. But that hair. It’s just enough rock and roll to let you know she’s human.”

  “You should put her in the commercial.”

  “I thought about it. But Sealock says she’s done being in front of cameras.”

  “How’s she going to handle being first lady?” Potsie said.

  Ralph made a strange high-pitched animal no
ise and straightened. “Here we go.” He slowly rose from his stool. “We got action.” A minivan was coming over from the overcapacity Bennigan’s lot, entering the Arnold’s lot, looking to steal one of the many open spots there. Ralph handed Potsie his can of Shotz.

  “Get ’em,” Potsie said.

  Ralph began in a slow trot then screamed and broke into a crazed sprint toward the minivan. His arms flailed. He kicked his feet in the air. He sounded like a caveman. The minivan braked, backed out, and sped away. Ralph gave chase for a short distance then held up his arms in victory. He came back winded.

  Richard watched the Bennigan’s. There had to be eleven cars for each one at Arnold’s. “You guys do this often?”

  “We regulars all have shifts. Ours is Tuesday.”

  “It’s a service to the community,” Ralph said. “Plus Al gives us free fries.”

  “Why not just put up a sign or something?”

  “This is more effective. More personal. Nothing’s personal nowadays. It’s all signs.”

  Potsie said, “What are you going to do for the commercial, Richard?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve got nothing.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “It’s got to be really good. It’s got to be great. I don’t have any ideas that are good enough. I don’t even know where we’re going to shoot it.”

  Potsie said, “Here’s an idea. Why not shoot it at Sackett-Wilhelm?”

  “Think they would let me?”

  “You? No, of course not. But if you happened to know somebody very powerful there. Somebody very intelligent and good-looking, say, in quality control.”

  Ralph said, “Potsie can get the operations folks to go for it, absolutely. They’d do anything to get Sealock elected. We all would.”

  “Perfect,” Richard said.

  A car was coming over from across the street. Potsie and Ralph stood, but Richard stopped them. “No, no, no,” he told them, putting his arms out to keep them back. He stood and took a step forward. “This one’s mine.”

  It began as a growl. He felt the wind on his face, on his teeth, he heard his voice as the growl became a roar, and his arms swung on either side of him like propellers. The idea came all at once, as he ran. It was total but simple. It felt like a miracle. His whole body came alive with it. He did not know what to do with an idea so vast yet so brief being in his body like this. So he flailed and hollered and grunted until the driver turned around and sped away.