When I was about nine years old, my favorite imaginary friend was Samuel L. Friedman. The L stood for Lewis. He was a middle-aged, balding divorced accountant living in a Manhattan apartment like Oscar and Felix's on The Odd Couple. Sam had a roommate named George Beagle, who was a talking dog not unlike Snoopy in the Peanuts comic strip. Sam's ex-wife was Bernice (Fish's wife on Barney Miller), and she was always nagging him for overdue alimony payments. Sam's daughter Jan was a "hippy radical" who hit Sam up for "bread" and threatened to drop out of school. I got the name Jan from The Brady Bunch. I almost certainly nicked her peace-symbol/fringe-vest/bell-bottom mentality from popular TV and movies of the time, which portrayed most young adults as outcasts from Woodstock, even though hippies were already passe and the disco era had begun.

George Beagle was a photographer. He took pictures of cats for Life magazine.

Years later, when I told my wife about all this, she said, "That's so unimaginative and derivative, it's actually pretty original."

She asked why I'd invented an imaginary friend who was middle-aged and divorced. "Where'd the name 'Sam Friedman' come from? Why an accountant?"

I told her I had no idea.

She also asked if Sam was impotent.

My wife's a real kidder, you understand.

***
After a while, George Beagle morphed into a canine sci-fi superhero.

He would voyage through space and time, changing history as part of his work for a top-secret group called the OSS: The Office of Super Secrets. (The Office of Strategic Services was a precursor to the CIA. But I hadn't heard of the OSS when I was nine years old.)

Hip Hippo was George Beagle's boss. His office was filled with mud and he'd wallow while studying maps and computers, sending George Beagle on missions all over the galaxy. I got the idea of hippos from watching Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

Naturally, George Beagle kept his OSS work secret from his roommate, Sam Friedman. His cover: "I'm a buyer for Bloomingdale's."

In one OSS adventure, George went back in time to kill the baby Hitler but got tripped up when three kids named Hitler were born that day.

I imagined that George popped onto my school playground via an upraised round sewer grate near the slides. That was George's transporter, just like on Star Trek.

He was pretty miffed about the whole Hitler thing.

"Three of them," he'd said. "And not one with a mustache."

On the playground, I'd talk out loud with my imaginary friends, doing a ruff-ruff doggie voice for George. The kids and teachers stayed pretty far away, ostensibly immersed in kickball and such, looking over their shoulders at me and rolling their eyes every now and then.

The day my pediatrician said I had mild dyslexia, George Beagle exclaimed: "I work for the SSO."

"Super Secret Office," I whispered.

He winked and wagged his tale.

***
Eventually, George Beagle and Sam Friedman had to take in a third roommate after Sam lost his job (just like my dad in real life). Plus, George's paychecks were so super-secret, he wasn't allowed to deposit them.

Orbit the Robot -- a pudgy variation on the automaton from Lost in Space -- could print money from a slot in his chest (this was 20+ years before Bender on Futurama), didn't need to eat or sleep: his internal nuclear generator powered the apartment so the trio saved tons on their electricity bill.

There was a catch, of course. Orbit longed to become human, an idea I probably got after reading The Bicentennial Man.

One day for no particular reason, Orbit morphed into an orangutan like Dr. Zaius from Planet of the Apes.

I was pretty shocked on the playground when George Beagle materialized on the sewer grate and told me the story.

"That robot calls himself Bananas Foster now. And he can't print money or power appliances anymore. Sam is going to have a SHITFIT."

I giggled uncontrollably, because to a nine-year-old, "Shitfit" is about the funniest thing imaginable.

George rolled his puppy-dog eyes. "The novelty wears off pretty fast."

Suddenly, Sam Friedman appeared, which was surprising, because George had tried to keep his time-travel/matter-transport activities and history-changing job a secret.

"I've known all along," Sam said. "I'd've smashed those three little Hitlers but good!"

George Beagle sighed. "Orbit the Robot's an orangutan now."

Sam shrugged. "I still shower first in the morning. That's really all I care about."

As they climbed on the sewer/transporter pad, I had a sudden revelation. "You guys are real, aren't you! You come from a world where you're real and I am your imaginary friend!"

I leapt up and down, clapping my hands. The other kids and teachers smacked themselves on the forehead like Homer Simpson would one day.

Sam called back: "Sure, whatever. Look, if anyone ever asks you if I'm impotent, tell them..."

He vanished before he could finish the thought.

To conclude in the style of The Wonder Years: I wasn't sure at age nine what "impotent" meant. (At that point in my life, I'd only seen it on the cover of one of my mom's Cosmopolitan magazines.) But as a kickball smashed into my face and sent my glasses flying to the ground, three words fell from my lips. They seem to gain meaning with each passing year, and they're the words I said to my wife the day she asked if my imaginary friend Sam Friedman was impotent...

Aren't we all?

TRADE IMBALANCE / DUMB SETTLEMENT WITH THE FTC

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