[ Mary Moore is my dog walker. We have a deal, she walks my bulldog Fidel and I edit her masterpiece. A devout 28-year-old Christian, she hopes to become a professional author like J. K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer. She considers this novel a Christian romance. I would classify it as political satire. Her worldview is not my worldview. It’s her book. Rather than try to correct her peculiar misconceptions, I have focused on wrestling her stream-of-consciousness prose into a readable form. – Ed.]
******************** Rise of the Plutocrats ********************
******************** A Christian Romance *********************
************************ by Mary Moore *************************
******************** Part 1 – August 2017 **********************
If nothing else, I’ll get a tan. You know how the sun sometimes feels like a giant yellow tanning bed in the sky? That’s what it’s like here. Now that we have gotten everything set up in the shipping container, we wait. And wait and wait. This interminable waiting is driving me up the wall! Dan is our commanding officer, he’s a bird colonel. He notices me fidgeting and gives me a big smile. He’s ridiculously good-looking: cute face, broad shoulders, enormous biceps, his head a bristle brush of red hair. “The waiting is always the hardest part,” he assures me. “When we get underway, the action will keep you fully occupied.”
I’m so grateful to hear this! A mixed agency operation, I am fully aware that I have been chosen because I am, like, totally expendable. And deniable. No one would expect the National Security Agency rep to be a raven-haired 28-year-old with flashing brown eyes, pendulous breasts, gorgeous thighs and a dynamite ass. Hey, those are my attributes! Politics is a sneaky business, a lot of stealth beneath the surface which you never see until it jumps up and bites you on the butt. IRL. In real life! So here I am, outfitted in TOMS Desert Wedge Booties, a cheap camo floppy hat made in the Republic of Korea and Aéropostale brand desert wear: Tokyo Darling Corduroy Shorty Shorts and a Prince & Fox Solid Layering Tee in dream chocolate brown. Forget bras, I never wear ’em! If I did, this grrrl would be a D cup.
I hate the desert. We are in the middle of nowhere, situated between Palmyra to the south and Raqqa to the north, on the very border between Syrian territory and the Islamic State. Inhabiting a corrugated steel shipping container dumped in the sand, our mission requires both boots on the ground and drone warfare. We can get away with being on-site only because so few people know we’re here. You can, like, count ’em on two hands. I’m the only civilian, everyone else in our crew is military issue. Some crew! As I said, our commander is a chiseled behemoth with a steely gaze named Dan. “Steely Dan” I call him. Our drone pilot, Jake, is your typical screwball midget. Cooking up pasta on a camp stove, he regales us with fake news he picks up from podcasts. Tex, the radio operator, doubles as protocol officer. Me, I’m chief intel officer and bottle washer. I just had a horrible thought! What if we are attacked by Islamic militants?! Oh well, this bitch is trained and willing to fight. And, of course, all of us are armed to the teeth, toting non-governmental AR-15 .223 Remington semi-automatic rifles and commercial 9mm Glock handguns. “Black ops” they call us.
When it comes to perimeter defense, we have staked out the entire sandscape in sensors arranged in the shape of a pentagram, small, squat metal cubes the size of cold cream jars that get the job done unobtrusively but really well, c/o Easy Eavesdrop Electronics LLC. Needless to say, some nerdy genius has made a fortune on the patent, no doubt.
Nothing to see here, folks, let’s move right along!
I’m always losing things, like if they’re not tired down I don’t know where they are. I drink a mango smoothie and smoke a hand-rolled Indian herbal cheroot. What I’d really like is some primo hash, but that’s not allowed at this venue. As the wind picks up, I march outside and scan the horizon. What starts as a black boil eventually elongates into a pickup truck, heading our way, belching a cloud of white exhaust. The driver is none other than Mustafa, my “asset” in Raqqa, a smelly turd of a chauvinist pig, but dependable as long as we let his extended family remain in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan just across the border from Syria.
“Salaam, Mustafa!” I call, greeting him, as he limps from the truck, dressed in his usual assortment of oily rags. I’m expected to notice this pronounced limp and feel sorry for him. Occasionally, he forgets himself and stops limping entirely. Today, he limps. I once asked him which leg was the injured one. Our channel of communication dried up for a week! Touchy.
“Salaam,” he says, both hands out where I can see ’em, beseeching me with a toothy grin of stained brown teeth. If he ever shaves, it was last Wednesday. “I bring glad tidings. Our friend will spend the night in the house of his friend.”
“You mean the leader of ISIS Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, although wounded, will be domiciled for the night at the home of ISIS spokesperson Abi al-Hassan al-Muhajer.”
Mustafa gives me an angry look. Obviously, he prefers to avoid specifics. There’s less chance of being proven wrong if you keep your description vague enough. “Not there now,” he bleats like a goat. “They drive there tonight after 10 o’clock. This is important you understand. Not there now.”
“All right, Mustafa, all right, nobody’s blaming you!” I assure him. “Shukran,” I say, thanking him. He gives me his usual hate-filled stare— “Woman! Whore!”— before getting back in his ramshackle excuse of a pickup truck, grinding the accelerator and roaring off across the desert in a cloud of noxious fumes, the occasional auto part flying into the air.
So much for our human intelligence. As they say in Afrikaans, “Want so lief het God die wêreld gehad, dat Hy sy eniggebore seun gegee het, sodat elkeen wat in Hom glo, nie verlore mag gaan nie, maar die ewige lewe kan hê.” For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
That’s me all right.
Our own ride is a nice all-terrain vehicle in camo equipped with a 7.62mm M134 Minigun, a Gatling-type six-barrel rotary machine gun, “more for blow than show” as Dan says. This combined hardware is adequate for short sorties and our exit strategy. Who wants to get caught behind enemy lines? When bored, we transmit clandestine broadcasts of Donald Trump’s speeches on the AM dial to drive the locals crazy. Our president shoots from the hip and tells it like it is! Psy war. Real James Bond stuff. I slather insect repellant all over my bod every other day to keep the scorpions at bay.
Dan’s on his tablet, calibrating grid coordinates. It looks like we have some time on our hands. Locking the drone console, Jake announces he’s going to grab forty winks. I wait the appropriate interval and approach Dan. “Whatcha workin’ on?” I drawl, rubbing up against him.
“Oh, nothing special,” he demurs, turning the tablet away from my prying eyes.
“Because— ” I breathe, “anything that helps our mission is all for the good of the country, you know…” I reach beneath the tablet and grab a handful of crotch in my right hand.
“Hey, hey, lady,” he yelps, jumping away from me. “Cool your jets! I mean, wow! Whoa. I’m a happily married man.” He holds aloft his beefy left hand, adorned with a thick gold wedding band.
“Of course you are,” I agree. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Mister Dan. As a Christian, the sanctity of marriage is important to me. Fate has thrown us together on the eve of a meaningful mission. We barely know one another. You may not like how I cook eggs. I may find that you snore and thrash around in bed. No one wants to dissolve the band of holy matrimony between you and your missus.” While gently explaining myself, I pull up my chocolate tee, exposing my belly button. “Is it hot out here or is it just me?” I ask as I unbuckle my sport utility belt. “Still, all things considered, I am not in the military and you are a virile hunk of a man. Should we just happen to, you know, do anything, you can’t be court-martialed for an infraction.” That said, I pull off my shirt, proudly thrusting my breasts at him. They are by far my best feature. I see how his gaze locks onto them, a hungry smile spreading across his face. My nipples are like pink cherries, my skin as slinky smooth as a salamander’s.
“Fraternization between officers and enlisted personnel— ” he chides me.
“But that’s why you’re better off doing it with a civilian like me!” I insist coquettishly, grinning ruefully and tilting my head, my long black tresses cascading off my shoulder like I’m a model in a shampoo commercial. “Margaret Vinci Heldt, the Chicago hairdresser who created the beehive hairdo, died in 2016 at the age of 98. Gosh, it seems to me the lesson is to take our pleasure while we can, don’t you think?”
I have chosen a difficult path in my life to get where I am today and do not allow toxic people to invade my space nor my serenity. But I give Dan another shot: “John 15:17, ‘This is my command to you: Love one another.’ We’re all consenting adults here, are we not?” I ask starchily, marching up to him forthrightly. “Life is short, time is long, ice melts at the rate of one centimeter per minute depending on the temperature of the room you’re in. When I look at you, Dan, I melt. You fill my heart with wild palpitation… or it could be heartburn from the mango smoothie I drank.”
I do believe honesty is the best policy. I snake my arms over his broad shoulders, press tightly against his rough camouflage uniform bereft of identifying insignia and jam my mouth against his, avidly searching with my tongue.
“Listen— ” he barks. “We’re not doing this!”
“Oh, shush!” I admonish him earnestly, planting a dainty hand over his mouth. And the magic’s working, I can feel his cock pressing against the cloth of his pants. I reach thither and unzip him, clutching his rod while our tongues, filled with carnal lust, battle valiantly. Crunching between our teeth, the desert sand is as fine as 80 grit sandpaper. This ol’ gal has a lot to live for! Again and again I thrust against him, but— Lawdy! I feel his organ go soft and flaccid in my hand. “Colonel Dan,” I whisper in his ear, licking and sucking on his earlobe, “does somebody maybe have a case of the guilts?” A soldier, I expected him to exhibit more battlefield stamina.
Breaking away from me, a sardonic smile on his face, Dan crosses the room to his kit bag, pulls out a white plastic bottle, unscrews the cap and swallows a blue pill. Mark 14:38, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” We wait, staring at one another. And wait. And then… Hallelujah! Resurrection. God and all His angels sing as Colonel Dan folds me in his arms and we smother one another with kisses. Squirming out of our clothes, me from my shorts and booties, he from his camo, he lowers me to the rough black perforated rubber mat gracing the floor, filthy from constant traffic. As William Shakespeare said, “Don’t roll a cannon on stage and then not fire it.” Straddling my aching, yearning body, Dan comes down on me, barely giving me time to guide him with my hand before he thrusts to the very depth of my being. KA-BOOM! Squish! Squirm. Delish! Oh how I love healthy, consensual sex. That’s the way God planned it, that’s the way God meant it to be.1 You go girl! 2
“I love you, Dan,” I whisper.
“My rod and my staff,” he assures me, “they comfort me.”
We both burst out laughing at the absurdity of our situation.
1 Lyric from “That’s the Way God Planned It” by Billy Preston
2 Originally a Martin Lawrence shout out from the show “Martin”
******************** Part 2 – My Story ********************
God spelled backwards is dog. I’m a dog walker in suburban Maryland. Real Meh City. “Write what you know,” they say. I know dog walking. Dogs are descended from wolves, they follow the lunar calendar: They howl at the moon. They’re nocturnal. They hunt at night. They turn into werewolves at the full moon.
Come sun, come rain, come eye of the storm, amidst the hustle and bustle of school children in their immense yellow buses belching exhaust, I walk the same jolly morning quartet of canines: Tobey, Martin, Luther and King. Tobey is a shaggy Cocker Spaniel, Martin a Shih Tzu, Luther a black and brown Doberman Pinscher who wouldn’t hurt a fly, and King a chocolate brown Lab. A poop brigade, infinitely curious about who has left their mark where, I can only describe them as “Hail, fellow, well met.” Happy and dumb, dumb and happy, they pad along, wearing out my shoe leather. Talk about chasing after rabbits, L’Oréal, Fandango and the almighty dollar! Without a job, all my checks will bounce now that I’m paying the full amount of rent, $765 a month, which means some of the bills get paid, others will have to wait until next month. Due to a manufacturing error, my mailbox says MALI instead of MAIL, but the rent is the lowest I can find. I am going through sooo much stress. Money, money, money, it’s a rich man’s world.1 No fresh fish, as the food bank doesn’t provide this.
President Trump said in his inaugural address, “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.” I couldn’t agree more. I mention it because nothing is as upsetting as handing someone a business card, “Stephanie King Dog Walking Service,” and then finding it the very next morning soggy and discarded in the gutter, not five feet from where I last saw it.
Still, we are the beautiful people. Even underemployed, our unlined faces are the envy of the neighborhood. No longer plagued by adolescent self-doubt, the only thing that keeps us from conquering the world is… the world. It doesn’t want to. Obey. Us. I command Dogpatch,2 but my canine friends wield very little influence in the corridors of power. Government bureaucrats pay us no mind. “Shaddup and sit,” I tell my dogs, but when The Man tells me that, I find it offensive. My soldier boyfriend Jimmy says, “Your attitude toward firearms depends entirely on which end of the barrel you find yourself facing.” Some people “speak to power.” Not me. Call me pragmatic, but I turn left at the next intersection.
I love Donald Trump, so strong, so resolute, so caring. No one ever accused Donald Trump of being a wonk. The broader the strokes, the better! He and I understand each other so well, we’re both Geminis. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MISTER PRESIDENT! May the cake be with you. A self-made billionaire, a New Yorker, he’s a big cheese in the Big Apple. Now that Seinfeld’s no longer on the air, the White House provides the entertainment. The real deal, the main brain, Trump’s what I could have become if I was born in 1946 to a demanding millionaire real estate developer for a father. If I’d gone to a military academy. (By the way, I love the movie “T.A.P.S.”) Woulda, coulda, shoulda, I wasn’t even born until 1988. My bad! Most of the good jobs are already taken. When they announced that there were 4,000 jobs going begging in the new administration, I sent in my résumé, applying for either Director of the C.I.A., Secretary of Housing and Urban Development or Secretary of State. I think they misplaced my file. Hey, I can understand that, I’m always losing stuff myself. Have you ever noticed that if you don’t write things down, you forget them? I know I do. For those of us not working in the Trump administration, private industry still beckons. I could become president of General Motors, but that would mean driving an American car.
Right after the election people are in shock. “What just happened? I guess this isn’t the country I thought it was,” they keep telling me when I run into my neighbors on the sidewalks of Boomchaka, Maryland.
“Yes, it’s better!” I reply brightly, smiling earnestly. Customer relations. They always look a little surprised by that and laugh nervously. I guess it’s because I’ve never felt financially secure enough to spring for a red “Make Amerika Grate Again” beanie. Suburbia unmodified, the real thing— it’s the town of Oxburg but I call it “Boomchaka”— it’s not like there are lemonade stands along the sidewalk selling Trump apparel. If I’m gonna buy a beanie, it’ll be a purple one in support of the gay community. With dogs sniffing, pooping and pulling on their leashes in three different directions, my conversations are always a little distracted anyway. I mean, I do scoop the poop and that right there ends a conversation mucho pronto.
The pundits make a big fuss about not understanding the Donald Trump presidency. It seems pretty simple to me: Trump runs his presidency like a World Wrestling Federation wrestling match. Lots of drama, lots of beating up on the opponent, lots of strutting and bragging, no discernible intellect, not very deep, not a lot of study behind the moves. It’s a show, people! Meanwhile, his agenda is to dismantle the Old America, letting the little people take over the fun house. (Full disclosure: I am a “little person.”)
If you were to read the morning newspapers in the run-up to the election, a typical profile of a Trump supporter shows he’s a 37-year-old factory worker in Ohio, divorced, raising his two kids, ages 6 and 10, on his own. His name is Josh, he dresses in denim, he doesn’t have any health insurance or it’s minimal, his ex-wife has cancer, the 6-year-old has cancer, he has cancer, the cat has cancer and the pickup truck has cancer. But Josh isn’t giving up, he’s a young, strong, stalwart, self-reliant American who in the photos alternates between looking confused and looking as if he’s about to cry, while his kids just look curious that anyone is a-visitin’ they’s homestead an’ askin’ funny questions. Josh has seen better days and all he expects from Trump is (1) to bring back the Good Old Days (2) when a workin’ man could earn a livable wage, (3) you could buy a week’s worth of groceries for $10, (4) doctors made house calls, (5) a white man got the kind of respect a man deserves and (6) America ruled the world. Not a lot to ask for. Trump promises all that and A WHOLE LOT MORE! Trump’s rallies are like tent revivals, everybody transported into fits of ecstasy, yelling that we ought to put that Satanish bitch Hillary in jail and let’s beat the crud outta Washington. Politicians! Gonna feel a whole lot better when they’s gone!
That’s all. Oh, and get health insurance for white folk instead of makin’ white folk pay extra premiums so Latinos and niggahs and chinks can get free health insurance while we white folk got to pay for ours. Oblamacare is just a Sneaky Pete redistribution of the wealth from we workin’ folk to lazy moochers on the dole and we’re angry and we’re not having it!!!
That’s all.
Says a typical profile in the lamestream media.
Trump is our Prince Hal, a Shakespearean character, our warrior king, maybe Richard the Third. Convinced that he’s not getting sufficient respect, he expresses everything in superlatives. Anything Trumpian isn’t just “good,” it’s “the best.” China is calling him an unruly child, but they aren’t here, what do they know? It’s not the president’s fault that George Washington was such a brilliant general, the Continental Congress assigned the president the additional job of also being Commander In Chief. This has resulted in such non-leaders as George W. Bush and Barack Obama. These things happen in democracies: To err is human, cleaning up dog poo less than divine.
In addition to stupid mutts named Fido and Rex, I walk quality dogs: Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Staffordshire Terriers, Malteses, Cavachons, Labradoodles, Maltipoos and, of course, oodles of Poodles. I charge based on the breed. As a small business owner, I support Donald Trump’s tax policies. HE’S MY PRESIDENT! Less taxes mean more rubles in people’s pockets. I consider myself a Ross Perot Democrat.
I go to Tanner’s for New Year’s Eve. Where else? Our local dive bar, it features cigar box wood paneling on all four walls and faux sports memorabilia gathering dust over the bar. When you’re single, you want to hide in plain sight, not stand out among a roomful of lovey-doveys. The night is young, I order my usual bottle of Dos Equis and check out the action, inching my way along the bar, dodging elbows, ’till I find myself next to a young man I’ve never seen before. He’s really nice-looking and so quiet. I like the way he’s drinking his IPA from a glass instead of a bottle, someone self-assured enough not to need to show off a fancy label.
“I’m Stephanie. What sign are you?” I ask to break the ice, smiling.
“Huh? Oh, Skip. I’m Skip. Libra. Man, yeah, uh, I’m definitely Libra. Yeah,” he sort of stutters, blushing.
Wow, I’ve caught a live one! “Y’know,” I tell him, “I make my living as a dog walker, nobody knows the neighborhood— ”
“Oh my God! Great!” he yelps. “I just got this puppy for Christmas, kind of an Airedale mix, great dog, but something in my apartment keeps setting him off. He starts barking at, like, the weirdest moments. I can’t figure out what it is…”
“I ought to look at it. I can give you some tips for training your dog,” I offer. Skip seems into that. There’s nothing hot & heavy about the encounter, I spend as much time looking at the annoying chi-chi black plastic track lighting in the ceiling as I do at him, I’m just excited to meet someone who shares my interest in astrology and dogs.
Luke 24:39, “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”
I take a swig from my bottle and say, “I can come by your place and give it a once over.”
“Oh, well, uh, when would that be?” he stammers, going all red in the face and uncomfortable, “I work impossible hours, no can do.” Just like that, he starts migrating down the bar away from me, busy losing himself in the crowd. What did I do? Is it something I said? Do I need a more powerful feminine hygiene product? Maybe he’s a Hawaiian version of Nosferatu, a vampire thirsting exclusively for surfer blood.
So I find myself back to the same old, same old at Tanner’s, standing, beer bottle in hand, in the corner by the cheap plywood door to the Ladies Room, chatting up the dykes. Disappointed, I light up a joint. My one true claim to fame is tacked to the wall over the gumball machine:
******************** Christmas 2015 ********************
Wine is my curse I shall not want, / It maketh me to lie down in the gutter. / It corrodes me. / For ‘ray! Though I walk through this / Barroom of death, I don’t fear nothin’, / Not the shabby decor, funny smells / And even stranger patrons. / Tanner’s! You restoreth my soul.
Love, Stephanie
I’m extremely feminine. I could go on Twitter and engage in flame wars but I don’t. All we gals know each other, Pauline, Bobbie, Robyn, Kristy, not a newbie in the bunch. Some Christians might call me a harlot, but sin, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I settle on Hilde, a Viking princess with a thick long braid of blond hair down her ample bosom, a great lay, but kinda boring and she lives in a pigsty. I’d rather go home and get high on my own than weather the hassle.
Feces.
Bathed in yellow sunlight, the library has the low buzz of a beehive. In the Family Section, they have books like “A Father’s Cookbook” or “Memoirs of A Mother Superior High on Acid Reflux.” The books in the Young Adult Section must have been edited by Hollywood screenwriters: All the titles are a single word or two. “The Adventurist.” “Because.” “Broken.” “Broken Heart.” “Broken Love.” “Broken Promises.” “Broken Wheel.” “Carefree.” “Craven.” “The Dead.” “Dead Heat.” On and on, simple titles, medium large type, books of 301 pages. It makes me glad I don’t write for a living.
They also have computers. Twenty desktops arranged in five rows. Standing among them, stymied, I wonder: Should I sit down on the chair to computer number seven? Its dark, polished oak beckons me, its rounded, well-worn edges promise comfort in this callous, unhappy world. How many thousands of ordinary citizens dressed in pastel cotton leisure wear by Abercrombie & Fitch have jammed their butts firmly onto this wooden chair? Maybe I shouldn’t sit down here. Maybe one of the other computers secretly possesses my lucky number. Hard to tell.
Outside in the stark winter sun, boys play baseball.
Compulsively, I go online and find that the Democrats have a game plan for the 2018 midterm elections: “Just send money!” Hey, guys, two strikes and you’re out! I feel a trickle of sweat running down my back. A blond woman with two children walks past my chair. Dressed in a tartan winter coat, she catches my gaze, smiling to herself. Strange! A pang of love momentarily grips my heart. Am I in love with this woman? I feel confused, staring at the pastel blue walls. Perhaps I’m in love with her and I don’t know it! “Olly olly oxen free,” shouts a youngster from the baseball diamond, dressed in a red striped windbreaker, chinos and high top tennis shoes. I look at him through the casement window, standing on the baseball diamond, getting ready to pitch. They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend. What do I know? Where’s his baseball cap? Make America hate again. Alle, alle, auch sind frei. All, all, are also free. Does that mean I’m free? You? Who? Someone sits down at computer number nine. A black woman built like an anthill, a green wool muffler wrapped around her throat. Why green? Is she a closet Muslim? Ever since going off my meds, I have this wired sensation of occupying someone else’s body. My soul aches. Goddam Democrats!
Och träldom och elände fortsätter. And serfdom and misery continue. Where’s my lifetime achievement award from Harvard College for cultural humanitarianism? I’m worth it!
“Ms. Johnson?” asks a burly policeman with an ugly mug, staring down at my trembling fingers poised above the black plastic keyboard of the computer. I cannot help but notice the dust specks between the keys, the scratches in the black plastic. How many thousands of ordinary citizens have pounded out their sorrow on these very keys? Life is so unfair! Troubled, I tremble. My fingers tingle, my biceps ache. I grit my teeth, bathed in sweat. The black woman at computer number nine gets up and leaves, discreetly, silently. Number nine, number nine… fragments of a Beatles song cartwheel through my mind. Lucia in the sky with diamonds. Marina and the Diamonds singing “How To Be A Heartbreaker.” Where does that leave me??? “May I please see your driver’s license and a second picture I.D.?” demands the cop. Not unkindly. Another automaton lackey of the new regime! I hand him the Wisconsin Driver’s License for Margareta von Peletz. I have a fake I.D., a fake personality, who is the real me? And am I in love with this man? With his serene blue eyes, square jaw and proud blue uniform? Could be. Anything is possible. Perhaps I am but I just don‘t know it yet. Maybe I’m a closet heterosexual, maybe that’s what is wrong with me. I once walked across the border from Tornio, Finland to Haparanda, Sweden. Does that make me a member of the gay community? If so, by how much? And if not now, when?
If I complain about my situation to my mom, instead of helping, she dumps on me. In spades. “You’re as lazy as your brother. Get a real job and keep working! You had your day in the sun,” she gripes. Listen, her pension’s been cut, she’s upset, what she considers to be my “day in the sun” was the Women’s March on Washington. The day after the inauguration, we showed up and marched in solidarity with the downtrodden, the oppressed and the horny. That was a glory day, all us women together pressing up against one another, our bodies warm and pulsing with excitement, cruising after chick bait among the ladies, hungry for it, my crotch aching, walking up Independence Avenue toward the White House singing
“We’re marching in the rain, / We’re marching in the rain, / God only knows we’re unhappy again! / Life is ugly, life is pain, / We’re marching… in the… rain!”
Mom feels we didn’t do any good, but I say we made a major statement in knitwear and winter apparel.
I’m nobody’s vegan, but still, I do like quinoa, it has all nine essential amino acids. I usually get red but it also comes in yellow and black. They grow it in the Bolivian Andes at an elevation of 13,000 feet in the thin air and mineral-laden soil around places like the Uyuni Salt Flats, where squat, brown-skinned Indians in serapes with hooded eyes and triangular faces mine heaps of lithium carbonate for use in batteries and smartphones, while government fat cats in the capital of La Paz grow rich on the proceeds. The thing is, you can’t just cook quinoa, first you have to scrub off the bitter saponin shell and wash it twice, then you cook it 10 to 20 minutes like kasha or rice. Delicioso! It’s really good for you even if prepping it is a pain in the ass. Mix it with hummus or guacamole for extra flavor. Scientists say they have discovered the gene in quinoa’s DNA that produces the bitter saponin covering. They suggest growing a variety that would still have the same nutty flavor but wouldn’t require all that endless cleaning, but I oppose GMO’s on principle, don’t you? Say “no” to gene-manipulated Frankenstein quinoa!!!
I read a lot. About presidents, about their style. My mom says that when Jimmy Carter’s crew arrived in Washington, it was the Revenge of the Southerners. He looked vaguely like John F. Kennedy, so people thought he’d make a great leader, but where Kennedy was a genius, Carter was a peanut farmer. Replacing duplicitous Nixon, Carter said “I’ll never lie to you.” He didn’t. Instead, he floundered. He brought with him good ole boys like Hamilton Jordan who got drunk and looked down an Egyptian woman’s dress, raffishly extolling the virtues of the pyramids.
Who came after Carter? Who ever came after Carter? Ronnie Reagan! He did a deal with the Iranian ayatollahs: Hang onto the American hostages in Tehran, make Carter look bad, and when I become president, let the hostages go.
Another example of a foreign power horning in and influencing a presidential election.
With Reagan as president, the Californians came to Washington, beat in heads and took names: “There you go again!… Privatize everything… You want a jellybean?”
George H.W. Bush brought a tony, old-money, Ivy League style to the White House.
Slick Willy Clinton came up from Arkansas with a school busload of wily southerners.
“W” filled the White House with old guard Republican hardliners who rammed down our throats the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. How do you think I feel? The year I was confirmed, America went to war in Afghanistan and it’s still not over!!!
Obama: Attack of the 50 ft. Surfer Bum. Yak, yak, yak, all talk, no action. As soon as he went to his first international conference, foreign politicians took one look at him and said, “Sacre bleu, this man is afraid of us. He’s a child.”
Which brings us to today, Wall Street on the Potomac, Dawn of the Damned Investment Bankers, Reality TV Presidents Bite, Scourge of the Hedge Fund Vultures, the widescreen Technicolor dismantling of America, followed by the sequel, Banana Republic Blues.
Don’t forget, the very first thing President Trump did was to cancel Obamacare, in the dead of winter, leaving the entire American hospital system unsure over who did and who did not have valid health insurance. You can’t even walk into an emergency room without the crabby nurse behind the counter demanding “DO YOU HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE?” Next she’ll be asking me if I smoke illegal substances. Why should Trump care who has health insurance? He’s a billionaire. El Trumpo promised not to repeal Obamacare until Congress created something to replace it. Forget that! He signed it out of existence on Day One, his very first signing ceremony. Now when I present my card, the nurse’s fishy eyes gloss over. Sighing, she mutters, “I don’t know whether this insurer is still in business.”
I go to see my doctor, a wonderful Assyrian woman named Fatema. She wears tan knitted hemp vests decked out in crosses, religious relics and mystical amulets. A white cotton shawl covers her hair. She specializes in gynecology, internal medicine and “women getting the vapors.” Fatema doesn’t “see” patients, she sees their files on her Lenovo laptop which she carries with her everywhere, certainly to the bathroom and probably to bed. After the nurse has me disrobe and sit on the examining table in a tiny gray room, the doctor breezes in, wearing yellowy latex gloves and carrying her laptop. “How are we today?” she asks.
“Fine.”
Giving me a stare of total disbelief, Fatema buries her snout in the screen of her laptop, squinting at the size 11 font. “You’re taking an anti-depressant, a mood enhancer, a bipolar med, medication for high blood pressure, rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia and you take Lipitor to control your cholesterol. In addition, you smoke medical marijuana. How can you be fine???”
You tell me!
My dad was a total hypochondriac, rushing to the hospital emergency room if he got so much as a blister. He was forever serenading us with a list of his ailments: “Oh! Ow! I sprained the little finger of my left hand. Yikes! Ugh! Help! I’ve strained the cartilage in my right ankle. I’m a real basket case! My back is killing me.” Not a happy camper, his maladies included tennis elbow, water on the knee, winter chills, eyestrain, migraine, diarrhea, dyspepsia and cholangitis. “When your father is dead and buried in the ground,” warned my mom, “I am not booking any more doctor or dental appointments for him. Done is done! This isn’t open to discussion. Once he’s buried, that’s it!”
Does this make me impervious to pain? I wish.
My Uncle Mikey, my dad’s bro, used to tell me about the Glory Days of Pot in the 1970’s when, as a college student, he took a trip to Amsterdam one summer and sat on the steps of the war memorial in Dam Square smoking joints with the local kids from neighboring towns, before moseying on over to the Vondelpark (pronounced “Fondle Park”) to push women deep into the foliage and paw them with both hands. Traditionally, the Dutch hand roll their cigarettes. They like to mix their marijuana with tobacco when they roll their joints. “We used to get headaches from smoking seeds and stems, but no sacrifice is too great when it comes to getting stoned,” Mikey assured me. He was my favorite uncle, walking to and from the shower in the nude and otherwise practicing anti-social behavior. When I grew peach fuzz, he traveled halfway across the country to personally shave my bush. Few people are blessed with such a dear, caring uncle, a stream of drool hanging from his lower lip. Groaning ecstatically, he would declare, “Who’s a good little girl? Stephanie! Stephanie’s a good little girl.” Followed by a demented cackle, his fingers probing deep inside my labia, playing finger fuck with my clitoris. Such a dear friend! His periodic visits twice a year helped keep my complexion clear. He never raised a wind over me no longer being as virgin as the new-driven snow. By the time I reached puberty, I’d been around the block a few times. For some reason, my dad never liked Mikey very much. I’ve never been able to figure out the animosity. Bad personal chemistry, I guess. You say “tomato,” I say “any of a wide range of red or yellow pulpy fruits in a variety of tastes and sizes.”
During the president’s first week in office, we all get a quick course in Executive Orders. Trump thinks he’s King Tut, but his orders are not royal decrees handed down from on high, they’re a wish list. The big fuss he makes about signing them (“This is on the Keystone pipeline… A lot of jobs, 28,000 jobs. Great construction jobs”) makes for fine theater, photo ops and souvenir pens, but Congress must appropriate the money and agencies can say no. The CIA says “no” to Trump’s suggested use of torture and black sites. Like the Emperor of China, Trump decrees that a wall shall be built, but who’ll pay for it? Angering everyone in Oxburg, a company town where the government is the main source of employment, Trump signs into effect a hiring freeze for federal workers. This leaves the federal workforce feeling resentful and abused. Then he bars all refugees from entering the USA for 120 days, bans immigrants from seven Muslim countries for 90 days, and bars refugees from Syria indefinitely. Wow! This is so ungood, it’s not even funny! Some possible results: other nations may feel unsympathetic towards America while terrorist organizations retaliate by attacking American tourists abroad, blowing up our embassies and preparing to give us another hotfoot on 9/11. I may be wrong but from what I see, people in Third World countries don’t bother with boycotts and economic sanctions, they get guns and shoot Americans. Why make people that angry, unnecessarily, just to feed your ego, Mr. President? What are you so angry about anyway? Didn’t you get enough love as a child?
Enough talk! People are gathering at international airports all over the country to show their solidarity with immigrants and refugees. Here’s an opportunity for me to actually do something! I call Barry, a customer contact who sells the occasional puppy through his B.A.G. crew, the Burglary Action Group, although their actual specialty is industrial strength heists. It’s not my fault life is hard and people are dishonest! Sure enough, B.A.G. has hijacked a shipping container, broken it open and discovered 4,000 pairs of Adidas sneakers! Footwear never goes out of style. I drive my car over to his crib and Barry and I load up my ride with all the latest shapes, colors and sizes. Commerce! American ingenuity! Long live the entrepreneur!
It’s a stolen car, a big black SUV, lots of room. Now this book isn’t a how-to manual on illegal activity, but I just wanted to tell you about my method re automotive transport. Once again, money is the issue, you have it, I don’t. Do you really think I’d bother with all my crazy schemes if I could loll on a beach in Key West, Florida? The Seward Johnson family owns the cay, not me. But I digress. I have a car, a Corolla, I’m the third owner and at this point, it’s a bit of a junk heap, but I like it, chiefly because it gives me access to a legitimate set of license plates. This is the part that’s really cool: If my car is acting up or breaks down, I have Tremaine at Utility Towing drive it over to my mom’s place and park it way up on the driveway closest to the house. Wedged in by my mom’s wheels, I remove the plates and cover the Corolla with a faded green tarp. Did I mention that my boyfriend Jimmy was the one who taught me how to hotwire cars? That’s for fast and dirty shopping expeditions, but long term, what I do is find a nice full-color ad in the Sunday supplement of the newspaper, take it to the local print shop and run off a hundred cheap black and white copies at 15¢ each. That’s a $15 investment which sure beats any car rental agency I’ve ever found.
I walk over to the nearest shopping center or two, school parking lots, basically anywhere in Rockville, Maryland, and ostensibly I pretend I am one of those drips with a cheap brown hemp shoulder bag hired to put leaflets under the windshield wipers of parked autos. I don’t hit each and every car, maybe leave a flyer at every third, but what I’m looking for is the dashboard, someone who has either inadvertently or otherwise left their keys in the ignition, on the seat or on the dash. Eureka! Remember, I’m a dog walker and not bad to look at. With my sweetest, most distracted expression and smooth body language, I gaily pop open the door and jump in the vehicle, grab the keys and start ‘er up, carefully pull out and drive away. So far, so good. I drive to a suburban street, any row of ordinary houses, pull up to the curb, jump from the car, take a swig from my water bottle just to seem casual, and proceed to switch the license plates. Ten minutes, max, regardless of how cold and blustery it is outside. I’ve changed plates in the snow. Now I have a hot ride with cool plates.
Don’t forget, everything’s on computers nowadays. Jimmy longs for the Old Days when he could jack a ride in Louisiana, drive to Maryland, steal somebody’s Maryland plates and have wheels for half a year. Not anymore! I’m a careful person, I don’t hold on to vehicles for anything like that long, but if pressed, I probably could. I’ve gotten pulled over once, once! In a Subaru. And that was because I was on my cellphone and driving at the same time. “Oh gosh, Jesus, I’m so sorry, it was a call I just felt I had to take!” I immediately gushed to the officer in his immaculate brown uniform and wraparound sunglasses. And he was a bit of a hunk, too! Under other circumstances… yum!
“You do know the law,” he chastised me grimly. “Driver’s license and registration?”
So, you know me, playing all flustered which isn’t hard when U R all flustered, I give him my fake Wisconsin license, Margareta von Peletz, and the vehicle’s legit registration from the glove compartment. He runs those through his computer and comes back, unsnapping his holster and says, “Nothing matches. On the registration, it shows the vehicle is owned by Steven Carswell. The plates don’t match the registration. I think you’re in a lot of trouble, young lady.”
“No, well yes, the thing is, Stevie’s my boyfriend and I borrowed his car for the day to help move my cousin’s gear to his new crib, his new domicile, his place of residence, Officer. If Stevie’s been fooling around with his license plates, I’m gonna kill that jerk! He and his buds repair their own cars, they got ’em up on jacks at Mickey’s Garage and all, the full nine yards. Knowing Steve, he musta been applying body paint and mixed up the plates between this junk heap and another. Mr. Officer, sir. Whatever you want me to do… I mean, I’m gonna throttle Steve! You raise such important issues, I’m really glad to get to meet you and discuss this… in detail?” All but cumming in my drawers, I’m squirming all over the car seat, fogging the window glass, doing everything a girl can to weasel out of this predicament. It’s hard!
“All right,” the cop decides. “Number one, I’m giving you a dire warning here. You return this vehicle to your boyfriend and tell him to get his act together. The right plates on the right cars. That’s number one. I’m gonna hit you with some fines to keep you focused. You owe the State of Maryland $50 for driving while talking on your phone. I’m adding a $70 fine for out-of-date registration. It’s not out of date, but it’s an applicable fine for… whatever. If you’re living in Maryland, you need to get a Maryland driver’s license, Ms. von Peletz. Sooner rather than later. Am I getting through to you, Ms. von Peletz?”
“You have no idea how grateful I am for this opportunity to make things right!” I exclaim in my ditsiest fashion. Wasted effort, since he’s busy writing out fines, for Christ’s sake.
So you see, it’s not foolproof, but my method comes as close as I can get.
I drive to the airport, pay the extra to park at the hourly rate, and head to the international arrivals area with my handmade sign. Sure enough, there are all these people there with signs that say, “We’re A Land of Immigrants!” and “Immigrants Welcome!” and “Do you need legal help? Ask here!” in both English and, I guess, Arabic or Farsi or something, I don’t know what. Positioning myself at the edge of the crowd but close enough to be well seen, I hold up my sign: “HALF-PRICE ADIDAS! 2 FOR PRICE OF 1! ALL COLORS! BUY NOW!”
Mostly young people come over and ask what’s up, I explain that I’ve got an entire showroom in my car, five minutes’ walk away! I’m a dog walker, I spend an hour walking back and forth between the terminal and the car, selling sneakers, a lot of sneakers. Finally, like my sixth customer, he’s a middle-aged man in a suit and he asks me what the hell I think I am doing. “You a cop?”
“I’m a lawyer! Do you know how many federal and state statutes you’re violating?”
“That’s easy for you to say,” I reply, motioning at his footwear. Gucci.
“Jesus, lady! Get the hell out of the airport!”
“You people are what’s left of the Democratic Party,” I protest.
“You mean the left of the Democratic Party?”
“Either one! How should I know?” That’s when I notice that there’s this whole collection of card tables set up with all kinds of legal advice, lawyers in shirtsleeves with yellow legal pads, piles of No. 2 pencils and law books providing I don’t know what kind of legal counseling to newly arrived immigrants who otherwise would be barred ’cause of the ban. “Wow, yeah, thanks, okay,” I tell him, calming down. “Do you mind if I check out your dodge?”
“Our what?”
“Your set-up, your pop-up legal aid center.”
“Go ahead,” he shrugs.
Tucking my sign well under my winter jacket, I go over and chat up the lady lawyers, just, like, casually mentioning what great footwear they’re wearing. “Geez, sister, I’ve got a whole carload of fresh, new Adidas in their original boxes that I’m taking downtown to the sports shop where I work. Men’s and women’s sizes and styles. Wanna come have a gander? I mean, I’ll give you a two-for-one price.”
Between one thing and another, I sell quite a few pairs of sneakers, taking advantage of constant movement, never in one place long enough to get collared for anything.
My contribution to the protest against the Muslim ban! Quality footwear at an affordable price! Everybody’s happy. Everybody needs shoes.
Mr. Hartley, my civics teacher in high school, taught us that in order for a president to be impeached, he must commit impeachable offenses, stuff that can be classed as “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Sadly enough, the president seems to be doing just that, because he has no filter: busy fighting his demons, convinced the rules don’t apply to him, he acts in ways no normal person would act.
Then I get a text from my canine support group Black Mountain Militia Women:
“8 U.S. Code § 1182 – Inadmissible aliens, paragraph (f), Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President: Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”
Hooray! Boy, do I ever feel better!
In the Twitterverse, al-Qaeda in Iraq tweets its disapproval of Trump’s Executive Order banning immigrants:
#BanOnMuslims is like super racist. Trump says he dislikes Muslim terrorists. Feeling is mutual. Trump unwelcome in Islamic State. Well, d’oh.
What foreigner is going to work for America now that we show everyone the cold shoulder? It’s important that we show kindness to refugees because today’s refugee is tomorrow’s ayatollah leading a nuclear Iran or caliph leading the Islamic State.
I know that as a Christian, I should identify with the downtrodden. Sitting in my room smoking a joint and gazing at the dog poster on the wall showing two bulldogs, three St. Bernards, a Rottweiler and a Collie smoking pipes and playing poker, it occurs to me that if Trump’s ban applied to Canaan Dogs, many of which befriended U.S. servicemen stationed in Iraq, it would be easier for me to feel compassion. Somehow I expect that people will always be able to fend for themselves. I assume Arlington Cemetery has a section for those of our canine service members who are deceased. If they don’t, they ought to.
“This isn’t the country I grew up in,” neighbors are telling me now, looking shell-shocked, even more upset than they were after the election. I’ve learned to keep my pretty little mouth shut: people need solace, so they spend more time with their pets, walking them, feeding them, cleaning up their poop with the plastic bags they get from home delivery of The Washington Post. So, economically, I have taken a hit. This is really not good.
Stanley Krakowski, he who owns a Schnauzer named Joe with a Technicolor leash, is pruning his bushes prior to Spring planting. “If you support Trump,” he tells me, “you are neither a good Christian nor a good American.”
“Hey, wow, man, we have a right to defend ourselves against terrorism,” I explain. “This is just a vetting process. These are countries the Obama administration identified as iffy. Obama put Iraqi immigration on hold for six months. Where were the protesters then?”
“Trump could have put a clause in there saying that those who already had valid visas or Green Cards have a right to enter this country. Those people were already well vetted,” Stanley insists, waving his pruning shears in my direction menacingly.
“That’s politics! I don’t know anything about that,” I reply, smiling brightly.
“Banning immigrants and refugees is not the American way. Trump is causing problems for 320 million Americans and that includes those who voted for him. He’s painted a bull’s-eye on the back of every American traveling abroad. America is becoming the pariah of the world. Racism is black and white. Banning refugees is not a gray area and we have a Statue of Liberty to prove it.”
“Maybe we should melt it down and make freedom bracelets,” I tease, trying to add a bit of levity to the discussion, lighten the mood.
Yelp! This is so not working. Mr. Krakowski looks at me angrily. “The winter’s still young,” says he. “Tell Trump to beware the Ides of March.”
“When’s that?”
“March 15th.”
“Oh… okay! Listen, I’m just a dog walker, y’know?”
“C’mere, Joe, c’mere, boy,” he calls, taking the leash. “Let’s leave the uncharitable lady to her thoughts.”
Boy, oh boy! So right there I’ve lost another customer!
When the U.N. has a hissy fit and world leaders from 190 countries (excluding Russia, of course) condemn America for creating a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportion, Trump doubles down, saying, “You see it at the airports, you see it all over. It’s working out very nicely, and we’re going to have a very, very strict ban, and we’re going to have extreme vetting, which we should have had in this country for many years.” Hunkered down in his White House fortress, he’s so annoyed, Trump cancels several meetings with world leaders already in the works: France, Outer Mongolia and Belarus. When pushed, Trump says it’s a beautiful process, so necessary, and that he is willing to go to Astana in Kazakhstan to plead his case if need be. This artificial capital with its futuristic architecture plopped in the middle of endless steppe is already being heralded as the new site of international negotiations regarding a peace accord in Syria. In a nod to his fellow strongman Putin, Trump has hinted that he’d even travel to a venue where the temps can dip to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit if that’s what it takes to shut people up. Trump political advisor Steve Bannon has also suggested the press should “keep its mouth shut.”
The Youth Fellowship Program at our church has made me who I am today. I can recite all the lyrics to “Jesus Christ Superstar” by heart. Pastor Bernadotti has known me since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, but like when I suddenly overnight discovered as a child that I had outgrown Dora the Explorer— and I felt a little ashamed about how fascinated I had been with it— either something is acutely wrong with my hearing or the pastor’s sermons have become old and tired in extremis.
I also thought avarice was one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but no one is as money-hungry as the good Pastor Bernadotti, getting the Women’s Club to hold bake sales and convening for-pay classes in painting, flower arrangement and bonsai horticulture to say nothing of his mad dash to fill the front lawn of the church with stacks of felled evergreens the last week in November every year in preparation for the Christmas sales rush. Families tithe to the church, so I fail to understand the money-grubbing, but what do I know, Pastor Bernadotti may have a home in the hills of Ocho Rios, Jamaica like Mick Jagger. These things happen.
I was hoping, if nothing else, Trump’s order to build a wall to keep American Muslims out of Mexico would give me an opportunity to reunite with happy memories of childhood, crouched giggling in the vestry watching the clergyman, buck naked, change into his raiment.
From the outside, the church looks the same, but upon entry to the pews, I cannot help but notice the larger than life-size 1.5:1 anatomically detailed reproduction of Christ Jesus hanging by His cross from the arch over the holy altar. What Italian surrealist sculptor has brought chisel to bear in creating this silicone reproduction of the Savior, head thrown back in rictus, chest sunken in supplication, hands wilting in resignation beneath 9-inch nails, feet pigeon-toed and shriveled as raisins, only the pelvis sagging forward toward the congregation, a suspicious tumescence lurking beneath the depiction of voluminous rags swaddling His genitalia? Well…!
At the end of the service, Pastor Bernadotti blows his nose into a white cotton handkerchief— as musical as a trumpet fanfare— adjusts his garments and speaks:
“We do not oppose the free flow of goods and services, but like Donald J. Trump, we see immigration as a potential health issue. Many Third World people suffer from Islamophilia and other related conditions. Will their support of Islamic militancy constrict the growth in their thinking process of pro-American attitudes… or ‘tudes, as they are now called? To whom does the call to prayer from the minaret call? As long as they are up there, could they provide bird watching, fire alarm and meteorological services in addition to the chants? I understand that in the Moslem world, such activities are a natural part of the daily program. If you’re facing Mecca five times a day, you have a pretty clear perception of cloud formation. How many oktas of clear sky, how many oktas of cirrus, cumulus nimbus, etc. Put differently but equally importantly, where was Muhammad when Jesus was nailed to the cross? In a madrassa, studying ancient texts? Herding sheep? All Trump is asking for is 120 days of Sodom and Gomorrah to formulate answers to these questions, to ‘figure out what’s going on‘ as he so aptly puts it. Do I regret contributing to the Arab-American Friendship Association? No, but I certainly won’t do it again until after the government finishes its investigations.”
“Well, I called my congressman and he said, ‘Whoa! I’d like to help you, son, but you’re too young to vote.’ ”
– Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues”
I read in the newspaper that the White House is going to resume holding daily tours for the general public. So cool! I telephone my mama and ask her if she wants to tour the White House with me. “Why would I want to do that?” she asks crabbily. My mom is 51 years old and really resents growing older. If I had a time machine, I would send her back to her youth, but since I don’t, I won’t.
” ‘Cause it’s free,” I coax her. “It’ll be fun! They say I have to sign up through my Congressman.”
“This is Maryland,” warns my mom. “Don’t tell them you’re a Republican.”
So I text my Congressman’s office about W. H. tours and my phone vibrates and a snotty young staffer comes on and says, “What’s your motivation, Miss?”
“We live right across the District line in Maryland. We locals never go sight-seeing. It’s my mom’s birthday,” I lie, making it up as I go along.
“Are you or your mother terrorists?”
“Not that I know of.”
He has the good manners to laugh. I give him our social security numbers and he discusses days and time of day. “I’ll get back to you,” he promises, which sounds like pie in the sky, but then I get a text, “Next Tuesday, 10:30 am. Come 30 minutes early for security check. Enjoy!”
Wow!
Before we start throwing bricks at each other over Trump’s madman behavior, let’s remember that there were plenty of early warning signs that our reality TV star had issues with reality. Using his famous rhetorical method which he calls “truthful hyperbole,” he peppered his rallies with statements based on desire rather than fact. He said whatever his supporters wanted to hear. Taking a page from George Costanza on Seinfeld, Trump followed the principle “it’s not a lie if you believe it.” Endless strings of fact checkers’ Pinocchio’s followed Trump throughout his campaign. The day after his inauguration, he was raising a stink over crowd size, utterly convinced that his was the biggest in history. He insisted on a voter fraud investigation based on his personal conviction that three to four million votes were cast illegally for Hillary Clinton, depriving him, Donald Trump, of the popular vote.
No, Donald. Yes, Donald.
If there are 35 bathrooms in the White House, mom and I christen three of them on our White House tour. Not public restrooms, we need permission each time. Leaving my glad rags at home, I even wear a dress! Real gawkers, we admire the rugs on the floors and the vases on the tables but we aren’t impressed with the paintings. “No modern art?” I ask the lady tour guide with her marshaled hair, pearls and black shift. “Braque cubism? Picasso?” I suggest, dredging up memories from my high school art class.
“This the American people’s house,” she answers stonily. “We prefer classical American art.”
Good luck with that, I think, but when my mom jabs her elbow into my side, I keep my pretty little mouth shut. We’re definitely on the hunt for celebrities, but disappointingly, we don’t see anyone we know. Oh, hot damn! I nudge my mom, “I think I just saw Steve Bannon!”
“Where?”
I point toward a doorway but, of course, he’s gone.
At what point does delusion replace reality, and can we live this way indefinitely? A local county in Ireland said “no” to Donald Trump’s demand to shield his golf course among the dunes from erosion by building a 2-mile-long seawall. Trump described the situation, saying he received “the approvals very quickly from Ireland and then Ireland and my people went to the E.U. to get the approval. It was going to take years.” This is pure fantasy. The Irish government never gave its approval and the E.U. was never even involved. The E.U. didn’t stop him! It all happened at the county level: angry local surfers and environmentalists stopped him. Yikes! If Trump doesn’t like the reality of the hand he is dealt, he rewrites history to fit his view, living in a world of make-believe. Novelist John le Carré claims that the truly dangerous con artists are the ones who convince themselves of their own lies. Calling delusions “alternative facts” doesn’t change the reality on the ground, Mr. President. Your behavior is worrisome, considering how screwed up the world is becoming. And as you grow older, you seem to become even more so.
Our group does pass handsome young men in dark business suits, their hair trimmed short around the sides and back. When one of them smiles at me, I’m on it. “Hi!” I chirp, approaching him super quick, swaying my hips and fluttering my eyelashes. Smiley smile!
“Not here,” he chuckles. “I’m at work.” He’s carrying a cream-colored manila folder. Shoving it under his arm, he lightly touches my shoulder. “Let me show you a painting.” He leads me to the nearest wall.
“What are we looking at?” I ask starchily.
He smiles at me, pretending to read the label under the painting. “Turner Classic, cirka 1800,” he says, opening his wallet. With a quick flick of the wrist, he hands me his business card wrapped in a $20 bill. “Call me!” he whispers sweetly.
“Of course, that’s what cellphones are for,” I smirk.
Oooh, we understand each other so well!
When I rejoin our tour group, who are patiently milling about awaiting my return, my mom stews for several minutes before angrily asking, “Did he give you any money?!”
“Twenty bucks.”
“Oh!” she grunts, brightening. “That’s good, daughter. There’s still hope for you. Be sharp for him, use your noodle! These boys meet empty-headed bimbos all the time!”
“Tell me about it!’
“This British tea service, cirka 1790,” instructs our guide, “is a relatively new addition to the White House china, a gift of the Chinese ambassador.”
I’m not a bellyacher, but the president is saying in his press conferences that his administration is “running like a well-oiled machine.” Lord help us if this chaos and turmoil is Donald J. Trump’s idea of a well-functioning government! Except for the military, the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service, all the other agencies are at a standstill: the people at the managerial level have all left or retired, refusing to work for this administration. There’s no one in the office to give directions. Ben Carson sends out a directive and there’s no one in Housing and Urban Development to carry it out. Pretty soon the janitors in the Capitol will stop work because they’re not getting paid, since the people who handled payroll are all gone! “Don’t worry,” say the conservative pundits.”Donald Trump is the boss, he’s in charge. Like he ran his business, he will direct the government, he’s very hands-on. Unlike namby-pamby team players, he’ll go it alone. Just wait, he’ll be very effective.” Shit! My dad is in the government and it doesn’t work like that. The president has to work with Congress, with the Judiciary and with the federal bureaucracy to get anything done. Donald Trump’s well-oiled machine is running into one brick wall after another!
A sure thing and a maximum moneymaker, I book an appointment over the phone with Ragnar Schultz, Chairman of the Oxburg Town Chamber of Commerce. When I get to his office, it’s in the storefront of a high-rise. His secretary is dressed in a pink wool twinset of Jackie Kennedy derivation. She gives my black Goth rags a once-over and bends her mouth down in a little “tch!”
“Is something wrong?” I ask her angrily.
“Teenage businesses are usually handled through the Youth Fellowship Program of Oxburg Church,” she tells me in a nasal voice, as if she is holding her nose to ward off the stench.
“I’m not a teenager.”
“That, my dear, I sincerely doubt.”
I’m about to risk getting arrested for assault when, mercifully, Jesus comes to my rescue and the buzzer sounds on the intercom.
“He’ll see you now,” she tells me snootily.
Ragnar is this rotund, funny dude with only a brown monk’s fringe of hair on his pate, wearing a brown pinstriped suit and smoking a Meerschaum pipe. Right away, I like him and relax, flopping into a chair in front of his desk. It’s like visiting the Guidance Counselor back in high school. “I want to do a start-up!” I tell him excitedly.
“Excellent,” he smiles, showing corn-yellow teeth. WTF, hasn’t he ever heard of bleaching strips? “What do have in mind?”
“I want to make beer,” I say in my best pseudo-German accent.
“Beer?” he asks, frowning, kind of surprised and all. “I thought from your appearance, maybe teen fashion.”
“No, no,” I assure him, “Beer. Microbreweries are all the rage. I’ve got a slogan that cannot be beat.”
“What kind of beer?” he asks. “A lager, a saison, a wheat beer, an Indian Pale Ale, stout…?”
“Oh, the kind doesn’t matter!” I happily assure him. “It’s like Absolut Vodka, it’s all in the marketing. Think of it: ‘Stephanie’s – I may not know anything about breweries, but I know what I like!’ I’ll sell a million bottles in the first quarter.”
“You’ll need investment capital,” he explains, searching his plastic trays for the necessary forms.
“Investment capital?”
“And you’ll need to find a professional brewer. Otherwise there’s the risk of health code violations.”
“Health code violations?”
“And fines up to $1,000 for a first offense and $2,500 for a second offense.”
“Fines?”
“It’s not easy to decide what kind of hops to use. There are over 64 varieties,” he points out helpfully, refusing to meet my gaze.
“Hops?”
“Is there an echo in here?” he asks, falling back in his chair in consternation, blowing an enormous cloud of white smoke.
“Boy, you’re sure a bummer!” I declare.
“On the contrary,” he insists, “we are here to help the business community.”
Aha! No wonder he knows so much about making beer! “How many microbreweries do you own?” I shoot back. “Bullying isn’t strength, you know.” He’s a typical Trump character: incisive, divisive, able to break walnuts with his teeth.
“I wish you every success in your endeavor,” he harrumphs, pointing to the door with his elegant brown and white pipe.
Sometimes I feel like nailing a side of raw pork to the door of a mosque! JK, just kidding.
My boyfriend Jimmy is the one who taught me to hotwire cars, but on the advice of counsel, I hereby and forthwith shall refrain from writing about said felonious activity.3 Got this really strange email from Jimmy saying he’s been arrested for a passport violation in Botswana, Nigeria and can I send him $1,000 to pay the fine? Strange because Jimmy knows I’ve never seen $1,000 at any one time in my life. Anyway, I’m supposed to send the money to this Nigerian named N’golo M’Bumia, Attorney at Law, Botswana, Nigeria. I emailed the attorney, but I haven’t heard anything. It all seems peculiar because Jimmy’s in the Army, Special Forces, and wouldn’t they bail him out if he gets thrown in the clink?
I am comparing brands of shredded parmesan cheese in the dairy aisle of my local grocery store when I realize that the cutest little mulatto lass is giving me a come-hither look. I have met some really crazy folks in my lifetime that I’m polite to but stay away from. I eat up with my eyes her wonderful chocolate skin, her thatched black hair, those tennis-ball-size breasts and wide hips. She has curves in all the right places, fantastic purple-painted eyelids. Me want! I push my cart thataway and “accidently” bump into her pretty derrière, sheathed in a chic black leather skirt. How Versace! “Oh, excuse me!” I gush.
“Accidents happen,” she assures me invitingly. “I have a document shredder,” she relates breathlessly, wide-eyed, her lips inches from mine. “Why don’t you bring your documents by my place and we’ll… shred them?” Turning, she shows me her gorgeous little rump. But of course, madam, mais oui, pourquoi pas? Did I mention how much I like her eyes? Witch hazel, yearning to be released from the torture of solitude.
Her apartment complex is similar to mine, another run-down blight on the horizon which no one remembers building until the roof leaks. Then the landlord fights with the county over who’s responsible for maintenance under the affordable housing rules. I try to ignore the rain stains down the front of the three-story high gray stucco shoeboxes. Carrying a cardboard box full of old papers, more for show than blow, I ring her doorbell. “You came!” she exclaims, waving her hands, turning this way and that, giggling, flirting with her eyes.
“Workers of the world, unite!” I suggest heartily. So far, my relationships on an intimate level have failed miserably. Throwing aside my box, I step inside the door and close it resolutely behind me. Click! She watches silently, panting, as I reach for her. She leads me to the bedroom.
Sucking Vivienne’s nipples, I slather her in saliva with my versatile tongue. The covers are in total disarray, her pink rump winking at me between the pictographs of sylvan flowers printed on the duvet. I speak: “Merveilleur,” I tell her, making her chuckle. The room stinks of musk as, shuddering, Viv emits soft groans, clawing at the headboard with both hands, her red nails shining in the gloom. The sweet, pungent sweat upon her lovely brown skin fills me with delirious abandon. This Cajun dish is best eaten hot.
When Trump said he’s germaphobic, I know exactly where he’s coming from. In this world of debauchery, it’s us against the germs, although not the Germs, who were hardworking punk rockers from Los Angeles, California. Love that band! They should have called their studio album “American Carnage.” Trump isn’t the first to weave musical references into his agenda. When Obama said “Yes We Can,” he was referring to the West German experimental fusion band of the same name, “Can.” Precursors to the Krautrock scene, their music hasn’t aged particularly well, but I can understand how a “doobie brother” might find them a blast. Will Obama’s presidential library include a smoking room? I certainly hope so. “No, no, no,” say our parents. Yes we can!
Word.
The constant, demanding ringtone of Vivienne’s cellphone slowly, sadly brings us back to reality, like the first shock of a plunge into an icy river. “Yes? No! I can’t talk now,” she tells her caller, sighing angrily. “What? Well, shit! Of course…” Hanging up, she gives me a helpless look and says, “I have to get back to the office. A coworker’s water just broke and she’s on her way to the hospital to have a baby. They’re short-handed. Fuck!”
Kissing her on her pretty little nose, fondling her breasts one last exquisite time, I tell her I understand.
I return home both shaken and stirred. Having experienced bliss, I now see how truly empty my life has become. Boredom is a terrible thing. I don’t even have any joints left in my vanity case. Frustrated, I don my pink knit cap from the Women’s March on Washington and a Hillary mask. I use an Umarex Colt Defender all-metal toy BB gun that is a perfect facsimile of a .45 automatic to rob three banks in a single afternoon. It’s not my fault they clump banks so close together! Since I’m a good person, I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I need the money. The key is to park the getaway car in the next lot over. That throws the cops off the scent. Stuffing the mask, latex gloves, knit cap, sports clothes and tennis shoes into a big black plastic gardening bag, I ditch them in a dumpster behind a local shopping center. They empty the dumpster on Tuesdays and Fridays. Amidst the empty plastic water bottles, used windshield wipers and broken shelving, I’m not worried about anyone finding the evidence. When I finally get home and count the money, I find I’ve made a haul of $23,982.50. OMG, I’m rich! My goal is to be able to ride a horse in one year’s time. I also sign up immediately for an IT conference in Cleveland, Ohio.
After arranging for a plumber to put grab bars in my bath, I go to Macy’s and buy an Elizabeth Arden fire engine red tote 5-piece Lip Kit, an Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in Sweets, an Impulse Beauty 9-piece Brush Set, and a Laura Mercier Double Impact Eye Color Collection. Once properly made up, I hire a young martial arts student named Betty as my executive assistant. Although she is neurotic and makes wildly inappropriate observations, I like the way she wears her hair and her choice in clothes. I care for her very deeply and perhaps this will be love if it isn’t already. She parts her golden hair down the middle, Dutch boy style, and wears a lot of frilly pink lace undergarments. I go down on her using a Juicy Jewels® Plum Teaser. It’s like super soft with multi-speed vibration patterns. She’s a true blonde both above and below the waist. Her young flesh jumps at my touch, her warm breath caressing my face in a series of jagged gasps. “Oh, oh, oh,” she stutters, her entire body rippling in convulsions of pleasure, a sea of vaginal liquid gushing forth from the wellspring of her desire. We are going very slowly as we both have suffered greatly in past relationships and both have great trust issues so we have talked about basing everything on truth and honesty and continually question one another as to feelings, problems, etc. No hiding anything! I buy her a year’s supply of tampons, vaginal pain relief cream and bubble wrap protective packaging. I don’t care what they say, I won’t live in a world without love! 4 Her mother has just been diagnosed with cancer and it has spread rapidly to the lymph nodes. As her mother is in Key Biscayne, Florida, Betty feels helpless in what she can do right now and she lost her grandmother on Christmas Eve and her father the first of December. So there are a lot of hardships to endure which will make us Stronger Together. 5
We set up our headquarters in an abandoned barn, replete with Ikea office furniture and our own electrical generator from Sears, but within a day, the farmer who owns the land shows up and chases us out of there. This is so unfair. Our pickup truck is, like, ten times newer than his.
“Did ya see the crotch of his denim overalls?” Betty loudly exclaims as Elmer Fudd walks away. “I think he pissed in his pants.”
I love this girl! So clever, so intimidating.
Unable to sleep, I become a night prowler, walking the city from midnight to dawn. Hey, if you dog walk 10 miles a day, you can’t just stop cold turkey, your body craves the exercise. A membership in Gold’s Gym alleviates some of my anxiety, but the nights feel invitingly dark, moist and solitary. My anemia count goes up 9/10 of a point and my energy levels are precipitously low. I feel terribly weak, wobbly, losing balance, etc. Food Stamps drops me from $74 a month to $10. Like I care! I feel like filing a racial discrimination suit as I am not Hispanic nor black nor Muslim and am a Christian white woman, educated, whose trying to make the best of a bad situation. Yes she can! I know this may come as a surprise, but I am a very proud person who finds it extremely difficult to ask for help, especially financially. Let us not speak of this again, but if you want to help me, I’ll let you. My Xanax, Ambien and other meds don’t come cheap and any help you can provide, even financially, will make a huge diff and be greatly appreciated. I crave solitude. Weekends are the worst, when even my nights are disrupted by drunken bozo partiers reveling until the wee hours. Party, party, party. Screak! Roar! Barf! By 4:30 a.m., there are only two kinds of creatures left on the sidewalk, predators and prey.
“Okay, chérie, I’ll talk to you later,” a 20-something crew cut office worker in a Ralph Lauren Ladd Solid Black Tech Down Filled Classic-Fit Coat says into his cellphone. (Google it, gals! Does the glorious hunk modeling the coat come with my order???) The dude’s ambling drunkenly along the pavement, teetering half in, half out of the gutter. Whitebread. Probably went to some fuckin’ Ivy League college. Jerk!
And what to my wonderin’ eyes should appear but two demented black bros in black leather jackets comin’ outta an alleyway cloaked in reefer smoke. “Hey whiteboy!” they shout.
“Oh, hey guys, I don’ want no trouble,” mumbles college stuff, giving them a crooked smile and hiccupping. Christ! I can smell the high-end whisky from here. Bad move!
“Give us yer coat.”
“What? Shit, no. It’s cold. Ain’t much of a coat. You got a better jacket than my coat,” natters the mark, apparently thinking he can talk his way out of it. Fuck me, he’s not even scared, the twit! “Ya wanna trade? My coat, yer leather apparel. Whaddya say?”
“Wassup?!” I interject, pulling my toy gun from the pocket of my Old Navy Hooded Wool-Blend Toggle Coat. It’s dark charcoal gray and I love the toggles. “You got a beef, bros?” I sing out.
“Hum! Hot damn!” exclaims the one, while his partner can’t believe his eyes, some dumb white bitch throwin’ shade! “You five-oh?” they ask, while their prospective male victim edges uneasily aside and trots nervously around the corner.
My peripheral vision at max, my irises artificially huge from the amphetamine I pop, I see everything: sewer rats, stray cats, evil-faced opossums skulking among the black plastic trash bags. “Nah, I ain’t John Law,” I say, just flashing my cannon enough to make it noticeable.
“Fuck, that thing ain’t even real!” scoffs the bigger of the two. “Show her yer piece, Tyrone!” Who whips out a .45 handgun spookily similar to what I’m holding. “Colt Defender,” he explains. “CO2 BB gun. Tis ’bout as real as a $3 bill.”
I hold mine aloft for their inspection.
“Shee-it! Same gat we packin’,” they remark and we start to laugh. “We could do you!” they point out, leering and shaking their booties.
“I’m HIV positive.”
“Fu-uck! Figures with the death wish you holdin’ aloft fo’ all the world t’ see!”
“Y’all take care, now.”
“Yeah, same t’ you, lady,” they say and walk off down the avenue wet with rain looking for an all-night convenience store to rob.
I guess you’re wondering how the tech conference in Cleveland went. Thank God for technology! I worship the concept of next generation electronically long-distance-controlled toilets. God meant for us to have them and we have them! At the conference, I lobby for reinstatement of the pay toilet, citing the appropriate parables from the Bible: Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. You can sooner pass a camel through the eye of a needle than have a rich man enter Heaven. The Lilies of the Valley are pretty, but through genetic engineering, we can actually put the little fuckers to work.
Après dinner, we have to “sing for our supper,” telling a humorous anecdote with an IT tie-in from our past. While most tell about Dilbert-like idiocies at work, I have to dredge through my Rolodex of memories just to keep up. For example: “This happened before my parents’ divorce. My mom and dad would take my younger brother and me to a Class A French restaurant with our neighbors Admiral and Mrs. Kirkpatrick. The men would drink and the ladies would yak. I always liked the admiral, he was so funny. He’d corner me in the cloakroom or pull me into the men’s room, tweaking my schoolgirly breasts while licking my face like a Popsicle. Grabbing me by the pussy, he’d go all misty-eyed and cum in his pants. But that’s not what I want to talk about. No one says ‘no’ to an admiral, so he downed Glenfiddich by the glass, gleaming chunky goblets of whisky one after another. My dad gave him a run for his money. Both got pie-eyed to beat the band. Meanwhile, the women were guzzling white wine and we kids drank grape juice. The management showed respect for us by providing a private alcove off the main dining room, a so-called séparé, where we argued and laughed and carried on for all we were worth. Quite the show, I can assure you. ‘We get preferential treatment,’ my dad lectured us in the car on the way home, ‘because old man Kirkpatrick is a high-placed admiral.’ This went on for a couple of months until a French waiter let slip the fact that the restaurant provided us with private dining at no extra charge because our rowdy behavior disturbed the other customers.”
The keynote speaker is tech giant Alan Ricketts and while he nattered on for many minutes, the take-away in my notes is this: “Like the African land snail, snakeheads in the Potomac River or Burmese pythons in Florida, globalization, container shipping and a changing climate leave us open to invasive species. IT can help monitor and control the spread of undesirable elements in our environment, harnessing subcutaneous tracking devices to help us track pernicious Muslim immigrants and other deplorable foreigners in our midst.”
Alan probably explained it better than that, but that’s how it came out in my notes. Anyway, the current administration in Washington is interested and subcutaneous tracking device technology will be the Next Big Thing in IT.
While I’m out of town, Betty steals my debit card and proceeds to empty my account to the tune of $20,000. I press charges and have a restraining order against her. Since she promises to make full restitution, I will drop police charges if she pays. However, I will keep the restraining order in effect. I don’t mind if she calls as I won’t have her arrested, but I don’t want her around my place, as I’ve removed all valuables from here and they are locked in a bank box. A pretty big bank box. She was my former assistant, former friend of four weeks, lover, etc. When I throw her out on March 1, a Wednesday, the police are across the street to make sure she doesn’t cause any trouble. Black squad cars from the State Police tear up people’s front yards while their SWAT Team uses a megaphone to inform us, “This is the police! You have three minutes to come out with your hands up. If there is any domestic violence, we will fire tear gas into the home. Come out now with a signed agreement of grievances and your hands in the air. Lie down on the ground and remain silent. Don’t speak, don’t move! This is your last warning! We are prepared to open fire if necessary. Come out now!” Which is pretty scary.
Fluffy white cumulus clouds fill an azure blue sky, a perfect day for a bike ride or domestic dispute. Knowing how it drives me ape-shit, Betty is decked out all in pink, as frilly and lacy as a wedding cake. Vixen! Grinning at me foxily, she points at me with her left hand, her fingernails painted coral pink. Wrinkling her little pink Irish nose, she laughs at the dumb expression on my face. What a tease! And, of course, as soon as we get outside on the front walk, a trigger-happy cop shoots Betty with a rubber bullet. If she wasn’t wearing a Kevlar tank top, who knows what might have happened?!
Hustled separately into a large white police van, Betty and I are both subjected to a strip search, as female officers in brown uniforms and wide-brimmed hats examine every orifice of our bodies for possible contraband, their probing fingers leaving no hole unexamined. In detail.
Police Chief O’Brian tells News Team 3, “To be frank, in cases like this one, it’s not unheard of that escalation results in the SWAT Team totally wrecking the domicile in an attempt to extricate the warring parties with a minimum loss of life. These things happen. ‘We had to destroy the home in order to save it.’ We can never rule out armed struggle. I myself, as a younger man, fought in Beirut, Lebanon. Mercifully, in this instance, we were spared the innate carnage currently being experienced in Syria and Iraq, where entire villages are plundered and demolished. Think genocide. Thank God we were spared such an outcome in this encounter. As any contractor can tell you, it’s never pretty rebuilding a city. Fluffens the cat is credited with heroically having a calming influence on both combatants. Allow me to also give a shout out to the Fraternal Order of Police Benevolence Fund. We’re there for you, please be there for us. Thank you!”
Needless to say, my checks bounce from here to kingdom come. This is a setback, but I try to see the funny side of it, whatever that might be. My spirits are good and so is my sense of humor.
What this grrrl needs is money! As the president so stirringly told us during his inaugural address, “The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action.” Yes! Staunchly empowered and not feeling particularly imaginative, I decide to stick with what I know, buying a Halloween mask of President Trump at a second-hand depósito across the river in Virginia and robbing some more banks. Life under Tramp is remarkable, it’s transformative, it’s remarkably transformative. It’s like we’ve elected a character out of the Transformer franchise as our new president. My voice doesn’t sound like Donald Tromp, but I love imitating his New Yawk accent.
“Why are you talking like that?” asks a startled teller, handing over the limited proceeds in her cash drawer while her male coworker unlocks and opens currency drawers over by the drive-in window.
“Oim Donald Trumf!”
“You sound more like Chris Christie, sweetheart.”
April showers bring May flowers. I get arrested in the middle of April, crocuses in bloom, smell of tree sap in the air, robins pooping on my windowsill, the sun drying out the land. A policeman pulls me over just like that and studies my face, one itchy hand unsnapping the strap on the brown leather holster on his hip, “Ms. von Peletz, aka Stephanie King? You’re under arrest,” he says, all but tossing my fake Wisconsin Driver’s License on the road. Hey, dude, that fucker cost me over $100. State of the art. Data entry into the Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicle’s database and everything. I’m fuckin’ registered, dodo! It turns out little Stephanie made the FBI Ten Most Wanted List and never even knew about it. Tough tittie, sugar. Why don’t they post the photos in the post offices like they used to? Then at least I could have changed my appearance and taken a job as a hotel chambermaid in the Bahamas.
The interrogation room has steel gray walls, a plain wooden table, two brown wooden chairs and a one-way mirror along one side of the room. Knowing I’m under observation, I choose the chair that shows my left, best profile and modulate my voice theatrically. I am alone in the room, shouting “There was no hold-up! There was no bank robbery! It’s all fake news, ya twits! D’ya really think I’m stupid enough to rob a bank? Get real! It’s all a conspiracy to defame me for whistleblowing on the Clinton campaign!”
Pretty good even if I do say so myself.
Why does every police interrogation feel like a police procedural on TV? The room, the cops’ demeanor, the file they drop on the table, thin and scary. Whatever is in there can’t be good! Unlike on TV, whenever anyone flushes a toilet somewhere on the other side of the wall, the pipes clang. Two cops come in, a man and a woman, wearing black leather jackets. Young and snotty, their police badges hang on cords around their necks. If you’re unemployed and like guns, you can go to the police academy. “Oh, goody! Good cop, bad cop, yawn!” I exclaim.
“That’s real fine, fart around all you like,” says the guy.
“I’m not puttin’ up with this shit,” says the lady cop and promptly leaves the room, clicking shut the door behind her.
“Such theatrics!”
“She’s havin’ a bad day,” says the male cop, pulling out a chair and plopping the proverbial folder on the table.
“What’s in there, can I see?” I gush, grabbing the folder like I’m a spastic or something.
He laughs. “Sure, knock yourself out. It’s all about you, babe.”
“I got you babe,” I sing.5 Hey, dudes, they were only banks! Let’s see where I’m at: Maybe a little conspiracy to defraud the government. (Read: fake I.D.) And yes, sure, maybe I shouldn’t have paid for Betty’s housemate Abdel’s air fare to Turkey, but how was I to know he’d join the Islamic State?! Aiding and abetting a terrorist. That one was definitely sort of a cockup. Among other things, I am charged with “residing in a bawdy place.” Where are we living, Great Britain?
I try my one phone call, but I keep getting busy signals. Hasn’t anyone heard of “call waiting”? They throw me in the county jail. At least I get a cell to myself. So far, so bad. Aha, here cometh my prince in shining armor! Actually, he’s a pretty together-looking son of a beeswax. Nice suit. Good hair! A tan holster and a gun clipped to the waistband of his trousers. He’s got a brown leather briefcase, but he dumps it on the floor opposite the cell door.
“Let me guess, public defender!”
“Excellent! Totally wrong.”
Fuck!
He has the guards admit him to my cell. “It’s all right, go back to your post,” he instructs them, waving them away, which is kind of fun to watch. Both guards stare at me grimly but they don’t say nothin’. My visitor and I listen as their footsteps echo down the corridor between the drafty cells. “Es-tu une spadassine?” he enquires in French. Am I a hired assassin? “Because we could fix you up with an address in a slightly better neighborhood.”
“You mean like something in La Femme Nikita or a Vin Diesel movie? Take the bad gal and instead of throwing her in jail, you let her join a super-secret organization and become a secret agent like in Alias?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“It’s been done. Or is it the Dollhouse variation, memory wiped clean? Same shit but different.”
“Nothing as drastic as that.”
Spinning in a round kick, I knock him off his feet. Unholstering his pistol, I click off the safety and pull the slide before pressing the muzzle against his temple. I’ve seen some movies, too, y’know.
He bursts out laughing. “Bravo!” he chortles. “May I get up now?”
“Okay,” I agree grudgingly, examining the weapon. No round in the chamber, no round in the clip. About as useful as a ball peen hammer. Flipping it butt-first, I hand his weapon back to him. I should have known he’d be good when he walked in on me like that, dissing the guards. DTE. Down to earth. “You got a name, mister?”
“No.”
“You get me outta here,” I offer, “we can Netflix and chill.”
He sizes me up with his eyes, his gaze lingering on my breasts and crotch. “Size 8.”
“What if I am?”
“You’re a lot of woman.”
“What if I am?”
“I’ll get you transferred.”
“To where?”
“Someplace groovy,” he grins, eyes twinkling, deep dimples appearing in his cheeks. Hey, I never saw him smile before.
“Give me three good reasons why I should.”
“Why shouldn’t you?”
Well, that’s a pretty compelling argument when compared to getting gang-raped on the old cellblock. “Where do I sign?”
“We’ll also expunge all record of your life of crime. Still, we’re not sure we’re going to take you. There are some aptitude tests— ”
“Where do I sign, ass-hole?!” I ask, walking up and snaking my arms around his neck. I press against him with both my crotch and breasts. My insurance. You’re in good hands with Allstate. “Comfy?” I tease, my face an inch from his. His breath smells of stale coffee. I taste his mouth with my tongue, languidly licking his lips. “This is how canines do it,” I explain. “Dog kisses.”
“Sure,” he snorts. “Whatever.”
Releasing him, I watch as he rattles my tin cup on the bars, summoning the hired help.
And he’s gone, quick as an apparition. What have I done? You stupid girl! They may send me to Guantanamo, for all I know. The letdown is devastating. Total. Bereft of my freedom, I weep bitter tears of frustration, huddling miserably in the dark, dank confines of my cell.
I force my thoughts to go to a happy place, azure blue waters lapping at the shore of a small coral island in the vicinity of the Great Barrier Reef. Spear-fishing for junkers, I wear a red b-ball cap proclaiming “Swim the Reef, Smoke the Reefer” on my sun-bleached head. Happiness flows through me like the sudden jolt of an electric eel. I am contentment personified as quantifiable photos of joy hover in the air around me like one of those family Christmas cards: “…This year finds us well as Mary is taking a horsemanship course while Jeff has deepened his understanding of the juvenile penal code.” Those kind of photos. Life may be a bit of the old bullocks, but my speargun and bangsticks, they comfort me. Well worth the schlep, mate. Cheap at half the price.
1 Lyric from “Money, Money, Money” by the Swedish band ABBA
2 Al Capp’s imaginary town in the comic “Li’l Abner”
3 Pankins, Deets and Goldstein, Attorneys at Law
4 Lyric from “A World Without Love” by Peter & Gordon
5 Hillary Clinton campaign slogan
6 Title of a song by Sonny & Cher
yustyoking 
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