The Pain Of Wilson W. Wilson

I cannot believe I wrote Home Improvement fanfic, but here we are.

Ladies and gentlemen, the unsung hottie of the 1990s. Also, at left, Tim Allen.

My dear readers. I would like to explain myself.

I have been noodling a series of essays about masculinity, with one being about Home Improvement — the 1990s ABC sitcom about Tim Allen grunting and using power tools (and also getting repeatedly owned by flannel dreamboat Al Borland).

And so I sat down to rewatch the show for the first time since my childhood, and I started writing.

What popped out was not an essay. Instead, it was…the short story that follows.

I swear that this newsletter is not going to become 1990s sitcom fanfic. But being isolated from other people for nearly two years has turned my brain to pudding and amped up my weird to 11.

Billion.

So anyway. The essays will be coming in due time.

For now…enjoy?

Enjoy.

I guess.

-

WILSON’S LAMENT

A short story

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January 14, 1992

I can't help but feel that this is a one-sided relationship.

Tonight, Tim's tribulations were about a college friend who had come to town -- a man named Stu.

I had heard Stu in Tim's garage. There was a performative, guttural scream; a crunch; howls of laughter from the boys. I surmise that Stu was crushing beer cans on his head, and I doubt that I'm wrong.

I was in my workshop gathering my horseshoes for a brisk evening of practice-tosses. And that vulgar man's voice was so loud that even through the Taylors' windows and across my backyard, I heard Stu call that he was heading out to get more beer.

It was then that I heard Tim's back door close, followed by the slow, meditative footsteps as he shuffled across his lawn. The door-and-footsteps pairing has become a regular prelude, a signal that I'm needed.

I will give Tim some credit. He himself seemed ambivalent about Stu. Through his explanations -- Stu's a great guy, a friend since forever -- I heard the truth, that this was, sadly, a friendship that had dried on the vine...sweet, perhaps, but desiccated.

Tim really only needed a small nudge this time.