Uncle Lars and Marilyn Monroe

My godson Clive has many good qualities, but neatness when little, was not one of them. I suppose this was because, like most young boys, he was a born collector.  Consequently things I found in Clive’s room rarely surprised me.

I could say "never," but that wouldn't be quite true. Once I was surprised when I came across one of Clive's collector's items. It happened one summer evening when I was putting him to bed.

While he was getting ready, I saw, sticking out from under a comic book on the desk, an interesting work of art. It was a glossy snapshot of Marilyn Monroe in the nude.

"Say, where'd you get this?" I asked Clive, holding up the picture.

Clive blushed and, after a great deal of hemming and hawing, finally said, not too convincingly, "I found it on the street."

I gave him a look of disbelief, and then I noticed that the picture had been torn in half and put back together again with Scotch tape. "How did it get ripped?" I asked.  "Somebody tried to take it away from me," he replied.

After a moment, I decided to let Clive keep the photo he had found. After all, he was old enough, and I didn't want him to think there was anything wrong with show­ing what I felt was a normal and healthy curiosity about sex.

Of course, I was not convinced that he had found the picture on the street. You just don't find nude pic­tures of Marilyn on the street, at least not in our neighborhood (at least I never have).

But, since I had no evidence to refute his statement, and since a man is presumed to be innocent until he's proven guilty-even in my house-I decided to drop the subject.

A few days later we were attending Lars' birthday party. Marilyn’s name hap­pened to come up in the conversation-probably because Lars was going to see a screening of “Some Like It Hot” immediately following the festivities.  Naturally, this reminded me of Clive's Monroe photo­graph, and, thinking Lars might be amused, I related to him the incident of finding the snapshot on the desk.

Lars was amused. "Very interesting," he said, smiling. "Are you sure he found it on the street?"  "That's what he told me. Why?"

"Well"-Lars seemed reluctant to say this- "I haven't seen my picture of Marilyn around lately."

"Do you have one, too?" I asked, surprised.  "I had one.  I used to keep it on my desk-for a gag,” he added.

"Do you suppose-?" 

"I don't know," he said.   "I'll look for it this evening."

The next day I saw Lars at the office he confirmed his suspicions. "It's gone," he said. "I can't find my picture of Marilyn anywhere!"

This revelation, combined with the fact that Clive had spent the weekend at Ann and Lars’ place the week-end prior to his finding the picture on "the street," added up to a fairly con­vincing piece of circumstantial evidence.  I could hardly wait to return home to confront Clive with it. When I did, he immediately confessed to taking the picture.

His motive: there was a severe shortage of Marilyn "nudes," that was the word among his friends, and he in order to show them what a big man he was, had said he knew where he could get one. Evidently, he'd had his eye on it for some time.

I sat Clive down, and gave him a long, stern, and I'm sure dull, lecture on stealing. And I concluded by telling him that he'd have to return the picture to Lars and make an apology the next time we got together.

Clive said he didn't mind having to give up the picture (al­though he preferred not to), but he asked if it would be all right to apologize to Lars in writing. He said he was too ashamed to confess to the crime in person.

I told him I supposed it would be all right, and he went straight to his desk and wrote the following note:

DEAR LARS,

I am very sorry I took your picture of Marilyn.

I will not do it again.

Love, CLIVE

He put the note in an envelope, and with it, he enclosed the Marilyn picture and a ten-dollar bill. He didn't explain what the money was for, and I didn't ask him, but I presumed it was for "damages."

When next we met Ann and Lars, Clive handed him the note of apology and asked him to open it in private. Lars promised, but during the ride to the theater he couldn't contain his curiosity. When Clive was gazing out the window, Lars sneaked a look at the letter, and then, with an amused smile, slipped the picture and the bill back into his coat pocket.

Ann and I noticed him doing this, and we figured that some­time before the end of the evening Lars would undoubtedly take Clive aside, give him a kindly talking to about the evils of stealing, forgive him officially, and return the bill to him. But as the evening progressed, nothing like that happened. The ten dollar remained securely in Lars’ pocket throughout the show, and while we were having dinner after. It looked very much as if Lars meant to keep it for good. The affair of the Marilyn picture was now a closed book.

When we were walking to the parking lot, Ann nudged me hard in the ribs and whispered in an annoyed tone,
"Don't tell me Lars going to keep Clive's ten dollar?" 
"I don't know," I shrugged. "Maybe he wants to teach him a lesson." 
"Well, if he does that to Clive after Clive was good enough to give him all the money he's been saving up, I'll never speak to him again," threatened Ann, glaring at the back of Lars' head.
"Clive gave it to him," I said, trying to keep a family vendetta from getting started. "Lars probably doesn't want to hurt his feelings by giving it back."
"I don't care, I never heard of such a mean thing," said Ann."Why, do you know how much ten dollar is? It's a weeks' allow­ance."
"Forget it," I said. "I'll give him ten dollars."

But Ann couldn't forget it. On the way home in the car, she flatly refused to speak to Lars which, true to form, he didn't notice because he was so busy talking himself.

About the only one in our group who wasn't at all upset over the loss of the ten dollar was Clive. He accepted it as a matter of course that Uncle Lars would keep the money, and while we were driving home, he chatted happily in the back seat.

I parked the car and everybody alighted.

While we were saying our assorted thank yous and good-bys just before Lars opened the front door, he took me aside and slipped the ten-dollar bill into my hand, unbeknownst to Clive.

"Here," he said. "Give this back to Clive."

He started to walk toward the elevator, then turned around again and took something else out of his pocket and handed it to me.

It was the picture of Marilyn.

"Clive might as well have the picture, too," he added with a smile. "I'm getting too old for that sort of thing."

Ms. Edna