M “-TARTUFFE
3^' Translation by Ranjit Bolt
Dare to see the play banned by the court of Louis XIV!
Q Watch the scheming rascal Tartuffe get his comeuppance
in this modern adaptation of Moliere’s classic tale.
October 8-10 & 13-17, ’92 8pm
■■■ General: $8 Students & Senior Citizens: $6
OSave with a Season Ticket—on sale through October 17!
Howell Theatre
g> THEATRE ARTS Ti DANCE
(402) 472-2073
sn v Box Office: First Floor, Temple Building, 12th & R Streets
^ U University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Use Your Noodle!
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228 n i2th-ijKor> Just 2 BlocKs From Campu;
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1435'Q1 Street 474-21
Vern’s life, trials and transitions
By Charles Lieurance
Diversions Contributor
Vern’s dad and mom, and my
dad and mom, swung. The swinger
spot in Lincoln in 1970 was The
Congress Inn, at least it was until
Vern’s dad, Vern Sr. got fined
$200,000 dollars and served two
years in jail for running a triple X
porno movie/prostitution ring out
of some of the rooms.
Vern Sr. wasn’t the only one.
Apparently all the town fathers from
mayor to weed inspector were in
on it. Not to men|i<UL the Iowa
mafia, which botHKeifTand Vern
-I Sr. talked about all ife time. The
Iowa mafia runs t the Iowa
mafia runs that.
But Vern Sr., Ver
was low man, a mi no
cial whose n
book th
whore
turn wtu
the oth
Aftcr'prisJ
sej&t ini'
spade-age lumped tract houl :
around 56ih Stn vt indHigAway]
TJ»ly siillV w|j ng. or s^ tpeVka id.
But Vilfe iwci yiars\had \dd1njbeeh
kindfipfcitheioftheiti. Vein Sf, had
alway^bten small and jittety. Npw,\
he was virtually hunchbacked ln£l
his ne|p\ous[ tHgs made him
| un photo j
Mrs. Jaeckel had pain. Il was all
she talked about, pain. At the mo
ment Mr. Jaeckel’s political career
collapsed, so did Mrs. Jaeckel’s
body. It became impossible to dis
tinguish her actual ailments from
her clever and plausible hypochon
dria.
No one wanted to split hairs
with her. I lerkidneyandgallstones
bobbed like jaundiced goldfish in
mason jars on the kitchen window
sill. And she cried constantly. On
football Saturdays we’d still go to
their house and pretend nothing
had changed. Mrs. Jaeckel would
sit in the corner, lean her head
against the wood paneling and cry
quietly. My mother kept an arm
around her shoulders and cheered
the team.
By half lime Mrs. Jaeckel would
fall asleep, hersunshine-girl, Dottie
West hair-do limp and dangling,
her lace distended and ner moutn
a silent, pink, lipstick “O.” Vern Sr.
would walk o\ n u >
Vein % eh - h c h - h n cr
bis|w|fp would loze off. Vern^fc*
and 1 Escaped ti waicfc'Creature
FeakiheWitn I >t Sanguinary—Vern
tolt^mtdgor w^ fn theiowa mafia
—fa Mexican hdrror moyie where a
wilwroui of a
Vern Leon J^a^ql, Jr. wanted to
be a psycnopatn. tie mtormea me
he wanted to kill some people the
first time he baby-sat me.
On weekends before the
Jaeckel’s fall from grace, our par
ents would go out to the Congress
Inn to swing, because Vern Jr. was
huge and wall-eyed and had bar
bells like a catfish at the age of 11,
my parents just assumed he was”
older than I was. So he became my
baby sitter. As a matter of fact, we
were the same age.
Vern Jr. said! ’ da name like
a killer. Vern Leo ekeljr. You’ve
got to have I mes, unless
you’re Starkwj e said.
“I hate this jrn Jr. said.
I think he wa his father.
“And the da afia. 1 hate
this town foi .t’s Sunday,
y’know? Like s dead. No
one’s acting body’s act
ing like so lse. It’s like
'Invasion o natchers.’”
Vern Jr. t bells. You
could _ ended
*fut the window. SormrkTTji of hall
“if mirrors or a fun hotrai Ine^gjjy.
jaamkiw iMurt u!>'a Ad cufung a
roast, as far as I could $*%■ fNidjtJter
dad after dad. We/Were all eati?^
. together. Some hid bigger knivp*,
or eleu^cones. Bioughy^tnow
where all ijfcse people keep their
trash. Tnd Wilsons, the Riddfcsbys,
the Coolipigev, they’re Methodists.
They keep thei< trash under the
sink. TheFla|neiip, the R|erls, the
Fausts; they'te Catholic anc; they
keeptheirgaibagucar^sin|||open.
1 just wantec^t&Tlik th * It 11 for
— II
These days were sad.
We'd watch our par
ents' dirty party games
and wink at aeach other
like perverts paralyzed
from the waist down.
- -*t -
acting that way."
It got worse. During the big
Oklahoma game of 1972, Vern’s
mom passedon, she and her poodle
simultaneously. It was somewhere
between the third quarter and a
Chevy ad. Three weeks later my
dad took us to the Starview Drive
in for “Green Blood Night.” There
were four movies and we all got
little packets of glowing green
blood. It was edible.
I Vern Jr. and I always watched
|novies from theswingsetup front,
staring the^^:, distorted
t Wr. SS'tftom.” .A
.<ijene where a carriage clatters up
t]|e winding road to the old castle,
the bare, gnarled trees along (lie
way are hung with severed limbs^j
1 jiui.iii am anu ivgo / T
impaled* tree branches. Vprni.
lips are eel dumbly, \
green. Ah o of box
whorlsaro d his head. I
“I’m gonnafkill 'em all, hante tflcqf#
on ihe tre<^> along Sheridan eoule^
vard, just/ike Charlie.” I
On hi$ 14th birthday, Vem jun-/
.ior caugttt a frog,T*amied Icfva on
its back,stuck ah M-8oin its^iodth
and seyred its mouth shy*3rc
the fuse with hismom ssewingkit.
He sat/the frojkm a slump jh an
emptydot where ?'mall is n0W. /
I witched, sitrkcaoss-leg^ed
icjtwalk. I wasrlTthinking
gjljlst like Caril f'ugate.
fuse. The frogs eyes
bliokpd arid blew up.
dslapped his thighM:
n thatcarcMo^f you
over to that cailioo^n^k
I’ll hot wire the cai>and\
gone. I won’t do it^mless 1
hings," Vern tol^jie.
e sidewalk, tltfjfogguts*
car witfftmL “It’s the
pMrfou have tcSi^H^do
prlnuokill anyone, but
(n’t want to keep Vern from
mething memorable.
I I | itouiwouiun i, li i uiu, wuuiu
\ ! |ol?Tiked.
'"We’l get my dad’s belly gun, or
a rifle, "lou like the rifle. We shot
that quai. You like that rifle?”
1 did,lLe to fire the rifle, warmth
the stock a nd the ba rrel
reified winterafternoo ns
uail feathers flying like
glass from a root-beer
Spacek played Fugale.
on the grave, drank the wine and
read back issues of “Famous Mon
sters of Film Land.”
^kbfcef and Catholics. Peach wine
is rorcStark weather.”
^Ss^lready putting some dis
kanflebciweenheandl.bull think
I thought about leaving lo^tt a*}
bui«,h as he did. I even thplighf
JboupKilling people. Hut 1 cduldn’i
qperv'that car door. That’sfnow rT
;Vtas./l le called me and loFj^cie l»
mbot him at an address on () Streep
1 don’t remember where Jp
Street or so. I le was stanc
there between a muffler
foreign cars and a carpet
^'C’mon,” Vern took mf
arr^, took me through
dodr, up some stairs into h<
wqte black f; * iTTes alt
chicken wire s, the wire buoyed
udby frail gr wood. They were
fathc mida supper, the smell
U| puiiv auv ^
fire such c^ ern and I stood in
tie hallwa 'ring Vern had the
green bio iok on his face. He
snook his
“Look at . It’s a different kind
ofSuiday." - -
Mfh wcrfc-ggtting up from the
table. As theyopeoed the wire
doors to come out.^ieir cages
f
sonoulta
drove in
esence of
at. It was
se I felt its
at maybe
go on a
;n bigger
Slothes fit.
e. I never
t monster
h him for
Cemetery
weather’s
ggerslold
' us they’d taken the tomtxstone off
because too many people were
visiting. People would be trying to
meditate on their loved ones and
there would be ten or fifteen kids in
leather jackets around Charlie’s
grave having a parly.
“But I’ll tell ya,” the grave digger
said. “It’s plot 36. It’s just where it
always was. Stone or not, he’s still
down there.”
“1 We stood on the spot and Vern
■And I drank peach wine. He com
plained about the lack of a proper
stone and kicked at the dirt. “Shit,
Charlie,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
He stared off into the distance
and spun around once. He saw it.
Two bronze little girls with wreaths
in their hair, holding up a sign that
read “Babyland.” Vern stumbled in
“phreewdle took the rifle out of the
car anil began to wander among
the litie stone lambs arid the fat
mossyfangels of “Babyland.”
He/pushed aside the grey and
t-r lil/A r» lorlu’c hu 1 r
and jbad the sad, idiotic poems
carvdd in the stones. He carried the
rifle /drooping under his arm. I
lookfcd around for the grounds
cre^ We seemed to be safe.
yern spent an hour wandering
amfcng the dead children, of chol
erxtyphus, miscarried, premature
lt*r| he left the rifle in the grass
arm wc drove away. Vern was cry
inj.y)3*pur way out of the cem
etlr^he looked up at the clock or
th« mortuary.
“Jesus, why would anybody
going to a cemetery, anyone going
by a mortuary, want to know whai
time it is?”
As far as I know Vern nevei
mentioned killing anyone again,
went over to his house severa
times after that and then no more
Each lime 1 went he and his
father were sitting on the rust shaj
of their living room amid thou
sands of snipped-oul photograph:
of the old monsters — the beas
from Cocteau’s "Beauty and th<
Beast,” thegill man, Elsa Lancheste
as the bride of Frankenstein’s mon
ster. They would ask each othe
trivia questions about each photo
graph and then paste each onto th«
black page of a scrapbook for safe
keeping.
■
TAILGATE 92
W.C.'s ft
ck^icfotk'nrcdL
■92.9*rrci
Pre-game tailgate party
9:30 a.m. till 12:30 p.m. »»p»»
Before every home game Street
. _ _
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