Mojo - 13. Chapter 12: vivamus, dum licet esse bene

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Chapter 12: vivamus, dum licet esse bene

Waves of clapping snapped me out of my flashback. First thing I saw was the wife of the undertaker-slash-day-trader filming my reverie with her tablet device. My 'mood' was live streaming on www.NightlywithTre-Princely.com.

I applauded too, watching as the skeleton took a final bow and disappeared beneath the Grim Reaper's robes again.

Meanwhile, I glanced at Assauer, desperately waiting to confirm my memory was not a twisted fantasy. I hoped he’d remember going through that fucked-up torment as well.

Fresh bottles of 'new' wine were opened and the corpse of Jefferson's vintage removed, thankfully. My first sip of the supermarket-grade California Merlot was like spring water to a desert-wandering man.

Tre silenced the crowd, saying, "I hope you enjoyed my little dios del los muertos panto-mime. When I was a kid, I loved those creepy puppets Mr. Rogers fisted on his little kiddie horror show."

No one knew how to react; was he serious? Yes.

He added solemnly: "Makes ya think."

Others agreed with befuddled "Uh-huh’s."

People drank their wine in contentment for a while, staring at, or daring to eat their first course, and then something sounded in the hallway. It was an off-key version of that old free-love tune, Age of Aquarius. In trooped a bunch of tie-dyed hippies playing kazoos and police whistles and pushing a gleaming medical gurney. The entire top was mounded with stinking sod, the exposed dirt falling away from the edges.

Tre rose to his slightly wobbly feet. "Salad course! This one is self-serve."

The tie-dyed young people stood back as guests gathered around the gurney. Tre explained, "Chef Cory said we should forage."

No plates, no forks – the former pornstar started picking stuff and munching on it.

Amazed, I inspected the offerings closer. Amidst the grass was a wild assortment of micro greens of every hue. They had been 'planted,' and we were to graze like sheep on them.

One of the women screamed.

"Ha-ha-ha, Aurora," Tre laughed. "You found the salad dressing!" The man reached in and plucked a fat earthworm off the grass. He held it up. "Our chef is a molecular genius. Can take a liquid and turn it into a solid – and vice versa."

He ate some baby kale shoots, then bit off the head of the worm. "Oh," he mumbled with a mushy mouth, "it's Thousand Island!"

While people swallowed down their honest reactions and started to pluck, I yanked my ex aside.

"You sure you don’t remember anything…?"

"Um—"

"About being tied up, in a garden center? How that mad Priapus woman made her personal assistant, that nympho-bimbo, grind all up on you?"

"Oh…." Light seemed to dawn a bit in his eyes.

"It was some sick Psycho-Scheisse," I added.

Gordon joined us with a nightcrawler dangling from his mouth. "What's up?"

"Kohl is remembering what went on last Sunday night."

"How about you?" I asked my boy.

He shrugged and chewed.

"How you were forced to strip me while I was held down on the floor?!"

"Oh." Now light began to shine in his eyes too.

"Chef Cory!" Tre-Princely called out.

We turned to see the leprechaun-looking cook return. All of a sudden, the shape of the 'salad course' seemed clear to me; it was mounded like a freshly covered grave.

Our host continued talking with a wink and a nod in his tone. "It's great, Chef, but don’t you think it's a little plain? Shouldn’t this be the bed of something fabulous served on top…? You chefs are always doing beds of this and that."

"Funny you should ask, Mr. Knight." The chef strode up to the head position of the grave and reached down.

Freakily, he pulled open two doors covered with sod and micro greens. A platter slowly rose from the hidden depths.

Everyone drew near to have a look. The serving plate appeared to be full of…deviled eggs…?

“Chihuahuan eggs diablo," the Irish man announced with pride through his quaking brogue. "The buried treasure of some long-lost hiker, they're stuffed with cactus candy, ancho chili, and mixed with a goose fat aioli."

"Yum," his former-pornstar boss said while taking one. "Just like Mother never used to make."

Assauer ponied up to try one, but my boy sensed I was troubled and led me back to the table.

We sat.

"Are you remembering more, Gordon?"

"Well, what you said sounds real familiar."

"I'm not…." I stumbled.

"Not what?"

"I'm not so sure I want to remember the whole night."

"Aww." He moved his hand under the table and stroked my thigh, high up. His action should have caused a reaction, but….

I noticed that surly friend of Tre's, that Ermanno guy, sitting at the head table and swirling his cocktail glass. He glared at us, clearly suspicious.

"Never mind." I grabbed and held my boy's hand underneath. "We'll get through this."

Our host went back to his seat too, ignoring his wine, and finished off his bottle of gin. "Get me another one!"

"Darling—" Prospera started.

"I'm thirsty, Lucky Charm." He signaled one of the hippie boys wheeling out the deceased salad. "Sapphire, boy. Bring me one."

"Yes, sir."

"Good lad." He wiped his mouth on his increasingly dirty scarf, and muttered under his breath, "Gin is my first missus." Tre settled in again, shifting his attention onto a guest seated at the table opposite ours. "Say, Dana, I'm glad you and Cynthia could make it."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," the guest's wife said, training her phone on Dana's nose.

"Yes, Tre," he added.

"How was that auction you attended?"

"Oh, the blowout of that guy's estate?"

"Indeed."

"It was good. Picked up a '76 Jag. Needs a whole new electrical system – they always do. Don’t ever trust a Limey to rewire your home." He laughed.

"Who is this?" Rabbit's Foot inquired. "Someone we knew had to sell out?"

"Yes, baby doll. It's the stalled economy."

"It's a typical riches to rags story,” said Dana. “But don't worry – they're on the Gop welfare program, and’ll receive a get-out-of-debt-free card. That’s because they’re ‘the right sort of people,’ meaning ‘rich’ no matter how negative their bank balance.”

Prospera chuckled. “Oh, that kind of welfare! Lord knows Mr. Orange Sherbet financed his six bankruptcies on the backs of honest taxpayers to pay off his debts. Naturally, 'honest taxpayer' never included him.”

“Yeah,” Neil added. “The only tax that Yank ponies up is sales tax, and even that he claims as a ‘business expense.’”

"I saw in the papers," prattled Cynthia, "the guy who had to sell out claimed to have too many investors; the Feds will be calling."

"Yes, well…" Tre felt the convo was wandering too far away from him. "My old high school teacher warned us about being adrift in life. He'd say 'Malcolm, remember Ulysses, and don’t float around so much.' Such profound words, and I took 'em to heart."

He seemed to pause for applause, but none came so he went on undaunted.

"One thing I've used over the years to stay on track is Astrology. Prospera will tell you. I had Nancy Reagan's woman once tell me my Venus was ascendant up Jupiter's…arc, or some such. I even had one write down the exact—"

"Tre, don’t." There had been real urgency in Prospera's voice, and her former pornstar husband took it as an affront.

Fortunately, the tie-dyed minion returned just then with two fresh bottles of gin.

"Ah, my boy! Come here." Tre fished in his robe pocket and skinned a hundred-dollar bill from the top of a donut-sized roll of them. He pushed it into the smiling teenager’s chest.

"Thank you, sir."

"No, thank you." He gripped both bottles in his hands and recited another 'poem.'

"Whosoever plays this life in the open,

gets the gift of a homerun from the bullpen!"

He suddenly remembered me.

"Our new friend, Kohl here, is a poet too. Why don’t you recite something?"

All eyes inched my way, including the envious guy who now had reason to fear I was after Tre's attention.

I drained my wine. "Truth is, I'm too sober right now. Maybe later."

Tre-Princely Knight chuckled a bit. "I'll hold you to that. I never forget anything; remember that."

Just as he cracked the lid open on a fresh bottle, Tre got a funny expression on his face. "Um, you folks talk – honey? Where is the…?"

Mrs. Schwartzbaum stood and led her man off to find the closest museum toilet.

Thirty seconds after they were entirely out of sight, we all released a collective sigh of relief. Every personal device got set down, and the conversation started to flow naturally.

Gavin the mortician patted his lean belly. "Up to his usual snuff."

"Are you enjoyin’ the fare?" Neil Campbell asked me.

"Well, to be truthful – I couldn’t possibly eat another bite."

"Ain't that the truth," Dana said seriously, as if I’d uttered something profound.

"Actually," I said, "I'm not sure what to make of the last course. I mean the whole concept: a mound, shaped like a grave, on a gurney – and salad with hippies?"

"Go with it, or get out," barked Ermanno with a scowl.

Napoleon, kind-heart, explained, "Who ain't a slave. The only way we come back as equals is through the great equalizer."

"Ah." I nodded at his reasoning of the artistic conceit, but I realized since I can't follow the logic of these 'sane men,' I better keep my mouth shut.

“Let’s have more wine,” Dana called to the waiters, and then swelled up sadly. “Celebrate while you can. Afterall, what’s a day? You get swept up into one, spun this way and that, and then, before you even know it, it’s night again. Ain’t that right, Sal? You know what I mean.”

This man was sitting next to Gavin's wife, Aurora, and he nodded. "I do. That's the problem with the young, they think they can cheat time, but they can't. This life will be done before they know it. To put a nail in the coffin of the truth of it, I had to go to another funeral just today."

"Oh, yeah," Cynthia asked. "Who?"

"Jack Daria, former governor of California."

"Oh, I know," said Coruptti, "I wanted his business…. Well, how was it?"

"Sad, and not because the funeral was for an eighty-five-year-old, but because he's just another of the real generation of GOPs fading into memory. What passes for Conservatism today is Retrogressivism – not keep what we have for ourselves, but positively take from those who have nothing to begin with."

"Oh, don’t I know it," agreed Aurora. "Today's toadies must make the old vanguard sick. No wonder they're dying off so quickly!"

"Used to be the satire you'd see on TV," Dana said, "seemed outrageous, and then they started using the so-called politicians’ actual words to make audiences laugh, like that quitter Sandra Pale-Heart's ‘I can see Russia from my trailer!’"

We all laughed, and then he added with a sober shake of his graying head, "Yes, sadly yesterday's parodies have become today's realities. And oh my God, that woman’s so-called foreign policy experience can be summed up in one little ditty: ‘I see Moscow, I see Gdansk; I see Putin’s underpansk.’ And now we’re supposed to believe that was too scary for the American voting public, but Mr. Indebted-Up-To-His-Orange Glo in Russian Mob money isn’t?! No one believes that, not even the few members of the Coalition of the Coerced who actually held their nose and wasted a vote for that man to take a Dump on our country and wipe his backside with the Constitution.” He indulged in a drink and then muttered with sour slowness: “We won the Cold War, my ass….”

Gavin ventured agreement. "Yeah, things have changed, and they don’t make Gops like they used to. Never mind how Old Daria was an alcoholic – at least all his bribes from the lobbyists were sorta on the books! He never took strings-attached ‘loans,’ especially not from the Kremlin, for God's sake."

"From what I've heard," Neil added slickly, "he was still randy right to the end. Liked his boys hotblooded for sure, and remained hard as a horn, as we say Dow'Undda."

All the older men – including Napoleon – bobbed chins in amazement, hoping the same Viagra-fueled reality for themselves at that age.

"Yeah, he was a quote-un-quote ‘good man.’ So what," said Cynthia, "if Governor Daria was a notorious lush."

"Yes," agreed Gavin. "So what if he screamed at his beard-wife in public…?"

"So what," added Sal, "if he beat his staff where it wouldn't show?"

"Indeed." Aurora nodded. "So what if he proposed anti-gay amendments regularly – lots of them…?"

"That's right," trumped Napoleon. "So what if he drowned newborn kitties and kicked puppies at press conferences…?"

Ermanno grudgingly confessed the moral of the story. "He was still a more honorable man that what passes for a Grand Old Partisan these days."

A soft "Amen" went around the chamber.

Sal stood and offered a toast. "To the mean old S.O.B. bastard. To your health, Jack! They don’t make 'em like you anymore."

We all drank to the dead man's irascibility.

After we sat, the undertaker looked pensive. "Still, the men of his time never put up with the tax-payer-funded shenanigans going on in today’s world. People now have to pay a million dollars a day, for Secret Service details, just so the Orange One’s wife doesn't have to sleep in the same bed with him. Him in D.C.; her in New York, and all on public welfare."

"Yeah," Dana said. "And men like Daria would never prolong a recession like the Gops in Congress did just to profit from it."

"The recession's all the foreigners' fault." Ermanno's glance landed squarely on me. "There are too many of them in this country. Build a wall, I say; build two. Then the good times will return."

"Speaking of I-lie-gulls," my ex chimed in, "anyone ever seen the 'papers-please' on the current Mrs. Dump the Third? Seems she overstayed her tourist visa. From what I heard, way overstayed it—"

"He's joking," I said, slapping across Gordon’s chest to punch Assauer.

"Yeah," my boyfriend added. "Totally joking."

"Well, anyway," Dana clipped on at a merry pace, "we need more bootstrapping, more hope-filled can-do spunk, but the man who was shoe-horned into the White House by foreign leverage knows nothing about that. He is angry, and that’s the opposite of optimistic."

"It's true," Gavin confirmed. "But, what can you expect. He's a millionaire today because his indulgent daddy was a multi-millionaire who didn’t really teach him much about how to be a proper slumlord like himself. Jesus, no wonder Junior had to make do with office buildings and gambling dives. Sad."

"Speaking of teaching," said Sal, "the public schools are going to pot. Hurray we got the vouchers, thanks to the GOP’s syphoning off public funds for private use, cuz now we've hired a young guy to live in the house and teach our teen boy."

I drank some wine and moodily thought to myself, 'Yeah, teach him more than the three R's. I would know.’

“But,” Gavin asked, “you think he’s only a paltry millionaire? Hell, even my podiatrist is a millionaire. The Cheeto Duce claims he’s a billion—”

“Oh, please!” Dana chuckled, taking a sip of wine. “If that man finally paid all his debts, parking tickets, and back taxes – liquidating all his red-ink holdings to do it – I doubt the repo man would reckon him worth much above the seven-figure mark.”

“Ha,” exclaimed Aurora, “that was before he got ahold of government. Who knows how much money he’ll make out of ‘public service.’ I say, make sure to check his pockets for White House silverware before they haul him away to Leavenworth.”

Our laughs were short-lived, because we heard Tre coming back to us whistling a pop tune – Smash Mouth’s "All Star” – and drying his hands on his aviator scarf. Prospera Texas-Ivy followed close behind with a bit of embarrassment showing.

"Sorry, folks!" our host announced, heading for his seat. "Been blocked up lately; my docs are stumped. But things are movin' now!"

The missuses picked up their devices again. The show was back on.

"Tre," his wife said. "I bet they're thinking too much information right now."

“Pee-shawl! As if I don’t get occasional rolls of thunder from your belly at night in bed, darling. None of us come to this life with mortar and concrete blocks down there. Things gotta move and flow. Nothing natural should make us ashamed.” He took a seat, shakily pouring himself another. “Holding it in ain’t good. It’s like those poor schlubs, I’ve always thought, slamming themselves in the closet. So my dear friends, you have permission to fart freely here. Let it rip, because if you don’t, the sick vapors go straight to the head. And believe me, I’ve known plenty a blowhard who died, suffocated by breathing his own fumes instead of airing out his noggin.”

"More wine, everybody?" Mrs. Schwartzbaum busied herself and changed the subject at the same time.

Tre-Princely drank deeply and then turned his smile on Napoleon. "So, self-motivational guru, what moot points have you been hammering home in your lectures these days?"

"Oh, the usual things, Tre. Stay focused; commit to a plan of action no matter the number of folks talking reason to you; love yourself as you your neighbor – the usual."

"Oh, wow!" our host admired. "You could work in Washington!"

General laughter circulated around the room.

Tre continued, "Lots of smart people in the capital, but unfortunately, the smartest are not. Take me for instance. These rich guys in Torrance wanted to put me up as their congressional candidate, but I told 'em after a hard life of getting fucked on camera for a living, I don’t want to get screwed behind closed doors by The Party. I told 'em Sonny Bono was used to that sort of thing with Cher, and to hit him up for a Gop hook-up. They said thanks and called him."

"Oh, wow, I didn’t know that," Neil said, and his eye-roll made my ex bust up.

Ermanno placed an 'I told you so' curl on his lips and raised his eyebrow in our host's direction. Tre-Princely caught it and shifted on his seat slightly.

"I'm smarter than most men," our host said, "and I can prove it. I may not be a so-called intellectual, but I've got quite a library – all on DVD. I’ve got every type of show, and I know about being trapped and so forth. Like that poor Cyclops fellow who had Jason do some unnecessary cataract surgery on him and lost his sight because of it. It could happen to any one of us."

When none of us knew how to react, Tre added "Makes ya think," and we could all nod.

A lady in a frilly Mexican dancing dress entered playing an accordion. Behind her, little girls made up like bullfighters – right down to painted moustaches – pushed in a giant saguaro cactus with far too many arms. At the end of each limb was a plate holding some dark, glossy substance on plates.

"Ah!" Tre exclaimed.

The accordion lady stopped playing, referencing a notecard while she read: "Chef Cory proudly presents agave blossoms in a dark Belgium chocolate mole sauce, over a bed of cactus paddle croquettes. Enjoy…he says." She could barely hide her own revulsion.

The little girls distributed the dishes, and the crew rolled out the prop cactus with more accordion music. This ‘happening’ started to remind me of some absurdist opera; in and out with stage props all night long.

I glanced to Gordon to see if he'd try this new 'delight.' He stuck his finger in the sauce and tasted it with a sour face.

Drunk now, Tre gulped down the food and mumbled something.

"What's that, darling?"

"I said: ex omnibus in unum, nec hoc nec illud."

Napoleon translated for us, apparently recognizing the quote. "Neither this nor that, but all one and the same."

“Yes,” our host said, holding his tumbler of gin to the light. “Water to clean our bodies, but only firewater to bathe our core. The innards – that’s where our darkest humors lie.”

He woke from his reverie suddenly, smiling and looking for his wife. “You men, won’t any of you take my Prospera for a turn on the dance floor? There’s no one better equipped to lead a hoe-down, I can assure ya.”

"Oh, you," his wife chuckled.

Tre-Princely pushed on the table a bit, rattling dishes as he stood, wobbling. "All right, old stick in the mud. If you won't, I will. I studied ballet as a boy, or bal-ey, as my mush-mouth Limey dance mistress slurred it. Took me a while to realize I wasn’t studying belly dancing….but who could tell with her accent. Shall I dance for everybody?!"

Prospera had quietly gone behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe later, dear. They're still trying to eat."

He surveyed the room, and slowly deflated into his chair again like a balloon.

"Sometimes I wonder if…. Oh, never mind, because in these uncertain times," Tre mused darkly, "wealth is the only safeguard a man can have. I for one worked hard for it, and now, you know I'm so rich, I have my head of security shelling peas."

That was a real head-scratcher.

Nicholas was brave. "What do you mean, Tre?"

Our host laughed. "I mean I'm so rich and powerful no one would dare break and enter me and mine, so I send my security chief to the kitchen where he can be put to some sort of useful work, like shelling peas or stringing green beans."

After a round of laughter and some handclapping for Tre, we all sat in silence for several minutes, trying to digest the rhetoric and sour-smelling agave blossoms.

Suddenly, a clamor of whoops and hollers arose from the corridor. An old man and a little boy in circus silks came running in carrying a short ladder.

Tre-Princely's face lit up like the birthday boy at a kids’ party.

Now I realized the child was not wearing dark makeup on his arms and face, but was covered in wolfman fur.

"Welcome, Señor Aceves and grandson." Tre quickly explained to the rest of us, "Acrobats from Mexico, famous for the werewolf gene."

And then it hit me; I did hear something about one family in Mexico with a genetic predisposition to having hair grow on all parts of their bodies. Nevertheless, the boy was attractive and bright-eyed as he leaped onto his grandfather's back. They provided their own musical accompaniment in the form of more shouts.

Tre applauded loudly.

The boy sprung into an upside-down handstand, head to head with the older man, each using their fingers to steady one another.

More hoots and hollers; more jolly clapping from Tre.

We guests were more unimpressed than our host. To us it appeared like more of that Circum Solum stuff, and everybody hates a mime, as some wise man once observed.

Tre-Princely picked up on the vibe, remarking rancorously, "The arts are so under appreciated these days. I once hired the Royale Shakespeare Company to do Benny-Hill-style goosing and pie in the face routines for the night. They did it though, cuz money speaks louder than honor, that's for damn sure."[1]

Next, the boy did a somersault and landed on the floor gracefully. The ladder was picked up, and the child started to climb it at the same time. Señor Aceves gradually slid it up along his chest into the air.

We were all holding our breath, wondering what would happen next.

The old man kept lifting as the boy got to the very top. Eventually, the old man kicked his head back and placed the bottom rung on his chin.

Slowly, oh so slowly, he moved his hands out to the side, while the boy did the same.

Then, just as the child was in mid-celebratory whoop, the ladder began to fall forward. The old man tried to grab it, but the kid was flung right onto Tre's fat belly. Thump!

After a moment of shocked silence and indecision – no one was sure this was not part of the ‘performance’ – his wife rushed over with a fresh bottle of gin. "Speak to me, sweetheart…."

I saw her fanning his face, saw the boy bound up unharmed, saw other guests pour our host a drink, but there was something in the voice of Prospera – the genuine shimmer of concern – that slipped me out of the moment.

I jolted awake back in the garden center, naked, but me and Assauer had been moved to a greenhouse.

Above us arched the rustling plastic of hot-house roofing, and our hands and feet were bound next to strawberry plants.

The door opened. In strode Parthia, with Psyche and Lolita behind her. A sheepish Gordon trailed in last.

Her PA held some sort of drinking bowl. The mad priestess told me and my ex, "Your first trial is here, young men, to test the strength of The God's wishes upon you." She turned to her personal assistant. "Administer the satyrion, Ms. Psyche."

She moved and pressed the chalice to my ex's lips, making him swallow about a third of it.

"What's in that cup?!" I demanded to know.

Parthia came close, picking a red strawberry and smearing it on my clenched lips. "A concoction of ground Viagra, the root of an endangered wild orchid, and Cialis – a goodlier provocative to love does not exist. And now, seeing as I am cured, we'll begin your trials by female; one of you has been sanctified, one of you has been bound; can you guess which is which?"

Her silvery chortle soured the air, and Psyche pressed the cup to my lips. I had no choice but to choke back the bitter fluid, yet the girl still left some in the bowl.

By the time my eyes stopped watering and my heavy breathing slowed, I glanced over to see Assauer look like a man possessed. This pleased the horny Psyche, who immediately gave his stick a handle and worked it up into a powerful pose.

She untied his hands, and to my surprise, he pulled her into lustful kissing, undoing her teddy at the same time.

Soon she mounted him, riding and bucking like a cowboy heading out on the range. Assauer was beside himself with unnatural lust, and I pitied the poor bastard.

My inspection of the disgusting display drew Psyche's conniving attention, for she slid off of my ex like a snake in the grass and slithered over to me.

Her sweaty palms were all over me instantly, stroking this and that, gripping and releasing, but I had no reaction of a physical kind. My privates, on public display as they were, felt chilled as fast food patties before cooking.

The horny personal assistant gave up when Assauer called out, "Come back, baby. I got something for you."

Psyche grabbed the bowl and lay on her back at my ex's feet. He mounted her for missionary work.

Parthia and her demented PA laughed at my discomfort, and even Gordon began to chuckle – but more at the possessed nature of Assauer's animal grunts.

I watched in horror as Lolita popped her nasty gum and walked up to my boy, forcing an ugly tongue-kiss onto him.

When she started groping the boy, I shouted: "Oh, evil priestess. Kill us now, for the punishment is far worse than the crime!"

At that precise moment, Assauer's choked-up moans let everyone know he was ready to burst. Psyche backed off of him, and held the love-potion bowl for him to ejaculate into.

After he was spent, and falling backwards with a noticeably enlarged schlong slowly growing flaccid, Psyche got up – careful not to spill the contents of the cup – and came to me.

"What are you going to do with that?!" I asked, getting lightheaded as I resisted against my restraints.

"This," she said and drizzled it up and down my chest and belly. Female cackles in three different pitches erupted all at once, pinging my poor ears from every corner of the room. Gradually, I let my breath go, and passed out with the maniacal acolyte still rubbing the mess all over my clammy skin.