The Big Duh

THE BIG DUH: A True Story

In the rear of the 1980 Lindenhurst High School Yearbook, the alphabetical listing of graduating senior's adacemic and extra-curricular achievements included a future goal:

National Honor Society
Marching Band
Ski Club
To own my own clam boat

Most kids had similar down-to-earth aspirations. One said: To see the Mets win the pennant. I copped a line from Steve Martin: To be all-knowing master of time, space and dimension. It never ran.

Tommy P. also never got his goal into the yearbook. He dropped out in junior year. I knew Tommy – not well – but we’d say “Hello” in the halls. He was like a lot of guys in Lindenhust High: not too bright or terribly ambitous but always playing the angles. He did one thing well: he sold pot.

Once I graduaited, I heard no more about him. During a holiday visit to my mother’s house, I turned on the local news to see Tommy’s parents seated side-by-side on a crummy couch in a sad-looking living-room, tearfully appealing for the return of his head. “We want to bury our son as he lived.” his father said.

All the time I knew Tommy he had a head. What happened?

Apparently, Tommy and an accomplice set up a phony drug deal. They were to sell non-existent cocaine at a late night rendezvous in a shuttered Farmingdale gas station. They brought along a loaded shotgun and a bag stuffed with newspaper. Around three in the morning they meet the money men. Tommy’s accomplice pulls the shotgun. The money men scatter. One of them is clobbered with the butt of the shotgun. It goes off, hitting Tommy full in the chest, mortally wounding him. Never hit someone with a loaded shotgun.

The gas station is now empty, save for Tommy – dead or quickly dying – and the accomplice. He decides he must dispose of the body. Hunting in the dark, he finds a knife. Deciding he'll fashion a mystery corpse, he begins cutting off Tommy’s head. He’s not familiar with the job, having seen too many horror movies where heads pop off like bottle caps. It’s a slow, labor-intensive job. Blood is everywhere. He also slices off Tommy’s hands, placing them in a garbage bag with the head. The torso with the legs goes in another bag.

Both bags are thrown in the trunk of the accomplice’s American sedan. He drives to the Great South Bay. In the pre-dawn gloom, at the end of a long dock, he chucks one bag into the water. He drives a few miles east, to another dock, weghs down the second bag with stones, and flings it in. Then he drives home.

A few days later, the torso bag surfaces. Sufolk County cops arrive, open the bag and are shocked. Will the identity of this bloated headless, handless corpse ever be known?

On the news they never identified the cop who reached into Tommy’s back pocket and pulled out a sopping wet wallet stuffed with ID but I imagine him letting out a big “Duh!”. Like that wouldn’t be the biggest “Duh!” ever.. They must’ve wet their pants over that one down at the precinct house.

When Tommy’s head and hands surfaced several days later, no ID was needed. His parents collected the parts and had a closed-casket funeral. I did not attend.

So long, Tommy.

Comments

[Kenny G]

Chris,

I have an almost identical story starring a full-length fur coat slick black kid named Kevin Bowser, who, in the mid-70s Port Washington environs scared the shit out of everyone. He was found floating headless in the Long Island Sound, the result of a similar-sounding drug deal. Needless to say, no tears were shed.

Kenny G