"Fonzie..?"

Found this short piece of “Happy Days” fan fiction I had forgotten about. It’s from a Rumpus interview I did in 2013 with the wonderful Cassie J. Sneider (complete with amazing illustrations by her). Link to full interview below…

Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli sat down heavily on his deathbed. It looked like any other bed, but places like this housed only one kind. The kind you died on. He eyed the room. Sparse. Clinical. A framed picture of Richie, Lori Beth, and the kids, that Chachi had hung earlier in the day, blinked weakly at him. It was about as effective as a dying distress beacon in an empty ocean cove. He sighed and rubbed his hand over the bedspread. Rough with starch, slightly frayed. Who knew how many hands had made this same path across it in unison with a sigh?

In a box near the bed, Arthur spied the jacket. Worn soft as milk by time, it lay perfectly folded on top of some other useless mementos that would be flung into a dumpster as soon as he was gone. It hadn’t fit him in years, he hadn’t even thought of it, but suddenly he yearned to touch it, to hold it against his cheek like a talisman. He bent at the waist and reached to pull the box toward him, but gravity got the best of him and he tumbled forward, striking his head on the corner of the nightstand. He was unconscious before his head hit the ground with a resounding smack. He lay prone on the floor, with one hand resting on top of the leather jacket, when Chachi walked in carrying two small cups of vanilla pudding.

“Hey, Fonz, I thought we could eat some pudding together before I took off. They got all the pudding you could want down there, you’re gonna lov—.”

Chachi stared down at his cousin on the floor.

“Fonzie?” he asked, placing the pudding cups on the dresser beside the door.

Fonzie didn’t answer. He was gone.

Ted Travelstead Rumpus Interview