Monday, November 25, 2002
Brace yourselves for nonsense, good people. Once again my column has to take a backseat to the ridiculous happenings in my personal life. I can’t blame you for outrage, if I were my boss I’d have to seriously question my dedication to writing this column at this point. My private life has to stay private. In fact, I may suggest to Acting-Editor Ramrod Hurley that he lecture me using a speech I’ve penned myself.

In the meantime, I must use this column to convince Lee and Camembert to let me back into the apartment. As you may know, my visit to Gracieland in New Hampshire didn’t pan out as a truly fulfilling trip, but went into Rok’s bag of “life experiences” where I invariably end up the wiser about something—in this case, George and Gracie Burns. But after last week’s column, I returned home to find the door locked, bolted, and adorned with a sign that read, “Fuck off, Finger.”

So… Lee, Camembert. Is this how the Rok Finger housing experiment ends? For whatever reason, I go away and come back to find I’ve been banned from my own Camembert’s apartment? This is the sort of mutiny that is unforgivable, but if I ever get back in, I will forgive you. Once I change the locks and make sure I have the only key.

Camembert: You’re the last one I would have expected this from. Not that you like me enough not to do such a thing, or had any honor, but your sheer cowardice and fear of confrontation should have clipped your babymakers before you gathered the courage to join such a conspiracy. If Lee is forcing you to do this, I completely understand. I fear him as well. But I need an inside man, let’s just say you fit both bills, to unlock the doors and let me back in. Once we’re both in there, we’ll fight for our rights to party. Lee is big and burly, but with my brains and your upper-brawn we can oust him from the seat of power, and we’d better hurry because I’ve been holding in a crap for two days now.

Lee: I know how it is. You’re a little directionless with me missing, still a little disoriented from your lingering head injury. Camembert has some ideas that sound good on paper, or failing that, since you can’t read, he says them in a real friendly voice. But following him in his betrayal is something I wouldn’t expect from you, Lee—that’s more of a cowardly Camembert thing to do. Please, don’t let his miniature tank scare you, as I’ve said before, it’s just a wheelchair. His power is in spokes and pulley systems, gears and cogs. Unbolt the door and let me in and together we’ll reinstate the old Rok Finger: Unquestioned Ruler administration.

Assuming this is some kind of punishment from the both of you for some imagined wrong, real as it might be, please forgive my mistakes. I’m only human, no matter what the scientists say, and have my weaknesses like anybody else. Allow me a second chance and I will return and we’ll all work things out. Repercussions will be swift and brutal, or none at all, if that’s preferable. All is forgiven. Rok Finger is nothing but heart, four feet of pure, loving heart. Let my love open the door.

Or, failing that, I do have a key, you know. I can tell you haven’t changed the locks and that lousy deadbolt won’t hold forever. You have to leave the apartment sometime, at least Lee does, and Camembert is too scared to stay by himself. All of this is futile rebellion, and you know it. Lee’s fondness for Little Caesar’s pizza will lead to the door opening again sometime in the future, and when it does, Rok Finger will spring like a slinky back into the apartment and into your lives. I have an elephant’s memory and a wooden bat, so think about how you want this to end before it’s too late.

Greetings from Gracieland
In a word, readers, Gracieland is everything I could have hoped for, and did. There are truly angels in the architecture. And that line about the roly-poly little bat-faced girl? No longer an impenetrable mystery. Suffice it to say that George Burns’ late wife was not an Amazonian supermodel.

Until I Return, Camembert is in Charge
It boils down to one major credo: Camembert is in charge. Sorry, everybody else—meaning Lee. But somebody had to be picked, and this time it’s Camembert. Maybe next time it will be you, Lee. But not likely.

Lee Gets a GED
I told him he was fine as is, though in complete honesty jumping on the treadmill a few hours every week wouldn’t kill him—now Camembert, hoo boy, that would kill him, yessir.

I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham
Lee after the crash did not really seem all that different from Lee before the crash (let’s refer to him as Lee B.C.). Yes, he’s taken to speaking in rhyme and wearing a three-foot peppermint-striped hat, but I thought it a phase we all go through.