yustyoking

Law and Order Lady

            On the day campaign manager Eric Brown came aboard, the very first thing he did was purchase a copy of The Democratic Party Voter Base for Maryland. In addition, we have constructed a database of our own.

            Just because the campaign gathers this information, doesn’t mean I automatically lunge to the right and drive south whenever I reach the coast. If Eric needs specific data, the interns tap into the system and access it. 

[  ] – Strong Anna Supporter     [  ] – Probable Anna Supporter     [  ] – Leaning Toward Anna     [  ] – Undecided     [  ] – Leaning Toward Hiram     [  ] – Probable Hiram Supporter     [  ] – Strong Hiram Supporter

[  ] – Will Contribute $     [  ] – Will Volunteer    [  ] – Will Host Event    

[  ] – Wants Yard Sign   

            The info is there. Being “the yard sign guy,” it is good to have access. Planning the placement of yard signs in rights of way, it saves me the effort if I know a supporter has their sign in their front yard right up the street. When pushing my product on an unsuspecting electorate (“Yard signs! Yard signs! Come and getcha red hot yard signs!”), it helps to know how deep into Republican territory I have ventured. I definitely use it in designing my round, brightly colored, self-adhesive regional stickers:

                                    Baltimore – Orioles fan!

                                    Annapolis – Anna 2 Annapolis

                                                          Go USNA!

                            Eastern Shore – Sure I’m Crabby!

                                                          Arsters 4 Anna

                                                          B Corny!

                                          Central – Save Our Farms!

                                                            Smart Growth!

                                                           Have a cigar!

                            Washington area – U Md Rocks!

                                                             No DUI !

                                                            Just Say ‘Yes’!

             God only knows if sticking these quips on Anna For Attorney General yard signs is a good thing or a dumb move. I sure don’t. We have the capability because our canvassers have picked up a lot of unusually personal information.

            Ethnic background. A household strewn with Russian Orthodox icons, votive candles and balalaikas is probably Russian. Pastel plaster wall ornaments declaring WILLKOMMEN and PROSIT!— plus your ornamental beer steins— tend to scream “German!” A poodle and “F” stickers on the automobiles = French. Blue and yellow flag decals on the cars, a large Swedish flag unfurling over the front door and an abundance of Volvos would lead our intrepid canvasser to say, “Oh… Norwegians!” Nationality can be an extremely sensitive issue for some, but no one ever refuses to answer our naïve, cute, enthusiastic, clueless young people when they suddenly blurt, “Hey! Cool! Where do you guys come from originally?”

          We find out what schools and colleges the students in the household are attending.

          Which family members lean Democratic, which lean Republican.

           Approximate level of income.

           Last vacation (domestic or foreign, destination, duration).

           If household help is on the premises, gender and nationality of same.

           At least I know which language to use when delivering a yard sign!

                                                         *

            Being me, I want a lot of corporate sponsors festooning their industrial parks with Anna signs.

           “That sounds extremely speculative,” Eric answers, meaning “Don’t do it! Stay away!”

          “Why not?” I ask, curious.

           “If somebody has a beef with the manufacturer over faulty merchandise or poor service, the last thing we want is to have Anna’s name mixed up in it. No scandals, no grandstanding, no court cases. When it comes to this campaign, keep it clean. Keep it upbeat, light, airy and dead-on target,” he explains, his voice actually filling with emotion for once. Even his eyeglasses steam up.

           He thinks I’m pushing his buttons.

           The same thing happens when I query him on tech issues, such as fertilizer run-off polluting streams emptying into the bay.

           “We oppose pollution! It’s that simple. Whenever, wherever. Stop with the talk about specific chemical compounds, volume of contaminants, types, grades, brands, expiration dates, disco balls, flying saucers, Martians, beach balls and miscellaneous crap! That kind of talk just scares people. We oppose pollution! ANNA OPPOSES POLLUTION!

            “What, in the previous statement, do you not understand???”

             He runs such a quiet operation, everyone glued to their laptop— walking in on them, I often feel like I’ve entered a monastery— that my simplest questions cause a hullabaloo.

             All I can do is remind him that I don’t exasperate him on purpose, we all work for the same campaign, and as the voice and face of the campaign on the ground, I need to keep myself informed and current.

             “Okay, okay,” he growls, but it’s obvious he doesn’t like my snooping. Paranoia is an integral part of politics. (“What is the other side doing that we’re not?!”) I bend over backwards to be transparent. If I walk into the kitchen, I am theatrical in putting the teakettle up to boil. They have a gas stove. (How can I tell them that I can’t get the microwave to work?) If I go upstairs, I close the bathroom door emphatically. Or I return downstairs with a quarto of scrap paper clearly in my hands for all to see. No “Swiper,” Dora!

               I never use the campaign PC’s, laptops or the Mac for my personal emails, although that would save me a schlepp to the library.

              All of this to impart the undiluted sentiment that “Kevin is not a spy.” Hiram and I may be co-religionists, but Anna is my friend. Besides, every time I meet Hiram in a public place, he threatens to throttle me. Yes, that could all be an act, but I am not spying for Hiram.

             I think Eric is most worried that I’ll write a tell-all book about the campaign. We never discuss this.

           It could happen…

                                                           * 

           Eric: “I need you to take a meeting.”

            Shit! I’m goddam tired of taking meetings! I do that for my film company—all the time. I’m damned if I’m spending my time in a conference room for the sake of Anna Bola’s election campaign. Squaring off, I glare at Eric and wail, “You don’t pay me anything!”

           “I need you to do this,” Eric pleads.

            Amidst Hiram’s wilder accusations, he claims that Anna has taken major support from the Police Benevolence Associations. Even people on the campaign staff— Margaret “Fluffens” Meeks and Eric’s assistant Judith— are horrified at the possibility. “I never expected Anna to side with the pigs,” complains “Fluffens.”

          “Don’t go all 1960’s on me now,” I tease. “Next we’ll be declaring Anna the Flower Power candidate and booking flights to San Francisco.”

           They are so upset, I assure them it’s all a lie. “We’d know,” I explain. “You’re the two ladies who take turns driving her everywhere. If she was meeting with the cops, someone on the campaign staff would notice. I say it never happened!”

           And now Eric’s telling me, “We’re talking the whole Policemen’s Ball thing. I mean, specifically, state and federal lobbyists for the law enforcement sector of our fine, upstanding society. I’ve arranged for you to meet with their umbrella organization. On 23^rd Street NW in the District. It’s called Police Benevolence Associations of America, Inc.”

           “That makes sense. I didn’t expect them to call it Eduardo’s Taquería.”

            Eric’s deadliest scowl. “Anna has a long-standing commitment to these people, which we never intended to become public. I really need a damage assessment, Kevin.”

            Reasonably libertarian, I don’t like to find myself supporting a Law and Order candidate, either. Life is boa constrictor enough without instigating a police state.

           There is, of course, no parking in that part of town. A thousand cars fill a thousand spaces, parked for the day, the week, the duration of life on Earth. There are two spaces available, but I am no virtuoso parking attendant. When I “parallel park,” it’s a throw of the dice. I notice an entire side street, littered with NO PARKING signs, and half a dozen vehicles have been dumped there for the day. Running short of time, that is where I park. They may tow my car, but I can’t worry about it!

            Irony: I’m on my way to visit the police lobby and I’m worried the police will tow my car.

            The new reality: Twenty thousand parked cars in the District on a weekday, thirty officers on parking patrol. People are willing to gamble that their auto won’t be among the 666 any one officer hopes to check and ticket in a day.

           Parking fines are an important source of revenue for Washington, D.C.

           “I park in the District, illegally, every single day, and never get a ticket,” my neighbor and precinct captain Arthur Pascoe constantly brags.

            When I was in the Army and couldn’t be bothered, I got parking tickets all the time. Now that I’m living on my own dime, I’m totally paranoid about getting a ticket.

             I leave my little blue car parked by the curb, directly under a NO PARKING ANY TIME sign.

             Hilarious!

            “The sole purpose of our organization,” President Duane Duval tells me, “is to provide assistance to retired police personnel, as well as the families of police officers on active duty. It’s in our charter, it’s what we do. We also have tax-free status as a charitable organization… Give me your license plate number and I’ll put it on the wire. Save you some coin.”

            Sitting by his basswood desk, I can see why Duane is a successful lobbyist: Blond, beefy, with rosy cheeks and veins shining red and blue on his nose, he positively exudes charisma. The crew cut and dramatically cleft chin don’t hurt either.

             He wastes no time making his feelings clear: I am a total bore. A pain in the ass.

              I try the direct approach, man to man. “The rating agencies indicate that Police Benevolence Associations are hopelessly corrupt, endlessly guilty of nepotism, and use only a smidgen of their contributions toward actual charity. The lion’s share goes to administrative costs. Overheads. Salaries. Office space.”

           “Look around you,” Duval suggests. I must say, their office looks more like a flyblown newsroom than a plush lobbyist’s lair. The view: Gray metal desks, faux leather chairs on wheels, linoleum floors yellow with age, wilted drapes, lots of computers and fax machines. “Everyone you see working here is either a retired police officer or a member of the family of an active duty police officer. We are here to serve the police community. It’s what we do!”

            Put in those terms, it is hard to argue with the man. “What about accusations of corruption, high overheads and misuse of funds?” I ask.

           “We are former cops, not accountants. No doubt a professional economist could find innumerable discrepancies on our books.

            “I prefer to think they depend on human error. ‘To err is human, to forgive divine— ‘ ”

            “I know, I know,” I tell him. “William Shakespeare. How deeply involved is Anna Bola in the Police Benevolence Association world?”

             “She is our candidate,” he informs me, looking smug and happy behind his desk. “She has the complete support of the entire police community!”

             I feel like drowning a few of their members and waterboarding the rest. “So that is it? She represents you?” I ask, plodding along in hopes of uncovering some good news.

            Sighing, Duane Duval stretches like a feline, clasps his hands together atop his desk and says, “I’ll give you the same tired spiel I give every visiting fireman. Then you decide.

            “You go to a bar and get pleasantly drunk, you want to be able to go out the front door without being assaulted, robbed, sodomized or killed.

            “This is not St. Petersburg, Russia. You want to be able to walk down the sidewalk in the middle of the day without being robbed at gunpoint.

            “When you drive your car, you don’t want some idiot sideswiping you at 110 miles per hour.

             “You work hard. You live in a nice house and have a fancy car. You don’t want a gang of bandidos to show up, hold you and your family at gunpoint, and cart away all your nicest things.

            “You want your children to be able to go to public school without the friendly neighborhood drug dealer waiting at the schoolhouse door. You want your children to grow up free of kidnappings and sexual assault.

            “When something bad does happen, you want recourse to the police and the courts.

            “In other words, you want a country that lives under the rule of law.

            “I wouldn’t say that police have a jaundiced view of humanity, that’s too broad a generalization. There are all kinds of heroes on the police force.

            “It wouldn’t surprise me, however, to find individual police officers who don’t think a whole lot of their fellow man. You spend all day dealing with criminals or the victims of criminals. That’s not fun. You know something? The guy who runs a marriage chapel sees humanity at its best. We get the other end of the stick!

           “The purpose of this organization is to make sure that someone is standing on the side of the law enforcement officer. Someone who understands that officer, his quirks, her foibles, what their daily life is like at work. We’re there to provide unbridled assistance.

            “There’s an entire Hollywood industry built around police dramas, so the police must be doing something right.

            “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who shall guard the guards themselves? Anna Bola will! As State Attorney General, she’ll set a tone and provide a framework for law enforcement all across the board. The broad picture, if you will. I see Anna Bola as a calming, leavening influence. Someone who will advocate negotiation, outreach and violence prevention programs. Rather than creating tensions in the community, escalating police firepower, heightening confrontation and brutalizing daily life. I prefer Anna to Hiram Whiplash for all the obvious reasons. Hiram is a total newbie politically, an amateur. Hiram will apply too much of the whip and too much of the lash. He’ll stir things up. By hounding immigrants, playing the interests of one group against the interests of another, creating hysteria.

            “That hurts my guys and gals. The lower the temperature, the less brutal the society, the easier it is to be a good cop.”

              Whew! I wish I’d recorded it. At least I took notes. I have no trouble advocating Anna’s support of the police along these guidelines.

             “This is unofficial,” Duane concludes, “just part of normal police routine, but the polling places on Election Day will have extra police surveillance. For the protection of the general public. We’re not Iraq or Afghanistan, where you get blown to pieces for exercising your right to vote. Here in Maryland, we don’t tolerate disruptive behavior in conjunction with the casting, tallying and counting of the vote. We have a Zero Tolerance Program. You may have read about it!”

             “Well-l-l, I did read about Zero Tolerance,” I tell him, “but I believe it was in an article in The National Herald and applied to higher education or lawlessness in New York City.”

              Duane Duval looks at me like I’m dog poop. As usual, I’ve killed the pooch. This interview is so over.

                                                      *

             Duane doesn’t need to preach the rule of law to me. War zones, by their very nature, tend to be lawless. Whoever has the biggest gun wins. In the jungle, the rebels victimize the villagers to extort their cooperation, kidnapping their children and leaving the heads of opponents mounted on poles at the village gate as a warning to others.

             Urban warfare is even more dangerous: All those buildings to hide in, behind and atop. All those windows to shoot from, aided by the glorious benefit of elevation.

             In an urban environment, I quickly learned the necessary sequence of simple gestures: Point rifle at the looter. Shout “Hey!” Point rifle at his loot. Maintain firing position. Point rifle at looter’s face. This indicates, “You’d better stop or I will shoot you!” A language specialist, I got a real kick out of this most basic of pantomimes. Anybody could do it, Marcel Marceau or the dumbest grunt.

             The rule of law.

            The police were always after us, as kids. They chased us off the railroad tracks, where we liked to use chewing gum to secure our pennies, in the hope the train wheels would crush them flat. They chased us out of the woods, where we toasted marshmallows over open fires, played with the tadpoles, smoked cigarettes and bragged about our romantic adventures— which consisted of kissing girls while they babysat. We also hung out in the parking lot of the shopping center, in order to dive into the big, green Dempsey Dumpsters and search for treasure. The cop would drive up to us, roll down his window and say, ”Hey, you kids!”

             “Yeah?”

             “Go home!”

             The incorporation of the Town of Oxburg left us under the jurisdiction of the sheriff, the county police and the state police. “No wonder we’re always in trouble,” commented my younger brother Tim.

             He and I didn’t feel we had a home to go to, so we’d walk to my cousin Jimbo’s house, where my uncle had a rec room full of really neat exercise equipment and a Japanese pachinko machine that challenged us to pop ball bearings through holes in the wooden baseboard. Many a rainy afternoon, we lounged on the sofas, reading magazines and making lists of Oxburg’s prettiest girls.

         “Jeanie Hunt! She’s cute as a pin,” I’d say.

        “Boo-oo-oo,” Jimbo and Tim would chorus, “she’s dumb as an ox!”

        One of my major lessons in the rule of law occurred in New York City. On leave, Danny Cowan and I flew in on a commercial flight. I was there to visit my Russian aunt, he to stay at the YMCA and visit museums. The 1980’s, under Ronald Reagan, Danny and I were both kicking 40. Nicknamed “The Wingnuts” by our unit, we looked like punks. I have photos. We really do look young. The second day at my aunt’s, I get a call from Danny. “I’m in deep shit!” he bleats.

      “Whoa, pardner,” I calm him. “Tell Uncle Kev’ what’s up, I hold this city in the palm of my hand.”

       It’s true. Growing up, most of my relatives lived in Manhattan, Coney Island and Queens. I know New York.

       “I bought this high-end Minolta at a camera store on 42^nd Street. It doesn’t work. They sold me a broken camera! And when I try to return it, THEY WON’T TAKE IT BACK!”

       Epstein’s Camera. Right in the middle of the arcade district. The city was cleaning out the filth, so it would be safe to walk at night, shoving the drunks farther downtown, but some of the shops remained firmly on the sleaze list. Danny, a tourist, wouldn’t know that.

      Caveat emptor, supply side economics, the market is self-regulating, these guys were selling defective merchandise!

      Also— Epstein— the proprietors, two brothers, are Jewish. There is always room for discussion among M.O.B., Members Of the Tribe.

      Wearing jeans, a white tee and a black leather jacket, I take young Danny, his receipt, camera, original packaging, and go uptown to Epstein’s.

       “Shalom! “ I shout gleefully, walking into their shop. They look worried. I’m coming across like your friendly neighborhood Mossad agent. “Ma nish ma? Hakol besedare?” Hello! How’s everything? All is well?

       “Whad d’ya want?” asks Arthur Epstein.

       “Minoltan,” I say, holding aloft camera and box. “Ze lo tov! “ which literally means “It’s not good!” but in this case imparts the message “It doesn’t work!”

       “Now wait a minute,” Julius Epstein intervenes. “I recognize that young man wid you. I sold him that camera. It was perfectly good when he left this shop. He must have broken it subsequently.”

        “I don’t buy it, gentlemen. That’s your story, but I’m not buying!” I smile, feeling like Sonny Corleone. I have no resources whatsoever, no Israeli connections, no mob affiliation. But they don’t know that. Brazening it out, I scare the shit out of them.

        “Like I told him before, he musta opened the box the wrong way,” Arthur stammers, visibly sweating.

      Julius, older, more obtuse, isn’t accepting the idea of being goaded in his own shop. That’s what he pays the police all that protection money for. “Take your broken merchandise and your stupid friend and get the hell out of my shop!” he demands, getting angry.

       “Hey,” I say placatingly, “I’m on your side! You don’t want to make this particular sale. Just refund the kid’s money and we’ll pretend this never happened.” Smiling, I hold my hands out at my sides in supplication. Even I’m impressed by the thickness of my Hebrew accent.

      “Naw,” says Julius, “I’d rather die on the cross. Git outta here!”

      “All right,” I barge on, ‘this is how this transaction is going to work. Danny and I are leaving this camera, this box and this plastic bag right here on the counter. Then we are leaving—“

      “I’ll take the goddam camera and put it out on the street!” Julius fumes. “What d’ya think we are, gonifs? Don’ you tell me what you’re gonna do!”

      “YOU’RE NOT LISTENING!” I point out, getting hot and bothered myself. “I think you’re smarter than you pretend. (Straight out of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather!) I’m trying to straighten this out without a lot of china getting broken at the end of the day.”

       “YOU—“

       “Shut up and listen!” I growl, totally sure of myself. If they had any kind of muscle, they would have leapt for the telephone the moment we entered their emporium. “We leave the defective merchandise here. It’s a factory reject, but we’re not raising a stink. You tried to swindle my friend, but all’s fair in business. Then, he and I will get on the phone to the credit card company and cancel the purchase.”

       “HE PAID WITH CREDIT CARD?!” the brothers exclaim, turning very pale and looking at one another.

       “I paid with my VISA card,” Danny says, totally mystified by these goings-on.

       “He paid with his VISA card,” I repeat. “I’ll work it out with the VISA people. I won’t blame you, I’ll just say Danny boy here regretted his purchase…”

         Boom! Julius hits the ceiling. It feels like I’m negotiating with Yassir Arafat. As soon as you try to be nice, he smells weakness, blood in the water.

        “You’ll never get your money back,” Julius screams. He rants, he raves.

        “Come on, Danny, our work is done here,” I say, thoroughly enjoying myself.

        We leave the camera and accoutrements on the counter. I take Danny to dinner at a Chinese restaurant and write down all the details on his VISA card—telephone numbers to the Service Center, his card number, expiration date, security code.

        “You’ll never be able to get my $199 back,” he insists gloomily.

         “Ridiculous! Of course I will. Don’t you sweat one second over that,” I reply. “I’m so sure I can get you a refund, I’ll give you $200 if VISA doesn’t.”

          “Oh, no, man! I can’t do that! I never would have gotten you involved if I thought it would cost you money!”

          “Relax,” I tell him. “I’ve got it wrapped. VISA will come through for us!”

          And they do. VISA cancels the purchase and credits the amount back to Danny’s account. I sit in my aunt’s living room on the phone with them. The night staff at the Service Center are totally consoling. “I’m sorry your buddy had to go through all that,” the Service Center dude exclaims. “New York is such a jungle!”

        I ask him where they are located. I don’t remember his answer, but it wasn’t NYC.

       “Have you thought about contacting the Better Business Bureau of Manhattan?” he wonders.

      “I would call them, but I don’t have their number.”

       “Oh! I’ll look it up for you,” he offers. Two minutes later, he gives me the local New York number.

        The lady at the Better Business Bureau almost jumps through the phone line. “We know that shop!” she seethes. “We have had several complaints. I am delighted to help you file a complaint. Just delighted!”

        Obviously, she is fed up with the Epstein brothers and wants to put them out of business.

        The lesson comes when I relate the entire episode to my Aunt Harriet, who has been hovering in the background.

        “He got his money back?”

         “Yes.”

        “Those shops specialize in transient sales. Your friend had no business shopping there!” she huffs.

        “Wait. What are you saying? You side with the shop owners?” I gasp.

        “Transient sales. The tourist trade. Yokels coming to town risk getting fleeced. This is New York, bubbe!”

        Forty years living in a workman’s apartment in lower Manhattan, she is siding with the local merchants.

        My favorite aunt. I am totally dumbfounded.

                                                    *

        I return to headquarters. “What’s happening?” Judith asks edgily, always ready to complain to Eric or Anna re my possible transgressions.

         “Well, Anna is just as involved with those people as we feared,” I tell her. “I’m going home.”

          It’s 2 a.m. before I finally fall asleep, thoroughly perplexed by this turn of events. Too many days on the campaign, my brain is amazingly drained.

           Is Anna a sell-out? Am I “sold” on her? Can I sell her to an uninterested constituency? The one thing I never expected to feel is ambivalentabout working on Anna’s campaign! My approach has always been, “She’s the best!” No nuance. 100% perfection. Kind, considerate, caring, helpful, moral… yada, yada, yada. You get too close to a monument, you begin to see the cracks and fissures. 

                                                         *

Before The Storm

            “If a tree falls in the forest, how many thousands will be without electricity?”            

                                                  – Angelo Mineo

            Hurricane Irene threatens the northeast. My mom, whose fave TV show is Everybody Loves Raymond, prepares for this event by buying an additional 30 pounds of groceries, jamming them into an already overstuffed refrigerator, and announcing, “Let’s hope the power doesn’t go out!”

            Funny? Not funny? Pathetic?

            “We have to go out to dinner,” she tells me. “If the hurricane hits tomorrow, I’ll be homebound. I’m not cooking three nights in a row.”

            We just took some friends to dinner last night, to celebrate a wedding anniversary. But mom refuses to be a slave to the kitchen on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. So we go to our usual Vietnamese restaurant. Surprised by the new linen tablecloths and fancy cutlery, we ask the owner if it’s a holiday.

            “A group visiting from Vietnam,” he explains in his flamboyant English. Named Thieu, born in Saigon, he grew up in the food trade. Here in the U.S.A., he wears khaki slacks, brown loafers and white pilgrim shirts reminiscent of the French Colonial period. With his short hair and round, clean-shaven face, he looks more American than I do. “They flew in from Vietnam. Sixty of them. Large group. They come at 8:15.”

            I know there’s a lot of family traffic under the current regime. People use international phone cards to make calls home, every third shop in the shopping center sells them. They list the prices in dong. I have young Vietnamese men friends who have traveled home to Vietnam to get married.

            The proprietor seats us at a small, square table at the back, just mom and me. At the adjacent table, a young lady dressed up and painted to resemble a Saigon bar girl is eating dinner with a young Viet man who also looks like something out of a magazine.

            “… because a high turnover in inventory will gives us a large gross income, but that doesn’t mean a large profit until we can establish an adequate pricing model,” she remarks to her table companion in high-pitched, sing-song English as thick as soup.

            His answer, mercifully, is lost in the din, as the Friday night regulars celebrate neighbor Chou’s birthday, men at one table, women at another, children at a third. Ten people to a table, friends come in, toast with a glass of burgundy, and leave. I recognize Chou, a peasant from the delta, twenty years younger than me but with similar features. Every time his cohorts call his name, he crinkles his eyes and looks down at the tablecloth, embarrassed. I feel this lack of hubris shows that he, basically, is a good person. Their party drags on for hours. The waitresses serve quail; a half-hour later, crab; a half-hour after that, they’ll serve a beef dish. Meanwhile, the bar girl in retail sales and her gigolo boyfriend finish eating and depart.

            Thieu, aware of my predilection for exciting women, seats a Han Chinese lady executive type on a smartphone in exactly the same chair previously occupied by the bar girl. Mom and I have polished off crispy spring rolls and are busy devouring a Vietnamese fried pancake containing shrimp, pork and beef. The lady executive speaks impeccable English, almost getting in a fight with the poor waitress whose language aptitude fits the locale: a Vietnamese restaurant in a Vietnamese shopping center.

            They know me here. Attending Vietnamese New Year celebrations, I have established my bona fides as a sincere practitioner of Buddhism. Since I look Mongolian— at least to them— they treat me as an equal. They know I’m Caucasian, but suspect, rightly, that I am a “graybeard,” a religious scholar. They respect me. I love them.

            Eventually, the Han Chinese woman, who has been looking me over as discreetly as I her, manages to connect by cellphone with her party. They were waiting at another Vietnamese restaurant. “I’m treating Roy and his son to dinner to celebrate signing this year’s contract,” she confides in a breezy whisper. “I’m the regional salesperson for a major brand athletic shoe manufacturer. Roy is the district manager for a chain of sporting goods stores. We go together like peas and onions. What do you do?”

            “I run political campaigns,” I hear myself bragging. “Twice divorced, I live with my mom.” I’m still trying to digest the fact that an Asian woman, any Asian woman in America, would show an interest in me. Even one hustling shoes.

            Roy and his son come into the restaurant, as pink-skinned and boyish as Cub Scouts.

            At 8:15, the sixty guests arrive, flooding the doorway. You couldn’t leave if your life depended on it. I’d assumed we’re talking members of the Politboro, but it’s all one enormous, extended family, twenty adults and 40 children, dressed in sports clothes: sweat shirts, shorts and slacks. They wear their hair longer than people in America. I expected the noise to be deafening, but once seated, they are virtually inaudible.

            “I guess we’ll have to leave soon,” the Han Chinese lady teases me, “this place is filling up fast!” Roy looks confused. Why is she talking to me?

            I explain the deal, all sixty flying in from Vietnam. She’s impressed.

            As mom and I are leaving, we pass a tiny square table amidst the Viet nationals. The three uncles sit at this table, long-haired, unshaven, as burly and dangerous as bears. Dressed in flannel shirts and jeans. They see me, first one, then the next, then the third, and shift in their chairs, hands moving to back pockets, reaching for a weapon. I give them my two-handed bow and they return the salutation. Using the “thumbs up” gesture, I point to my white-haired mom following in my wake. Once they make the connection, middle-aged tough, old woman, they smile and relax.

            “We ought to gas up the car if there’s going to be a hurricane,” says mom. This is not a suggestion. I drive to a gas station.

            It’s a steamy summer Friday night, people pumping gas at every pump. A perky high school girl in a yellow Jeep and her mom— incredibly pretty party girls, foxy, with faces like Avril Lavigne, one young, one older— are playing damsels in distress. They wave their hands this way and that, standing so, no, standing so, calling out to men at other pumps, “Hi! How do you get these things to give ya gas, anyway? We wanna pay cash. Can we use your credit card?!” No takers. Frustrated, they hop in their yellow Jeep and drive off with a roar. Life’s unfair.

            “Why are we doing this?” I wonder, but that’s what Washingtonians do when faced with inclement weather: stock up on food and put gas in the car.

            “Now it’s just a question of whether we get flooded out,” mom says. “The radio announced they were handing out sandbags and evacuating people living by the Potomac. But they’ve run out of sandbags. They said a few hours ago that they only had 120 left.”

            I find everything she says, every single word, to be silly and inane. I’m sorry, but she comes across as doddering and clueless. I explain to her the disadvantage of fighting this hurricane at night: the pull of the moon, the higher wind velocity than during the day, the heavier downpour, everything done in artificial illumination. “No sun and no respite.” She is as unimpressed with my explanation as I am with hers.

            When I was growing up, the water used to leak through the joints of the house like a sieve. The hurricane hasn’t even arrived and I am fed up with Irene! I don’t need a hurricane right this minute, thank you very much. I just finished a political campaign and a few movie scripts. Trying to clean my basement and catch up with my life, Irene is just one more impediment. When we had the big hurricane in 2003, a neighbor’s oak toppled in his backyard, pulling down the electric line the length of the block. And that hurricane struck in the middle of the afternoon.

            Fucked again, dear hearts.

                                                           *

Screenwriter

 

                                   A Short History of My Life

            The readers of this blog, both of them (old joke), tell me that the wit is unrelentingly caustic. “It’s the same Kevin Feingold, ranting away, just like in college,” says Mario. I try not to think about what a royal pain in the butt I was back then. Smoking a pack a day, a notorious drunk, your total pot head, I talked all the time. I talked in my sleep. I always talked during sex. My girlfriend Joanie used to ask, “Are we gonna do this or are you gonna talk the subject to death?” Growing up among neurotics and Russian Jews (“There’s a difference?” asks my mom) I was extremely articulate.

            “Put a mike in front of that guy and you don’t need to worry about programming for a whole hour,” said the first college radio station manager I worked for.

            Ouch!

            The other d.j.’s called me “Mr. Papa Gayo” after the parrot of the same brand, evidence that I definitely was not first in the hearts of my countrymen.

            I dropped out of college and got drafted, went into the Army, took the Vocational Aptitude Test and, surprise!, became a radioman, lugging a single sideband rig on my back, the whip antenna catching on every piece of foliage within a country mile. Between the whip antenna and the mosquitoes, I always found something to bitch about in Vietnam. “I’m melting in this heat!” Pant, pant!

            Ricky Mains, M-60 machinegunner: “Put a cork in it, Feingold.”

            “I’m dying!”

             Terry Smithers, rifleman: “Promises, promises!”

            Bobby Pepper, medic: “Go die on the next patrol, Feingold.”

            Lieutenant Reese, my squad leader: “Hey, guys, this is cool. Imagine if Feingold here actually, you know, does die on the next patrol. The very next patrol! And we predict it. Intuitive precognition! How cool is that?!”

            “Oh, thank you, Gary!” I replied. “I’ll try not to disappoint you. You’ll be able to write me up in your Paranormal Psychic Phenomena & UFO’s magazine.”

            “Don’t knock it, there’s a lot of good stuff in there. ‘Distant viewing.’ Imagine if we could kill the V.C. simply by envisioning their deaths,” the Lieutenant suggested.

            Terry Smithers, rifleman: “I could lug less ammunition, lieutenant!”

            Ricky Mains, M-60 machinegunner: “Go fuck yo’self! What do you know about lugging ammo?”

            “Well, now! Robert A. Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, H. P. Lovecraft,” added our XO, an enormous black sergeant named Roget (“Ro Jay”) Bryant. Harking from the Dutch Antilles, he positively ate up paperback novels.

            Ricky Mains: “Get a life!”

            Kevin Feingold: “I would if there were any women in this Army!”

             Lt. Reese: “Oh, boy, here we go again!”

            Mains: “I told you, put a cork in it, Feingold!”

            Bryant: “Now why don’t we all just cool it for awhile and concentrate on finding Charlie?”

            Lt. Reese: “That’s what Uncle Sugar pays us for, grunts. Let’s do like the Sarge says!”

            Feingold: “Thank you for those motivational words of wisdom, sir.”

            This conversation played itself out in starts and stops over half a day in the pressure cooker green heat of the jungle, moist as a steam bath. Mostly, patrolling the bush, we  focused on observing our surroundings— there’s an art to it— and watching where we put our feet.

            I never experienced any lack of communication in the U.S. Army of the 1960’s. Everybody was in your face, all the time. No estrangement there. Nothing is worse than the stench of spray deodorant inside a two-man green canvas shelter, unless it’s the stink of rotting corpses by the side of the road. We had it all! Water buffalo dung. And Vietnam weren’t the end of it. After college, I went back, re-upped and made the Army my career. Breakfast of Champions, gentlemen!

            I wouldn’t be normal if I wasn’t ranting. Caustically.

                                                      *

            From 1973 to 1984, I wrote seven (7) novels, all excruciatingly bad. How is this possible? Well, a prerequisite of my creative process was to sit in the rec tent with a lit cigarette dangling from the corner of my mouth. I didn’t just smoke tobacco; when writing, I was so a-buzz on nicotine, it made me dizzy.

            At the moment of inception, creating as I typed, the words poured forth from my tortured brain in a torrential downpour of thought. This resulted in many pages, yes, but also some very turgid novels. Fear not, I did write plot outlines and all. It was the actual written words that left something to be desired. At the time, I was sure the publishing industry was an Old Boys’ Club, where you only could get into print if you knew someone.

            Three of my manuscripts still exist. I junked the other four as “of no redeeming merit.” When not dizzy on cigarettes, I would go back and read my verbiage. And become totally appalled. Atrocious writing can be a downer.

            Case in point, my third novel, published in paperback by yours truly, a bit of “vanity publishing” popular among would-be, wannabe authors. For a fat chunk of cash, a glossy cover and words printed on pulp paper could be yours, based on an ms. that no self-respecting commercial publisher would touch with a barge pole. We’re talking radioactive prose here.

            The cover is basic black with the end of a street illuminated in a cone of very bright white light. (Even describing this phenomenon, I find myself reverting to type!) In mint green italic block letters, all caps, the title: LIMELIGHT. In smaller type: by Kevin Feingold

            So far, so good. You turn the book over and read the jacket blurb:

                        “Life is fraught with peril and things aren’t getting any

            easier for our hero, Dirk Studley, who in this new book, Lamplight,

            the second of the series, struggles through searing adventures

            of such magnitude, only the reader can judge…”

            Yada, yada, yada. Don’t you just love typos, especially when they come in the title of a finished product? Limelight, lamplight, at what point does poetic license begin to chafe? There is a reason why professional publishing houses employ a legion of editors to read, judge and burnish your stuff. Every successful published author I have ever heard speak at a Writers’ Workshop has sung the praises of his or her editor. After all, everyone isn’t Vladimir Nabokov or J.P. Donleavy. “One of the greatest people in the profession, Susan, my editor, pushed me far beyond anything I originally expected to do with this novel. Listen to your editor and work with him or her. Editors fill a major function, which is why they are such an integral part of the process!” says the published author.

            (“Hey, mom, look at me! Relegated to writing a blog! If that doesn’t typify your ‘unsuccessful author,’ I don’t know what does!”)

            On my own, lonely as a loon, Kevin Feingold writes with his right hand and edits with his left. At least my outpourings are exposed to some form of editing. Whether that will improve a verbal hand grenade like LAMPLIGHT is a second question! Dirk Studley, my ass.   

                                                        *

            Our receptionist— and erstwhile film cutter— Jacqueline sings in the punk band Explosive Plastic.

             I, too, have sung! In a punk band!

            You have sizable leisure time, down time, in the U.S. Army. You are expected to use this productively. No one can study languages all the time. In the 1980’s, I sang in the punk band Nevsky. (Not “Alexander Nevsky,” that was an actual Russky band.)

            As soon as Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost, “openness,” Bon Jovi and all these other amerikanskii metal bands began making trips to the Soviet Union. The Communists thought that as long as they gave Soviet youth access to western culture, the kids would let the old codgers rule indefinitely. Boy, were they ever wrong!

            So, we had this, um, band. When pushed to play a gig— “Blah, blah, you guys talk a lot, but how the fuck do you guys sound, anyway?!”— we dressed our lead guitarist Robbie in Red Army castoffs, glued a floppy moustache on his upper lip and claimed he was a Russian/Italian refugee, metalli musician Vincenzo Nevsky.

            Girls bought this package, invariably disappointed when Robbie’s moustache fell off halfway through every gig.

            As lead singer, I went under the name “Clyde.”

            “And this is, uh, our lead singer, Clyde!” some bandmate would point out onstage.

            “God, how can you people be up this early? What time is it, 1500? (Three o’clock in the afternoon.) Doesn’t anybody sleep around here? I’m, uh, Clyde, the, uh, lead singer in this here band. Wanna buy a mix tape of our greatest hits?”

            Total amateurs, we massacred stuff by Pat Benatar, Lene Lovich and Culture Club. Pul-lease! Nevsky does Culture Club?

            Between songs, we loved perpetrating mock attacks on the American system: “Down with McDonaldsky kapitalisky,” I’d rant. “Pommes frites rule!” This would be followed by a series of heavy metal hand signs, fingers splayed this way, fingers splayed that, ferociously angry, before launching into one of our own compositions, songs like “Willys Motors,” celebrating the indestructible quality of jeeps: 

                                              “I do her, I do her, I do her

                                                Inna backa a Willys Motor.

                                                I love her, I love her, I love her,

                                                She my cheap, jeep baby!” 

            The 1980’s were a more innocent time.                       

                                                       *

            What sets me off today—ask my neighbors—is living with my mom in my parents’ house. My dad thought he was the “Massah” of a southern plantation. Dead for 13 years, he left behind a legacy of landmines and booby traps. The English ivy, encroaching everywhere, rife with poison ivy. The paint flaking off the doors and ceiling of the carport. The strange bush—no one knows what it is—that has metamorphosed, after 40 years, into a Jack In the Beanstalk monster, entangled in the telephone wires. The Irish hedge— shades of Heathcliffe!—knobby enough to raise a welt on anyone unlucky enough to rub against it, daintily draped in poison oak. The gopher holes dotting the lawn, hidden by the grass, until one of them swallows your foot! The inexplicable hills and dales of Hell’s half-acre.

             And, of course, the gray maple and the red maple. They started as the cutest little saplings in 1951. “Gosh, I hope they make it,” enthused my parents.

            “What can we do about this monstrosity?” I asked an arborist. I was paying the man for an hour of consultation, just to know what he would do. “It’s 60 years old, the roots have risen to the surface, it is perpetually in a state of near-death, yet it dwarfs the house.”

            “It’s a red maple.”

            “I know what it is! What can we do to make it thrive?”

            “Move it 400 miles north of here.”

            Gardening this terrain makes my skin crawl. It sets my teeth on edge. It’s not like I’m battling old memories: “Yee-ha! Back in da jungle ag’in!” That ain’t my complaint. I’m older, I no longer enjoy the heat, the sweat. Gnats and mosquitoes swarm crazily as soon as they get a taste of chlorophyll, so the first sprig of ivy I trim, greetings, a bug fest!

              I don’t like it.

             My mom, bless her, has offered to throw money at the problem (“I can hire a gardening service!”). Stubborn, I figure some irritation is good for me. The Japanese say, “A certain number of fleas is good for a dog, otherwise he forgets he is a dog.” Also, is it really fair to expect my Latino compañeros to trim my bushes? They would love the work, but I feel I ought to take some responsibility, living here.

              So, everyone agrees, Kevin Feingold should STOP GARDENING. It’s shortening his life, it leaves him angry all the time, his unintelligible screams of frustration drive everyone else nuts, and there are day laborers who would gladly take over.

              Not happening.

              Go figure.

                                                            *

            The first to disappear were the private, little, mom-and-pop shops.

            Then my lady friends at Hollywood Video went the way of the dodo bird. Never glamorous or beautiful, they shared my enjoyment of movies, my cinematic enthusiasm. Just seeing me renting foreign titles they knew nothing about (Tarkovsky’s Stalker) or films so arcane, I was the lone subscriber (The President’s Analyst with James Coburn) gave us an excuse for endless discussion. We love movies! Also, they kept their stock in pristine condition. When I went to buy titles they were selling off, the discs were usually as good as new.

            Blockbuster rented out DVD’s that ran the gamut from squeaky clean to heavily scratched. When I bought excess stock from them for my personal film library, the clerks knew that I was going to be a pain in the ass. I would bring several copies to the counter and select the newest one to purchase and take home. With time, however, even they found my detailed knowledge and ribald take on Hollywood irresistible. 

            Since 2007, four days a week, when not otherwise incarcerated, I work as a Hollywood screenwriter with my full-time partner Bruce “Boopsie” Davis, out of a glass-fronted, converted clothing store on Rockville Pike in Maryland. Until recently, we too had a video boutique right next door. All gone.

            This transition to streaming video is costing us money! You have to understand, a great deal of Hollywood product to which Boopsie and I contributed our screenwriting talent went directly to DVD. We needed those outlets: Your local video store where, desperate for diversion on a Friday night, you went the whole nine yards, buying boxes of chewy candy, packages of microwave popcorn, and rented two or three low-budget titles no one had ever heard of.

            EXCEPT US! We had heard of those movies!! We did the writing!!!

            How do you become a screenwriter? It’s like banging into a door. Nobody means to do it, yet occasionally it happens. You stub your toe, you break your nose, you hurt yourself. But when that’s over, you behold a new realm of possibilities. It also helps to be overqualified for almost every blue-collar job on the market. Virtually unemployable. A lifetime of experience doesn’t hurt, either.

                                                         *

            My first job upon leaving the Army was working as a sales clerk in the bookstore of the Ethnicity Museum in Washington, D.C. We’re Russian Jews, you can’t get more ethnic than that. The job meant riding the Metro into town and home every day, but that came with the territory. The museum’s Mission Statement was relatively precise:

                        << America is both the land of opportunity

                             and a land of immigrants. Except for

                             Native Americans, literally everyone

                             comes from somewhere else. The museum’s

                             goal is to show that people of all ethnic

                             persuasions can just get along on a

                             daily basis. >>

            What a hotbed of discontent!

            The Italians fought with the Jews who despised the Germans who feuded with the blacks who resented the Asians (“The yellow man keepin’ the black man down!”) who had trouble accepting the Hispanics who felt used by the whites who didn’t want to have anything to do with the rest of us.

            Arguments, malicious gossip, sabotaged lockers in the changing room, food fights in the staff cafeteria, emails from management telling us to “please cool your tempers tomorrow, July 2^nd, as a delegation from the House Budgetary Oversight Committee will be visiting inside the building. Misbehavior could jeopardize our funding, resulting in people losing their jobs. THIS MEANS YOU!”

            I lasted a year and a half. The bookstore staff was Whitey Whitebread. The building security contractor hired only urban blacks for the guard force. Since the blacks ate in the cafeteria, the lilywhites from the bookstore were afraid to go in there. They ate lunch in a conference room on the second floor. By spending all my free time in the library or among the blacks, I managed to duck most— not all— of the constant bickering, backbiting and report-writing that took the place of ethnic cleansing on a grander scale.

            “Why do all the best, most caring, most involved people leave?” the female, black sergeant— one of two— asked me on the day I gathered my stuff and resigned. Sure, I could have just walked out angry, but the blacks are my people. She was a good lady, so I made it a point to go to the Metro station by way of her surveillance kiosk. Not only did she have heart and brains, she was a dynamite looker, to boot! A knockout. So, of course, I was going to miss her.

            “You tell me,” I said. “My eardrums still hurt from all the shouting.”

            “Shouting matches never solve nothin’. Why can’ people just shut up?!” she suggested.

            “There it is, honey chile! They should amend the Mission Statement! ‘Our goal is to show that people of all ethnic persuasions can just shut up on a daily basis.’”

            “Y’all take care of yo’self! An’ come back to see us from time to time!”

            “Oh, yeah!”

            My second job was even weirder.

            I became the American PR representative for Vasco da Gama Airlines, and I don’t even speak Portuguese. I was dating the Head of Sales, and she felt I ought to have a job within the company. Clannish, the staff clasped me to their collective bosom and welcomed me like a long-lost brother. I was in. Qualified, maybe no. But in the job.

            Thinking back, I continue to be amazed. Appalled. I would never take a job like that today. The single greatest qualification was that one absolutely loved being around people. Crowds of people. Mobs. My job was to show up at the airport in each new city on our schedule with a complicated series of standup panels containing posters and descriptions of our routes and amenities. Plus half a ton of trinkets: hats, playing cards, T-shirts, key rings, coffee mugs, cigarette lighters, asthma inhalers, spatulas and tire irons, all containing the Vasco da Gama Airline logo.

            Everybody loves a freebee. People would go totally nuts over this haul, storming the airline’s airport ticket counter, where the local manager and female staff in their purple and white uniforms would slowly, resolutely wither under the constant whining of our customers for ever more free stuff. “A one-way to San Diego gets me a T-shirt and a cap? How ‘bout if I buy a round trip? Do I get a tire iron and playing cards, too?!”

            The airline industry runs on specific rules. Foreign carriers, for example, cannot fly domestic routes. All travel on a foreign airline must originate or end outside of the United States. This meant that you could take our airline from BWI-Marshall, outside Baltimore, to, say, Chicago, but you first must fly to Montreal, Canada. Fly across the continental U.S. with us! Surely! We offer several cuts of charbroiled meat no other airline would dream of serving. Our leather seats are real leather, smelling vaguely of cattle. Our goat cheese hors d’oeuvres smell of goats, with just a hint of manure in the aftertaste. Headphones are complimentary and our music selection includes Brazilian heavy metal bands. (“includes” in this instance means “all-inclusive.” It’s a language thing: All we play is Brazilian heavy metal. Period. Don’t ask for Sinatra. The closest we have is a Johnny Rotten imitator singing in Spanglish.)

            There are a number of regional, smallish airports in Mexico who—accustomed to dealing almost entirely with drug cartels— hardly knew what to make of this Brazilian airline landing 727’s on decrepit runways, taxiing, making hot turnarounds— engines still running— and taking off again for points north, a cloth bag stuffed with cruzeiros plopped on the runway like so much dog poop. The Mexicans loved us.

            When not on the road, I spent warehouse time signing for containers from China and sorting through the endless reams of ink pens, pencils, stationery, chewing gum, erasers, pencil sharpeners, staplers, squeeze toys, bobbleheads and— what else— plastic airplane models on fake mahogany stands, all featuring the airline colors, name and logo.

            Officially, I was the head of the PR department, and I was. The department was staffed by a single employee. Me.

            Not accustomed to people pulling at my clothes— I never attend rock concerts for this very reason— I would find myself, at the end of the day, barricading my hotel room, the furniture heaved up against the door, the telephone jack yanked from the wall. Standing in an alternately scalding and icy shower, I would search unsuccessfully for my core values.

            Traveling salesmen know of what I speak. Too easily, you become a drunk or a sex maniac, in a vain attempt to relieve the pressure.

            After three years of this monkey business, the airline tired of American regulations and decamped to routes entirely in Central and South America. My girlfriend Julia returned to Sao Paulo and I found myself between jobs.

            Bruce “Boopsie” Davis worked as a web designer for Windmill Magazine, but he was a man with a past, specifically UCLA Film School. I went to Moosegrave and the Army, Bruce went to UCLA and Hollywood. Bruce knows people. Buddies since high school, we spent Saturday mornings in 2006 touring video shops, joking with one another about the titles. “Here’s another good one, a soft porno Japanese slasher movie!” he would shout happily from across the store and I’d reply “Sci-fi monster chick vampire western with a Giorgio Moroder-clone musical score! A must-see. Three stars.” The clerks— well-accustomed to crazed customers on Saturday mornings— would usually join us and make obscene suggestions.

            Bruce wanted the two of us to open a rewrite shop, right there in Maryland. Screenplays. Telecommuting with Hollywood producers. I love to write. I knew I wanted to work with him when he complained about the deer eating all the flowers behind his mother’s house.

            “Try wolf urine,” I suggested.

            “Kevin,” he replied, “I would, but I have such a HARD TIME GETTING THE WOLVES TO PEE IN THE LITTLE PLASTIC BOTTLES!”

                                                *

              If you’re sitting at the multiplex— or one of the country’s 154 remaining Drive-Ins— and suddenly want to know if the pornographic oater you are about to suffer through has been penned by yours truly, I can save you the trouble of whipping out your smartphone. Just look for our trademark! If somewhere in the opening credits, you see the phrase

                    “Avec deux chansons romantiques,”

 the chances are 99 and 99/100’s percent sure that this almost useless exercise in entertainment originated with us at Montevideo Films [Marca Registrada].

            Never mind if the picture lacks any remnant of a musical score. Due to an error at Lefty Printing LLC, our entire stock of printed contract forms contains a clause that stipulates the studio must flash this information on the screen, in French, during the opening credits. Nowadays, preferably in 3D.

            Or to put it in golfing terms—since my mom, at 90, is addicted to watching Tiger Woods and associates whenever weekend network programming includes a tournament,

                “May the three-putt of Happiness double-bogey your life.”

                                                            *

            We live in a moment when reality is way stranger than fiction. The U.S. on the verge of declaring bankruptcy? (“Sorry, guys! Ernie, who was head of cash flow, miscalculated by several digits.”) After everything that went awry in Vietnam, are we in another decades-long war? (Satirical newspaper The Onion called it. Finding ourselves in a “dysfunctional relationship,” we pack our bags and creep away from Afghanistan in dead of night!) Spaceship Earth has run low on water, fuel and oxygen, but the politicians refuse to acknowledge global warming. (It gets tiring to keep asking, “Is it hot out here in the sun or is it just me?”) We’re in a worldwide recession, but everyone keeps passing the collection plate, hoping the people in the next pew won’t notice the two pennies, one worn nickel and the blue plastic button lying at the bottom of the dish.

            Once a day, network TV runs the local, “bizarro” news: The most recent body found decomposing in a basement. [You can’t make this stuff up!] The latest intruder tackled by the Secret Service on the White House lawn. The latest high-speed car chase “caught live,” and don’t tell me the carjackers aren’t watching themselves on iPhone! The fire in the attic that totally destroyed yet another local building, so anonymous that no one will ever miss it except the people who lived there. The visit by foreign royalty—my faves are the Prince and Princess of Albania! The spooky, lone bugler at Arlington Cemetery serenading a group of mourners at Section 60, where the American casualties from Afghanistan and Iraq are buried, a sequence which fills me with equal parts grief and rage. Which is the intended purpose of the news clip.  

            Who desires this over-the-top “news” and why sponsors will pay to advertise during this half-hour is a wonder, but they provide great material for potential bloggers, while making it more difficult to shock the public with fictional stories. With so many scandals, we are all becoming de-sensitized! The reality is already so amazingly peculiar. Granted, the world has always been somewhat wacko, the diff is that television now covers these repetitious yet individualistic stories. Oh, and the Salahis want a surrogate mother to carry their baby.

            In the arts, I can’t even begin to compete with Lady Gaga who says things like, “I want to empower youth to liberate their art, free their inner zen and pump relevance into the stratosphere.” This is not a direct quote, hers are much better! And she’s a talker. I have an unopened 68-minute British CD, “LADY GAGA X-Posed,” full of interviews. Thus is love.

            Write about what you know, but I’m no Kurt Vonnegut and Vietnam wasn’t the firebombing of Dresden. We dropped a lot of napalm, but on jungle, not cities. Bosnia was Bosnia, frustrating, pernicious, tough to love. People book vacations to Dubrovnik on the Adriatic coast of Croatia. I see no listings for Banja Luka. Maybe next week.

            When faced with a moral quandary, I ask myself, “What would Nim Chimpsky, the chimpanzee, do?” Then I discount half because, after all, he was a dope smoker.

            As in the 1960’s, when life itself became overburdened with bad news, the mystical worlds of sorcerers, vampires, werewolves and jerks offer temporary refuge, an emotional respite. They call it “escapism” for a reason!

            Barack Obama is upset because Michele Bachmann has appropriated the Jedi magic he once commanded. I envision the president spending the summer re-reading the entire Harry Potter series in search of incantations that will bring back the magic!

            “It’s not fair,” I can imagine hearing him complain in that baritone of his. “My wife is named Michele. Why don’t we get any of the credit?”

             Like Tiger Woods, Obama is elevated to a cosmic plane so far above the rest of us, we cannot even begin to comprehend how fantastic his presidency is! We think Tiger is off his game and the Prez is a clueless jerk, but— no, really— such is not the case! If we could only see reality through their eyes, everything is progressing winningly, according to plan. Troops out by the end of July, here it is August and, um, now let’s not overstate the situation. No one wins a blame game!

            My suggested campaign slogan for 2012:

                       We Tried A Black, We May As Well Try A Mormon!

 *

            Hollywood is liberal. No one’s pariahs, my partner Bruce “Boopsie” Davis and I work closely with the American Rights Federation. Originally the American Rightwing Federation, even they have changed with the times, although their mission remains the same: To protect your first amendment right to express yourself, however outrageously, on film. Two of their first customers were Rin Tin Tin and Lassie.

            “We are for the conservative what the ACLU is for liberals,” Federation President Randy Buchinsky explained by way of introduction in his plywood-paneled office on Santa Monica Boulevard. Listen, they paid our air fare, of course we wanted to visit them in California. Palm trees and oranges. Gwen Stefani.

            “That’s all right,” Boopsie replied. “I went to UCLA.”

            “UCLA?”

            “Yeah. The Film School. Know those Joes?”

            ”I’m talking about the ACLU.”

            “Also a good school, I’m sure,” Bruce replied breezily.

            “He’s teasing you, Mr. Buchinsky,” I quickly interjected. “He’s a terrible tease, aren’t you, Bruce?”

            “Oh, yeah!”— My partner may not know what’s going on, but he can keep a poker face.

            “More coffee?” Mr. Buchinsky asked angrily.

            “There’s never enough, is there?” Bruce answered philosophically.

            The philistine meets the hippie!

            Randy: “The American Civil Liberties Union—“

            Kevin: “A bastion of liberals, I’m sure!”

            Randy: (pleased) “— which is why we brook no shame over being a bastion of conservatives.”

            Kevin: “Obviously a good thing!”

            Randy: “Listen, in Hollywood, we’re the only thing. You can search with a lantern in this town and not find a conservative. We are it!”

            Bruce: “Turned over any rocks?”

            Why was he doing this??? He’s the one who comes out west to negotiate our film contracts. Never having accompanied him, I break out in a cold sweat at the thought that my partner might be a heavy-handed boob.

            When we call him “Boopsie,” it’s supposed to be a joke.

            Is this why we end up script-doctoring for the most sleezebag studios? Or is it that we can’t write?             

            Bruce: “Why do you serve dog biscuits to your guests?”

            Kevin: “Those are Marie biscuits!”

            Bruce: (to me) “I thought it was because they call themselves A.R.F.”

            Kevin: (sweating profusely) “Abbott and Costello, Mr. B! We’re just demonstrating our creative process! Bob Hope and Gracie Allen!”

            Randy: (helpfully) “You mean George Burns.”

            Bruce: “Now that was a conservative. The man thought he was God.”

            Randy Buchinsky and I burst out simultaneously, “That was a screenplay!”, but the damage was done. In the future, the Federation insists on dealing only with me.

            I speak admiringly when I say their research library has one of the largest collections of Nazi memoranda and memorabilia to which I have ever had access. They have other stuff, too, but their Third Reich collection is the jewel in the crown. It is also where I met Margo Adolfsson. Yes, a Gwen Stefani look-alike.

             I know, I know, Kevin and his blondes. It gets boring, but some of these ladies have a lot to offer!

            The archive, of course, wasn’t in the same building as the A.R.F. offices. “You think we want to get burned to the ground?” Randy asked me, by way of explanation. “A good hog caller can stand outside our office door and order pizza from Watts without using the telephone!”

            The archive was located in one of those tin warehouses on a threadbare, overcrowded commercial boulevard. A single black and white hi-top sneaker in the center of the road told me I’m in California. Next to greet me was a guy in a junky white sedan— but clean— leaning back in the driver’s seat, smoking an enormous brown cigar.

            “Just checkin’ the location,” I told him through the open car window.

            He nodded.

            Inside, there was this very long white and brown speckled Formica counter top, a fussy middle-aged woman and a 14-year-old girl. They were coming out from behind the counter. “Let’s go, honey!”

            Looking me over speculatively, the 14-year-old lisped, “We’re just leaving!”

            God help me, my kind of meat! Blond hair everywhere. Skinny arms and curvaceous little legs. Raggedy ass summer sandals. A blue cotton shift that billowed with her every move. And was she moving! Dancing around the counter, front and back, eyeing me. “We’re just leaving!” she insisted, malingering.

            “Pamela! Let’s go!” swore her mother.

            Pamela! I liked her fleshy pink nose, her bushy yellow eyebrows, her striking blue eyes and amateurishly painted lashes, her pebble of a chin. She kept staring at me, widening her eyes, showing leg.

            “Pamela!”

            They finally left. A 23-year-old edition of the younger sister, in a black business suit, came clacking out on low heels from the back room.

            “Is this the archive?” I asked stupidly.

            “It was the last time I looked.”

            “I’m Kevin Feingold.”

            “Ugh! You’re not Jewish, are you!?” she snorted, holding a clipboard and bouncing a yellow pencil against her nose.

            “I was the last time I looked.”

            “Clever, clever,” she sighed. “Whadya want?”

            I want you! I almost blurted, but caught myself in time. “…von Hindenburg appointing Hitler—“

            “Aisle one, alcove three!”

            The sign on the wall said “Attenti al cane,” but there wasn’t any dog.

            “The Reichstag fire—“

            “Aisle one, alcove seven. Come on, ask me a hard one.”

            “Skorzeny.”

            “Tch! Aisle three, alcoves one and two.”

            “Sophie Scholl.”

            “Awesome! A little anti-Nazi resistance action from the gang in the youth group White Rose! Aisle four, alcove three!”

            Margo Adolfsson. She gave me coffee, sat me at a library table, provided me with ballpoint pens and yellow legal pads. “Just don’t palm any of our documents, okay?”

            “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

            “Wouldn’t want to get you blackballed by the industry, right? Blind theft isn’t worth losing your lunch ticket.”

            “No, no, no. Yes, yes. I won’t remove anything without your express knowledge, your permission, participation, whatever!” I babbled, enjoying every second of her luminous blue eyes, cute nose and pouty mouth. They ought to bottle this stuff, I thought.

            “’Cause I have a Xerox place down the street who will make you copies of everything we have. For a nominal arm and a leg.”

            “Okay.”

            “It being Hollywood and all.”

            “Okay.”

            So I’m busy taking notes for an adaptation of William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Margo comes clacking out of her office with a box of chocolate-covered donuts and offers me two. “I forgot.”

            “I donut intend to refuse this fine offer.”

            “They cannot seriously pay you for this 1920’s vaudeville gag routine, y’know? So last year! I plugged that shit in college. Life is a cabaret, mein Freund.”

            “Peanuts. They pay me peanuts,” I admit.

            “Rockin’ like Britney! At least you can eat peanuts. I wouldn’t pay you a Sacagawea dollar.”

            “They’re the worst kind,” I tell her seriously, staring hungrily into her blue orbs.

            “Did you see Jerry out front?”

            It takes me a moment to focus, having shifted my attention to her ample bosom chastely ensconced inside her black linen suit jacket. She arches an eyebrow at me. “A fat guy smoking a cigar?” I ask. “In a late model white sedan?”

            “What are you?” she laughs, showing slightly uneven but very white teeth. “Dashiell Hammett?”

            I sit there, embarrassed.

            “Yeah,” she says, “anyway, that’s the cretin. An unemployed studio tech. Says he’s loco for me!”

            Uh oh, I think, here we go. Ego-trip time.

            “Free up!” she spits. “He can go Harry Potter himself! Why should I have to get a restraining order? If he thinks so much of me, let him pay for the restraining order!” The whole time, she keeps pulling my ear, clucking her tongue and humming some Beatles song. “My breasts hurt.”

            – – –                                                     

            What did she just say? Her breasts hurt?

            “Let Dr. Kevin take a look,” I suggest, blushing crimson. It’s not like she’s going to throw me out of the archive.

            “Awesome! Come into my office.” Turning on her heels, she heads to the back of the building. “I put the front door on the time lock.”

             Dumping everything— books, pens, legal pads— on the table in a heap, I don’t waste a second.

             She locks the door and, smirking, stands still as a bronze statue while I unbutton her black linen jacket and remove it from her person. I start to hang it on the back of her chair. “Just fold it neatly on my desk,” she suggests off-handedly. “I really need your professional opinion regarding the firmness of my office sofa.”

             “Soon,” I assure her. “First things first, a thorough examination of the breast complaint.” Carefully, I unbutton all the little white buttons on her blouse.

             “There’s a catch in the back, for the bra,” she explains.

              “Oh, I think I can handle it. Otherwise, I’ll ask.”

               Liberating her breasts, I am not disappointed. Creamy pink and white skin, gorgeously shaped, firm, they seem to reach out to me. “May I begin?”

               “Doctor, doctor, give me the news…” she sings softly, looking down at me through half-closed lashes.

                I rise to the occasion, as do her nipples. “Excellent tactile response,” I inform her, busy with my tongue.

              “It’s not like we are charging you for using our materials,” she says. “I looked you over and thought, ‘Screw the invoice, I’ll take it out in trade.’”

             “That sounds fair,” I mumble, totally engrossed in making love to her breasts.

              “You can be my love slave, Jew!”

               I pause, hands cradling her breasts, and stand up straight. “Come again?”

              “You’re Jewish. You can be my love slave,” she says, still smirking. “You dig my body, Liebling.”

              “Sure, but I don’t see what—“

              “Location, location, location! Look at where we squat, sweetie! I work in a Nazi archive. There are other office grinds available, you know. I chose this one ‘cause it interests me. What time is it?”

              “What time is it?” I reply dumbly.

              “Clock, watch, sundial! The time?!”

              “It’s a quarter to four.”

              “I have to get dressed,” she says, shooing me out of the office. “Listen, some skinheads are coming here at four. For God’s sake, don’t tell them you’re Jewish. Use a Christian name!”

               In the interest of research, I hang around.

               They come barging in through the front door at 4:15 p.m. and plop a six pack of Michelob on the counter top. There are three of them, shaven skulls, black leather vests, blue tattoos on their arms, young punks of no particular vehemence. “Who the fuck are you?” they ask.

             “O’Connell, Jimmy J. – Catholic Archdiocese of Greater Los Angeles.”

             “Oh, sorry, Father,” one of the boys stammers.

             “I’m not ordained, I’m just a lawyer in the front office.”

              “Hey, uh, sir, you want a brewski?” they offer and I really have to laugh.

               Clack! Clack! Clack! Out comes the duchess, and I’m quick to explain that I’ve been telling the boys about my duties as a lawyer for the Archdiocese. “I was just about to explain my current mission: J.J. O’Connell to the rescue, getting a restraining order against the jerk out front.”

              “He always jackrabbits when we arrive,” the youngest of the three pipes up. “We flash Yamahas. I think we scare the shit out of him.”

              We all sit down in a conference room. They pop their beers and over the next half hour, with me taking notes— having promised complete confidentiality— they regale me with neo-Nazi tales of break-ins, muggings, knifings, drug use, drug busts, gang wars and the occasional minor race riot. “Hitler’s birthday, that kind of shit. We tear into Watts and stir things up. The Führer was born 122 years ago!”

              “Do tell!” says Margo, sipping a Michelob from one of the boys. “1889 was such a good year for dictators!”

              “Where do you gentlemen live?” I remember to ask. It doesn’t seem to surprise them that some fancy-pants lawyer from the Catholic Church moonlights as a screenwriter. Hollywood, everybody wears two hats!

               “Barstow.”

               “The epicenter of the So-Cal neo-Nazi movement,” Margo interjects in a voice heavy with sarcasm.

               “And you come here to the American Rights Federation because— ?”

               “It’s a free country, man!”

               “She’s our Gauleiter.”

               “Your area commander? Margo here?”

               “I told you,” she laughs, “the subject interests me.”

               Neo-Nazis, California, motorcycles, racial confrontations, gang wars. “I think we’ve got the makings of a new, modern Hells Angels On Wheels,” I inform them.

                “Awesome! Not bad for an afternoon’s sweat!” Margo insists.

                I take them all to dinner at In-N-Out, a hamburger emporium of opulent splendor. (It’s not, but the burgers are exceptional.)

               Watching them peel away on their Yamahas into the inky black of a sultry California night, I tell Margo, “I’m going to have to call United and rebook my flight.”

               “Oh?” she asks, looking at me over the top of her car.

               “Yes. I want to stay and investigate that whole Jewish love slave thing.”

                “Well, well, well,” she sneers. “Let’s stop by a Walgreen’s and pick you up some condoms!”

                                                        *

My World Darkens

 

                     Stabbing Roils Neighborhood          

Oxburg, Md., Aug. 8, 2011. An apparent dispute over dog poo led to a violent confrontation in the 1800 block of Peanut Blvd. at approximately 11 a.m. on Monday. A homeowner approached a dog owner, demanding that the latter remove from the former’s front yard a substantial, although minor, amount of excrement newly evacuated by the dog owner’s pooch. When the dog owner suggested the homeowner clean up his property himself “since you are right here anyway,” the homeowner took offense. Brandishing a K-bar knife of Vietnam War vintage, the homeowner stabbed the dog owner several times, inflicting life-threatening injuries.

          The neighbors immediately called an ambulance. The victim is currently in stable condition at Suburban Hospital.

          Arrested by the police soon after the incident, the homeowner expressed remorse. “The guy kind of just flipped his lid,” according to Sheriff Emeritus Aloysius Horner.

           A witness described the sequence of events as “bizarre, unfathomable and horrific.”

           The identities of both perpetrator and victim remain at this time confidential, pending a fuller police investigation.

                                                            *

           The “witness,” standing like a jerk on the sidewalk, holding a yard sign in each hand, was me. Not the greatest way to start my day.

                                                            *

            It was a home masquerading as a warehouse. Two enormous white doors graced the front, exiting directly onto the street. There wasn’t even a sidewalk. Halfway down one side, I found the steps, door and doorbell. Jungle growth filled the yard, elephant grass and squat cacti sprouting quills. I cut myself on the enormous green leaves of a rubber plant, just trying to reach the door.

            Sweating in the suffocating humidity of another scorcher, I take time out to admire the incredible collection of gargoyles that litter the property. Beaked phoenixes rise from the bushes. Mexican death masks adorn the walls. Skeletal dolls nestle in the foliage, creeping me out. They seem to watch me, leering. Most unsettling, at the door, there is a life-size blue sculpture of a cat. I’ve never seen anything quite like this. A pharaonic feline, dating back to the Egyptian pharaohs, it is truly awful. Like no cat I’ve ever encountered, the back is surrealistically arched. The mouth is a vicious maw of pointed teeth. The paws sport five toes apiece, the nails sinuously long and razor sharp. The tail… the blue tail arches up over the back of the sculpture, impossibly long and thick, like the stinger on a scorpion.

            Scary sculpture.

            I hear yowling in the grass, but I’ve already pushed the doorbell. I hold aloft my Anna Bola For Attorney General yard sign in front of me.

            When she opens the door, I am struck by how tall she is. Whippet thin, gaunt, enormous brown eyes staring from a craggy face, she is dressed in a peasant blouse and denim jeans. We’re the same height.

            Then the smell overwhelms me.

            Incense, musk and dust, in equal measure.

            Raising her right hand, holding the door with her left, she announces, “You are very hot.”

            I AM DYING IN THIS HEAT.

            A serious little frown creases her forehead. Standing perfectly still, she tells me, “You are so tired.” The accent is thickly Chicano, but the words intelligible.

            I feel worn out. I am also gagging on the scent.

            “You are not well,” she says huskily.

            Immediately, I feel deathly ill. So ill, I drop the yard sign and have to hold on to the brass railing to keep from falling down the concrete steps. As it is, I feel myself swaying like a drunken sailor.

            “You need to lie down,” she says, all but gathering me in her surprisingly strong arms and virtually carrying me inside her house. Stumbling, with her help, I make it to a dusty sofa and collapse astride it. A minute or two pass amidst waves of nausea, my face inches from the floor. I sense her manhandling me onto my back. A cold, wet towel descends onto my forehead, the relief almost indescribable.

            “You’re tired,” she coos, hovering over me. “You need to sleep.”

            I pass out.

            I awaken on the same sofa. The front door is closed. My yard sign leans crazily against the wall. I no longer feel like death warmed over, but the same glut of incense, musk and dust leaves me thick-headed. How can anyone live this way? I wonder. Open some doors and windows, for God’s sake. Let some air into this room!

            “You’re awake,” she observes. A Selma Hayek beauty, I find her physically attractive. The surroundings, I find repulsive. “Drink this,” she says, handing me a coffee mug of steaming liquid.

            “What—“

            “It’s hot tea with cloves. Sit up or you’ll burn yourself.” Joining me on the sofa, pressed against me, she helps me to sit up straight. I can’t believe how weak I feel.

            “I can’t believe how weak I feel!”

            “It’s the heat,” she assures me, blowing her cool breath over my face through blood red lips. She smells of peppermint.

            “Your breath smells of peppermint.”

            “No, it’s the cloves,” she corrects me.

            I sip the scalding tea.

            “Breathe in, breathe in the cleansing steam,” she admonishes me. “It’ll clear your head.”

            So I sit there breathing scented steam from the coffee mug clutched in her hands. Her nails are long, slender, sharp and painted blood red.

            “You’re tired,” she says, putting the mug on the coffee table. “You need to sleep.”

            I pass out for the second time.

            “I am in deep shit here,” is my last, panicky thought. After that, I feel myself hanging, suspended, in a black void. No sound. No light. Nothingness.

            A wave of refreshing coolness quickens me into wakefulness. It is dark out. Night. I don’t see my hostess, but a fresh, cold, wet towel has been draped over my sweaty brow. Water droplets run down my cheeks, soaking the sofa fabric.

            I take a preliminary inventory. The brain seems to be working, but the body is totally immobile. I can’t lift a finger. I’ve never felt such lethargy.

            She comes back and feeds me cold tea with a spoon. “It’s herbal tea,” she explains. “It’s important you drink it all. Otherwise, it won’t be effective. What’s your telephone number?”

            “My telephone number?”

            “Do you live with someone? It would be courteous to tell your wife or fiancée that you are all right. Also, they might otherwise telephone the police. You’re not a missing person, after all. You are here!”

            “I live with my mother.”

            “Give me the number,” she suggests in her husky baritone.

            She dials the number and presses the cordless phone to my ear. “Tell your mother you are all right, but you will be spending the night with a friend.”

            I hear the signal, the phone is ringing. Brat, brat, brat.

            “Hello?” answers my mom.

            “Hi,” I sigh. “It’s Kevin. I’m still with the campaign. I’ll be sleeping over here tonight.”

            “What about dinner!?” my mom insists. “I’ve cooked pot roast. Where are you?”

            “You can’t talk more. You’ll call and explain everything tomorrow,” my strange companion suggests.

            “I can’t talk more,” I tell my mom. “I’ll call and explain everything tomorrow.”

            My hostess plops the phone on the coffee table, severing the connection. “You need to get up now,” she tells me, helping me to my feet. “There’s a bed in the back room.”

            I stumble into another room. Candles are burning everywhere, dozens of them, on metal trays, in candleholders, in table candelabra. An overpowering stench of wax sends me sprawling onto the floor.

            “Get up slowly,” she says.

            I feel as if I’m levitating. I feel myself floating over the bed. Flat on my back, she tucks the edges of a scratchy, gray, wool blanket under my shoulders and around my neck.

            “I’ll see you in the morning.”

            I see her long before that. I see her, through the open doorway, feeding her cats. I see her come into the room I am in and draw a pentagram on the floor. She throws white powder into the air. As it wafts over the lit candles, it disappears in a gentle poof!

            In the morning, I find, if I hold myself astride the bed, I can just barely stand. She finds me stuck that way, unable to stand up straight or even fall back onto the bed. She unhinges my cramped hands and lowers me onto the bed. Lying on my back, I gaze up at her.

            “What’s wrong with me?” I gasp.

            “It takes time to get used to a new environment,” she tells me. “But you’re much better today. You are making good progress.”

            That morning, she brings me a breakfast tray and actually helps me drink a glass of grapefruit juice, eat a piece of buttered toast and consume another cup of her herbal tea.

            With her all but carrying me, I cross the floor to the bathroom in a shambling walk. She sits me on the toilet and my cock burns like the fires of Hell as I urinate. “Jesus, that hurts!” I grunt, feeling sweat break out on my forehead.

            “You’ve been sick,” she explains in that same maddeningly reasonable tone of voice.

            I’VE BEEN SICK.

            “I have to accept the fact that I’ve been unwell,” I tell her as she helps me back to bed.

            “You need to stay here and recuperate,” she suggests evenly, tucking me in.

             I NEED TO STAY HERE AND RECUPERATE.

            “I need to stay here and recuperate,” I tell her.

            “Of course,” she agrees, shaking her head. I keep staring at her jet black hair and the wide band of mascara over each eyelid. “Soon you’ll be well and can resume a normal, productive life.”

           “Soon, I’ll be well and can resume a normal, productive life,” I assure her.

           She massages my shoulders, neck and arms.

           I feel a tiny spasm of arousal.

           “No. Not that,” she says, getting up quickly and leaving the room. She comes back with an old-fashion music box. Winding it up, she pushes the switch. Clinky, clanky, tinkle, tinkle music fills the room. She leaves the box on the night table. Whenever it runs down, she comes back in the room and winds it up again.

            The music irritates the shit out of me.

            “Your music box irritates the shit out of me,” I inform her.

            “Actually,” she says, “you like it.”

            Oh. Listening, I realize that I kind of like it.

            “You look tired and should sleep.”

             I pass the day in a haze of tinkling music, sweet herbal tea, strange and undefined dreams, and a fever headache. Every few hours, she leads me to the bathroom. I have yet to defecate, but I urinate profusely. Probably from the tea. The burning is still present, but less and less each time.

            In the afternoon, she perches herself on the edge of the bed and hands me the cordless phone.

            “Look at me! Look into my eyes.”

            “Th-They’re huge. They’re black.”

            “That’s the light,” she assures me. “They’re actually dark brown. I want you to call your mother and tell her you’ve fallen ill. You’re staying with a buddy from the political campaign. His name is Raymond Dix. Here’s his phone number. Say his name.”

            “Raymond Dix.”

            “Call your mother. Tell her you’re getting better and will be home in a day or two. Give her that phone number. Tell her not to worry.”

            “But when—“

            “Look at me… Look into my eyes… Now call your mother.”

            Well, I call my mom, tell her I’ve gotten food poisoning. I’m recovering at Raymond Dix’s place. I’m not sure of the address, but I give her the phone number. When she wants to talk to him, I tell her— quite truthfully— that he isn’t there!

           “Tell her not to worry,” my strangely detached wardress whispers in my ear.

          “Don’t worry, mom, I’ll be home before you know it,” I joke.

          “Hang up.”

           I push the OFF button on the cordless phone.

           More music therapy. Hard-boiled eggs and toast.

            Hurrah, I defecate, my viscera writhing like a cobra. Bent over, I can’t believe the pain.

            “You’re fine, you are pain-free,” she tells me, pressing her hands to my head.

            The pain stops.

            Instantly.

           My body continues to squirm, but it no longer hurts. “How long?” I gasp.

           “Not long. You’re growing accustomed to… a new set of circumstances,” she tells me. “Imagine you’re in a bookstore, buying books.”

          “Why?” I ask.

           “It helps to take your mind off… other things. Think of yourself at the beach, lying in the sun, the soft roar of the ocean ringing in your ears.”

           Returning to bed, I lay, basking in the sun, the soft roar of the ocean ringing in my ears. It’s great.

           That afternoon, she gives me pills. I don’t know what they’re for, but they make me groggy and then send me into a total void. Utter blackness, no thought, no sound, no nothing.

          When I awake, a number of things have changed.

           The doors and windows are wide open, admitting a cool breeze and tons of daylight. She sits in a wicker chair and stares at me from across the room, a curious, rueful smile playing around the corners of her mouth.

          “What’s your name?” I ask her.

           “You know my name. It’s on your list. The list you brought in your car when you came with the yard sign.”

           “I don’t remember.”

           “Christina Fabiola.”

           “Oh.” Really, it doesn’t mean anything to me.

           “You have a great friend in Anna Bola,” she tells me.

           “Yeah. Yes. Anna and I are great friends. She—“

           “She sends her regards! Come! Let’s walk in the garden.”

            As creaky as a caterpillar tractor, every joint cracking, I manage to stand, trundle to the bathroom, take a leak and join her outside on a tiny cement patio. Pussycats howl and hiss from among the foliage. 

            A high, brown palisade fence masks her backyard from the neighbors. A wraith in a white hospital gown stumbles amid monstrous blue wisteria, saw grass, ragweed, nightshade, chickweed, honeysuckle and wild cabbage. The victim of some terrible accident, one eyelid is sown shut and even from a distance, I can ascertain multiple scars about his body.

           “Raymond!” she calls. “Come here!”

           We descend into the yard. He drifts over to us, his one eye glassy, his glance seemingly unable to focus. He keeps craning his head to look at the sky.

           “What the hell happened to him?” I ask.

           “This is Raymond Dix,” she explains. “He’s one of my organ donors.”

          “Your organ donors?”

          “My dear,” she says, touching my arm playfully. Why does this gentle, languid touch send electric shock waves through my body? Where’s the 12-volt car battery, hidden under her billowy peasant skirt? “I am an organ harvester. It’s my profession. Raymond, say something to the nice man!”

          “Aaaaauuuugh,” Raymond moans.

          “Stop that!” Christina snaps. “You can still talk if you exert yourself!”

          “H-H-Hell-lo,” he declares in a voice that sounds fifty thousand miles away and beyond the clouds.

          “Hello,” I reply.

          “Y-Y-You… I-I-I… C-C-Christina!”

          “You, me and Christina, yeah, right.”

          “Y-Y-You… she help you!”

           I look at Christina.

           “I’ll let you two talk,” she suggests generously, walking away amidst the ragweed and honeysuckle.

          “What is with you, Raymond?” I ask sincerely. “How long have you been here?”

          “L-L-Long time. Awhile. C-C-Christina helps me. She’s my friend.”

          “Have you been in an accident?”

          “No. No accident,” he replies, looking confused. “Have you… accident?”

          “No. But you’ve got some scars,” I point out. “What happened to your eye?”

           “M-M-My eye?” he asks and starts feeling all over his face with his hands, moaning. He makes this low guttural sound, his body heaving in sobs, as he seems to search for his…other…eye under the stitches.

           “Raymond! Stop that! Come here!” Christina shouts angrily, marching up and pulling him to her. Caressing him as though he were a little kitten, she whispers soft endearments in his ear.

           Quickly, visibly, he begins to relax, an idiot smile suffusing his face.

           “Now, scoot!” Christina coaxes him, pushing him away. “Go walk in the garden. You like the garden, Raymond.” Turning to me, she says, “Come.”

           We return to the house.

           “He’ll do anything I tell him,” she explains evenly. “Just the same as you. Of course, I’ve harvested several organs from him. Really, I’m afraid he doesn’t have very much longer to live. There’s a liver transplant, his other lung, his remaining kidney, even heart tissue that needs to be salvaged. More corneal tissue. Muscle tissue. Skin, of course. Burn victims often need skin transplants.”

           “Whoa!… Wow! I mean, what are you saying?”

            “You were next, my little friend. My next victim, my next patient. That’s why I say Anna is such a good friend of yours. When you desapareció de la vista, she suspected what had happened. She had that man Eric check the list they had given you. That confirmed it. I don’t answer my phone, but she came here herself last night and asked my pardon. I’ve known her for years. We go way back. So I put you on an IV and got you hydrated and healthy enough to rise, this morning, from the living dead. Isn’t that nice of me?”

            “You’re some kind of bitch!”

            “No, I’m not,” she says in that maddeningly even voice of hers. “You’re grateful for everything I’ve done for you.”

             I AM. I’M VERY GRATEFUL. FOR EVERYTHING. SHE’S DONE FOR ME!

            “Really,” I explain, “I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done for me, Christina. What I don’t get… I mean, how do you do that? Christina? Make people…you know, receptive, to your… suggestions. Drugs?”

            “I thought you knew!” she actually laughs.

             I can’t take my eyes off her. I feel as if I am seeing the real Christina for the first time. An Antichrist? A relic of 1920’s style, she sports pencil-thin eyebrows, her hair pulled back in a widow’s peak, held in place with tortoise shell combs. Her skin is glossy and luminescent, her eyelids heavy with mascara. Tiny white teeth as sharp as knives. A round little chin and a bow mouth the color of blood. One spooky lady.

             Who is this woman? This China doll who defies understanding?

             Still chuckling, she waves a hand at me and says, “I’m a witch!”

             “Jesus! Why don’t you go back to Mexico?” I ask. “Do you have any kind of a life here?”

             “I have a very good life. I’m not afraid to work hard. I have my cats, my garden, men friends, women friends. We go rumba dancing, we make trips to South America. Life is good! In Mexico, they’d recognize me instantly. La bruja. They would hunt me down and kill me.”

             “Don’t you ever get… in trouble? Regarding your… profession? It sure seems odd to have this taking place in the middle… of Oxburg, Maryland.”

            “It’s true, no one would suspect!” she agrees. “But I put a hex on anyone who looks to get in my way. My friends, them I don’t touch with maldad.”

             “I wouldn’t ever tell anybody,” I mention. “At least, I don’t think I would—“

             She gives a husky laugh. “Get down on the floor and bark like a dog!”

              I get down on all fours, between the coffee table and her chair, and go “Arf! Arf! Woof! “

             “Get up! I need to show you something else.” She gets me a glossy plastic apron. “Put it on.” Rubber gloves. “Put them on!” She hands me a machete and leads me into the kitchen where there is an enormous chopping block— on legs. “It’s an actual butcher’s block,” she explains. Stepping outside, she brings in a cardboard shoebox punched with air holes. “Come here, my little sweetums,” she croons like an American woman, lifting a fat, chirping guinea pig from the shoebox. “Take the guinea pig in your left hand. Hold him by the body. Hard or he’ll squirm loose on you. Be very careful,” she says, spreading paper towels in abundance on the chopping block. “I want you to take the machete and chop off the guinea pig’s head. But carefully!”

                I hold the guinea pig with my left hand, and he’s not really fighting me. He kind of chirps worriedly as I lift the machete, but I bring it down so swiftly and forcefully, everything is over in a single second. The still squirming body spews blood everywhere, but Christina is all smiles.

                “See?” she asks. “¿Comprendes? You are just like Raymond Dix. You must always do anything and everything I tell you, my little one. It’s not something to discuss. You will always be this way. I have cast a spell on you. Duradero. You and I will always be as one.”

                “Jesus Christ,” I say. I’m still standing there, looking at the shiny red blood splattered all over the butcher’s block, my apron and the paper towels. Gently, I plop the lifeless torso of our little friend on top of the paper towels. “You’re as bad as Carrie Ann Winslow.”

                “Who is that?” Christina asks in the same level voice, but I see how her eyes narrow.

                 “Now take it easy,” I ask, no, I beg her. “She’s just some young girl who has her hooks into me. She’s been in Europa and she’s coming home and… Well, all I mean is, no offense, but she also makes me do absolutely anything she says. That’s all I meant. Please. No curses. No hexes. She’s a sweet kid,” I end, lamely.

                “Look at me… Look into my eyes… You are free of this woman. This Carrie Ann no longer holds any interest for you. You find her boring. Her voice annoys you, like a cat’s claw scraping on glass. Everything she says strikes you as stupid. ¿Comprendes? This is my gift to you because we are friends and we are linked by a psychic bond. Maybe some other young girl, that is your business. But this relationship is terminado. No more!”

             So, cleaning up the mess after the slaughter of an innocent guinea pig, I can now rejoice in my new-found freedom from Carrie Ann Winslow.

             Life is becoming perverse. 

                                                        *

            I come home. Mom is no longer concerned with where I’ve been. “Are you all right?” she asks, looking worriedly at my pale visage.

            “I feel weird,” I mumble. “I’m going to bed.”

            After a lifetime spent living with a hypochondriac for a husband, naturally she asks, “Do you want chicken soup?”

            “I couldn’t eat a thing.” Just making it upstairs is heavy weather. The house has wall to wall carpeting. I sleep on the floor. I throw down a blanket, spread a sheet on top, and roll myself up inside my cocoon. A pillow for my head is heavenly, but completely optional. I have slept on concrete floors in war zones with my face pressed to the pavement. That doesn’t bother me. I like achy cheekbones.

            At least usually I do. You have to understand, I am due back at the campaign at 10 a.m., but that hardly accounts for half my day. First, bathed in sweat, sitting on the toilet, bent over in cramps, I evacuate everything I’ve eaten in the last three days. My bowels churn, my ass burns. I take a quick shower. Then I have to roll our trash bins—the black plastic garbage bin and the blue recycling bin—across the street for morning pickup. I’ve already missed collection on our side of the street the day before.

            At 7:45 in the morning, I drive my mom’s car to the local garage for an oil change. With the recession, people are spending additional coin on their autos, rather than buying new. The appointment has been made way in advance. I leave the car and walk home, suffering a new bout of cramps, waves of nausea leaving black spots before my eyes. A 20-minute walk, once again I am drenched in sweat. I seriously ain’t sure I can make it. My feet won’t move.

            Breakfast isn’t even a possibility. I drink, gingerly, a cup of coffee with lots of scalded milk in it.    

            Ma voiture needs to be topped up with coolant, which I do.

            I take a second shower of the day and put on a decent pair of shorts and a plain white T-shirt. I pack a bagel with cheese and an apple in my brown paper lunch bag. I fill my briefcase with eyeglasses, sunglasses, instant coffee, my own personal coffee cup, cellphone, ballpoint pens, a map of Maryland, paper towels for wiping down yard signs and smoothing the rust off the metal legs. A collection of brochures, handbills, cards and mapquest printouts from previous excursions.

             Then I telephone and leave a message for Boopsie, my filmmaking collaborator, telling him I still live, but just barely. “Boy, will we ever get a screenplay out of this one!” I say. “So don’t be angry.”

            Now, finally, still a little tipsy, I drive to Anna’s house and arrive around 10:10 in the morning. Eric is on the phone, earbuds stuck in his ears, talking via computer. Judith and Anna are busy writing and signing checks. An intern with spiky black hair is typing on a laptop, his back to me. I take my water bottle into the kitchen and refill it. Draining it in the ten-minute drive over here does not bode well for the rest of the day. August, it’s already hot as blazes out there.

              Since Eric is busy, I boil up some water and have another cup of Joe with milk.

              “Montgomery County, rights of way,” he says, welcoming me back. As always, he simply gives me the assignment. He never micromanages in my case, although I’ve seen him ride herd hard on the interns. I get out my map, paper and pen and start noting major thoroughfares.

             I go upstairs to filch additional sheets of scrap paper from the cardboard recycling carton. With printing on only one side, everyone uses the backs for notations. That’s when I notice new brochures I’ve never seen before, four different 8½ by 11 inch sheets of cardboard printed in full-color offset. Stacks of 100 in four different cardboard boxes. They’re like nothing relating to Anna Bola that I’ve ever seen before.

              Firstly, they are very dark. Lots of black borders. Two of them extol Anna, but in very gritty terms: “Anna Bola has gone head to head with the Governor, demanding equal benefits under the law for gays and lesbians in same-sex marriages. She continues fighting to include sexual orientation in Maryland’s hate crimes law.

            “Anna champions a woman’s right to choose. She has called on the Governor and the Statehouse in Annapolis to require Maryland insurers to cover birth control expenses for women. If elected, Anna will sponsor legislation to make this a reality.

            “Anna leads the way in fighting organized crime. Crime bosses, Latino gangs, corrupt union officials all know their time has passed with Anna Bola as the new Attorney General!”

            With the accompanying photographs, this is very potent stuff. So strong, I am checking the printed return address in the upper left-hand corner to be sure they really are being handed out by OUR campaign.

            They are.

            The two cards attacking Hiram Whiplash are even harsher. “Atrocities at an Exhibition,” they specifically accuse Hiram of… Well, read for yourself: “Hiram Whiplash’s ‘main client’ is Yuri Orlov, the famed Merchant of Death, an arms dealer whose many wares have spread death and devastation to all parts of Africa.

            “Hiram Whiplash recently admitted he is funding his campaign with blood money made from the sale of illicit diamonds smuggled out of Sierra Leone.

            “Hiram Whiplash has loaned his campaign $180,000 of his own money, but even today, he refuses to release a list of his law clients and/or business partners.

            “A major player on the spot market for illicit plutonium, there is reason to believe Hiram Whiplash has supplied Iran with nuclear fuel for their reactor program.”

             These statements bristle with footnotes, referring to Greenpeace reports and international arms commission testimony. Dates abound. Page numbers. University case studies are named.

            The color-scheme again is somber, the photographs appalling.

            I take one of each, go downstairs and slip them into my briefcase. If we’re making these kind of claims, I need to stay in the loop!

            Busy writing up my route for the day, I get interrupted by Eric. “Do you have any mailers?” he asks me.

            Mailers? “I don’t know what you mean,” I tell him. “Anna gave me these to hand out.” I show him a stack of small green cards.

            “No, those are handcards. I mean mailers. Did you take any mailers from upstairs?”

             “Huh? You mean, today? Yeah. Sure. Here,” I say, fishing the four cards out of my briefcase.

             “Those aren’t really for public consumption,” he tells me.

             “Oh. You never sent them out.”

             “No, no. We sent them out. The ones upstairs we want to keep.”

             “An archive. Okay. I can Xerox these at Kinko’s and return the originals.”

            “But why do you need them?”

            “Are you kidding? I’m out there knee-deep in yard signs. I represent this campaign. If we’re saying stuff, I gotta know.”

            “I don’t want that stuff to leave the upstairs office.”

            “So I should take them upstairs and take notes?” I ask.

             “Well, uh, yes.”

             So now I have to spend an hour copying longhand, verbatim, from the brochures because Eric is unhappy. While I’m busy pencil-pushing, Judith comes into the room and starts bashing things. Clump, clump! Clunk, clunk! It’s not my business and I’m pretty browned off about this tedious chore I am saddled with. When I come up for air, behold! All four cardboard boxes with the brochures are missing! They gone.

            Then, a not-so-funny incident occurs. Eric and Judith come upstairs and sit themselves adjacent to me and begin, on the Mac, perusing websites. “Look at this one!” Eric snickers. Chortle, chortle! Guffaw!

             I continue my writing assignment. They are baiting me. They want to see if the New Inquisitive Kevin is sticking his nose in their business. I don’t play that game. Eventually, I finish my note-taking and turn to Eric to point out the most salient facts I have gleaned from this literature. Z-Z-Zap! He pushes a button on the keyboard and the screen on the Mac goes blank. By now, I want to punch the guy in the face.

            My world darkens.

             I go downstairs looking for Judith. I’m holding the four cards in my hands and everyone is looking daggers at me. Anna, her husband, the intern. I’m thinking of what snide, stinky remark I should make when I give Judith the cards. “Here are your poison pen letters! Have some turds, turd blossom! Fucked is as Fucked does.” But I reconsider. Not finding her, I go down in the basement, looking for the four cardboard cartons. I can’t find where she has hidden them. Coming back upstairs, I find Judith in the kitchen. “Here!” I say, handing her the radioactive brochures.

           “Um, what?” she asks, flummoxed.

           “Put them with the others.”

           “Oh… Oh. Okay.”

            When I’m ready to leave on my rounds, I find Eric and Judith in the upstairs office. “I need to talk to you for 120 seconds,” I tell Eric. Holding aloft two fingers, I clarify, “Two minutes!”

           “We can talk right now.”

           “Alone!”

           “Oh, I just need my cellphone,” Judith says, grabbing it and scuttling out of the room.

            “I told you four weeks ago, I’ll tell you again,” I say, looking him very levelly in the eye. “Volunteers need a lot of petting and stroking. We only come in a few days a week and we always feel we are outside the campaign and the last to know anything. If you want me to work, you have to bend over backwards to make me feel part of this campaign. Include me! Obama does clueless. I don’t do clueless.“

            “I have a no-nonsense policy among the interns that nothing in this upstairs office leaves this room,” he tells me.

            “Cute!”

            He frowns.

            Tough titty.

            “Here! Hand out these. They have the endorsement announcement by The National Herald,” he suggests, handing me a stack of green cards from a box by the door.

             Pap. Vanilla. Bland. A waste of my precious time.

             “We’re not Tiger Woods and his former caddy,” I point out. “We’re not super-star athletes. We’re ordinary adults who can use the English language to communicate. Talk to me, Eric! If you want me out of here, just ask for my badge and I’m out of Dodge.”

             “Oh, no, we need you,” he tells me. “You are an integral part of this campaign. You provide work I can’t get from anyone else.”

             “As long as you are sure. Because I can’t stand out there on those scorched rights of way, pounding yard signs into the earth in 98 degree heat, if I feel unappreciated. That I cannot do! “

             “I appreciate you! I appreciate you!” he insists, shaking my hand. We leave it at that.

              It’s a campaign. Nothing is more temporary. Everyone wants to get as close to the candidate as they can. Everyone wants to wield power. Everyone wants a full-time, high-paying job at the end of their Herculean effort. And, maneuvering like hawks, no one helps anyone else or gives even an inch of ground. Exclusion is the name of the game! Campaign work is the ultimate ego trip. It’s all about Me-Me-Me.

            Not only has this campaign gone way negative— which Eric promised we wouldn’t do— I don’t see a lot of smiling faces. In fact, things look kind of dour.

            Plopping yard signs in the back seat of my car, a woman I don’t know exits the house. “Hi!” she calls, waving.

           “Hi!” I reply, holding aloft some signs. “I’m Kevin. I volunteer.”

           “Hi! I’m Jeanie. I live two blocks over. I just brought by a check.”

           “That’s always welcome!” I tease.

           “I didn’t think the election would be this close.”

           “You mean three weeks away?”

           “No, the surge in poll numbers for your opponent.”

            “I don’t get it,” I tell her. “What is so attractive about Hiram Whiplash? All right, I can understand that he’s got the Jewish vote. That makes sense, he’s one of theirs. They should support their man. But, otherwise, politically, his résumé is paper thin.”

           “I sure don’t know,” Jeanie tells me. We wish each other a good week.

            Two hours and 20 minutes later, I’ve knocked nine yard signs into the rock-hard earth and driven a total of 11 miles. “Fuck it!” I rant, sweat pouring off my nose and trickling to the ground in ropes of snot and perspiration. “Let Eric find some other sucker to do this chicken-cacky!”

           “You’re home early,” says mom.

            I tell her about the new, negative literature. “So I touched something radioactive and they all howled like scalded cats.”

            “You weren’t here,” she explains. “You called home sick. They sent those cards out to the four corners of the state, a few thousand here, a few thousand there. When they arrived in the mail, it made the local news shows. People did not like it. Your coworkers at campaign headquarters were hoping the incident would die a quiet death. When they saw you had copies of the cards, they panicked.”

              I take a third shower of the day, go upstairs and crawl into my cocoon.

             Over the dinner table, I complain about the freaky, annoyed looks I am getting from Anna’s husband Frank. “He seems to think we campaign workers have invaded his house, and he don’t like it. Added to everyone else’s paranoia, it makes for a lousy campaign!”

            “Oh,” says my mom, “that one’s easy. How old is Frank Reynolds?”

            “My age. We’re contemporaries.”

            By now, mom is out and out laughing. “Look in the mirror, dum-dum! Frank Reynolds is jealous. Here’s this good-looking son-of-a-bitch hanging around his wife! He probably said something to Anna. From what you’ve told me, I’m pretty sure she replied, ‘Kevin’s the greatest thing since sliced bread and indispensable to this campaign!’ How do you think that makes Frank feel? So, he’s jealous.”

           I’m still on the campaign trail, but the honeymoon phase is definitely over.

 

                                                           *

American Default Blues

          “One small debt for a man, one giant black hole for a government.”  

                    – RT, Russian Television, commentator reporting from Moscow on America’s debt crisis

           Jules Boolkin, TV Network News: “Good evening! As millions of you saw last night, we sent news teams all across the country interviewing ordinary Americans regarding their views on the solution to the debt crisis in Washington. Ordinary Americans just like you!

            “What you may not know, is the acid condemnation Corporate has received for what critics and the public agree, for once, was ‘boring’ television.

            “’If I want to hear the opinions of my neighbors,’ wrote a typical viewer, ‘I don’t need to turn on my television.’

            “So, to beef up our story— and hopefully re-attract those viewers lost in the hiatus— we’ve returned to this issue. Tonight: Previously Unheard Voices On the Debt Crisis.

            “We first take you to Flatland, Indiana, where billionaire maize farmer, entrepreneur and inventor Silas Worthington is seen climbing aboard his corporate jet.”

            Worthington: “I didn’t make the hole in the rowboat, why should I have to help bail?!”

            Boolkin: “We now interrupt a hold-up on Third Avenue in New York City to ask stickup artist and anonymous robber ‘R’ what he thinks.”

            ‘R’: Karl Marx prophesied the fall and ultimate demise of capitalism as an integral step in the formation of a communist society. We are currently in the second painful phase of that transition, the economic collapse of the West.”

            Boolkin: “In that same city, pole dancer Trixie LaBoom had this to add…”

            LaBoom: “I’m not saying there will be, but if there’s a backlash to the curtailment of entitlements amidst the general public, the Tea Party may well rue the day they made their demands.”

            Boolkin: “This homeless person standing on a street corner in New York City is Cyrus Corning. We don’t have Smellovision in our homes, but take my word for it, Mr. Corning smells pretty awful.”

            Corning: “The market’s crashing! No, it’s rallied! The Market’s crashing! No, it’s rallied! The market’s crashing! No, it’s rallied! The Market’s—“

            Newsman (off-camera): “Any other thoughts?”

            Corning: “Oh, wait! Stocks have taken a nosedive! No, the Market’s recovered! Stocks have taken a nosedive! No, the Market’s recovered! Stocks have taken a nosedive—“

            Boolkin: “Meanwhile, on Castro Street in San Francisco, gay rights activist Monty Markham gave us his commentary.”

            Markham: “Times are hard for the Movement. Castro Street has definitely been left behind. Wall Street flourishes, the rest of us are dumb [bleep]. I, personally, think House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is a lovely, lovely man and I would be happy to speed date the man in a Bachelorette-type setting. I’m in the phonebook. Or google me online at Markham dot Monty.”

            Boolkin: “Finally, back in Washington, on Euclid Street, in the downtown area— about as far from Capitol Hill as you can get and still remain on the same planet— we asked the Reverend Jasper C. Pettiwhistle for these comments.”

            Pettiwhistle: “A darkness rises upon the waters, Oh brothers and sisters! And the Righteous shall strike at the Iniquitous, like the scorpion riding aback the turtle. As we together sink into the mire of everlasting damnation, Brother Barack will give us all a speech tellin’ us we got to be prepared to make ever-greater sacrifices.

           “He got his millions!

           “He know where he can stick that one!”

            Boolkin: “That’s our economic recovery report for tonight on reaction to Congress and the Administration’s debt ceiling legislation and the resulting economic downgrading of America by rating agency Standard & Poor.

            “We’ll be back, after this…”

*

 

Name of the Game

           As the east coast of the United States slowly turns into a desert, the population hunkered down behind glass in air-conditioned splendor, the government in Washington, D.C. continues fighting over the debt ceiling. Considering that most Americans have been living on credit and “enjoying” staycations for over a decade, the concept of America welching on its commitments in the midst of a worldwide recession doesn’t sit well. This impasse makes all politicians look bad.

           I know politics isn’t for everyone, but I promised myself I’d get a book out of volunteering on the Anna Bola campaign for Attorney General of Maryland. Since it sure don’t look like I’m gonna get anything else out of it, as Harry Potter would say, “Specialis Revelio!”

            We’ll start with the hype: This is a statewide campaign encompassing all 23 counties, from the tobacco fields upstate to the cornpone and crabmeat of the Eastern Shore. This voter drive includes Baltimore and Annapolis. To quote Miss Jamie, our 23-year-old intern supervisor, blond, attractive, incredibly young, “We’ve dialed 18,514 telephone calls and held 4,302 conversations. We’ve knocked on 11,736 doors, gotten 5,709 strong supporters, taken 622 requests for yard signs, received email addresses for 2,136 voters, and fielded zero volunteers. What’s wrong with this picture?”

            In addition, we’ve marched in seven parades (groan!), attended four (groan!) county fairs, participated in five debates, held 8 fundraisers in hotel ballrooms, and had Anna do the meet-and-greet at private parties held in individual homes no less than 26 times.

           Operating out of Anna’s house in the trendy backwater town of Oxburg, Maryland, located in Montgomery County, our stalwart crew has canvassed the state, leaving no stone unturned. This has included cemeteries and Civil War battlefields, where applicable. Who says the dead don’t vote?!

            Super-Skypers, this campaign has videoteleconferenced to beat the band: strategists, speechwriters, pollsters, consultants, pundits, everybody works from their office and telecommutes. Truly a network, we have received data from so far afield as Mumbai. We have consulted with pollsters in Sochi, Russia. I don’t know how useful the info is, but we’ve done it. At the risk of waking the sleeping giant known as the State Department, we’ve even been in regular contact with Jerusalem.

           The State Department is prickly about Israel because, second only to the Russians, no one does espionage against the United States like the Israelis.

           You like Skype? Computer telephony is an Israeli invention, for God’s sake! Five years before anyone else, the Israelis pioneered “VoIP” technology (voice over internet protocol). Israeli emigrants called home on-screen. Even physically, they are seven hours ahead of us: If it’s 6 p.m. here, it’s one o’clock in the morning over there. Talking with Josie at the Jewish National Fund— basically, they plant trees and use the donations for everything else— we agree on some things. The legality of settlements in the West Bank? We agree, “Possession is 9/10’s of the law.” The Gaza embargo? Agreed, “We’ll break the necks of anyone who tries to break the embargo.” The two-state solution? “The Palestinians will never be happy until the Jews march backward into the sea!” Peace Now? “Some Jews are filled with self-loathing. The self-hating Jews join Peace Now!” I can hear the hubbub of the JNF Call Center in the background, many voices making appeals. Josie’s Russian/Hebrew accent melts my heart. Dispensing with politics, we get to the real meat and potatoes of our conversation: The weather. “The heat is so bad,” he tells me, “it’s incredible. Most of the houses don’t even have A/C. So we’re suffering.”   

            I know talking long distance internationally over the computer is standard office routine.  People do it all the time, but I haven’t previously experienced it. The endless minutiae of neighborhood voter preferences, issue research, scheduling and voter registration is, for me, way too much information. It’s the process I like. I’m less enthusiastic when the person portrayed on-screen is campaign treasurer Fluffens or the staff has tuned to Rachel Ray talking about meatball goulash, but otherwise, I’m game. When everyone else breaks down with a case of the giggles, and campaign manager Eric calls out to me, “Good times on the campaign trail, Kevin!”, I don’t disappoint. Campaign handyman and mascot, I assure him, “Oh, yeah!”

             It’s 27 days before the primary and the Battle of the Yard Signs has left me with egg-sized blisters on my fingers. I don’t know who Eric’s other volunteer is, but he or she, admirably, has peppered Montgomery County with Anna Bola yard signs. I never realized how soft and well-manicured our neighborhood lawns are, until trying to sink a yard sign into the rock-hard earth of a county right-of-way. Standing deep in scrub grass filled with chiggers, fleas, gnats, ticks and other biting insects, I get eaten alive on the traffic islands, vehemently trying to push in a yardy! Since this just ain’t gonna happen, I have procured a screwdriver with an exceptionally thin, long shaft that I pound into the ground with a hammer. Utilizing the strength of Hercules, I valiantly rescue this tool that once belonged to my late dad Bernie. [Note: Cheap ploy to gain your sympathy.] Shoving one metal leg of the sign into this hole, I follow the same procedure on the opposite side. Hopefully, the sign will sink more than one inch into the unyielding soil.

            Sweltering in the blast-furnace heat of this excruciating summer, many a swear word mingles with the roar of on-coming traffic. I was ready to give up and tell Eric, “Find some other customer,” but a few artistically-placed yard signs on hills adjacent to public parks, in flower boxes fronting Metro stations, and inevitably, on islands in the middle of roadways, reawakened my sense of sport.

          Hiram Whiplash supporters have spent a fortune on signs: A traffic island doesn’t receive a measly one or two. As in all things Hiram Whiplash, his people insist on overdoing it. Six yard signs on each and every traffic island march along in step with the traffic.

           Rather than try to compete, I choose my spot and place a single, solitary Anna sign adjacent to Hiram’s minions. Everybody likes an underdog, and Anna’s lonely little blue and white signs accentuate the difference between the campaigns. “Our little shepherdess among the wolves,” is the effect I seek. “Little Miss Muffet amid a sea of red and white spiders.”

           This comic effect has kept me going, despite having my fingers taped in bandages and bug bites liberally spaced about my body.

            Listen, anything is better than setting up signs outside BWI-Marshall, where the planes roar in loud and low. Those cute contrails pouring off the wings are the pilot dumping excess fuel. It makes for a safer landing, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

                                                            *

            Kudos to AT&T, I think our telephonic Town Hall Meeting went reasonably well, considering we ran it on a singles hotline. “When will titty bars be reclassified as family entertainment?” kind of threw us, but Anna was brave when asked, “Should partners in same-sex marriages remain chaste before, during or after the marriage ceremony?”

                                                            *

            EDITORIAL: “Both candidates for the Democratic nomination are equally patriotic, equally American and equally active in politics. Some, however, are more equal than others. Just as a B-2 Stealth bomber burns more fuel than an F-4 Phantom, we feel A.B. is the heavier contender. She’s not just steeped in ability, she’s Obi-Wan Kenobi-steeped in ability.

            For our civilian readers, the vast majority, we apply the analogy of creamery butter. Everybody likes their butter creamy, but there’s no accounting for taste. Choose accordingly. Hiram Whiplash seems a nice enough person, but that doesn’t mean we want him for State Attorney General. Our next-door neighbors are also nice, but oy veh, you’d have to be meshuganah to even consider them for elective office!

            This election is a case of ‘On what side do you want your toast buttered?’ You can butter us up, but we may yet abstain— in protest— from voting. Until someone kicks ass in Washington, until someone gets the debt ceiling raised and a handle on the economy, it’s hard to stay focused on anything, much less the election for Attorney General. According to our word count, we have now written the requisite six column inches on this subject. That said, do whatever strikes your fancy. Regarding anything. I myself am going out for coffee. Later!”

                                                            *

           Dear Anna,

           The yardsign I received had a white fleck about 1/16 inch square, squarely on the edge of the Navy blue border. I know you feel you can do this only because I am a widowed, Jewish, handicapped person of limited means.    

            I shall continue to support you, but with deep misgivings.

                                    Sincerely,      Ethel Rosenwasser

                                                              *

           Jennifer Lopez is running for the School Board. Of course, it isn’t that J-Lo. Our Jennifer Lopez is 42 years old.

           Three weeks before the primary, both campaigns are going whacko! Now it’s the Battle of the Websites: At “Bananatricks,” Hiram supporters’ oppositional research site, they busy themselves publishing Anna’s dirty laundry. “This sheep in wolf’s clothing,” they rant, “is in actuality securely in the pockets of the cable companies!!! Comcast, Verizon Fios and T-Mobile have all made contributions to Anna’s campaign!”

            “This is crazy,” Anna complains to us over her kitchen table and in print, “Hiram Whiplash has also accepted contributions from the cable companies!”

            A smear is a smear, however. “Anna Bola In Bed With Cablers,” read the blogs.

            “Hiram’s Magical Mystery $180,000” our bloggers respond. “Where’d Mr. Clean Shirt Club get the money, honey???”

            “Anna Bola in pockets of safari shirt manufacturers!… As many pockets as a safari shirt, Anna Bola sits in every one of them!”

            or

            “Anna Bola In Bed With Sealy Posturepedic!”

            or

            “Anna Bola takes money from C.I.A.!!!… The Bola campaign makes no bones about the hefty $500 contribution from brothers Sidney and Isaac Shelton, owners of Custom Ice Associates of Waldorf, Maryland. “Even in a downturn, companies still book private ice cubes for their parties and charitable events,” Sidney Shelton explained in this exclusive interview. “It’s the size, shapes and colors that appeal to our customer base. Our slogan remains unchanged these 50 years:  ‘Stay Out of Hot Water, Order Your Ice Here!’ Corny but effective. We feel the same about Anna Bola. She’ll be a boring Attorney General, but I mean that in a good way. Boring into corruption, boring into organized crime, upending cold cases. And we know from cold!  Relentless. A pretty icy customer, if you get my drift.”

             I didn’t know politics could give me freezer burn.

                                                            *

              Lolita Mancheno-Smoak is running for an At-Large seat on the Fairfax County School Board in Virginia. With a name like Lolita, she’s a shoe-in. I’ve found a Lolita of my own at our community swimming pool. I wouldn’t normally go, but I truly need some down time. Seventeen years old, her body clad in a candy-stripe green and white bikini, toenails painted a shocking pink, sun-bleached hair as perfectly air-dried as a shampoo commercial, slender fingers and sweet hands, regulation little-girl sunglasses, she reclines daily on a chaisse lounge, reading fashion mags. She puts the “u” in “cute.” She reads articles entitled:

                           “12 Ways To Improve Your Lip Gloss”

                           “If He Can’t Hear You, Try Esperanto”

                    “The Proper Length Glove For Evening Wear”

                        “Charlene of Monaco Secrets Exposed!” 

          Her name is Polina and it took me FOREVER to realize she’s a 17-year-old Russian immigrant and wants nothing to do with me, bandaged hands and all.

                                                     * 

            At a news conference on public access television, requested by no one, current Oxburg mayor Sparky Welles tells us: “I am willing to take significant heat from my constituents regarding my personal vision, and plan, encompassing the bulldozing of Natalie Woods in order to erect a condominium complex of 125 new dwellings, as well as meaningful additional retail space at ground level for boutiques, restaurants and stores of every description.

         “I am willing to consider such amenities as an indoor gym and a multiplex cinema exhibiting Hong Kong Kung Fu features on a regular basis for the art house crowd. They are, all things considered, a potentially rich pool of investors.

         “To those who say, ‘It can’t be done,’ I say, ‘It can and shall be done.’ Riverdale Creek can provide sufficient fresh water resources to allow for indoor plumbing, flush toilets, and standard shower fixtures in every condo, without further taxing the existing water table.

         “Woodland glades, pretty though they may be, do not generate tax revenues!

         “If not now, when?

         “Let the word go forth to friend and foe alike, ‘A $120,000 down payment secures you unlimited access to planning committee meetings, architectural drawings, artists’ renditions, wallpaper swatches and a color-coordinated pie chart by interior decorator Mel Vin.’

         “Don’t miss this wonderful opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a project that will only increase in value over the years.

          “Easy access to Rockville Pike and, of course, the high-end suburban mecca of Chevy Chase. Why be stuck on the Beltway when you can spend an equal amount of time and gas stalled in line on Wisconsin Avenue?

           “But enough about me! The only thing standing in our way is the approval of the Town Council. Their switchboard is open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday except for the July 4^th weekend and on Yom Kippur. Call and demand the passage of Town Zoning Ordinance 1137—that’s one, one, three, seven—and let’s get this row on the shoad. Time’s a-wastin’! To quote the illustrious adventurer and cultural icon H. Potter, ‘Erecto! ’

           “I’d also like at this time to deny any allegations of untoward sexual conduct during my recent school inspection tour of the girls’ locker room at Oxburg High. Forensic tests will show that, while my shoes left tangible prints on the tiles of the shower stalls, the purported semen stains were found in the bushes on the southwest side of the building, not exactly a teeming thoroughfare. So don’t let malicious, wagging tongues tell you otherwise.

            “We need to build these condos today to secure Oxburg’s budget for the next 30 years. The country’s broke, don’t let it happen to you!

             “I need your help! Support me on this initiative. I’ve already bought surrounding acreage on the spot market. If this little project goes through, I stand to make a goodly profit. You elected me! Obviously, you wish me to succeed.

          “Somebody has to be mayor!

          “Vote ‘yes’ on Proposition 4 in the upcoming referendum.

          “ ‘What’s good for General Motors is good for the U.S.A.,’ ” Sparky concluded, “Thank you and God bless.”

             The explosive reaction of citizens’ groups and environmentalists was not long in coming.

                                                    *

              I know I started off talking politics, but I’ve got a problem here. I have received A COMPLAINT from one of my younger readers. “Everything you write about is all messed up!” he writes. Guilty as charged! I find these screw-ups comical, that’s why I write about them. An alternative to droid rage, I try to couch disaster in high-end language and succinct phraseology. This one’s for you, Ilya! 

           Five days a week, I continue to make my living as a screenwriter, although I do try to get one day off, out of every seven, for good behavior. Together with my partner Bruce— aka “Boopsie”— at Montevideo Films [Marca Registrada], we specialize in sequels, prequels, mashups, parodies, lampoons, satires and blue movie porno flicks. Erase that last part! What am I saying? That our desperation for geld  would drive us to debase ourselves in unscrupulous ways??? Well… as the man said in the movie Dave, “Yeah… I guess I am.”

            Pitching these yarns over the phone to Hollywood takes a lot of chutzpah. To quote Heimie Aaronsky, “You got a lot of damn noive calling me with a tale like this, you yid! So… what happens next?! In your movie?”

             The following is a screenplay I’m really proud of!

         Harry Poofter and the Totally Bad, Thoroughly Abysmal, Really Awful, Pretty Crumby, Not So Good, Very Lousy Christmas Vacation

                                       by B. Davis & K. Feingold

                                                      Synopsis

           Young Harry, his cat Hermeline and his best friend Jacek travel to Jacek’s brother in New York who runs a Polish-owned limousine service. The brother, Andrez, puts them to work washing cars, vacuuming automotive interiors, polishing chrome and wiping down dashboards with a mild detergent. This makes for a three-hour movie, but have heart, Harry discovers a dropped microchip with encrypted blueprints of Chinese drones. Striking a deal with the Chinese consulate, Harry and Hermeline and Jacek return the chip in exchange for the release of half a dozen Falu Gong dissidents. This wins Harry two Wizard points and promotion to Junior Journeyman Assistant Associate Wizard’s Apprentice. This movie is pitched as the first in a very lo-o-o-o-ong franchise.

            An added feature in this premiere event is the shower scene where Harry’s bum is clearly, pinkly visible. Since Boopsie and I wrote the screenplay, we also have Harry in the act of French-kissing a groundhog, although the studio says, for contractual reasons, they are going to CGI the groundhog. Apparently, the young actor playing Harry has dander issues.

            The TV rights are being shopped in Brazil, since the Chinese market has, understandably, taken a hands-off approach. I’m told the storyline will be the basis for a game show. I think they’re going to have speed car washing contests, video monitor games portraying drone strikes (“Contestant A, see if you can hit the SUV full of little children from the Somali orphanage!  Oh my! I say! Good shot!”) and Tiger Ladies slinking around in Chinese silk kimonos. My Portuguese is almost non-existent, but I do look forward to seeing an episode on YouTube.

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