Duck Duck Wally: A Novel

chizapter 1

I’m concerned that you might not like me. Really concerned. And nervous, really. Really nervous and concerned. I’m frumpy, you know? I’m just like this frumpy, kinda chubby little boring man. Why would you have any interest in my story? It’s not riveting—I’ll tell you that right now. This isn’t beautiful, elegant prose. Oprah would not dig me. I mean, I’m not a geisha or a boy wizard or anything. I’m not a renowned symbologist or, say, floating on a raft in the middle of the ocean with a tiger. I’m definitely not a thirtysomething single chick living in the city and having sex and buying shoes and being totally fucking cooler than you’ll ever be.

I’m just this frumpy putz with a story to tell.

I’m not quite sure how to begin, exactly. I mean, because, how did it begin? I figure I should start off with some sort of a bang. Bangs are good—particularly when you start off with them. I could start by telling you that early in the day when my downfall began, I sat on the beach in Santa Monica and I was cold. Fine, it’s not quite the throat-grabbing whomp that you might have been hoping for, but, hey, it is what it is. So anyway, I sat on the beach, and IT EXPLODED! The whole beach! Kaboom! Up in glorious, slow-motion flames for no apparent reason. There’s your bang, okay? I hope it was exhilarating.

So, after the whole beach blew up and stuff, and it was all crazy and inexplicable and wild, the excitement subsided and I just sat there. And I was cold. This went on for many minutes. It was December, I should have told you, when it actually gets quite chilly in Los Angeles. I mean, it’s not Antarctica or New Jersey or anything, but still, it was too cold to be on the beach. Why was I there? I don’t know. I had nowhere else to be (par for the crappy course of my life) and I felt like the beach. The beach gets my brain working. Even if every other part of my body under my brain’s jurisdiction is freezing its individual figurative ass off.

So I sat there that morning, pensive, alone, and cold, bundled up in a cable-knit sweater, wooly jacket, and jeans. With no concern for the wintry weather, a harried gang of seagulls dutifully provided their obligatory caw-caw-cawing. The waves continued to melt ashore indifferently, despite the chill and the resulting lack of a significant audience. The salty air smelled nice, occasionally stinging my face with wind-thrown specks even smaller and somehow angrier than droplets. I stared at the choppy greenish water, and in one smart, unbroken thought, thought: The Pacific Ocean—a vast, pitiless, bewitching monster, full of sharks and urchins and other assorted creatures both beautiful and revolting—And then, with a quick glance at the city behind me, I finished: just like Los Angeles.

And then, in my best Cali patois, I was all, Dude! Awesome analogy, brah! And then I went home because my ass was numb on the cold sand, my cheeks (both sets) were red, and I felt like a winner having escaped a seemingly inevitable shit-bombing from the noisy, swooping birds.

But I didn’t leave my analogizing skills on the beach that day to be washed away by the icy waves like a plastic bucket torn from the hands of an industrious little tot in the throes of sand castle–building delight. (See?!) No. I took them home with me and began to build my own little sand—no—analogy castle (God, I’m good). After the first wonderful and profoundly poetic correlation I’d made ’twixt city and sea, I felt a sudden deep and desperate desire to craftily and succinctly sum up my life. I needed to paint a tidy picture for myself that might help me better understand the crazy game in which I was so hopelessly entangled. And it got me thinking about games. And life. Games. Life. Games…

And I finally realized: My life is a great big endless game of Duck Duck Goose. I wait anxiously for the metaphorical tap on the head, and when it comes, I spring into action! I chase and chase and chase with all of my might, but I never seem to grasp that quick little bastard called Success. Then it’s back to wandering in frustrating circles, agonizing over what to choose next. It’s a vicious, never-ending cycle. A game that I just can’t win.

No, no, no. That’s not it.

Maybe it’s: My life is a great big endless game of Duck Duck Goose. I wait anxiously for the metaphorical tap on the head, but it never comes. Everyone around me gets chosen, and they take off running! Look at ’em go! But there I am. Always sitting there. A duck. A sitting duck. Never to be picked. Never the goose.

Okay, fine. I’m not very good at analogies. The Pacific Ocean thing was a fluke.

Let’s start over. I shouldn’t have begun with the beach thing. Didn’t make sense. You don’t even know who I am, for Christ’s sake, why would you care that I was on the beach making up questionable analogies? Okay. Square one: My name is Wally. Wally Moscowitz. I am thirty-one years old. I am five-foot-six when wearing tall shoes. My hair has just recently decided to start falling out and, I guess, unlike myself, when my hair makes a decision it actually follows through with it. I am a tad overweight, always have been. I love bacon cheeseburgers with the same unbridled passion that most people reserve for their first love. That is, I think about them constantly, and if I’m away from them for too long, I’m likely to grow withdrawn and despondent. It’s a sad commentary when one of the very first things you mention in describing yourself is a love affair with cheeseburgers. But I truly cherish them. And bacon. My old, dear friend bacon—been there for me since day one. God, how I adore him so. If I had any real friends, I’d tell them that if I were ever to lapse into unconsciousness, they should spare me the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Instead, they should quickly cook up some bacon in my vicinity so that the magical scent could tempt my feeble nostrils, and I would surely stir. I can’t believe I’ve wasted this much time talking about bacon. Oh, what am I saying? Any time with bacon is time well spent. But let’s move on.

My clothes are a bit baggy, but in a hip, shlumpy-cool sort of way. I try to buy all of my T-shirts at thrift stores. I like the really old (circa 1986, ideally), worn ones that assert delightful slogans like Teachers are Terrific! or Jogging for Jesus! I wear glasses. (Cool ones. Seriously. They are.) I look intelligent, and I am. That came out wrong. I’m not conceited. Just the opposite—I’m painfully insecure. In fact, just about the only thing I’m completely secure about is my insecurity.

I am simply trying to give you the facts: I have chubby fingers. I don’t do well on boats. I’m not built for speed or quickness. I rarely floss. Okay, I never floss. But if I did, I imagine that I’d use one of those cool sword-like toothpicks with the little bow-shaped floss device on the end rather than traditional, old-school, run-of-the-mill dental floss. I’m just that kind of guy. I’m gadgety.

I live in Los Angeles, but you would never know that from looking at me. I spend too much time indoors. I’m not happy and/or healthy looking. I’m not well tanned or physically fit. My skin usually takes the greenish pallor of a poorly peeled cucumber; a very charming shade for your living room walls or your Ikea couch, but not so much for your face.

I love words. I try to use big ones whenever possible, though, admittedly, I’m not very good at recalling them when they’re apropos. (Or am I?) I keep a dictionary next to my bed and I learn a new word each day. My father instilled that habit early on in my life. Then when I was eleven he taught me the meaning of the word ironic when he died in our living room. He was a very committed teacher.

You probably know someone like me. I have an uncanny, perhaps unhealthy, arsenal of movie quotes in my head. I love music. I read books sometimes, usually when the movie version is about to come out, so I can say (with an air of pretension), "The book was so much better." I secretly prefer Us Weekly or People to Sports Illustrated. I suck at using chopsticks. I’d rather die than shit in a public bathroom. I have a girlfriend named Sue who loves me much less than I love her. I am very good at Trivial Pursuit, only partly because I’ve memorized most of the cards. I’m the guy you’d call as your phone-a-friend if you were on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, but I’d never be on it myself, because, despite my cool clothes and glasses, I’m still a big loser and I’d probably humiliate myself somehow. Like, my first question would be: It’s the official nickname for New York City. Is it A) The Island City, B) The Biggest Little City, C) The Big Apple, or D) Bagel Town, USA? And I’d panic and think, The official name? It must be a trick question! Everyone calls it the Big Apple, but that’s not necessarily the official nickname. That would be too easy. The Biggest Little City could be right. Hmmmm. Or… New Yorkers do love bagels… Shit! I’ll go with A) The Island City please, Regis? I mean Meredith! Shit! I mean shoot! Fuck! Shucks! And then they’d just cut to black ’cuz I’m such a loser-slash-idiot.

I apologize if my language offends you. I’m not eloquent or pretentious. I mean, I’m not a moron or anything, but let’s face it, I’m no Ernest Hemingway or J. D. Salinger or Danielle Steele. Nor do I profess to be. Even though I sometimes use words like nor and profess. If you can’t get through my colloquial style, then I suggest you put this down now and forget about it. If, however, you don’t know what colloquial means, then you’re probably in the right place.

You might be wondering what I do for a living. My career. I’ll get to that. First I’d like to tell you what led to the end of said career. My bladder did me in. You see, my downfall began in a public bathroom. Now, I don’t intend to imply that I was an important person in any way, as the word downfall might suggest. I didn’t have very far to fall, but still I fell. Down. So, while perhaps a grandiose choice of words, still quite apropos (I suppose at this point I should admit to you that apropos was the word I learned today from the dictionary by the bed).

This story is true. It transpired over an absolute whirlwind few days of my life. I’ll warn you one more time: This isn’t high art. It probably won’t keep you on the edge of your seat. There’s no surprise twist, no gratifying denouement. It wasn’t all a dream. This isn’t Hollywood. Well, yeah, technically it does happen to take place in Hollywood, but what I mean is, it’s not some silly, bullshit Hollywood ending designed to make your girlfriend all teary-eyed and grabby. This is life—my life—and although it is crazy and maybe even unbelievable, it’s the truth. No cherry on top. But why am I talking about the ending? First, the beginning.

I was shocked when I entered the cavernous linoleum- and ceramic-tiled lavatory. This may have been the record for most urinals I’d ever seen in a public bathroom. Okay, maybe shocked is too strong a word. Anyway, I called the Guinness Book of World Records immediately and told them to get their people down there ASAP. There must have been eighty of them; porcelain soldiers lined up, stoic, unflinching. Ready for battle with a never-ending stream of pricks whose only mission is to piss all over them. It’s a thankless war that they just can’t win.

The restroom was located in a large, shiny stadium in downtown Los Angeles. Quite a facility, fairly new and top-of-the-line everything. But the bathroom still stunk like piss. Go figure. It reminded me of grade school—that noxious stench of cheap powdered cleanser fighting the eternal losing struggle against the mighty, indefatigable army force of urine, under the harsh glow of fluorescent lights.

Thankful that I was at least alone in this vast, stinky cavern, I made my way past the first seventy-nine urinals to the very last one in line, just in case somebody else happened to enter. I despise bathroom interaction of any sort. I am there strictly for business and I prefer to keep my business matters private. Nothing worse than a stranger who wants to chit-chat at the urinal. I would avoid public bathrooms completely if I didn’t have the bladder of a six-year-old girl. I’m such a pussy. Everything about me screams wimp! Even my internal organs.

I acknowledge that I’m a little bit crazy, but I just hate urinating while other people are around. I become paranoid that anyone in earshot of me is judging the size of my penis based upon the depth of the sound that the pee makes when it hits the water. You know, a big penis will emit a larger stream of urine, thereby making a deeper sound, while a little penis (I can only imagine) would make a delicate little tinkling sound. Not that it matters. My penis is neither large nor small, it is rather normal-sized. But I wouldn’t want anyone to think I had a little one, you know? The trick is to push really hard while peeing in earshot of someone else, as the added pressure will create a faux big-penis sound when the pee hits the water.

After a lengthy hike, I was sorry to see that the last urinal in the long line was filled almost to the brim with bright yellow urine. I don’t like to pee on other people’s pee, either. Just the thought of little speckles of some unknown (or known, really) person’s urine stinging my bare skin (or even my jeans, really) freaks me out. People in Los Angeles have this bullshit ecological scapegoat excuse for why they don’t flush the toilet after they take a leak: In California back in the ’80s when there was a water shortage, in an effort to conserve, SoCal residents were pounded via TV and radio spots with the adage, If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down. Yeah. I’m serious. Well, this ain’t the ’80s, people. So learn to flush the freakin’ toilet after you take a piss, you lazy, excuse-makin’, non-flushin’, suntanned motherfucker.

Being that the urinal was chock full of piss and probably clogged, the logical thing would have been to just use the next one. Unfortunately, I do not operate on logic. Instead of simply shifting over to the adjacent urinal, I wrapped my sleeve around my hand and flushed #80 (as if urinal #79 was somehow less safe from prying eyes than #80). Sure enough, Soldier #80 belched and puked his golden holdings all over the floor, and even more unfortunately, all over my shoes. I flicked my feet in an utterly useless effort to get the water/piss mixture off of my black Converses and moved to urinal #79. Just as I unzipped and pulled my thing out, the bathroom door opened, letting in a waft of rap music and a big black man whom I could see only peripherally. I tried to remain focused on my penis, willing it to work as the man walked toward the throng of urinals, and consequently, toward me.

Yoooo! Fat Head Wally Mosco! What’s happenin’, homey? he said.

I looked up. His large crooked afro swayed slightly with the weight of the small comb that protruded from it, combined with his I-doubt-that-his-leg-is-actually-injured limp. Oh. H-hey, Deezy. How are ya? Funk Deezy. That’s what they call him. I don’t know his real name nor why they call him that. Nor why he feels like we’re close enough friends for him to precede my name with Fat Head. He kept strutting toward me, passing what seemed like thousands of perfectly good urinals. Alarm bells began to sound in my head.

Pretty dope show they got goin’ on out there, huh? You peep it?

Twenty urinals away now, and still walking. Y-Yeah. I peeped it. It’s awesome. Uh, dope.

Ten urinals. No sign of slowing. Ha haaa. Yeah. I bet you wrote most a them lyrics he spittin’, too!

Uhhhhh, yeah. Some. Yeah. Okay. So there you have it. That’s what I do. I write rap lyrics. But this guy absolutely should not have known that. It’s a major secret. More on that later. Deezy was five urinals away now, and still no sign of stoppage. I held my breath. Stage fright was putting the kibosh on my urination efforts.

Word, dude. You got skills, Mosco! he said, as he saddled up at the urinal right next to mine. I shifted my body ever so slightly away from him. "Maybe one day I’ll let you write some shit for me, dude." I was panicking now, for several reasons. Mainly because he was seriously violating the most fundamental rule of men’s bathroom etiquette (Rule: If possible, always leave at least one vacant urinal between urinators), but also because I just couldn’t get my pee to flow.

What will he think!? What kind of man stands at a urinal for this long without even a drop of piss?! And what if he catches a glimpse of my schvantz? It’s probably TINY compared to his!

What should have been my primary concern was how the heck this jerkoff knew that I was the one responsible for writing the lyrics that superstar rapper Oral B was onstage rapping at that very moment.

By some gift from God, I finally began to tinkle (in a big-penis sort of way—full pressure). With renewed confidence, I ignored Funk Deezy’s attempt at conversation and blurted, "Yeah, hey, uh, Deezy? You mind not peeing—uh, pissin’—right next to me? There are like a hundred other urinals in here."

Deezy looked down at me crookedly, upping the uncomfortability factor a few notches, a feat that seemed impossible seconds earlier. What’d you say, dude?

"I, uh, I said… I asked if you could maybe, you know, maybe move down a few urinals. There’s plenty of room in here. No need to, uh, no need to be, to pee, so close. Ya know?" Oh, jeez. What a stuttering prick.

Deezy continued to look at me sideways, his eyebrows askew. "Whatsamatter, fool? You think I’m gay or somethin’?"

Gay—Naw! No, Deezy. I know you ain’t gay! Naw! I don’t know why I feel the need to code-switch like this. This is not my normal way of speaking.

I heard the deep bass of Deezy’s pee hitting the water. Black guys probably never worry about the sound of their piss stream. With a sardonic, relieved smile he said, Ahhhh, too late, Fat Head! I’m already flowin’, bro! He put his head back, enjoying his piss, smiling big. And then: Pffff! Pfff-fff-fffff! Laughter. He was laughing at me.

What? I asked defensively.

"Pfff-fffff-ffff-ffff-ffff!!! Ha ha haaaaa!"

"What? What’s so funny?" I asked, panicky.

"Ha haa! You scared I’m gon’ see your lil hot dog! Hahaaaa!" He somehow managed to pee and laugh raucously at the same time.

No! I squeaked.

"Hahahahaaaaaa! Wally got a lil willy! Hahahahaha!"

No! I don’t! That’s not—! That’s not it! No! That’s not why! I was shouting now. Shouting and pissing.

"Hahahahahahaaaaaa! I heard that you did! Haaa!"

Deezy—!

Woooo! Wally Mosco got a tiny cocksco!

NO! I yelled, thinking, That didn’t even make sense, you big asshole!

"Hahahahaaa! Don’t worry, Mosco! I won’t tell the crew you got a itsy-bitsy teenie-weenie! Hahahahaaaaa!"

I don’t!

"Yeah, right! Haaahaaaaaaa!"

Nooo! I shouted, and everything happened so quickly after that. And yet, so slowly.

Some strange, uncontrollable defense mechanism kicked in in my body. As I screamed, "Nooo!," I watched myself whip around toward Deezy in slow motion, like a fireman wrestling with a renegade fire hose, spraying my piss onto the leg of his orange velour jumpsuit. And like a swordsman reacting by pure instinct to a weapon slashing in his direction, Deezy whipped around in a defensive-block move, pissing right back on me in return.

Time returned to normal speed.

WHAT THE FUCK, MAN?! he screamed.

"Whoa! Oh! Sorry! Deezy! Oh my G—Sorry! That was such an accide—"

What the fuck man?! Nawwww, dawg! Nawwww!

Pants around our ankles and dicks swinging in the stale breeze, Deezy and I shared the most awkward dance of our lives (even more awkward than when I tried to do the running man at Joshua Finkel’s Bar Mitzvah, and I fell on my ass right in front of Ashley Weintraub).

"Deezy, I’m sorr—" I didn’t even have the chance to finish my sentence. The last thing I recall is Deezy’s big, gold ring–encrusted fist heading toward my face. I think he hit me twice, but I only felt the first one.

chizapter 2

I’m sorry, did you say you write rap music?" inquired the uninvited little old Asian gentleman standing beside me at the Laundromat. Small and bony, dressed in a fascinating medley of corduroy-meets-cotton-meets-flannel-meets-nylon-meets-denim, bald, and bespectacled, this man looked remarkably like Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid. In fact, the only thing that separated him from being Miyagi-san himself was his hat—a neon green trucker hat with bright red Chinese writing across the front—in clear discord, yet strangely appropriate, with the rest of his mismatched ensemble. I wondered why he was standing here.

Yes. Rap. I wasn’t much in the mood for conversation with a stranger (and this guy certainly put the strange in stranger), what with my urine-soaked clothes, swollen black eye, cracked glasses, and bloody little bruises on the bridge of my nose where my glasses had stabbed me. Not to mention the fact that I’d had to sit on a garbage bag over the seat in my car on the way over here, so I wouldn’t get Deezy-pee all over it, and I was presently sitting on a washing machine in my boxers and socks and an Oral B T-shirt that I’d bought at the stadium gift shop before I’d scrambled the hell out of there, stinking like a bedpan. I stopped at the first Laundromat I could find, and the last thing I wanted at this moment was to make small talk with this guy.

Hmmmm… He scratched his thin-whiskered chin. Mmmmmmoskowit was it?

Yes.

Rap music.

Yes.

Like the black people.

Yes.

Rap music.

I looked away, out the window. It was all I could do to stop myself from grabbing the little guy by his throat. I tried to ignore him and watch the bravest or homelessest dregs of the neighborhood sloshing through the rain outside. The window was covered in intricate etched-in graffiti, and I could only see blurry half-images of the outside world. Some hooligan must have had a shitload of laundry to do in order to work on this particular fresco.

Moskowit… No, doesn’t sound like a rapper name, he said, puzzled. I wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up and go away with his stupid neon hat.

"I’m not a rapper… sir. Okay? I’m a writer. A ghostwriter. My finger traced the carved graffiti. It either said Newton or Mamfor." Tough to tell.

Ghooooostwriter… He stretched out the word, relishing it like the first bite of a favorite dish he hadn’t tasted in years.

Yeah. You know? Like… ghost. You know? Ghost? As in… invisible… you don’t see me. It doesn’t escape me that my job is such a perfect metaphor for my life.

"Oh, yes. I understand it. Yes, yes. I do. Just trying to fully get it."

Okay… You got it now? I don’t know why I was indulging him.

Wellllll, you don’t look so rich… I just thought—

What?

Well, I just thought… who do you write the rappings for?

I let out a big exasperated breath. I wasn’t getting out of this conversation. Some people just don’t pick up on the not-so-subtleties of rhetoric. I write for a very famous rapper—are you familiar with the genre?

The Jon-Ra? That’s his name? He took off his hat and scratched his bald head.

No, no, no. I meant, are you familiar with rap music? Do you know any artists?

Artists… Nooooo, nooo. I don’t know them.

Then, dude, does it really matter who I write for? I barked. He looked slightly offended. I had a sudden pang of sympathy for the little guy.

Okay. All right. I just thought that maybe I’d recognize a name. He turned his head. Then, after a few seconds, I know about da LL Cool Beans.

Cool J, I snapped.

What?

LL—Nothing.

My point is, I thought they make a lot a lot a lot of money, these rappers. I see them on the TV. He folded his arms out in front of him in a lame interpretation of a rap pose. They always say, ‘Yo, yo, yo, hey my bro, I get all the women. Hey! Hey! Hey!’ Right?

I couldn’t help but smile. The little guy managed to win me over.

Yeah. Exactly. That was good, Mr.—

Chow. Mr. Ling-Ling Chow. He thrust his hand out for me to shake, and I did.

Nice to meet you, Mr. Chow.

So why don’t you make the big money like them, Moskowit? I don’t understand. Too fat?

Easy there, squirt. Nah. I just… I prefer to be behind the scenes.

Isn’t it violent back there?

Violent? Nooooooo. That’s all theatrics. It’s all for show. I’ve never seen any violence, and I’ve been in the business for almost ten years now.

Oh? What happened to your eye?

I smiled. He got me again. A rapper punched me in the face.

See?! Violent! He yelled and pointed at me.

I pissed on him.

Piss?

Yeah. Forget it. I looked out the window. We didn’t say anything for a minute.

What’s his name?

The guy I pissed on?

The guy you write the raps for.

Ah, I shouldn’t say, Mr. Chow.

Call me Ling-Ling. Why shouldn’t you say it?

Ehhh, well, you know. It’s a big secret. If anyone found out, you know… I drew a line across my neck with one finger.

He looked at me for a few seconds, computing. Then he slowly nodded his head. Ohhhhhh… I see. He don’t want people to know that a little white boy named Moscowit is writing his raps for him.

Bingo.

Ohhhhh, I understand. He bobbed his head a few times, and then: You can tell me, Moscowit! I don’t know him!

I considered for a moment, and then for some reason that will forever escape me, I leaned over to