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!!”
