yustyoking

  

            I blame it on the weather. When the climate doesn’t know what season we are in, everything else follows. Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian god of the underworld shrugs, New York trembles and I puke. Since 9/11, fear is the next normal.

*

            I used to live in Greenwich Village, but I got tired of the NYPD closing off the streets on Saturdays, Sundays and Muslim holidays to facilitate foot traffic to and from the local mosque. I try to be cosmopolitan, but if life is going to be inconvenient, I prefer to live uptown.

There’s an asinine web site called LinkedIn that presupposes that people network. It’s very retro. As if anybody is in a position to help anybody else get a job or make a career move! It’s 20 years since anyone has mentored anyone else in America. Yet the millennials, bless them, think that by tapping on their keyboards, they can introduce other people to the HR department and facilitate the hiring process. Pul-lease! People lose their jobs doing that. How do you know your “friend” isn’t a stalker, a hacker, a thief, an industrial spy, a Manning, a Snowden, a pedophile, a sex pervert or just plain boring? The safe thing to do— the smart move— is to mind your own business and become as distant as the planet Jupiter.

In need of income, I accept a job doing the narration on the schlockumentary “The Many Meltdowns of Justin Bieber.” The dude’s evolving into a male Lindsay Lohan. Try to figure that kid out! We end with his most recent gaffe, a TMZ video showing the 19-year-old Bieber peeing into a janitor’s bucket at a New York restaurant and then spraying a portrait of President Clinton with cleaning fluid while shouting “Fuck Bill Clinton!” What some people won’t do for a little attention.

The only way I can run for public office is by sleeping with one of Jengi Khan’s scarlet-clad daughters in the Wakhan Corridor of northeastern Afghanistan. Members of a Kyrgyz minority living in the isolation and brutal climate of the north, the girls are as strange and repressed as if they lived on the moon. Spitzer, Weiner, how meshuggah! Wouldn’t it be hilarious of they both get TOTALLY trounced at the polls? Show everyone that NYC, “Babylon on the Hudson,” cannot be stampeded into accepting just any kind of public behavior. “Turn the other cheek…” “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” Choke! Let’s not move the goalposts to Elbonia, people! Do I have to strip naked and parade down Broadway to prove myself qualified for elective office?

Always looking for interesting work, I stumble on polling the public regarding wheat cakes. Why should I be ashamed? There’s a government bill pending in Congress to provide funding for the introduction of this product into our public schools. Sensing a groundswell, I canvas our neighborhood. Finding like-minded individuals of all creeds and colors, I take the initiative and drum up some petitions. It’s amazing when you ring people’s doorbells: They look so relieved when they find out you’re not asking for a donation!

My neighbors, understandably, select Brand A over Brand B. The wheat is the same. They grow it out west. Brand A wheat cakes are manufactured in New York State. Brand B in Pennsylvania. New Yawkers, we prefer to keep the jobs in-state. It hasn’t gotten to the point where we are demonstrating in the streets. (Just think, if we were Palestinians, we would be throwing stones in protest over this very issue!) My spiel goes, “Federal tax-payer dollars. Buy New York produce. Sign here.”  We’re allowed to solicit for political causes. That’s the law. Once Mrs. McMullen or Ms. Diamandis lets me into her building, then it’s Neighbor to Neighbor. It’s not like anybody reports me to the super.

I get in touch with the president of the New York wheat cake company. I email him an interim report and attach an html of our signed petitions. Unsolicited. As an example of my work. As a booster. “Hooray for wheat cakes!”

He sends me an email, thanking me. One. He tells me how great it is to have street cred. “It’s the little people who matter most.” I send him a series of follow-ups, reporting my progress. Creating something at the grass roots level, I am damn proud of my accomplishment. I deliver.

Hey, I could be yodeling “Dixie” in the Alps for all the good it does me.

I am experiencing the equivalent of a politician waving from his limo during a motorcade. Hey, the dude waved! That shows he’s a nice guy. He didn’t have to. That doesn’t mean he wants to start a correspondence. That doesn’t mean he wants to “friend” me on Facebook. He’s not sending me a baseball cap with the company logo. Professionals are busy people, they really don’t have time to associate with us mere mortals. As Seth Meyers would say (only don’t expect Seth to “friend” you on Facebook), “Really!? ”

The higher people roost on Mount Olympus, the pinnacle of power, (a) the more paranoid they become about not screwing up and (b) the less inclined they are to help anyone else. After all, the young person they mentor today is their chief competitor tomorrow!

After a few weeks, I get the message and stop expecting to hear anything.

*

            I go to lunch in the limo of Jane Saltzman, my new employer. She has sent along an “exotic” to keep me company, a Venezuelan fashion model who pouts prettily. She’s got a lower lip the size of a car tire. Discreetly, I pluck lice out of her hair. I know Jane through our Neighborhood Watch Committee. We share the chairmanship. Jane starts every morning by watching Kathie Lee and Yoda. After Mandy, my former employer, got blown up in a terrorist attack, Jane accosted me in the elevator. Expecting condolences, what do I hear? “So. Unless you are otherwise disposed, I expect you’ll come to work for me.” Jane is 60 years young. She runs a spa empire. You don’t say “no” to Jane Saltzman without a damn good reason. I couldn’t think of any. The Upper West Side is certainly less crime-ridden and hairy than The Village, but the rents are astronomical. I went to work that afternoon.

I’m a commodities broker, meeting with companies, distributors, suppliers and truckers, trying to get 30% off the bushel price of soybeans, apricots and lemons. These are the natural ingredients that go into the shampoos and lotions used in Jane’s spas. Listen, brokering is better than driving a dump truck. Jane gets her carambola starfruit from Israel and her mangoes from the Caribbean, but otherwise, whenever possible, she buys American. She insists on using old-fashion family recipes for her goo. They come from Hungary, Poland and Belarus. I’ve always hated the shtetl mentality, but their manufacturing skills were legion. “They,” claims Jane, “could make vodka out of a speck of dust, copper wire, an old potato and water.”

They still do. Go figure. Now you have all these vodkas with Russian-sounding names like Vladimir’s and St. Petersburg and Kremlin One, but when you check the label, you find they’re made and distilled in Connecticut.

I amuse her. That’s why Jane sends me lice-ridden Venezuelan fashion models who sit next to me in Central Park, hungrily watching me devour a box lunch. “You’re not eating, señorita?”

“I gotta lose some weight,” she frumps. Her accent is as thick as Russian borscht.

I love these girls!

Jane’s a nice lady. She offered to blow a couple of hundred dollars, comping me and a date to tickets to The Book of Mormon. The thought of sitting in a theater with 500+ other people made my skin crawl. I couldn’t do it. But I appreciated the offer. It was Oscar Wilde who said, “Don’t you realize that missionaries are the divinely provided food for destitute and underfed cannibals?”

The occupational hazard of my job is that you start seeing everything in terms of components: Cardboard is compacted wood pulp. Plastic is a polymer made from petrochemicals. Ink is a pigment or dye suspended in a solvent. Jane uses Roland Sea Salt and takes iodine pills made from sea kelp. Life as Chemistry 101. Life in the lab!

I spend the afternoon negotiating with a chemical manufacturer. This is the real meat and potatoes of the cosmetics industry. Ninety-eight percent of any shampoo or lotion is chemicals. I approach their building in da limo. If you show up in anything less than a horse-drawn cab, you don’t get no respect. Front entrance security rivals, say, Kandahar. They X-ray my briefcase. Give me the full body pat-down. Then they X-ray me. I take the elevator, admiring myself in the wraparound mirror. I slick down my unruly eyebrows, get my appearance in order. The 10th floor conference room abuts other skyscrapers. I’m dressed for summer. I got slacks, sandals and a billowy Hawaiian shirt. Suits, they are dressed in full office regalia: pinstripes, white shirts, ties, wingtips. I shave my head for comfort. They sport a full head of hair. Don’t these corporate people ever sweat?

Their Executive Vice President of Sales, Wes Levine, asks how I am. “That’s Kevin Feingold,” announces Elizabeth Nutwell, a sharp-nosed shrew from the Marketing Department, barging in, arms loaded with files. She’s wearing an elegant black suit, off-white pearls, silver hoop earrings and kabuki make-up. “Not only did he steal my parking space last Tuesday, he’s a known bastard. Rotten to the core!”

“I don’t recognize myself in your description, Ms. Nutwell,” I counter.

“Not well,” comments Wes.

“Not well?”

“Nutwell. Actually, she has a point.”

“I know. We’ve met.”

Wes laughs. “The Hawaiian has arrived,” he remarks. “Marjorie, call our supplier and have him send us coconuts.”

I’ll give you coco, I think. I’ll give you nuts! Gearing up psychologically.

Wes opens the negotiation. Ten minutes later, Elizabeth has another go. “This man,” she declares, pointing at me with an accusatory finger, “is in the pocket of Big Labor. His hidden agenda is to hobble employers and drive workers into union sweatshops.”

Wes pricks you with a rapier, Elizabeth hits you over the head with a truncheon.

Okay-y-y. “Can we reduce the asking price of cetrimonium chloride, benzyl salicylate, benzyl benzoate, charcoal and paraffin by 30%, that would be more in line with what we’re looking for,” I reply.

“Du bist a hunt mit di oyearn,” Wes complains jovially, which is Yiddish for “You are a dog with ears.” Yiddish is the new Esperanto. If you speak it, you’re hip. Wes has delivered a deadly insult. Since he’s laughing, I shrug it off. Insults go with the territory. We compromise at 15%. I’m smart enough to know that I’m not going to get a better deal. They can take 15% off the top without direly affecting their profit margin. We can pay the going price minus 15% and feel better fast. I think it was Arnie Palmer who said, “A birdie in the hand beats a bogey in the bush.”

“I’ll still want 30% discount on the paraffin,” I reason.

“Oh?” smiles Wes, always ready for a joke. “Why?”

“From the Latin. Parum means ‘too little’ and affinis means ‘bordering on.’ Your paraffin borders on too little.”

“Pretium affinis parum,” suggests Wes. “The PRICE borders on too little.”

“You’re a hard man, Mr. Levine. If you ever choose to leave this mortal coil, I can offer decapitation with an Islamic sword.”

“Duly noted. Does that come with or without verses from the Koran?” he wonders.

I mean, thank God we like each other!

“Ms. Philips, take a letter!” he declares. “Dear President Obi-Wan Kenobi: So? Nu? How was Africa? We’re delighted you liked Tanzania. Although Communist, they have natural resources upon which we are deeply dependent. Give the First Lady a Tanzanite necklace. Or not.”

Polite applause. His staff shift uneasily in their chairs.

“How is your employer, Ms. Jane Saltzman?” he asks. “Is she sleeping with the fishes?”

“Naw, she’s relaxing with the corgis.”

I neither see nor hear Ms. Nutwell and her pile of folders during the rest of the meeting. She is not part of my universe. From where do people get these passionate hatreds? I once wished an opponent “Merry Christmas!”  He wanted to take me to court for racial profiling! “I’m Jewish,” he seethed. “Your characterization demeans me! How dare you???”

One Sunday a month, April through October, weather permitting, Jane has me drive her to Boston in her boxy 1969 Skoda sedan from Czechoslovakia. She buys old books and prints at the flea markets. It’s at the Raynham Flea Market south of Boston that I find a pristine copy of Music interview Magazine MiM, a cassette mag from 1984. In the original, sealed factory wrapper. A spastic color photo of Boy George on the cover and a grainy color glam shot of David Bowie on the back. Interviews with Boy George, Thomas Dolby, The Clash, Herbie Hancock, Pete Townshend and Bananarama (!). Sale price: One dollar! They’re giving this stuff away. “Put that back!” barks Jane.

*

            My loneliness and isolation aren’t new. The first indication that I wasn’t on the same page as everyone else came while I was still in the Army. This perfect example of casting pearls before swine took place in Alaska. My day job was Intelligence, monitoring Soviet military activity of every kind: radio traffic, freighter movement, their airspace, their weaponry, their boots on the ground and subs under the sea.

Civilians aren’t like military personnel. Civvies stand alone, self-reliant (good!) and all wrapped up in themselves (less good). Each of us is the star of his or her own little head-movie. This is particularly true in Alaska. Stand tall! Tired of vandalism and juvenile delinquency, the city gave its young people a clubhouse to do with as they saw fit. The kids turned it into a quite respectable punk music club, The Asteroid. I got involved because I love punk music, showing up on Saturday nights to listen to some truly raucous bands. Eventually, the adolescent punk music enthusiasts behaved so anti-socially, the public began to ask, “Why are these black-clad punks, Goths, ghouls and gremlins showing up in our town from all over the Kenai peninsula?! What have we done to deserve this blight?” The city pulled the plug, evicting them, cutting off the water and electricity, discontinuing the yearly endowment. By their very nature, punks are as anti-Establishment as you can get and still play music. The only adult in the room, so to speak, I interceded on their behalf. I talked to the authorities. City councilmen. Politicians of every stripe. “The club’s a good way to keep our youngsters off the street and out of trouble,” I pleaded.

“These aren’t just our kids, we’re a magnet for every low-brow underachiever in the state! Screw that!” replied the pols.

The powers-that-be and I reached an accord. What surprised me were the kids. “Oh,” they said, “that’s Kevin’s thing. The negotiations are Kevin’s idea. That has nothing to do with us! We don’t talk to pigs. We never asked him to do it!” This they announced to everyone. Newspapers. Radio. Their friends. How can I represent my clients when my clients renounce any allegiance? I reminded the Establishment that we were, after all, dealing with youth. You couldn’t demand too much ice-cold logic. Emotions ruled the day.

A year later, they ran aground and again faced foreclosure. The town wanted to build a hospital annex on the plot of land where the clubhouse stood. I kept busy at my desk. The kids got a dose of reality, seeing their clubhouse demolished. They also got arrested for disturbing the peace when they tried to block the wrecking ball with their frail, little bodies!

Not my problem.

Hasta la vista, baby!

When I’m dealing with The Man, I remind myself that once upon a time, I pretty much was The Man. People didn’t say “no” to me. Unlike today.

*

            I am just using the restroom at O’Day’s, but as I come back out into the sunlight, I can’t help but see the brunette hostess crouched behind her wooden podium between the sidewalk tables. She’s getting reamed out by a five-foot blond tornado. “Ah jus’ wanna borrow yo’ phone!” rants the customer. “I wanna cahl mah boyfriend!”

“And we don’t have a phone to loan you,” retorts the hostess, rolling her eyes and audibly sighing. I’m all for the hostess, she showed me the way to the men’s room without batting an eye.

I’m dressed in tan cargo shorts, brown leather sandals and a Les Tomkins charcoal tee. In the movie Vanilla Sky, Tom Cruise knows something is wrong when he doesn’t see a single solitary soul on the streets of Manhattan. Anywhere you go, there’s always somebody. Surrounded by people, I’m lonely as a stick. You know New York. All those people, but they don’t return your calls.

“Y’ALL LOAN ME YO’ PHONE!” drawls the blonde, not giving an inch.

“I have a phone,” I intercede, proffering my cell phone.

“Thenk yew,” she simpers. Face to face, I can’t miss how cute she is: Her piercing blue eyes, her pointy nose, high cheekbones, rosebud mouth and round, little chin. “Y’all are too kind.”

“What kind of accent…?”

She’s wearing what we used to call “culottes,” a cross between a dress and shorts, a divided skirt with a pocket on each hip. Navy blue. My cell phone disappears into her left-hand pocket. “Ah’m from A-la-bama,” she drawls. Wrinkling her nose, she bursts out laughing. As she moseys down the sidewalk with my cell phone, she doesn’t so much walk as sashay, swinging fulsomely. She has a tight little ass to die for. Curvaceous legs. Dainty feet in cheap leather sandals. She’d look sporty if she wasn’t so damn sexy. She’s a cracker. Trailer trash. “C’n we fahnd an outdoor café an’ git a cold drink?” she suggests, flirting.

We just left an outdoor café, I’m thinking. Anyway, in The Village, you find a place on every block.

We get a table. Her name is Maggie. “Do you work?” she asks, peering at me mysteriously over the rim of her water glass with her enormous blue eyes.

“Of course,” I hear my rather pompous reply. I find myself trying to explain what I do: “I’m a commodities negotiator. Only I’m not working, y’know, today.”

“That’s good because I’m not working today either!” she declares forthrightly.

“Oh. Splendid. What do you do?” I ask, faux Hugh Grant.

“What do you mean?” she demands, filled with suspicion.

“Do you work?”

“No. I just said. I’m  not working,” she complains, making me feel like an idiot. “I’m into agenda-driven advocacy.”

“Really?” I ask, impressed. “What’s your agenda?”

“Shopping.”

Consumer protection? “What do you advocate?”

“More shopping for everybody!… You look hot,” she decides. Wrinkling her nose and cackling like a witch, she douses me across the table with an entire glass of ice water. I look down at my soggy, half-eaten sandwich. Jesus Christ! As Orson Welles said, “Women are another race… You can only win by being the cool center of their being.” Orson, does ice water count? If Maggie didn’t have my cell phone, I would leave. But I don’t want to seem rude.

We go shopping among the street vendors. Mostly Jamaican Rastafaris, their wares are spread out on blankets. Which they can easily roll up and make a run for it if The Man come around.  “Ah wan’ this blouse,” Maggie comments in the tiniest voice imaginable. A white peasant blouse with red embroidery, I hold it up in front of her.

The Rasta gives me a toothy smile. “She looka dynamite, mon !”

I check the label. “French smock. Made in Haiti. 35% recycled material, 15% polyester, 50% cellulose.”

“They have it at Macy’s,” Maggie assures me, “but the price is much better here.”

“I would hope so!” I reply, Kevin the supporter of free enterprise among street vendors.

“I need some money,” Maggie whines, flexing the fingers of her left hand under my nose. I crank out my wallet and peel her some bills. Watch her make purchases. Even the plastic bag the Jamaican offers us is what we euphemistically call “previously owned.” I tuck it under my arm, the first of many bundles.

“This is so much fun! I’m fun to be with!” Maggie assures me outrageously.

I look at her, about to protest, when she marches up to me, widening her eyes, staring into my soul.

Yikes!

“I’m. Fun. To. Be. With!” she repeats.

Jesus! Yes, she is!!! — “Jesus! Yes! Please! Maggie!” I gulp.

“Don’t take the Lord our God’s name in vain!” she instructs, playfully thumping me on the chin with her index finger.

“You are! You’re so much fun to be with!” I stammer.

“Good!” she shouts, waddling off down the pavement like a duck. With me in tow.

Blond hair, blue eyes and a cute face do that to me. Rounding a corner, Maggie stops, turns and tells me, “I also like the way your pecker is tearing a hole in your shorts!” Followed by gales of merry laughter. She thumps me on the chin.

I feel my heart lurch. I find myself falling seriously in love with this vixen. It’s been awhile.

Well, I was feeling unappreciated. Maggie may have the mentality of a 14-year-old, but she appreciates me! My single gun theory is that capable people are busy creating and don’t have time to hang out, while wastrels have all the time in the world and never accomplish a damn thing! I would retrieve my cell phone and walk away, but this business of Maggie drumming on my chin with her hot little finger is rapidly becoming addictive! I once recorded sound for a film crew from Channel 4. Behold! The wailing of police sirens is the sweet, melodic background to our daily lives. Even amidst the 70 decibel hum of street life, Maggie’s peals of happy laughter fill my head. She also has that cute little Irish milkmaid face and a stacked bod. Looking at her, I don’t exactly swell with pride. The swelling takes place lower than that.

Yes, she’s fun, but it also feels like the afternoon will never end. “When do you call Ricky, this boyfriend of yours?”

“Oh-h-h,” she coos. Waving both hands in my face, she thumps my chin. “He’s out of town until Friday.”

Now. Wait. A. Minute.

She kind of tinkles, arching her eyebrows. Blue eyes flashing.

I’ll do anything for her, I suddenly realize, a dead weight in my stomach. Time to skedaddle, ace!

Then she thumps me on my chinny chin chin. “Let’s go to your a-part-ment,” she whines, giggling.

This, my friends, is how I find myself saddled with a new roommate. Summer in the city. Don’t talk to strangers. Forget “free,” the best things in life are extremely cumbersome and excessively expensive.

Django and His Street Musicians are serenading the traffic circle. He sings:

“Summer haze goin’ in my mind,

I don’t know if I’m feelin’ fine.”

            Join the club!

*

            Coming out of the bathroom at 3 a.m., I find Maggie trying to bean me with a sand wedge. “Jesus! ” I swear, disarming her.

“Ah thought yo’ were an intruder,” she whimpers. Her arms encircle my neck as she stands on tiptoe and makes amends with a French kiss that goes on and on. By the time she’s done, we know a lot about the inside of one another’s mouth. She smells heavenly, a mix of talcum powder and Dove hand lotion. I’m instantly erect.

Pressing against me, she holds herself aloof. Her body language clearly telegraphs, “Fuggedaboutit ! No way, José!”

I disengage and crawl back into bed. It’s at moments like this, I consider investing in air conditioning.

*

            “Can’t we go outside and track down some dope?” Maggie asks me next morning at the breakfast table.

“I don’t do dope.”

“Oh, I don’t either,” she assures me in a little girl voice. “But can’t we go out and track some down?” Standing over me, she drums on my chin with three fingers, playing me like a bongo, huge blue eyes staring into mine.

“I. Don’t. Do. Dope.”

“Let’s go,” she says, collecting her shiny new purse and Louis Vuitton knock-off clutch.

So I take her to Marquand, who I know is at least reliable. “Wha’ kinda heaven you want?” he growls genially, standing in his kitchen. He’s six feet tall with a massive African cranium covered by a fuzz of black hair, razor cut. Wearing baggy chinos and a green halter top, hands the size of hams, he flexes his spatulated fingers, a white moon adjacent to each nail. “No more cane on the Brazos.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“Skype down, I ain’t heard nothin’ from Soweto.”

“I’m sorry to hear it!” I tell him. I’ve met a half dozen of his brothers and sisters, roasting lamb over an open pit on Staten Island. “Put in your order, honey,” I coax Maggie, who’s standing, looking at Marquand with her mouth hanging open.

“Wha’ yo’ wan’, lady?” he asks.

“I want you! ” she squeals, all but salivating.

“Hey now, wha’ kinda mahket you think I runnin’ here?” Marquand asks us, chitlins and guava resting uneaten on a white porcelain plate on his simple blue kitchen table. “I ain’ no gigolo!”

“Maggie, he’s a very good friend of mine,” I interrupt, once again the negotiator. “If you would like an illegal substance, Marquand will facilitate the purchase,” I mansplain. “Otherwise, that’s all she wrote.”

“Who wrote?” croaks Maggie, glancing at me suspiciously.

“Don’t be so literal! What’s your poison?”

“Does he have… Do you have any grass?”

“Sure!” says M. Opening a wooden drawer, he proceeds to line up little plastic bags on the table, listing the merchandise. We make our purchase. I thank him, stuff some bills into his giant hand and get us the hell out of there.

Maggie sits on my fire escape, rolling joints. “Don’t you want any of this?!” she calls innocently. When I join her, she hoses me down with her blue-eyed stare. Southern belles! “I don’t wanna toke alone!” she breathes, lighting up.

So I end up doing something I never do, getting totally wasted on high-grade marijuana. And, of course, once we’re whacked, we go through the whole munchies, climb in bed, sweat in the heat, unable to move, roaring with laughter experience. I want to peel off her clothes and cannot even lift my arms. I want to peel off my clothes, ditto. S.N.A.F.U., dear hearts!

“Ricky has substance abuse issues,” Maggie tells me.

“That’s terrible. Is he doing something about it?”

“Yes.”

Long pause. Hello-o?! “What’s he doing?” I ask.

“I told you. He’s abusing substances.”

Aha! Like… been there, done that.

“I’m fun to be with,” Maggie drawls.

“Yeah, so you keep telling me.”

“Say it! Say I’m fun to be with. Say it like yo’ mean it!”

“You are fun to be with.”

She props herself up on one elbow amid the bedclothes and eyes me critically. “Da-amn!” she smirks, thumping me on the chin. “Ah think yah in love with meh!” Guffawing uproariously, she reaches down to feel my boner. My shorts stand as erect as a circus tent. “Say it! Say you love me!”

“I… love… you!” I gasp, miserable.

Unplanned, unmanageable, this train wreck of a relationship has nowhere to go but down.

“C’mere, Honey Bear!” she giggles, rousing herself sufficiently to navigate the button and the zipper on my cargo shorts. Her fingers play up and down my penis like it’s a flute.

I lie on my back, inert, glutted, trails of sweat running onto the sheets. It’s gonna be a bad night.

*

            “This is Luis at the front desk. We got a situation. There’s a dude out front who says he know you. He look pretty bad hombre. I tell him go away, but I afraid he gonna breaka the plate glass window.”

“You want me to come down?”

“I no bother you, Mr. Feingold, but I see you with that woman. This dude, him looka more o’ the same.”

“I’ll be right down.”

So I finally get to meet Ricky. He’s a redneckognizable type. It’s not just the worn tan boots, stonewashed jeans and Texas oilman shirt, even his face sports an ornery expression. “Hello!” I say. We ride up in the elevator.

“So you been screwing my lady!” Ricky surmises, squinting like Clint Eastwood.

“It never happened, Ricky. Frankly, I don’t know which buttons you push. You guys are in your 30’s. I’m way older. I never got so much as a handjob.”

“But you wanted it!” he yelps.

“Wouldn’t you be insulted if I didn’t?”

By the time he figures that one out, we’re inside the apartment. Maggie throws herself into his arms. “Honey-ey-ey!” she squeals. Very touching.

Over coffee, I ask, “Where you been?”

“This some sort of federal investigation?” he sneers.

“So don’t tell me! I’m just makin’ conversation.”

“Y’know Macon, Georgia?”

“Sure!”

“Near Macon. It was a retreat.”

“A religious retreat?”

“Naw. Political.”

Huh? Ricky doesn’t seem the type for Young Republicans.  “Political? ”

“You makin’ fun of me?!”

“Cool down!”

“Yeah,” Maggie agrees, plopping herself in his lap. “Cool it, Sugar Bear!”

“Ever heard of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?”

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud!” I bitch. “Grow up, Ricky! You’re like a first-year college student who reads Marxism for the first time and wants to institute Communism world-wide. A few years later, he realizes that you cannot legislate against greed, corruption and inequality. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a bogus piece of bull written by the Czarist Secret Police in Russia in 1905. It’s been rattling around ever since, stirring people to irrational hatred.”

“The Jews control Wall Street and the lamestream media!” Ricky insists.

“If you don’t like Jews, what are you doing in New York?!”

“They’re everywhere! Even in China, there are Jews!”

“Yes! Right at the bottom of Chinese society!”

“All I’m sayin’ is, our time will come!” rants Ricky, a newly anointed  convert to White Supremacist ideology. “Like… like now that that Jew Zimmerman killed that nigger Trayvon, it’s open season!”

“Calm down, Ricky!” Maggie implores him, massaging the bump on the back of his scrawny head. “My great big stud muffin!”

Where to begin? I sigh. “Zimmerman is Hispanic, not Jewish. From his viewpoint, he killed the black youth in self-defense. He certainly wasn’t declaring open season on anyone, and you shouldn’t either!”

Ricky’s mumbled reply is inaudible. He and Maggie gather together her possessions. “Where did all this stuff come from?” Ricky asks, a twang of anger in his voice. I’m helping Maggie press it all down into a large pink suitcase.

“Kevin’s been an absolute angel,” Maggie replies, looking scared. “He knows how much I love shopping, Ricky. We never did anything! I just slept over and cooked. We never did anything.”

I could tell him, “I took one on the chin for Maggie,” but he doesn’t look like he’d be amused.

And just like that, they’re gone. No “Hasta la vista, baby!” No nothin’.

My Lonelyboy summer in Gotham.

 

*