VOAT 12 - A Muppet Story - Read & Vote Here.

-Letter for you Waldorf.


The new orderly is so chirpy he must be on something. Whatever it is I wish they would give it to me. He was waving the envelope about as if it was a winning lottery ticket. I snatched it from him and opened it. Another ticket for that silly show.


-I don’t know why they keep sending me tickets. Maybe they don’t know I haven’t worked for The Globe in over ten years.


-It is addressed to Sunny Days Retirement Home. They must know you’re retired.


-In that case it must be that they can’t sell tickets and want to fill the place up. There was a time I got tickets to every show in town but now these are the only one I ever get so I might as well go along. No doubt Statler will be there too. He never misses a free show either. At least I can get some sense out of him. Most of the folk in here are ga-ga.


-I didn’t know you worked for The Globe, Waldorf. What did you do?


-I was the theatre critic. I got the job by accident. I mean that literally. A car accident killed the Globe’s critic, Bob Hacker, on his way home from a show. I was a cub reporter at the time, covering court cases, town council meetings and lost dog stories when I got a tip-off from a friend in the police department about an accident outside the Adelphi theatre. I rushed over and poor Bob was lying on the pavement in a bad way, not able to speak. When he saw me he pointed to his pocket. I reached in and there was his notebook. He nodded as if he wanted me to have it and that was the last move he ever made.


All the notes were there and the review was needed for the next day’s paper so I typed them up and we published it as a tribute to Bob. I wrote the sub-heading - Bob Hacker’s Last Review. The Final Words of a Man Who Died for His Work. Bob would have liked that. It made him sound like the war correspondent he always wanted to be.


In the notebook were tickets for two other shows that week. I asked the editor what I should do with them and he hollered at me. “What the hell do you think a theatre ticket is for? Get along and write the reviews.” That’s how I came to be the Globe’s theatre critic for over fifty years. Like I say it happened by accident.


-Very funny, Waldorf.


-It’s not funny. A man died. A decent interval after the funeral I went around to his house and asked his widow if she was selling his theatre books. I knew he had quite a collection. “You’re the smart Alex that wrote his last review, aren’t you?” she asked. I admitted I was, expecting her to throw me out, but she told me to take the books with me; she had no use for them. She must have liked my headline.


I didn’t have any qualifications but I had the books for reference and Bob’s notebook and old columns to guide me. I basically copied what he said about one good actor to describe another good actor and what he said about one bad actor to describe another bad actor. Ditto for production, lighting, scenery, etc. I read the books, learned the lingo and managed to produce reviews that sounded as if I had some clue what I was talking about.


Of course they didn’t please everybody. I would get letters saying things like, “I went to see the show you praised and it was rubbish. I can never get back the two hours of my life I wasted but I expect you to refund my $3”. He is still waiting. Another time a distraught young man wrote to say that after attending a show I recommended his girlfriend had fallen out with him and he couldn’t live without her. He should have known better than to take her to a cowboy show but I felt sorry for him and sent him two tickets to a nice romantic comedy. I got an invite to their wedding and they called their first child after me. That’s gratitude.


Not that you got any gratitude from actors. No matter how good a review I wrote they thought I should have praised them more and if you dared write a bad word about them you had to be prepared for their wrath. Once an actor stormed into the office in full costume from the period drama I had rubbished to challenge me to pistols at dawn. I thought it was a publicity stunt but he had the guns with him. Security called the police and although it turned out they were replicas he was taken away to sober up in the cells.


Then there were the actresses. It would make a young man like you blush if I told what those girls were willing to do to get a good review. They had no shame. I’m not the type to take advantage but I’m as weak as the next man when it comes to pretty girl. I can’t remember when I last saw a pretty girl. I think they recruit the staff in this dump from an agency that specialises in placing ugly women. I’m still handsome for a man of my years. I could still woo a pretty girl, if I ever got to meet one. There might be one at the show tonight but more than likely it will be me and Statler, all alone.


-Who is Statler? A friend of yours?


-He’s no friend of mine. He was the critic at The Planet and they send him a ticket too. I could never stand the man. Their old critic was like me, self-taught and happy to get the copy in on time and the space filled. Then they hired this new guy, fresh from university with a degree in Theatre Studies and Philosophy. What kind of a degree is that? If you go to university you should do a proper course like medicine or law and get a good job. He might look down on me but he laugh is on him. He went to all that trouble to get a job I got by accident.


Before I ever met him I decided not to like him and in the thirty odd years we spent attending the same shows I kept my resolve. I had no reason to like a college-educated brat who never filed a Local Boy Recues Cat story. I enjoyed the job before Statler came along. I was out three or four nights a week getting paid to watch the shows everybody else had to pay to see. I got to see top shows before anybody else. I met the stars and went to all the parties. After he started writing his ‘educated’ reviews I had to match him. I had to be more critical than him. Everybody in the business hated him and soon they hated me more because I used to be their pal.


That is how it went on, one review more cutting than the last, until the editor called me into the office and asked if I wanted to retire. I said I had ten more good years in me but he made it clear my options were to retire gracefully or be sacked. They had already hired my replacement. A woman, would you believe? They have taken over. We let them in to do a few fashion and cookery fillers and before we knew it they were running the show. She was going to have a ‘fresh approach’. All sweetness and light and positivity. A few months later Statler got his marching orders. The Planet wanted a ‘fresh approach’ as well. They hired another woman. Do you ever read the twaddle in the reviews they write?


-I can’t say I do. I don’t have a lot of time or money for going out.


-Wise man. Keep your money in your pocket and don’t waste it on newspapers or shows. They are all in cahoots. The theatres pay for ads in the papers that then use the money to pay the reviewers who say the shows are wonderful. Hand in glove they are.


Now are you going to sit talking all day or are you going to do the job you are paid for and help an old man to get dressed? I have a show to go to.

The common dining room was packed with residents eating a variety of terrible dishes. Roast beef and mash for those who could manage it, a vile greenish purée for those who’d lost their dentures or forgotten how to chew. The kitchen staff and nurses moved from table to table, dropping plates in front of residents and fitting them with oversized bibs, smiling fake smiles and making forced small talk. The acting was as bad as the food.

“Just like the good old days,” Statler said.

It was true enough, if you ignored the fact that they sat in this dining room instead of a theatre and that their seats looked onto the kitchen instead of a stage. The rest was the same. The show was run by incompetents, the audience too silly to see it.

Statler and Waldorf had made the move to the assisted living facility together, but when Waldorf had been transferred to the nursing home, Statler had been left behind. Now he was lucky to see Waldorf once a month, on the rare Sundays when his daughter or grandson could spare a few hours and drive him out here.

Next to him, Waldorf sat in his wheelchair, shovelling the soupy mash into his mouth, globs of it getting stuck in his overgrown moustache. Whiskers stuck out every which way, some even curling into his mouth, and Statler made a mental note to give them a good trim before leaving.

When the nurses had moved to the other side of the room, Statler pulled a stack of Oreo cookies out of his bag and arranged them in a semi-circle under the lip of Waldorf’s plate. Nowadays, food was the only thing that brought Waldorf some enjoyment, but the nurses insisted on limiting his intake of sweets and Statler made it a point to bring his friend’s favourite treats when he visited. There was another stash of goodies in his bag that he’d tuck away in Waldorf’s room later.

“The roast beef was dry,” Statler remarked as he pushed his plate away.

“I’ve had drier,” Waldorf said, dropping his fork and stuffing a whole cookie into his mouth.

Statler smiled. Maybe today was a good day. “Your wife’s?”

“No, yours.” Waldorf turned to his friend then, a surprised look on his face. “Statler.” He said it almost like a question, like he hadn’t expected to see him there.

“Who else,” Statler said, feeling pinpricks of tears in his eyes.

Waldorf hadn’t recognised him in months, much less called him by name.

“Thanks for this,” Waldorf said, holding up another cookie and dunking it in his glass of milk. “This place will drive you to drink.” He ate the cookie, gulped down the milk, then turned his heavy-lidded eyes back to Statler. They were lucid and clear.

Statler hardly knew what to say, though speaking proved unnecessary, since Waldorf started talking and didn’t stop, his wit razor-sharp as ever in spite of the holes in his memory. He swore there was a nurse that was the spitting image of that pig—What was her name? Yes, Miss Piggy, that was it­­—from that show they used to watch from the balcony—Remember that? Yeah, The Muppets. Statler joined in, recalling anecdotes and filling in the blanks, until Waldorf interrupted him mid-sentence.

“Who are you?”

Statler laughed, thinking for a second that Waldorf was joking, but when he saw the deep lines in his friend’s forehead, how clouded his eyes had become, Statler’s laughter died in his throat.

“An old friend,” he said.

“The good old days,” Waldorf murmured, his brow furrowed as he searched the black holes of his memory for the significance of that line.

Statler sighed. In the good old days, they’d been old already. Now they were ancient. Broken. Waiting for the end.

When Waldorf had finished his cookies and the only remaining crumbs were the ones peppering his moustache, Statler got to his feet and started wheeling him back to his room, his own joints crunching and creaking as they went past the nurses’ station and down the long hallway, past all the rooms where the residents were bed-ridden. Statler slowed down as they approached the rec room, stopped in the doorway as he heard the borking of the Swedish Chef. A number of old, broken people sat in wheel chairs and busted recliners in front of the TV, their vacant eyes on the screen, where the Swedish Chef was on the losing side of a battle with a large piece of dough. Statler waited for the sketch to play out, hoping it would jog Waldorf’s memory and give him another glimpse of his old friend. But when the sketch came to an end and the audience roared with laughter, in the rec room with the bright yellow walls, there was nothing but the silence of those who wait.

Congrats to leafonthewind, a clear winner in this competition.

Thanks to everyone who entered.