Little Kevin was born exactly thirteen years ago into the Shapiro family of freaks. Yes his family has been living on a nuclear site without knowing it. Kevin's mother, for example, had three fingers on her left hand and Kevin's father had died of breast cancer. Kevin himself, a dyslexic homosexual, was the only child that lived to boyhood.

For his thirteen's birthday, his uncle, Frankie Shapiro, the man with a stutter and burped hydrogen, decided to give him an education. Together they sat in the principal's office of Victoria Elementary school.

As usual, a can of coke had gotten uncle Frankie to burp uncontrollably. Little Kevin, full of gratitude, offered him a cigarette. Before uncle Frankie could utter 'na.na.na.no!', the fire lighter clicked. Poor kevin, a kindergarten dropout on his way to a course in English and chemistry, never knew pure hydrogen exploded in presence of fire. The entire office, the principal, uncle Frankie and 13 year old Kevin, disappeared into the air.

End

Kevin Shapiro was not born here. By here, I don't mean Pittsburgh; I don't mean Perth-Amboy; I don't mean Poughkeepsie, Portland OR, Portland ME, Nwahleans, The Big Apple, The Big Tomato (?), nor even do I mean (of all places) Redondo Beach....nor even Pismo Beach (SEE: A. Pismo Clam). Nosiree, Bub, none o' them places. By "here" I mean...now lean closer so's I can whisper it to ya, 'cause I don't want no one else hearin' this...By "Here" I mean good ol' planet Earth! I got it on good authority (verifiable) that K. Shapiro was actually born on the planet Flatu, located somewhere in the next galaxy over, slightly to the Left of Center! So that explains, partially, why he's a bit Off-center.

The inhabitants of planet Flatu are called Flatulants, which reminds me a bit of postulants, which are sort of similar, but different. Their capital city is named Limberger (Englished, of course), and they are all issued Nasal Clothes Pins at birth as part of their uniform. Oh, yes, all Flatulants wear a uniform (to mark their devotion to the Tenuosities of Conformity), except, of course, for our own Breakaway Kevin Shapiro, who decks himself out as a Cross-Dressing Retro Punker Grunge Dude. It keeps 'em guessing! (In Los Angeles he is deemed inconspicuous.)

But Kevin has issues, not to mention disgruntles. (Fortunately, Kevin is weaponless). Among these issues is the fact that the anorexic Flatulants worship Gorgonzola as God! He much prefers M. Roquefort, although he has begged many indulgences from M. Gorgonzola. Ah! His contradictions are legion! Because mostly he's not too fussy when it comes to cheese (like his friend Wallace). One of his basic tenets: it ain't easy being a Cheese-Freak in an anorexic society.

And yet another disgruntlement: The Flatulants are multi-lingual, but choose to speak mostly in Yiddish, with smatterings of Anglo and patterings of Saxon, not to mention multitudinous other linguistic fripperies too numerous to enumerate. He often thinks: Oy Vey, Such a language, throw in a little Swahili and you'd have Lingo Stew! But, such is life in the Great Galactic Diversity.

Kevin's fellow planet-mates irradiate him with their pleas for him to Kowtow to the Bowwow of the Tenuosities of Conformity. But our Kevin-Heaven Shapiro-Beero is much too diaphanous for that! He simply responds by flipping them the Major Universal Inter-Galactic Singularity, and thinking: So much for Flatulants!

Kevin didn't need a father. Not the one he had. Not someone who banned him from all sorts of entertainment, not someone who beats him to stay fit, not someone who made him shut his mouth when his nose was full of snot.

Kevin Shapiro had a dream. He has had it ever since he read a book called The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death. He wanted to snark out - to sneak out after midnight. The overwhelming desire hurt him like burning flame. He knew he could never survive the beating once he got caught.

Kevin was living in a dream. Before long, snarking out was the one thing he lived for. He had to do it. And he had a plan.

The plan was simple. He was to snark out in bed. He was going to stay awake throughout the night and look out of the window down to the streets and imagine he was there.

Everything went smoothly. Some time after midnight Kevin was staring down to the lovely streets, the warm yellow streetlights, people playing poker or chess under lamp posts, the rain that made everything fresh and shiny. Before he knew it Kevin was sobbing. He longed so much to walk freely in the night streets, breath the night air and maybe catch a - 'what's that noise!!' a voice like thunder shouted. A shadow appeared at the door. 'You asked for it!' a man ran towards Kevin, the ground trembled.

Kevin Shapiro clutched the ceramic pig to his chest, the pennies deep within its belly rattling with fear. The bank robbers wore ski masks and shouted obscenities at everyone -- each other, the customers, and the mindless bank employees, drones who just happen to work in the wrong place at the wrong time. Guns were flashed to employees and patrons like unnecessary punctuation. Everyone wanted to cooperate. Everyone except Kevin.

Sure, it was only four dollars and 56 cents, but to Kevin, the money was so much more. Digging through restaurant dumpsters and recycling his foster mother’s empty beer bottles only accounted for two dollars worth of pennies. The rest he had earned doing odd jobs around the neighborhood – picking up Mrs. Kaperski’s dog’s droppings in her backyard and helping ol’ man Tulsan kill squirrels. He had worked for every old crank, slaving for every loony in New Jersey, just for a few precious copper coins. And he wasn’t giving them up without a fight. He couldn’t just hand over his future.

The bank robbers ordered everyone to lie down on the arctic cold marble floor.

"Get down," the leader yelled. "Or I’ll fill yer bellies full of lead. Argghhh!."

In unison, everyone dropped to the ground. Only a lone young boy of 15 stood in defiance. A piggy bank clutched tightly to his heaving chest.

"Yo ho! What do we ‘ave ‘ere? Down on the ground, Land Lubber!"

The robber fired a round from his shotgun into the ceiling. One of the women fainted, but it was all right since she was on the floor already. A male bank employee started to cry softly, soiling himself. Kevin stood without moving, a pillar of determination.

"Look ‘ere me lads. We’ve got ourselves a real hero. Har har."

Kevin leaped for the robber’s weapon, grabbing hold the barrel, wrestling with all his strength. The shotgun came loose and the pig crashed onto the marble floor, his cooper entrails sliding in all directions, predicting a grim future. Suddenly, Kevin had the weapon and he pointed it at the leader. Tears filled Kevin’s eyes.

"Don’t you see," he cried. "I need this money. You see, I have a dream…"

But as Kevin stepped forward, he slipped on the pennies, so many summers of blood, sweat and tears. Pitching forward, the shotgun fired wild over the robbers’ heads and his surroundings tilted up, a carnival ride out of control. The marble floor rose to greet him, slamming the pink ceramic shard through his skull, skewering his brain.

The robbers collected the pennies, chuckling to themselves. Four dollars and 56 cents worth of rum would be consumed before the sun sank in the west.

Kevin Shapiro stepped onto the chair and tightened the rope around his neck. He wondered how Lee, who had inspired him for so long, could turn his back on him.

He had written Lee to ask for an autographed picture from his performance in the 1968 Olympics.

Kevin was feeling a despair he could never overcome; a despair worse than anyone had ever felt. Lee had been his only reason to go on since his parents had been devoured by leopards in the Kalahari two years earlier. In and out of more orphanages than he could remember, Kevin ran away to the mountain cabin he inherited. He knew that in that secluded spot, nobody could stop him from killing himself. That would teach Lee to return a letter.

He kicked out the chair. It seemed like an eternity; it could have been a millisecond. How odd, he thought. His life wasn’t flashing before his eyes. The only thing he noticed was that the rope was burning his neck, and he wished he’s used nylon instead of manila. Oh, yeah. He couldn’t breathe, either. He tried to reach for the rope to relieve the pressure, but he had tied his hands together behind his back. Maybe killing himself wasn’t the right idea. Nobody would be coming to the cabin in the foreseeable future, and Lee would never learn of Kevin’s suicide. If anybody would find him, it would be a lost deer hunter looking for shelter. After all, hunting season had just started.

A shot rang out. A stray bullet pierced the cabin wall, hit the rope, and whizzed out the window as Kevin dropped to the floor. By a freak accident, his life was spared.

He crawled over to the broken window and used a piece of glass to free his hands. He got up and went to the door to see if his benefactor was still about. As he walked up to the door, the mailman walked up and said, “Are you Kevin Shapiro? I have a letter for you. I’m afraid it was just recently recovered from a mail plane crash site. We apologize for the inconvenience.” Kevin thanked the mailman, took the letter, and the mailman left.

As Kevin opened the letter, another shot rang out. This time, the bullet hit Kevin in the neck. As he lay on the ground bleeding to death, he saw the contents of the envelope. It was the picture of Lee, along with an invitation to join him at SpaceCamp.

Living with his oafish, brutish aunt and uncle, mercilessly taunted by their piggish son, Kevin Shapiro dreamed of escape. His reverie would carry him away to a wondrous world of witches and warlocks, of magic and marvels, where he could study the mystic arts in an enchanted castle somewhere in Scotland.

One drab, dismal day, Kevin looked up from the garden he was weeding, wiping the stinging sweat from his brow when a most remarkable sight appeared: a snow-white owl dropped a roll of parchment right into Kevin's hands. And the words on the scroll, inscribed in glowing green ink, drove Kevin into the house, shouting with glee.

That night, as Kevin struggled with the manila rope binding his wrists, looking down at the flames licking at his feet, he realized that telling his uncle about the scroll had been a misjudgement, at best.

The day he brought a rubber-dart pistol to work, Kevin found his cubicle had already vanished. He heckled himself, and then made a joke to a moving guy with grease on his thumbs and a long, long stare. Kevin looked for his desk, but it was gone. Even his retro "The ProWriter Cometh" poster had abandoned him.

Out to pasture on a technicality, he presumed. He pulled the novelty plunger on the gun, pointed the barrel at the dirty window, and clicked the trigger. The dart didn't stick, but bounced off. It fell into a depression in the carpet.

Listen to Adam improvise another version of the song!

life for the young kevin shapiro has gotten easier over the years, until he was not so young anymore. he started out just a boy with a rather large dream of eating three home cooked meals in the same day. a dream because he happens to be sans residence and rather large because no one has ever been that hospitable.

he is now a man mind you and even the pity he had as a lone boy on the street has vanished with the preteen peach fuzz. city street lights laugh at him the garbage cans welcome his patronage and ask a little for thier trouble mainly the removal of the heavier items the clothes the shoes and the ever present rats.

one day he came upon a house that looked quite empty and hospitable: at least livable to kevin. He knocked down the rather large oak door with a tinge of rust at the hinges and set about searching the inside for the meal of his dreams. anything even a can of 50 year old kumkuats would do better than the filth that kevin was used to eating.

a bang was heard from the kitchen or at least what kevin would have known to be the kitchen if his search had not been called off by the racket. "who is in my house" a gritty voice howled from deep within its throat. "i'll rip 'em into the pieces they should have been left in on the floor of the delivery room, along with thier mother the father and thier great aunt twice removed." with that all kevin could think about was running and his legs agreed and obliged. Kevin lept through a second story window onto the street in front of a middle aged woman carrying a grocery bag. " are you all right?" she asked.

" I think so" kevin replied with all the air that seemed to remain in his lungs.

"too bad" she said as she pulled out a long pistol "i only help hurt people"

the corpse of kevin shapiro sits quietly on the sidewalk oozing its red river into the street and down a storm drain. Into the gutter where he had called home for so long.

"Kevin Shapiro,"the nurse at the office said,"The doctor will see you now."

His mother nodded towards the door and Kevin got up. He had always been afraid of the doctor's office but now was different. Now he would have to go for the worm in his stomach was getting bigger.

In Dr. Brown's office, Kevin felt a little more comfortable. Dr. Brown's face had a big fake grin plastered on his face, "Mrs. Shaprio, Kevin how are you? The resluts from the lab are back......"

"And?" Kevin asked bravely.

"Well Kevin my boy, this might be a little hard for you but ah.....the worm, well it's.....it's not a worm."

"What?!" Kevin and his mother yelled at the same time."Then what is it?"

"It's more than one.... it's a colony of aliens." At that moment, Kevin's mother fainted and deep inside Kevin a small voice giggled and said "We have been in here for a long long time Kevin....hehehe.....we like you."

It was time. Kevin Shapiro, boy orphan had all he could take of his miserable life. He wrote his suicide note, carefully, using the best penmanship his 8th grade public school education afforded him, using a pen he stole from the post office -- a federal offense. He sealed the note with wax. The wax supplied by a crayon he found on the street -- burnt umber. He idly wondered what an umber was, and why someone would burn it. Holding a cheap cigarette lighter up to the crayon, he dripped twice-burnt umber onto the paper sealing the note. He nailed the note to a tree and walked to the train tracks and laid down across them, closing his eyes, and breathing deep. He was five minutes early. He knew the ConRail freight train would be passing over his soon to be broken body in a short while.

Then he heard a clammoring like no other he had heard before, he opened his eyes, to see the train, not bearing down on him, but turned on its side, derailed, and skidding to a stop. There were small rubber ducks headed for a New Jersy wharehouse everywhere.

Kevin, sighed, retrieved his note and began to walk back to the orphanage. "Figures," he sighed, "nothing ever works out the way I want."

It was a typical day for Kevin Shapiro, Boy Orphan: He pretended to leave his foster home for school, but instead hid out in a cardboard box located in a small 10 foot by 18 foot piece of undeveloped land behind the LAY-Z-MART recliner emporium. He could fit comfortably in the discarded recliner box, among the golden yellow weeds that have overgrown in this miniature vacant lot. Feeling a little hungry, he decided to go to the nearby Food-Barn Grocery. He bought a Black Belt Magazine and shoplifted a box of red vines. He returned to his box, and looked over the ads for nun-chucks and ninja-stars while chomping on his stolen red vines. About half-way through the box of licorice, a car drove through the alley behind the LAY-Z-MART. The driver slowed down, and looked at Kevin with mouth agape. Kevin thought it might have been his gym teacher, but actually attending school so rarely, he wasn't sure. If it was his gym teacher, he probably had the same amount of trouble at placing the oft-absent Kevin Shapiro. Kevin put on his 'defiant face' and just stared the possibly ersatz gym teacher until he drove off shaking his head.

"Well, time to get on with the day," thought Kevin, "before Mr. Mann drops the dime and tells the truant officer where to find me." Kevin made his way to a different alley, on the way stopping just long enough to snatch an old lady's purse. Arriving at the alley, he met Grant Wellington, a drug dealer of low repute. Finding that the old lady Kevin stole the purse from was five dollars short of his favorite high, Kevin beat up Grant and took all his merchandise. Chuckling to himself, he was blissfully unaware of his surroundings as he stepped off the curb and was hit by the vehicle driving well above the speed limit.

Kevin Shapiro, Boy Orphan did not die.

The vehicle that hit Kevin was a 1950 Pontiac Ambulance. Though it was short on lifesaving equipment, but there was oxygen and horizontal transport to the hospital run by High Lamas of the Silly Hat order. The doctors and nurses did all they could for Kevin (all the while, wearing silly hats, but not so silly as to impede the practice of medicine), but after 3 surgeries, there was nothing else to be done than to wait and see if he ever woke from his coma.

While in his Coma, Kevin Shapiro, Boy Orphan found his consciousness to reside in a spiritual representation of a fast food restaurant. He was the only customer in the place, and the food was free. He ate many a pickle-burger, and drank many a Kroka-Kola. Those working at the fast food restaurant were an eclectic crew. A bearded man with long hair ran the front counter. A fat man with a serene smile ran the soda machine. The cook wore her long hair in a net, and efficiently ran the grill with her six arms. There were many others that would come and go, all seeming to have an inner-light that would illuminate them from within. Each in their turn, would sit with Kevin while on their break, drink a soda with him, and impart him with a little wisdom. Over time, Kevin became very wise. And becoming wise, he desired to do good in the world.

Kevin Shapiro, Man Orphan woke up.

Kevin found that he had been in a coma for 15 years. No longer a boy, but a man. A man who had been taught by the wisest fast-food workers in the universe for a decade and a half. Kevin was a wise and good man.

The following months were torture for the enlightened and awoken Kevin Shapiro. All of his muscles had atrophied, and he had to learn to use them again. He had to learn how to walk, how to talk, how to feed himself. The day he went to the bathroom standing up for the first time, he was awarded a silly hat of his very own.

During the months of rehabilitation, he had won the hearts of all those who worked at the hospital, from the top surgeon, to the graveyard shift janitor. His tireless work at his own rehabilitation, and the meditation sessions he ran three times a week impressed many. Kevin Shapiro, Man Orphan was a friend to all he encountered.

Kevin's story was shown on the local news, and the man who now ran the Orphanage that Kevin was abandoned nearly 30 years before offered him a job working with the orphans there as a chaplain and counselor. Overjoyed at the news to help others, Kevin doubled his already tremendous effort to get better, and get to work.

The day Kevin Shapiro, Man Orphan left the hospital, there was much crying and smiling and waving. Kevin was presented so many flowers and balloons he had trouble carrying them all. As he reached the curb, he turned to wave to those wishing him well, and losing his balance fell into the street where he was hit by a vehicle going well above the speed limit.

Kevin Shapiro, Man Orphan died.

Kevin Shapiro, boy orphan, lay shivering in the alley behind his orphanage. He'd missed curfew by a mere two minutes, but that was enough to seal his fate for the night. He'd be sleeping on cardboard. He hid behind a dumpster so we wouldn't be spotted by the representatives of the Hobos, Winos and Bag Ladies' Benevolent Association, Local 1137. If they caught him they'd beat him half to death for collecting used chewing gum from the sidewalks in their territory. It was his attempts to evade the H.W.A.B.L.B.A.'s goons on his way home that had resulted in his missing curfew in the first place. With nothing else to do, he began slowly and silently crying himself to sleep. Then he heard the skitter of a rat's claws.

The rat was sniffing a half-rotten cantaloupe that lay just in front of the dumpster. But in Kevin's mind, he had already claimed that flyblown cantaloupe as his own. If he didn't move soon, he'd lose his midnight snack. Gathering his meager strength, he didn't so much spring as struggle into action.

His run was clumsy. He'd had a growth spurt in the last few weeks, but the orphanage couldn't afford to buy him a new peg-leg until the start of their next fiscal year, still seventeen months away. He'd tried taping an old hockey puck to the bottom of his peg-leg to even out his gait, but the off-brand cellophane tape the orphanage kept in their stockroom just fell off in sticky fragments. Off-balance, Kevin skidded on a patch of greasy garbage and smashed into the ground. He felt a snap from one his ribs, grown brittle from the lack of milk products in his diet, and two of his remaining teeth felt wobbly, but he'd landed close enough to grab the rat by its tail.

Kevin shrieked in agony as the wildly squirming rat sank its small but needle-sharp teeth into his left thumb, which was already swollen from earlier in the day when Sister Mary Margaret had smacked it with the edge of her ruler as punishment for writing with his left hand. He knew they could hear the shriek inside, and he also knew there would be no response. The rules were strict.

But despite the pain Kevin kept up the struggle, and within minutes he had clubbed the rat into unconsciousness with the stump of his right forearm. Ironically, it was the loss of his right hand in a shrink-wrapping accident that hid gotten him out of the sneaker factory and, ultimately, into Sister Mary Margaret's class. Silently, secretly, not even admitting it to himself for fear that he would laugh at himself, the same way everyone else laughed at him, he dreamed that someday, maybe someday, he could be a janitor in a factory like that.

So there Kevin lay, mouth and thumb bleeding, ribs and jaw aching, shivering in the cold, covered with the fragrant slime that had leaked out of the dumpster, and smiling from ear to mangled ear-hole. Because, when all was said and done, this was turning out to be a red-letter day for young Kevin Shapiro. Tonight, for the first time in three and a half years, for the first time since that horrible day when his father's clumsiness with a gas grill had robbed him of his family, his future, and more than half of his face, his ruined mouth would once again taste meat.

It was a cold and windy day, as most days are for Kevin Shapiro. He pulled the collar of his coat up more tightly around his ears. It was 12:30 at his middle school, during recess, and even though his teachers knew it was to cold to be playing outside, they still insisted that Kevin Shapiro and the other students do so. A bell rang, meaning recess was finally over, and Kevin Shapiro walked into the school building, only to be beckoned by the superintendent for a message. Kevin Shapiro's after school bus had been indefinitely delayed, and he would have to walk "home", which was really an orphanage where he lived.

Kevin Shapiro started walking, but the cold was too much for his malnourished body to handle. He collapsed in an ally, too far away from his school to cause notice, and too far away from the orphanage to cause notice. Kevin Shapiro knew he had been beat.

Kevin Shapiro looked at the 40 watt reconstruction of a melting orb running like an egg yolk along the horizon of his model train set display. "Oy," he breathed into a root beer and sambuka on ice. The tumbler into which it had been poured had been foisted from a thrift store three days before.

But that was all in the past.

The Chicken Man entered the room.

"We chopped up the Datsun station wagon, Saheb," he whispered. "Is Master Shapiro, President of all Things, not pleased?"

Shapiro extracted two ice cubes from his tumbler and inserted them thoughtfully into his nostrils.

"Get away from me, Chicken Man," he whined. "Or I'll blow chunks in stereo."

The Chicken Man placed Claudia, his chicken and confidant, on the plastic replica of a silo and instructed her to await his orders.

"The world," said the Chicken Man, "is an imitation tuppeware container into which we dump our innermost thoughts, like leftover boneless chicken medley--pardon, me, Claudia."

He pressed his shoe on top of Shapiro's.

"Dig me-- Sparky?"

Kevin looked into the Chicken Man's eyes and realized that this would prove to be a bad day for USDA boneless chicken, and for planet earth.

Kevin had had to live with his dad for a long, long time, but he had never seen him like this. It was as it Vietnam had come back all over again. The doctors had told Kevin that his dad's visions were over, but they had been wrong. Here he was, in the middle of the mall, acting as if everyone around him except for me was part of the Viet Cong. He had an imaginary machine gun in his hands, and was pretending to shoot it at the passers-by. Kevin tried to calm him down, and then looked around for assistance. That was when he saw the security guard.

The overweight mall cop came over and introduced himself as Mr. Jarvis. He asked Kevin what was going wrong, and told Kevin that his dad had to stop or he wouldn't be responsible for what he would do. Kevin pleaded and begged both the security guard and father, but his father was unresponsive and kept making odd noises while pointing something only he could see at the shoppers. The security guard just sighed, and began to draw his club. When Kevin saw what was going to happen, he shouted, but it fell on deaf ears. The security guard was already pummeling Kevin's dad. When Kevin jumped onto the security guard to stop him, he said, "You want some too?" and proceeded to bludgeon Kevin into unconsciousness.

Kevin was suspicious of the new kid. In the Green Homes, he had already almost been caught twice. He figured, with his luck, that the third time he would get nailed, and sentenced to life. The new kid was too perfectly dirty, with clothes that had odd rips in them. But still, she seemed like an addict, and Kevin smiled when she asked for a dime bag of cocaine.

While Kevin was looking around in his stash for the dime bags, he heard the click of a gun's hammer behind him. Kevin began to sweat. The girl asked for the trunk with the dope, and Kevin kicked it over to her. In the same movement, he pulled out his gun from the waistband of his faded jeans and pointed it at her. It did him no good, however, because he heard the report of the gun as he twisted around to fire. He toppled over, shot in the lungs, and dying quickly. The last thing he saw was the girl smiling sweetly and saying something he could just barely hear. "See ya later, Kevin!"