How predictable is the oblivion. How typical. It’s so mundane that I will forgo the obvious comment about Burl being so fat that Joy has to measure twice to get his pants size. .But there sits Jerry with that knowing smirk. He’s by far the most interesting character in the little circle of human dross around the Penny’s. Would you like to hear his story? No? Well, tough. Do you think you’re special? “Ooooo, I’m so cultured and sensitive.” Well lah dee dah. Shut up and listen. .Jerry is decidedly not of Crustwood pioneer stock. His parents were both members of the 1954 Soviet Union women’s discus team. They defected while on a tour of the U.S. That wasn’t surprising. The team was in the habit of booking only half the return airline seats as they had coming over, and letting your charges throw things as far as they can and go after them is just not the way to keep them together..They were of sturdy stock. Jerry likes to claim his people were Cossacks, but it’s not true. They were of a simple people from the foothills of the Caucasus. The Cossacks’ name for Jerry’s ancestors was Krunkenshic, which means roughly Hairy-People-Who-Roast-Their-Chickens-With-the-Feathers-On, or more simply, they were known by the question the Commissar frequently asked when he came around, “What smells?” .Among the What Smells, Jerry’s folks grew into strong youths on their diet high in the protein from charred feathers, and the State Committee of the Culture and Sport of Picking Up or Throwing Heavy Things spotted them and had them brought to Moscow for the strict Soviet sport regimen of exercise, steroids, and hormones. They met when they were more of less randomly assigned to the women’s team where one could not really tell who was and who wasn’t. (As a couple, close friends could tell them apart, though. Jerry’s mother had to shave slightly more than his father.) .Their chemically intense training history likely accounts for Jerry’s gender issues. After they defected, they were settled in Crustwood under the sound theory that the effects of the local sludge canal and the mercury recycling plant’s effluvium hardly mattered after what their training had exposed them to. .They found work as track coaches at the Crustwood High School (Go Spitting Llamas!), and Jerry was born into the American Dream where every boy can become President and some can even become Queen. Jerry was a quiet child who was often confused about which of his parents was which, except at meal time, when he presumed his mother was the one stuffing the struggling hen into the oven. Sometimes, his parents were somewhat confused, too..But they loved him and gave him the freedom to find his own way. Thus, his favorite toys were his GI Joe and his Barbie and Friends set. He would spend hours alternately dressing GI Joe and Ken in Barbie’s outfits and imagining them on adventures as a couple with their “ward”, Skip, who was really Skipper dressed in cut down versions of Ken’s clothing. He had few (no) friends but grew to be a fine figure or what the census taker and the school registrar took to be a man. (It was not a very scientific determination. Neither of them was about to make the ultimate inquiry.).When they met, Jerry and Verla felt themselves mutually drawn to each other as being among the few people who could be around them both without gagging. Jerry likes that they wear the same sizes, so he can shop Lane Bryant “for her” without blowing his cover. There are things they do in private that would flabbergast a National Geographic biologist and drive a professor of abnormal psychology into a monastery. .But they are both oddly well matched and happy with their places in the community where Jerry knows he’s a genius compared to Burl and Dale; and when she’s with Joy and Marlene, Verla feels like the pretty one.
How predictable is the oblivion. How typical. It’s so mundane that I will forgo the obvious comment about Burl being so fat that Joy has to measure twice to get his pants size. .But there sits Jerry with that knowing smirk. He’s by far the most interesting character in the little circle of human dross around the Penny’s. Would you like to hear his story? No? Well, tough. Do you think you’re special? “Ooooo, I’m so cultured and sensitive.” Well lah dee dah. Shut up and listen. .Jerry is decidedly not of Crustwood pioneer stock. His parents were both members of the 1954 Soviet Union women’s discus team. They defected while on a tour of the U.S. That wasn’t surprising. The team was in the habit of booking only half the return airline seats as they had coming over, and letting your charges throw things as far as they can and go after them is just not the way to keep them together..They were of sturdy stock. Jerry likes to claim his people were Cossacks, but it’s not true. They were of a simple people from the foothills of the Caucasus. The Cossacks’ name for Jerry’s ancestors was Krunkenshic, which means roughly Hairy-People-Who-Roast-Their-Chickens-With-the-Feathers-On, or more simply, they were known by the question the Commissar frequently asked when he came around, “What smells?” .Among the What Smells, Jerry’s folks grew into strong youths on their diet high in the protein from charred feathers, and the State Committee of the Culture and Sport of Picking Up or Throwing Heavy Things spotted them and had them brought to Moscow for the strict Soviet sport regimen of exercise, steroids, and hormones. They met when they were more of less randomly assigned to the women’s team where one could not really tell who was and who wasn’t. (As a couple, close friends could tell them apart, though. Jerry’s mother had to shave slightly more than his father.) .Their chemically intense training history likely accounts for Jerry’s gender issues. After they defected, they were settled in Crustwood under the sound theory that the effects of the local sludge canal and the mercury recycling plant’s effluvium hardly mattered after what their training had exposed them to. .They found work as track coaches at the Crustwood High School (Go Spitting Llamas!), and Jerry was born into the American Dream where every boy can become President and some can even become Queen. Jerry was a quiet child who was often confused about which of his parents was which, except at meal time, when he presumed his mother was the one stuffing the struggling hen into the oven. Sometimes, his parents were somewhat confused, too..But they loved him and gave him the freedom to find his own way. Thus, his favorite toys were his GI Joe and his Barbie and Friends set. He would spend hours alternately dressing GI Joe and Ken in Barbie’s outfits and imagining them on adventures as a couple with their “ward”, Skip, who was really Skipper dressed in cut down versions of Ken’s clothing. He had few (no) friends but grew to be a fine figure or what the census taker and the school registrar took to be a man. (It was not a very scientific determination. Neither of them was about to make the ultimate inquiry.).When they met, Jerry and Verla felt themselves mutually drawn to each other as being among the few people who could be around them both without gagging. Jerry likes that they wear the same sizes, so he can shop Lane Bryant “for her” without blowing his cover. There are things they do in private that would flabbergast a National Geographic biologist and drive a professor of abnormal psychology into a monastery. .But they are both oddly well matched and happy with their places in the community where Jerry knows he’s a genius compared to Burl and Dale; and when she’s with Joy and Marlene, Verla feels like the pretty one.