You hop out of the van and go knock on Merv's front door.

    <<knock knock knock>>

    No answer.

    <<KNOCK KNOCK>>

    "Hey, Merv!  C'mon!  It's me, Brad!"

    You wait another minute, but still no response.

    Getting a bit worried, you open his front door and walk inside.

    You walk down his front hall into the living room.

    You see Merv from behind, sitting in his old armchair.  At first you figure he must've just fallen asleep.  But then you notice the smoke coming from his head.

    "Merv?"  you say.  "What's going on, man?  You shmokin' up or what?"

    Merv doesn't speak or move, so you walk in front of him.

    Something's definitely not right here.

    Merv has a completely blank expression on his face, and smoke is emanating from his mouth, nose, and ears.

    "Merv?"

    You shake him a bit, but there's no change.

    "Looks like you really fried your brain, Merv-o."

    You look over and see that he's been watching the Barney marathon on PBS.

    "Yeah, that'll do it," you comment.

    You try to pick him up, but he's too heavy.  Instead, you drag him out of his chair, down the front hall and out in front of the van.

    "Now, I've only done this once before," you say to Merv's limp body.  "And it didn't work... but it's worth a shot."

    You grab the jumper cables from the back of the van.  You clip the positive onto Merv's left ear, and the negative on the right.  You think about it for a moment, and the switch it around: positive on the right, negative on the left.  You're pretty sure that's right.

    You attatch one cable to the battery, and then look over at Merv.

    "Hope this works, buddy."

    As soon as you attach the other cable, sparks fly out.  You turn and see Merv's body jumping around spastically.

    After a minute or so, you pull off the cables and check on Merv.

    The smoke pouring out of his head has changed from a light gray to a dark black.  You're pretty sure that's a good sign.

    You drag him back inside and set him down on the armchair.  His body has stiffened considerably, so you just sort of lean him against the chair.

    You search through Merv's pile of VCR tapes and find a one full of Webster re-runs.  You rewind it, hit play, and leave Merv there.

    You decide to head back home.  You walk out to the van and try to start it, but it seems as though the battery's dead.  So you change your plan and go back inside and watch Webster with Merv.

    After about the third tape, you fall alseep.  Around 1 AM, Merv whacks you on the head.

    "Yo, Marty!  Wake up!"

    You wake up with a start.

    "Hunh?  Merv?"

    "Looks like you fell alseep, dude!"

    "Oh... yeah..." you say.  "Guess so."

    You rub your eyes and look at Merv.  He seems fine.

    "I had this crazy dream," you tell him.

    "Marty, you all right?" asks Merv.

    "Hunh, why?"

    "There's a bunch of smoke pouring out of your head," he says.