I wore my batman shirt. It had a pizza grease stain on it, but before I could run to the bathroom the lights dimmed and opening credits were rolling. At first, for a brief second I thought they got Phil Donahue on camera without a shirt on and with his chest painted green, but then I realized Phil Donahue has no rage in his life. He tells his neighbors, “I just got back from vacation. Would you like to see my photos?” None of them do, but how can you say no to Phil Donahue. He gets out his big studio mic if you say no and says, “What was that? I didn’t quite here you.” “Okay Phil,” you say, “Show me your pictures, but make it quick I have to mow the lawn.”

No, this thing onscreen was something else. It really is a green beast, but it is no monster. When it was young living in Radiation, Oklahoma it wanted to be a western cowboy movie star. You could see it in his eyes. It yearned to be something more than just a little deaf boy named Louis, but that’s all anyone ever told him he could be. “You can’t hear Louis. You don’t even know what I’m saying. How can you be anything more than a little deaf boy?” But Louis did know what they were saying. So Louis stayed in his room most of his childhood and screamed until he turned green. Some have suspected that maybe Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller’s teacher, was hired at one point, but no one can be sure. It seems unlikely. He was a green baby. His family was poor. She did not work with green babies. Besides, she died in 1936.

In kindergarten he got hearing aids and on the second day he threw a few kids on the roof and kicked a few into the side of a bus after they laughed at his “I want to be a cowboy when I grow up” essay and made fun of the way he spoke. Many legal problems resulted. Laws were passed restricting green children from attending public school. He spent the rest of his youth tending to the family donkey.

Then when Louis was seventeen he ran away and for a while his family just assumed he was asleep in the barn and had his hearing aids out, but he was on his way to Hollywood where he intended to be a cowboy. When he got there all the cowboy jobs were filled so he boarded a boat and became a sailor. He was a very adequate sailor at that and before long Stanford was offering him a scholarship to row for the crew team. He didn’t know what they were saying, but signed the papers because they were in front of him. And at that they stuck him on a tiny little boat. It didn’t take very long before he broke the oars. The Stanford Crew team lost the championship. They didn’t invite him to the end of the year banquet. He didn’t get to eat cake. They kicked him out of school because he lost his scholarship. There were still no cowboy jobs. He began to drink and smoke. He smoked so much he started to look grey when he got mad. He stopped eating his vegetables. His brother called. The jolly one. The one that is always hanging out with those elves that make cookies. The one that has been rumored to molest little boys. He didn’t want to talk to his brother. He didn’t need a pep talk from him. The jolly one left a message, but Louis didn’t call back. Instead, he regretted his past. “I should have never gone to college,” he thought. He wanted to be a western cowboy. They should have given him a horse. He didn’t belong in a boat. He falls asleep regretting his entire life. In the night a dog barks. It wakes him up. He thinks it’s his alarm. He hits the clock and it breaks.