The Urban Life
The sun just barely seeps into the dark through the open sides of the pulled down charcoal blinds. The shine hits the dark face of the tall man sleeping in the bed. It shines in his left eye and he turns over in a groggy state and sprawls himself out on the queen sized bed. The cell phone resting on the side table starts ringing in the tone of some old blues song. He rolls over again and slowly pulls himself up and picks up the phone.
"Hey, baby." he says.
"Gerald, sweety it's time to get up. You're commercial is shooting in an hour."
"Aw, can't I get just a few more minutes?" he childishly asked.
"No, I don't have time to call you back in fifteen minutes. We're still getting ready for this press conference and I need to get back in there." she replied.
"Alright. I'm getting up." he said, throwing his legs over the side and sitting up.
"Okay, so remember to take your vitamins, I made oatmeal - it's in the pot and don't forget that you're going to 575 Thorn Street. You can't miss it, it has a huge Yahoo Soda sign in the front."
"Phebes... I know. I've been there. Many times." he said, then yawned.
Phoebe laughed. "Right. So..."
"So, are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?"
"I think I am." she said with a giddy smile.
"Alright then. I'll see you there. Muah."
"Love you. And don't forget to look on the front page of the newspaper."
"Diddo. And I won't."
Gerald hung up with his fiancee and went and made coffee for himself. He dumped the oatmeal and had some left over chinese food for breakfest. Right there on the front of the paper was his and Phoebe's faces stuck to each other as they hugged and smiled into the camera. The headline: "GERRY & PHEBES TO FINALLY TIE KNOT". Gerald smiled happily and thought back to the night before.
They sit in the Chez Paris across from one another. Paparazzi stands outside the restraunt, taking pictures of the couple as they usually do whenever they have dinner out, which is often. Neither one of them really mind the paparazzi. They find it exciting and thrilling at the same time. A famous baseball player and popular city council member are seriously dating. There's a lot to talk about there.
"We should've got a table closer in the back." Phoebe said. "They're gonna be here all night."
"Ah, so what? Let them take pictures. Your beauty deserves to be photographed." he charmingly said, grabbing her hand in his and kissing it.
She smiled. "Let's give them some good material." she said as they leaned in over the table and kissed each other.
Suddenly the flashes of the cameras were quick and constant and slowed down after the kiss and during the dinner. Right after the two finished eating their dinners, Phoebe got up to use the bathroom and once she returned, Gerald stood at her arrival and then bent down and stood on his one knee, pulling out one hell of rock and revealing it to her. Phoebe's jaw dropped and the cameras went flashing constantly.
"Phoebe Heyerdahl, the love of my life since I was ten years old, you have been everything to me since the moment I realized the way I felt about you. Since I realized that I was in love with you. Will you marry me?"
Before Phoebe could answer, with all the flashing of the cameras the two of them were constantly blinking and soon all they could see was flashes of light. They began to laugh simultaneously.
"Give 'em an answer!" a young waitress with brown hair and an olive complexion called out.
They continued to laugh though.
"Come on, Phoebe. I can't get off my knee until you give me an answer." Gerald said.
"Oh! I'm sorry. Yes, Gerald Martin Johansson - I will marry you because you are also the love of my life." Phoebe finally replied.
Phoebe was in a trans reminiscing about that moment as well.
"Phoebe. Phoebe. Phoebe!" yelled another council member.
"Oh! What? Sorry..." she said.
"The press conference is starting! The mayor's about to make his announcement!" he said.
Phoebe came running out to the conference room and sat in her reserved seat and await the mayor of Hillwood City to come out.
Over on Riverside Drive is a recently built two story building with a large rabbit wearing green sunglasses standing up straight from the first to the second floor. Next to the rabbit's stomach, in the center of the building reads a flourescent sign written in script: Iggy's Hop. A long purple canopy reaches out to the curb of the sidewalk. Big brown, french doors lead inside to a dimly lit, open room with gray and blue walls. A large bar sits in the back with a wall full of different alcohols. There are tables surrounding a dance floor with a stage in the center. Behind the bar is a spiral staircase that leads up to the second floor. A door at the top of the staircase reads: Restricted Area. Behind that door is a large room with big screen televisions with the Purdyvision logo on them, a smaller bar than downstairs with a smaller wall of liquor, big blue and gray couches, a pool table, a lot of open space with a table in the center. At the table sits three gentlemen playing cards, having a fews drinks and smoking cigars and cigarettes.
"Damnit! I got nothing..." the gentleman with backward green cap said, throwing his terrible hand down and taking a swig of his whiskey on the rocks.
"Pair-a nines." The tall and lanky gentleman called out in his southern accent.
"Full house! Oh yeah!" The fat, obnoxious one yelled, pulling the chips at the center of the table toward him.
"We'll never win with Harold playing!" Sid frustratedly yelled, shoving his cards toward the winner.
"I'd say it's on account of his fat ass bein' so distracting."
"Ah, shut up Stinky!" Harold yelled as the other two laughed hysterically. "You see how tall you are, Stinky? That's how long you'll be when I lay out across this floor!" he yelled, sticking his fist out.
The two men couldn't control their laughter and Harold's comment only made it worse. Harold angrily sat there and took a sip of his drink and lit the cigar in his mouth.
"Here Harold - winner deals." Stinky said, shoving the cards over to him.
Harold began to collect the cards and shuffle them. "This is the life, isn't guys? We wake up, act like we have jobs to get to, come here and play cards and have drinks all day." Harold laughed. "I told Patty that Iggy and I had some big meeting here at the club with some investors this morning."
"My dad don't care nor ask what I do." Stinky said. "What about you, Sid?"
"Thankfully I don't live with my parents anymore." he says, shaking his head. "And I don't have a wife naggin' me all the time."
"Patty is not my wife!" Harold yelled, slamming his fist on the table. "I'm tired of that joke already!"
"Jeez Harold, I wasn't talkin' about you and Patty!" Sid said.
"Well, good! I don't wanna hear about anymore jokes about me and Patty!" Harold says, throwing the cards on the table and going over to the bar.
Sid and Stinky just stare at each other for a second before Sid realizes the clock on the wall reads 10:30 a.m.
"Shoot! I gotta get going." he says, standing up, picking his black leather jacket from behind his chair and putting it on.
"I reckon the games over?" Stinky says, standing up.
The two of them walk over to Harold whose pouring three shots. "Here."
"Ah, I don't know if I should. I gotta get to work." Sid says.
"Where you workin' now?" Stinky asks, gladly grabbing his shot.
"Oh... just delivering packages and stuff." Sid said as he took his shot.
"Well, here's to... uh..." Harold said, raising his shot glass.
"Here's to Gerald and Phoebe! On account of them gettin' engaged last night." Stinky said nodding to the newspaper on the bar.
The three gentlemen held their shot glasses up and then took them.
"Alright boys, I'll see you later." Sid said as he walked toward the door.
Suddenly there was a loud pounding on the door and Sid stopped dead in his tracks, while Harold and Stinky stood at the bar.
"It's the cops! They're here! It's the cops!" Sid yelled in a whisper, running back over to Stinky and Harold.
"It's not the cops, you paranoid schizophrenic!" Harold said, walking cautiously over to the door. "Maybe it's the boss."
The pounding continued and Sid shivered. "That's not Big Gino! It's the cops! It's them! I know it!"
"If that's the cops, then this really bites." Stinky said.
"Who is it?!" Harold angrily asked.
"It's your wife!" a manly voice said, obviously trying to be disguised as a woman.
Harold unlocked the three bolts on the door and opened it to see the club's co-owner standing there.
"Heya guys!" he said with a smile, his green sunglasses covering his eyes.
"Iggy Bamford!" Harold yelled before punching Iggy and breaking his glasses.
"Ah! Harold, you fat bastard!" Iggy yells, holding his broken glasses. "You broke them!"
"We thought you were the cops!" Sid said.
"Well, Sid sure did..." Stinky admitted.
"Yeah! Don't play around like that again! And don't make fun of my wife!" Harold said, walking out the door, down the steps.
Sid followed. "I thought you said she wasn't you wife." he joked.
Stinky and Iggy stood and looked at each other as they heard Sid yell, "No Harold!" and then a crash downstairs.
On the other side of town, in the park theres a photo shoot taking place. The red and yellow leaves fall off the trees and blow in the wind. They collect all over the grass and set the scene for the photos to be taken. In piles of of collected leaves, girls lay naked with the leaves covering them from being exposed. With four girls on her right and four on her left, an auburn-haired girl with a freckled face emerges from a pile of leaves. Photos are taken by the second.
"Alright, Lila!" A woman with black hair and a red and black dress said. "Now stand up. Come on, you're models ladies - try and look like them!" she demanded.
Lila wore leaves glued to her chest and her groin and around. Her body was well shaped and her beauty echoed through the park.
"Alright Lila, you're looking good. Now crawl forward. Get an angle of her from below. Good!"
A young man approaches the woman with a coffee in his hand, "Here you are, Rhonda."
She snaps at him, "You know, some people around here call me Ms. Lloyd!" she said, before snatching the coffee from his hands.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Lloyd."
"Don't apologize - just stop wasting my time!" she yelled, before focusing back on the shoot. "Ah, that's just great! I'm gonna sell the hell out of these magazines!" she said confidently.
After a few more pictures were taken, then Rhonda called for a break.
"Phew, this is hard work." she said, falling back into her chair.
Next to her sits the focus of the shoot - Lila Sawyer. "Rhonda, this shoot is great! I just wish it wasn't so cold out today."
Rhonda looked at the half naked Lila. "Can somebody get her a blanket!" she yelled out.
"Oh, it's okay... I can get it myself..." she said as someone came and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. "Oh, thank you ever so much." Lila noticed Rhonda was busy texting on her cell phone. "I just want to thank you again, Rhonda - for asking me to model for this shoot. It's been so long since I've worked..."
"Well, when they said it was going to be an autumn shoot, I just thought about that hair and those freckles and remembered that you have done some modeling and you're not some idiot that thinks she knows what she's doing." Rhonda replied, not even looking at Lila, but continuing on her cell phone.
Lila smiled. "I've forgotten how much I love to do this kind of work. It's so fulfilling."
"Why'd you stop?" she asked, as if interested.
"Oh, well Gino doesn't like me doing this kind of stuff. But when I told him about how much I wanted to do this one, he encouraged me to go for it. He's ever so sweet."
"Ha... the Big G let you off your leash it sounds." Rhonda coldly said.
"Oh, it's nothing like that. He just doesn't like the thought of other men looking at me." she said innocently.
"And I bet you never look at the other men either."
"I don't know what you mean."
"I mean that you're one hundred percent faithful. As if he was too." she said, rolling her eyes. "I'd die if I were you." she said before she stopped playing with her phone and stood up. "Breaks over in fifteen." she said, before walking away.
Back in the neighborhood, over at the old Big Bob's Beepers store, now named Big Bob's Electronics a tall, broad-shouldered man with gray hair talks to two customers.
"So, we got everything from a Purdyvision flat screen to gPhones to Toasty Toasters! And if you're interested, I know they're a bit out-dated, but we have tons and tons of beepers! Brand spankin' new!" he said. "Before you say anything, let me show you them! I'll give you a great deal!" he looks around and sees his blonde-haired daughter sitting on a store laptop, typing away. "Hey-Helga! Helga!"
The girl ignored her father and continued to type until he called out her name again. "What Big Bob?" she yelled out.
"Run in the back and grab me the box of beepers! I got some interested customers here."
She growled and walked away from the laptop and past her father and his customers. "He's still trying to sell these freakin' beepers! What is it 1996?"
"All you gotta do is call the beeper, it beeps and you get to a phone and call the person back!" he told them.
Helga comes back with the box of beepers and Big Bob is no longer talking to the two customers, but rather a new, single customer. "Here's your damn beepers!"
"Huh? I don't want those! This man's interested in buying a T.V." he says.
"Jeez, Big Bob!" she yells before walking back to the storage room with the beepers.
On the way, she finds a garbage can and dumps the entire box into the garbage. As she walks back to her laptop, she stops an employee.
"Hey, Bernard. Empty that trash can. I think it's full."
"Right on it, Ms. Pataki." Bernard said.
"Call me Helga! Helga!" she yelled out. "Don't go botherin' me again! I gotta get this article e-mailed to the Gazette before six p.m.!" she said as she passed Big Bob who ignored her completely.
After sending in the article she wrote for the newpaper, Helga "worked" for a few more hours at Big Bob's and then jumped on the bus, reading her romance novel as she headed for her favorite and nightly bar.
Helga got off of the bus and walked down the old familiar block until she reached a townhouse that had been remodeled into a pub. Up the stoop and through the door, she entered the bar known as "The Stoop". A sign outside on the wall read, "Rooms For Rent Upstairs." The first floor served as the bar and the bar-owner's apartment, while the upstairs was cheap rooms the drunkards often rented for their one night stands. Helga walked in and sat at a stool while an old Dino Spumoni song played and a few guys played pool in the back.
"Hey-Helga. What can I get you tonight?" asked the bartender and owner.
"Hey, Stoop Kid. I'll take a Screwdriver and after I'll have a beer." she said, slapping a twenty dollar bill down on the table.
He picked up the bill. "You got it."
Helga sat at the bar for and waited for her drink when she heard two familiar voices talking and laughing as they walked in. She turned and looked to see two old friends.
"Yeah, it was so corny! 'I'm Gerald Johansson and I drink Yahoo Soda!'" he said before laughing.
His fiancee at his arm laughed as well. "Oh Gerald!"
They stopped when they saw Helga sitting there at the bar, looking at them.
"Helga..." Phoebe said.
"Hey Phebes, Gerald. Long time no see." she said, when Stoop Kid put her drink down before her.
"How ya doin', Helga?" Gerald asked as he and Phoebe walked closer to her.
"I'm living." she joked. "I just got off work and there's no way I was going back home to listen to Miriam slither her words." she laughed. "By the way, congratulations. I heard you're finally tieing that knot."
Phoebe smiled and blushed, "Well, we're engaged."
"Yup. We decided that it's finally time to take that step." Gerald said.
"Ah, that's great. I'm really happy for the both of you. No one deserves this more." Helga said, then took a sip of her drink.
"Aw, thanks Helga. That's sweet of you." Phoebe said.
"So, what brings you two celebrities here?" she asked, taking another sip.
"Oh we're just here for some dinner and drinks." Gerald replied. "Would you like to join us?"
Helga looked at the two of them for a second. "Ah, no. You two go ahead. I don't wanna feel like a third wheel or anything."
"Alright. If you change your mind, we'll be over there in the booth." Phoebe said.
"Enjoy your dinner." Helga said.
Gerald and Phoebe walked to the back of the bar and sat in their usual booth.
"Stoop Kid," Helga called him over. "send them two pints on me." she said, then lit a cigarette.
Gerald and Phoebe took off their jackets and sat comfortably at the booth they alway sit in every time they go to The Stoop. Stoop Kid comes over and sets the pints of beer down on the table.
"Helga sent these over."
"Oh, awesome!" Gerald said. "Send her one back."
"That was so nice of her." she said as the two of them looked over at her and the three of them raised their glasses.
"So, what'll be? Your usual?" Stoop Kid asked them.
"Yup!" Phoebe said.
"You know it!" Gerald replied.
Stoop Kid walked away and Gerald and Phoebe took sips of their beers. They then held each other's hands in the center of the table.
"So, when are we setting the date?" Gerald asked.
"Uh... Uh..." Phoebe said nervously.
Helga took a pull from her cigarette and then finished her Screwdriver. Stoop Kid came over and grabbed her empty glass, placing a pint in front her.
"Thanks," she said, pulling out her cell phone.
A moment later she could hear someone walk into the bar from behind her. She barely noticed it and continued on her phone. The person came in and walked up to the bar and stood next to Helga. Stoop Kid dropped a bottle that he was holding in his hand.
"Arnold?" he said in a shock.
Helga immediately looked up and seen him - the love of her life, thought long dead, never to be seen again. Her eyes grew big, her jaw dropped as he turned his head and noticed her.
"Helga?" he said, also in a shock.
"A-A-Ar-" Helga struggled.
"Arnold!" Gerald yelled from across the bar, standing up in the booth.
"Arnold?" Phoebe said as she stood up and looked behind her.
Arnold, speechlessly looked back at them and then looked back at Helga who still could not speak.
To Come...
Arnold is reunited with the best of his friends.
More about everyone's past is revealed.
Arnold's life is at risk!
Arnold's welcome home party.
References to the original "Hey-Arnold!" show
Gerald, like Arnold loved the blues.
Gerald can be seen playing baseball as a third baseman.
Iggy's Hop - in reference to Iggy's bunny rabbit pajamas.
Purdyvision is the logo on Helga's television in the "Married" episode of season 5.
Harold always denied him and Patty were anything more than friends, now it anything more than dating.
Sid was always paranoid.
Rhonda was always talking about fashion and acting like a bitch.
Beepers are out-dated these days!
Stoop Kid never has to leave his Stoop now!