Let Me Off at the Top!: My Classy Life and Other Musings Read online

  “I’m a respected News Anchor,” I said to buy some time while I thought of a better response. “Here’s the situation, Richard, I am afraid of fire … so when I saw the burning bag of poop on your doorstep I rang your doorbell to warn you and then ran away in fear. You see, my daughter … Richardessa”—I came up with that fast!—“whose name is sort of like yours when you think about it—you two would have really hit it off—she died in a terrible awful fire about a week ago.”

  “Stop it, Burgundy. I don’t like what you are doing and I want you to stop it. It’s not funny.”

  “I wish I knew what you were talking about, Richard. We are neighbors and good friends. We say hello in the morning and borrow stuff from each other and return stuff. We’re neighbors.”

  “You’re not being a good neighbor, Burgundy. Just stop it.” And he walked away. The leaf blower? Didn’t even come up. So now I have determined that he means to steal my leaf blower. I am furious. It’s time to put this little feud that he started into overdrive.

  FROM HUNTING TO PROTECTING: BURGUNDY AND THE ANIMAL KINGDOM AND THE DAWN OF THE JACKALOPES

  I went jackalope hunting with Peter Lawford and Bobby Kennedy. I was in beautiful Las Vegas, where the women are loose and the slots are tighter than a librarian’s vagina. Pardon my French! Anyway, I had an opportunity to meet both gentlemen when they took a fancy to the lady I was escorting. I was invited up to Lawford’s private penthouse suite, where the three of us traded stories and sang show tunes all night long. Bobby was an excellent piano player before we lost him that blackest of days in California. I shall miss him dearly! He was a good man, ethical to the core—not like some of these politicians you see today. All of the Kennedys were made of the highest blue-blooded moral fiber and Bobby was no exception. Anyway we passed around three or four women between us, rotating and changing our styles, and then decided it was time for breakfast. They have the most sumptuous and amazing breakfast buffets in Vegas. If you’ve never been to one you are simply an idiot, an idiot to your friends and family and an idiot in the eyes of God. If there was a higher form of idiot, like a circus idiot’s illegitimate child with an idiot donkey, then that would be you. Here’s why: They have meat like you’ve never seen before! Three or four different types of bacon. They have Canadian bacon. They have regular or hickory bacon and thick-cut bacon. They have ham. They have steak. They have pork. Don’t get me going on the merits of a Vegas buffet. Seriously! Get this, there’s usually an omelet station and you can choose your own ingredients, be it ham or bacon or beans or cheese or all of it. The breaded material is limitless. Crescent rolls from France, sweet breads and doughnuts. Oh, and pancakes! Big fluffy, buttery pancakes like you’ve never tasted before. There are some fruit cups, for women I guess, but not really necessary. Two kinds of sausage, flat patties and wiener shaped. Holy Moses, I forgot the best part. When you are done scarfing all this down you simply hand the waiter your dirty plate and go back and get another clean plate for another round, free of charge! You heard me. It’s all-you-can-eat! I would not lie about this. I know what you’re saying: “Ron, some of the stories you tell in this novel are unbelievable.” This buffet story is absolutely true. It’s not the main gist of the whole story. It’s really a story about hunting jackalopes with Bobby Kennedy and Peter Lawford, but I wasn’t going to tell the story without the buffet part.

  So there we were eating breakfast from the buffet when Kennedy starts talking about the legendary and elusive jackalope. A jackalope is a stronger and faster jackrabbit with antelope horns. They are believed to exist only in folktales and postcard shops throughout the Southwest. Anyway, Kennedy is going on and on about jackalopes when—wait one second, I forgot something about the buffet. The pancakes, I did them a real disservice. Yes they are fluffy and buttery, but they’ve also got different flavored fruit syrups you can pour over them, strawberry, blueberry, peach, whatever! AND—and this is big—whipped cream. So these pancakes are more like dessert than breakfast food. Just thought I should mention that. Also free refills on the coffee!

  So Kennedy is going on about the jackalope when Lawford shouts out, “Let’s go jackalope hunting!” Next thing I know I’m in a convertible Mercury Monterey rolling outside of Vegas in the high desert with Peter Lawford and Bobby Kennedy. Each one of us holds a service revolver handed to us by Kennedy’s security team. Lawford swears that the only way to hunt jackalope is with handguns. I know what you’re thinking: Ron Burgundy is a friend to animals; he wouldn’t want to hunt them. Very true, I am, indeed, a great friend to all the Animal Kingdom, but I wasn’t always. In fact there was a time when I just loved to hunt. You heard it here! Ron Burgundy, nature lover, hunted and killed animals for sport. Crossbows, rifles, knives, snares, traps, throwing stars, slingshots, dynamite, my bare hands and of course guns—I used them all. My lust for the blood sport was only outpaced by my lust for lovemaking.

  Some weekends the whole news team would pack up the camping equipment and head up into the mountains for a few days of relaxing and hunting. I would bring the chow. Brian Fantana would bring various scents he said were useful for attracting “prey.” It was usually just an assortment of his various colognes but they were also highly effective in attracting animals. I would say many of his colognes were better at attracting animals than women! Bears especially liked Night Stalker.

  Funny story: One night we were all out on the town having a few drinks, seeing what we could stir up, when Fantana walks in drenched in Night Stalker. It’s a heavy scent. Not all women go for it. It smells like cat box and old meat. This is downtown San Diego, mind you. Anyway Brian hits the dance floor, where he can show his moves to the ladies. Suddenly everyone is screaming and running for the doors. It’s a bear, not a grizzly but a pretty big black bear. It probably traveled a hundred or two hundred miles to get to what it was smelling, Night Stalker. Poor guy quickly became disoriented and angry in the dance club. Bears are not cool with disco lights and Donna Summer. That’s a bear fact not everyone knows. Suffice it to say it was a real mess! After that, San Diego made it illegal to have Night Stalker within the city limits.

  Anyway, back to our hunting trips. Brick Tamland would usually pack a lunch box full of yarn or secret notes, and Champ Kind, who to this day enjoys shooting and killing animals of any sort, would bring about forty to fifty guns of all sizes and makes. Too many guns really. (We once got pulled over by a state trooper in Nevada because Brian was driving 130 miles an hour through downtown Reno. The trooper asked to search the camper and was surprised by—and I think maybe a little scared of—what he found. None of the hundred or so guns we had in the camper or the trailer were registered. More than a few of them had been used in violent crimes and were sought after by prosecutors throughout the Southwest. There were even some grenades back in the trailer and a Russian-made rocket launcher. Luckily it was Nevada. We got out of there with a slap on the wrist and a twenty-dollar fine. That particular trip turned out to be a huge disaster, which is an entirely different story! Let’s just say there’s a big difference between hunting and insurrection.)

  Mainly our little hunting excursions didn’t amount to much more than four drunk guys in the woods shooting off guns and eating cans of soup! I don’t even remember bagging many animals when the news team got together to hunt. It wasn’t about that. It was more about friends yelling and not shaving. However I do recall one time when we probably killed a mountain lion, or maybe more than one. I say that because we spent a night in Montana fighting off mountain lions. Once again Brian had one of his colognes with him, I think it was something he called Erotic Dawn. Whatever it was, it sure attracted mountain lions. I don’t care what naturalists say, mountain lions are not solitary creatures. They can organize and work in groups if the need arises. They can even work with other animals, like raccoons and hawks, if they want something bad enough. They wanted Erotic Dawn real bad. We spent that night completely sober shooting semiautomatic weapons out into the dark, just praying we were hitting
the lions. Scary stuff. Fond memories. I can now look back on those days and laugh! I’m a different man today and soon enough you’ll see why. My transformation happened almost all at once at a point in my life I still call “the Dawn of the Jackalope.”

  So back to the jackalope tale. Me, Kennedy and Lawford are driving in the desert. There’s plenty of booze in the car—this was back in the days when you could legally drive drunk. Most men in the late sixties who were responsible and held down respectable nine-to-five jobs drove home drunk every night. No one said anything then! I don’t know. Times change. Frankly it would not have mattered if we were swerving all over the highway, because we were definitely off the main roads in the middle of nowhere. At one point I remember asking Lawford if he knew where we were going and he said, “To hell!” Kennedy just laughed and shot his pistol into the air. After about five or six hours of driving through the desert we came to a spot where we parked the car. Lawford got very quiet. He whispered, “We are in the land of the jackalope. Keep all of your senses alive.” We got out to walk. We carried whatever bottles of beer and bourbon we could find in the car along with some flares and boxes of ammo, then headed out on foot. We walked for hours, only stopping to drink the bourbon. The heat was punishing. The sole force pushing us on under the brutal sun and over uneven desert terrain was the chance encounter with the vicious and fast-attacking jackalope.

  I’ll tell you this. If you want to get to know a man, I mean really get to know him, go jackalope hunting with him. We three got very close out there as we slowly started to die from heatstroke and dehydration. Bobby confided in me that he was responsible for Marilyn Monroe’s death. He had been in love with her long before his brother John but if he couldn’t have her, then no one could. He forced pills on her and left her to die. Peter told me he once had a three-way with Frank Sinatra and his daughter Nancy.

  There’s a chance none of this was true of course. Men say strange things before they are about to die of heatstroke. Our brains were like hot cream of barley soup. I confessed to both of them that I stole dinosaur bones from the Museum of Natural History in New York City. (That actually was true. I did steal those bones, but I needed them.) We wandered aimlessly for days. When the beer and bourbon ran out we experienced a new kind of torture. Bobby Kennedy would not shut up. He was a bit of a Boy Scout and a know-it-all. He was arrogant, like every Kennedy. The kind of arrogance you admire and appreciate and look up to until you have to listen to it all day. Lawford and I quickly grew to hate him and his endlessly blathering mouth. Unfortunately we also knew he was our best chance at survival. He found us water underneath the sand and sustenance in lizards, snakes and cacti. He was an excellent marksman with a revolver as well. Crossing him might have cost us our lives, so we toed the line and nodded our heads when he talked. The sun came up maybe six or seven times on us while we were out there. Buzzards began circling on day five. Meanwhile we hadn’t seen one jackalope. Lawford was beginning to scare me with his Captain Ahab–like declarations. “Gentlemen, there’s jackalopes afoot.” Or “I smell jackalope.” I was beginning to think maybe the jackalope was some sort of hoax made up for tourists!

  Without upsetting Peter Lawford I walked Kennedy out into the desert where we could talk alone. We sat on a rock under the moonlight while Lawford painted his own blood on his face. I quietly spoke to Bobby of my doubts. He confessed to me he hated politics and that he really wanted to be a maintenance man in a luxury hotel but that his father, Joseph, was a real asshole. I tried to stay on point with my concern about the existence of jackalopes and whether we needed to be out in the desert at all. He confided in me that Jackie O was a better lay than Marilyn and that the woman had a mouth on her that could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch. I wanted to listen to his concerns and confidences but I really felt we needed to form a majority opinion so we could talk Lawford into heading back toward civilization. He understood, I think, but wanted me to know that his brother Ted was gay and couldn’t handle it and so he drank. I took this in—that was a big one—but I straight-up asked him if he thought jackalopes were real! He didn’t answer for a long time. I could hear coyotes howling off in the distance. They would be getting close soon. Somewhere a desert owl announced his loneliness with a mournful hoot. The desert is a cold mistress. Finally, Bobby sat up and said these words to me from the poet Aeschylus: “Wisdom comes alone through suffering.” He then walked out into the darkness. I didn’t see him again. Like everyone I was shocked and saddened by his death. I had the solemn duty of having to report it on the evening news. I ended the night’s broadcast with another Aeschylus quotation that maybe Bobby would have appreciated: “Call no man happy until he is dead.” When I awoke the next morning Peter Lawford was standing over me holding a pistol to my face. “Where’s Kennedy?” he yelled. I told him that he’d walked off into the night but he was having none of it. He was sure I had eaten him. Lawford had smeared a clown’s smile on his face and three lines across his forehead. He also had blisters all over his head from the sun. He was nude. I tried to reason with him. I told him how much I liked Bobby and that I would never eat him. Peter was not convinced. He told me he was going to have to kill me to see if he could get his friend Bobby out of my belly. This was nonsense, I thought, but he cocked the gun aimed at my face. Now, here’s where the story gets kind of unbelievable, but it’s absolutely true, as is every word of this novel. As I was about to get shot by Peter Lawford, a voice so smooth and soothing came from the wind and spoke these words: “Kill not this man!” Lawford and I were stunned. Who spoke? Peter started spinning and shooting into the air. It was no use. There was no one there. Both of us were trembling in fear … but then we saw it: a jackalope! And then another, and soon we were surrounded. Thousands of jackalopes, squealing and thumping. It was unbearable. Then after several minutes the squealing and thumping stopped. The biggest jackalope of all approached us and spoke. “My name is Sekannawan, son of Kokatah, cousin to the wind, king of the jackalopes. This violence you wish on each other cannot happen on our sacred ground. You, the one called Ron Burgundy”—he looked at me—“why does this man wish to bring you into eternal darkness?”

  “This man,” I said to the jackalope, “believes I have eaten Senator Bobby Kennedy. He believes Mr. Kennedy is alive and in my belly.”

  “Is this true, Peter Lawford?” asked Sekannawan.

  “Yes, proud mythical beast. I believe the senator has been eaten by this man.”

  “Not so,” said the jackalope king. “Bobby Kennedy was given permission to walk free from here and with our aid he made it back to civilization. He is enjoying the breakfast buffet at the Desert Inn even as I speak.”

  Well, you can imagine how this really burned my britches. Suddenly I didn’t care a lick about this talking jackalope king and I let him know it. “Now, you listen to me! My name is Ron Burgundy and I’m not going to sit here listening to any half rabbit, half antelope blabber on while Bobby Kennedy is enjoying a delicious breakfast buffet. I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT!”

  “Then you have no choice but to enter the Ring of Lost Horns and fight me unto the death!” said Sekannawan the jackalope king.

  “Then I shall fight you!” I cried.

  “Be careful, Burgundy.” Peter was back on my side. “He will tear your limbs off and eat your liver while you are still alive. He will feed your eyes to his children while you can still feel the pain. The raw sound of gnashing baby jackalope teeth on your eyes will drive you to insanity before you die!” It was truly the most emotive I had seen Peter Lawford since his turn as Theodore Laurence in Little Women. I told him as much and he was grateful for the notice.

  We were paraded some miles to a circular patch in the desert. The ground was littered with the horns of dead jackalopes. It was a gruesome sight to be sure but my mind was focused on that buffet. I couldn’t stop thinking about maybe one day possibly wrapping two pancakes around a western omelet in the shape of a huge spongy burrito. I would call it “the Breakfast Burgito
” and it would be enjoyed the world over. In my reverie I hardly heard the sounding of the jackalope yell signaling the beginning of the fight. Sekannawan came at me fast. His little jackrabbit feet exploded his muscular body off the ground. His antlers pointed right at my face as he flew through the air. It was like a grenade had gone off and the shrapnel was coming at me. I had time for one move and one move only. My two hands went instinctively to guard my face. The antlers hit my hands with surprisingly little force. He was a lightweight. I grabbed ahold of both antlers and tore him in half. The fight was over. A thousand jackalopes stood in mute silence, stunned by the death of their king. But soon the silence grew to a murmur and then a growl. “Kill him!” they yelled! And just like that they were on us, Lawford and me. Ripping and gnashing and tearing, they tried their best, but we were killing jackalopes faster than you can say omelet fixins.

  “ENOUGH!” came the cry of a female jackalope. Suddenly they all stopped attacking. When she spoke I knew that she was their queen. “My name is Kokenta, queen of the jackalopes. I say free this man! He has honored the law of the Ring of Lost Horns. He is worthy of our respect and admiration and shall hereafter be known as Ron Burgundy, king of the jackalopes.” I think she was trying to save face, because clearly Lawford and I were going to rip up their entire population in about ten minutes.

  “Great queen,” I said, “I do not wish to be worshipped as your king but only to return to the Desert Inn for their breakfast buffet.”

  “You can return, Ron Burgundy, under one condition,” she spoke.

  “Name your price, wise jackalope queen.”

  “From this day forth you shall harm not beasts of the wild for any reason other than survival of thyself.”

  I was slow to answer but when the words finally came I felt a great relief, like a magical feeling of being one with the universe had overtaken me and I was suddenly free. I answered her demand thusly: “I will indeed honor your condition and from this day forth, this dawn of the jackalopes, I, Ron Burgundy, son of Claude Burgundy, will harm not any beasts of the wild unless my own life is challenged.”