I mentioned that Oxburg is rich, but not necessarily why. My younger brother Timothy feels I should come clean. And he accuses me of being cynical. “Maybe they don’t want to hear this!” I wail, but to no avail. Well, it’s been nice…!
Oxburg, Maryland, the entire 12 square miles, is one mighty speed trap.
In two separate places on The 1812 Hwy., the sunken road that connects one neighborhood to another, cops on motorcycles perch like falcons ready to swoop. Everybody knows they are there, pointing their hairdryer-shaped speed detectors in our direction, their blue and white Harleys parked by the curb, available to give chase.
Roaring along, I always, immediately, sink my speed to 30 mph, driving the people behind me absolutely bananas. Time and again, my next-door neighbors announce, bitterly, “Can you believe this? The cop at the speed trap gave me a ticket! I live here!”
Thus, one of Oxburg’s sources of income: unwary motorists from Chevy Chase, Bethesda and Rockville whose imported revenue generously fills the town coffers of our fine municipality. I hope you won’t think less of us for this scarlet “S” branded on our foreheads. I have pleaded before the Town Council at traffic hearings to suspend this foolish practice. “When you mention to anyone, ‘I live in Oxburg,’ they look at you like an enemy. Listen, the neighboring communities resent Oxburg’s speed traps. Abolish them for the good of our reputation.”
“What? Ridiculous,” Town Council Chairman Johnson J. Johansson responds. “They’re a major source of income!”
I’ve seen the town budget: 7% goes to schools, 8% for roads, a bogus 10% to cover infrastructure, overheads and admininstration, a whopping 75% in petty cash!
My neighbors support me in my campaign to abolish speed traps, right up until some slick councilman reminds them that removing the speed traps will raise their property taxes! “We’d have to do something to compensate for the loss of revenue, you know.”
Which also explains why everyone in Oxburg who knows me– certainly not every Oxburger– thinks I’m a kind, considerate, helpful, goddam sonofabitch troublemaker.
Go figure.
*
Why I Hate the Oxburg Towne Faire
It’s supposed to be a barrel of laughs!
The Blankety Blank Blank Blanket Sale
Scottish Hopscotch Scotch: hopping around to different locations imbibing shots of whiskey
The Alistaire Charles Foundation: a presentation of charitable works by rich snobs
Herman Nelson Hot Air Ride: sent aloft by balloon with an overtly gabby guide
Asa Pace Kissy Face: heavily rouged 14-year-old girls in Antebellum costumes give pecks on the cheek for money
Rebus Robust Raucous Car Wash: high school toughs beat you up, wash your car
Derringer Donut: buy donut, have it stuffed down your throat
Cagney Grapefruit: buy grapefruit half, have it squashed in your face
Yogi Bear Yawning Contest
Billy “Twang” Cooper: Billy as in “hillbilly,” this “entertainer” offers songs that are clumsily crude and indelibly stale.
*
We only have one famous Amos in Oxburg, painter and living legend Linton Hicks. Three times already, people have said, plucking yard signs from my eager hands, “Since you volunteer for the Anna Bola Attorney General campaign, come join our effort to have Linton Hicks declared ‘painter laureate.'”
“You mean, like, poet laureate?”
“Exactly. He’ll be the national portraitist.”
“You’re, what, lobbying Congress?”
“We’re lobbying Congress!”
“No, thanks!”
Who wants to be considered a kook?
“The damned shame shall be upon you and you shall roast amidst the iniquities of Hellfire forever,” Parson Jeremiah Parsons, from a long line of religious fanatics, declares. Co-chair of the Linton Hicks Movement, he is not an easy man to get along with. He does not readily take “no” for an answer.
“Um, Parson, this is a conflict of opinion between two mortals,” I remind him. “Let’s leave God and the Devil out of it.”
*
I’m standing on the corner of Peanut Blvd. and Brevity Lane. The latter, of course, is the shortest stretch of road in town. I don’t smoke any longer, so I’m just sweltering in the heat, discussing the Chinese trade deficit with economics professor George Meeks. As I’m talking, Town Council Chairman Johnson J. Johansson drives up in his council-sponsored RV. Forget SUV’s, Oxburg goes the whole nine yards. He rolls down his window. “It’s Friday!” he announces.
“Truer words, seldom spoken?” I ask.
“It’s hot! I taken mah fam’ly to th’ country! Y’all have a good ‘un!” he rejoices, roaring away in a cloud of black diesel fumes.
“What was that about?” asks George.
“The Council feels I am overly critical of their expenditures.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t be seen associating with you,” George speculates in that ambiguous tone of voice that always leaves me hanging: Is he joking? Perhaps he means what he just said.
Before we can iron this out, Molly Sieverts, Town Council Vice Chairperson, drives by in her RV. “Never heard of air conditioning?” she asks, before hitting the switch that rolls her driver side window back up.
“I detect a pattern here,” says George.
“No, it’s…”
It’s Prescott Anderson, Town Council Treasurer, who drives up to the corner in his RV, gives us a haughty look that clearly implies we aren’t worth talking to, and drives off with a throaty roar.
It’s not like they were correcting my calculations regarding the mismanagement of the town budget or anything.
Thank God for small favors.
I could call these jerks mafiosi, but that would denigrate our one, real, true, actual mafioso, Vinnie Panini. Arrriving Stateside in the 1960’s, Vincenzo opened a furniture shop. I was one of the locals who told him, “Don’t be ashamed that your furniture is imported from Naples! Italian furniture is the coming thing. Brag about furniture with a Neopolitan flair.” He’s done well, but even at 70 years of age, he’s still a mafioso.
He comes into Lorenzo’s, which is a pretty good eatery, and makes his rounds of the tables. You watch, you see how the non-Italians joke around and treat him like an amiable eccentric. The families with Italian and Sicilian surnames gush and fuss over him, but when he wheels to one side to canvas the next table, they stare daggers at his back. Yes, they still buy their bedroom sets at his shop, because they don’ wan’ no trouble, but as second and third generation fellow immigrants, they resent the pressure.
To me, he always delivers the same litany of advice: “Hey, puppy eyes! How you business? You should move you business inside town limits. Then I could help you develop you business.” He says this grumpily, looking vaguely distressed by heartburn, in a semi-threatening manner. He never fails to crack me up!
In 1984, he took delivery of two Lamborghinis that seriously lacked documentation. There was no pink slip on either car, no registration, nada import papers, no nothing. He called me.
“Where you at?” I asked, busy with black recruits.
“I wish to Kevin Feingold I should speak,” he enquired tremulously.
“Speaking,” I replied, recognizing his voice. “Vincenzo! Qué passa?”
“You can be of a big help or I ask this service of my own people,” he told me brusquely.
“What do you need?” I asked frankly.
I arranged to stash the vehicles in an aircraft hangar on a military base in Maryland. I insisted he not tell any of his fellow wiseguys because, after all, why should he give them the upper hand in some future test of wills? He loved that.
The state police went around Oxburg from street to street, making every single household open their garage doors. No Lamborghinis. If people weren’t home, the police kept coming back until they’d nailed that location. People returned from vacation and found CRIME SCENE / DO NOT PASS tape stretched across their driveways. It was a madhouse, I’m told. Still, no Lamborghinis.
Since then, Vinnie and I have been thick as thieves. I keep him at arm’s length, but we amuse one another.
That’s small town culture.
*
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