“Why should I care about Khashoggi?” asks my cousin Richie, reaching for relevance on his podcast. It’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon and we’re online. Entitled “Little Donnie’s Dumpster,” the podcast takes pokes at— what else?— the 45th President of the United States. My feeling is, Richie can say whatever he likes. It’s a free country. Sitting in his tiny studio, however, risking my good name, I really don’t want to be here. My Aunt Lucille can be mercilessly demanding. She will not be denied.
Richie’s not exactly a pushover himself, but with his protruding belly and mop of jet-black hair, he looks vertically challenged. He’s a lot younger than me, so much younger, he’s in a separate genus: I’m a baby boomer, he’s Gen X. “Sporting a goatee raises my IQ level by ten points,” he tells his followers in that thick New Jersey accent of his. This theory results in an avalanche of angry recriminations. He even gets a formal complaint from the razor blade lobby.
“Do the Saudis grind up dissident journalists to make Turkish delight?” wails my cousin. “Did Ivanka Trump email Hillary regarding the Mueller investigation and, if so, why did she use her personal account? Show us Ivanka’s emails, Julian Assange!” This provocative patter gets Richie instant “likes.” I watch his 27-inch computer monitor as the number skyrockets upward. There are also comments like you wouldn’t believe. Several containing dog poo emoji. This is America, the Internet, social media, everybody has an opinion. “I do care about Khashoggi,” insists my cousin, “but why? It’s not like he owed me money or anything.”
Dropping a tray of metal auto parts on the floor, CRASH!, Richie segues into a smooth delivery: “Dear friends, I used to be a chain smoker, but smoking chains wrecked my health. Now, sucking on three small pink pills a day, I am totally smoke-free. Southern California should be this free of smoke! And no vaping. No raping. Just Nicotino brand lozenges.”
He clicks on an audio link for listeners to respond in real time.
“Yes, baby, you are on the pod!” he announces. “Please list your name, rank and favorite brand of cereal…”
“Um, this is Betty Boop 34,” exclaims an angry middle-aged female voice, booming in our Beats by Dr. Dre brand headphones. “If you’re too stupid to understand the significance of a Jamal or an Omar or a Mustafa Khashoggi,” she insists, “I feel real sorry for the likes of you. Real sorry!”
“Not half as sorry as I feel!” replies Richie indignantly. AND THEY’RE OFF! Trading insults, hurling epithets, blah, blah, yes, yes, yada, yada, yada, this is the state of play on Richie’s podcast. Pod Save America it is not.
I live on the planet, too, y’know. I lobby to save the polar bears. The Arctic ice cap is melting. The polar bears are drowning. Meanwhile, Das Trumpf administration calls global warming a hoax. Soon we’ll live in a world where the polar bear is extinct. The good news is, Russia will make money by selling transit permits to cargo vessels that utilize the shipping lanes of the Northwest Passage. What a dismal trade-off!
A week ago I got a phone call from my Aunt Lucille. “You should go an’ help your cousin!” she lisped, sounding like she had a mouth full of honey dripping down her chin.
“How much is this gonna cost me?” I shot back.
“What?” asked Lucille, not getting it. “No one is asking for a charitable contribution, Kevin. I want you to come up here to New Joisey an’ help Richie with his Internet radio show. It’s a real class act.”
“I hate Sassafras, New Jersey, Lucille,” I told her. “I never liked it as a kid and I have promised myself that, as an adult, I’m not coming up there anymore.”
Yes, I am bitching, but we have that kind of a relationship: My mother confessor, Lucille has never steered me wrong. We’re buds. Whatever is on my so-called mind, I simply blurt it out. “I hate the smell of the oil refinery,” I mansplain. “I hate the traffic. I don’t even like the local dive bar in Sassafras.”
“Richie doesn’t live in Sassafras anymore,” she points out, not bothering to take offense at me ragging on her hometown. “He’s moved. He lives in East Dinwiddie.”
“You’re kidding! Where the hell is that?”
So Lucille proceeds to give me directions, first the New Jersey Turnpike, then the Garden State Parkway, “When you see the Jewish headstones of the cemetery on both sides of the parkway,” she announces, sounding like a croaking version of Mapquest, “you will know that you have gone 3.2 miles too far. Take the next exit and double back.”
I call Richie. “Fick, fack, fuck,” he says. “I’m running out of ideas, cous’. You gotta come up here and inject some of your military realism into my decidedly unserious juice box of a podcast. I’m starting to sound like cheap laundry detergent.”
My cousin Richie.
As vain as anybody, this is my dog whistle. Hey, guys, looky here! Someone who is actually grateful for my service! Someone who doesn’t treat me— a college graduate with a military career and four tours of duty in war zones— as though I am some kind of benighted warmonger.
When I tell Richie that I write a humor blog, he greets the news with gales of laughter. “You write?” he gasps. “No wonder you are totally unknown! Why are you wasting your time writing??? The Net is an audio-visual environment, cous’. Whatever ideas you got, record ’em and put ’em on YouTube. Look at the 6-year-old millionaire running his own toy empire. That could be you! Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Show off your dance moves on TikTok. Don’t waste everybody’s time pushing pencils.”
His unbridled scorn leaves me feeling pretty raw, I must admit.
Is Richie aware that he has offended me? Richie? Nope!
The suburban streets of East Dinwiddie cry poverty and neglect. Clapboard houses with rocking chairs on the front porch. These, too, shall pass, although not in our lifetime. Like the town of Castaic in the mountains north of Los Angeles, nondescript East Dinwiddie was here long before us and will be here long after we are gone.
I don’t like the house, but who cares? Richie takes me outside to the barn in the backyard, a totally separate structure. Swinging open the barn doors, left and right, he and I dodge bundles of hay and walk to an enclosed area in the back. Opening a door padded in glass wool, Richie ushers me into his Inner Sanctum. The first thing to hit me is the funky smell: Plywood impregnated in old reefer smoke. You can get high just walking into the studio. My sinuses ache in protest. Knowing Richie, I should have expected this. A libertarian, he has always been in rebellion against both father figures and the rules of society.
Sitting at the mixing console shuffling music CD’s like a Las Vegas card dealer, he lights up a pale white joint, inhales and extends it to me. “How about some schedule one illegal substance?” he asks helpfully.
“Keep that thing away from me,” I plead. Jesus, my liver aches just watching him.
My contribution to the festivities is a 1964 rarity from the era of Beatlemania, an original Swan label 7-inch 45 rpm pressing in black vinyl of The Beatles singing “She Loves You.” Plucking this over 50-year-old heirloom from my briefcase, I hand it to Richie. Who examines it like it’s an artifact from ancient Egypt and says “Oh, cool!” He drops it onto a gray metal folding chair adjacent to the mixing console. Seat of Honor, this is the only square inch of his studio not buried in clutter: Old copies of Billboard magazine from the 1990’s, brown-stained coffee cups, handwritten notes, newspaper articles jaggedly torn from the working press by Richie’s unsteady hand.
The studio phone, a gloriously retro landline, rings with an audible purr. Richie drops pen on paper and answers the phone. “Yeah?” he sneers, cradling the big, black plastic receiver on his shoulder while thumbing through a copy of The New York Times Magazine. “Huh? Far out!” he shouts. “That’s groovy.” As he rockets to his feet, the magazine glides to the floor. “No, I didn’t pork her,” he chuckles, marching around in the enclosed space of the studio like a madman. A personal call, obviously. “I find her Calvin Klein lace bikini panties a shade too refined,” he insists insincerely, making me wonder who he is talking to. A man? A woman? A dog? “I stripped her like stripping bark off a tree,” he laughs gaily, suddenly sitting on the gray metal folding chair. Kerplunk! goes his fat ass.
CRACK!
… Totally destroying the over 50-year-old vinyl pressing of The Beatles, which I have saved and cosseted since the 1960’s for just such a lustrous event as Richie’s podcast, the theme of which apparently consists of several levels of destruction.
With a title like “Little Donnie’s Dumpster,” the show has got to be a liberal bath in Donald Trump criticism. Hey! Welcome to the club, Richie. There must be dozens of podcasts out there covering the president.
“Little Donnie is doing everything he can to please his daddy,” he insists, starting his show. “The only problem is, Fred Trump died many years ago. It’s like something out of Hamlet. Our shithole Prez is struggling to appease a ghost!
“Some people say Trump is the Messiah,” declares Richie, “leading us to a New Jerusalem. At the moment, however, life ain’t so great in Old Jerusalem.”
What makes Richie’s podcast stand out and listenable is the language. Richie’s catalog of expressions isn’t even a broad sweep of archaic lingo. Instead, he has drilled down to, like, the years 1968 to 1972.
“Let’s rap,” he suggests when someone comments online.
“Pull my pud,” he chirps when encouraging his followers to elucidate.
“Smokin’,” he texts when pleased with someone’s critique.
“When in the city,” suggests Richie, meaning Manhattan, “the 34th Street-Herald Square Subway Station offers a more tangible experience than the Museum of Modern Art. Without the exorbitant entrance fee. Think about it! Cheap at half the price. Economize! It’s not your fault the Stock Market is tanking.”
A small brown mouse makes an appearance, sticking its head out of a crevice in the wall. Deciding this is not a good time, it disappears back inside the masonry.
We take a break. Richie plays a rap song entitled “Fake News.” By the Swedish group realPfft.
Sample lyrics: “President Trump, Y R U a nervous grump? Is it all inside your head? Or Moscow girls peed on the bed?”
They’re on YouTube.
“Brett Kavanaugh is an arrogant, self-righteous crybaby,” announces Richie, careful not to slander the justice. “The man is not Supreme Court material. Not. And why was Brett Kavanaugh so terrified of an FBI investigation?
“Now let me say this about Congressional testimony. When p-p-people begin sniff-sniff-sniffing and babbling wildly, they often have a snootful of cocaine. Which is not to say that Justice Kavanaugh had his snoot full of the mad white powder at his confirmation hearing. All I’m sayin’ is that, IMHO— in my humble opinion— somebody was less than forthright in their description of the wild, fermented memories of boyhood adolescence.
“Let’s remember that once upon a time, Dr. Ford was a sweet young blonde. Brett and his buddy might have been, you know, horsing around. Dr. Ford came across as regretfully well-informed, but ol’ Brett doubled down and blew her away with his righteous indignation. I would not want to play tennis against anybody as angry as Brett Kavanaugh.
“Obama judges, Bush judges, Clinton judges, Trump judges. God help us! Donald Trump’s older sister is a judge. As the Prez says, we are all partisan parsnips. Judge Judy should be impeached from the Supreme Court! And I know judges. Fuck me, I know judges in ways that I would prefer to forget! When I was in college in Newark, I ran up a lot of parking tickets. Called before the judge, that man of the bench became something of a role model for me. We’re talkin’ the 1990’s, and that judge was clean-shaven at a time when the rest of us were into grunge. Like Moses or Abraham or Noah— like someone of biblical proportion— the judge said to me, ‘If you don’t want to end up incarcerated, young man, you’d better pay off these parking tickets and stop parking on the wrong side of the street overnight or you will end up in jail.’ I mean, that was nice of the judge, couching my faux pas in specific terms that even a college student like me could understand.
“His message was: Stop parking on the wrong side of the street of life, you klutz!
“That judge was no friend of mine and he didn’t pretend to be all smarmy with bonhomie— ‘Hail fellow, well met!’ — ‘Hail, Caesar!’ Because, truth be told, I’ve eaten some Caesar salads in my time and some were better than others. Never, however, with Romaine lettuce. Romaine lettuce is poison, crawling with E. coli. Do you know what the word Roma means— as in Romaine? R-O-M-A? Roma is another word for Gypsy! Would you eat food touched by a Gypsy?!… No. You. Would. Not!… Enemies of the people. Poisoning the food supply all over this great country of ours. I mean, somebody is. I’m not saying who. Could be them. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Mexican laborers. Like Khashoggi’s killers, the truth may never be known. It may be unknowable.
“MBS— Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman— is full of BS. He has a Master’s degree in BS.
“Don’t cry for me, Saudi Arabia! They chop the heads off adulterous women and the hands off of thieves. Chop! Chop! Unlike Donnie Trump, I don’t have any alleged financial interests among the Saudis. But I promise to get right on it.
“America does best in the world when America does nothing. Obama taught us that. There are no red flags on the play if you never take to the field.
“Republicans apologize for Trump and applaud his aggressive style. After all, 42% of the electorate can’t be wrong! I call them America’s Sewercrats. They can sit but they cannot sh-sh-shake the feeling of inadequacy.
“Thankfully, at least some Democrats are willing to hold Trump accountable.
“On the other hand, remember Hurricane Sandy before you start dismantling Trump Tower. We may need those apartments at some point. Ozymandias didn’t build Rome in a day, y’know.
“Still, that don’t mean I wants no Justice Craven-Ass on the United States S-S-Supreme C-C-C-Cunt. Although I’ve always admired Diana Ross and the Supremes. Baby Love. A good name for a hand soap. Or a hand job, for that matter.”
What is this?!
Truly nerts, it’s like spitting into the wind. Having put so much effort into building the studio, rigging the wiring, arranging the broadband and establishing the podcast, Richie’s show is not what I expected: His profanity-laced tirades and ten minute rants turn his program into a travesty. Total blarney. A case of misplaced priorities, it’s like purchasing a Picasso solely for the frame. You can do it, damn the expense, but why bother?
When not podcasting, Richie sells medical equipment in Manhattan. Hey, it’s a living. Although he doesn’t mention his occupation online, I can definitely discern the salesperson in Richie when he says, “You couldn’t pay me to go into an airport this holiday weekend.” Pause. “Well… maybe. Make me an offer! Anyone?!”
We wait. Hmmm. No takers.
Since this is his Black Friday podcast, Richie plugs all these chain stores, all the major brands. “Sears has gone into Chapter 11,” he mourns. “Sears owns Kmart. If Sears dies, so does Kmart. Jeez! Without Kmart, where am I gonna buy my footwear?”
Richie never makes it clear if he’s advertising these brands or just expressing an opinion. I get the feeling that he wants it this way, abstract, maybe for tax reasons, maybe because they pay him under the table. What do I know? When I ask him about it during another musical interlude, he says, “I would never recommend a company or a product that I don’t myself approve of, cous’. If I’m gonna flack, I choose what to flack, y’know?”
We are listening to a New Jersey death metal band who call themselves Iron Goddess of Mercy. After Tieguanyin, the oolong tea of the same name. Go figure. “Charging here and charging there,” they sing. “We’re charging our batteries everywhere… A prince among thieves, Trump is America’s own Robbin’ the Hood. He steals from the poor and gives t’ the rich. Tax cuts!” Their song is entitled “Instrumental,” blurring the line between what they are singing about and what the song is not. It’s not an instrumental.
“That one is for ol’ pig-face, everybody! The Prez,” laughs Richie. “Oink! Oink! The world is a vicious and scary place,” he declares. “A Saudi hit squad in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey used a bone saw to cut into little pieces the political activist and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. President Trump refuses to even listen to the audio recording of the killing made surreptitiously by the Turks. That sucks!
“We will now reenact that surreptitious recording…”
Rolling up our sleeves, grunting comically and spouting Arabic-sounding gibberish, Richie “chokes” me “to death” and “saws up” my body. Sawing through a pine block, the microphone at high amplification only inches from the blade, the sound effect is truly dreadful. We use Electro-Voice handheld mics from the 1960’s. You could hammer in a nail with one of these mics.
“And my family knows from bones,” concludes Richie. “The bones of my great-grandfather, on my mother’s side, Julius Goldfarb, are buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery… No one will admit this because it would be quite the scandal to discover that the Unknown Soldier isn’t, in the least, unknown. Or that he’s Jewish. Or that he wasn’t even necessarily dead.”
This is followed by a discussion with a university professor in Trenton who is having a meltdown because Richie’s tale lacks any kind of historical accuracy. “I only listen to your program because it’s in New Jersey and I need to keep track of my students’ interests…” he explains hotly. Yada, yada, yada. “The U.S. military went to great lengths to ensure that the bones interred in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier truly were unknown,” he lectures us. “Traveling across France, they unearthed the remains of American soldiers from unmarked graves in four different cemeteries. These cemeteries contained casualties from Belleau Wood, the Marne, Meuse-Argonne and further afield. Placing the four caskets in a specially designated room in city hall in the village of Chalons-sur-Marne, an American major then shuffled the flag-draped coffins, to prevent anyone from guessing which remains came from which cemetery. They then had a decorated soldier, Sgt. Edward F. Younger, circle the caskets before randomly choosing one. That casket was shipped under honor guard from France aboard the USS Olympia. Reaching the Navy Yard in Washington, DC, the remains were exhibited in the rotunda of the Capitol building before being buried across the river at Arlington National Cemetery on Armistice Day, November 11, 1921.”
“Well,” says Richie, audibly pouring himself a fizzy soda, “Kevin’s and my great-grandfather— on our mothers’ side— was killed in Belleau Wood, the Marne, Meuse-Argonne and wherever else you said. So that solves that.”
“You twit! That doesn’t solve anything!” fumes the prof. “You’ve simply replaced an erroneous claim with a physical impossibility. How can anybody be killed in multiple localities?”
“Reincarnation,” suggests my cousin. “Transcendental meditation. The migration of souls. Crystal light therapy.”
“Throwing a lot of cheap popular science phrases into the discussion won’t save your basic premise,” insists the professor. “You need to take courses in physics and probability. Yes, while nothing rules out the possibility that your forebear may have been buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the probability is infinitely small that the bones are, in fact, his.”
“Still, it makes a great family story,” counters Richie. “Who was buried in Grant’s Tomb?”
“That and five dollars will get you a medium size latte,” answers the prof.
Final score: a tie.
“Vhy in the vorld,” asks Richie in a thick, Borscht Belt accent, “vould youse re-elect Nancy Peloshi as Schpeaker of das House? Yust because she vants it, don’t mean you gotta give eet to her.”
Er-r-r-r-r-r, the studio door swings open eerily. Two 14- or 15-year-old schoolgirls peek at us, giggling. Dressed in school uniforms, their faces are awash in freckles. The neighbors’ kids? “Hello!” I say. Which is enough to send them D-Daying out of there. I even have to get up from my stool and close the door after them.
“The wave of new members in the House of Representatives is composed of some pretty… tough… cookies,” predicts Richie. “You don’t tell no fairy tales to these ladies.”
Busy browsing headlines on the Net, he announces, “Cindy Hyde-Smith has the Mississippi senate race tied up in knots. Mostly the kind you use to fashion a noose.”
Look, when it comes to politics, I am no impartial observer either. Whenever I see Mitch McConnell’s pix in the newspaper, I want to smash in his face. Ol’ Mitch picks and chooses who gets a confirmation hearing to the Supreme Court and he refuses to protect the Mueller investigation. He and The Donald will roast in Hell together for all eternity. Other than that, I guess he’s all right.
Reading from a 3” x 5” lined cue card which Richie has shoved in my face, I ask him the hokey question, “Will you consider running for president in 2020?”
I hope this is a set-up for some great jokes.
“Well,” drawls my cous’, “in the last 12 months, I have traveled all over this great country of ours. From the coast of Maine to the Rocky Mountains, what I have heard is the cry of the pregnant moose. Now wait, let me finish!” he demands, which is a clever conversational ploy, since I wasn’t about to interrupt him. “Everywhere I have traveled, my briefcase, my knapsack, pup tent, Winnebago, credit card, whiskey bottle, campaign manager, Mexican cleaning lady and GPS in hand, I have sought— often in vain— the call of the public urinal. Many times— too many times— and I admit this— I was forced to relieve myself in the bushes. MY FELLOW AMERICANS! This must stop! Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. Allow me to waive my Miranda rights and clearly state: If nominated, I will run. If elected, I will serve! And when I do, I will reinstate the glory of that truly American invention, THE PAY TOILET! Dimes are available.”
Over the sound of my chuckling, Richie plays a wav file of a flushing toilet.
Nu? You tell me, is he seriously running for orifice or is he joking around? Who knows? The fact that everyone can feign a run for the presidency shows just how rudderless and unleadable this country has become.
Being a guest and a rank beginner, the online audio format of Richie’s show is new to me. Someone named Hiram Rappaport wishes us a Happy Thanksgiving.
“Happy Thanksgiving to you, sir,” I respond.
“I want some clear answers,” Mr. Rappaport insists brusquely, “and you know what I am talking about.”
“No, I don’t,” I assure him, shocked by the nastiness in his tone of voice.
Richie, however, is on the case. “Now wait a minute! Now wait a minute!” he’s braying. “That Like A Virgin Land Deal woulda gone through without a hitch. Everybody got paid back in full. It’s nobody’s fault that the government changed the zoning. And everybody got paid back in full.”
“Changed the zoning!” snorts Mr. Rappaport derisively. “You never got the building permits!”
“I disagree. I beg to differ,” says Richie. “I feel that my failed real estate deal, in fact, qualifies me to judge President Trump. He also specializes in failed real estate deals. Just look at the Taj Mahal scandal in Atlantic City, for God’s sake! And when Jeff, my business partner, gets out of prison— he’s being released, by the way, his case has been overturned on a technicality— we’ll rehash the whole thing in private. Give me two weeks!”
Jesus Christ! This is more than just an embarrassment. It sounds like whatever dog poo Richie has stepped in may lead to litigation. “I was ready to leave ten minutes ago!” I murmur. Breathing into a hot microphone, I am embarrassed to discover that my comment has gone out live over the Internet.
“We’ll be back after this musical interlude,” Richie intones like some flowery announcer from the Golden Age of radio. He puts on another rap song and kills the mics.
“Richie— ” I scream.
“This ain’t got nothing to do with you,” he insists sheepishly, unable to look me in the eye.
Once we’re back online, Richie tells his listeners, “I haven’t been to Moscow, so I don’t know if Donald Trump owns dachas off the Ring Road or not. If he does, I don’t see anything wrong with that. It’s just another real estate deal gone bust. After all, Trump allegedly bought his dachas in 2008, when you could still get BOGO, buy one, get one free.”
Aha! Red meat. President Trump constantly traffics in uninhibited speculation. Richie’s program fits the same mold.
Suddenly, Richie is talking about subpoenas. “If granted subpoena powers,” insists my cousin, “I promise to interview White House interns— young, female White House interns. The cutest honeys. The hottest babes. Behind closed doors. Behind closed bedroom doors. Advise and consent. I envision that day!”
Slow as molasses, the black second hand creeps around the dial of the chalk white wall clock. The air is stale with our sweat. My butt aches from sitting too long.
“I just want to defend Donald Trump’s fixation on strength,” Richie exclaims. “Not since the Civil War has there been a stronger stench of racial hatred in this country than under the Trump administration.
“In an NPR/Marist survey, 80% of the American people predict that our divisive politics could lead to violence. I oppose divisive politics, but 80% predict violence. Eighty percent! Have you seen the Purge movies? I envision that day.”
Sheesh! You can’t choose your relatives, but Richie is turning out to be quite a dirtbag.
Eventually, we get the hell off the air.
Jewish men lust after blue-eyed, blond Christian women. It’s an archetype. We call such a lady a shiksa— slightly derogatory, it means that she wouldn’t know where to sit in the synagogue. I never expected a schlub like my cousin, however, to land a showstopper named Evangeline. Baby, I’m amazed! Ogling her full-color portrait on the mantel piece, I can’t wait to meet her. She is a stunningly blond ringer for Sienna Miller. And I have always been madly in love with Sienna Miller. It’s after 4 p.m. before she finally arrives home, dog-tired. She’s been working since early this morning as a checkout lady at the local grocery store. “Yeah, hup, hallo,” she drawls in a stark New Jersey accent. Sighing audibly, she dumps a patchwork purse the size of a small suitcase on the floor in the hallway.
“I made coffee,” I sort of stammer, making her smile.
“Sure, gimme some coffee,” she says. “Where’s snookums?”
“Richie? I dunno. He said he was going somewhere and I never found out where,” I admit apologetically.
We sit at the chipped wooden table in the kitchen. Evangeline exhales beauty with every tired breath. Gobsmacked by her astounding looks, I’m about as clever and talkative as a wooden Indian. The good news is, she’s seen this a hundred times before. She smiles good-naturedly. “I know all about you,” she assures me, eyes twinkling. “You’re the warrior king that Lucille brags about.”
“Warfighter. We call ourselves warfighters.”
“Okay. Listen, Mr. Warrior, I’m going to go take a shower and then nap for an hour.”
“Of course. Yeah, sure!” I sputter, plucking up the coffee cups and hustling to the sink.
I hear her in the bathroom, showering. Real life being less adventurous than in the movies, I don’t go join her in the shower. As much as I might want. Maybe she would like that…? Probably not. I’m certainly not going to invade her personal space. Not without a big, honking invitation.
Whoa! She comes marching into the kitchen wrapped in an enormous striped bath towel. “Listen!” she tells me. “Wake me when El Ricardo makes an appearance.”
I’m this close to suggesting that I give her a full-body massage, but Evangeline, bless her unsuspecting little heart, has already sauntered innocently down the hall and disappeared into the bedroom in the back. Leaving me lusting after thin air.
What is wrong with this picture? At loose ends, I rummage in the storeroom, find a vacuum cleaner and an extension cord, and proceed to vacuum the inside and the trunk of my car. It’s freezing outside. I tell myself I am growing soft and need to embrace the cold to get back in shape.
“Prosit, cous’, what’s up?” Richie shouts gaily, cycling up the driveway on a black, aluminum frame 14-speed racing bike. Bundled up in long pants and a dark green ski parka, he hops to the pavement and peels off his canary yellow bike helmet. Dark green and gold, colors of the Green Bay Packers. “Has the angel come home yet?” he asks, giving me a sardonic look.
“Yeah, she’s sleeping,” I grunt, blushing.
“Well, that’s not very sociable,” he comments tartly.
“Hey! She was tired,” I exclaim, aware how crazy it sounds that I am coming to her defense.
Richie gives me a long, penetrating look. Then he shrugs and rolls his bike into the garage.
We eat a turkey dinner that can’t be beat. Gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, it makes me glad I came. The lady of the house and I exchange pleasantries, avoiding eye contact, while Richie sits at the head of the table, pontificating about the state of the country under El Trumpo. “What happens in Mexico should stay in Mexico,” he announces. “Will I be deported for driving a Dodge Caravan? Is the Dodge Caravan what President Trump is so upset about? If not, is Dodge going to sue the Prez for slander and defamation of character? Stay tuned, folks!”
What’s the difference between Richie online and off? Not much! “Hatred is a two-way street,” he assures us. “What goes around, comes around.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” I acquiesce, tired of his endless nattering.
“I’m biased, but I would give myself an A+ for that latest podcast,” he claims, still yapping after dinner, sitting in a wing chair under the glare of a floor lamp in his orange-painted living room. Thumbing through his mail, he mutters, “Family outings, family innings, who are these people?” He doesn’t look happy. I hear the clatter of Evangeline washing dishes in the kitchen. “There’s no collusion between my podcast and the big drug companies,” he informs me. “Although it wouldn’t surprise me if they use nanotechnology to spy on us.”
“Say what?”
“The drug companies. They put micro transmitters in their medications. When we swallow them, they can monitor the signals to spy on folks,” insists my host.
Conspiracy theories, anyone? “Keep the drapes closed,” I suggest.
“When I visit Queens, they use GPS to track my location.”
“What’s in Queens?”
“The pusher man. My drug dealer.”
Richie smokes two joints in ten minutes. “I’m bogarting this doobie,” he points out. “That’s impolite.” Solicitous as always, he offers me the opportunity to partake. Since I stopped doing dope 30 years ago, while struggling to overcome a bout of hepatitis, I no longer stay abreast of the new strains of weed or even which states allow recreational versus medical marijuana. I think I saw on the news that two dispensaries in Massachusetts are going to begin the sale of recreational Mary Jane. Pot heads of the world, rejoice! Is Richie paranoid from smoking weed or is Richie using weed to sooth an ego stoked in paranoia? Maybe a little of both. Wobbly on his feet, he excuses himself to go to the bathroom. Never to return? I find him spread eagle on his bed, skunked, snoring to beat the band.
“Richie’s gone to La La Land,” I dutifully report to Evangeline in the kitchen.
“He does that every night,” she assures me. “Open the doors and windows. I’m tired of getting wasted on his second-hand smoke.”
Gawking at her, I do as the lady says. It’s, like, four degrees outside. Blasts of Arctic air freshen up the house real fast, clearing our heads and our sinuses.
“Help me with this comforter,” she requests, drying her hands and untying a red polka dot apron. She and I haul out a big, patchwork comforter that more or less matches her purse. Same manufacturer. Spreading it on the living room floor, I assume it is my bed for the night. “Brr-r-r-r,” exclaims Evangeline. “Let’s get under the cover until we warm up.”
Did I hear her right? “Did you just say what I think you said?” I ask. I examine her rueful smile, her chinos, her sweater and her bare feet. Listen, she doesn’t need to ask me twice. We kind of melt into each other’s arms and kiss luxuriously. She tastes like gravy and peach cobbler. Yum! We end up on the floor, wrapped inside the comforter, the two of us as hot and delicious as tacos. We cannot seem to stop kissing, our tongues deep inside each other’s mouths. Her hands are all over me. I shove mine up under her sweater and knead her breasts through her bra.
“Time out! Let me make some adjustments here,” she suggests. Bra, gone. Sweater, gone. Chinos, gone. Down to panties, she strips me bare as well, pausing only momentarily to examine my swollen organ with the tips of her busy fingers. I mean, thank God for checkout girls, they have a real flair for handling produce.
“You wanna go all the way?” she asks innocently.
“Well, that would be up to you,” I reply, but who am I kidding?
Throwing off the comforter, Evangeline trots to the bathroom to prepare. Returning, beaming joyfully, she lets me ride her. She is round and muscular in all the right places. Amazing lady!
“Oh, hey! What the fuck…” mumbles my cousin, appearing bleary-eyed in the hallway, holding the wall for support.
“Hi, Richie!” jeers Evangeline.
“Hiya, cous’,” I add, literally caught with my pants down. Deep inside Evangeline, I am not going anywhere.
Richie looks kind of cross and confused, but our view is peculiar since we are looking up at him from the level of the floorboards.
These things happen.
Richie goes into the bathroom and that’s the last we see of him until long after we are finished. I assume he went back to bed.
Evangeline and I lie in each other’s arms under the comforter. “You and I got nothing in common,” she observes in a frank New Jersey accent. “I’m a disciple of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.”
“I know nothing about that. Truth be told, I don’t know how you can put up with my cousin.”
“You invitin’ me to move to Maryland?” she asks, pulling away to peer at me inquisitively.
“We’d probably drive each other crazy,” I point out.
“That’s what I mean.”
“Still, there are grocery stores in Maryland,” I suggest.
“Naw, I don’t want to live in Maryland. I’d be a fish out o’ water,” she decides matter-of-factly.
“It’s a lot different than New Jersey,” I have to admit.
“Well, let’s do this thing one more time while we’re at it,” she proposes.
We get back to work, bathed in sensual delight.
My screwball cousin is a world class idiot! He’s got a gem here and he’s too preoccupied to notice. Shame on him!
So, life goes on, even under Trump.
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