Stretch Armstrong

Stretch Armstrong stood at 12 inches tall. A ninth birthday gift from Kenny's grandmother, purchased during an unsupervised trip to the mall, Kenny realized immediately that he was too old for the toy. He also knew that Stretch Armstrong was something he could make fun of for the benefit of his friends. Stretch had a muscleman's body and was made out of a super elastic material, which allowed you to stretch him to unimaginable lengths. You could tie his arms around his body or take his legs and extend them around his head. There wasn't much else you could do with Stretch Armstrong; He didn't fit in G.I. Joe clothes so Kenny was at a loss to conjure any relationship between the two action figures. You couldn't rip his limbs off. He did have a Stretch nemesis named Stretch Monster, who looked like the Creature From the Black Lagoon, but there was no way Kenny's mother was going to buy that for him and even if she did surprise him with the toy, there really was no way you could have the two dolls interact in any sort of meaningful way. Basically Stretch was just a big dumb doll that stretched out its limbs.

A couple of years later when Kenny figured out what to do with Stretch Armstrong--he would freeze him! There was nothing to do that day; Kenny was watching “Gargoyles” on Wade's ancient green-tinted television that looked like it should be hanging from a wall in a mental hospital. Wade was barely paying attention to the movie, which told the story of modern day gargoyles living in a cave in the desert. What was especially galling to Kenny is that it was only thing they could find to watch. “Superstars,” where athletes competed in athletic competitions, was on Channel 7. “The Big Valley,” starring a very young Lee Majors (“The Six Million Dollar Man”) was on 9. “Gargoyles” was on 11 and golf was on 2 and bowling on 4. They were sick of “Superstars,” especially since the baseball players they had heard of were such poor athletes compared to the football players who seemed to win all the competitions and take all the prizes, which turned out to be lame as well. And “The Big Valley” was this crappy western show that was so old and starred this old lady that nobody had ever heard have except Wade's mother who said she used to be a big movie star in the 40's. It was so boring. And who wanted to watch golf except old people who lived in Nebraska and drank Schaefer beer out of the can and ate beer nuts while their dogs sat at their feet

“Nazis,” Wade said. “People who own a lot of guns.”

They left Wade’s house and went to Kenny’s empty house. Wade followed him up into Jack's smelly room where they searched for the Stretch Armstrong doll amongst the mountains of crap.

“He's a messy boy,” Kenny said.

Wade picked up a paper bag.“There's about fifty Everlasting Gobstoppers in here,” he said.

“That's from his Communion money. Mom and Dad let him keep ten bucks of his Communion money and he bought ten dollars worth of candy at Rocco's. All he's got left is the Everlasting Gobstoppers.”

Wade put a handful of them in his pocket and Kenny spilled the rest of the bag on the floor. “He'll start crying when he sees this,” Kenny said.

Kenny and Wade went through Jack's drawers and looked under his bed. There was a pile of plastic army men mixed with his underwear, a Sorry! game with most of the cards and pieces missing and an empty box of Danish Go-Rounds under his bed. A box of Danish Go-Rounds had disappeared from the kitchen a couple of months before without Kenny even having one. “Remember when the Mannuchis brought a box of Danish Go-Rounds to Burger King and ordered cups of water and sat there and ate them?” Kenny asked Wade.

“No,” said Wade.

“I told you about that.”

“No you didn't.”

“I thought I did.” Kenny opened the closet and looked through all the clothes his brother never wore. He had a lot of sweaters and slacks--gifts from Kenny's grandmother. His mother said that little boys in Queens wore clothes like that to school. (Jack said that boys in Queens must be gay femmes.) He bent down, took a whiff of his brother's garbage bag full of laundry and almost puked. Then he saw Stretch Armstrong sticking out of one of Jack's snow boots. He took him out and dangled him in front of Wade. Wade was sucking on a gobstopper. “Do you think this is kosher?” Wade asked.

They went into the kitchen. Kenny wrapped Stretch in a paper bag and shoved him into the back of the freezer, behind a box of Jones sausages, a box of melting Double Dozen ice pops with all of the fudge, banana fudge and cherries missing, two metal ice trays that stuck to your skin, something wrapped tightly in foil that Kenny recognized as one of his father's mysterious leftovers that he saved for when the rest of the family ate something really good like McDonald's or pizza, a box of Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks that were at least a year old, and a box of Howard Johnson chicken croquettes. Kenny took out the chicken croquettes and showed them to Wade, who made a face. He took the Stretch Armstrong package and hid it behind the croquettes and the leftovers. “Now we have to wait,” he said.

Four months later, Kenny's mother discovered the strange package while cleaning out the refrigerator. “Kenny, what is this?” she asked.

Kenny pulled out the foil wrapped leftovers. “What’s this?” he asked.
“Dad’s leftovers.”

Kenny carried Stretch Armstrong outside. Jack and some friends were playing kickball in the street.

“I froze this in the freezer,” he said. “Now I'm going to break it.”

Jack and his friends surrounded Kenny as he threw Stretch Armstrong in the air. He returned to the Earth with a thud and broke in half. Kenny stomped on the doll, breaking its legs.

“He's like glass,” said Jack.

“I froze him.”

“Cool.”