Linus

“There was this one guy, Linus. He had found religion and would never shut up about it. Every time you turned around, it was The Great Pumpkin this and The Great Pumpkin that. On and on, it was enough to drive you crazy. Branaski often found himself dropping the nickel on a shrink just to rant about how nuts this guy was.

“Every day the same thing! If I have to hear about this Great Pumpkin one more time I’m going to wring his scrawny neck!”

But every day like clockwork, Linus would show up again and here it would come.

“You know that it’s almost Halloween, Charlie Branaski. Soon the Great Pumpkin will come and we won’t have to worry about a thing. When he comes, we’ll all go out and sing pumpkin carols!”

Charlie couldn’t take it anymore. “Look, Linus. I don’t give a shit about any of that nonsense. I just want to play today’s baseball game and not have to listen to you yammer about this and that. The Great Pumpkin! God o mighty, if I have to listen to any more of that I’ll kill myself!”

Linus shrugged and clutched at his ratty blue blanket. “It’s O.K., Charlie Branaski. Even if you don’t believe in The Great Pumpkin, he still has pity for you.”

“You tell The Great Pumpkin that he can stick his pity up his ass! What has he ever done for me! Now get out of here, kid, I have a game to pitch!”

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