By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Age of Innocence
I can’t tell you how many women mistake me for Tom Brady. Is it my movie star looks? Seven Superbowl rings? Status as football’s GOAT? Untold millions?
“No,” said Madge at the Pullman Tavern. “It’s your personality. Now buy me a Blatz or I’ll deck you.”
“I can’t,” I told her. “I’m mourning that Chuck E. Cheese got arrested.”
“What?”
“I just heard police busted him in Tallahassee, Fla., and hauled him off as children cried and one mom asked, ‘Would y’all put Mickey Mouse in handcuffs?’ Want to watch the video?”
“No!”
“Too late.” I pulled out my cell phone to show her footage of Chuck E. entertaining kiddies when cops slapped the cuffs on him. “Chuck E.’s a little busy now, ma’am,’” one told an angry parent. ‘Chuck E., come us,” his partner saud.
It showed them struggling with the pizza mascot near Cars and SpongeBob SquarePants games, then hauling him off in full costume. Wouldn’t even let him take off his head.
Chuck E., aka Jermell Jones, 41, was accused of and charged with stealing a customer’s credit card, which they found on him.
“So justice was served,” Madge said. “But think of those poor kids traumatized.”
“Me too,” I said, downing her Blatz in a single gulp.
“Hey!” she said.
“Hey, I bought it.”
“Yeah, using her credit card you’d stolen,” Zeke the Bartender said. “Officers, arrest him!”
“I thought you were Tom Brady,” Madge sobbed as they led me off. But it wasn’t the first time I’d been accused of impersonating a person, so I knew what to do.
“What’ll it take,” I asked the cops, fishing in my billfold, “to let me walk?”
“A Blatz,” said one
“Wait,” said the other. “Better make it two.”
Now I’d been exonerated, we went back to the P.T. There sat Tom Brady and Chuck E. Cheese.
“I thought Zeke had booted you,” said the former New England quarterback. “Now I’m Chuck E.’s parole officer.” Sure enough, the mouse wore all jail stripes.
Madge sidled up to them. “Hey Tom,” she cooed, “make a pass on me.”
“I’ll pass,” he said and handed her off to Chuck E., who gave her a stiff arm but nothing more.
Madge tumbled into Zeke, who was carrying our tray of Blatzes. Suds flew everywhere. The bar looked like a Lawrence Welk set.
In through the bubbles walked the bandleader. “A one anna two,” he said. Grandmas and grandpas danced as he played “Bubbles in the Wine” on accordion. What a ruckus.
Madge scrambled up. “What are you doing back here already?” she asked me.
“Done my time,” I said. “Zeke, bring these fine fellows replacement Blatzes.”
Chuck E. bolted. “You’re the same ones who hassled me in Tallahassee,” he squeaked at the cops. “What brings you to Pullman?”
“What doesn’t?” answered one. “It’s a winter tourist magnet for Floridians. “Quaint smalltown vibe, sunsets over Lake Michigan, artsy charm.”
“You’re mistaking Pullman for Saugatuck?” I said.
“Close enough.”
“Want ice with your drinks?” Zeke asked. In walked two ICE officers who began shooting.
“Gotta be furriners somewhere,” said Kristi Noem in a cowboy hat, directing them.
“What about habeas corpus?” I asked.
“You mean,” she said, “President Trump’s constitutional ability to remove people and suspend their rights?”
“No, the legal principle that requires the government to provide a valid reason to detain or imprison someone,” I said.
“I’m the Secretary of Homeland Security,” Kristi said, hitching up her holsters. “Anyway, they’re all corpses now.”
I surveyed the carnage. Chuck E.’d met his last mouse trap, the Florida cops responded to their final dispatch, the gramps and grannies all gone. Only Larence Welk and Tom Brady were immortal.
“Good work,” Kristi told her agents Vanilla Ice and Ice Cube. “Now take me home to kill my dog Cricket.” Saloon doors slammed shut and they vanished.
“Never a dull day here,” Zeke said.
