Something You Might Not Have Known About Me

When I was a kid, I had this imaginary friend named Mr. Gumbo. 

Well, technically, he wasn’t my imaginary friend; he was the imaginary friend of this kid Chip Engleman, who lived across the street from us.  But Chip introduced us, and then a while later the two of them had some kind of a falling out.  I never found out the details; or rather, it was one of those situations where there are almost like, too many details?  Everyone’s got their own version of events and none of the pieces really add up and eventually you just figure screw it.  It’s probably more than I needed to know anyway. 

But I guess I was the only other kid in the neighborhood Gumbo really knew, so before too long, he was hanging out with me pretty exclusively.  Which wouldn’t have been so bad, if it had stopped there.  It was actually kind of cool at first.  I’d never had an imaginary friend before, and I was sort of getting to the age where if I didn’t have one soon, I probably never would.  And if I waited much longer, there’d be a whole lot of those “special” tests to take, and you know how those can eat into your schedule, so I figured, hey.  Imaginary friend.  How bad can it be, right? 

Little did I know.

I mean, it’s not like Gumbo was a bad guy or anything.  It was more that he had this total bug up his ass about Chip, who frankly wasn’t my favorite person in the world either, but it was like Gumbo just couldn’t fucking shut up about him.  I mean, he never talked about anything else, and of course, given the nature of their relationship, he was privy to a whole lot of information about Chip that I could have lived just as happily without ever knowing.  And of course he was just thoroughly pissed at him, so it was all filtered through this mess of conflicted emotions.  Meanwhile, he was always trying way too hard to be my new imaginary best friend.  “Oh, tell me all your secrets, Rosy!  Tell me what you wish hardest for way down deep in your tippy toes!”  Yeah, right.  So you can go rag on me to everyone in the neighborhood when we break up?  Sure.  That’s gonna happen.

Of course, looking back on it, I realize Chip must have hurt him pretty bad.  Eventually, when I was older, it dawned on me that Chip and Gumbo may have been more than just imaginary “friends,” if you know what I mean.  But at the time, all I knew was that Gumbo was a bitter, angry loser with a huge imaginary chip on his shoulder and a long list of grievances in his big pink polka-dot ditty bag, who I strongly suspected would go invisible and hide in the bathroom when I was on the toilet.  And it wasn’t just what he said, it was the way he said it.  “Chip is such an asshole, Chip is such a user, Chip Chip Chip,” in that high-pitched, slide-whistle-crossed-with-a-cuckoo-clock voice of his, which believe me didn’t help matters any.  And plus, you know.  The jingle bells.  Which of course I know he didn’t have a whole lot of control over, but sweet crap on a cracker, they just never.fucking.stopped.  Every time he moved, every time he spoke, every time he drew a freaking breath.  “Whine, whine Chip this” (jingle!) and “Blah, blah Chip that” (jingle!!)  It was enough to make you want to put the poor bastard’s head through a wall.

Anyway.  After about three months I couldn’t take it anymore and told him to get lost.  Sometimes I feel bad about it now, but I was just a kid at the time, and you know how it is.  Poor fucker just kept calling and calling, on and off for like, weeks afterward.  I never picked up, and since it was the imaginary phone, nobody else in the house ever heard it ringing, so after a while he just gave up.  Sort of pathetic, really.

Last I heard, he was crashing with the Thing that lived under Sue Ellen Gawicki’s bed, and the two of them were driving each other completely up the wall.  Which if you ask me was no more than either of them deserved.  I mean, I know it sounds harsh, but that Thing used to give Sue Ellen pluperfect hell, and she really was a very sweet girl.  I know a lot of the other kids didn’t like her, but she had a really cool sense of humor when you got to know her, and she couldn’t help it that she smelled that way.