Triggered by a thrift store discovery strange suppressed memories of traumatic childhood events come bubbling up; attempts to destroy extraordinary creativity failed but frustrated for far too long. 

I remember now. 

So many things were given to me only to be taken away. The rewards offered for the purpose of the punishment it seems. To make more complete the punishment for my transgressions, I would be isolated and denied access to whatever possessions I had which may have provided me with some joy and the facilitation of an exuberant expression of my imagination. 

They said it was just my imagination and that's another endless discussion for another time. This about a murder, of sorts. 

He was my best friend. He was the only one I could talk to and the only one who spoke up when I couldn't. He made everyone upset. The other kids cried or punched me and the adults shouted at me and my parents. Because he said the rude things that made me laugh. 

I remember. He was my best friend and my mother killed him. A piece of me died with him.

His name was Dudley. He wasn't real but he made others really uncomfortable.

Dudley was my puppet. He was a gift from my maternal grandmother (previously mentioned in The Forty Year Love Letter). 

She had come to visit for a few weeks and she always brought gifts for us kids. However, she didn't bring Dudley with her. We found him at the swap meet in Costa Mesa. 

Dudley was a tailless monkey. Not a chimp, Dudley was a fuzzy, brown hand puppet with blue eyes, resembling a monkey or maybe a lemur. 

I remember watching the salesman at his booth demonstrating his technique with a puppet. He was able to make this bit of cloth seem alive and expressive despite it's unblinking plastic eyes. He had a little comedy routine that he would repeat as the audience of Saturday afternoon shoppers cycled by the booth. 

Hundreds of people enjoyed his performance each week, but far fewer bought the product. Understandable as the product was more expensive than a similar sized stuffed animal despite using less material as only the head of creature contained any cotton stuffing. Still, he rarely failed to make a sale at the end of each performance, often multiple and nearly always at least one. He put on a good show to make the product appear fun and appealing to own, all the more desirable as it wasn't available in toy stores at that time. 

There were a few weeks when, after I had run through my money, I stood around watching him work through his routine three or four times while waiting for my parents to decide it was time to go home. I was fascinated by his technique and made a few attempts to duplicate it. I remember he was polite enough to allow me to try it out but always made certain to check my hands first to see that they were clean. (Can't sell the product if you let some grubby fingered kid muck it up, it's just some of that common sense which seems so lacking in billion dollar corporations today.) 

I couldn't afford to purchase a puppet for myself and at that age I wasn't willing to delay gratification long enough to save up the required funds. Grandma came to the rescue

At the end of our excursion the adults came searching for me as was often the case, because I didn't pay much attention to the passage of time and had a habit of breaking every wristwatch given to me for the purpose of inspiring punctuality.

We were supposed to meet up at the "Mr Chop-Chop" booth, but they found me at the monkey puppet booth again, same as the previous month's excursion. However, this time I would not leave empty handed. 

Grandma watched the sales pitch performance and decided to buy four, one for me and each of my siblings. Though, as I recall, my elder sister was a little too old for puppets or stuffed animals. She requested and was granted a different gift of equivalent value. The fourth puppet would be regifted to one of my cousins. 

My brother and my younger sister were happy to receive theirs but I was the most pleased. I was also the most skilled at manipulating the puppet. I began to teach myself ventriloquism to give the puppet a voice. 

It took me a while to get the hang of ventriloquism, but with practice I improved enough to develop my ability to where I could say nearly every consonant and vowel sound without moving my lips (B, P and certain M sounds being the obvious exceptions as the most difficult to achieve). During this development process I tried out several names on the puppet, but wasn't satisfied with the results until I hit upon Dudley. 

Why Dudley? Because, at that time, Dudley Moore was a huge movie star celebrity whose face and name seemed to be everywhere. Also, Dudley was the first name which I was able to convincingly make the puppet say. So, with the success of the speech and the popularity of the namesake, Dudley stuck. 

Like his namesake, Dudley was a joker, a clown. However, Dudley the puppet's sense of humor skewed in a different direction than his namesake. This divergence of comedic styling was made at the demand of my parents. 

Originally, because of the name, Dudley did immitate his namesake and this upset my parents as Dudley Moore was famous for his portrayal of a loveable, laughing drunkard. For a young child to immitate drunken behavior, even though a puppet, was inappropriate. 

Change of behavior was demanded and Dudley was thrown in my parents' closet like it was the drunk tank and he had been caught inebriated in public. There he remained until I promised to modify and regulate his behavior.

Upon his release back into my custody, Dudley was required to discover his own individual identity outside of the shadow of his famous namesake. 

In order to figure out who Dudley was, we talked. I listened to him answer my questions and his personality began to develop around the sound of his voice. 

Dudley didn't sound like me. He didn't sound like a kid at all. He and our conversations began to sound like something out of a horror movie rather than a children's television program. This is due to my technique for ventriloquism. 

In order to get a distinct diction and be heard through the clenched teeth of my smile, Dudley's voice was deep and growling. He spoke with a gutteral voice from deep in my chest, rattling the low end of my vocal cords. 

The combination of this voice and my ability to convey natural lifelike movement scared several younger kids to tears. Of course, naturally, I began to use that to my advantage and Dudley developed a gruff, don't give a shit attitude. 

Dudley was still a joker, but more like a Heath Ledger Joker than a Cesar Romero Joker. His humor skewed more in the direction of Don Rickles than Don Knotts. 

Yes, I was a scrawny little kid with an insult comic puppet for a best friend. I wasn't trying to be weird, I just couldn't avoid it. I was the neighborhood weirdo for several other reasons but Dudley was the icing on the cake of my weirdness. 

Dudley got me in trouble several times with some of the other kids in the neighborhood. A few of the older kids especially did not take kindly to being insulted by having their insecurities exposed to the laughter of the neighborhood. 

I was assaulted several times for the sake of Dudley's jokes and jibes. And, twice Dudley was stolen from me by those offended by his off the cuff commentary. My parents had to negotiate with the parents of the puppetnappers for his safe return. He was returned to me, having narrowly escaped the threat of death by fire.

Physically Dudley was returned none the worse for the wear, but his personality became more cynical with each such incident. Dudley became my shadow in the Jungian sense of the word. He said what I couldn't, or at least shouldn't have. 

Dudley didn't hold back. There was no holding his tongue when he had something to say. 

There's an old saying which was passed down to me at a young age: "if you don't have anything nice to say, speak up so that everyone can hear." Dudley embodied that aphorism. 

The neighborhood complaints continued to mount and, then, there was a call from the school office. I received two weeks detention for Dudley's transgressions after bringing him to school for show and tell. At least one child cried in fear and one cried stung by Dudley's verbal barbs.

Back to the lockdown of my parents' closet Dudley went.

Eventually, he was returned to my custody once again and we returned to our routine. However, it was not to last.

My mother overheard Dudley using some rather spicy language to insult my younger sister after she did something stupid to annoy me. He said, "you stupid cunt!" And, that was the final straw.

Dudley was summarily executed in the court of parental control. 

I was hurt and angry at the loss of my imaginary friend embodied by that puppet. I felt entirely alone and spent several days moping in my room.

After a week or two, I was removed from restriction and sent outside to play. After seeing that the rumor was true and I was absent of Dudley's company, the neighborhood kids decided it was acceptable to play with me again.

I had long forgotten all about these events, shoved them down deep under a layer of comic books and whiffle ball. That is until I saw a familiar face in a thrift store and the memories began to bubble up to the surface.

I was immediately compelled to purchase the puppet. The full picture took much longer to come into focus. But, I remember now.

I can still feel the breaking of my child heart when I think back to Dudley's ultimate punishment. I can still hear my mother's voice saying "No more Dudley!" It had been decided and that was final. Or so it seemed at the time.

Now, I am able to revisit those days and revise that sentence. I have corrected the spelling; know more Dudley. I am at last able to add new punctuation to the story. No, more Dudley!