Arno: A Koos Legend

When I wrote “More Koos Damn It” on October 27th, I received numerous comments clamoring for more of my tales about Koos Inc. At that time I promised my cousin Sues another Koos-themed blog at Thanksgiving time. Well evidently that wasn’t good enough. I have received several emails requesting more Koos stories, saying they couldn’t wait until Thanksgiving. They wanted more, and they wanted it NOW!

Okay Karen, Judi and Sues, here you go, another fractured Koos fable. But be careful of what you wish for, stories about Koos aren’t for the faint of heart.

My first account of Koos was in the blog “My First Labor Day”. In it, I mentioned that the storybook world of Koos included a veritable plethora of intriguing characters. Fellows with names like Virgil Tucker, Dead Man, Bone Head, Stretch Babic, Munk Ekern, Tyrone Walker and Ziggy Gutowski. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

To be sure, there were many more, but none like the legendary Arno Schubert. He weighed in at about 230 pounds, stood 6’2” and had a thick reddish-brown mop of hair. He sported a scraggly, unkept moustache and more often than not, an equally ill-groomed beard.

This cantankerous old Kraut was well known in every watering hole from downtown Kenosha all the way to Paddock Lake. The only time he didn’t have a cigarette in his mouth is when he removed it long enough to quaff a beer or spew an obscenity, both of which he did with a great frequency. His beer of choice was Pabst Blue Ribbon and his favorite expletive rhymed with rock-tucker.

Physically, Arno was a wreck. He had more scars on his body than teeth in his mouth. His lack of incisors and molars made his constant barrage of profanity somewhat humorous, while at the same time, a bit “damp”.

His most prominent scar was about a half inch wide and started between his shoulder blades, zigzagged down the length of his back, and disappeared somewhere in his pants. When asked how he acquired the massive scar, he uttered a few four-letter words and said he was run over by a tractor when he worked for a construction company.

Adding to the list of distinguishable features of Arno’s dilapidated body were his little fingers. They both went in a different direction, each at about a 45º angle. His explanation; they were broken by mobsters when he couldn’t pay a gambling debt. Not wanting to go to a Doctor, he set the fingers himself using Popsicle sticks.

Obviously I would have questioned the validity of these stories had anyone else told them to me. However, knowing Arno Schubert, they both seemed plausible, even to the point of being perfectly reasonable.

Over the years, Arno’s poor, mangled body continued to take more of a beating.

He lost a chunk out of one of his ears when he was struck in the back of the head by an outboard motor that had been in the rear of his station wagon. This occurred when he hit a concrete barrier while heading home on highway 50 after enjoying a few too many ice-cold PBRs.

He injured his head again at Koos in an accident where he fell off of a material hopper onto the concrete floor below with enough force to crack his protective hard hat. To his credit, he worked an hour or two before asking to go home with a “headache”.

Another notable incident that resulted in Arno gaining a new scar is when he was helping his father cut up fallen trees with a chainsaw. Let’s just say that when he pulled the jammed chainsaw out of the log, he had no “eye-dea” it would start running again. Ouch! Unfortunately, that is an entire story all by itself. And it is a dandy.

Besides the chainsaw story, there was the time he cooked a frozen TV dinner on top of a salamander, which is a kerosene heater used on construction sites.

Another Arno gem that could turn into an interesting blog is when he talked his good friend Kurt Plaisted into letting him play in a city league basketball game.

So, Karen, Judi and Sues, did this satisfy your cravings for more Koos? I sure hope so. Making you wait until Thanksgiving would be cruel. Rest assured, I will be providing another fix again soon, maybe even more Arno Schubert. Until next time…from the booth.