Lenny had a small problem with women. He liked to pull over to the curb and whistle or squeak his lips at them, and ask them “How much?” There were a lot of prostitutes in the area but he couldn’t distinguish between them and a mommy pushing a baby stroller or a 9 year old Girl Scout. He would stare them down in the restaurant like Charles Manson and took great pleasure in making them nervous. If they were wearing a dress he would drop things on the floor and bend down to pick it up, staying there too long. If he thought he saw something he’d say real loud “She’s taking my picture! She’s taking my picture!” He would go to extremes trying to look down a blouse. It was most embarrassing to be out in public with the guy. I bet he had mirrors on his shoes when he was a teenager.
Once in a while women customers came to order signs and he always overcharged them, the better looking they were, the higher the price went. When he was selling 4x8s for around the $250 range he would try to charge $900. And 900 was a favorite figure of his. A $300 gold leaf job became a 900 dollar one because the lady was particularly nice looking, and he told everybody that would listen (and some that wouldn’t) that “That hooker wasn’t even wearing a bra, you could tell.” (she was). And they were all “Hookers”. We painted the cheerleaders’ megaphones for free every year for several high schools just because Lenny wanted the personal contact it brought him with “all the little hookers”. For days after he would be walking into posts and driving through stop signs, his head even further up his ... uh, er a cloud, yeah, that’s it. Up a cloud. One morning he came into the shop and said to me “Hey, there’s a hooker standing on the corner right outside the window - why don’t you go ask her ‘how much’?” I looked out the window and there was a little girl waiting for the school bus. Nobody was safe.
He was a real likable guy - at least until you got to know him - everybody liked him at first, I did, too. There was one gal that would come around in a big motor home and tell Lenny every time her husband was out of town. He told her how much he wanted to get a motor home, himself, so she tried to go show him hers. He never would go out there, though, and she was a real looker. He was loyal to Mrs. Lenny. This lady had some low level real estate gig and had us do up some sketches, they were real simple, and eventually we even ran off a few signs. About a $200 job. She came in one time and told him “I just bought a brand new motor home, bigger than the last one, and my husband just left for 6 weeks.” He charged her 900 bucks for her little signs and THAT finally got rid of her.
There were plenty of ‘Hos’ - and one used to come around “Door-to-Door” offering her services. She had gotten a “Boob Job” and was real proud of ‘em and would lift up her T shirt to show us. Well, I guess advertising pays. I will vouch that she got a nice job done! We weren’t buying but after she left Lenny would start in on all the things he “was going to do to her” some time. One time Lenny was out in the back barn and she came in the office and spoke to Excuse Bob. He told her what Lenny said he wanted and she told him “Twenty Bucks” so Bob paid her and sent her out back to do Lenny. That was pretty good! He was so embarrassed he turned beet red and couldn’t talk, and tried to just get away from her. She would come around every couple months after that to try and give him the service that had been paid for but there were always a bunch of us around so he wouldn’t go for it. Way toward the end of the regime only Lenny and I were at the shop when she walked in and pulled off her shirt. Those two ran around the shop giggling like a couple of twelve year olds, with him attached to her chest from behind. It was disgusting. I don’t know what else was going on because for the most part they stayed up in the office and laughed a lot while I painted in the back room, but whatever it was he got two hours worth for Bob’s $20. Sure SOUNDED like fun...
Every chance he got he started an argument with female customers, often losing them forever. One lady wore a T shirt with a small tree printed on it and he went off the deep end about spotted owls and tree huggers like “Lush Rambo” as he called him. We live in Los Angeles, for cryin’ out loud. How could he get worked up about THAT, anyway? He liked to use Black Pentel Sign Pens for layout, and the counter top was painted white. He would drag out his black pen and do a quick sketch on the counter, instead of a piece of paper then spit on it and moosh it around with his thumb in a half baked attempt to erase. The top was always a mess of nasty black smears and every once in a while Lenny would paint a thin coat of white on it to refresh the ground. It made ME gag to watch him, I can’t imagine what female customers must have thought. He went on one of his “hunting” trips one year and I painted the counter dark brown. He must have hated me.
Dynamic Duane’s parents were separated and he hadn’t seen his mother in a long time, so when she called to tell him she wanted to come for a visit he was all up about it and made the mistake of announcing it in the shop. Lenny said to him “Yeah, bring the old bitch around - I’LL give her a thrill”. Geez, the poor kid was about 21 years old and this was his BOSS talking like that - what’s he supposed to do? So I told him “Lenny, I saw a blind man standing outside the fish market yesterday calling out your wife’s name.”
One time we were coming back from lunch, waiting for a signal to change and Lenny was in the front passenger seat and I was behind him, so I didn’t see what he was doing, but there is little doubt that it was something obscene with his face. There was a young woman sitting on a bus bench talking to another person when she made eye contact with Lenny and said “Not THIS year, Grandpa!” That became a well used term in the shop afterwards, one of my favorites. “Hey, Languein, when is that job for Tom going to be ready?” “Not THIS year, Grandpa!” Hyuck, hyuck.
Amazing to me is that there was a MRS. LENNY! And they had KIDS! Yes, he was allowed to reproduce! And the clone is as bad as the original. I always have to wonder which of his magical charms won her over, and she chased him all the way to California from the east coast to get him. I also wonder about all the other crazy people out here - you know there are very few of us California Natives, so I’m pretty sure the other states round up their undesirables and herd them out here to The Land of Fruits & Nuts on a regular basis, and give them a driver’s license. That’s so that by the laws of Survival-of-the-Fittest & Random Chance they’ll drive into Each Other, eliminating them from the gene pool. So maybe when it was time for the powers-to-be to shag him westward they realized he had an admirer and told her to get on the boat with him. Mrs. Lenny. Even Hitler had a girlfriend, even if he DID have to go to the family to get one, but this is just too much for me. How in Hell did the pervert ever attract a female? And they reproduced. There oughta be a law.
When he started back doing billboards prostitutes and other women were turning up dead in parks during times he was supposed to be on the road and I knew he wasn’t - I wondered if there was a connection - like had there been a similar run of murders along the I-15 corridor during 1960 - 1978? And then again from about ‘91 - ‘96? And did it stop then? Or did they catch the guy? I don’t really want to know because I never brought it to light and I’d really feel terrible if I found out I held a key to stop it and didn’t use it. Most of the guys looked at Lenny as a comical, bumbling fool, but they didn’t answer the phone and try to deal with his larceny. Nobody stuck around for as long as I did, either. He acted like a “naughty boy” and got away with it for 60 years - it’s scary to me.
If anybody mentioned their dog or cat he’d pipe in with “Well I’m no lover of dogs!” Or whatever it was. Especially cats. He’d just HAVE to tell about how they run when they’re on fire, or that he ran over one just this morning. If somebody wanted blue on their sign “Well I’m no lover of blue!” He was apparently “no lover” of ANYTHING. And he let everybody know about it. A customer wanted a sign for a stable; “Well I’m no lover of horses!” A guy brought in a hot rod to have a cartoon painted on; “Well I’m no lover of Fords! Buy a Jeep!” Whenever someone got out the Linseed Oil he’d tell his story of his buddy who parked his truck one night with a bunch of Linseed Oil soaked rags jammed down in the corner of his truck and it caught on fire and burned to the ground. No lover of Linseed Oil, he. So why did we have gallon cans of it in the shop?
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Oh my God! I think I'm gonna cry! And I thought we women were our own worst enemies.
I think the Lenny stories are not only entertaining, which they do in a wonderfully crafted way, they are also multiple life lessons in more ways than I would want to list. We can all have our pick on what we want to learn.
Thanks Mike, for sharing them with us.
-------------------- Myra A. Grozinger Signs Limited Winston-Salem, NC
signslimited@triad.rr.com Posts: 1244 | From: Winston-Salem, NC USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Yep...what I like so much about Mikey's stories is, he found (and still does) humor in frustrating situations. And his writing is always well put together......I like it! flows well without being choppy. I never trip over his words. They just work! sure makes me smile. Posts: 3729 | From: Seattle | Registered: Sep 1999
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