corpse in the body shop
"No one can help me but me, Mr. C. Y'know? Like, no one's gonna tell me what to do."
Howard felt his features droop, imperceptibly except that he could feel the lengthening of his jaw, the gravity shifting its set, but said nothing. He'd listened to more than enough impassioned epistles from conflicted teenagers and their older emissaries to know that Fonzie wasn't quite done yet. Not nearly.
"No one's gonna tell me what to do," Fonzie repeated. The inner corners of his eyes jerked with the pain preceding upturned eyebrows, anguish making itself known on an evercool face. "I always say I've got my own mind, I'm not gonna wait around for anybody. Nobody tells the Fonz what to do. Everybody knows that!"
Before Fonzie could continue, "Even you!" because, y'know, even a square like Howard C who drives a bulky blue Desoto is a virtual conoissoeur of the moods and etiquette requisite for interactions with the Fonz, Howard chimed in, "It's an admirable trait. I want you to know that."
You could get to close on fifty years old and not have that much self-possession, that much presence of mind. You could just be trundling along in the same old rut set by dozens of people who came before you, and never know the difference.
Howard hoped he knew the difference. He hoped his kids knew the difference. Only time would tell. Their knowing Fonzie would have had a great deal to do with it, and there was no going back in time to see it said and done any other way, now.
Fonzie chewed the edges of his lips against the tips of his teeth. "Sure. Sure." He didn't say "thank you" or "I know that"; just agreed. Who had time for anything more in-depth?
Nobody tells you what to do. But...
"I guess...I guess sometimes I kinda want 'em to. Y'know? Some kinda...some kinda resistance," he snapped his fingers softly, probably without even knowing that he did it, to reflect the moment of decision and recognition, "so I can even feel like I'm really here. Like people care. Like people notice."
To anyone else, it might have been a ridiculous notion. People around him not notice that Arthur Fonzarelli had hit the scene, revving half a thousand ccs of triumph and offering the legendary thumbs-up of approval as loudly as he could while keeping his cool? It was preposterous!
But Howard, who had been one to write Fonzie right off not too many years ago, knew that digging deeper into the history that drove Fonzie to act the way he did was a rarer and rarer feat. Even Marion, when she doted on him, didn't always ask the right questions, or any questions at all.
"Look, Fonzie. I'm not going to say that I care." He paused, waited for Fonzie to shoot him that death glare that threatened to misinterpret his litotical words. There. All as it should be. "That would just be saying something that sounds nice to appease you, and I'm not interested in doing that. We, ah...we wouldn't argue the way we do if all I wanted was to get you out of my hair."
Fonzie nodded, now pursing his lips together into a duck face to match his own iconic haircut (itself currently in a modicum of disarray, since Howard didn't keep a face-height mirror mounted in the garage and it was too dark to peer into a handlebar mount).
Howard kept his hands in his pockets, thinking it unwise to offer a fatherly pat on the shoulder. Fonzie didn't seem to need grounding, only a sounding board. "I want the best for you. I think we all do. But your fear..."
This was a much more incisive comment to drop, the form of fightin' words. Fonzie's nose whipped over, a nasty frown underneath it. "I'm not afraid," he said, stubborn to hell in that moment. "The Fonz. Is not. Afraid."
"Your needs," amended Howard. "Your desires. The things you want that you aren't getting, and the thing that's standing in between you and those things."
Fonzie blinked. Swallowed. Swallowed again, feeling the rising phlegm.
He didn't need a mother. He didn't need a father. He needed a thousand individual systems of support that should have been in place inside his own head, but weren't. This was exactly the type of conundrum Howard and Marion had hoped to raise their children to avoid; to see their own worth clearly enough to know what help was necessary and when it was. How to ask. How to be alright, in the meantime.
Fonzie kept James Dean in his closet, and Jimmy watched over all the other ugly things. It was cool, sure, but it wasn't healthy.
Howard was no therapist. Imagine thinking yourself so qualified, in the midcentury world.
He could respond to questions, though. He could be there when Fonzie needed a friend, some slow talk and some wisdom.
It was dark outside, the always-on driveway light still dimming and reflecting nothing of note from the pale cement to the recesses of the garage bay.
"I don't know what to tell you, Fonz. But it's not clear to me either, if that helps."
"What's wrong with me?"
Howard laughed, despite himself. "No, no! There's nothing wrong with you - nothing more than what's wrong with any of the rest of us, and you're friends with Potsie."
Fonzie smiled too, to hear the quick wit jump off of Mr. C's tongue so easily, so naturally. Oh, poor Potsie.
"Just...keep calling out, when you need something. Mrs. C and I might not be your parents, but we can at least try to help you figure it out. It's all anyone can do."
Thank goodness he lived over the garage, and not in some alleyway eleven blocks down. Less even than a phone call away, after all.
Fonzie muttered something to himself, then picked up a wrench and turned away.
Howard waited until he heard the vague shape of a "thanks" to carefully squeeze himself past the Triumph's exhaust pipe and walk back into the house, where it was bright and inviting and decided, for decades ago and to come.
that's the beauty of the show being fifty years old. there's always a guy