Cockeyed ds-11

by Richard Stevenson

  “At least,” Timmy said, “by agreeing to participate in this horror show Hunny is going to come across as both brave and sympathetic. And maybe it will even help get his mom back.”

  “Let’s hope that’s the way it goes.”

  After a minute and a half, O’Malley reappeared, Old Glory waving next to each of his ears, and introduced Hunny, who was seated in the chair previously occupied by Reverend Kalafut.

  Slouching in his seat in an ill-fitting jacket and some kind of hand-painted necktie, Hunny looked wan, bleary-eyed and jittery.

  “Huntington Van Horn,” O’Malley intoned, “is the first winner of the New York State Lottery’s Instant Warren drawing. Mr. Van Horn took home a check for a staggering one billion dollars last Friday when he appeared on another network to collect his huge check. Not content to simply say how fortunate he was, however, Mr. Van Horn, an advocate for gay rights, so-called, accepted his winnings and then made a suggestive comment about the male host’s anatomy. That was an early tip-off that the New York Lottery Commission had made a tragic mistake, a mistake this taxpayer funded state agency has yet to rectify.”

  Hunny shot O’Malley a look that was both angry and injured and said, “This was supposed to be about getting my mom back.

  That…that Trinkus woman who works for you said…Trinkus said I could announce that Mom was missing from her nursing home and you’d put her picture on TV. So anyway, who cares about Matt Lauer’s basket?” Hunny’s diction was sloppy — the Jack Daniels had crept up on him — and as he spoke he squirmed in his chair like a child who needed to go to the lavatory.

  “Yes, we’ll get to the so-called disappearance,” O’Malley said, arching an eyebrow at the Matt Lauer reference but otherwise charging by it. “Mr. Van Horn’s mother has perhaps been misplaced by the Golden Gardens home for the elderly in East Greenbush, New York, an institution that state nursing home regulators need to take a close look at. I’ll be doing an investigation of state regulators and their failings at a later date.

  There is also a good possibility that your mother’s disappearance, so-called, could be a hoax connected to your own desire to obtain a contract for your own reality show on All-Too-Real TV.

  But right now, Mr. Van Horn, I have another photograph that I’d like you and viewers to take a close look at. Just look over there at the monitor.”

  Hunny flared, squirmed some more and was about to speak, but something caught his attention off to the side, and on our home screen up came a photo of a woman I took to be the actual Marylou Whitney. “Do you recognize this woman?” O’Malley demanded to know.

  “Well, of course I do,” Hunny muttered. “That is Mary 108 Richard Stevenson

  Cheney, the lesbian daughter of the former vice president and notorious war criminal Dick Cheney.”

  “Absolutely incorrect,” we heard O’Malley say. Then the picture changed to the Marylou Whitney who was Hunny’s pal.

  “And do you recognize this person, Mr. Van Horn?”

  “That rectal vision,” Hunny said in a W.C. Fields voice, “oh, I mean regal vision, is Mrs. Marylou Whitney, the horse fancier and gracious lady of Saratoga and Palm Beach. I rectalize…realize… reck-a-nize Mrs. Whitney because she is a very dear friend of mine. Marylou was telling me just this afternoon how happy she is that now I am even richer than she is. Isn’t that a hoot? How d’ya like them apples, Bill O’Malley?” Hunny held his hand up and burped into it.

  “Our show has evidence,” O’Malley declared, “that the so-called lady shown on viewers’ screens is in fact a female impersonator — a drag queen, if you will, who is just one of the retinue of gay lowlifes regularly harbored by you at your Moth Street home here in New York’s state capital. These are people who will not only benefit directly or indirectly from the state’s billion-dollar payout but will also, through becoming celebrities, influence young people across America to adopt the homosexual lifestyle. What say you to that?”

  The camera went in for a close-up on Hunny, and it was now apparent that the hand-painted necktie he was wearing displayed the from-the-waist-up shirtless image of late porn star Jack Wrangler. Hunny scowled back at O’Malley and stammered,

  “What a…what a pack of bald-headed lies! I know that my friend is the real Marylou Whitney because I have seen the horse’s face tattoo on her upper thigh just to the right of her ample bush.

  And if she did have a dick, I certainly didn’t notice it. Or, if I did take note, and since then it has slipped my mind, I probably figured if Marylou Whitney wanted to have a dick sticking down from between her legs, then that was her own freakin’ business, and it is certainly none of my business or yours!”

  Now the camera cut to O’Malley’s ashen face, as he said, “I apologize for that. We’ll take a break and be right back.”

  Timmy said, “Yuck.”

  “I was a little afraid of this.”

  “This is not going to help. Not Hunny, not his mother, not any of the rest of us. Oh, Jesus.”

  Now another erectile dysfunction ad was running. The male in the couple was looking as if he himself had won the Instant Warren, and the woman we were supposed to assume was his wedded wife bore the expression of expectant awe you might find on a discount store greeting card rendering of the Annunciation.

  I said, “I should not have let this happen. Hunny was set up.

  O’Malley and his people used Hunny’s emotional state over his mother to lure him on and then provoke him and make him act in a way that confirms every Focks viewer’s ugliest stereotype of gay men.”

  “Well, you said you advised him against going on. Maybe you should have hit him over the head with a chair.”

  “He was determined to do it. And he never even got to show the picture of his mother.”

  “O’Malley said her disappearance might be a hoax. Is that possible?”

  “No. Who would benefit?”

  “Maybe she staged it herself. Without Hunny’s knowledge.

  To throw the Brienings off track. She has a history of deception, after all.”

  “The embezzlement?”

  “Don, she’s a criminal, for God’s sake.”

  “Reformed. Mother Van Horn has been law-abiding in recent years. And sober.”

  The get-an-erection commercial ended, and O’Malley reappeared. His look was one of disgust mixed with triumph. The chair next to him was empty. He peered into the camera and said gravely, “As for the wisdom of the Lottery Commission awarding one billion dollars to a plainly unstable radical homosexual who is going to utilize his celebrity to promote sexual deviance and poor taste, ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case.”

  O’Malley glanced to his right as a noisy commotion broke out, and soon we could hear a plaintive cry. “Mom! Mmmmooooommm!”

  “We have plenty more evidence,” O’Malley went on, trying to ignore the ruckus, “that Mr. Van Horn is morally unfit to receive a large sum from a state agency. Focks News has learned that a former altar boy was served alcohol by Mr. Van Horn and sexually violated by him when the boy was a minor.”

  I said, “Oh no. Stu Hood!”

  “The arsonist?”

  But the picture that came on the screen was not Hood but that of Mason Doebler, the bearish owner of the Pontiac Firebird Hunny had been instrumental in wrecking.

  Timmy said, “That guy was an altar boy?”

  “Now a grown man,” O’Malley said ominously, “but haunted by the pain and humiliation he suffered at the hands of the predatory Huntington Van Horn, Mr. Mason Doebler has informed Focks News that he is suing Mr. Van Horn for three hundred and seventy-five million dollars — ”

  More loud voices could be heard, and then suddenly Hunny appeared along with two women, one of them Jane Trinkus in her too-tight jeans. Trinkus had Hunny by the arm and the other woman was wrapped around his right leg, and they were trying to drag him away from O’Malley.

  Trinkus screamed, “Stay live, stay live! America needs to see this! He’s a terrorist!”r />
  “Violence follows Huntington Van Horn wherever he goes,”

  O’Malley boomed. “Late last night, supporters of Mr. Van Horn shot a Focks News cameraman who presently lies wounded in an Albany hospital. I urge you to offer your thoughts and prayers for…this brave cameraman.”

  The wrestling match proceeded a few feet from O’Malley, who leaned back in his seat and gawked.

  “This is my mom!” Hunny moaned, and was trying to hold up to the camera a photo of a plump smiling old lady in a leisure suit and a fresh perm. “This woman is missing from Golden Gardens in East Greenbush, and she may be injured or abducted or lost and hungry!”

  “None of that has been proven,” O’Malley said, “although of course our thoughts and prayers also go out to this elderly senior citizen, whatever she might be up to.”

  “If you see her,” Hunny gasped out, “please notify your local police department. And Mom, Mom, if you are tuning in, and you are being held against your will, or if you are hurt, I just want you to know that I love you, Mom! I love you, I love you, I love you! And if this has anything to do with the Brienings, don’t worry, we will take care of everything. Don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, Mom! Just come home, Mommy! Mommy, just come home!” Hunny began to weep as the two women now dragged him out of camera range.

  Bill O’Malley said, “Who are the Brienings?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  I drove over to Moth Street in time for Hunny’s return from the Focks studios, a homecoming that was bound to be sad and awkward. I had already had a call from Nelson, who blamed me for what happened on the O’Malley show. Nelson claimed erroneously that it had been my job to keep Hunny out of any kind of trouble. In fact, I had been hired to deal with local thugs who turned up to harass or injure Hunny in one way or another, but not right-wing media thugs from Focks News.

  Still, I wondered if there was any way I could have kept Hunny from looking spectacularly foolish once again. Now I was even more determined to help keep Hunny from acting like his own worst enemy and — although I hadn’t gone to Dartmouth and was not so much revolted by Hunny as fascinated by him — help keep him from becoming the cultural right’s poster boy for abominable homosexual depravity.

  Bill O’Malley had not gotten an answer to his question about who the Brienings were, and as I drove I tried to formulate a story for Hunny to use in case the question came up again. Hunny had been seriously drunk on the O’Malley show, so maybe he could get away with saying he had misspoken. And instead of the Brienings he had meant to say the Grindings or the Rhinestones or the Bite-sizes, not that those made any sense to anybody, either. But Hunny had a knack for brazening things out, so I supposed he could redeploy his broad range of improvisational talents.

  While I had Nelson on the line, I told him I had met the Brienings, and it was my belief that they were not directly responsible for the disappearance, but that the threatening letter they had sent Mrs. Van Horn might somehow have caused Mother Van Horn to panic and bolt. Meanwhile, I suggested, we ought to respond with vague evasions to any questions from the press or the police about the mysterious Brienings.

  The Mason Doebler threat was going to be harder to finesse.

  Doebler had apparently contacted O’Malley’s people and lied about having been molested by Hunny, borrowing and whimsically altering Stu Hood’s story, in a desperate attempt to extract more than the thousand dollars Hunny had promised Mason for his new catalytic converter. Three hundred seventy-five million dollars could put a real dent in Hunny’s bank account. Hood was sure to get wind of this development, and perhaps he would then sue Doebler for either invasion of privacy or plagiarism. Either way, I knew of lawyers the aging arsonist could hire who would gleefully take this on.

  I arrived at Hunny’s house and parked across the street just as Art drove up and eased their dingy Explorer into the driveway, which was so tiny the suv stuck out about a foot onto the cracked sidewalk. Several TV crews were still on the scene, but instead of pouncing in their normal way they approached the vehicle tentatively. As I approached, Art told them, “Mr. Van Horn is under the weather and will have nothing more to say to the media until further notice.” The reporters all seemed to accept this.

  Some looked chastened, others bordering on queasy. They had either seen or heard about the O’Malley fiasco. The two Gray Security guards also stood off to the side looking pensive.

  Hunny climbed out of the back seat with a Budweiser beach towel over his head and face, and Art led him as quickly as Hunny’s unsteady gait would allow up the front steps and into the house. I followed close behind.

  Antoine and the twins had left for the night, but Marylou was in the living room stretched out on the couch, her ball gown up around her knees. As we came in, Marylou switched off the TV, stood up and straightened her skirts. “Huntington, you naughty boy!” she said gaily. “Am I going to have to send you to the woodshed? Oh, my word, when they showed that female impersonator pretending to be me, and you said, no, that’s not Marylou Whitney, that’s Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Dick Cheney, the war criminal, I just thought I was going to wet my pants!”

  Hunny flopped into a chair and lit a Marlboro from a pack on the coffee table. “Well, they can insult me, Marylou. I am just one of Sarah Palin’s reg-ler Amur-kins. But when they start in on the elite such as yourself, then they have gone too far. I have the deepest respect for the elite, especially an elegant society lady like yourself. Oh, Artie, dearest, I think I need a pick-me-up. Would you be so kind as to indulge your favorite old tosspot?”

  Marylou tsk-tsked Hunny. “Is that wise, Huntington?”

  Art’s thinking was similar. “Hunny, honey, I’m shutting you off, and you are going right straight to bed. You have to be up bright and early when they resume the search for your mom. Or maybe she’ll turn up while you’re dreaming, and you ought to be bright and perky to welcome her back at the crack of dawn.”

  Hunny was suddenly alert. “The crack of who? The crack of Don Johnson?”

  “How about Donnie Osmand?”

  “Yecchh.”

  “Or Don Giovanni,” Marylou said, and then trilled something Timmy would have recognized.

  “How about Don Strachey’s adorable crack?” Hunny cooed in my direction. “Donald, you aren’t saying much. I think you have turned morose again. I can’t imagine why. I don’t suppose you caught me on the Bill O’Malley show, did you, by chance?”

  “I did. Hunny, you might need to sober up until your multiplicity of problems have been taken care of. It would be really helpful if you did that.”

  “Artie, do get me one more shot, would you, please, doll face?”

  “Nuh-uh. You’ve had more than enough. Donald is correct.”

  Hunny snapped, “All right, then don’t! Anyhoo,” he went on, his head suddenly pitching forward, “maybe we should all call it a night. Don, will you be joining Arthur and me in our bed chamber? If you do, you’ll be glad you did. Ecstatic, in fact.

  Thrilled to your receding hairline.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Oh, you must have attended the church up the street from the one I went to. Methodists sometimes allow a bit of leeway, but Presbyterians are generally stickin-the-muds when it comes to sharing the masculine booty. Are you Presbyterian, Donald?”

  “I once was. You nailed me, Hunny. Now I am more of an anarcho-vaguely Buddhist-secular humanist-worshiper of a good night’s sleep.”

  Hunny arched an eyebrow and was about to say something else when his head suddenly toppled over again and his eyes blinked shut.

  “Not to worry,” Art told me. “Hunny isn’t dead. He’s just through for the night.” Hunny’s Marlboro dangled from his fingers and Art bent down and took it away. “Anybody want the rest of this? I hate to waste cigarettes. Do you know how much these things cost nowadays? I’ve tried to get Hunny to quit, mostly because of the incredible expense. But he said he’d give up food first, or his blood pressure pills, which
cost nine hundred fifty-eight dollars a month, and his co-pay is almost two fifty.

  Of course, now that he’s richer than Prince Harry, Hunny won’t have to worry about co-pays and what have you. Still, where I grew up in Schenectady, you didn’t waste money and put out a perfectly good cigarette until it was smoked down to the filter. Or if it didn’t have a filter, my dad might get out the tweezers like it was a roach. Not that he ever knew what a doobie was. Anybody want this?”

  “Just snip off the hot end and save the rest for later,” Marylou said. “I’ve seen people do that in Palm Beach since Madoff.”

  I asked Marylou, “Were there any useful phone calls while Hunny was out? Nothing new from Golden Gardens, I take it.”

  “No, darling, there was just a brief call from Detective Sanders.

  He saw Hunny on Bill O’Malley, and he asked me if I knew who the Brienings were. Who are they, anyway? As Hunny’s media representative, I need to be kept in the loop and on top of the information flow. And don’t worry yourselves over what I might have to say to anyone on the subject of the Brienings, whoever they are. Everybody who knows me knows that spin is my forte.”

  Art said, “Hunny will brief you in the a.m., Marylou. The Brienings may actually be the biggest fly in the ointment we’re having to deal with.”

  “No other calls?” I asked.

  “No. Oh, there was one, actually. Do either of you know a Quentin Shoemaker?”

  Art said no, but I said I thought the name sounded vaguely familiar.

  “Mr. Shoemaker said he saw Hunny on Bill O’Malley and he wants to come down from Vermont where he lives and help Hunny out. He is one of the original Radical Fairies, he said. And now Mr. Shoemaker is part of a commune up in Ferrisburg called the Rdq, and he thinks Hunny is getting a raw deal both from horrid right wingers like Bill O’Malley and also from all the gay people in Albany and across the nation who are not coming to Hunny’s defense as he gets dragged through the slime.”