My Memoirs

by John Rawlins

"Ooooh! I'm so hoppin' mad!" said Gandhi. And he was, too. Hopped around quite a bit before he sat down at our regular table at the Naked Luncheonette.

"There you go again," I said. Gandhi was always getting his loincloth in a bind over something.

"I'm sorry, John, it's these cotton-pickin' Brits! They're all over India, and they won't leave even though I asked them real nice." He fiddled with his glasses feverishly, like he always did when he talked about the British. "You know, I got half a mind to go out and get me one of those water pistols and soak down every Brit in Bombay!"

Gandhi was halfway over the deep end already, and I did what I could to bring him back. "Gandhi," I said, "I'm gonna level with you. You've really let yourself go. Look at you. Every time I see you you're stuffing another cheeseburger in your mouth and griping about those nice British people, who after all, are only trying to help. Why don't you get yourself a nice hobby to keep your mind occupied? Like, I don't know, spinning or something."

But he wasn't listening, as usual. "You know they actually make ones now that connect to a big tank of water you carry around on your back? Man o man, I'm gonna get me one of those!"

"For Pete's sake, Gandhi! Don't you know violence never solved anything? If you ever want to accomplish something in your life, then it's nix on the violence, okay?"

A light came into his eyes. "Really? Violence never solved anything?"

He was a changed man after that, although he never did get himself a nice pair of shoes.

"What's the matter, Abe? You barely touched your spaghetti!" Abe was depressed again and I couldn't blame him. But the guy loved spaghetti and every time we ate at the Luncheonette he would order two or three plates of spaghetti and pound them down. Abe was a very noisy eater but on this day he was really quiet.

"It's the Confederacy again, huh?" He nodded. I'd never seen the guy so glum. "Maybe I should just let 'em secede," he said finally. "No use trying to hold a house together when it's got a big crack down the middle."

"How can you say that, Abe? I always thought you were a Union man."

"I am a Union man, doggone it!" Abe pounded his fist on the table. "But those guys already made up their own flag, and they're printing their own money! What the heck am I supposed to do? Burn Atlanta?"

The guy had always looked up to me and I didn't want to disappoint him. I chose my words very carefully: "Sometimes, Abe, you gotta break a few eggs if you want to make an omelette, you get my drift?"

He gasped. "But you just told Gandhi -"

"Forget what I told Ghandi! I'm telling you that you gotta fight for what's right! Now sit up straight! Eat your spaghetti!"

"Okay, okay!" Abe took a big twirl on his fork and shoveled it past his beard, "I just don't like the thought of civil war, is all."

"Hey, at least it's civil."

A light came into his eyes. "You're right, John! At least it's civil! By Jove, I will fight those lunkheads, and they'll be using money with my face on it before I'm done!"