I hate practical jokes and I hate people who play them. That said, I will now admit that my own hands are not entirely clean. In my defense, though, I didn’t start it. Barry Tupperman did.

To this day, I have no idea what possessed him to fire a cannon across my bow. At the time, we were both undergrads at UCLA, and we both wrote for the Daily Bruin. I wrote humor and movie reviews, while Barry, who would go on to become a professor of English at the University of Michigan, wrote book reviews.

One day, when I entered the Bruin office, I found Barry in a grouchy mood. It seems he had written an inane letter with my name attached to the editor of the L.A. Herald Express. What’s more, they had printed it a couple of days earlier. Barry had expected me to go berserk. What he hadn’t counted on was that my family didn’t take the Herald and that, in fact, I didn’t know anybody who did. So I had been blissfully unaware of his childish prank.

I asked him what had prompted the jape. Barry shrugged and said he thought it would be amusing. It was then my turn to shrug.

Although I had never been involved with practical jokes, I was instinctively aware that, one, revenge must be exacted, and, two, it must be in kind. Thus, a week or two later, a letter appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the content of which was so politically reactionary it might have been written by Benito Mussolini. But, as it happens, it was signed Barry Tupperman.

The next day, I ran into Barry and he looked like a young man who had suddenly turned into an old man. It seems that the father of his girl friend, after having read the letter over his morning coffee, had told his daughter that Barry was never again to set foot in their house.

I kindly assured Barry that there were other fish in the sea, and that he would eventually – probably – find another, although not one half as bright or nearly as attractive.

I assumed that he had learned his lesson, and that we had put an end to this foolishness.

A couple of weeks later, however, I received a letter at the Bruin attacking one of my reviews. It should be said that the Bruin had a certain following off campus, especially in the entertainment community. I, myself, had occasionally received both praise and condemnation from assorted movie notables. After all this time, I forget what famous name was attached to this particular letter, but something about it didn’t smell right. When I confronted Barry, he confessed to its authorship.

This time, I knew that I would have to allow a fair amount of time to elapse before I struck back. Revenge, as the Sicilians observe, is a dish best served cold. So it was that one afternoon, five or six weeks later, Barry opened a letter that had been delivered to the Bruin office. It was from his favorite living writer, Aldous Huxley. According to the note, it was Huxley’s sincere belief that Barry, in spite of his youth and relative inexperience, was the finest book reviewer in America. Huxley, at the moment, was busy correcting the galleys on his latest book, “Panorama of Ignorance,” but as soon as that chore was finished, he wished to have Barry to his home for tea and conversation.

I was certain that Barry would go for it, hook, line and sinker, because I knew, as he did, the street on which the Huxleys lived, but neither of us knew the exact address. I also knew that Huxley was given to such artsy-fartsy titles as “Eyeless in Gaza,” “The Doors of Perception” and “After Many a Summer Dies the Swan,” and that “Panorama of Ignorance” had the proper pretentious ring to it.

That letter, however, was merely the opening gambit. It had occurred to me that Barry needed to be taught a lesson, and I could not administer it if I simply continued playing defense to his offense.

Thus it was that a couple of days later, on the exact same stationery, with the exact same Kings Road address, Barry received three letters exactly like the first. This time, though, it wasn’t Huxley who was checking the galleys on his latest work, “Panorama of Ignorance,” and looking forward to tea and conversation with young Barry, it was Albert Camus, Charles Dickens and Ernest Hemingway. Two of whom, for good measure, were dead.

To this day, I can hear Barry’s shriek echoing through the Bruin office. As casually as possible, I strolled over to his cubicle.

If he had aged forty years when he was banished from the home of his beloved, he now resembled one of the living dead.

“Now we’re even,” I said by way of condolence, “and we can put all this nonsense behind us.”

In a voice not quite human, he said, “I showed my parents the letter.”

“The Huxley letter?”

“Of course the Huxley letter! They called all their friends and all our relatives to share the good news.”

“Oh. Sorry about that.”

“Furthermore, I showed it to everyone I know…including all my English professors.”

Always one to look on the bright side, I said, “Well, if they were impressed by Huxley, imagine how knocked out they’ll be when they hear that Dickens, Camus and Hemingway, all want to get together with you.”

And that, you would think, was that. But lately I’ve been finding it difficult to fall asleep at night. Sometimes when I’m out walking I think I hear footsteps, but when I turn around there’s nobody there. Is it just my imagination? I don’t think so. You see, I know Barry a lot better than you do, and I can’t believe the man hasn’t been hatching something. And after 44 years, it’s got to be a humdinger. The thing is, his mother was Sicilian.

Burt Prelutsky

If you liked this article, perhaps you'll also like Burt's collection from Scorched Earth Press, "Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco." Order your autographed copy now from BurtPrelutsky.com.

©2004 Burt Prelutsky

DISCUSS THIS ARTICLE IN THE FORUM!