The Battle About Nothing

Gonzo Kramer fingered a jovial TV tune on his bass guitar, hoping for an audience of some kind in this tiny New York apartment. But alas, all the attention was on his three whiny friends in the kitchen, Jerry Stonefield, George Katana, and Elaine Berretta. No matter how ordinary the topic was, there remained no shortage of comedic observations or general complaints about it. The more they bitched, the harder Kramer’s bass playing became. It had nothing to do with being heard, but everything to do with wanting to slap his friends instead of a bass guitar.

The wavy-haired Jerry Stonefield held a jug of milk in his hands and asked, “Why is it called two-percent milk?! It’s a hundred-percent full when you buy it. It should be called a hundred-percent milk! And why is it so funny when Oval Teen dissolves in it? And why is it called Oval Teen? The jar is round. The teenagers who drink it become round. It should be called Round Teen!”

This earned a corny laugh from anybody not named Gonzo Kramer, who slapped his bass guitar with even more aggression. He could have played bagpipes, a kazoo, and crash cymbals and still wouldn’t have drawn a crowd.

All the attention now was on the horseshoe-haired, stumpy George Katana, who said, “I drank a whole jar of Oval Teen on TV once. I didn’t even put milk in it, I just ate the powder. I had powder all over my face and there were no napkins around. Whoever was responsible for shooting that footage cost me a relationship!”

“You should’ve just eaten soup, George,” said Elaine, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Soup is not a meal unless you crumble some crackers in it.”

“It’s the Bubble Boy’s fault anyways,” said George.

“No, it’s Newman’s fault,” said Jerry. “Everything is Newman’s fault! He’s not a mystery wrapped in a riddle! He’s a mystery wrapped in a Twinkie! There’s LESS to Newman than meets the eye!”

The kitchen drivel blended together and became more obnoxious for Kramer to listen to than any instrument he could have been playing. It didn’t matter how hard he banged his instrument, because it was his own head that needed banging against a brick wall if this conversation was allowed to continue. And then…he got an idea.

“I like Newman, but I don’t know if he’s sponge-worthy!” confessed Elaine before Kramer got up and smashed his bass guitar over her head, crushing her skull and splattering her brains all over the counter. The guitar wasn’t in any better shape since the neck broke off and the thick strings coiled up.

Jerry and George backed up against the fridge shaking in horror. Jerry yelled, “Kramer, what the hell are you doing?! You killed her!”

“Yeah, well I wasn’t looking for a long-term relationship with her,” confessed Kramer with an evil grin on his face.

George whimpered and stuttered, “Have you ever killed somebody before?”

Throwing the neck of the bass guitar on the ground, Kramer held out his bloodied hands and said, “What do you think, Junior? Have these hands been soaking in Ivory liquid?” He then wiped the blood all over George’s flannel shirt and Dockers pants. “Wait a minute…cotton Dockers! One hundred percent! If they’re not Dockers, they’re just pants!” In one fluid motion, Kramer ripped George’s pants off and left him trembling in his boxers and socks.

With Jerry unable to help him due to cowering in the corner, George begged, “Please don’t hurt me, Kramer!”

“Shut up, you whiny bitch!” yelled Kramer. “Fifty years ago, we would have had you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass! In fact, now that I’ve got you here…” He grabbed George by the ear and allowed the victim’s glasses to fall on the floor. George could scream all he wanted, but his trembling legs weren’t backing him up in his begging for freedom. Kramer dragged George to the open apartment window and bent him over the sill.

As George whimpered and squealed, Kramer let out a few yodels to taunt him before ripping off his victim’s underwear. “Aww, what’s the matter, you big baby?!”

“Kramer…I think it moved…”

“Get a life, you faggot!” yelled Kramer before smacking George on the ass. He spanked him a few more times until George’s naked butt was blistered and bleeding. “Hey, George! Are you sponge worthy?! Can your boys swim?!”

“For God’s sake, Kramer, let him go!” cried Jerry, huddling in the corner despite his small moment of bravery.

“You want me to let him go?! Okay! I just hope he doesn’t need radical reconstructive surgery afterwards!” Kramer shoved George out the window and it was only seconds after that the sound of crunching metal and glass echoed across the street. It was even more musical to Kramer’s ears than his bass guitar playing, but it was not nearly as boner-inducing as Jerry’s pleas for forgiveness in the corner of the kitchen.

Kramer slowly stalked towards his final victim and stood over him like a giant over a sea of frightened villagers.

“Please, Kramer, don’t kill me! I won’t tell anybody about this! I won’t even do it in my standup comedy!”

Kramer knelt beside Jerry and placed a hand on his vibrating, tear-stained arm. “And here I thought you liked edgy comedy. This is far more compelling than arguing about two-percent milk and whether or not soup is a meal. Aren’t you always complaining about how everything is too politically correct these days? Well, you’re being a snowflake right now!”

“Kramer, you murdered them!” Jerry wiped his leaky eyes with his other sleeve.

“Your audience was dead long before I smashed that bass guitar over Elaine’s head! Who gives a shit about two-percent milk?! Who gives two fucks about Oval Teen?! In fact…” Kramer pulled out a jar of Oval Teen from the cabinet and scooped up a handful. “This should help with your little crying problem.” He threw the powder in Jerry’s face and caused him to blubber some more.

Trying to talk over Jerry’s screams of pain, Kramer said, “You know why they should call it Round Teen?! Because your crappy comedy is like a circle! It just goes on and on and on! It never changes! It’s the same shit over and over again and I’m sick and tired of it! Do something edgy! Change it up a little bit!” He grabbed handful of Jerry’s hair and said, “Don’t make me come back here again!” Kramer then slammed the back of Jerry’s head against the cabinet. “Maybe that’ll scramble your brains enough!”

Months after the incident, Kramer never returned. Jerry’s brains did get scrambled. This was the wakeup call he never asked for. Quite frankly, nobody else asked for it either. Kramer sat in his jail cell watching TV one night when he saw Jerry debut new material on a late night talk show. He sported a shaved head and an older look (probably because of the beatings and trauma respectively), but he was definitely ready to charm the audience.

“Oh, people. They’re so important to you,” said Jerry. “You’ve got to be on your phone all the time because the people in your life are important. Really? They don’t seem that important with the way you swipe right by them like a gay French king.” The audience laughed as Jerry made exaggerated swiping motions with his finger. “Who pleases me today? Who shall I favor? Who shall I delete?”

“Okay, maybe I fucked him up a little too hard,” said Kramer to nobody in particular. “Can you go back to talking about Oval Teen?”

A prison guard knocked on his cell bars and said, “Gonzo Kramer? It’s time for your last meal.” And what did he get for a last meal? Soup with crackers crumbled in the broth.

“Soup is not a meal, damn it!” yelled Kramer. “Jerryyyyyyyyyyy!!”