Stan and the Six Million Dollar Man

In 2009, the Vancouver Courier ran a fiction contest where the sentence “The gift came in a small, brown box” had to be featured in a short story. My entry was Stan and the Six Million Dollar Man. It is a story that hark backs to the pop culture of the mid-seventies. It won second place and was published in the Vancouver Courier in December 2009.

Stan and the Six Million Dollar Man
Patrick Joseph King

When Farrah Fawcett Majors exploded over the television airwaves in 1976, all the girls in my high school became casualties. Farrah and her hair did for them what Helen Reddy had done a few years back for the feminists with I Am Woman. She united them. She was also responsible for the misspelling of ‘pharaoh’ and ‘faucet’ by a whole generation of teens. John Lennon once claimed the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ. Farrah Fawcett upped the ante. She had become more famous than the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.

Farrah broke down economic and social barriers. And nowhere was this more evident than in our school hall before the morning bell rang. The cheerleaders, the fat, the thin, the flat-chested, and the big bosomed huddled into chatty Charlie Angel groupies sporting Farrah lion manes and toting curling irons for touch ups. The day Mei Ling Fong showed up in Math class with her silky, black hair dyed blonde and mangled into a Farrah Fawcett back flip, I knew Farrah was. . . well, pretty much an epidemic.

Even our mothers weren’t immune from Charlie’s most famous Angel. Try being a fourteen year old boy sitting across a forty-two year old Farrah Fawcett facsimile in a glittery nightgown with a plunging neckline at the breakfast table? It ain’t pretty. But at least I didn’t have to suffer the humiliation of Tommy Hinks. His seventy-six year old, wheel-chair bound grandmother took it upon herself to be the prototype for the disabled, senior citizen Farrah set. Luckily my gran was dead, but that didn’t stop me from envisioning her in her coffin struggling with a rusty comb (and limited elbow space) to get the Farrah Fawcett coif ‘just right.’

The boys loved Farrah too. They all wanted her. They drooled over the outline of her right nipple in the bathing suit she wore in the poster they all had on their bedroom walls. There were rumours that half of the grade 12 boys had written and invited her to the senior prom. I found it all rather vulgar and childish.

I didn’t want Farrah Fawcett Majors. I wanted to replace her. I had nothing against the woman. She was pretty but so were the other two Angels. It’s just that I thought I looked better beside Lee Majors than her. Every night I prayed the Six Million Dollar Man would burst out of the poster above my bed, pick me up in his bionic arms, and say: “Stan, it’s you I want not Farrah! Now let’s go hunt down some criminals and live happily ever after.”

I was a normal, teen-age boy going through the phase of homosexual tendencies. Or so said the assessment from the school guidance counselor after my teacher sent me to him when she caught me carving LEE MAJORS AND STAN TOGETHER FOREVER in a heart on my desk during Math class. Of course he had to call my mother in that afternoon and tell her. I didn’t understand what the big deal was. Everybody wrote on their desks. It could have been far worse. I could have carved FARRAH HAS A JUICY RIGHT TIT.

“You sit there until I’m finished meeting with Mr. Adams,” my mother instructed, pointing to the chair outside his office. She shook her freshly lacquered, Farrah Fawcett styled head at me. “God only knows what you’ve been up to now.” She pivoted on her heels, whisked herself into Mr. Adams’ office and shut the door behind her. I waited a few minutes then opened the door a crack.

“Boys who lose their fathers at a young age will often identify with a strong, male, role model, fictional or otherwise,” I overheard Mr. Adams say. “It’s common.”

“I don’t know what to do,” my mother said. “Should I get rid of his Six Million Dollar Man collection, Steve Austin toys, and lunch box? Perhaps not let him watch the Six Million Dollar Man anymore?”

“I don’t think there’s any need to go that far,” Mr. Adams said. “Not yet anyway. I’d be more concerned if he wanted to be Farrah Fawcett Majors or you caught him using your lipstick.”

“I see your point,” my mother said.

“Stan is looking for a father figure,” he said.

My mother’s heels clicked back and forth across the floor.

“Mr. Adams, what am I to do? I don’t want to raise one of those boys.”

“I might have a solution.”

“Yes, by all means. What?” she asked.

“I take my boys fishing every third week at Gull Lake. Perhaps I can start taking Stan with us. Give him a male role model. If that’s okay?”

Here was a fate worse than death. Mr. Adams boys were six year old twins with continual streams of snot running out of their noses. They also had guppy eyes.

“Oh please, please,” my mother enthused. “That would be wonderful.”

“Don’t worry,” Mr. Adams assured. “I’m sure Stan will grow out it. He’ll be chasing girls all over the playground and hitting on them by the end of the school year. He’ll have no time to think about the Six Million Dollar Man then or want to.”

He chuckled. My mother joined him.

I had no intentions of growing out of it whatever it was. They weren’t going to stop me from watching the Six Million Dollar Man or make me forget Lee Majors. I’d saved up my allowances and bought every Steve Austin action figure I could find and all his bubble gum cards. There was no way I’d be giving them up without a fight. And, it was beyond reasoning why my mother would condone my chasing and hitting girls on the playground. Did she want to turn me into another Billy Burns, the school yard bully?

I expected a clout to the head and a lecture when my mother came out of Mr. Adam’s office. She did neither.

“C’mon Stan,” she said. “Let’s go.” She paused before the poster advertising the Junior High Sock Hop next Friday on our way out.

“You should go to that,” she said. “There’ll be lots of girls there.”

On our way home my mother stopped at the drug store to pick up more hair dye and hairspray. I waited in the car.

“I bought you something,” she said settling back behind the wheel. She handed me an Archie comic book. I’d never read one in my life and would have preferred Batman but since my mother was in a giving mood I accepted it.

“Isn’t Betty pretty?” my mother said putting the car in drive. She glanced at the picture of Archie giving Betty a piggy back ride on the comic’s cover. A clench-fisted Veronica steamed in the background.

“I suppose,” I said.

I thumbed through the pages. Juvenile reading material as I suspected.

My mother eyed me as she drove. Halfway home she swerved to miss a squirrel, sent us careening towards the pavement shoulder, and almost landed us in the ditch.

“Are you enjoying the comic book?” she asked as she maneuvered the car back onto the road.

“Yes,” I lied.

I flipped to the inside of the back page. There below the ads for Sea Monkeys and X-Ray vision glasses was the opportunity of a lifetime: an invitation from Lee Majors to join his Fan Club. If I cut out the coupon Lee pointed to and filled in my name, age, and address, and sent it in, I’d become a card carrying member of the official Lee Majors Fan Club. The ad also promised that each new member would receive a personalized, one of a kind, limited-time offer, hand-picked by Lee Majors gift. The bubble above Lee’s head said: Don’t Delay. Act Now. Only a limited supply left. Beside Lee’s coupon, Farrah Fawcett Majors was pointing to her own for fan club members.

That night I knelt beside my bed and meticulously cut out the Lee Majors Fan Club coupon. I put my Math book on the bed, laid the coupon over it for a hard surface to write upon (at least Math was good for something) and printed my name, address, and age in pencil first, in case I made any mistakes. I traced over it with my Steve Austin pen. Lee Majors grinned down at me from his poster on the wall.

I included a short paragraph on why he was the Number 1 hero of all time. I’d have written more but it would have been impolite and inconsiderate. Lee Majors was a busy man. I didn’t want to take any more of his time than was necessary to tell him how great he was. I told him that too.

I woke early Saturday morning and biked over to the post office. The post mistress, Miss MacDonald, was at the door when I arrived.

“Are you opening now?” I asked. “I need to post my letter right away.”

“Hi Stan,” she said and glanced at the envelope in my hand. “It must be a pretty important letter that you’re here so early.”

“It is.”

She pulled the post office keys from her purse and looked at her reflection in the glass door.

“Piss,” she said, which surprised me. She usually preferred the word shit. “Piss,” she repeated. “Just look at what the wind’s done to my hair.”

The right side of her Farrah Fawcett hairdo was swept out and up, about six inches off her head in suspended animation. “You come on in and wait at the counter. I’ll be a few minutes while I fix my hair.”

“Now, that’s much better,” Miss MacDonald said, returning ten minutes later. “Isn’t it?”

I nodded but didn’t see much difference.

“My letter’s going to California and it’s got to go right away.”

“California? Who do you know in California?”

“Lee Majors. The Six Million Dollar Man. I’m going to become a member of his fan club. And he’s going to send me a gift. There’s only so many to go around. That’s why I’ve got to get this letter out as fast as possible. Before they’re all gone. How much will it cost to send?”

“Twenty-two cents.”

I pulled out the coins from my pocket and paid her. She gave me a stamp. I licked it and handed the envelope to her.

“Wait,” I cried and dug out another ten cents from my jeans. “Put an extra ten cent stamp on just in case.”

She smiled as she did.

“How long will it take to get there?” I asked.

“A week, maybe less.”

“I hope it’s less. It’ll go by air mail?”

“Don’t worry.” She winked. “I’ll put a trace on it and make sure it gets there.”

I did some calculations on the bike ride home. If it took the full week to reach Lee, another two days for him to put the gift in the mail (he’d probably do it in one but I gave him an extra day to be safe) and then another seven days to get back to me, I’d get the membership and his gift on the sixteenth.

“Something special happening on that date?” my mother asked later that day as I circled the number sixteen on the kitchen wall calendar. She came up behind me and kissed my forehead. Her fresh hair spray stung my eyes.

Oh no! Had she found out about my membership coupon?

“What? I asked, terrified she’d now intercept whatever Lee Majors was sending me.

“My birthday.” She smiled. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know it was coming up. I caught you red handed marking it on the calendar so you wouldn’t forget.”

I had forgotten.

“Remember, you don’t have to buy me anything. I’ll be just as happy with a card, even if it’s homemade. She kissed me again.

The next two weeks should have been spent in nervous anticipation. They were fraught with fear instead. What if there were a mail strike? What if the airplane flying the bag of Air Mail with my membership coupon inside had been high jacked to Cuba? What if so many other boys had sent in their membership before mine, that there were no more limited time offer, personalized, hand picked by Lee Majors gifts left?

The mailman brought it special delivery on the fifteenth at noon. The gift came in a small, brown box. Grateful that my mother was on the toilet in the bathroom, I quickly signed for it and raced upstairs to my bedroom. I laid the brown box on my bed. My fingers were shaking. I was shaking.

What was it? A Steve Austin astronaut suit? No, Lee wouldn’t know my size. Plus, it was impossible for an astronaut suit to fit in such a small box. Maybe it was a Six Million Dollar Man watch? I hoped so. I’d wear it all day and night. I prayed it wasn’t a Six Million Dollar Man key chain because I didn’t have any keys.

I sliced off the thin packing tape, flipped off the box’s lid and peered inside at pink girly tissue paper. This was odd. One would think Lee would use blue, white at least. I ripped away the pink tissue and saw a slim rectangular white case: the kind expensive watches came in on those TV commercials. I held my breath and opened it.

Inside was a slim white hairbrush with the name Farrah etched in pink letters on the handle. I looked back inside the empty box. At the bottom was a plastic card with a picture of Farrah in the centre and my name typed below it. I was now an official card carrying member of the Farrah Fawcett Fan Club. On the back were instructions for the Farrah Fawcett hairstyle.

“Who was at the door?” my mother asked barging into my bedroom. She glanced at the hairbrush in my hand, and smiled.

“Stan, it’s lovely. I’m so sorry I saw it before you had a chance to give it to me for my birthday. I’ll pretend I didn’t see it, okay?” She put her hands over eyes as she left. “You can still wrap it up and give it to me tomorrow, alright?” she sang out from the hall.

I tore a sheet out of my school notebook.

Dear Lee, I began. There’s been a horrible mistake. You have to fire someone at your office. Then I went on to explain why.