Cast:   Narrator—Rod Serling or Burgess Meredith.

             Vernon Postlewait—Eustace, from Courage the Cowardly Dog.

              Maria—Roseanne or Delta Burke after she got fat.

              Bo—Edward Norton.

              Len—Art Carney.

              Dell—John Goodman

Or you can choose your own if you don’t like my picks, see if I care.    

“Mr. Vernon Postlewait, age 64, retired city worker; a vengeful, bitter inhabitant of a world he intensely dislikes.  Vernon is the co-worker, the neighbor, the distant uncle who lives to complain about everything and anything to anyone unfortunate enough to listen.  An unsatisfied cretin believing the world is to blame for his miserable life.  A malcontent, incapable of love, wishing his misery on others.  In a few hours Vernon will enter a realm where his wishes will be realized.  Not the hopeful wishes of a fairy tale but, more to his liking, wishes of hate.  Next stop for Vernon Postlewait … the Twilight Zone.”

“Where’s my bagel?  How long does it take you to cook one lousy bagel?” Vernon Postlewait yelled to his wife of thirty-eight years.  Vernon was a tall, thin man, able to maintain his marriage weight over the last thirty-eight years by consuming alcohol and tobacco instead of the high saturated fat foods, his wife, Maria cooked and devoured with abandon.  His thin stature did nothing to improve his appearance as it normally might for a man of his age.  The effects of the alcohol, forty years of working for the city and a near psychotic personality, hardened the features of his angular face.  On this morning he wore a shirt of the same style and color he had worn nearly every day for the last forty years.  It was one of thirty, long sleeve, blue uniform shirts with the word “Vernon” embroidered above the left pocket.  For each year he had worked, the city supplied four identical shirts to Vernon.  Wearing the shirts after retirement was compensation for forty years of working for those idiotic bastards, as he liked to remember them.

“Well?” he asked.

“Well what?” his obese, dark skinned, normally shy, and reserved wife asked back to the man she has detested since her wedding night.  How, she wondered, had her handsome, charming fiancé transformed into a … into a … she tried to think of an acceptable analogy but could only come up with “slug,” a disgusting creature that spreads its horrible slime over everything, that’s Vernon to a T.  She thought he should have “slug” sewed above the pockets of his precious shirts instead of “Vernon.”

“How long does it take to cook me one lousy bagel, that’s what?  What’d you do, eat it, instead of giving it to me?  You don’t need breakfast woman.  You’ve got enough food stored away in that fat ass of yours to last a lifetime.”

“Here!” yelled Maria.  “Here’s your damn bagel!”  Maria threw the hot bagel, cream cheese, and plate at him.  All three hit simultaneously on the table, with a good portion of the cream cheese blotting out half the name above his pocket, leaving the new moniker “non”.

Vernon wiped the cream cheese off his shirt, stood red-faced and screamed.  He rushed over to Maria and grabbed her by the neck forcing her back against the refrigerator.

“Don’t-you-ever-throw-food-at-me-again.  Do you understand?”

He released his grip and she slumped to the floor gasping for breath.

“I hate you,” she said hoarsely.  “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.  I wish you were dead!”

“The feeling’s mutual, you fat pig.  If you hate me so much, why don’t you do me a favor and get a divorce?  You’re good for nothing.  You always have been.  The only good thing you ever did in your life was having Bo.  If it weren’t for that boy and your cooking I’d have kicked you out years ago.  Go ahead and divorce me.  I want you to!”

Maria rolled on the floor and struggled to lift herself up.

“I should divorce you.  I want to divorce you!  But you know I can’t.  I won’t suffer in hell just to escape you.  I’ll wait patiently for the day you die so I can have my freedom.  You’re a mean bitter man, Vernon Postlewait. You’re no good and neither is Bo.  He’s 35, and still lives at home.  He has no job and he never will, if you keep giving him money.  How can he …”

“Shut your mouth, woman.  Bo’s gonna be big, real soon.  You know the minor leagues are looking at him.  Pretty soon he’ll be in the majors, big time.  He’d be in the there right now if it wasn’t for all the damn black and Spanish players taking over the sport.  The boy just needs a break.  It’s coming.  You’ll see.”

“It’s not coming, Vernon.  You burned him out years ago with your constant practice and pressure.  He’s hated baseball ever since you shoved it down his throat when he was in high school!  You weren’t a father; you were a coach to him.  Just a coach!  Now leave me alone.  Get out before I call the police again.  Go get drunk with the rest of those useless people you hang out with.  Just leave me alone.  Please?”

Vernon picked up a half bagel off the floor, chewed on it, and tossed it at Maria.  The bagel bounced off her shoulder and she jerked back from the unexpected attack.   He grabbed the car keys off the kitchen counter and walked over to the door.  He turned for one last look at the panting, fat, woman leaning against the refrigerator.

“I wish you were dead,” he said, closing the door.  As the door clicked shut, Maria moaned loudly and grabbed her chest.  Her knees buckled and she fell forward landing with a thud on the hard tile floor.  Her face took the full force of the fall and the blood mixed with the last breaths of her life.”

“Damn black managers won’t even look at white players any more,” Vernon mumbled, still seething over the confrontation with Maria.  He heard a loud thumping sound coming from the neighbor’s house across the street.  It seemed to vibrate throughout his body.  He looked over and saw six parked cars, some in the driveway, but most on the lawn.

“Another party,” he thought.  “All day, all night, that’s all those damn kids do is party and play music.  Just once I wish their power would shut the hell off and give us a break.”

At that moment, the music stopped.  Faint sounds of muffled yells drifted from the house through open windows and screen doors.  Vernon distinctly heard one of the partygoer’s say, “What the hell’s going on?”  Two longhaired boys came out of the front door and walked around the side of the building.  Vernon chuckled and waved to them as he drove away.

“About time something went my way,” he thought.

He worked his way through the small suburban roads that fed into the busy highways leading to downtown.  Downtown, uptown, the suburbs, it was all the same to him anymore.  The whole city had gone to hell as far as he was concerned.  The small stores and restaurants he grew up with were all big department stores and fast food joints, now.  And the people … too many damned people everywhere.  There were so many damn people that nobody knew anybody else’s name anymore.

He waited at the traffic light in no particular hurry since the lounge didn’t open for another hour or so.  Two large men on even larger motorcycles drove into the small alleyway between the lines of cars at the stoplight.  The two pony-tailed riders weaved their way between the aisles of cars and parked in the front of the line. Vernon spit out the window and secretly wished that the motorcycles would collide.  That would be sweet justice for cutting in line.

When the light turned green, the motorcycle on the right accelerated quickly through the intersection, drifted into his partner, and crashed to the pavement in a tangled mess of handlebars, wheels, and bodies.

Vernon drove by the accident and smiled an evil grin at one of the bikers.

“Serves you right for cutting in line,” he yelled to him.

Vernon thought this was just too much of a coincidence.  The power going off at the house across the street and now this.  It was like that kid’s book about three wishes from the genie. If it was true, then he was wasting wishes.  He thought he’d try wishing for money, but how much?  A million?  Two million?  A billion?  A million would do nicely and it would probably fill the car. He closed the driver side window, looked around at the traffic, and said aloud, “I wish for a million dollars.” Nothing happened.  Vernon turned to look in the back seat but there was nothing, other than some old empty cigarette packs.  He pulled the car into a strip mall and parked the car.  He opened the trunk and again found no money.  Disappointed, he sat back in the driver’s seat and stared over at the row of shops that lined the mall.  He remembered when there was a full service Texaco station on that property.  The attendant would check the oil, wash the windshield, and check the tires.  Now it was stores.  Crappy stores, run by crappy foreigners.  God he wished it would just burn down to the ground.

No sooner had he wished for fire than he saw a black puff of smoke drifting above the Chinese take out store.  Seconds later, flames lined the roof of the strip mall from one end to the other.  Vernon’s stared at the sight, dumbfounded.  He couldn’t believe what he was seeing until shoppers ran out of the buildings into the parking lot. He felt like jumping up and down on his car and celebrating.  The flames took on a Hindenburg like appearance that completely engulfed the strip mall before the first fireman arrived on the scene.

He had to tell someone but who?  Bo … he’d call Bo.  He dialed his cell phone.

“Dad, how are you Dad?  It’s funny you called.  I was just about to call you.  I’m over here at …”

“Bo, shut up son, just listen.”

“Yeah, okay Dad.  Sorry.”

“Bo, this morning when I left the house those bastards across the street were having another party so I said to myself.  ‘I wish their power would go off.’  And you know what happened boy …”

“It shut off?”

“Yeah, Bo.  The music stopped, and they came outside.  But that’s not all.  When I was at Penn Road and 532, two punks on cycles cut in line at the red light.”

“Yeah,” Bo said.  “I hate when they do that.”

“Me too, son.  But then same thing happened again.  I thought how great it would be if they crashed.  And they did son.  I saw it myself.”

“Dad … It was probably just a coincidence.  Maybe the power was still on and they just turned off the stereo.  You didn’t go over and check, did you?”

“No,” Vernon replied, “But later I came here to the Devon Square mall and wished like hell for it to burn down.”

“I heard about that just a few minutes ago Dad.  That was you, huh?”

“Yeah Bo, it was me!  I just wish something and it happens.”

“Can you wish a thousand bucks my way Dad?  I’m heading for Phoenix for open tryouts next week after I stop by and see Susan, and I’m broke.”

“Nah.  I tried wishing for money and nothing happened.  It only happens when I wish for something bad.  You don’t believe me do you?”

“Dad I believe you believe it.  Now how about I stop by later and pick up the money.  I’ve got a chance this time Dad.  I really do.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah, Dad.  This is my time … our time.  This one’s gonna get me in the big leagues.  I can feel it.  But I need the dough, Dad.  What do you say?”

“All right,” Vern said, the excitement gone from his voice.  “All right… stop by later.”

“Great, Dad.  See ya later tonight.”

Vernon closed the phone and turned to look at the charred remnants of the strip mall.

“It works on things,” he thought.  “I wonder if it works on people.”

He drove towards downtown with a renewed vigor.  When he saw the building he had worked at for the last forty years, he didn’t hesitate wishing its destruction.  Vernon never slowed the car as all of the windows in the Ellis Wagner Municipal Warehouse blew out onto the parking lot, dark smoke billowing out of the glassless building. Vernon slapped the steering wheel with both hands and laughed manically.  He slowed when he reached downtown. Two old black men leaned against an apartment building. Vernon slashed his hand across the air and the men fell to the sidewalk like marionettes with their strings cut.

Vernon tried to think of everyone that had ever made his life miserable.  His blood lust for revenge spurred him out of the downtown area and onto the interstate.

“Latinos,” he mused.  “I need to find some Latinos.”  In the twisted logic of his mind he believed they were the root cause of Bo’s failure in baseball.  Bo could strike out anyone and everyone … except for the “damned Latinos”.  Vernon now had a quest, a quest for revenge.  He still had a little time left before the bar opened so why not have just a little more fun.

He drove down the highway searching for his Cuban, Puerto Rican or Columbian prey. It didn’t matter to him who they were as long as they looked Spanish.  He weaved the car in and out of the lanes, drifting close to cars as he passed them, trying to determine the race of the occupants.

“Who’s gonna be the one?  Who’s it gonna be,” he said aloud. “C’mon Chico, where are you?”

As if in answer to his request, they appeared.  Four young Hispanics in a low riding Honda Civic passed Vernon at high speed.  Vernon floored the old Buick until it whined in protest.  He lined the Civic up in his windshield like an old fighter pilot, preparing for the kill.

“Die boys,” he said and all four of the Civic’s tires blew out.  The car swerved into the adjacent lane, ricocheted off a large truck and spun like a top in the median, building a huge cloud of dust that Vernon had to negotiate with his Buick. He looked in the rearview mirror but saw only the cloud of dirt and other vehicles trying to avoid the melee.

This was more than just a novelty to him now.  He felt a growing sense of power, the power to harm those that hurt him.  He remembered wondering, years ago as a child, what it would feel like to be God.  He pulled the Buick into the lounge and thought, “It feels like this.”

As he walked through the entranceway of the dark lounge he wondered why he was given this power.  After a few drinks he decided it was his reward for years of working at a job he hated, marriage to a woman he never loved and the failure of a son who should have succeeded.  But that’s over now.  Now he can control his life.  Maybe he could even control Bo’s career.  He’d have to think about that.”

“You see all that stuff they’re talking about on TV?” Vernon said to his drinking partner, Len.  Vernon pointed to the TV.  “You see that Len?”

Len caressed his Southern Comfort and lifted his head to look at the breaking news items on the screen.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“I did that.  I caused the fires, the explosions, everything.  I did it all just by wishing it to happen.  Do you believe that Len?”

“Nope,” Len said, half talking, half burping the word.

“Well I did and I don’t care if you believe me or not.  Don’t you piss me off Len or you might be next.”  Vernon chuckled and finished the whiskey.

“What’s Bo doing?” Len said to change the subject. “He playing ball yet?  Last time I saw him, he was buying liquor at the grocery store.  He said he had some things coming up.  What about it?”

Before Vernon could tell Len about the tryouts in Arizona, a fat man in a greasy tee shirt, two stools down, spoke up.

“His son ain’t never gonna play ball, Len.  He wasn’t ever good enough and you know it.”

“Shut up Dell.”  Vernon said.  “You’re drunk and you better shut up about Bo.”

“I ain’t shutting up Vernon.  Your boy couldn’t throw 80 miles an hour in a frickin hurricane, and you know that.  The kid’s over thirty for Christ sake.  Give it up.”

Vernon ignored him.  He knew he couldn’t challenge Dell.  Dell was a mean fighter when he was drunk.  He couldn’t fight him but he sure as hell could hurt him.  He leaned over to Len and whispered.  “Remember I said I can hurt people just by thinking it?”

Len fought to open his eyelids as he answered.  “Yeah, I remember.”

“Well … watch Dell over there.”

Len rotated his barstool to face Dell, who was leaning over the bar to sip his beer.  Suddenly Dell’s stool separated from the floor and folded like a jackknife, slamming his chin squarely on the edge of the bar.  He fell beneath the railing, somersaulted to the floor, and caught the foot rail flush with his forehead.  The man was unconscious.

Len opened his mouth but no sound came out.  Vernon slapped his hand against his knee and spun his barstool around in circles, laughing like a child. The bartender, Len and other patrons helped Dell off the floor, sat him in a booth, and tried to revive him.

Vernon never moved.  He sat on his stool and watched as Len and the others worked on Dell.  When Len returned to his barstool, Vernon muttered to him “Serves the bastard right for talking that way about Bo.  What do you think of me now Len?  Do you believe me?”

“I believe you Vernon.  It seems like it’s the devil’s work, though.  What good’s it gonna do you, anyway?”

“I can get revenge for all the crap I’ve had to take, that’s what good it is.  Anybody screws with me, and they’ll pay for it.  Anybody, Len…even you.”

“Don’t start busting my jaw, Vernon.  I never did anything to you.  Just leave me out of it because…  Hey what’s going on there?”  Len pointed to the TV mounted above the liquor bottles on the wall.  “That looks like Bo’s Mustang, Vernon.  He drives that yellow one doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, that’s his car,” Vernon said nervously.

“Charlie, turn that up will you?  That’s my kid’s car on the screen.”

The bartender grabbed the remote and increased the volume.

“...skidded across the grassy median, flipped over twice, according to witnesses, and slammed head on into a Mustang traveling in the eastbound lane.  The Honda Civic had four migrant workers inside, according to the highway patrol.  A witness, Jerry Williams of Hagerstown, said all four tires of the Honda blew out simultaneously causing the driver to lose control.  The reason for the blowout of the tires is unknown at this time, the police spokesman informed us.  The driver of the Mustang had severe injuries and was medevaced to Brown Memorial Hospital.

“Oh God,” Vernon said.  “Oh my God, Len.  That can’t be Bo.  I just talked to him.”

“The driver of the Mustang was not wearing a seatbelt.  Unfortunately, we have just learned from the hospital that the man died in route to the trauma center.”

The television showed tape of the paramedics pulling Bo out of the wrecked car.  Vernon lowered his head on the bar and began sobbing uncontrollably.  Len thought he heard Vernon saying softly between the sobs.  “I did that.  I killed my boy.  I killed my boy.”

“Unlikely, you say.  Perhaps.  But haven’t we all wished for a magic button to enact vengeance on those that offend or irritate us.  But at what price?  Vernon Postlewait paid a dear price for his heavenly gift.  A gift that really wasn’t from heaven after all … a gift from… the Twilight Zone.”