yustyoking

 

            The only way to get out of the 9 a.m. parade in Oxburg (9 a.m., who’s awake at such an ungodly hour?), is to agree to the 11 a.m. parade in Marshy Hollow. So we all meet at Anna’s house at 10 a.m. and pile into cars for the drive north. A driver, I get a mapquest printout from Eric. Out on the street, however, nobody is that interested in traveling with me. I hitch a ride with three college guys and a girl.

            “Jesus, Tommy, how can you stand this?” Craig groans. He’s in the front with José, who is driving. Tommy and his girlfriend Marge sit in the back with me. A subcompact, we’re wedged in. It makes for an intimate conversation.

            “What’s your beef?” asks Tommy.

            “It’s fuckin’ early is what my beef is! I haven’t been out of bed before 11 o’clock in a week!”

             “I don’t get up and go jogging at 7 a.m., but I do like to get up early,” Tommy explains. “Of course, I don’t stay up late. These other guys, they’re up until all hours. I don’t enjoy feeling sleepy, so after 10 p.m., I’m outta there.”

               Pregnant pause.

              “Shall we tell him the secret to staying up late, boys?…” I ask. “CAFFEINE!”

              Tommy: “I can’t stand the taste of coffee…”

              Craig: “There’s coffee and there’s coffee. Takes all kinds.”

               José: “I like the taste of coffee.”

               Craig: “What you drink is not coffee. You drink milk and sugar.”

                José: “I like to say that there’s some coffee in my drink.”

                 Kevin: “Laboratory analysis would reveal coffee as an ingredient.”

                 Craig: “I’m just saying that there are some great coffees. I love regular coffee, black! I’ve gotten to the point where I can taste the difference in the brands. I know a Starbucks from a Dunkin’ Donuts. Give me Chock full o’ Nuts, Chase & Sanborn or Maxwell House and I’ll tell you which is which.”

                 Tommy: “Coffee makes my heart race.”

                 Kevin: “The very idea!”

                 Tommy: “I’ll drink Red Bull, but that’s ‘cause I like the taste.”

                  Craig: “I need Monster. It has this tarry taste. You can taste the tar. Ahhhh! ”

                  The radio is blaring away in Spanish. “José always has the Spanish-language station on,” Craig remarks. “I’m like, Oh yeah, sure, okay! Until I remember that, ‘Oh yeah, I don’t speak Spanish.’ Sometimes it feels like I can understand them anyway.”

                “Russian is even worse,” I tell him. “I was standing on the Metro platform and heard these Russians. I thought they were discussing train times. Turns out they were talking about the weather.”

                “Well, yeah, dumb Russians,” Craig agrees.

                “Hey! Hey!” Tommy counters. “My dad is Russian!”

                “My mom is Russian,” I reveal.

                “My dad came over from the Old World. You know, over there, they shoot you in the knee-cap to say good morning!”

                  Tommy’s girlfriend Marge and I look at one another and burst out laughing.

                  After many minutes and a lengthy discussion about movie categories (“Okay, what’s the best slasher movie you ever saw?”), we arrive. It’s not like I have anything against Marshy Hollow, but it is all horse country up there. Lots of 13- and 14-year-old girls riding chestnut mares and palominos. Life is hard enough as is. Don’t put a hard-on on a horse in front of me.

                 The police direct us to the parking. I count fourteen college interns in our group, Anna the candidate, her husband Frank, Eric the campaign manager, his assistant Judith, and then there’s me. We’re all wearing our Anna Bola for State Attorney General T’s. Many classic antique cars line the roadway, Cobras, Mustangs, Corvettes, vintage MG’s, a Sunbeam Alpine, a wasted Ford Pickup, a shiny restored purple roadster from Moon Motors. We have Democratic candidates in front of us and behind us in the line-up. “What does a Supervisor do?” Craig asks me. We’re milling around in the crowd, waiting for late arrivals.

            “Where’s that?”

            “Over there! ‘Gregory Rappaport for County Supervisor.’”

            “I think he kind of runs the county. Supervisors are what they have instead of a County Board.”

              Anna’s rival in the Democratic primary Hiram Whiplash is there with his gang. I feel like chewing him out for going negative, but I don’t want a scene. Republican opponent Rafshoon Calloway has his supporters lined up in depth.  Funny name or no, the man will be almost impossible to beat. His war chest is B-I-G. He does his usual act, searching me out in the crowd, taking a mental snapshot, shaking his head in recognition and returning his attention to his side of the parking area.

            Imagine if we actually knew each other!

            I am impressed by the level of civility between the armed camps. “When I worked on the Myrtle Beech campaign,” I tell Anna’s husband Frank, “the Blackie Diamond crowd treated us murderously. Constant sniping. Sabotaging each other’s vehicles. It’s impressive that everyone can gather here and still behave.”

            “For now,” Frank answers dryly, giving me a “heads up” kind of look.

            Ouch!  “Well, okay…” I gulp. “No surprises further down the road!”

            Foghorn Sally warns us through her megaphone, “In about two minutes, everybody…”

            “What is the best Jack Black movie?” asks José.

            “Nacho Libre,” I suggest, the first that comes to mind.

            “You are so right on, dude!”

            “Celebrity is as celebrity does,” I tease him.         

            Craig: “The Twilight series is meant to give hard-ons to pre-teen girls, which, come to think of it, is pretty upsetting.”

             “I’m playing Scrabble against my computer,” Tommy declares, busy on his smartphone. “I just put in the word ‘skag’ and it says there’s no such usage. Anybody know how to tweek the vocabulary in Scrabble?”

            “What does ‘skag’ mean?” I ask. “The British—“

            “Like, ‘monstrous,’ that’s our meaning for ‘skag.’ Something is truly skag. The orcs in Lord of the Rings were skag.”

            “For us (a hundred years ago), a ‘skag’ meant someone who borrowed stuff and never returned it. A total user. Try it with a ‘c’.”

            “Huh? Far out! Wait! ‘Slang for heroin.’ Too much!”

            The parade gets underway. We’re carrying yard signs, without the wire frames. Anna has ordered— what else?—emery boards with her name and logo on them. So every time we pass a lady with nice nails, we dart out of line and hand her a yellow or blue emery board.

            “No fans!” says Anna. “Everybody hands out fans!”

            For the kids, cardboard Star Spangle Banner polarized sunglasses, “Anna Bola For State Attorney General” and a QR code you can access with your smartphone.

            “We’re going for the women’s vote,” she announces.

            “What a shame kids can’t vote!” Craig laments, watching a group of pre-teens go nuts over the sunglasses.

            “Ah, but their parents vote!” Anna replies happily.

            I’m less happy. Our flock of seagulls meanders along, discussing video games and movies amongst themselves, their yard signs tucked under their arms. The T-shirts say who we are, but I don’t see a lot of contact between us and the spectators. I’m at the back of our group, so I start spinning my yard sign as I walk. Then I hold one side with my right hand and let go with my left, letting the sign drop sideways like it’s broken. Looking surprised, I pick it up and hold it straight, smiling. Then I drop one side again and frown. Repeat. The kids are laughing. Next time I “straighten” my sign, I let it end up upside down. Smiling hugely, I hold it out to the crowd. “IT’S UPSIDE DOWN!” people shout. Looking aghast, I pull it in front of my face and examine it. As I walk past, I turn it over and look helpfully at the crowd. They cheer.

            From then on, I am Bozo the Clown. Pulling the sign against my face, I let my sunglasses roost atop the cardboard. Holding the sign out to the crowd, “spastic robot,’ I twist it jerkily in different directions. Walking Charlie Chaplin style, I spin the sign end over end. Alternately smiling large and frowning dismayed, I put on a show. Naturally, the children instinctively read my body language. A lot of adults laugh. Some smile sickly, their expressions saying, “Gee, are you really allowed to do that at a municipal parade?!”

            God help us.

            “So! How are you?” I ask Anna when we’ve covered the parade route.

            “I’m disturbed,” Anna tells me. “Hiram Whiplash has printed an ugly mailer about me.”

            “Yeah, I know. The Unicef one with the ugly photograph.”

            “I don’t like to come under attack.”

            The 8½ x 11 inch orange card that came in the mail reads:

ANNA SOLD HER SOUL!!!

    “Anna Bola has been making yearly $10 contributions to Unicef!

                           “While many might see this as a good thing, we in

                     opposition research are having a hard time digging up

                                           dirt on Miss Goody Two-Shoes!

                           “So please join us in condemning this previously

                                           undisclosed connection!”

            “Anna, I talked with my neighbors. It will boomerang on Hiram. He shouldn’t have put ‘Friends of Hiram Whiplash’ on it. Usually, you use a stalking horse, ‘Voters For Good Government’ or some such garbage. Our voters are highly educated and experienced. They expect electoral politics to be conducted at a high level. As soon as someone starts slinging mud or breaking the rules, the voters resent it. Hiram broke the rules. That reflects badly on Hiram. It has no effect on what voters think of you!”

            “Oh! Well…Thank you!” Anna gushes. Is she serious? Apparently, she was really worried about Hiram’s attack…!

            And, yes, here at the end of the parade route, we take our group photo, me kneeling on the pavement, Anna crouching next to me with her arm over my shoulder. And no, she won’t let me hold the campaign sign upside down! Followed by two dozen teenage girls riding past us on horses decked out in various kinds of red, white and blue bunting. Most of the horses are being led by a parent, but one lass, exquisite in tan livery, jeans and brown riding boots, steers her enormous brown horse by herself with a sure hand and a haughty stare. The de rigueur brown riding helmet. An oval face. Red lipstick on a bow mouth. Snub nose. Auburn hair. Big eyes. Not nice. Something to dream about, she makes my day.

                                                        *

            The interns sit around Anna’s house gassing, but I head home. They are going out to parties this evening. I am not. I am accompanying Anna, her hubby Frank, Eric and Judith to The Oxburg Fireworks Show. A complete misnomer, the “show” is a political event. Fireworks there are, but only as an excuse for speeches, blandishments, incentives and heavy promises. “What does she stand for?” I am immediately asked that evening, just approaching the entrance to Riverdale Park.

            “Ask her! Here she is!” I reply, making way for the candidate.

            “Clean up the bay! Improve our schools! Smart growth. Ecologically sound government. No to statewide gambling. Clean air, clean water, clean politics,” she happily exclaims. She’s in great form.

            “What about our troops?” the angry voter continues. Hook-nosed, perspiring mightily, dressed in shorts, a jersey and flip-flops, his face is mottled from the heat.

            “What about them?”

            “Don’t they deserve better?”

            “You’d better believe they deserve better! Walter Reed is being moved to the Bethesda Naval Hospital!”

            “He is? I didn’t even know he’d been wounded.”

            We stop right there and look at one another.

            “Sir,” I explain as gently as I can, “the over 100-year-old Walter Reed Medical Facility is being relocated to a new, modern site in Bethesda, Maryland  to improve the care of our returning troops.”

            “Why didn’t you say so?!”

            “I just did.”

            Our area may be heavily Democratic, but this campaign is still a toss-up.

            Right away, it’s the Battle of the Yard Signs. There are yard signs stuck in the ground lining the road in both directions. Bernard Cooper is running for Sheriff. Edwin Burnett wants a seat on the School Board. Lily Craig is running against Patricia Perry for the State Senate. Linda Dale-Eckert is running for State Representative. (Who is her opposition? Is it Rita Horne or Fatima Loredo? Or both?) Skip A. Page is running for Chairman. “Chairman of what?” I ask him as he shyly waves to cars entering the parking area. Like Anna and most of the other candidates, he comes across as shy and self-effacing in person. No hubris here, folks!

            “Chairman of the County Board.”

            “Ah!”

            As for his choice of a proper name, what’s with him, is he trying to be funny? His middle name is Albert, he tells me. “Adding some levity to the rigmarole,” he suggests.

            So there are all these yard signs, maybe 200 of them. We’ve brought with us, like, five signs. Eric jumps in the car and returns to Anna’s to get a full carload. By the time we’re finished, we’ve added another 60 to the mix.

           “Now Anna makes a good showing in the sign department,” Eric announces. He’s talking with our local rep for the neighborhood bounding the park, Jane Jeffries, who certainly means well, but drives me crazy. “It’s almost tragic how much money people have to spend to compete in the election process,” she murmurs in a subterranean voice. “Stacie Manning spent $35,000 on signage and broadcast and still lost by 300 votes.”

                I want to scream, “Jane, darling, I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” But I control myself and practice my lip reading skills.

               “Arthur Epstein spent $500 on signs last election, placed them in all the right places, and won by a virtual landslide.”

                “Arthur ran unopposed,” Anna mumbles in turn.

                 I try to keep a straight face.

                 They leave me at the entrance to the parking area. They go off to join in the show. The “show” includes speeches, of course, but also a family-friendly rock band and… well… fireworks. Listen, my receptionist Jacqueline and her punk band Explosive Plastic auditioned. They were uninvited. There is also the usual range of concessionaires: food, soda, candy.  

              I start doing my Anna dance. Wearing my campaign T-shirt, I hold aloft a yard sign, alternately dancing with it in my hands or balancing it atop my head. “Anna Bola” I chant, but very softly. People see my mouth moving and read the words: “Anna… Bola… Anna… Bola…” Smiling, they wave and give me a thumbs up.

              The local traffic cop does not. Without belaboring the point, I am a walking traffic hazard. I am distracting people as they drive into the parking area. Every time the two bicycle cops pedal past, I tone down my performance. Every time the local constable walks by, I give him a quiet nod and try to appear inconspicuous. At any moment, I expect him to say, “Scram! Take your goddam sign and leave this parking apron.” Happily, he never says it. The parking area is fenced in, so I see all the same faces as they walk by me on their way to the park.

              It’s hot and buggy. I see a Republican lady operative theatrically balancing on one leg by her car, spraying herself over every inch of exposed skin.

            “Hmmm, what does she know I don’t know?” I wonder.

            “Are you Anna Bola’s husband?” a campaign worker for Patricia Perry asks.

             How outlandish! “No, no,” I tell her, “that’s Mr. Frank Reynolds. I’m Kevin Feingold, someone else entirely!”

              It begins to drizzle. Now it’s hot, buggy and raining!

              A lady in a poke-your-eyes-out red Carera drives in through the gate. I cannot believe what I see. The leather cowboy hat, the tan skin, the wind-blown blond locks, the laugh lines around the eyes, she is a perfect imitation of Kim Carnes! Like everyone else, she gets out of her car and comes toward me. I mean, man, I am looking over this woman. “Hi!” she says jauntily.

            “Hi, yourself!”

            “Like what you see?”

            “Are you kiddin’ me?”

             The breasts are like inflated balloons, the hips wide and swaying, the legs shapely, the face all dimples and round chin. “I take it, that means you like what you see.”

            “I do, I do!”

            “Got a cell phone?”

             Huh? I take out and hand her my cell phone. “Who you gonna call, ghostbusters?”

             “I want to put my phone number on your cell phone,” she explains, busy pushing the appropriate buttons. “Speed dial 5 is your local AAA. Mind if I delete that? You can look that number up later.”

            “Delete! Delete!”

             She keeps smiling at me, her teeth as even and white as a picket fence. “Listen,” she tells me, “I’m a working girl, so don’t think I object to your interest. I don’t! I’ve put a lot of time and money into this body and I like what it does for me. You’ll like it, too!”

            She runs her bright red fingernails along my arm and thumps me playfully on the chin with her closed fist.

            “Oh, yes, ma’am,” I agree sincerely, feeling like a yokel.

             “Don’t call me ‘ma’am.’ My name is Lenore Lemon. Call me Lenore or ‘honey’ or ‘sugar,’ but call me! And, yes, I am a Valley Girl. Born and raised in the San Fernando Valley. Of which I am rightly proud. However, I do find Washington, D.C. and environs a lot of fun! Try me! You’ll find me a lot of fun, as well.” Smiling. Smiling, she hands me back the cell phone. “Speed dial 5.”

              “Well, thank you!” I say, looking at her with frank admiration.

               She strokes my face. “That’s my cell phone number. Call when the mood is ripe!”

              “I’m ready now!”

              “Thatta boy! However, I do want to police this crowd and see if I can troll for customers. Some of these family fathers get very horny. It’s my kind of venue.”

             “Please!”

             Giving me a last giant smile, she joins the crowds heading into the park.

             I drink some water. I do my dance. A half hour later, she’s back. “Success?” I ask.

             “Oh, I always have success,” Lenore exclaims. “It’s just a matter of fitting them into my schedule. Take you for example. I assume at some point you’ll get off the hustings, Senator, sir?”

             “Eventually, I will.”

             “Call me!”

             “Um, maybe. Don’t wait up!” I end lamely.

             She twinkles her laugh lines at me. “You can’t insult me, I’m 37 years old,” she tells me jovially. “Feel that,” she says, pressing my sweaty hand against her face. “Feel how taut and smooth the skin is? Cosmetic surgery, my love. I’m the same inside as I am outside. Try me!”

              “Okay, already,” I smile ruefully, sure I never will.

              “It’s your cell phone!” Driving out of the lot, she is still smiling, more sure of herself than I am of myself.

              And, eventually, Eric and Judith take down their share of the yard signs and depart. Followed soon enough by Anna and her hubby, who also gather up some signs and say goodnight. “You can go whenever you want!”

             “That’s cool! I told Eric I’d take the rest of the signs down and keep them at my place until I come to the office tomorrow at noon. Everything’s under control. We’re good!”

             “You are terrific!” Anna compliments me.

             “We make a great team!” I reply.

              “Yes, we do! Yes, we do!” she agrees, the closest she and I have come to acknowledging that, maybe, Kevin would like some work thrown his way once Anna reaches Baltimore. She and her husband leave.

              After gathering up the last signs, I make a final check.

              This is when the evening begins to weird out.

              “How’s it going?” a young, raven-haired lady in a Linda Dale-Eckert for State Representative T-shirt asks me, handing out balloons to families heading for the stage area.

              “It’s hot. Our campaign is hot, the weather is hot, I’m hot!”

              “Oopsie-daisy, my last balloon! Are you finished for the night?”

               “Yeah!” I sigh. Anna and Linda are great friends, Anna running for Attorney General, Linda running for a seat in the State General Assembly.

              “Well-l-l, you do have style,” the young lady says. “I saw you in Marshy Hollow this morning with the Bola campaign… I’m Josie Lambert. I’m Linda Dale-Eckert’s campaign manager. I’m also president of the Oxburg Young Dems. Listen, I’m heading for the stage area to get more balloons.”

            “Wow! Great to meet you!” I say. “Here, let me give you my card!”

             Now what the fuck is wrong with me? She’s all but stripping off her T-shirt in front of me. She’s perky-eyed and interested. She’s young, pretty and immensely well-connected. No pun intended. All I have to do is get my ass in gear and walk with her to the stage area. There, behold! Food and drink, music, many Democrats I should meet. Fireworks! Instead, I’m handing her my card?

              “Oh, you live by The 1812 Highway!”

               “I share the house with my mom.”

                “I live here in Riverdale. Way out in the boonies!”

                “Listen, stay in touch,” I say, still totally off-base.

                She keeps looking at my card in obvious disappointment. “Do you go to ODC meetings?” she asks. The Oxburg Democratic Club, that one I do know.

                “I haven’t been doing so, but I can start!” I say.

                 “Okay-y-y,” she says and walks away.

                 I’m tired. I need to take a piss. Putting the last of the yard signs in the back of my car, I pull out my cell phone and speed dial 5.

                 “Hi! Ha ha ha ha ha,” Lenore answers.

                 I immediately begin to get an erection. “Where do you live? I mean, may I come by?”

                 “How many invitations must I proffer?” she asks in turn. The archaic formality of her “Capitol Hill speak” makes me chuckle. “Got a pen and paper?” She waits while I ready pen and paper. She then gives me easy, explicit directions to her abode. She lives in an apartment complex in what is officially Rockville. “Close but no cigar. No Oxburg cigar, at any rate. You’ll be my Oxburg cigar for the evening! Come on over, cigar boy! I want to smoke you!”

                  Just like that, I do. There is visitor parking. Everything is deserted. Well… people are at barbecues or watching the fireworks. She buzzes me into the building and admits me into her apartment. “Let me use your bathroom,” I say right off.

                “You do have a credit card?” she asks. “You’re not a deadbeat?”

                “In no way am I a deadbeat!”

                “Don’t wack off in the john. No, really, save it! You’d be surprised at how stupid men can be sometimes.”

                 “I need to take a piss!”

                 “Thatta boy! You just do that little thing.”

                 She cracks me up. Like Stephen Colbert, she has a swipe attachment on her iPad. She swipes my credit card!

                “You being a working girl and all…” I say.

                 “We’ll have fun!” she insists, kissing me full on the mouth. Three parts toothpaste, two parts mouthwash! She’s an eye-opener. “You’re hot and sweaty! Take a cold shower,” she suggests, handing me a fluffy pink towel. “And leave your vitals alone!”

                “What is with you?” I ask. “I am not wacking off!”

                “Good! It ruins all the fun.”

                “Gad!” I say, glad to take a shower and cool off.      

                 The apartment is done up in Danish Modern on a budget. There are chrome chairs, but only two. The glass table and sofa are of minimalist design. Some additional furniture is made of corrugated cardboard, very chic but also kind of cheap. 

                We sit on green plastic garden chairs on her concrete balcony eating salmon chipotle dip on tortilla chips off a green plastic table, not because it is included in the price, but simply because Lenore happens to be hungry. The fireworks explode in the distance. At three miles, they sound muted, an endless series of dull thumps! that light up the sky. To me, the show resembles so much outgoing artillery. A radioman and Corporal in Vietnam, I heeded our First Sergeant when he told us, “Long’s it ain’t comin’ our way, don’ pay it no mind!”

               I don’t go to fireworks displays.

               “Come on to bed,” Lenore suggests after coffee. “I put a little something extra in the dip to keep us stimulated. How’s Henry?”

               “Henry?”

               “How’s our little friend?”

               “Quite erect, actually.”

               “Thatta boy!  C’mon!”

                “Now what is this?” I ask. On her bed, there’s an American flag!

                “What does it look like?”

                 “Your coverlet is an American flag?”

                 “No, that’s the bed.”

                 “So where do we lie?”

                 “On the flag.”

                 “We have sex on top of an American flag?”

                 “Hello-o-o! Fourth of July! Independence Day? Celebrating freedom?”

                 I start laughing. “You really are a Valley Girl!”

                “Don’t be so smug. If you come on July 14^th, we’ll do it atop a tri-color. The French flag. It all depends on the holiday, really. I try to diversify. Listen, let me do it my way and you decide.”

                “O-O-Okay.” You pays yo’ money, you gits yo’ choice.

                She puts on a tape—not a CD, but an audio cassette—of an aerial bombardment. Rockets bursting in air. Cannons belching destruction. Pulling me softly down atop the “coverlet,” an 84 inch by 48 inch American flag, she smothers me in kisses, her fingers unbuttoning and peeling off every stitch of my clothing in a matter of minutes. Totally turned on, I find myself sucking frantically on her gorgeous, melon-shaped breasts, the nipples coming erect beneath my tongue. As I grope further afield, she shows herself to be all Valley Girl. Going down on me, she Deep Throats me. Now I know why she didn’t want me abusing my vital organs. She had plans for my precious bodily fluids!

                As closely as she can get it, she tries to time my ejaculations to coincide with cannons bursting in air. Obviously, Lenore means well, but it’s a bit over the top. Fornicating on the American flag. Ejaculating to the sound of explosions. Paying for sex.

                When we are finished and have cleaned up, that alone a prodigious chore, I tell her that, yes, I did have fun. “It wasn’t like anything I ever did before…”

                “Kinky. I’m trying to bring out the kinky in you, lover boy!”

                “Yeah, well… Look, can I have coffee? Without any additives? Just coffee?”

                “Sure! Coffee, tea or me? You’ve still got a nice balance on your credit card. We can have another go at it! I have tricks you wouldn’t be-lieve!”

                 “I believe you! Lenore! I believe you!”

                  I still get home before midnight.

                                                      *

                   My mom is in a blue holiday funk, sulking, watching reruns of All In the Family, under the misguided assumption that other people are having more fun than she is.

                                                      *