You know, if I was to pick someone to be a pipeline to the world, it would never be Morty Seddenfledmann, but then, I ain't God; God is, and apparently that's just what he did. A weak moment, maybe. Or maybe a perfect choice. Who knows about these things?

Now, the simple creation of Morty was an act of injustice. By the time he filled out his address, most of the mail-in-and-win things were over. Imagine, if you will, Mortachai Neinhammerschlaggen (means, don't hit it with a hammer) Seddfledmann of 206 McClellan Street, Schenectady 4, New York. The least his folks could have done was to move to Elm Street in Dayton or something, but they didn't.

In a few ways, I'm grateful that they didn't. I mean, when you owe your life to something, you tend towards gratitude, don't ya?

Actually, that's really how it all began. Me, my name is Pat Contaldo. Well, actually it's Pasquale, so if you have an IQ above pond silt, you can figure how Morty and I shared a common unfortunality. (If it ain't a woid, it oughta be.) I didn't meet Morty until I moved out of a really cool place called the Bronx to this really gee-there-goes-the-garbage-truck berg called Schenectady. The guys here hadn’t gotten as far as shell cordovans with taps, and I was already into penny loafers. The reason mom made the move was because of the psychology course she took where she convinced herself that, after our last fire, I was traumatized. Personally, I didn't feel any more traumatized than any of the other sixth grader I knew who'd actually seen their father burn to death. (If you asked how many I knew, you should get out more.) Anyway, so I had this healthy respect for fire, and if there's one thing the Bronx has plenty of, it's fires. Mom moved us upstate. Upstate? I mean, I never seen such a collection of Hicksville rubes, but then, when you're twelve years old and still shy of five feet tall, you tend to be reticent about open aggravation, so I tried to fit in. When I was in seventh grade, I learned what the word penultimate meant and was shocked that it wasn't somewhere in Schenectady's motto.

Morty to me was the only touchstone to reality in the whole city back then, mostly because of his essential weirdness factor. While the rest of us were trying to get a handle on simple machines, Morty was scheming to obtain red phosphorus, or studying reflex klystrons, if that explains it to you. In about every way that counts, Morty was ahead of the curve, so naturally, I gravitated towards him. You see, society expects us short guys to be very cerebral, and for good reason; we don't do well at violence. I learned to think fast on my feet, and with them, when I was eight or nine. Morty, on the other hand, never had such a concern. He was God awful tall. Sure, he was skinny and helpless looking, but if he ever loomed over you, you would immediately come to a belief in the supremacy of flying sticks. Morty had that effect on all people; including the high school basketball coach who soon discovered that asking Morty to make a baseline drive for a lay-up was like sending out a Kamikaze. What would go through the hoop might be the ball, or any of Morty's body parts. He didn't get asked to try out a second time.

Well, him and me formed the definitive Mutt and Jeff team all through Oneida Junior High and then Linton High. For all those years I never knew about Morty's pipeline to the Big Guy. That didn't happen until we were both seniors and facing that most morbid of events for misfits; the senior prom. I mean, it's the one thing that even the hapless and struggling are supposed to succeed at, isn't it? It begins the opening day of your senior year, if you're like the two of us were. You start scouting for that babe who is not so bad looking you don't want to be seen with, but not good looking enough to have a line forming at her door.

For Morty, it was actually pretty easy. Sue Melcome was the school's walking giantess; a not at all bad looking girl who stood six feet four; a full two inches shorter than Morty, though as skinny as he was, she weighed more.

For me, I had long since discovered that, once again, mom had lied. All my life up to the ninth grade, she promised me that I'd get tall someday. I don't mean towering the way Morty was, but tall, like around average. No such luck. I'm still barely five foot three and I'm almost sixty now. I recently gave up on that one.

Well, the prom was in June, and I'd made it into late May without a hit, so to speak. By that time, Morty and Sue were actually going out on Friday nights in Morty's '49 Ford flathead. Anyway, this one night we were down in Morty's cellar where he had his laboratory set up, and I told Morty that I was going to come up looking real weak if I didn't get a date. Morty, who was building this radio receiver to end all receivers, listened to my plight once again and says, out of the clear blue, "Too bad you don't have a better connection with Him," and points up with his soldering iron.

"Why would I want a better connection with your dad?" I asked.