BALDY THE DUMMY ended his program that night with a story that began with a question, his favorite kind of question.
“Have you ever wondered what evil looks like, boys and girls?”
He waited a moment, gave his listening audience a moment of dead air, so that we could answer, “Yeah.”
“How about you, Bob, have you ever wondered what evil looks like?”
“Yeah.”
“A red devil with horns and a tail? A serpent? A black cat? A nasty-smelling man with broken teeth? How about a five-year-old girl with an adorable smile? Yow! Scary! Right, Bob?”
“Yeah.”
“You bet! You see one of those cute little girls and you might as well be looking at the heart of darkness itself! That’s what happened to the woman in this news clipping I’ve got here, Bob. She was sitting there in her apartment having dinner with her cute little five-year-old daughter, and she looked at that cute little girl, and she kind of squinted a little to get a better look at her, sitting there drinking her milk, and she looked at her real close, and all of a sudden, what did she see? Not the little girl she usually saw, but a demon! A milk-drinking, bright-eyed, smiley-faced demon! Yow! She saw the devil in that child! Gotta do something! Gotta rid the world of this demon child! So she wrapped the little demon in garbage bags — wrapped the little milk-drinking, bright-eyed, smiley-faced, five-year-old demon in garbage bags — and taped her up with duct tape and threw her into a dumpster. Quick thinking, eh, Bob?”
“Yeah.”
“The little girl’s body wasn’t found for a couple of days. I bet the demon was all out of her by then, don’t you, Bob?”
“Yeah.”
“Now you know what evil looks like, boys and girls. Now you know what evil looks like. File that under ‘This Bag Is Not a Toy,’ okay, Bob?”
“Yeah.”
[to be continued]
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
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