Because brevity is impossible for me, this is in two parts; I can’t tell the “click” story without a long preamble.

This story concerns false memory and my dad’s mercurial sense of humor. Of all the things I loved about my violent Dad, his sense of humor profoundly affected me. So many times, I retell some of my Dad’s exploits, and I can see disbelief on the faces of those listening. He fired a shotgun into the trees while I was climbing them. He helped tie someone to a huge stump at deer camp and set it ablaze with the unfortunate butt of the joke tied to the stump while it burned. He stole a crop duster airplane once; rather, he borrowed it, much to the owner’s horror. When he ran the gas station, he put ignition-fired fireworks under the hood of strangers’ cars. He did it more than once to my Aunt Elsie. He did it to the Sheriff and more than one deputy or police officer. The more they screamed or objected, the funnier it became. He lay underneath unsuspecting friends’ trucks as they started to climb inside, only to fire a shotgun or pistol between their feet, sometimes in total darkness, to hear their high operatic screams of terror. If he were in the swamps and marshes with my Uncle Preacher or Uncle Buck, he’d grab the overhanging tree limbs to knock snakes out into the Jon boat with them. He loved grabbing a snake and walking into Aunt Barbara’s house to make her shriek. I loved hearing someone shout, “Goshdamnit, Bobby Dean!” It was a sign that the happy-go-lucky mayhem version of my Dad was on stage. Luckily for me, I was not afraid of snakes. I hated eating them, though; Dad forced me to attempt eating them a few times. More than once, he tossed an entire box of gun shells into a fireplace. People who could barely walk became Usain Bolt in an attempt to escape. (He loved doing this at deer camp, too.) Because he had access to dynamite to blow rice field dams, he used a stick of it to wake people up more than once. More than once, people not only choked on their cigarettes when they exploded but also had more than a few singed eyebrows. He’d grab someone’s dentures and stick them crazily in his own mouth. He loved putting people’s rear wheels up on blocks, especially at the local taverns, so that when they got in, they’d floor the gas, only to be stupefied that they weren’t moving. If he were feeling really adventurous, he’d let them floor it and rock the truck off the blocks so that the vehicle would suddenly fly into gear at an unknown, uncontrollable speed. I’ve written before that it was impossible to play Chicken with him. His motto was “Never veer.” More than one poor soul discovered the hard way that it didn’t matter if Dad was driving a truck, a tractor, or a motorcycle, you dared not challenge him unless you were prepared to meet Jesus. Dad loved putting spiders, snakes, and frogs in mailboxes. My Uncle Preacher and Uncle Beb also worked for the postal service. More than once, Dad got ahead of them and loaded mailboxes with surprises. He loved having shotgun shells loaded with too many grains of powder or adding colorant to them. Adding black powder to the ashes of a fireplace was another surefire way to elicit a scream from the person attempting to light a fire. Another one of his favorite tricks was to sneak up on someone in a tree stand and fire his gun below them. He once spent hours rebuilding a nice Chevy truck, devising a way to put an incredibly small and low horsepower engine in it. The owner got in and attempted to drive away. It took him about sixty seconds to get to 50 mph. The amount of work Dad devoted to the joke made it that much more delicious to him. I’m certain that the man told that story a thousand times during his lifetime. I have a million such anecdotes.

Over the years, I briefly remembered my dad, Bobby Dean, my brother Mike, and I saying “Click,” followed by a laugh. Most of the time, I couldn’t remember why it was funny. The inside joke became its own reward. Like any kids, my brother and I loved Saturday mornings. No matter how violent our house was the night before, we usually found a way to use the expanse of Saturday morning to glean at least a little freedom. During the fights, it was rare for a TV to get damaged. It wasn’t because TVs were expensive so much as the fact that TV was one saving grace in our lives. My Uncle Buck was an electronics tech at Montgomery Ward. He taught me how to spice into cable wires and experiment. My brother Mike wasn’t interested in any of it. But sometimes, it paid off, as it did when we lived in City View in Springdale.

We cherished the tiny little black and white TV we had in our bedroom; being poor makes such things become gold. Back in the day, when an additional cable line required only splicing ability, a curious kid like me could add channels with nothing except scissors and extra cable. Between you and me, it was also easy to get or give cable service to anyone just by running a cable across the short distance between closely stacked trailers. Though Uncle Buck showed me how to connect RCA cables properly, people usually cut and twisted the two internal wires (one mesh and the other copper). It made mowing problematic without cutting the illegal connections, but the fix was cheap and fast.

When my brother began to decline rapidly, I did my best to get him to share stories and remember things of our past. It was a way to reconnect with him. Mike’s memory once was the stuff of legend. Later, his memory became a false narrative, one tempered with an insistence on concealment. Years later, I understand it much better now. It was the inevitable consequence of alcoholism and secrecy colliding.

During one of our telephone conversations, we rapidly exchanged witty barbs. Mike said, “Click!” and pretended he’d hung up, which made us both howl with laughter. When our laughter subsided, Mike asked me if I remembered the genesis of the joke. I didn’t. Twice during the rest of the conversation, he’d shout “Click” and literally hang up, leaving me to wonder what happened. Which made my brother Mike laugh even harder.

This is paraphrasing what Mike said. Part of it is completely wrong in his retelling:

“We lived in City View, and at the time, we didn’t have that tiny TV in our shared bedroom. The Saturday morning in question, we got up and were scared to death that we’d go out into the trailer’s living room and find someone dead. We quietly turned on the console TV with the sound down. After a few minutes, Dad came out of the bedroom to our left. He smelled like a distillery. We were both scared and knew better than to run for the hills. Last night’s fight was one of the typical ones wherein Mom had provoked Dad relentlessly until they both began to punch and hurl things. Dad laid down on the couch and grunted for us to turn up the volume. Looney Tunes was on. You and I sat on the floor, wanting to enjoy the cartoons but afraid we’d move or say something to set Dad off. After a bit, we both looked at each other in shock. Dad actually laughed at one of the jokes. We were relieved; humorous Dad was somehow active after a night of anger. Bugs Bunny ran downstairs to escape Yosemite Sam, both of whom had baseball bats. Each turned off the lights with a ‘click’ at the top and bottom of the stairs. Yosemite Sam attempted to run downstairs and hit Bugs Bunny with the bat. After a couple of attempts, instead of turning off the lights, Bugs Bunny said, ‘Click,’ sending Yosemite Sam back up the stairs. He turned off his switch in confusion and headed down, at which point Bugs Bunny hit him with the bat in the dark. To our shock, Dad howled with laughter. We had laughed, too, but our laughter was tempered by the urge not to draw attention to our presence or remind Dad that we were in the room. Dad continued to laugh, which prompted us to laugh harder. “Click!” Dad began to say repeatedly. And laughed even harder. We listened in amusement as Dad repeated, “Click!” and laughed for several minutes. It had been a long time since we heard him laugh so hard during a moment of normal living. Over the next few months, Dad would randomly shout “Click!” and pretend to shut a door, close a cabinet, or pop a shotgun closed. Then we’d all laugh. If someone asked him to turn on a light, if he didn’t tell them to get their ass up and do it themselves, he would reach for the switch, say “Click,” and pretend to flip the switch.”

“Click” became an intermittent running joke among the three of us. Even though the joke’s origin faded, there were times when one of us said “Click,” and we could laugh. No matter how crazy the home life around us was. If Mom were hungover, she would bitch and complain if it resulted in us laughing. Laughter in the presence of anger or resentment results in unfortunate backlash. For those of you without such a dynamic to witness, some of the best moments happened when Mom was in a horrendous, scorched-Earth mood and Dad did all manner of things to annoy her further. How he avoided being tied in the sheets and beaten with greater regularity is still a mystery. Almost always, Mom later appreciated the jokes, no matter how angry she was then. An example is when Dad filled her hair spray with sugar water in an attempt to attract wasps and bees. When Dad was in a good mood, nothing stopped his pursuit of humor. Though I might sound crazy to say it, if Dad were drunk but possessed by his dangerous sense of humor, he was a delight. The ongoing problem was the impossibility of knowing which version of Dad might emerge once sufficient alcohol passed his lips. But if he were possessed by the drunken angels of his nature? Mayhem could ensue – the kind of mayhem and humor that perhaps only half-feral young boys could relish.

After Mike told me the story, I searched for it online. I kept Googling “Bugs Bunny + Yosemite Sam + Stairs + Click.” No results. After Mike retold the anecdote, I remembered the cartoon clearly, just as he had recounted it. One day at work, I did the “Click” joke on a co-worker and howled with laughter. Though my brother Mike had died, finding the original cartoon consumed me.

Searching diligently, I found the video “The Windblown Hare,” featuring Bugs Bunny and a wolf. Yosemite Sam was nowhere to be found in the cartoon. I watched the video repeatedly and laughed as Bugs Bunny cleverly said, “Click,” leading to the wolf getting bashed with the bat.

Mike’s version of the memory had become mine, too. The important element was a shared lifelong joke among the three of us. Though it wasn’t “Ah’m the rootin’ tootinest gunslinger this side of the Pecos!” Yosemite Sam in the cartoon we watched decades ago in our ugly living room, it certainly was a sublime moment of unforgettable humor.

To my Dad: “Click.”

My lights are still on, though both you and Mike have departed. Writing this brought a bouquet of emotions, a few of which were the equivalent of snakes falling from the trees and waking up when you flipped the entire bed over on top of us for failing to get up like newly enlisted Army recruits.

PS I remastered the picture. Working on photos and realizing I’m the only participant still alive is still sobering. To have a picture of everyone smiling is a testament to impossibility.

Love, X
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The video in question begins around the one-minute mark…