Ritchie Cunningham rifled through his Jefferson HighSchool jacket pockets feeling for the keys to theDeSoto. His old man had given him the car for theweekend and he was ready for some fun. Hopefully hecould break away from his loser chums and score somebabes, but that was unlikely. Ralf and Potsy had thetenacity of lampreys and it was unlikely that he couldshake them off.

He sat down and was soon being annoyed by the newowner of Arnold?s, Al. ?Yep yep yep?.??Knock it off Al and go away.??Yep yep yep? muttered Al. as he shuffled away.

Al needed to be locked up in a lunatic asylum Ritchiethought. After all, it was still the 1950s and with afew testimonials from friends he could have Al lockedup and doped to the gills with no hope of everbreathing freedom for the rest of his life. He made amental note to himself to have Al committed next week.

?Aaaaaaaaaay!?

There he was. Fonzie. It was really embarrassing. Thisguy had to be 35 years old. A short Jewish guy whopretended to be Italian, hung around with high-schoolkids and lived in the Cunningham?s attic. Absolutelybizarre. It was all they could do to keep fromlaughing their collective asses off when he camearound doing his ?cool? routine and waving his thumbsin the air. Pathetic.

?How?s it going Fonzie?? Ritchie smirked

?Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaay? Fonzie waggled his thumbs aroundand tugged on the lapels of his leather jacket

?I assume that?s good.?

?Aaaaaaay. The Denunzio twins . The Dominicisis-taaaahs. Aaaaaaaaay!? Fonzie had a pathologicalhabit of making up names to non-existent twin sisterswith whom he had non-existent liaisons..

Ritchie gave him a blank stare

? I think I?ll go hit the juke box and play ?I?mWalking? by Fats Domino? Fonzie strode off and bangedthe juke box. The short circuit in the juke box hadbeen a tremendous boost to Fonzie?s ego and he was nowable to parade around the high-school hang-outpretending he had magical powers.

Ritchie missed the original owner of Arnold?s. ArnoldTakahashi and Ritchie had been buddies and used tosmoke dope in Arnold?s wiggy hooch near the lake.Arnold was a trip. They used to get lit up on Thaistick and start making up stupid karate shit. Ritchieused to bust a gut laughing when Arnold would do his?Paint the fence!? routine or ?Wax on! Wax off!? bitbut the best one was this kookie crane thing he didstanding on his toilet on one leg with his arms out inthe air. Arnold had never done karate in his life butgot a real kick out of pretending he did because itseemed like everybody assumed that since he was asianhe was automatically born knowing karate. Arnold gotfed up with Milwaukee though and moved to Californiato become caretaker of an apartment complex and raiseBonsai trees. Since then Ritchie had been having tofind his own fun.

The biggest problem Ritchie had was that he enjoyedliving the good life but deep in his heart he longedto be bad. He kept up the front of the All-American Apple-Pie-Face but Ritchie had urges to satisfy. Ritchie was a hair fetishist and found his thrill, not on Blueberry Hill but in a hair salon watching girls get haircuts. Strange indeed but Arnold had clued him into the fact that weirdness was OK. One night when Arnold was wasted he told Ritchie all about his sexual proclivities. Absolutely mind-blowing perversions. Probably another reason that Arnold moved to California.

?Aaaaaaaaaay!?

It was Fonzie again.

?Whatcha need Fonz?? Ritchie sighed.

?Wanna double date with me and the DeLaRussa twins??Fonzie asked. ?We could go to inspiration point.?

Ritchie knew this was bullshit. The first and lasttime he went on a double-date with Fonzie no-oneshowed up and he and Fonzie had gone to a drive-inmovie alone. It took months to convince people that hewasn?t a homo. It was bad enough having aleather-wearing, thirty five year old, teenophilecreep living in his attic but that was too much.

?Sorry Fonz. I don?t want to horn in on your action?Ritchie snickered under his breath.

?Double more for the Fonz?

?Yeah.. knock em dead? Ritchie said. What a whacko.

HONK HONK!

Ritchie was startled out of his seat and turned to seeRalf Malph with Potsy Webber. Ralf was wearing aclown mask and holding a rubber bulbed horn in hishand.

?Gotcha Ritch! Ha ha.? Ralf laughed.

?Yeah he got you? said Potsy

What in the fuck am I doing with these LOSERS! Ritchiethought.

?Yeah. Pretty funny.? Ritchie said. ?Look guys. I?mgrounded because I.. um. I made a B in school. I can?tgo out with you guys tonight.?

?Grounded for a B in school? You gotta be kidding!?said Potsy.

?You?re right. I am kidding. I didn?t get a B. I justhate you both because you are two embarrassing losersand I don?t want to be seen with you. See you later.?Ritchie got up and walked out of Arnolds. He got inthe Desoto and drove away. As he looked in therear-view mirror he could see Ralph and Potsy staringopen mouthed behind him. Ritchie fired up a joint andheaded home to cook up his plan.

The fact that his parents were in Chicago at aLeopards Lodge convention and his sister was at aJunior Chipmunks campout started Ritchies weekend offas cool as possible. He plopped down in front of theTV, smoked some more dope, got some booze out of hisold mans liquor cabinet and watched some roller derby.After an hour or two it struck him like a bolt oflightening. He had a plan!

Racing upstairs, Ritchie snuck into Fonzies room andlifted one of his leather jackets. Returning to hisroom he put on some jeans, rolled up the cuffs,greased back his hair, looked in the mirror and said ?Aaaaaaaaaaay!?

?Looks like Mr. Fonzarelli is going on a haircuttingspree.? He cackled.

It was the perfect plan. He could fulfil his desiresand Fonzarelli would get the blame. He had to becareful not to get caught though. The shame it wouldbring him would be immense and his parents would reactharshly to any abnormality in their black-and-whiteworld. Several years ago Ritchie?sbasketball-dribbling brother Chuck had been caughtjerking off to lingerie pictures in the Sears catalog.Since then he had completely disappeared. In fact, noone in the house ever even mentioned him. It was asthough he had been a bad idea from the start and theypretended he never existed. Very weird.

With a bit of cunning and any luck it would be Fonziethat would get the blame. If caught nobody would everbelieve that he wasn?t a deviant. Fonzie promoted hisimage as a rebel and although he had never really doneanything rebellious other than perhaps speeding he wasfor some reason regarded by others as dangerous. Hewas the perfect foil.

Ritchie opened his closet where he kept his stash andstuffed a few joints in his jacket for the evening.Out of the corner of his eye he saw an old Zorro maskthat he?d worn to one of those idiotic parties theyalways held at Arnold?s nowadays. It was the perfectcompliment to his Fonzarellian plan.

Ritchie drove around thinking of how to put his planinto action when he spied the movie theater on thecorner. Pulling over he got out his trusty shears,clicked them twice and sauntered up to the box office.

?Can I help you sir?? the man at the box office asked?

?Aaaaaaaaayyyy!? Ritchie replied waggling his thumbsin the air.

?Er.. um??

?One ticket to the western.. Aaaayyyy?

?We have 3 westerns showing. This is 1957, all we haveare westerns, Raymond Chandler war flicks and CaryGrant romantic comedies?

?Aaaaayyy.. the western with John Wayne? Ritchie said,losing his cool.

?They all have John Wayne in them?

?Gimme a fuckin ticket to any goddam movie you creep.?Ritchie stalled then smiled again ?Aaaayyyyyyy!?

The slightly unnerved ticket man forked over a themovie ticket and Ritchie ?Fonzaralli? marched into thetheater.

Slipping into the back row Ritchie allowed his eyes toadjust to the darkness. The theatre wasn?t very fullwhich was good but he also didn?t see any potential?customers? until.. wait.. yes.. could be? She movedher head and a thick ponytail swung past the top ofthe seat. Golden blonde shimmering tied with a ribbonwith a curl put in at the end.

Cunningham got up and moved to the row behind her, satdown and put on his Zorro mask.

It was the typical 50s movie fare. Lots of shootingand indians dying all over the place. How could peoplecontinue to watch this crap?

Ritchie got up and slowly made his way to the seatbehind the ponytail queen. He stealthily pulled hisscissors from his jacket and clicked them twice before slooowly.. oh so sloowly moving to the base of the tail. It was a tough call but inside those dungarees Cunningham had balls the size of brass church-bells. He?d never be able to cut it without her noticing. ?Fuck it? he thought. He grabbed it and hacked!

?Hey.. stop it! What are you doing!?

Hack hack hack. Ritchie hacked at the golden mass likea gardener going after a rogue shrub. The laststrands.. and.. hack! It was through. He held theponytail high in his hand. ?Aaaaaaaaaayyyy!? he yelled

?Omigod.. my hair! My hair!?

If Ritchie was anything he was fast. He didn?t earnthat Jefferson High letter for sitting on his ass andhe bolted the theater and ran like a freed slave.

He could hear the noise behind him.

?Ahhhh my hair!?

?Who was it??

?It looked like Fonzie!?

Sprinting to the Desoto, Ritchie smelled that trophy.Oh what a bastard he was. He opened the door andthanks to 50s workmanship that iron sled sprang tolife giving him gas guzzling power to escape.Vrooooom! He was gone.

Now for a buttoned down guy like Ritchie that shouldhave been enough but he was in the groove. He wasstoned, drunk and full of testosterone. He was goingto inspiration point!

As he reached inspiration point he parked the car in adark area and moved like a commando through the parkedcars until he spied a suitable chick for a trim job.She was on her back and her Mr. Wonderful was on topof her. He was so engrossed in her tits and she was soengrossed in having her tits toyed with that neither ofthem noticed that her head and shiny thick ponytailwere hanging outside the car door. A stealthy creep, adeft hand and snnnnnnnip.. the tail was his.

Off he sprinted again. This time he had some leewaybefore the unwilling haircut customer noticed hermissing tresses. It was all too much for Ritchie. Heknelt in the bushes and lost his load. Then that postpleasure feeling hit him like a ton of bricks. ?Holyshit!? he thought. ?This is seriously fucked up.? Butthey weren?t named Cunningham for nothing. Thatcunning bastard recovered quickly and made his nextmove. He had to find him. Fonzarelli. Crouched low,Ritchie moved through the undergrowth until. Oh man,this was his lucky night. There he was. Sitting on hisbike, looking at motorcycle magazines and punching hissausage was Arthur Fonzarelli. ?Hey Fonzie Takethese!? Ritchie yelled tosssing the two ponytails atFonzies feet. With that Cunningham vanished into thedarkness and within minutes Fonzie was surrounded by asquad of angry teenagers.

Now we may think of the 50s as a gentle time but thefact remains that teenagers in the 1950s couldadminister ass-beatings with a regularity and ferocitythat is largely forgotten in today?s society and noone found that out quicker than Fonzie. It was abruised and battered Fonzarelli that made hisappearance before court and it was his deplorableattempt to besmirch the name of a high-school ?A?student and track letter winner that earned him anextra two years in the state pen.

Ritchie on the other hand decided enough, was enoughand after having Al committed packed his shit andmoved to California. His parents were so embarrassedthat he went to California that they told everyonethat he was in the Army in Greenland.

It was a happy and wild reunion when Cunningham andArnold fired up that first doobie and as Ritchierelated his story Arnold cackled madly saying ?Wax on,wax off!?