Duke of Con Dao

Big Kahuna of NYPD White Shirts

2011-11-15T09:16:00.001-08:00

The Attack of the Great White!

The Contagion of Poo

2011-09-25T22:24:00.000-07:00

During the last decade the collective psyche of the American people was whipsawed first by actual terrorist activities and then later by the soul killing fear of such activities. Such public pressure lead to a presidential finding that stated that terrorists when captured no matter if on the field of battle, or at a falafel shop, or in sundry airport lounges or even at the odd public crèche such participants would be designated illegal enemy combatants and confined without the protections of the Geneva Convention.

When news of such reprisals reached my ears it got me pondering certain naïve and rambunctious activities of my youth that not only thrust me into a similar circumstance but nearly got me labeled with that most unwanted of monikers – terrorist. Here is my story condensed for the sake of brevity and kept factually inaccurate to protect those totally uninvolved.

When I was twelve I was obsessed with blowing things up. The origin of this impulse is seems to have coincided with the time I first heard the words Big Bang and later with the first delivery of model rockets from the Estes Corp. Limited in funds I bought rockets from the Estes’ Defender series which were serviceable lift vehicles with good payload capabilities. Initially, I only fired unmanned space shots. But it wasn’t long before I started shooting skyward small animals against their wishes to altitudes hostile to their evolutionary experience. Few I found upon their return to Earth had the right stuff. The majority after their air kiss with the the stratosphere returned to terra firma with their brains scrambled. Yet I remained undeterred and remained dogged in my pursuit by way of an increasingly aggressive launch program.

The program came to a screeching halt one day after a huge public outcry.

Neighbors had renounced me before the ASPCA. The thrust of their charge was that I had subjected innocent animals to the harrowing effects of terminal escape velocity. With finger to the political wind the aldermen of my town quickly assembled a tribunal of inquiry.

On judgment day I was sitting in the anteroom of the old courthouse when I was visited by my parish priest Father Leo Conti aka ‘The Count’ who reeked redolently of rosemary and myrrh.

“My son,” he said gravely, “I will say a novena for your soul.” His solemn pledge was followed by a gurgling incantation. Before I was able to do a loose translation in the Latin Vulgate Leo the Lion bolted out the door with a flourish of his cape followed by a trailing wake of powdery dandruff that danced the Brownian twist in the silvery rays of the sun.

When I finally took the stand a few hours later I pointed out that my neighbors’ charge was not only absurd but factually inaccurate since my space shots had never reached speeds necessary for terminal escape velocity. If that had occurred I vouchsafed to the panel the structural integrity of the capsule would have been compromised by excessive G forces and its passenger atomized. To the best of my knowledge none had ever returned to the planet reduced to a collection of atoms readily pourable from a cup.

But my pleas were lost on deaf ears that day. Unlike some East coast towns my sleepy burg never benefitted from being a drop off point for Nazi rocket scientists smuggled in by national intelligence services. Few if any had ever heard of my boyhood hero Werner von Braun or were cognizant of the great advances von Braun had made in rocketry and telemetry capped off by the launch of Bob the monkey aboard a V-2 rocket on June 14, 1949.

Under a signed consent decree I was therefore ordered by the weight, majesty and dint of law to find another outlet for my passion

And find it I did.

While passions come in a myriad of forms mine had metamorphosed into the shape of dog shit, oddly. I had invented a game called toady-fly. Its name was derived from that of a toady whose job requirements were to assist medieval snake oil salesmen in their tout and when demanded eat a toad on the spot; ‘fly’ needs no explanation.

The rules were simple, really. First, huddle with ones pals in a tight scrum-like formation around a pile of dog feces; organically acquired with no harm to the dogs. Second, insert into harvested excrement a short wicked firecracker. Three, strike a match to the wick, and Four, run as if your life depended on it!

The game’s losers were determined by the breadth and length of the splatter signatures across their backsides.

I should have left well enough alone and let the game remain in its crude, original form. But I was its inventor and hell-bent on improving it. One approach involved stuffing the volatile mass with aluminum foil blast deflectors while another included the marrying of it to homemade gunpowder. It wasn’t long before such advancements outstripped the innate human capacity for avoidance not unlike what happened when the machine gun, tank and mustard gas were introduced on the battlefields of World War 1. No matter the strategy employed there was no safety to be found in my neighborhood.

Yet I remained obsessed with finding that thing which dares not speak its name in polite company - the perfect kill ratio. Numerous technical approaches were tried but soon rejected due to their inadequacy. Dejected I was about to give up on my quixotic dream until that fateful day when I watched mom hard boil eggs. There was my answer in its white eggyness hovering above our kitchen’s faux Tuscan tiles. Something as simple as an egg’s shape inspired me to devise an ovoid shaped explosive blanket that was by an order of magnitude far more powerful than anything I had yet imagined.

In my version of Trinity Day I wanted to ape Oppenheimer and utter the words from the Bagavad Gita in Sanskrit. But a copy of it, even in English, was not to be found in my sleepy town. A neighborhood activist named Orville Umpfleet, founder of the local SDS chapter of which he was its lone member, loaned me a book of Hare Khrishna chants which I found if read out loud quickly sounded like a Pentecostal church revival in the tongue of Sanskrit.

The effect of the blast that day surpassed even my crude calculations. I had mishandled the calculus nearly as badly as Schrödinger when he miscalculated the H function and blew his cat into a state of linear superposition where it found itself both alive and dead simultaneously. My bad math caused the fecal mass first to implode and then explode into a perfect flaming arch across the settling twilight. It was followed by a silvery mica ash that drifted down from the clouds which some thought resembled the fallout seen in 1950’s propaganda photos of Chinese cobalt atomic bomb tests. Whereas, no radiation poisons visited the town that day it wasn’t so lucky dodging the thrall of a salmonella outbreak.

Soon state health investigators descended on the town like biblical locusts and a health emergency declared. I was forced to go underground. Before doing so I hid my secrets cryptographically using the small comic strips found in Bazooka Joe bubblegum as the basis for my one time pads. Once encoded I repackaged them in other bubblegum pieces and safe-housed them in a cereal box of Count Chocula..

I laid low for a month but finally came out of hiding under the delusion of a false thermidor; a mistaken belief that the inspectors were decamping. One morning right after my breakfast cereal two grim faced men attired in matching trench coats and fedoras nailed me in front of my bedroom door. They announced sotto voce that they were from the Atomic Energy Commission.

“A spectrograph analysis of the bomb signature gives us reason to believe you were behind the blast,” spat out Philby, the tallest of the pair.

I played it cool. Not only was plausible deniability was on my side I was also underage.

The agent continued, “We did a collateral damage assessment and what we found wasn’t pretty,” he said, spitting out the words acidly. “Yeah,” added Burgess, the shorter of the pair, “what kind of human being would subject his own playmates to a game called toady-fly?”

“Toady-fly a.k.a. Poop Shoots!” barked Philby, “a sadistic monster, that’s who!”

They threatened to hold me incommunicado until I cracked. But a few moments later fortune smiled when mom called me downstairs for dinner. “Fellas, looks like this conversation must wait another day,” I said snapping back an illusory brim.

“You’re lucky they don’t have a juvenile court at The Hague or we would run you up on war crimes under the Geneva Convention,” Burgess hissed. He sidled in so close I could feel his five o’clock shadow and it wasn’t even ten in the morning. “You can’t find refuge behind the youth card forever kid because in matters of national security we have quite a big stick. And we’ll use it dinner or no dinner!”

“We shall return,” they said in unison, tipping their fedoras on the way out. And return they did much like MacArthur returned to the Philippines when the locus of the war had moved elsewhere.

They appeared in my school yard during the middle of a kick ball game. For once due to the rash of food poisonings I was picked to play. But the excitement was short lived when they pulled me off the field right in the middle of a game

“FBI lab tests at Quantico matched the fecal material produced by one of your assets.”

I raised an incredulous eyebrow.

“Your dog.”

“He’s a free agent, perhaps a rogue one at that,” I answered unsteadily, “I can’t vouch for him.”

“So, you disavow knowledge of your own dog?” demanded Philby.

“Just his behavior… who knows what he does when he’s not eating or sleeping,” I pleaded, glancing nervously toward the school house door. “Look, fellas… you’ve got me all wrong!”

“Don’t depend on anyone saving you this time, buddy boy,” sneered Burgess.

Philby moved in closer. “Before we leave… there’s just one more thing,” he said in a voice pregnant with conspiracy.

From inside a flap in his trench coat he pulled out a piece of Bazooka Joe bubblegum. He held it so close to my face I could smell its sugary promise. The G-Man slowly unwrapped it waxed paper swath by waxed paper swath seducing me with each bump and grind of bubble gum reveal. Tucked cleverly under the comic wound around the gum packed inside the wrapper was a small slip of paper similar in size to what Heisenberg passed to Bohr in Copenhagen in 1939. On it instead of Heisenberg’s crude drawing of an atomic pile was drawn the following:

[a picture of an egg followed by a complex formula]

They had me dead in the water!

But now, I wondered, what were they going to do with me? And more importantly was he going to share that gum?

Stuffing the evidence back in the pocket of his trench coat Philby grabbed my left elbow and guided me to a shaded cul de sac a block away where both men raised their verbal threats level. Words like trial, banishment, excommunication, auto-da-fé and even stoning were used as verbal truncheons to beat me around the head with until I yelled out in agonized desperation, “Are you going to try me or gum me to death?”

The question deflated their testosterone fueled rage momentarily.

The agents could least afford an open trial exposing as it might their sources and methods. And a secret trial was not in the cards since the legality of such would have to wait until the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Security Act some many years hence. And while there existed other unsavory black bag tactics they knew the country was in no mood for them and had not the energy with the Vietnam War winding down and Nixon on the verge of resignation to bear another scandal especially one centered on a teen-aged boy whose bomb miniaturizations were giving famed A-bomb designer Ted Taylor of Los Alamos apoplectic fits.

Exasperated Burgess cried out, “Why can’t you have normal problems like other boys your age… you know booze or drugs! This is America for Chrissakes!”

Pressed for time and pressured to bring the case to closure by superiors they offered me a Hobson’s choice. Give up my mad bomb schemes or else I’ll find myself enrolled against my wishes at the notorious Father Gibault’s School of Christian Brotherhood. Giboo as it was called was a precursor to our modern day Gitmo in Cuba. It was rumored that Giboo had received a secret dispensation from the Supreme Court allowing it to disregard the Bill of Rights and also given the right to mete out cruel and unusual punishment without reprisal. Teenagers under their care would no longer be considered teenagers legally and would be redefined into a new group called homo nullius.

“No way my parents would send me to Giboo.”

“Burgess here already talked to your old man about it,” he replied slyly. “On a Marine to Marine basis. Just like the draft an underage kid has no choice,” he added tauntingly.

“Last chance kid… so what’s it going be? You goin’ jettison force vectors and find a new hobby?”

“Like girls…” Burgess replied mockingly.

“Or face time at Gibault? Once incarcerated even your parents can’t get you out. I heard of one sad case where the parents changed their minds and sued but the case was handled ex parte.”

“Ex parte what…?”

“It means no right of habeas corpus. You rot in Giboo while the courts figure it out… very Lincolnsque.”

And with that in mind and my face seizing up into a rictus I rode home in the back of their black sedan apprehensively.

Throughout the night I held firm but caved to their demands the next morning when my usual bowl of Frosted Flakes went missing. Napoleon once said: “my men can suffer torture, their medals can be stripped away but dare not relieve them of their breakfast cereal!”

Late in the day I was hustled off by Burgess and Philby in their black sedan to the church rectory where Father Conti met us at the door encased in a mummy smoke suit of frankincense. He escorted us into the anteroom of the sacristy or what became more commonly known a decade later as ‘weenie heaven’ when it was first enunciated by cognoscenti in the Vatican speaking to the press ex cathedra and found sub rosa in numerous lawsuits filed against it.

“My son,” the Count said gravely, “I will say yet another novena for your soul.”

I signed a document witnessed by the Count thrust at an odd angle under my nose that bound me to absolute secrecy until either of two conditions were met: my rocketry knowledge reached technical obsolescence or thirty years passed. The agreement was so complex that only three people ever fully understood it. Now, of that three thirty years later, one is dead, the other has gone mad and as for me I’ve forgotten everything except this:

Bombs are easy, girls are hard!

Duke of Con Dao (c)

Surbani e Hillbilli

2011-09-24T18:57:00.000-07:00

Every year the Pope dressed in miter and cassock delivers his Urbani e Orbis message to the world in the Queen's Latin.

Here I will attempt something of similar vein yet far more down market, that is, lacking both the vestments and fancy Latin locutions but packing nonetheless a change of clean underwear. And not to the world per se but to those within shouting distance of two or three hollers over from my Tennessean encampment.

What did I do at the Big Turn?

I had planned celebrating with a hoedown (see: white, socio-economically disadvantaged class definition of hoe) at my log cabin in Tennessee followed by a once in a lifetime special screening of Death Race 2000. Security, always a concern, forced me to hire a bunch of local, disaffected (and at my wish, disinfected) skinhead youths whose solidarity centered on the usual back woods nihilism, rebel tattoos and thong underwear embossed with the Confederate flag. At first, things went swimmingly. But given that crowd was prone to violence it was inevitable that flare-ups would happen the moment the security force tried to enforce the hoedown rules: 1) everybody must wear shoes, 2) shoes must be tied, and 3) rope belts were forbidden on the hoedown floor.

Rope belts were precluded by an agreement I had signed with Tom Ford of Gucci at the Paris Fall Fashion shows in 1999. He told me that his next epiphany after his retro 70s look was to bring back Hillbilly Chic. I shot him an incredulous look. ‘What?’ he asked, ‘have you forgotten the Uncle Jed lunch boxes or the Granny Clampit glasses?’ He pulled me in close, and spoke sotto voce in rumbling Plattdeutsch, "I see the rope belt as the nexus of my entire collection."

In a preemptive move to avert chaos I had my people inform the crowd that Death Race 2000 (the Movie) was neither : 1) a vehicle starring Burt, or, 2) Cannonball Run (the Movie, parts 1, 2, 4 & 7) or 3) the alternative lifestyle now legally protected in 12 states.

A little refresher course for those unfamiliar with Death Race 2000. The object was to race toward a finish line in a fit of raging testosterone behind the wheel of a stoked muscle car while running things over for points. The scoring system was as follows: kids on bikes 28 points, old people in wheel chairs 39 points with a 10-point bonus kicker in the vicinity of a health care facility. Pedestrians were worth 12 and if you caught them at a PED crossing an extra 15 to 29 points was added to your score depending on the race, religion, sex and politics of the victim. Rounding out the list was rodents for 14 ½ and dogs & cats 10.

For sake of brevity I will refrain from opining on the remark these days in wide circulation amongst the intellectual set that DR 2000 shares an existential dread to that of ‘You Want to be a Millionaire?’

The star of the movie was a black leather hooded and caped David Carradine in a tour de force role that Cahiers du Cinema praised as "a slam dunk to the ash heap of history every acting theory ever to pop from Lee Strasberg’s large forehead". One of Carradine's objectives in the race was, in a unique post-modernist plot twist, to run over then Governor of California Ronald Reagan. If accomplished he would receive 169 points and be allowed to drive intoxicated for one hour with all of his scoring during that time quadrupled. And, mind you, this was a movie made in 1972! I get goose pimply (frisson) all over thinking of how many points Ron would have been worth if the movie had been made say around the time of Iran-Contra. (John Hinckley, eat your heart out!)

As for Cannon Ball Run parts 1-4,11 & 27? It starred Burt, as in Burt Reynolds. Need I say more?

Unfortunately, the distribution company had only one existing print that was on its way to the American Museum of the Moving Picture for a Jan. 1 showing.

Those Fucks!

They did offer in its place "It's a Wonderful Life" in its original silver nitrate release print. But later withdrew it when they got wind of an arcane plot to steal it for its raw materials for use in a Tennessee meth-amphetamine factory.

The outcome? My invited hillbilly guests were not happy. They wanted to do to me what they did to Ned Beatty in "Deliverance".

Sounds like a sequel, I said, trying vainly to find a silver lining in that dark cloud. No, they said, it’s an homage.

Ok, that sounded less painful than a total rip-off.

Question: is my voice register high enough to squeal like a pig?

Deliverance also starred Burt in yet another seminal acting role. A role mind you that paved the way for Jim Varney's thespian experimentation in his iconic Duchampian characterization as Ernest in his multiple road pictures.

So what did I do? Got the hell out of Dodge and headed for Italy. Which begs this question. Why are our toilet seats oval shaped and theirs rectangle shaped? Perhaps their backsides are more elongated. After all, it's no accident that Giacommeti hailed from Italy and not here.

Before I had a chance to complete Part 2 of the letter I received the following responses.

One Bird Goswick wrote the following: "Goddam you Yankee! I saw Death Race 2000 and nowhere in the movie does Ronald Reagan appear.”

My answer: Right you are sir. I stand corrected. I confused Death Race with another movie from around the same time - Rat Race 2000. I am positive Governor Reagan had a cameo in that picture. I believe my parents Bud and Martha who attended the 1972 Governors Conference in Palm Springs, CA had a chat with the Reagan's over this very topic - either in Walter Annenberg's rumpus room or in his subterranean grotto modeled in its Baroque homage to his friend Hugh Hefner. Reagan believed to his dying day that if not for the near simultaneous release of the movies plus their nearly identical titles his 'race" movie would have done boffo box office.

Another letter was of a different vein entirely. It was a perfumed letter on cream colored cotton bond and bore in its upper left corner a small gold staff insignia signifying the Pontiff. The letter was from his lawyer Jacob Mayerling who was speaking for the Pope ex cathedra – a practice frowned upon since Pious the Ninth but well within the Pope’s rights sub rosa transubstantiation. Mayerling informed me that I was enjoined by the Holy See henceforth from further use of the Pope's name, his likeness, reproduction of past dance cards, witty one-liners lifted from Papal bulls, or any remarks implying that the Pontiff was a man foreign to personal hygiene. (I quote, "while it may be true that lower orders of the Church and their minions, monks, priests and monsignors have a reputation for lacking poorly in proper hygiene this Pope is a shining exception to the rule. The Holy Father is, in a phrase: a mean clean preaching machine")

A week later in lieu of a letter I got a call from Opus Dei. Yes, that very same sinister, shadowy organization believed in some quarters – Metallica being one - to be the puppet master of the Holy See. The AT&T operator much to their chagrin kept referring to them as Opie Day. It was a tortured conversation of which I gleaned little because one, I nearly choked to death on the frankincense fumes wafting from the receiver and, two, they spoke mostly in Latin, and the Vulgate form at that - those bastards! At one point I asked for AT&T language assistance but it was of little help, their staff covered an array of languages from Assyrian to Zoroastrian but sadly no Latin.

Tragically, the last two months have seen the death of Jim Varney. A few words of praise for Mr. Varney. Jim single handedly brought back that protean character long missing from American cinema - the nitwit. Jim Carrey recently spoke of Varney in Shmuck 4 a Lifetime magazine as an "entertainer that screwed his face up, around and into dimensions where few faces have gone before. It's a pity that I haven’t had the chance to play him in a movie instead say that asshole Andy Kaufman. Did I say that?"

Happy Gitmo or Git Mo'Me Outta Here!

2011-04-26T12:50:00.000-07:00

May 5, 2003: Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

The prisoner was busily hunched over a sheaf of papers when the guard rapped his nightstick across the bars of his cell door.
   “Hey you!” he yelled. “Let’s go, the colonel wants to see you on the double!”
   The prisoner gave him a smoldering, contemptuous look. “With all that racket outside I thought today, for once, you might give that tired routine a rest.”
   “Right Abdul, how insensitive of me. Guess Cinco de Mayo’s not a big thing over in Iraq but here at Camp X-ray it’s parrr-ttt-eee time!," barked the guard.
   "It's the one day of the year we get to fraternize with the foreigners outside the wire... 'dem Cubans really know how to party!, " he added, shaking his head in wonderment.
   The guard notices the prisoner clutching some papers. “Hey, what’s that you working on?”
   “Words… just words!”
   The guard threw him a hard stare.
   “Words that might move humanity towards a higher moral purpose,” replied the prisoner with an air of moral superiority. “I call it A Letter from a Guantánamo Jail." The prisoner paused for effect. "Has a nice ring to it wouldn’t you say?”
   “Ok smart ass, let’s go,” demanded the guard. He crossed the cell’s threshold and yanked some pages from the prisoner’s shackled hand, “Lemme look at that.”
   His beady eyes scanned the pages. “Hey, you’ve written only one line!”
   “Corporal,” the man shot back, “do you think with all the interruptions, interrogations and all that messing about with my head King or Mandela could have done any better?”
   A sour look filled the guards face as if he had been punched in the stomach. “Didn’t stop Hitler did it!” He glanced at the papers once more.
   “Who’s this John Malkovich?”
   “An actor and great humanitarian who’d be quite sensitive to my current predicament.”
   “Horseshit Ahmed.” The guard tossed a pair of shoes to the orange jumpsuit clad prisoner. “Put ‘em on. Gotta get you over to the Colonel el pronto.”
   Shoes, he thought, since his arrival he had yet to fathom the mystery of why they kept him more shoeless than even baseball great Joe Jackson.
                                                                  ...
   The prisoner, dripping in a finery of chains not seen since the days of Torquemada, was frog marched to an interrogation room on another level whose central inspiration with its all tile and stainless steel décor owed much to an airport bathroom. He was seated and then chained to the long end of a wood grain linoleum covered table. Within minutes Colonel Gaius Petroleus bolted through the door accompanied by what looked to be a battalion of aides. The Colonel was dressed immaculately in blue and gold complete with a riding crop and a hat with miniature friezes of Roman battles set off by an order of scrambled eggs on its brim. The Colonel spent the next several minutes whipping and hacking his way through the throng of SRO military support personnel until he finally came face to face with the chained man.
   “How are you Prisoner 018a7632691-x?” Petroleus asked, sounding slightly befuddled as he studied the dossier in his hand, "Ok, let's start again Prisoner 018ba63902691-xy... ah, screw this! Who's the genius that came up with this god-damned numbering system?"
   One of the aides pressed to his left leaned in and stage whispered, "The numbers are random number generated using a 32 bit matched pair encryption key..."
   The Colonel sliced the air with his right hand. "Cut the bullshit soldier! I wanna know why?"
   "Security, sir. It deprives Al Qaida of actionable intel," he replied smugly, "breaching prisoner's IDs at the top of their list."
   The commanding officer shot his aide a dripping look of incredulity.
   "Screw it," he barked, "you don't mind me calling you by your name Ibn Khaldoun?"
   "I am known throughout the land as Ibn."
   "So Abu, how are you?"
   “Shoes could use a little stretching but other than that… ”
   “I’ve got to hand it to you... you really had us going there for awhile.”
   The prisoner raised his left eyebrow silent movie style.
   “For a nano-second field ops thought they had captured the Big Kahuna himself.”
   The prisoner's mind flash-backed to a scene the previous month when he was strolling along the streets of Baghdad on a Sunday spring day. So focused was he that he failed to notice that he was dressed to the nines in full strongman regalia. Imprudent, in hindsight, given that the city had fallen on Friday. .
   "You mean the moment I was nabbed by your so-called coalition forces of infidel dunces?"
   The Colonel smiled like a thirsty hyena. “Payback is a harsh mistress and public payback is the harshest of all... did I ever tell you that cautionary tale involving a stripper in Clarksville?”
   The prisoner bobbed his head wearily.
   “Understand Colonel, it was only a few days after wrapping my last scene. I was still in character, unfortunately for me. But it’s not like your troops were the brightest bulbs in the tool box!”
   Petroleus's smile collapsed into a hard rictus.
   “Without the deck of cards your soldiers didn’t have a clue," said the prisoner with a hint of mockery, "One sergeant held a single card up to my face and screamed ‘Yep, that’s Saddam! Whoo-hoo the ace of spades! “
   “You could’ve given them a hint.”
   “And what, be a traitor to my profession?”
   “Omar, can’t say you didn’t have your chance. Remember that years from now when you’re rotting here at the gulag on the bay!”
   The sound of an operatic sigh filled the room.
“Goddamn High Command drove that deal. So set on giving Rummy a birthday surprise," he snorted, "Hell, when your DNA tests came back a big negatory boy, you should've seen the up close and personal knife fighting in Defense that day!”
   He rose from his chair and paced the room with the nervousness of a caged animal. After a few minutes he moved in closer to the chained man and jammed his right fist into his other palm.
   “Who are you? I want the truth!”
   “You can’t handle the truth!”
   I’ve heard that line somewhere, the colonel thought to himself.
   “Try me!”
   A torrent of words poured from the prisoners mouth.
   ”Please, slowly. From the top, Mohammed,” said Colonel Petroleus.
   Composing himself the prisoner began anew, “It was late February. I was up in Qut preparing for a role that I thought would be perfect to re-ignite my sagging career.”
   “Your career was in the crapper?”
   “As low as Elvis’s after the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan.”
   The Colonel’s face brightened. “Oh yes! The King! Have you ever heard me do my impression of Elvis?”
   Oh Allah, the prisoner thought, save me from this infidel.
   Petroleus took a few steps towards the middle of the room, loosened the belt of his pants and crouched his body into the tight coil of a man about to engage in a karate fight.
   “The image is one thanng ha ha ha an’ the man’s annutha!”
   Gaius turned to the prisoner for kudos but heard nothing, not a sound. Deja-vu, he thought, staring at the prisoner, I know that look of induced coma. I've seen it at water boarding sessions. Could it be, he mused, that Elvis just might be Al Qaeda's Achilles heel?
   “C’mon give it up Attaturk!”he bellowed.
   The prisoner rattled his chains just enough for a thin smile to spread across the Colonel’s face.
   The colonel grabbed the dossier and gave it a hasty scan. “Let’s see… where were we… ah, yes… your acting. Odd, I see no mention of it.”
“I played it real stealth like. One doesn’t sashay Sayyid Qutb’s name about loosely.”
“Qutb? You mean that rat bastard radical Islamist and intellectual-spiritual leader of Al Qaeda?”
“Look the man had a few flaws but that’s no reason to condemn him outright,” replied the prisoner defensively. “Did you know early in life he was trained as a song and dance man?”
   “A song and dance..!” spat the Colonel. “A terrorist by any other name Rahman is still a terrorist in my book…”
   “Why Qut?
   “Where else to flesh out Qutb’s character but in Qut?
   Gaius wasn’t buying it and gave him an icy stare.
   “In February I received an urgent request that I drop by Baath Party headquarters in Qut. Due to ambiguities in the Qut dialect I thought it was an invitation for one of those swank hot tub affairs that put the town on the map when Alexander rolled in. Instead of being met at the door by buxom girls in diaphanous gowns I was met by two surly, smelly men who lead me into another room by the cinch of their cold steel knife blades under my neck.”
   “So, what did they do… have their way with you Deliverance style,” interjected Petroleus, “or force you to have sex with a goat?”
“’What the hell happened to you?’ they demanded in unison. The party boss in the back of the room stood slack jawed in amazement. He alternated his withering stare from my face to the headshot he held in his hands.”
   “Life under UN sanctions hasn’t been easy. Everyday I miss my shipments of foie gras and sumptuous white slave girls but,” he screamed, “that’s no excuse…!”
   “Did you bother to read my dossier?”
   This caused a lot of teeth gnashing and head scratching displacing in the process a few rotten incisors and a small army of head lice.
   “The Method. Draw a straight line from Stanislavski via Lee Strasberg to my training at the Saddam Institute of Drama and Skullduggery,” I added haughtily.
   “Method, I don’t know,” screamed the first man, pounding his fist into the wall, “First and foremost you’re a Saddam impersonator and you must never, ever, ever let the method never trump the man!”
   “Let’s cut his tongue out,” came a voice from somewhere in the cheap seats.
   “Let’s cut off his ears,” chimed in another.
   “Hold it right there Zubaydah Zubayday!,” demanded the Colonel, “cut to the chase, man.”
   Lucky for me their leader a man called Quinsay waved them off.
   “So, tell me about him.”
   “He was different from the rest. The others to a man all sported that same look - the heavy set beard compounded by a facial expression that indicated the discovery of fire was not to distant in their past.”
   “Go on…”
   The prisoner shifted in his chair, rattled his chains a bit and then continued: “It was also the cut of his clothes that set him apart. He was a bit of a dandy. Not an easy thing to pull off in Iraq. The mark of any civilization really comes down to the question as to whether your people can turn out a decent pair of trousers, doesn’t’ it?”
   “Interesting philosophical point,” the colonel replied. “Why so much time in the outback?”
   “Twenty years ago when I graduated from the Institute I had the kind of heat you couldn’t buy in Baghdad with all the oil money of Syria. I was signed by famed impresario Sayeed Cohn and given a lead role in an out town try-out in Karbala.”
   “Karbala?” muttered Petroleus.
   “Like your Boston or Chicago, a place to iron out the kinks. My performance had people literally dancing in the streets. Not long after we opened in Baghdad. For the next fifteen years my every move was followed by the town’s chattering classes. But then alas came the Big Slump. I was barely able to subsist on that interminable string of bit parts tossed my way. Last year I tried a comeback and mounted a stage adaptation of Democracy in America.”
   “You did what?” barked the Colonel.
   “I directed and starred in de Tocqueville’s master work. Very avant garde, I assure you,” he replied with a superior air, “but with high art there’s bound to be problems.”
   “Problems, like what Abu Nobu?”
   “For starters the title. The censors replaced all but three letters with asterisks. Those butchers told me this was the usual practice of the New York Times. It played hell with the ad campaign.”
   “And then out of the blue I got a visit from Saddam’s secret police. They threatened to cut out or cut off my tongue or ears or both. While they were trying to decide their next move by engaging in a tag team wrestling match complete with steel cage Otay, Saddam’s son, arrived backstage. He proceeded not only to shower me with accolades but a fine spray of spittle to boot.”
Colonel Gaius Petroleus sliced the air with his hand Kennedy style. “Otay? His name doesn’t appear in my briefing book… are you sure it was Otay?”
   “Otay is to Saddam Hussein what Neil was to George Herbert Walker Bush - a secret best kept hidden in the attic.”
   The prisoner rattled his chains once more before speaking, “Instead I was banished from Baghdad and forced to take my act on the road.”
   “Beats losing an appendage,” offered the Colonel.
   He let out a doleful sigh. “Maybe..."
   "But you don’t know what hell is until you do summer stock in Tikrit in the winter!”

   Just then the door burst open and in rushed the corporal or at least he tried to rush in but Petroleus's phalanx of aides slowed it to a crawl. The hallway behind him was bathed in a pulsating red light as raspy voiced commands barked rat-tat-tat over the loudspeakers.
   “Colonel, sir, the prisoners are monkeying around again with the excrement," he said, saluting crisply.
   "We’ve got a Fec-Con 4 on our hands!”
   “Talk to me boy.”
   “Sir, we’ve got a piss n' shit lock down on three!”
   “What the fuuuccckkk?" he bellowed, "we had intel and a battle plan in place. First, hit 'em hard with the Exlax and double their water rations for the purge and then cut 'em off high and dry." The colonel shot the enlisted man a withering look of disbelief.
   “Guess the boys in cell block three didn’t get the memo," he answered sheepishly, “I brought this poncho for the prisoner.”
   Gaius Petroleus got right up into the corporal's face, nearly nose to nose, his face flushed crimson.
“Do I look like I have shit for brains corporal?" he screamed, "Son, there's a real shit storm brewing out there and I'm gonna make damn sure I got my ass covered." And with that he grabbed the poncho out of the enlisted man’s hand, threw it over his shoulders and then turned to the prisoner.
   "Prisoner Abu Kleenex Box... we'll pick this up next time!”
   The Colonel grabbed his swizzle stick, screwed his hat back on, adjusted its brim with its full serving of ham and eggs, and performed a military retreat of such wondrous gutlessness that everyone in the room after a moment of stunned silence burst into rapturous applause.
Now that, thought the prisoner, smacking his lips lasciviously, is how you exit the stage!
...

12:37 pm
Ten Days Later

The prisoner, clad in an iridescent orange zippered jumpsuit set off by a hot pink Apache scarf and gold band, was sitting in the lunch room searching his pockets for coins for the milk machines. Finding none he leaned over to an unkempt, surly looking fellow sitting to his right who was engaged in grooming his beard with an exactitude that recalled a certain sub-Saharan simian.
"Brother, can you loan me a dime?"
"Do I look like King Abdullah to you?" he replied testily.
"I was just appealing to your sense of Muslim charity..."
The man went back to ginning through his whiskers and culling out lice with an efficiency not seen since Eli Whitney.
The prisoner feeling miffed by the man's curt behavior retorted brusquely, "Did not the Prophet say: 'You shall give alms to the needy, the poor..."
His table mate cut him to the quick: "You dare speak to me of zakat! Stop right there turbinado sugar packet! The Prophet said 'alms'!"
The prisoner gave him a quizzical look. The bearded man responded by reaching into his pocket and slapping a handful of pocket change palm down on the table.
"Does this look like alms to you?"
The prisoner's eyes scanned the small pile of quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies.
"I think, Allah Akbar, the Prophet was speaking figuratively."
"No. The Prophet was clear! Alms... not this pocket trash of an empire in decline," he spat acidly.
"Mere coins... that's all, my brother of the faith."
"These aren't coins," he snarled, allowing his fingers to dance languidly across the pile, "they are the painted whores the Prophet forbade us to marry, each a mere five microns of nickel plate, the rest, just base metal," he said, his voice trailing off. Momentarily, he slumped slightly forward and then muttered breathily: "We are debased by that whoreson marriage of reserve currency convenience."
The man's remarks struck a resonant cord in the prisoner. He stood up from the bench and then screwed his body into a compact, misshapen form and his face flushed with a pinkish hue not seen since Elsa Schiaparelli last walked the Earth. "Takes me back it does to the days I trode the boards in the West End," the prisoner rasped in a regally decadent tone, "playing Iago - that beautiful creature of motiveless malignancy!".
Before he continued he affixed his gaze toward a point hovering betwixt the foreground and the background of the lunch room, an area of seeming mystic import sharply delineated by the blue paper and plastic recycling bins. Dropping his register to a sonorous growl he exclaimed:\

"'Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name

A loud staccato blast from an air horn hijacked the moment. A canned, scratchy message started playing over the P.A, white noising out the aural equilibrium that had existed before.
The other man sensing danger grabbed the prisoner by his over gesticulated arm and pulled him to his seat. After he quieted him the man glanced around the room furtively.
"Hey, who do you think you are Kurt Furtwangler?" he hissed, "at X-ray we have a saying: 'loose arms dunk dummkopfs!'"
The prisoner looked befuddled and was about to ask a question when the air horn filled the room with a another series of blasts.
"That's two volleys... nobody gets two volleys!"
"What?"
"Ssshh!" the man ordered, placing is hand over his lips and signaling with his eyes toward the far end of the room.
   The two men watched off in the near distance a heavily armed escort of six men frog march a prisoner down the cross hatched metal corridor running parallel to the room. The prisoner was clad in a fuchsia zipperless jumpsuit bedecked with chrome chains head to foot. The manacled man's eyes were covered by a mask, his ears by headphones, his mouth by a surgeon's mask and his nose something Grouch might have worn on a bad shaving day.
   "So... who's the guy wearing more chrome than a '59 Cadillac?"
The hirsute man squinted under his cupped hand a few moments longer and then slapped his head in disbelief, "Allah Akbar! I can't believe it!"
"That my Muslim brother is the Al Qaeda Camel Clipper!"
"Never heard of him," the prisoner replied, feigning indifference.
"Never heard of the Camel Clipper," he spat incredulously, "perhaps then you know him by his street name - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?"
"No cigar," replied the prisoner, with a hint of boredom. "Why the nose? Seems like overkill to me."
"Not only is he a mass murderer but a world class schemer to boot," the man whispered, "the interro-punks are afraid he'll telegraph his next move to his confederates by any means necessary including snot."
   "What?"
   "Snot... it's the new semaphore."
   "Why would the interro-punks be up in his camel crap so much?"
"You're joking, aren't you? Khalid's feats are known far and wide."
The prisoner wagged his head from side to side.
"He holds the record... not just here but in all the CIA torture chambers in all the world," he answered, with a hint of pride, "for an unbroken one hundred eighty-three consecutive waterboarding sessions without a single snitch!"
One hundred eighty-three times, thought the prisoner, mere child's play when compared with his own records, the knowledge of which he had painstakingly buttonholed to almost every inmate at Camp X-Ray; not an easy thing to do in a camp ruled by Velcro.
   "That's a cheap parlor trick picked off any dime store magician. I knew this actor who held his breath underwater for an entire season playing Houdini."
   The bearded man threw him a look of disbelief.
   "How? The man had to a be fish."
   "Maybe he grew gills... look, Mister Peshmerga or whoever you are I don't delve into other actor's techniques, ok?" he shot back acidly, "that many waterboards, you say, and still going strong?"
   "A real Energizer Bunny, he is. The Muslim Brotherhood in cell block three have covered every bet since the Clipper broke fifty-six. Those Muthas's are making a mint I tell you!"
   "Aren't they those clowns known for throwing shit like zoo monkeys?"
   "Purely a diversionary tactic, I assure you."
   "But, dear brother, isn't that against the Book?"
   "What? Somebody's runnin' another book? Where! Who? Is it that rat bastard Omar Hamzayavich?"
   The prisoner looked furtively to his left and right and then leaned in conspiratorially, and whispered, "The Book." .
   "What... what book?" he pleaded, a sense of alarm shadowing his face.
   "That BOOK!," replied the prisoner pointing his finger towards the aluminum mesh ceiling and then winking. "The one that starts with the letter K... remember?"
   "Oh yes... that Book." he mumbled. Just then he noticed he was being stared at by others in the room. This caused him to jump out of his seat, leap up on the table with the panache of an Errol Flynn and proclaim to no one in particular, "Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!Allah Akbar!"
   When he returned to his seat he leveled his gaze at the prisoner and coolly replied: "Shitting or making book?"
   "Take your pick."
   "Both are against the strictures of the Book but the Prophet in his wisdom allowed for certain dispensations," the man replied, returning to his previous activity of culling his beard for lice.
   The prisoner looked at him questioningly.
   "Firstly, when a man's gotta go he's gotta go. And secondly, gambling is fine as long its done in the cause of jihad. When I say the Brothers are minting I mean they're really minting gold. Gold that will be used to destroy that great temple of satanic evil and smite its Ponzi schemers."
   "Temple Mount... Jerusalem?"
   "No, the Federal Reserve in Washington, DC," he sneered.
   The prisoner shifted nervously in his chair.
   "Now, how about that loan?"
   "What for?"
   The prisoner pointed toward a row of vending machines at the back of the room.
   "Man, I love you like my Muslim brother but no can do..."
   The hirsute man sensing a changing vibe got up to leave.
   "Work those machines into the jihad equation and I can help you," he added, while adjusting the Velcro straps on his chartreuse caftan.
   The prisoner looked up at him, a hint of sadness filling his eyes.
   The man, feeling a tinge of pity for the younger man offered some sage advice : "Look, I suggest you find yourself another, more accommodating book. Ring up the Jews or the Catholics or even the Scientologists." On that note he tied the two ends of his zircon encrusted sash and exited the room.
   Scientology? he thought:
      'Tom Cruise!
      John Travolta!
      A veritable Actor's Studio of the modern era.
      Yes!
      That's it... that's my ticket outta this shithole!'
   In a surge of new confidence the prisoner leaped out of his chair and dashed toward the same door the bearded man just exited through. "Hey! Wait up, old wise and venerable one."

To Be Continued

Channeling the Donald

2011-01-14T11:17:00.000-08:00

One evening twenty-five years ago I was sitting in a bar near Columbia University. Near closing I was approached by a young woman who asked me if I was Donald Trump. Since his celebrity had yet to assume its present day cosmic quality that question seemed not only premature but strangely preternatural.

“I take it you saw my limo outside,” I said in mock outrage, “guess my driver doesn’t understand what park around the side means.”

“Please, I don’t want to get the poor man in trouble… let alone fired!”

“I don’t fire people,” I replied imperiously, “I terminate them!”

She held me in her gaze for a minute before bursting out laughing.

“You had me,” she said, a big smile enveloped her face.”

When I returned home vanity pushed me into studying my facial contours in the mirror. I found that depending on the angle of reflection and the amount of alcohol imbibed I did have more than a passing resemblance to Mr. Trump.

That same year I was interviewed for a news assistant job at the New York Times by Pulitzer Prize winner Sydney Schanberg. So desirous I was of that job that the moment I entered his office on the 10^th floor at 223 West 43^rd I was seized by an animated nervousness usually exhibited by a character in a slasher flick who is soon to die. It didn’t help matters that El Syd - a nickname I gave him shortly thereafter - conducted the interview perched from a very high chair that he admitted was a Times trick at intimidation.

Syd’s strait forward questions I answered with a series of vocal waverings that while not convincing him of my suitability at least tangentially proved out Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. At the end of the interview Schanberg threw in at no expense to me his own tricked-up master class in up close and personal journalism a regimen he called ‘21 Minutes to Perfect Reportage’. I listened to his obsessive prattle in the ever dimming hope I’d be hired.

The rejection call came the next morning. Instead of getting back off the canvas re-setting my goal and striving ahead I did my usual modus operand of falling into a funk of semi-paralysis and going with the flow. The flow was working another year at an interim position in the paper’s Treasury department under psychotic a boss named Joan and her newly hired Quaalude addled cash manager Ng. The board of directors in their wisdom had upped the requirements of my position - an MBA now required - and being bereft of that I was saddled with the task of training Mr. Ng as my replacement. He was a man who possessed one quality I have seen rarely since. Interminable meetings were vestigial of corporate America in the 1980s. No matter the gravity or scope of the meeting he had an uncanny ability to maintain a poker face throughout regardless of the massive amounts of Quaaludes ingested.

“I can’t believe this,” he mumbled one morning, his lips barely moving and his stoic Asian face for once breaking ever so slightly with indignation.

“What?” I asked. He grabbed a sheaf of papers and waved them in my face.

“This… they all are addressed to Nug!... who is Nug?”

“It’s your last name, no?”

“It’s NG!”

“Call corporate… they’ll fix it,” I offered.

“I did weeks ago. Nothing! Somebody’s got it out for me… I’m sure of it! Who do you think,” Ng mumbled again, “Joan or Denise or perhaps that weasel Richard?”

“None. I’m sure it’s just some glitch. Hey, look at it this way…” I replied, “reversed it spells G-U-N. That’s ballsy, no?”

Given his impaired state he considered this for a moment, and then another, and then another finally remarking, “Yeah, that’s cool!”

For the remainder of the year I tried to breach the inner sanctum of the 3^rd floor newsroom but each time I was rebuffed by their demonic gatekeeper, one Ms. Davit. My final attempt was met by a dagger through the heart. She wrote that my skills and experience weren’t commensurate with the requirements of the news clerk position as stated in the Newspaper Guild posting: “that the candidate possess a strong interest in news reporting and the various operations of a news gathering organization.” So, at year end I found myself out on the street and left to my own devices for survival in New York City.

2004

And then some months ago that journalism bug reared its swiveled head and bit me again. Overtaken by this sudden fever of reportorial yearning I ventured forth once more into the city’s bowels to give it a try even though I knew at middle age it would be a tough slog. But after many months of banging my head against the wall trying to get free lance work I was still stuck. Without a portfolio the publishing-powers-that-be wanted nothing to do with me.

My luck changed one day my when one of New York’s smaller publications gave me a shot. The assignment was to get an interview with Donald Trump and discuss his views on his outlook on life, business philosophy, aesthetics, politics, and a grab bag of other topics.

On the appointed day I showed up outside his brass plated gate holding my introduction letter aloft as one might a trophy in my hand. But since my publisher was not on his A-list of New York power brokers and movers and shakers - our house was many letters removed down the food chain - I was treated like any other barbarian trying a similar storm tactic. The gate was slammed shut in my face with the disrespectful clinkety-clank sound of cheap brass.

I knew if I wanted to get into this game I had to find a way to land that interview. And day after day I tried one failing gambit after another. A condition not lost on my diminishing circle of friends. I was about to quit, a familiar state I had come to embrace since my high school days, when Fate stepped in and connected me with a horse tout at my local Off Track Betting parlor on West 72^nd. This strange, impish man who sported a small hump on his left shoulder began our acquaintance by teaching me the art of boxing horses. Laced between this tutorial was the usual small talk where he learned of my predicament.

“I know a fella that might be able to help you out. If you can look by his methods which are quite unorthodox,” he said, his tone darkening slightly, “he does deliver as promised.” He penciled a number on the back of a horseracing ticket, “Call ASAP.”

That evening I called this strange fellow who due to our prior arrangement shall remain nameless throughout the narrative.

When we first met on that appointed evening in an underground parking garage he looked me over with the keen proprietary eye of an antiquarian shop owner.

“Yes… you’ll do…” he said, hesitating slightly, “a bit small in the gait but you’ll do quite fine.”

“You can get me an interview with Donald Trump?” I asked, with a hint of naked ambition.

“No, no… that I can’t do.” Noticing the disappointment that registered on my face he added with a devilish twinkle, “But I can pass on a tip that might be of some help.”

My eyes grew into saucers of anticipation.

“Are you a fan of his television show?”

“I’m not an avid fan but I’ve seen it a few times.”

“Did you notice anything unusual about his hair.”

“No,” I replied, “I can’t say I did.”

He leaned in to me and whispered. “Enhanced.”

“Like breast augmentation?”

He laughed his peculiarly sinister laugh. “No, old school my boy… a toupee,” he replied, dropping his voice an octave, “hand made by a guy name Rocco De Spirito. Here, I’ll write down the address and phone number.”

“No, please don’t bother… I’m sure I can find it on my own.”

“You’ll find it, you say?” the man replied, giving me a sharp sideways glance. “How does one go about finding that which has yet to be named?”

I shot him a dumbfounded look.

“Mr. De Spirito works out of his shop called…,” he said, wincing ever so slightly. “Hmm, it was just on the tip of my tongue… well, at least one of the tips. Ah yes, I’ve got it… Hair Apparent.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks.”

“But that won’t help you, either. For the great mass of New Yorkers Mr. De Spirito is an unknown entity. You see he prefers dealing with a select clientele, the chosen few, if you will. So please, take these directions… otherwise, your search will be as time consuming and fruitless as say Parsifal.”

I studied the note. “So, through this Rocco I can get access to Mr. Trump?”

“Not quite… you’ll have to discover that on your own.”

A perplexed expression crossed my face. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t be so puzzled by the nature of this…” he fired back allowing the last word to roll off his tongue with a snap, “game! Your key to success lies at Hair Apparent.”

The next day I called Mister De Spirito and in my naiveté asked if he could use the good graces of his office to arrange an interview with The Donald.

A long silence ensued. “How’d ya get this number?”

Embarrassed, I hung up immediately. Some days later I was about to give up on the piece and the idea of free lancing altogether until a wicked thought occurred to me. One that would require subterfuge. The scheme that coalesced in my mind was simple yet devious, one I’m sure that would have made LBJ blush approvingly. I was going to borrow one of his hairpieces and hold it hostage until he acceded to my demands for an interview.

I called Rocco at Hair Apparent and told him we needed one of his toupees for Chroma-key testing.

“Chroma-key?” he asked, skeptically.

“The set lighting needs some adjustment.”

“I thought the season was over?”

Thinking quickly I explained I wasn’t calling from the set of The Apprentice but rather from the set of the Visa cash card commercial.

“We need to chroma-key his toupee for the exterior lighting.”

“He never uses that word!”

“What word?”

“That word… in Trump-speak it’s an asset, like everything else he owns.”

Even with address in hand it still took some searching around the back water streets of New York to find his shop ensconced as it was on this dusty street ending in a cul-de-sac. When he met me at the door Rocco displayed the old world manners of a courtier - a man who was quite comfortable gamboling with those of great fame, wealth and vanity. He sized me up, immediately.

“Ah yes,” he whispered, “he spoke of your resemblance. You do look like him albeit in more a toy schnauzer version.”

I was tempted to ask who ‘he’ was but I thought it best to complete the mission at hand. “I’m here to pick up the ‘asset’ we spoke about over the phone.”

He took me to the back room of his shop which contained a large vitrine containing rows of neatly arrayed boxes. Each box bore a strange, hieroglyphic marking that I guessed belonged to some intricate identity scheme dreamed up by De Spirito to protect his customers. I watched him unlock the cabinet’s gleaming silver padlock and open its glass doors. A gust of cool scented air blew across my face.

“Ah ha! Here it is,” he said in a stage whisper.

“The Donald’s asset?”

He nodded reverently. “I have many other clients as you can see from all the vessels in the case but this is a very special piece,” he replied, coughing, “ere… I mean asset.”

“Is it his real hair?” I asked innocently.

Rocco stepped back, a hint of indignation swept across his face. “To reveal that would get me tar and feathered by my Guild brethren!” He paused then asked proudly, “Do you know what makes it so special?”

My head swiveled freely from side to side. Rocco shot me a dark, hooded look before continuing. “It’s sui generis. There’s not a piece on this planet that possesses such a combination of hair weaving and structural underpinnings. The fullness and bounce of it is matchless,” he intoned, his artisanal pride welling up. “I’m sure you couldn’t help but notice its signature look on his TV show?”

“I can’t say I did.”

“It’s gravity defying. Like getting hit by a tsunami of hair.”

“How did you do it?”

“It took Edison ten thousand failures before he discovered how to make a light bulb. I did it under five hundred. That’s not to say that those failed experiments ever walked the streets. Perfection was attained by using a keratin based hair lacquer for lift and shine applied to the hair supported by a girding of load bearing micro-tubes. It’s an approach I might add that was first used by Brunelleschi in the design of his Duomo in Florence.” He pirouetted on his heel and pointed toward the vitrine. “Alas, therein that vessel sadly is the last masterpiece!”

“But The Donald must have others?” I replied.

“Mere second stringers. And as with any great work of art one must be careful with it in public – the paparazzi, the glare of the klieg lights, the hangers-on, etc – and like the Leonardo Codex exhibit it only on special occasions.” Rocco then grabbed me by the arm and led me toward a credenza at the other end of the room. He opened its cabinet doors to reveal a TV/VCR combo and with a quick flick of his wrist popped in a tape marked in hieroglyphs similar to the boxes in the vitrine. The TV screen filled up with the meaty, squinting, self contented face of Donald Trump. He was hawking the next installment of the ESPN World Poker Championship slated for his Taj Mahal casino.

“Look closely. Do you see anything different?” he asked.

I studied the frame for a minute. “Yes, his hair is not quite how I remember it from The Apprentice,” I replied. De Spirito patted me on the back and nodded approvingly. “Good eye, kid! You see that hair has far too much auburn in it,” he spat, barely concealing his contempt, “that mop’s not from this shop!”

“They’re using other toupees… err… I mean assets?”

“Alas, The Donald has no choice,” he replied, turning on his heel and pointing back toward the credenza, “It’s like a violin from Cremona. If I can’t the lacquer formula it can never again be recreated.”

I looked at him with disbelief.

“A long time ago there were three people in the world who knew it. Now one is dead, the other has gone mad and I have nearly forgotten. If I were desperate I would rip it apart in hope of discovering its secrets but that’s akin to smashing up a Stradivarius,” he said, “might just end up with one big hair ball!”

He glanced nervously from side to side and then leaned in conspiratorially. “Don’t breathe a word of this to anybody… especially you know who! In answer to your earlier impolitic question yes, the asset contains a number of his own strands placed strategically to create a sense of verisimilitude.”

“Ahh!” I said, as we both nodded in unison.

But before he was willing to hand over the asset I had to sign various forms in triplicate he thrust under my nose. And then, once the ink was dry, De Spirito handed me the vessel which I placed under my arm with all the care one might gave to say a rare Faberge egg.

to be continued

Deer John

2011-01-10T13:42:00.001-08:00

   Home for Christmas - three words that strike terror into the heart of sane men.
   I had only been home for four days and already I found myself gyrating between two distinct states: boredom or drunkenness. Besides that there was the knife wielding graces of family I had to contend with where each loving member employed in close quarters one of the classic seven knife twist n' thrust positions described in Sir Walter Raleigh's seminal work, 'The Art of the Stab'.
   Even the sputtering and wheezing bonhomie of old friends failed to cheer me up. How many tales pivoting on broken marriages, self -medication excesses, gambling addictions or offspring the result of animal husbandry can one humanly listen to?
   My last few nights there were spent in a futile attempt at escape by driving around the countryside. On the last night I stumbled onto a farm equipment show on old highway 41. Open to novelty I thought why not take a look. Twenty years of New York City living had convinced me that my trailer park past was well behind me.
   I pulled my car onto an adjoining field where each row was tightly packed with a seemingly endless conga line of pickup trucks. After some effort I wedged my rent-a-wreck between a new model truck and an aquamarine '62 Ford pickup with a gaggle of squealing piglets lashed to the back of its crib.
   Once inside the festooned exhibition hall it wasn't long before I was caught in the cross hairs of the hard stare; one evolved not from our mammalian forebears but rather from our fish precursors. Behind the eyeballs were a harvest season's worth of no-nonsense, barrel chested men dressed in waders, boots, overalls, jeans, flannel shirts and your odd green knock off U.S. Masters jacket.
   My attire struck them as of a transgressive nature. The all black ensemble I wore - de rigueur for any velvet roped Manhattan boîte - was heretical to this group whose philosophical lineage mapped back to John Birch and the KKK though both now in decline due to the death of the former's founder and the advent of the fitted percale sheet to the latter. Hanging in the air was a palpable sense that most of them wanted to beat me with sack of pig manure. Off in the near distance I could see a few of them air tracing the contours of my nose. Faced with the question of flee or fight I chose to flee disappearing myself Argentine style into the shadowed gaps between the tractors, combines and tillers on display.
   A loud metal clanging sound filled the hall suddenly. Near the front under the archway stood a huge, red faced man sweating and screaming at the top of his lungs yelled "My piggies!" This sent the crowd into a pandemonium.
   Using the hub-bub as cover I maneuvered myself between the various mechanical contrivances that cut, clawed or chewed the land finally settling on what I thought to be a good hiding place behind an ebony credenza on top of which sat a shining old-fashioned dairy can. Hanging above it was a large green and white semi-gloss poster beckoning people to sign up for the John Deer Agri-Prop Sweepstakes.
   Unlike my grandfather who was obsessed with such contests and entered them with manic frequency followed by a success ratio that bordered on the statistical improbability I possessed none of his DNA and remained agnostic on all things chance. I had nearly turned away when the offer of a free gift caught my eye - a John Deer baseball cap for filling out the sweepstakes form.
    It asked the standard questions with a few new curves - name of the farm, location, tillable acreage and cash crop.
    I filled the last four blanks in with the following: Sheep Meadow Farm, 1West 66^thSt. NYC, 24 and soybeans.
    Fibs all! But I wanted the cap!
   The Call
   Months later in New York City.
     I had completely forgotten about that farm implements show until the day the phone rang.
    "Hello, I am Jacques Legumes and I'm calling on behalf of the John Deer Company," the voice said in an accent of unknown provenance.
    I cut him off instantly. "I'm sorry… not interested," I answered, using that tone crucial to surviving in a world taken over by cold callers.
   "Sir, please don't hang up," he pleaded, "just give me a minute of your time"At first my brain didn't make the connection. But then the right synapses fired and Boom! "Where's my hat?" I demanded.
"What?"
"The baseball cap promised at your farm show."
"I'm not sure what you're talking about but this is much bigger than a hat."
"Make it quick," I said testily.
"How does the grand prize in the John Deer Company's Agri-Prop Sweepstakes grab you?"
   It took a moment to sink in. "What? A Pa… pa… a prize?" I stuttered.
The card I had filled out automatically entered me in the sweepstakes. And by luck of the draw my name was chosen out of more than a million by a process he referred to as a Monte Carlo simulation vetted by the accounting firm Earnest & Old.
   I was dumbfounded. Was it possible that I was actually a winner I wondered. Winner… a noun usually not connected with my name.
"I really am?"
"Yes, you are!"
Overwhelmed with excitement suddenly I blurted out, "So, what did I win… a new car?"
"No," he replied.
"Perhaps a round the world cruise?"
"Not that either."
"How about a vacation home in the Caribbean?"
"No, I'm afraid not. But before I wade into the details I have a few questions." I detected an audible sigh over the line. "Our sweepstakes committee was puzzled over the location of your farm."
My sense of entitlement solid as a glacier minutes before was now melting away quickly torched by my new growing fear. I racked my brain trying to remember what I had written. Luckily, in his next breath he supplied the answer. "Sheep Meadow Farm, wasn't it?"
I suppressed a gulp. "Oh, that farm! You mean my acreage over on West 66^th. You know sometimes with so much tillable acreage under my belt it's hard to keep track."
"So, that is the correct location of your farm?"
"You bethca!"
"Funny, one of my Deer colleagues swears he knows of no farming in that area since Peter Stuyvesant blew town."
"You know the Dutch, famous for being the first to cut and run," I answered nervously.
"Just one more question… what's your current cash crop?" Nothing but silence followed.
I said the first thing that popped into my head, "Corn!"
A long humming sound filled the receiver. "Hmm, seems there's a discrepancy. On the entry form you wrote soybeans."
"Oh, yeah, sure… that was before."
"Before? Hmm, I don't follow."
"I've since rotated out to another crop."
A longer silence. Finally Legumes said, "Smart… a textbook approach to combating nitrogen deficiency."
Under my breath I breathed a sigh of relief. "My daddy always said a man can never have too much nitrogen."
"Well then, on behalf of the John Deer let me be the first to congratulate you as our Grand Prize winner of our award winning model 262 tractor!"
"A tra… trac… tractor," I stammered incredulously.
"Not just any tractor! Your prize is a Jack Deer model 262 - known affectionately as the Juggernaut amongst the farm cognoscenti. It is to farm machines what the Duisenberg was to automobiles. Look under its hood and you will find a twelve cylinder overhead cam, turbocharged diesel engine," he replied in a flowing salesman patter, "They don't make them like that anymore... truly sui generis. It also sports a hydraload bearing suspension on a X-chassis, a Dyna-Flow drive train and Quadra-Trac transmission along with a cab interior in finely tooled Corinthian leather seats."
   "Corinthian leather seats?"
   "The 262 is based on a retro design from the 1970s and would not be complete without that design element. For you, sir, farming from now on won't be a chore anymore but an adventure!"
   He lowered his voice, "You don't mind me asking but are you single?"
   Chalk it up to my Manhattan paranoia but I was momentarily taken aback by the question.
"Yeah," I replied warily, "but why?"
"Look, I'm not up on the cultural mores of New Yorkers but out here in Minnesota a man in command of such a fine piece of farm machinery is king and is due his…"
   "Wha wha what?"
   "A lovely piece of arm candy." I could almost feel him smirking through the telephone.
   For a few moments I tried to imagine myself cruising the streets of Manhattan perched atop such a mechanical behemoth. But that was quickly wiped away by the thought of me in a Mike Dukakis pose behind the wheel of a tank.
   "FYI, our selection committee will be accompanying the delivery of the grand prize."
   The words tumbled out of my mouth. "Out… out here in New York?"
   "Why do you think we started the sweepstakes in the first place? To create buzz and maximize media exposure! When marketing served it up to our Chairman Jack 3rd he swallowed it whole hook, line and sinker."
   "You don't need to go to so some much trouble… next time in the Mid West I could swing by Minnesota and pick it up."
   "Your consideration is much appreciated but I'm afraid… no! Do you know how much excitement you created in marketing when your name was chosen, " Jacques replied coolly, "usually it's some excuse my French shithole in Palookaville, still, as long as you meet the requirements…"
   "Requirements, what requirements?" I shot back.
   His voice darkened. “According to the rules delivery of the grand prize must be made in situ at the site of winning claimant’s farm which in your case is at West 66th Street in New York City. You have a farm there don’t you?”
   I swallowed hard. “Oh sure… sure sure.”
“Good,” he replied, adding with a slight menace, “Because if you don’t not only are you going to lose the grand prized but also piss off a lot of people.”
“No tractor, no nothing?”
“Not nothing… You’ll get the consolation prize,” he replied, “a set of Deer steak knives!”
   The Scheme
   Now, I was in a jam. I had won a prize easily worth thousands of dollars and if I didn’t come up with some tillable soil in Manhattan it would be gone in a blink. I called Lawrence Richetti, an old friend from my college days at Columbia University. Larry was a brilliant, lonely, slightly rotund polymath, so lettered that he had numerous diplomas stacked around his apartment like stale pizza boxes after pledge week. Aside from these accomplishments he had personal qualities that made him a lightening rod for controversy. He once confided that he considered himself dangerous to the female population and they did likewise but for opposite reasons the details of which remain under court seal today.
    Larry was into quick buck schemes. Five years earlier when I had one of those rare moments in life where I had a surplus of cash he convinced me to invest in something called PenCillus. It was a bacilli detection spray that when used according to instructions proved whether restaurant workers used proper hygiene as required by law in trips to the bathroom. If they failed to do this their fate was tell-tale ET-like florescent green all around their hands.
    On paper it sounded great but in implementation it was a disaster. Unbeknown to us was that its creator Dr. Seymour Gruber a former East German scientist on the run from the International Olympic Committee anti-doping SS had selected strains of bacilli indigenous to Latin immigrants. Not only were we pilloried in the press but soon found ourselves smack in the middle of a racial profiling furor. National columnist Mary McGrory noted that she preferred PenCillus’s previous incarnation because its raison d'etre read better in German. Overnight we became the poster boys for one of the lowest forms of life on Earth - entrepreneurial fascists - a notch just above lichen.
   I gave Larry a quick heads up on my situation.
   “Bottom line, what you’re asking to do is plant a farm in Sheep Meadow?”
   “That’s pretty much it.”
   “You’re odds are better at getting into Jane Wrightsman’s co-op at 577 Park Avenue. Getting your net worth up to a hundred million dollars may be easier than plowing up what the entitled classes see as hallowed ground,” he replied, pausing, “but, hey, I’m a sucker for long shots.”
   The news ran rampant through the family grapevine. Five days later my brother Chris called from Indiana. He was a born operator. By day he worked a dead end job for the state highway department while his nights were reserved for his more profitable wheeling and dealing with the underbelly of American Mid-western life.
   “What the hell are you going to do with a tractor in New York City?”
   "Oh, the usual,” I answered, “you know mow some lawns, plow some snow… maybe help my neighbors with their spring tilling.”
    “Neighbors? Out there? You must be kidding… you know you have to pay taxes on it.”
    “Taxes?”
    “It’s a short term capital gain… puts you into the government for 40% I think.”
    “Damn,” I whispered, “that could run into tens of thousands of dollars.”
    Sensing my precarious financial situation he stayed true to family form and offered to buy it for dimes on the dollar.
    I politely refused. Yet hardly a week hardly passed where he didn’t have me on the phone describing a prospective buyer willing to pay fifty percent of book value in cash.
    By the fourth week he had come up with a name and a good price.
   “The prospective buyer?” Chris answered, “Oswald Booth.”
   “The pot farmer?”
   “He prefers the moniker gentleman farmer, if you will.”
   “What does he want it for, thought he farmed in the tree canopy? A helicopter seems more useful.”
   “That was then but now he’s grounded now. You know my m.o., ‘I don’t ask, they don’t tell’”
   That Saturday I called Richetti. A message on his machine directed me to room 54 at the Harvard Club.
   Around midnight I received a return call. “Let’s meet,” he demanded.
   “Larry, it’s almost midnight.”
   “No better time when the game’s afoot.”
    We met an hour later on the small lane separating the Tavern on the Green from Sheep Meadow. The park was unusually active that night due to the park police rousting all the homeless and escorting them out to the street. Richetti save for a black leather shoulder bag was decked out in clothes that looked lifted from a film noir set.
   “It’s lucky you chose Sheep Meadow,” he said, in a side of mouth style befitting the garb, “if you had written North Meadow you’d be shit out of luck!”
   “How do you figure?”
   “Sheep Meadow is under an old writ dating back to when the city was founded. It’s designated as a commons which means anybody has a right to use it as long as its production or what economists like to call the commonwealth utility are distributed equally to its citizens.”
   “That make’s us golden, no?”
   “You’re getting ahead of the story. When New York was transformed from an agrarian backwater to a post-industrial metropolis that writ came under attack. One of the more famous attacks came from Frederick Law Olmstead himself. He tried to quash it when he built Central Park. He thought such an anachronistic notion didn’t belong in a modern city’s park.”
  “It’s hard to imagine how he lost? Olmstead’s name in NYC is venerated right up there next toYahweh.”
  “The sheep tripped him up. He didn’t take into account the views of his partner Calvin Vaux. A mistake he paid dearly for and the only pardon the pun vaux pas of his storied career. Finally, after some legal wrangling Calvin got his sheep and Frederick Law his equine bridal path,” Larry replied coolly. “A design feature I may add detested by Vaux as nothing more than a sop to the ruling class.”
   Before I bid him goodnight near the Imagine circle in Strawberry Fields I asked him a question that was struck in my craw. “Larry, what’s this about ‘equal distribution’?”
”Not our concern right now first things first,” he answered in a tone of indifference, “I’ll file a new motion with Parks who I’m sure will kick it upstairs to the Conservancy for a hearing.”
   The Central Park Conservancy. The mere sound of its name sent a shudder down my back. Images of park apparatchiks clad in green goose stepping ominously across that verdant plot filled my mind. Many a lazy unemployed day had been spent watching fellow park go-ers arrested, shackled and carted off by the park police under auspices of the Conservancy for violations ranging from unleashed dogs to public hippie dancing.
   “Richetti, I’m no expert on fool’s errands but…”
   He cut me to the quick. “Dude get a grip! It’s not like we’re up against the likes of Opus Dei or the Illuminati!”
   I continued, “But consider the power of an entity able to ban the toy poodles of those Fifth Avenue ladies of a certain age who lunch at the Four Seasons?”
   He reached inside his bag slung over his shoulder and pulled out a ratty looking leather bound volume of Blackstone’s Commentaries and thumbed to a page and read out loud: “For a public field that formerly existed as a public commons to be rechristened a sheep meadow it must be according to strictures of common law as enumerated by the Council of Worms permit sheep grazing for one calendar day a year. Failure to do so reverts the land back to terra nullius.”
  “Terra what?”
  “For now just focus on sheep!”
Parks threw us a curveball and rejected our petition out of hand.
  “All because of that bastard Moses” Larry snorted over the phone, “got rid of the sheep!”
  “What’s Moses have to do with the Park? Sheep slaughtering pretty much ended with Abraham.”
  “Different Moses,” he replied acidly.
   Lawrence was not easily daunted. His borderline schizophrenic state didn’t permit it. Over the next few weeks he burrowed deeply into the stacks at the New York Public Library and the City Court Building refusing to come up for air until he found what he was looking for.
   One late night the phone rang. Richetti could hardly contain himself.
“We have an angle!”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Moses’ ban on sheep grazing on the Meadow was a measure taken during the Great Depression out of fear that starving New Yorkers might slaughter them for food,” he trumpeted over the phone, “it was only ‘temporary!’”
He filed a new motion with Parks the next day.
Our gambit failed again. Parks invoked a set of new powers we were blithely unaware of . Due to economic duress in the late 1970s the city had to cede some of its control of the park over to the Conservancy. It was later enhanced in 1989 when the Cuomo government designated the Conservancy as the modern day equivalent of Lord Protector. On the eve of its 150th anniversary the Central Park Enabling Act was enacted which invested in the Conservancy the right to void any action taken by any elected official from governor down to borough supervisor where such action is in violation of the precepts laid down by Frederick Law Olmsted unless overturned by the two-thirds vote of a citywide plebiscite.
“They’re not a Conservancy at all. They have morphed into something hideous,” bellowed Lawrence, “like Monaco! But without the gambling, sadly.”
“Sounds like we’re cooked…”
  “Guess we could go the People’s Park Berkeley ’68 protest route. But for that we need bodies and a few rabble-rousers. Where’s Abbie Hoffman when you need ‘em?” he replied flatly.
  “Dead, I think. What about that guy who blew up the Paris McDonalds?”
“You mean Bové? No can work - one, last I heard he’s in the pokey for destroying a load of trans-genetically engineered corn, and two, he’s French… anyone else?”
   Of all the names that crossed my mind that day it wasn't the man who called me out of the blue twenty days later.
      Clean Jean
    When Legumes phoned me the next week he detected a catch in my voice that something was terribly wrong. ”What aren’t you telling me?” he demanded.
   Unable to hold back any longer I spilled the beans. My confession in turn made him quite apoplectic. He pelted me with rapid fire questions wrapped in the vestigial verbal ornaments of no holds barred swearing.
   “You really thought you could pull off this half-assed plan to turn Central Park into a farm.”
   “Not the entire park. I was just looking for a baseball cap initially. But after you called that ole’green eyed monster of greed welled up and a plan was hatched.”
   The receiver again filled full of invective. I snapped back defensively, “What’s it to you anyway. All you wanted was a photo ready setup in Central Park, a corporate snapshot on the cheap.”
   A minute of silence followed. But then the howling winds of recriminations started anew followed by the oblivion of a disconnect.
   A week later I was surprised when I picked up and heard Jacques’ voice on the other end. Within a few phonemes I could tell he had regained his old confident salesman self.
   “I’ve got great news,” he said, “a friend who’s let’s say deeply embedded at Monsanto just let me in on a little secret.”
  My ears perked up.
  “I can’t reveal my source… let’s just call him Deep Root.”
“Keep talking.”
“This might just be the thing that will get you back in the driver’s seat behind the controls of the Jack Deere 262.”
“Marquis de Sod!” he whispered.
Surely, I thought, he can’t be talking about that sadistic aristocrat who had a thing for virgins, paper cuts and hot wax can he?
“Jacques, how does the Bastille, men without pants and a creepy old French sado-masochist figure into our solution?”
“I’m talking about a different aristocrat altogether here… the Marquis de Sod,” he shouted in the rhythm of a tent revivalist, “is the sod of all sods, the mother ship of all grasses, the stuff that dreams of landscapers are made of….”
   He continued with this incantation like a man possessed. “The Marquis has properties not only of nature born but also those of the test tube. Chief attribute? It stays green through the harshest of droughts while demanding the littlest of water of all the planet’s grasses.”
   “That’s amazing… how’d they do that Legumes?”
   “Spliced in some camel’s DNA,” he replied sarcastically, “how the hell should I know. I’m a salesman not a molecular biologist!”
   “How’s this going to help us?
  “Monsanto was approached by the Conservancy. I can not confirm actual sales or transfers,” he replied, “ just that high level discussions took place.”
   When Larry heard the news he was beside himself - not an easy thing for a man of his girth to achieve. “This sounds like our trump card! As Napoleon once famously said if you’re going to take Vienna then take Vienna. In the same vein we’re going to take the Conservancy! For starters we’ll play the Green card. Firstly we mobilize the foot soldiers at Gene-Neered Food Alert and backstop them with some boots from Transgenic Pollution Watch. For rearguard action we’ll activate in Greenpeace. The New York press will go after this like sharks do to blood in the water. When it comes to their health you can depend on the neuroses of New Yorkers to make storming the Bastille look like a walk in the park.”
   “Except…” he said, “There’s the Afghanistan lesson to consider.”
I shot him a look of bewilderment.
  “You release the green genie out of the bottle today tomorrow our transgenic freedom fighters could be our worst nightmare, that is, our own home grown Taliban.”
  “So Larry, what’s the strategy?”
  “The brief I submit to Parks shall contain a stratagem once used by Machiavelli himself in defense of one of the warring factions of the Medici clan. In the beat of a regal heart our demands will soon be in the blue blooded hands of the Central Park Conservancy. Given that they are celebrating the park’s sesquicentennial the last thing they want to do is spoil it with a scandal of global proportions.”
  “Yes, yes, yes!” I said slightly exasperated, “but essentially what are we demanding?”
  “Read my lips… Re-sod that park!”
   The Trial
   Richetti’s words were prophetic. Eight days later we attended a meeting hastily convened by the Conservancy. It was held in their inner sanctum at the Tavern on the Green in a lavishly appointed, Edwardian style room just a dogleg from the Little Jimmy Scott Jazz Room.
   Larry was dressed in a Saville Row tweed suit set off by a purple vest.
  “What’s with the outfit? Trying out for Rumpole of the Bailey? That vest, a bit much isn’t it?”
  “My dear Midwestern farm boy you are out of your class element. In Elizabethan times the wearing of less than imperial purple was cause for a quick dispatch to the Tower.”
   A bell was struck to call the meeting to order. Larry Richetti was asked to approach the tribunal and make his presentation. Fourteen minutes into his argument assisted as it was by multi-layered graphs and charts he was interrupted by Max von Hoffman, the Chairman of the Conservancy. The Chairman, who had the kind of chiseled looks that begged for inclusion in Mount Rushmore, was dressed in a black gown highlighted by purple chevrons on each sleeve. “I hope Mr. Richetti you know one can prove anything with statistics,” he said with a whiff of patrician air, “let’s cut to the chase, what exactly are the merits of your argument?”
  “In a moment, but first a little discovery is in order.”
  “Proceed.”
  Larry drummed his fingers on the railing of the witness box allowing tension to build. Then, with his eyes honing in on his prey he asked point blank, “Mr. Chairman, did you or any of your associates approach the Monsanto Corporation?”
  “Hmm… yes… we had exploratory talks,” replied von Hoffman.
  On that Larry threw the dice. “Did the nature of these talks center on a certain type of sod?”
  The Chairman nodded wearily while glancing at his watch as if he had other pressing engagements. “Do you remember the name of the sod in question?”
  “Marquise something or the other… perhaps that of Queensbury,” he answered.
  “With all due respect, sir, this isn’t about boxing. It’s about sod!” he said, pounding his meaty fist on the railing. “Did you not contract Monsanto to replace the grass on Sheep Meadow with that of Marquis de Sod?”
  The question hung menacingly in the air.
  “No, on the contrary counselor,” answered von Hoffman, coolly, “we were looking for a meadow grass that was limited both in thirst and height.”
  “But that didn’t prevent you from using it,” Lawrence demanded, pressing his case.
Von Hoffman oozing entitlement like a canker sore from his every pore took a long studied pause before answering. “No, that wasn’t the case. Even though it had one of the two qualities it also had a flaw we at the Conservancy would never deign to entertain!”
  The unexpected answer caused a slight twitch above Larry’s right eyebrow.
  Von Hoffman continued. “The use of genetically engineered grass would have violated a tenet laid down by Frederick Law Olmstead nearly a century and a half ago.”
  The mere mention of his name prompted the Conversancy’s members to nod in Pentecostal-like unison.
  I glanced over at Richetti who now looked like a fighter hanging on the ropes. Gone was his confident swagger. He had that sour look of a man punched too many times in the stomach.
  “I think we’ve… we’ve had it,” he whispered, the slobbery rattle of defeat evident in his voice.
  Just then a messenger knocked on the Tavern’s outer gate. Rules of protocol forbade him entry initially but after some blitzkrieg diplomacy by Larry helped along by a well placed bribe of several bottles of Chateau Margaux the messenger was finally admitted under the privilege of droit de seigneur where he delivered into Richetti’s needy, sweaty palms a bright red envelope, an epiphany of sorts. Richetti tore into it with all the unabashed glee of a boy on Christmas day.
  “As Napoleon once remarked,” he said, sotto voce, “History turns on a trifle. This may be, pardon the pun, the coup de grass I’ve been waiting for.”
  I stole a peek over his shoulder and managed to read a few lines. Alarmed in what I saw I tried to nudge him to get his attention but he waved me off.
  “One more question Mr. Chairman if you please. Have you or any board member ever contacted the Dupont Company?”
  The question froze Von Hoffman’s face into a near death mask. The buzzing of the chattering classes stopped and the room filled with an eerie silence.
  “What may I ask are you what you’re digging around for Mr. Richetti?”
Larry’s eyes glimmered. “Mr. Chairman, with all do respect I’ll ask you once again have you or anyone else on the board had any contact with the DuPont Company within the last three years?”
  “What impertinence!”
“Sir,” demanded Larry, “does Soilent Green mean anything to you!”
“The movie?” asked the one of the tribunal’s Chanel clad women.
“Charleston Heston is a personal friend of mine,” announced another member to no one in particular.
“No, Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Central Park Conservancy. I am not talking about the iconic movie Soylent Green. No, this is about something as simple and fundamental to our daily lives as grass,” Larry replied in a cadence that allowed him to luxuriate over the words, “The meadow you see was sod with Soilent Green!”
  The charge animated the committee’s animus. Sweat pooled around the Chairman’s eyes threatening a tectonic shift in his stone faced certitude.
  “What do you want?”
  “Our day on the meadow,” answered Lawrence.
“That’s blackmail!” shouted a member down the line.
Richetti remained unflappable, “Blackmail, hmm… the word sounds so harsh. I prefer to think of it as greenmail.”
  Once again the room was awash in the whisperings of the chattering classes. Lawrence now with his hauteur and bearing in ascendancy looked with every passing moment the exemplar of Carlisle’s Great Man of History theory.
  Max von Hoffman cried, “Counselor, what do you have in mind?”
  Larry milked the moment for all its worth. But then in a dramatic gesture not seen since the day when Rudolf Valentino first laid eyes on Clara Bow he focused his dark stare back on the Conservancy and slammed his fist and said, “Mr. Chairman… tear up that turf!”
  The place broke into pandemonium. A ten minute recess was ordered.
During the recess Larry leaned over to me and said, “That bunch will cave to our demands faster than Chamberlain at Munich.”
  But the collapse was not as quick as predicted. In the next room a heated discussion was taking place. “If word leaks about our use of Soilent Green in the park New Yorkers will bring back the guillotine or worse Auschwitz,” one unidentified member argued.
  Another member argued a different tact, “Transgenic pollution,” he wagered, “has never been successfully adjudicated. May I remind the Chairman of one of the conceptual bedrocks of law - the Roman concept of confusio.”
  But von Hoffman was not to be dissuaded. “This would subject us to a myriad of lawsuits. I say this not only as your Chairman but also as head of torts at Splurgeon, MacCracken and Pinchback,” he replied gravely, “if we open that can of worms it exposes us to a new theory on the intermingling of plant DNA into the human food chain that’s currently gaining legal traction. We can’t afford to be its first test case because our liability would make the Dow Corning silicon settlements look like peanuts.”
  A quick up and down vote was taken and Von Hoffman found himself in the rare position of the minority. Giving the dissenters a hard eye he said, “I hope in the end we are not hung by our own petard.”
With Von Hoffman in the lead they all re-entered the Little Jimmy Scott room in a flourish of flying robes that would have been right at home in a summer stock staging of The Mikado. Once seated, he got straight to the point. “Counselor, unless you have anything else in your bag of tricks our position shall remain unchanged. The Conservancy deems this matter closed.”
  For a minute Lawrence looked stunned even deflated. But in a flash his eyes regained that special twinkle when he reached into his black bag and pulled out a can of PenCillus. Leaning into me he whispered, “When you can’t win with the facts employ some razzle dazzle.”
  Rarely had a man of his girth and weight moved so fast to get back on his feet and head them off at the egress. “The can in my left hand will prove DNA recombination,” he announced.
  In a stage whisper I pleaded, “Are you mad? PenCillus’s notorious. It was in all the papers!”
“Not in the papers they read!”
  The board watched inquisitively as he sprayed his hands with PenCillus and then head out the side door leading to the garden. Nearly in lockstep we all moved over to the picture window facing Sheep Meadow.
  When Lawrence reached the edge of the meadow he did something very curious in deed. He bent over quite flexibly, unusual for a man of his girth, and ran his hands through large swaths of the meadow grass. From the nearly incandescent look on Larry’s face it was obvious that his inner ham actor was in clover.
  At first nothing happened. Murmurs of self congratulation soon wafted up from the crowd as many of the onlookers turned away and started streaming for the exit. But then all of a sudden something amazing happened. Lawrence’s chubby hands were now cocooned in an eerie green glow like luminescent ET hand puppets.
  As soon as this ocular proof became more evident a collective groan rose up from snob to snob.
  They had no idea that when Larry exited the Tavern he had passed through the kitchen and grandiosely pressed the flesh of every cook, dishwasher, and busboy in a manner that would have made LBJ proud.
  Upon his return glowing as he did like a spent reactor rod he announced, “If the beloved pets of any meadow goers consume any of the meadow’s grass their testicles will end up looking like,” pausing for effect, “like Little Jimmy Scott’s!”
   A shaken but not stirred Von Hoffman demanded a five minute recess.
  “Their demands must be met,” he said, “I’ll be damned if I put myself in a position when someday somebody might leave a note at the Century Club addressed to Max von Hoffman - transgenic sodomite!”
  When the Conservancy re-assembled in the Little Jimmy room Max Von Hoffman spoke in the vein of the Pope ex cathedra: “We have agreed to your demand for use of the meadow for one calendar day.”
   We had the green light. With a Ford tractor borrowed from the Parks Department and the help of some of the farmers from the city’s greenmarkets we managed to plow up a decent amount of furrows by the time the Deer entourage arrived.
   The John Deere Model 262 tractor was delivered via a flat bed truck to the edge of my urban farm. It wouldn’t fit through the front gate so we had to slice a hole in the chain link fence. This was a symbolic act that the Greens couldn’t stomach; they soon had us engaged on the field in full force. Within minutes I was surrounded by a great unwashed group of placard waving protestors. Luckily, by some miracle I was able to drive with trembling hands the Juggernaut out to the center of the field without crushing a single person beneath it wheels.
   The photo-op went off as planned thanks in large part to the extra security muscle Deer brought in. Given the near riotous conditions I had to stay put in my driver’s seat. This prevented me from meeting the man I had known only by voice - Jacques Legumes. As darkness fell one of the security men pointed him out in the distance. All I could make out was a waspish figure sporting a well coifed ponytail darting about.
   The Glittering Prize
   I awoke the next morning feeling the giddiness of possession. But I soon sobered up to the cold reality of it. What the hell was I going to do with it? Finding a parking place in front of my 71st brownstone studio apartment or any place on the Westside was going to take some real ingenuity.
   At first things seemed quite manageable. All I needed was a parking spot for two days of the week. But as with all best laid plans certain random variables popped up that drove my once seemingly stable environment into chaotic free fall. Drives now seemed eternal.
   There was one benefit to all this crazy street madness. I had a chance to investigate the surrounding subculture of street parking whose ethos was based on folkways of alternate days and double-parking. The iron-clad rule was you had to be out in your car and double parked by eight a.m. The few remaining spots if any were grabbed up by a group locals referred to as the reavers who came via bridge and tunnel. After double parking the majority usually returned to the comfort of their apartment keeping their ears tuned bat-like for that siren wail of a blocked-in car.
   But there was also a minority who preferred to stay in their cars the entire time. They read newspapers and books, drank cups of coffee, or carried on conversations on cell phones or in the car with real or imagined friends. Some even practiced hygiene methods that would be embarrassing even in the privacy of their own home. And then there were those who on rare occasion practiced sexual congress.
   All was going well until the city turned the tables on me by changing the rules. From now on I had to double park three days a week from 9:30 to 11:00 am. The late post time gave even the sluggards a chance to get out of the gate.
   That was the beginning of a mountain of parking tickets. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t beat the competition off the blocks in the morning. The slowest heap on the street consistently kicked my butt. I needed sixty seconds just to get it up to 15 mph. Even the dump trucks whizzed by me as if they were in a NASCAR race. Alternate side parking days were now consumed driving around the Westside like the mythical Flying Dutchman in search of its port o’call.
   Some weeks later I called my brother in Indiana out of desperation.
  “Tell Oswald that if he still wants it…”
   Chris cut me off. “Where he’s at I don’t think he needs it.”
  “What do you mean?”
  “The State Correctional Farm.”
   “How did he end up there?”
   “He was convicted for conspiring to buy a tank of anhydrous ammonia.”
   “That’s illegal?”
   “Illegal? Not for legit farming but it is for methamphetamine production,” he answered, “my guess is that he wanted your tractor for a front.”
   “Guess he’s got no need for it there.”
   “Lack of tractors ain’t one of his problems now.”
   “What am I going to do now?” I cried.
   “Have you tried cones?”
   One of the perks of his job was easy access to highway cones. A few days later he shipped me out a half dozen. I convinced a filmmaking friend to write me up a phony movie permit that designated West 71st as my shooting location.
   I was back in business.
   The next few weeks rolled by without a single citation. I breathed easier now until my landlord got wind of my parking arrangements. “I can’t have it,” he barked, “that machine provides easy access to the upper floors of my building. Tenants have complained and some are even demanding additional iron grills. One robbery incident and my insurance rates skyrocket. No, that tractor will not stand outside my building. I’m starting eviction proceedings.”
   The Agri-Prop grand prize was no longer so grand. My only choice was to try and dump it at a fair price. I called farm stores, co-ops, and anything else with an agricultural bent within a fifty-mile radius of New York City. Nobody was interested. Due to the recent spike in fuel prices demand for such machines was practically non-existent. Each passing day I dropped my asking price precipitously.
   Though, I did have one bidder.
  “How much are you willing to give me for it?” I asked
  “Scrap value’s about three thousand, resale book is about ten large.”
  “But it’s a brand new machine worth nearly eighty thousand dollars,” I argued.
  “In other areas of the country that may be the case but that’s the market, amigo. Things pass through a lot of hands around here,” he said, adding, “Thirty-five hundred’s my final offer.”
   The Letter
   The very next day Legumes called out of the blue.
   “Have you checked soybean prices on the CBOT?”
   “What?”
   “Prices on the Chicago Board of Trade, they’re at an all time high. Too bad you’re not really farming because you’d be raking it in,” he chided me.
   “Jacques, the little bit of farming I know would make the slash and burn approach of the Mayans look like sheer genius. It took them eight hundred years to devastate their land… just give me a season,” I said acidly and then launched into a laundry list of grievances against Deer.
   “Write a letter to the Chairman.”
   “You think it will do any good?”
   “Jack 3rd likes the personal touch.”
   But what was unclear was the exact mechanics of doing this. How does one address a public corporation? Is not a corporation a legal person as set down by the Supreme Court in the case of Youngstown Sheet and Tube v. Truman? If so would not the privacy restraints set down in Mapp v. Ohio apply as well as Roe v. Wade apply? Intruding upon the inner workings of a firm would be tantamount to intervening in a pregnancy and I was the last person willing to trample upon the privacy of a person even if it belonged to only a legal construct.
   Fatigued and pained of heart I took Jacques advice and wrote to the Chairman of Jack Deer directly. The letter was addressed with the salutation: Dear John. In it I described my dire circumstances and how my financial security and mental health were both now in jeopardy.
   A week later I was jarred from my sleep by a loud commotion coming from outside. Bleary eyed I watched from my bay window as a couple of tow trucks tried in vain to tow the tractor away. Their attempts ended disastrously when the Juggernaut rolled off their hydraulic lifts and crushed an old beat up AMC Pacer car. A passing free lance photographer snapped a shot of it. The next day the tractor was splashed across the front pages of the city’s tabloids looking as if it was gorging on the Pacer’s carcass in the manner a python might feast on a pig. The sensationalist aspect was further jacked up by a ‘baby on board sign’ that peeked out from the car’s spider veined rear window. Not since the days of Wee Gee did one picture so ignite the passions of the crowd.
   The crash of 71st street became a cause-cèlébre and soon politicians of every stripe tried to finagle it to their advantage. One borough president denounced it as a symbol of deeply ingrained special interests while another politician jockeying for the next mayoral race claimed it underscored the plight of the small farmer in the city.
   John Deer found itself unwittingly in the hot spotlight of public opinion. It was barraged by faxes, E-mails, phone messages, handbills, the odd scrawled letter and even one badly danced telegram. The Chairman was taken aback that most were addressed to him personally. The company went on the offensive by hiring some of the best spin-meisters, tastemakers and media manipulators that money could buy but they proved of little use in bringing down the overall temperature of this heated issue.
   One morning I received a harried call from Legumes. “We can’t have scandal like this! Are you trying to sabotage the company?” he screamed, “You’ve put us in a precarious position with homeowners who don’t stomach scandal easily which now threatens our lawnmower monopoly. Some people are even linking us with Archer Daniels Midlands and their attempt to corner the lysine market! The Chairman’s image once good as gold is becoming base metal by the minute.”
   I muttered some sort of apology but Jacques cut me off midstream. “Not only is his reputation at stake here but so is his passion.”
   “What passion,” I asked incredulously.
   “Proper medical care of injured football players. ”
   He continued: “Before our Chairman got involved injured ball players were treated not much differently than medieval plague victims. The fallen were tossed in dogcarts unceremoniously and carted off like refuse. We introduced our green and white wagons that provided ambulatory medical services on sight. And now due to our efforts players get the respect they deserve, usually in the form of a rousing ovation. That’s the Deer way.”
   “All I did was try to monetize an asset before it turned into a huge liability, that’s the American way isn’t it?” I countered.
   Something in what I said must have clicked because the line went dead for some minutes. When we resumed it was obvious that a change of heart had taken place.
   Five days later I was awakened by my apartment’s buzzer. Standing off kilter in the downstairs doorframe was a hunchbacked process server who handed me an envelope embossed with the name of Splurgeon, MacCracken and Pinchback, Attorneys at Law. Inside was a legal document that claimed I had violated my right of fair use under the terms of the sweepstakes. According to paragraph 11-D sub rosa iii not only was any commercial exploitation of the grand prize prohibited but so was any other use outside those narrowly defined uses allowed in the covenant no matter their literary, artistic, political or social nature. Any such non-sanctioned use had to be approved expressly in writing by the company. Stapled to the back was a cease and desist order on behalf of the plaintiff signed by Judge Fainsod of the Southern District Court.
   I called Larry who responded caustically to the news, “Fainsod, a pox on that sod… hmm, serves me right for not studying contracts under him. I’ll get back to you.”
   Three days later when he woke me from a fitful sleep. “I’ve got it – spores!”
“I don’t follow.”
   “The deadly A-word. After all, it was shipped from farm country and I’m sure a few Anthrax spores hitched a ride along the way. Call your Frenchman and get us some face time with the CEO immediately.”
   “Don’t you think this is a little demonic?”
   “Demonic? I’ll show you demonic,” he huffed, “remember when you tried to sell it? You couldn’t because you had no buyers. Why? Because they pulled a FASB on you.”
   “A FASB…what the hell is that?”
   “It’s an old accounting trick used to write-off non-marketable inventory, i.e., the Juggernaut. Bundle it in a national sweepstakes with the blessings of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and presto! Problem solved.”
   The next day we were on a Mid-West bound plane headed for a sit-down with Jack Deer 3rd. In attendance at Deere HQ were a few of his genuflecting minions. Five minutes into the meeting Larry got straight to the point. “Right now I’ve got a forensic bio-team on standby ready to cotton swab the entire tractor. And I’ll bet even money they will find what they are looking for.”
   "That’s Looney tunes,” boomed Jack 3rd, “I refuse to buy into this blackmail.”
   “Some years ago I remember the Perrier company taking the same stance when
formaldehyde was detected in their water,” chortled Larry, “if history is any guide I guarantee that
following that course of action will make Deer far less dear to the public in the future.”
   A brief time-out was called. When the meeting resumed the atmosphere around the table had changed. Capitulation was in the air. Even Jack 3rd’s voice had lost most of its John Philip Sousa oomph-pah brassiness.
   “What do you want?” he asked off key.
  “A deal my client can live with.”
   High Cotton
   Seven days later I received a small box by registered mail. Tucked inside was a letter from Jacques Legumes. It read: ‘Congratulations! Please accept this check for seventy thousand dollars on behalf of the John Deer Company. You went eyeball to eyeball with our Chairman and he was the first to blink. Lucky for you it wasn’t highballs. Spores? Ingenious but also diabolical. Happy planting seasons! Jacques.’ Inside the box was a green Jack Deer baseball cap with holographic authentication tag.
   For a brief moment a great weight was taken off me. I felt deliriously light. But forty-eight hours it all came crashing down when my buzzer sounded again. Wedged inside the door frame was the same process server. I could swear the hump was on the shoulder first time around. He handed me an envelope that looked nearly identical to the last except this time the name Pinchback was missing from the letterhead. Folded neatly inside was a court order signed by Judge Fainsod that froze my seventy thousand dollars. Treatment, I thought, that was only reserved for terrorists and RICO recidivists.
   The injunctive claim had been filed by a ragtag group on the city’s Westside that had splintered from an old agrarian communist group - a relic of the 1950s - known by the acronym AGRAD. Their belief structure was based on a theoretical synthesis of two former men about Paris Jean Jacques Rousseau and Saloth Sar. The schism responsible for tearing AGRAD apart pivoted off the seminal question as to whether Khrushchev was playing a practical joke with his 20th Party Congress speech
   The gist of their lawsuit was a demand for their fair share of common utility, namely, a cut of the action.
   When I relayed the news to Larry it drove him into a sputtering fit.
   “A pox on Fainsod! That bastard has a vendetta against me. The common law just bit us in the ass again!” he spit out bitterly.
   “For starters,” Larry continued, “the first ten percent of the utility is tithed to God.”
   “God? What does he have to do with it?”
   “Blame Christ and his parables for that… give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.”
  “What’s our take?”
   “According to the principle of jus soli three percent.”
“That’s it?” I replied, “Don’t tell me… another of God’s rules?”
“Actually Cotton Mather,” he said, “You’ll share in the remainder and that is according to Blackstone’s formula based on dividing total dollars by the population within a radius of a day’s journey by donkey, hmm, let’s see…”
   I interrupted him, “Donkey! You must be kidding!”
   “Obviously his Commentaries could use some updating. Hold on a second while I work out a donkey’s hoof speed.” Over the phone I could hear the sound of Larry’s fat fingers riffing across the ivories of his calculator.
   “Comes out to a dollar ninety-eight cents. “
   My knees felt like they were going to buckle. Silence filled the line.
   “Hey, if you’re feeling vengeful you could always screw the rat bastards by signing the check over to charity; an action that produces the greater utility and therefore impervious to any legal challenge.”
   That night I had another restless sleep. I called Richetti the next morning and told him I was giving up all claims to the monies, tithes and anything else connected to Sheep Meadow.
   “Don’t go Albert Schweitzer on me,” he responded wearily, as if the fate of the planet rested on his shoulders, “spare me until I’ve had my coffee and donuts. Besides, that was the only good move you had left.”
   And then for an instant I thought I heard what sounded like muffled sobs.
   “Meet me poolside tonight at the Princeton Club!”
   That evening I caught a cab to midtown. The snooty desk man informed me that they had no pool.
  “There must be some mistake. I’m here to meet Larry Richetti.”
   “Oh Richetti, why didn’t you say so,” he replied. He reached inside a wrought iron box and handed me a key as cautiously as one might handling radioactive materials.
   Tacked outside of room number 34 was a note written in his signature scrawl bidding me to enter. Inside in a scene reminiscent of Sunset Boulevard I found Richetti floating face down in a blue plastic tuna shaped pool. It was the first I had ever seen him in a swimming suit. And no William Holden was he. He looked more like that fat guy made famous in Lucien Freud’s portraits.
   In my haste my incautious steps created loud creaking noises which caused his head to suddenly break the surface of the water. “Careful, I haven’t had time to stress test this floor. It might be nearing its maximum load bearing capability!” he cautioned, flashing a mischievous twinkle.
   “Are you still upset over the case?”
   “C’est la vie… there are more fish in the sea,” he chortled, blowing a jet of water from his mouth Flipper style. “Where in the annals of Manhattan has anyone ever opened a can of whup-ass on such a deserving prick as von Hoffman and his sniveling clique?”
   “Not since Burr shot Hamilton.”
   “Hell, it’s almost as much fun as beating Big Tobacco,” he countered, “save for the egregious fees I’m paid in such cases.” He smiled his Cheshire cat grin suddenly. “There might be life in that old gal PenCillus yet!”
   “How do you figure?”
   “Contrary to Scott Fitzgerald it seems our product has a second act after all,” he replied, “Might be perfect for detecting SARS - a very resilient virus that can live outside a host for hours. Are you up for it?”
   Over the next few days I gave his offer a lot of thought. But since I did not feel fully recovered from our last business venture I politely declined.
   Months later a chance assignation put me at the scene of the crime - Sheep’s Meadow. It had returned to its verdant field of green. The groundskeepers like ace morticians had erased the large scar so that not even a hint remained.
   I had settled my landlord problems with an arrangement that made Nixon’s Shanghai Communiqué look like a daydreamer’s doodle penciled on the back of a napkin. The avalanche of parking tickets threatening my financial solvency were fixed by a grateful NYPD for the sizeable charitable contribution I made to their widows and orphans fund. And instead of sadness that day I was seized by a sense of triumph because once, albeit briefly, I had a farm in Central Park at the foot of Sheep Meadow.

   The End

Jeffry Earl Nardine (c)

Duchamp’s Chump

2011-01-08T16:04:00.001-08:00

excerpt:
setup: piece of furniture owned by protagonist takes on great value when fixed by world class
artist in effect making it his first sculpture after it's broken at raucous party by famed comedian and entourage.

    That Friday I was in the local Pioneer store on LaGuardia food shopping. Splayed on a rack near the checkout was a scandalous blurb on the front page of the SoHo Intelligencer. In its typical hothouse reporting style it described breathlessly how the super model wife of a famous comedian was trying to purchase a second hand bed advertised in the Voice for big bucks.
     Later that day I returned home to the loft I was sharing with Teppei Inagotcha a long haired ascetic photographer whose diet consisted of top ramen and serial quarts of Budweiser. In the middle of sweeping up paint peelings that the ceiling shed daily like dandruff I received a call from a woman named Dede Pumfrey from the Grimthorpe Gallery.
    After an exchange of pleasantries she asked me if I still possessed the object mentioned in the gossip sheets. "Yes."
    "That's just fabulous," she purred in a smoke and whiskey tone, "are you interested in selling it?"
     I was so perplexed by her call I didn't know how to answer.
    "Stop… before you answer… this a deal one shouldn't discuss over the phone. It requires a tete a tete," she countered, "I'm sending over my Lincoln Town car to fetch you."
    Before I could graciously decline the receiver went dead.
    Within minutes a black sedan hovered outside my apartment. As if locked into a staring contest I tried to show more will power but the car didn't budge so I had little choice but to cave.
    I was transported to the front of a building that resembled a giant accordion with its insides ripped out. A doorman attired in gray morning coat and white gloves opened the lobby door for me with a flourish. Inside the atrium my eyes caught the gleam of bronze crest on the near wall. The crest was topped by a bronze wreath with some odd Latinate looking words. In the center of the crest was a pair of weasels dancing a pas de deux around a pear tree.
    Before I was able to decipher the words a handsome woman clad in Chanel grabbed me by my elbow and led me through the serpentine hallway of the building. She deposited me in a room of cut glass table tops and exotic wood paneling. I sat there for five minutes at best when a nearby door popped open and in burst a woman in her mid-fifties with all the frenetic energy of one of those battery powered advertising bunnies. She was dressed in a charcoal gray Dior suit with her hair done up in the style of Louise Brooks.
    She extended her hand. Her earlier telephone voice of whiskey and smoke had gone missing now replaced now by the dulcet sound of a care-giver. "Hello, I am Dede Pompfrey. It is a pleasure to meet you," she said, pausing for effect, "your situation requires immediate representation!"
    A look of alarm shadowed across my face.
    "There are issues."
    "Issues?"
    "Provenance, for one."
    "Like the south of France?" I answered nervously.
    "That's Provence. I'm talking provenance. Think of it like a deed. Or the chain of evidence in a courtroom," she replied, "If a link is broken your rightful ownership may be jeopardized."
    I could feel my pupils flat-lining. "Oh?"
    "Take the case of the German Jews who were robbed of their art works by the Nazi's."
    "Hey, I'm no Nazi!"
    "Nobody's saying you are, dear boy. In the old days it was easy, Old Masters changed hands seamlessly from a Medici to a Hapsburg to a Hohenzollern. But a couple of world wars later when the aristos ran out of ready money they had to monetize their noble assets, usually consisting of castles, land and finally artworks."
    "A person's word's not good enough?"
    "Today everything and everyone is suspect. Do you remember Princess Diana's haute couture auction at Sotheby's?"
    I shook in my head with little confidence.
    "They didn't even take her word… a princess! She was asked to show extensive documentation. In my opinion the world's better off for it." She drew a sharp bead on me. "Especially, after you've seen as many fake Elvis jumpsuits as I have."
    "Elvis?"
    She shot me a surprised look. "Oh! You don't know about the gem of our collection?"
    Dede grabbed me by the arm and led me down a hall and into a dark room. After a few moments when my eyes adjusted I could make out the contours of what looked like a large glass capsule squatting in the center of the room.
    She moved over to a wall and reached behind a recessed panel and flicked on a set of overhead halogen spots. The capsule filled with a ghostly white light.
   "Let me present to you!" she declared, with a hand and arm flourish reminiscent of PT Barnum, "the Black Elvis!"
    Inside the capsule was the King himself all done up in wax and dressed in a black, rhinestone studded jumpsuit. The backside of the suit was set off by a flaming phoenix patterned in multicolored rhinestones. The front was adorned with collar flaps the size of a small craft's ailerons. The jumpsuit leggings were finished off by elephant sized bell bottoms. And to finish it off the whole ensemble was accessorized by what's known to prizefighters as a championship belt - an oversized gold belt with a buckle as large as a dinner plate.
    "Where'd you get that Elvis in the sarcophagus… seems so real."
    "It's a vitrine… not a sarcophagus," she replied snootily. "I had it made by special order out of London. I got the idea at a swank soiree I attended some time back at the Zweigs palazzo at the Pierre. They are big time collectors. Lots of Impressionism… Cezanne, Degas, you name it. But what caught my fancy that night was the glittering dress Marilyn Monroe wore when she serenaded JFK at the Garden. The Zweigs had it displayed in this custom made rotating glass case right next to a Degas ballerina. My imagination was fired by the thought of a new, untapped market."
    Ms. Pumfrey sashayed over to the capsule. "I had this built with tempered glass that's able to withstand terminal velocity just in case there's any truth that the King is circling somewhere above. Let's face it, he deserves better than to be twirled around on a Lazy Susan like Monroe."
    She reached out and grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me closer. "Of all the Elvis jumpsuits this is a rarity among rarities," she said sotto voce, "it's the outfit he had on the day he met Richard Nixon."
   "I really don't follow…?"
   "Let me give you the genealogy. Twenty-five years ago we were in a bind here at Grimthorpe Gallery because we were trying to compete with the mainstream auction houses we had to depend on the three D's to build our inventory."
    I shot her a look of total incomprehensibility.
    "Death, debt and divorce," she replied coolly.
    "And that's when I pioneered what is now called the celebrity collectibles market. And then Warhol died and the gold rush began, stoked by the sale of those silly cookie jars. And it's been an uphill struggle ever since. Now even the venerable firm of Christies is in the act. Last year they auctioned off one of Hendrix's jackets from the Carnaby street period for five hundred thousand. Today, with so many players in this market you need two things to succeed - over-reaching vision and the instinct of a riverboat gambler. One hilarious moment I fondly remember from that Zweig party is when a clutch of guests bumped into a group of stuffed Beatles suits and were one slip away from gashing a huge Renoir. Take my Black Elvis… most galleries wouldn't touch it because its provenance was murky. Too much risk they said. Throwing caution to the wind and mortgaging the gallery's future in the process I bought it none the less. And when that tape was released I was ultimately proved right."
    "Tape?"
    She brushed off my question. "But I do have my boundaries in what I'm willing to take on. Last month I turned down a Warhol."
    "A painting, lithograph or sculpture?"
    "None of the above," she answered, "the objet d'art involved was his doctor's surgery and post-op notes at Bellevue during the last few days of his life. Their provenance was clear. They came bundled with three affidavits from his nurses who swore that Andy actually touched those very notes. A very crucial fact in determining if the Duchamp effect is in play."
    Duchamp? The name piqued my curiosity but before I could get her to elucidate further she steamrolled onward with her spiel.
    "But I passed because Dede Pumfrey doesn't do medical. And I didn't budge from this position even when the sellers, hoping to sweeten the deal, were going throw in his last hospital supper checklist, gratis," she replied, quiet self satisfied.
    "Last year somebody offered me Ty Cobb's dentures but again Dede here doesn't do teeth."
    She put her hand to her head feigning memory loss, "Let's see… you were asking about the tapes… ah yes, the Watergate tapes."
    She grabbed me again by the arm and pulled me into an adjoining office. From a matte silver cabinet she pulled out a small tape recorder.
    "I am about to play you Watergate tape N.A.# 139-678 what you're about to hear are the voices of Nixon, Haldeman, and Krogh."
    It took my ear some seconds to attune itself to a series of voices that sounded as if recorded in a bathysphere a thousand leagues under the sea. Via intricate hand signals Dede telegraphed the identity of each speaker.

           Nixon: (grumbling) Goddamn that Presley… you sure he's not a hippy?
           Krogh: That I'm sure of Mr. President.

Nixon: the King of Pop, right?

Krogh: right Mr. President, yes… but more like Old Pop

Nixon: Haldeman why do get me into such, uh… such crap?

Haldeman: it's a photo op for the youth… we need to reach out to them

Nixon: yeah, um… those son-of-bitches didn't vote for me… hmm, he smelled,
whadya think Bob?

           Haldeman: I didn't notice Mr. President.
There is an awkward silence broken by the sound of a door opening.
           Man's voice: You called for me Mister President?
           Nixon: Yes, I did Rumsfeld. You didn't by chance catch a whiff of Mr. Presley did you?
           Rumsfeld: No, I kept my distance. Hmm... I did notice a lingering citrus smell in the air.
           Nixon: I told you Bob, the Nixon nose knows. Too bad Dad couldn't figure out how to make
       a buck from it.
           Haldeman: Really?
           Nixon: Yep, the old man could smell anything except… money. … that damn lemon farm!
   Don, right aren't you getting on board with our Vietnam policy? I want you out there shaking
         the trees. Goddamit where's Henry… goddamn! When he talked me into his mad scheme
           of balance of power I had no idea it was going to end up like a Swiss cuckoo clock
           all fucked up!

Krogh: Oh you mean Herr Bismarck?

Nixon: Maybe my mad man theory put the heebie jeebies into him… Presley really smelled right through his after shave … smelled citrus-y.

Krogh: Hi Karate, sir

Haldeman: you know he does karate kicks on stage

Nixon: damn way to make a living… I can't trust people who smell... hmm like Khruschev for one, even Meier. (door opens) Aha! Nice of you to join us Metternich! "I promise to get back to you."

     She stopped the machine with a click of her well-manicured finger.
     "At Yeshiva I was taught that behind every Nixon utterance is a lie. But in this instance I went against my training and sent the suit to a lab. Guess what? They found traces of ceratoid based proteins usually associated with citrus based colognes," she stated, "furthermore, there was evidence of epidermal textile fusion caused by body gyrations and profuse sweating."
    She motioned to me to follow along as she moved rapidly down a side hall. "Are you convinced I need repped?"
    Before she could answer an assistant brought her a remote telephone. She broke from our conversation for a few minutes. When she returned she handed the phone back and said sotto voce,
   "One of my boots on the ground just told me that the Franklin Mint is closing their museum."
   "I don't get you..."
   "Bastards out bid me at the Princess Diana's auction for her ``Elvis'' gown. I need to line up a bid," she replied all business like. "I'll call you!" With a regal sweep of her arm she motioned me towards the door.

My Ex Parte X

2011-01-07T19:34:00.001-08:00

    At forty eight I found myself in a deep funk. I went to see my doctor and he told me in that special voice tinged in sepulchral tones and underwritten by Big Pharma drug money that I was suffering from a case of the 'unindividuated blues.'
    The diagnosis caught me by surprise. "How's that possible, Doc?"
    "Simple," he replied, pulling a Welby move by sliding his glasses down the bridge of his nose, "too much of your life has been spent in celebrity pursuit."
    "How could this have happened?" I asked, a hint of fear creeping into my voice, "
    "The causes? A thousand mothers. But without further tests I can only give you my opinion."
    "Please Doc!"
    The doctor shot me an earnest look. "I'd say too much time has been wasted on the usual suspects. You know info-tainment shows, talk shows, reality shows, behind the scenes bio-pics, and their spawn," he replied, "need I go on?"
     I lowered my head in embarrassment and waggled it slowly from side to side like the last few rotations of a wash spin cycle.
     "You make me sound like I have no life," I protested.
     "Denial is a powerful, self preservation function," he countered. He moved in closer. So close I could almost feel his five o'clock shadow and it was only ten in the morning.
     "Now, my friend," he added, "you've got to own up to the fact that you're nothing but a barnacle attached to the ship of popular culture and cling to it in hope of finding sustenance. But you haven't yet realized is that it's nothing more than a manufactured culture for the mass of unindividuated individuals!"
     I looked at him askance, "Unindividuated individuals," I replied, my tongue tripping over the words.
    "Merely atomized beings able to feel alive only in their frenzied response to empty celebrity," he answered in a dry clinical tone.
    "Wow! that's heavy, Doc. You think that up yourself?"
    "Of course." He then averted his eyes sheepishly toward his shoes. "Ok, maybe not all of it… some I lifted from Hannah Arendt."
    He paused for a second to regain the natural arrogance that came with his trade.
    "Oddly, the paradox of the celebrity age is that the more you see of movie stars, the less you learn about them. Which is the antecedent to your present condition."
    "Can you put that in layman's terms, Doc?"
    "Your brain's been hosed by too much dopamine and no longer can respond to celebrity stimuli frenziedly."
    His words froze me. "Is there a cure... something... something that can be done?"
    "Not that I know. Nothing I can recall from Lancet or NEJM," he replied, pausing, "there was a colleague who had some research going but he needed a new line of stem cells and the National Institute of Health told him to take hike."
    "So there is nothing that can be done?"
    "Not with current meds. But consider other possibilities. One, you might try the cold turkey approach. Exile yourself to a remote island where print and television media is non-existent or failing that…"
    I shot him a hopeful look.
    "Become a celebrity yourself!"
    Fat chance, I thought. Since I possessed little talent in the key areas of song and dance, acting, comedy, or sports that option seemed most unpromising.
    I left his office that afternoon where I rejoined my life in progress. Now carrying the dark knowledge of my atomized existence, knowing full well that there would be no more frenzied responses over a celebrity in my crippled mental state.

…

     Two months later I bumped into an old girlfriend Charlotte at 84th and Broadway. She had just returned from a field trip to Papeo, a distant island in Oceana where she had documented the mating rituals of the island's people. She invited me for dinner the following night.
     Dinner at Charlottes' was always an adventure. Many of the dishes she served up were specialties indigenous to places where her anthropological treks had taken her. Once as former boyfriend I played the part of in-house guinea pig subject to whatever newly found culinary passion she wanted to dish out. She took great pride in describing each recipe by ingredients and preparation. But now as her 'ex' I made her swear to the culinary equivalent of 'don't ask, don't tell'.
     After dinner we watched some footage from her work in Papeo. There was one scene that involved a marriage ritual that struck me with a profound sense of déjà vu. At my request she replayed it several times which produced a moment of transcendence that would animate my behavior for the next several months.

...

     The next day I dialed Larry Richetti,. He was a former college chum who at times was either a partner in hare brained entrepreneurial schemes or my lawyer.
    "Larry, have I got news for you."
    "What… spit it out!" he replied acidly, he had little patience for trifling.
    "I'm married!"
    "Hmm... so, who's the lucky lady?"
     I revealed her name only after he promised not only to never to reveal it outside of the lawyer-client privilege but also within the territorial borders of the USA and its two hundred mile economic zone along with its contiguous continental shelf.
    When I uttered her name his response was a scathing, "Are you insane?"
    "Perhaps. But I'll do anything to shake these undifferentiated blues," I cried.
    "Guess there's some truth to that adage if you can't be one, marry one!"

…

    In the annals of law there is the question that Lord Ellenborough once posed. Could the Island of Tobago pass a law that could legally bind the whole world?

    Two weeks later we filed our case in federal district court. Larry based his pleading on an inversion of logic found in the 1980 landmark case of Filartiga v. Pena-Irala. In this case the court ruled that the Alien Tort Act of 1789 permitted victims of serious violations of international law abroad the ability to seek civil damages in U.S. courts against its perpetrators.
     Our case was tossed because the court said we had no standing.
    "Such judicial pettiness," he said bitterly, on the steps of the courthouse moments after the decision was handed down. "Demanding that you be an alien!"
     A month passed before I heard from Larry again. "That was a bonehead move on my part, Jeff. We should have filed where judicial activism still springs eternal… how are you set with money?"
    "I have some, but... but... why?"
    Due to a wrongful death suit that was successfully argued by the inestimable Lawrence Richetti in London's Chancellery Court I was sitting on a what was once a sizable pile of cash but was now threatening a future smallness discernible only by microscope.
    "Grab your passport because we're on our way to Belgium."
    "Belgium… why Belgium?"
    "That's where the action is."
    "Not at The Hague?"
    "The ICJ? Way too old school for us!"
    "But what about those Rwanda and Yugoslavia trials I read about in the papers?"
    "Do you see me holding in my hand a Security Council resolution," he countered, "without which makes the ICJ as useless to us as a toothless crone."

…

     When word of our federal court case made its rounds throughout the corridors of the nation's capital a dramatic thing happened. The defendant previously known as Madame X, a woman of international fame, wealth and power, refused to stand as a defendant thereby exposing herself to a default judgment. But in a bold stroke that caught us by surprise the US Government filed on her behalf. This effected two things: 1) it re-designated the case as Ex Parte X – a rare filing for the US. Usually it was the other way around like in the case of Ex Parte Milligan where a man found himself tossed in prison under Lincoln's martial law without writ of habeas corpus. And 2) the other substantive effect was it removed my name from the case. Larry made a motion for a reversal but it was denied. According to the wisdom of the court I was a world class nobody and did not deserve the reciprocity afforded Madame X.
    The government's case was represented by Steven Splurgeon and Dick Shiver of the prestigious Washington law firm of Pinchback, Shiver, & Splurgeon.
   ...
    Fourteen days later our plane touched down in the magnificent city of Brussels.
    On our first day in the Belgian court a number of motions for dismissal were made by the defense all of which were denied by the judge, one Gaius De Bary.
    At day's end right after the ritual break when coffee and chocolate are served on sterling service the judge motioned Richetti toward the bench. "I am concerned," he said, imperiously, "whether your client has standing in this international court of law. From first blush he looks to be merely a private citizen not a nation state."
    "Your honor," replied Larry, "In nearly all situations you would be right. But given that the breach is international in scope and deals with pre-emptive norms the plaintiff you see before you is now elevated beyond that of a mere individual to a placeholder if you will for the entire class defined as the peoples of Papeo."
    That day's final minutes ended in a small tiff between my advocate and the Judge De Bary who was prone to exchange quips in French with the defense counsel even though legal procedure dictated that the trial be like the conversations of air traffic controllers conducted in English.
    "With all due respect, your Honor, that while I find your bon motes not only witty, that is, quite rare for a courtroom I humbly beseech that you refrain from such future utterances not only for the sake of procedure but the fact that it places my client at a disadvantage."
     Although, the judge took umbrage to Larry's remark - muttering a slight about the defects of Anglo-Saxon based languages – he nevertheless acceded to his demand.

...

    The next morning Lawrence Richetti was directed to state our case.
    "My pleasure, your Honor," he replied, "The island nation of Papeo shares a contiguous land mass demarcated between it and the neighboring nation of Popeil. Thirty years ago they were one country. But then a civil war cleaved the country in half. Unlike most civil wars that turn on either religion or politics this one was the result of a singular instance of theft."
    "Fascinating," replied the judge, "What kind of theft could lead to such a monstrous schism?"
    "Monstrous? The word doesn't do justice to such a theft. Not only did it throw off kilter their economical well being but more importantly it tore their spiritual well being asunder," he answered, pausing for emphasis.
    "May I ask if your Honor is a fisherman?"
     Shiver rose from the defense and objected vehemently. "It's irrelevant!" The judge waved away his objection. "If not for this job I would be out at this moment deep in the stream bed in my waders," he chortled.
    "I assume that you have heard of Popeil's Pocket Fisherman?" inquired Larry.
    Judge De Bary nodded approvingly. Larry continued, "The invention of fishing technology has been ascribed to Ron Popeil. But it's a fiction dreamed up by those on the island's northern side to hide their black, larcenous hearts."
     Another objection was voiced by the opposition. It was shot down and Larry continued on. "The true inventors of this device lived on the island's southern side which is now called Papeo. Since it is a communal society..."
     De Bary interrupted. "Communal? As in communist?"
    "Communal yes! Marxist-Leninist no!," Richetti replied, "They, the Papeons, did not file an international patent for two reasons, 1) totally dependent on the oral tradition they lacked a writing system and 2) their deep spiritual centering produced an unfortunate side effect – an ingrained naïveté as to the wicked ways of the world. But when those on the northern side, the Popeilons, got their hands on the Fisherman they wasted no time filing for the patent since they possessed both a writing system introduced by a cargo cult from Toga and, more importantly, lacked any spiritual constraint whatsoever."
     Counselor Splurgeon testily interrupted, "Where exactly are you going with this Papeo history lesson?"
    "My learned friend... I believe Papeo should be pronounced with a short vowel a and a long vowel a on the diphthong eo," Richetti shot back, biting his lip ever so slightly.
    This sent the defense table into a snit.
    "Your honor," replied Shiver in a semi-prone position from his ornately carved oak chair, "this is what we expected from Mr. Richetti. Here in Belgium he's new. A Tabla Rosa. But stateside his reputation dogs him throughout every court in the land!"
    The judge looked at Larry questioningly.
    "Sounds like he's impinging my honor... your Honor."
    "He's known in many a circles," added Shiver, "as the king of legal frivolity?"
    "I always say tis' better to be king than knave!" Larry shot back.
     Richetti continued, "Nothing more that a characterization piped by ingrates and hypocrites, your Honor." The defense quickly submitted a written motion to the bench. Initially, the judge refused to accept it but then he finally relented. Some minutes passed while he read it.
    "A very interesting amicus curie brief I must say Counselor Richetti. Makes a lot of hay out of your attempt to force the New York Central Park Conservancy to..."
    He paused for dramatic effect, "To plow a farm in Central Park!"
    Larry replied, somewhat defensively, "Your Honor, it was only for a day… not an eternity."
    The judge seemed wearied by the argument and motioned him to proceed.
    Richetti recounted how the Papeons once apprised of the skullduggery that had befallen them vowed forevermore a life of serene quietism. But then one day seventeen years later word reached them that one of their most sacred rituals was performed without material consequence. The news unbalanced the entire mental state of their nation.
    "Counsellor," said the judge, "where did you say this island is located?"
    "Oceana."
     Before the judge adjourned Richetti asked the court to allow the inclusion of a new witness not included in the pre-trial witness list.
    "I will take it under advisement. Dismissed," he answered laconically.

…

    My night's rest was unsettled by qualms. Was it right that I was using the court to force a woman to be my wife. Wasn't this turning women's emancipation on its head?
    The next morning I met Larry outside of the Beaux Arts court house. He was eating a cone of fries with a dollop of mayonnaise on the side.
    "Damn good frites," he said, "all I can say is thank God for Lipitor!"
    When I told him of my nocturnal perturbations he laced into me. "Now's not the time to go soft on me, Jeff! Remember, this isn't just about you… or even Madame X. The mental health of an entire nation of people is at stake here!"
    He filled his mouth full of fries before continuing. "And it's not like you'll be together till death do you part… Your shotgun marriage by judicial writ won't last longer than the Nazi-Soviet Pact."
    I stood there stunned by his audacity.
    "The most un-American thing you can do is not litigate." He swallowed a few more fries before adding, "only in Brussels can you try your case and eat your frites too."
    Before he was able to gather his things and alight on foot I asked him if the judge would allow his witness request. "I have no doubt," he replied, "judges spend most of their life adjudicating boring cases just waiting for the chance for real drama. When it arises out pops the ham in all of them as if they were center stage in a Gilbert and Sullivan road show revival."

…

    That morning I was called to the witness stand where the defense fired a salvo of questions to get me either to perjure myself or, at the very least, piss myself.
    "Plaintiff, let's assume that the narrative happened exactly the way you have stated. Why then did you that crucial day in January fail to perform the last, most crucial step?" asked Pinchback.
    Stunned by the question I sat there momentarily mute.
He continued, "By simply by asking her out?"
    The moment my voice box returned I explained that because of her international fame since she was not just any woman this created a chilling effect on me."
    "You clammed up… yes?"
    I shook my head.
    "The history of the world is chock full of examples of those unable to," he replied, dropping his voice, "close the deal."
    He then glanced toward the empty jury box and said, "In essence this is just amorous bungling on your part, is it not plaintiff?"
    "Cut me some slack! I just met her… I'm not professing that I knew then and there I'd be forever madly in love with her," I replied, the heat on my forward rising.
    "And she to you?"
    "Who knows the course of another's heart?"
    "Your Honor," Larry shot back from his chair, "counsel is being argumentative."
    "I was just trying to get at the heart of the issue which is time. Seventeen years. If the plaintiff had been indisposed by say a trip to Mars say…"
    Richetti rocketed from his seat. "This ridiculing of my client…"
    "Sustained," said the judge.
    "Please allow me to rephrase. Doesn't seventeen years seem like a long time to you?"
    "Depends."
    Splugeon sidled up to the side of his partner and put in his two cents. "I think what my learned colleague is implying is that a statue of limitations is in play here."
    "Limitations on love?" I mumurred.
    "Your honor," Larry exclaimed heatedly, "I object to this line of questioning with the proviso that the cultures of the world have already spoken on this issue."
    This rattled the judge out of his near somnambulistic state. "How say you counselor?"
   "Through their great art that fills the world they have proved that love is limitless, and by extension therefore, timeless."
    The judge shook his head affirmatively.
    "But you just said that you weren't in love with her," replied
    "My client has made it amply clear that the potentia existed," shouted Larry.
    "But seventeen years later… it seems rather odd."
    I caught Larry giving a hard look toward their ring fingers and then smile with a slight maniacal curl to his lips. "I take it that it's been awhile since either of you have been single, counselors," he replied, "It's not your fathers courting world out there anymore. You think the dating exigencies of a Hobbesian New York are explained away by television fare like Sex and the City?" he snapped contemptuously, "Hardly, it's tooth and nail way all the way, baby. So when presented with such opportunity the plaintiff had no choice but to carpe diem."
    "But why now… not five or even ten years ago?" chortled Shiver.
    "When I read in the papers of her marriage in the summer of 1986 I assumed that I had blown my chance forever," I replied, "That was until I ran into Charlotte."
    "Charlotte?" asked Shiver, "Who is she?"
    "If counsel had bothered to read Dr. Charlotte C's affidavit he would not be wasting the Court's time," Larry retorted.
    Shiver shot back, "Your Honor as you may not be aware we were assigned to this case at the eleventh hour when Ted Olson, the Solicitor General of the U.S., who was set to argue it got tied up with an illegal Guantánamo detention case. So, if the Court would kindly allow me to quiz the defendant briefly to fill in the gaps."
    The judge motioned him on.
    "How does Charlotte play into all of this?"
    "When we were dating she introduced me to primate behavior."
    Though the look on Shiver's was one of withering disbelief it failed to deter me from continuing. "How it affects the way we date in the city. She said alpha male behavior is totally overrated. In order to control their harem alphas spend most of the time fighting other suitors giving the beta male, or what's usually referred to as the sneaky male, time to steal into the harem and have his pick with little cost to him."
    "Now that you have given the court an overview of male behavior from the early hominid to the current homo sapien how about…" Splurgeon chimed in.
    Richetti was out of his chair in a heartbeat cutting him off. "Your Honor, I object to counselors ad hominem attack on my client!"
    The judge concurred and warned the defense that no personal broadsides would be entertained any further. For the next few hours I was peppered with questions from the defense over certain particulars in Charlotte's documentary on the ritualistic practices of the people of Papeo.
    I started the day questioning the rightness of bringing the case in the first place but by day's end had become totally emboldened to its cause; the judge, on the other, hand had heard enough and adjourned for the day.
    The next day I resumed my place on the witness stand where the few questions lobed my way were far less belligerent.
    Scheduled next was a court room showing of Dr. Cerf's documentary, which nearly did not happen when the Court found that the audio visual personnel scheduled for that day were beyond their mandated hours under European labor law.
    "I could issue an order en banc but that would seem not only most uncivil but smack of go-it-alone Americanism as well," mused the Judge. A mad scramble ensued to find suitable replacements. The bailiff saved the day by going to a nearby high school and rounding up a couple of kids in the film club who had nothing better to do scheduled that day with the mere exception of after school detention.
    "Your honor, if it pleases the court may I introduce a new witness not included on the list?" asked Larry.
    "I shall take that under advisement."
    The film was shown in its entirety with only one small glitch - its three reels were shown out of sequence.
    "I apologize to the court for the mistake. It seems either that that kids simply mixed up the reels or are budding auteurs who possess a strange passion for fragmented story telling á la Quentin Tarantino," mused Richetti.
    At a point in the projection Larry stopped the film and asked the court to allow him to present the new witness. At first the judge refused but my counsel pleaded with the stubbornness of a badger that the testimony of the witness was germane to the case. The judge acquiesced, finally, not necessarily due to a point of law but out of what looked to be shear exhaustion. Wearily, he ordered the bailiff to escort the witness into the court room and within minutes in walked one Dick Cramwell, a smallish man sporting both the traditional garb of Yorkshire, similar to that of a leprechaun but without a pipe which he made up for with a broad, slightly lop-sided maniacal grin. He marched in tandem with the bailiff down the aisle in a martial style save for the way he swung his arms from side to side like two asynchronous pendulums.
A key scene from the film was replayed a number of times. It showed a man and women in tribal garb dancing what looked to be a herky jerky minuet and at its conclusion they exchanged what looked to be books.
     After a short break Cramwell was seated on the witness stand and asked by Larry if that scene brought anything particular to mind.
    "Call me Dick, govner'. First thing to mind, you say… I shouldya hit the loo for a leak before coming in…"
    A few guffaws were heard throughout the court room forcing the judge to do something he had not yet done – bang the gavel for order.
    "Besides that Mr. Crom… er, I mean Dick, anything else outside of your personal bodily functions that came to mind while watching the film?"
    "It reminded me of a dance me daddy told me about that he once witnessed many years ago."
    The defense objected that not only was this hearsay but hearsay way past it's evidentiary shelf life.
    "Let me remind our learned counsels that the use of hearsay is proper under international law and I might add was very useful in getting to the truth during the proceedings of the South African Truth Commission," rebuked the judge.
    "Some things your da tells ya you never forget," piped Cramwell in a side of mouth style.
    "But Dick… not to cast aspersions on your excellent memory but wasn't there something else… something on paper?"
    "Oh ya… you mean the sketch?"
    "Yes, I do… do you have that sketch on your person today?"
    He smiled his lunatic grin again and pulled from his breast pocket an old slightly soiled piece of folded paper.
    Larry snatched the paper from Cramwell's hand and said, "May I introduce this as exhibit R, your honor?"
    The judge motioned him to hand him the slip of paper.

    "Your honor, what you have in your hand is a dance diagram… something that say might be given to a beginner as a kind of dance by numbers…"
    Perturbed, de Bary cut him off, "Counselor, since you're not from around here you might not be aware that before I put on the powdered wig I was quite a hoofer. They called me the Astaire de Bruxelles," he replied haughtily. "Hmm, yes, it's a dance alright, difficult perhaps in that it pushes the body to its maximum pliability but it is still quite danceable. The bench therefore deems the evidence acceptable."
    I saw a look of extreme satisfaction cross Larry's face when he finished his questioning and moved back to the table. Splurgeon wasted no time with his cross examination.
    "You are the son of Richard Cramwell? Better known as Tumble Down Dick."
    "You offend me speakin' about my da like that," cried Cramwell.
    "But in the circles he worked wasn't that his moniker?"
    "Now you callin' me da a monkey?"
    "Oh no, Mr. Cramwell, I have nothing but respect for him even if he happened to be a paparazzi!"
    "No, da was no paparazzi… he was into the fine arts."
    "So your father was an art photographer?" Shiver chimed in, which brought an appreciatively nod from the witness.
    "Did he ever do any work for any German publications?"
    "He had many customers… some payin' some not."
    "Do you remember a magazine called Nucleonics Week?"
    Cramwell thought long on this before answering that yes he did.
    "Yes, it had nice pictures of atoms and things we can't see with the naked eye."
    "But Mr. Cramwell, or should I say Dick though he was paid by Nucleonics the actual work was for an underground Nazi pornographic magazine Die Gruppensex Gesellschaft or DGG for short."
    Cramwell became quite agitated. "Guv'ner I'm not taking anymore of your shite, ya hear. Ok, Dad might have moonlighted at times as a paparazzi but he wuz no Nazi! On his deathbed, see, he made me promise never to swear allegiance to the monarchy. He said they were nothing but
pretenders to the throne. The House of Windsor, blimey… Saxe-Coburg more like it. The last, only true English king was Bonnie Prince Charles!"
    "What is the relevancy of that statement to the question posed by counsel," inquired the judge, curiously.
    "Now you attackin' me relatives, too!"
    "Mr. Richard Cramwell, please hear me out well on this, I have no desire to bring down you or as your relatives but the legitimacy of the English crown is not on trial here!"
    "With due respect your h'ner if there be justice here on Earth those interlopers should be in the docket too," he replied with evident satisfaction.
    "For the love of Lord Coke," de Bary replied contemptuously, "one more remark like that and I'll have you bound and gagged. I do not know if you're familiar with the paintings of Brueghel and his famous inquisitor's wheel but you keep this up and that is going to look like holiday camp with what I have in mind for you."
    Larry employed a diversionary tactic. "But Dick, we all know the crowns of Europe have engaged in certain shenanigans… take for example Leopold of Belgium in the Congo."
    This Court was not amused. "Counselor, you are not by chance disparaging the former king of Belgium who has no bearing on this proceeding.
    Cramwell replied, "I asked him likesay, after he gave me that paper how he came to it? A few weeks before he was hired by a tabloid to stalk the lady in question. Although, publicly engaged a rumor floated that had her seeing another man on the sly. He took the guise of an old graduate student and spent the next fortnight haunting the halls of law in search of his prey. Then, on that one day he witnessed a strange dance performed by her and another young man that made him reconsider the assignment.
    "Ethical considerations?"
    "Me da and ethics in the same line. That's a laugh. He did it for medical reasons, thought she might be having a seizure and did not want to get hit with a Good Samaritan. You know required to aid a person in need. And then when I saw that dance in the movie I thought bloody hell!
    Richetti: No more questions, your honor.
    Judge: You may step down Mr. Cramwell.
    Larry took a long pregnant pause before continuing. He underscored to the Court that the mating ritual seen in the documentary is a highly stylized event. He pointed out that in western societies the bride and groom usually meet the parents of the opposite side many times beforehand. But in Papeo where attainment of serenity is of the highest importance this practice is not only frowned upon but proscribed by law. Ritually, all that is required is that at some point along the time continuum up to the day of the matrimonial binding you must meet with either with a parent or a blood relative so their spirits can intermingle no matter how brief or indirect said meeting is.
    Richetti: If it please the Court may I introduce exhibit F.
    Judge: Proceed.
    Richetti: It is a black and white photograph taken in early May 1968 in Vincennes, Indiana. The photo depicts from left to right the roughly eleven year old daughter of K, the candidate Mr. K. - as with Madame X an alias has been used to hide his identity - and finally, Mayor Earl C. Lawson.
    He hands the photo to the judge.
    Judge: I fail to see the relevance of this piece of evidence to your case.
    Richetti: If you look to the left elbow of Mayor Lawson, you will see a small hand clutching the sleeve of his jacket. A hand I may add that belongs to the plaintiff.
    Judge (peering closely at the photograph) Looks like just a hand to me.
    Richetti: Is it right or even proper to lay fault at the plaintiff's feet because the rest of his body, unbeknownst to him, was cropped from the picture for reasons of political or even artistic expediency? That answer must be no. To a palm reader as every palm is different so is the back of every hand to a back of the hand reader.
    Shiver (bolts from his seat) – This is nonsense, your Honor, a back of the hand reader… who ever heard of such twaddle?
    Judge: Proceed, counselor.
    Richetti: (coolly) Thank you… I anticipated your honor's response so I would like to present exhibit G to the court. (He hands up a sheath of photographs to the judge.)
    Richetti: In that packet you will find three photographs. One is a computer enhanced blow up of the hand in question from exhibit F. The second is a current picture of the plaintiff's right hand. And the third is a computer enhancement of the second photo where the ravaging effects of thirty five years of aging have been electronically removed. As you will ascertain they are one and the same.
    The judge studied the packet of photographic evidence for a few minutes
    Judge: But, counsel, I still find myself in a quandary in that this piece of evidence so vital to proving that the plaintiff fulfilled his ritualistic duties under the tribal code of Papeo. I'm still faced with the fact that this case with all its implications might turn on a hand… a small one at that! Using sound legal principles I might have to rule…
    Richetti: (interrupting) I understand your honor's hesitancy... But since this court is deciding a case that falls squarely within the bounds of international law as opposed to say national law not only are many avenues of evidence open to it but this court is in no way shackled by the concept of stare decisis as it might be if this were brought before an American court where said concept is tantamount to its underlying legal order.
    Judge: I am having trouble following your logic. If I hear you correctly you are making the claim that legal precedent should not be determinate.
    Richetti: Precisely, your honor. There are a many countries in the world today that don't adhere to Anglo-Saxon legal principles. In many of the remaining socialist countries like say Vietnam or China decisions are made on a case to case basis with little or no reference to past cases. On the island nation of Papeo who are still followers in the most fundamentalist way of the oral tradition stare decisis holds no water for the simple reason that people for serenity's sake try and keep their memory as short as possible.
    Splurgeon – May I approach the bench?
    Judge – (waves him forward) Yes, you may.
    Splurgeon – My learned counsel just contradicted himself.
    Richetti – How so?
    Splurgeon – You said that one, the island nation of Papeo does not have a formal writing system. And two, therefore, they are dependent on the oral tradition. So, my point is how do they remember if they try to forget?
    Judge (arching his eyebrow) Yes, that is a conundrum.
    Richetti – And easily solved your Honor. In Papeo they have a special class called the anointed ones. This class is the memory bearer of their people.
    Judge – (musing) That said… still is the hand enough?
Richetti - In many criminal cases a mere palm print on a gun barrel is sufficient to prove guilt. I point you to investigations in certain assassinations that took place in the USA during the 1960s. And even recently the case in Virginia against the suspected sniper. And, on a more popular note, I am not sure your honor has a chance to read The da Vinci Code, given your heavy judicial calendar, that turns on the depiction of a distended arm near the Christ figure in da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper.
    (the judge looks at him skeptically … looks back to the photo analysis.)
    Richetti (continuing) And then there is the album cover of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Do you know of this particular image.
    Judge - Yes, vaguely, although in my youth I thought they were ponces…(stops himself, embarrassed)… I… I preferred Johnny Holiday…counsel, may I ask where you are going with this?
    Richetti: The open hand above Paul's head. Remember how much significance it took on. I believe in the Sicilian tradition it was the sign of a dead man.
    Judge: (exasperated) I will accept that the evidence proves out your claim on said ownership of hand… but I must say, in an aside, his hands have sure taken a beating over the years.
Counselor, are we not still faced with the Gordian knot of standing.
    Richetti: As I cited earlier because now the Papeon people have had their serenity broken en masse it catapults this case from a private tort to a case of global consequences. And their serenity can only be made whole again when their grievance is redressed by a court ordered fulfillment of the rituals last step.
    Judge: I think your argument seems awfully tortured.
   Richetti: I'll do my best your honor to remove the kinks. (laughs) One more point about the photo. My client as a child called his grandfather affectionately Pappaw. Little did he know that it is a word of great magical significance in Papeo. He was quite unawares at that time that by saying that word in front of the defendant's blood relation he had placed himself inexorably on a ritualistic path that would end in his unconscious betrothal.
    Judge: This case becomes curiouser and curiouser.
    Richetti: I have no further statements, your honor.
    He was followed immediately by the defenses cross-examination.
    Pinchback: Is it not true that you failed to perform the last step of the ritual because of Madame X's fame and your shriveling insignificance in the face of it?
    Plantiff: (nervously) Umm… not really.
    Pinchback: There you were in that small closet like bookstore at Columbia University Law School standing next to an icon of your generation. And what did you feel? Like the two bit hustling punk you are!
    Richetti: Your honor I'm not going to sit here and allow my client to be barraged by these vicious ad hominem attacks.
    Judge: Counselor Pinchback, one more outburst like that and I will order the bailiff to gag you right here and now.
    Pinchback: My humble excuses. I lost my temper… where was I? Oh yes… So, you didn't have the guts to go for the big shot. You burned in the celebratory heat… her very family name was causing you to choke… you couldn't breathe… so you ran, didn't you?
    Plantiff: If you call slinking running…
    Pinchback: No more questions, your honor.
    The last salvo from the defense was based on the introduction of a document that threw Larry for a loop. It was a signed affidavit from Madame X herself in which she swore she never met me nor harbors any wish to ever meet me. Richetti tried his best to have the document not admitted but we opened up the possibility when we added Cramwell to the list.
    "The case is Ex Parte which means she can't be party to it…."
    Richetti began his re-direct..
    Richetti: What, sir, may I ask were you wearing that day?
    Plantiff: That day I was wearing a sky blue hand knitted Tibetan sweater set off by a certain design pattern stitched in white wool.
    Splurgeon cutting in, "Objection. I don't see how this is material. What veracity can we pin on the defendant's memory. Myself, I'd be hard pressed to remember what I wore last Friday."
"Denied."
    Richetti: Please continue.
    Plantiff: When I returned to my apartment I told my girlfriend that Ms. X gave me a come hither look. She said it had nothing at all to do with me at all but rather with the sweater I was wearing. Like I had gone to a posh prep school and she was just identifying with a member of her tribe.
    The judge guffawed sarcastically.
    Judge: What relevance does the sweater have to do with this case?
    Richetti: I am trying to show the plaintiff himself was held within a state of mental duress and grave intimidation by his former girlfriend. He was incapable of free will. Short of an intervention it was not possible for him to extend an invitation to Madame X. The defense seems overly focused on the ultimate step. The plaintiff has fulfilled enough of the ritualistic requirements to reach critical mass.
    Judge: So counselor, in your mind what put him over the top.
    Richetti: The moment he exchanged books with Madame X in which each book contained the requisite mention of Papeo. The Madame's book of contract law case cited a case that mentioned Papeo in a suit brought by the owner of a steamship line that ran aground in that country. Conversely, the plaintiff's book was a mimeographed set of readings on law and foreign intelligence that contained therein an FBI report on the whereabouts of renegade spy Philip Agee who was believed living on Papeo.
    The rest of the day was taken up by a series of meaningless motions all of which were denied by the judge.                                                                        ...
Larry Richetti's pithy summation consisted of the following: "In essence this case is not so much about my client. He is just the libation bearer." - he did a dramatic double take toward the back benches and when he turned back a visible tear was evident in his eye - "Yes, he wants freed of his unindividuated blues but what is more important for world peace is for this court to redress the grievance of an entire island people, the Papeons. I beseech you to allow them through your unbridled judicial activism to return to the life they once lived; a life of quietism and serenity!"

…

     Exactly one week to the hour the Supreme Court of Belgium handed down its ruling. It was read from the bench by Raoul De Bary, Juge d'Instruction.
    Whereas, under the customs and traditions of the nation of Papeo… where nothing is codified and never written down there seems to exist one ritual missing from the evidence. The plaintiff has testified that after he exchange of books and smiles he did not ask her to lunch whether out of shyness or embarrassment the emotional state of the plaintiff is not at issue here.
    We do not find in his favor the right to invoke a crime against humanity citing as he did sources reaching back to Grotius and then to the present Rome Accords.
    Following the ritualistic procedure of the island nation of Papeo we find that the plaintiff performed all required actions save for a lunch date or even high tea with the defendant Madame X. We reject his claim that he was unable to fulfill that last sole requirement as a result of mental incapacitation due to a fear instilled in him by his then current girlfriend, described here as a twenty seven year old woman of fiery Irish temperament, and possessing the requisite size and strength, via her former training that led to a New England swimming championship, that made intimidation thru fear possible. Even if the court accepts that she did use the word 'pulverize' on numerous occasions for intimidation to be a proved the component of hovering on the day in question must also be proved. Which it was not. And her offhand comment about his blue ski sweater after the fact doesn't prove an a priori action on her part was a given if the plaintiff had consummated the meeting.
    Nor can we in good faith strike down the marriage of Madame X in July 1986 where she found herself totally unaware that she was already bound to another man via the tribal customs of Papeo to a man she hardly knew. She entered into a matrimonial bond with so called clean hands. This situation is further complicated by that fact that the defendant in the years since 1986 bore a number of children.
    At judgment end each side was given a chance to comment. The defense, pleased with the verdict, declined. We on the other hand demurred.
    Richetti: Your honor, where's the relief?
    Judge: Outside of the chance or arranged meeting of the plaintiff and defendant on the island nation of Papeo there is little redress to be had. Yet, the plaintiff might find solace in that their tribal code places no statutory time limit on fulfilling the requirements of their matrimonial ritual.
Richetti: So, there lies his one glimmer of hope!
    Judge: Yes, but even if he were to affect it I do see one hitch.
    Plantiff: Hitch, your honor?
    Judge: Since her prior marriage is not vacated the plantiff would be in violation of your own national law if he married her.
    Richetti: Polygamy in Papeo is no crime.
    Judge: In your nation it is, therefore it is enforceable via the extra-territoriality powers of the United States… or as more aptly put by your president, "the long arm of the law."
    Richetti: But let's say the marriage isn't consummated. That's it more like an honorarium. I think American law would allow that and not see it as a breach.
    Judge: Perhaps, what would be your plaintiff's point for engaging in such a platonic affair?
    Richetti: Buzz for one. Nearness to such a power center might just jumpstart his life to usefulness. Such a celebrity glow recently catapulted one of her relatives into power.

    The denouement:
    For the next six months Richetti usually decked out in fedora trench coat monitored X's travel activity. He went through my retainer in record time tossing fifties around like nickels as he developed a number of pigeons at many of the city's finest travel agencies.
    Based on the nuances of sovereignty and reciprocity as defined in the Vienna Convention we could depose her and thereby finish the last step if she happened to visit a country with formal diplomatic relations with Papeo.
   I had about given up until the phone rang one day. One of Larry's travel agencies' 'boots on the ground' had tipped him off that Madame X and her family were on their way to Tibet.
   "How does that help us?"
   "Tibet recently established diplomatic relations with Papeo… my advice, call your travel agent."
    I followed my lawyer's advice and together we made haste to Tibet looking ever so much like dime store knockoffs of Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet in their pursuit of the Maltese Falcon. The day we arrived word came to us that Tibet had on the previous day signed a bilateral agreement with America overriding the prosecution powers of the Rome Accords.
    We were stunned. "Now that's what I call a show of power," Richetti muttered under his breath, "well, at least now, I know how Capote felt."
   "Do you think I'll ever get another opportunity to fulfill the last step?" I asked.
   His answer was less than sanguine.
   Twenty years ago if you asked me if one day I would be involved in a case of international law that rested on the question as to whether through the exact performance of a bronze age ritual I was indeed married de facto to a woman of international fame, wealth and power without either of our knowledge I would have laughed in your face.
    But, strangely, the moment I arrived back in America those unindividuated blues left me. Never in my wildest imagination would I dream that it would take the work of a world organization based in Europe, derided as an extension of an irrelevant debating society to help me find my own individualism. Yet, no longer did I feel atomized. I now felt molecular.
    In the end the question remains whether I will ever act on the judicial mandate handed down to me. Who is to say that on one fine spring day if word came to me that Madame X was on her way to one of the four countries left on the planet not signed to a bi-lateral agreement with the US: Quemoy, Matsu, Iran or North Korea, who's to say I might not take the plunge?