Lunatics

by Dave Barry

  Continued on Page A12

  CHAPTER 61

  Philip

  I’d read somewhere that many of NASA’s astronauts had trouble readjusting to life on Earth after they returned from the moon. That being in outer space, where they looked back and saw our planet as a small speck in a very populated galaxy, changed their perspective on life so dramatically that they had difficulty reconnecting with loved ones who couldn’t possibly feel the way they now did.

  Would the same thing happen to me? I wondered.

  As I sat on that private jet for the last time, now as a defeated presidential candidate, the romantic in me was hoping for a happy ending. Hoping that Daisy and the kids would be at the door when I got to the house, and we’d go forward from where we’d left off.

  Was it possible?

  I had called Daisy right after my concession speech. I’d told her that I understood why she wasn’t there the way wives of the losers are traditionally at their husbands’ sides as a display of family support and unity. I told her that I understood that Heidi and Trace had school the next day, that I was looking forward to seeing her, and pretended to understand when she couldn’t say the same thing to me.

  This probably shouldn’t have surprised me, as things between us had deteriorated during the campaign. At first she did make an effort to be a candidate’s wife by allowing herself to be profiled on an MSNBC special about the potential First Ladies and, even though she, too, is a registered Democrat, drove around with the Republican Party’s slogan (“The Other Guy Is Worse”) on the bumper of our SUV.

  She had even joined me at a few stops along the trail. Had her parents come over to stay with the kids while she flew to places like Buffalo and Kansas City. I could see she was trying her best, despite the fact that she was totally out of her element, and I did my best to show my appreciation.

  But eventually the tumult of crowds and the intrusion of the media into what should have been our private lives made her more and more uncomfortable and she eventually retreated into a protective mode when Peckerman pulled that stunt during our third televised debate.

  You remember: After I’d answered Katie Couric’s question about the national deficit by saying, “No matter what your political affiliations are, I think it’s fair to say that any system which allows Warren Buffett to pay fewer taxes than his secretary needs to be reexamined,” Peckerman, as soon as the audience’s applause in that auditorium died down, responded by holding up a picture of our son, Trace, doing a grand plié during a performance of Swan Lake and said, “Take a gander at this homo.”

  Had I changed? Well, how could I not?

  Since the preceding spring, after that fateful soccer game when I called Peckerman’s daughter offside (and she was offside, by the way) I’d been a fugitive, had fallen so deeply in love with another woman that I jumped off an ocean liner to save her from drowning, helped liberate literally millions of oppressed people, and was a candidate for the presidency of the United States. No one could possibly experience all that and not be affected.

  Were Daisy and I different people? was the more relevant question. And had we grown so far apart that our marriage wouldn’t be able to withstand the change in our definitions? Before this entire episode, I was more than content to be a husband, father and pet store owner. And she was happy being the wife of that guy. But now?

  That was the question that hounded me during that flight, the ride home from the airport, and the walk to the front door of what I was hoping could still be my happy home.

  And it was answered after I let myself in, and walked through the darkened house and into the master bedroom, where I found a note on my pillow that said “Let’s take things slowly. Okay?” next to my sleeping wife, to whom I leaned over and whispered, “Okay.”

  So that’s what we’ve been doing. At home I’ve been slowly slipping back into the rhythms of my family’s life. And at work, I’m not only pleased to be back selling pets at The Wine Shop, possibly due to my national profile; business is not only booming but our plans for expansion will soon be a reality.

  And to complete the picture, I’ve gone back to refereeing the local soccer games. In fact, this very afternoon you’ll be able to find me running up and down the field with a whistle in my mouth in the AYSO girls under eleven championship game.

  And the best part? That Peckerman’s daughter is twelve years old, so there’s no chance that I’ll be seeing that moron ever again.

  Yes, life is good.

  CHAPTER 62

  Jeffrey

  You want to know what I learned from all this? I learned an important lesson about life, which I will never forget, namely: If Donald Trump tells you he’s going to give you a million dollars, don’t believe him, because he’s a fucking liar.

  That’s right: He never paid me a nickel. Asshole. All the Republicans are assholes. And by the way, I am not saying that the Democrats aren’t assholes. Oh, sure, they nominated me for president. Big whoop. After that, they totally screwed me over.

  Let me ask you this: If you’re the candidate for president, shouldn’t you get to pick where you campaign? Shouldn’t you get to decide where the motorcade goes? That’s what I thought, but that’s not the way it worked. I had all these dipshit little suit-wearing handlers handling me, and every day they’d give me a schedule that would say something like “7 a.m., Shake hands with workers outside a factory in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and stress the four-point plan to bring economic blah blah blah.” So I’d inform the handlers that I, as the candidate, had some problems with the schedule, such as:

  1.7 a.m.

  2.Outside a factory.

  3.In Fort Fucking Wayne.

  4.Indiana.

  I’d say, how about instead I go shake hands with some workers in Vegas? And they’d say, you already did Vegas three times, you can’t keep going to Vegas. So I’d say, Okay, what about the Bahamas? And they’d say the Bahamas weren’t part of the United States. I checked that on Wikipedia, and it turns out they were right, but it gives you an idea of what kind of nitpicky dipshits they were.

  And then there were the speeches. They’d write these long, bore-ass speeches for me to give, and if I didn’t read every word exactly the way it was written on the paper, the handlers would have a hissy fit. Like one time I was giving a speech in Detroit, talking about how concerned I was about all the economic blah blah blah of Detroit, and, to emphasize the point, I kind of gestured around at Detroit and said, “I mean, look at this shithole.” Right away I could see all my handlers making nonono gestures with their hands, so I pointed at the audience and said, “These people live here. You think they don’t know it’s a shithole?” And then the sound system went dead, which happened more and more often before they totally stopped scheduling speeches for me.

  My point is, the Democrats are just as big assholes as the Republicans are. As you go through life, pretty much everybody you meet turns out to be an asshole. That was the other lesson I learned from all this.

  I’ll be honest: The only reason I even ran for president was I was afraid to go home. I think I mentioned this, but Donna, my wife, is Italian. She has a temper, and she knows (don’t ask me how I know this) at least three ways to kill a person using only oregano. After the Republican convention, I tried to call her a couple of times, but I could tell she wasn’t ready to get back together, because of the tone she had in her voice when she told me I should fuck myself with a trombone.

  So I stayed away and ran for president. I think I would have won except for the handler dipshits. Get this: On election night, they wanted me to go on television and concede, because of the Electoral College. I said I’m not conceding anything, because (a) I never heard of any Electoral College, and (b) Ed Begley Jr. and Sean Penn are a pair of—and I don’t mean this in a disrespectful way, just a factual observation—faggots.

  So
I never did concede, but after the election the Democrats stopped paying my expenses, and I couldn’t go home, so I moved into the guest house of the second-largest Hooters franchise owner in northern New Jersey, and although he and his girlfriend Traci are both lovely and generous people, after a couple of months I got the feeling that maybe they wanted me to move on, because of some remarks they made, and also they cut off my electricity. Plus I missed Donna, and I really missed Taylor.

  So finally I had this idea, which seemed a little crazy, but I was desperate. I remembered that back when I first start dating Donna, I bought her this Hello Kitty stuffed doll, which was stupid but she loved it, or at least she acted like she loved it, by which I mean only minutes later I reached third base.

  So here’s what I did. I went on eBay and got the exact same Hello Kitty stuffed doll, used. Then I waited for Valentine’s Day, and at suppertime, I went to the front door of my house and rang the doorbell. I admit I was nervous as shit, standing there, holding the Hello Kitty. It was raining, and I felt like a guy in a movie, waiting to see if his wife is going to take him back.

  From inside the house, I heard footsteps coming to the door. I almost ran away, but I didn’t.

  Then the door opened.

  And there she was, looking exactly the way I remembered her.

  The cleaning lady.

  I forget her name. Something like “Slubka.” She’s Russian or Polish or something, and she has a mustache, and we don’t get along because of an issue she and I got into once involving something she claimed she found in a pair of my underwear that I’m not going to discuss here except to say she’s a fucking liar.

  Slubka told me that Donna and Taylor were at the mall, so I gave her the Hello Kitty to give to Donna. She took it by one corner, like I was handing her a bag of raccoon pus. I wasn’t sure she would even give it to Donna. But she did, because I called the next day and Donna answered and told me if I ever gave her a used gift again, with stains on it from God knows where, she would shove it up my ass. Which was her way of saying I could come home.

  So now, things are pretty good. I’m not saying great. I still sleep on a cot in the garage. But at least I’m home, and my life is settling down. The TV and newspaper assholes have pretty much stopped coming around and doing stories about whatever happened to me. I got kicked out of the National Association of Forensic Plumbers National Association, because they’re a bunch of assholes, but the joke is on them, because my show, Forensic Plumbing!, got picked up by a major cable channel, Comedy Central, which is paying me good money to make more episodes. At first I thought, since they’re called “Comedy Central,” that they wanted me to make the shows humorous. But they said no, they want me to do exactly what I’ve been doing.

  So like I said, things are pretty good. The best thing is being able to spend time with Taylor, who’s a great kid, and by the way, not to brag, she’s also a really good soccer player. She’s a forward, and I’m pretty excited, because today she’s playing in the AYSO league under-eleven girls division championship. Taylor’s actually twelve, but the under-eleven team had some injuries and needed a last-minute replacement player, so I told them Taylor was eleven and gave them a doctored birth certificate. So this afternoon she’ll be out there, and I’ll be on the sideline, rooting hard for her and making sure her team doesn’t get screwed over. Because if there’s one lesson I have learned in life, it’s that nothing is more important than your kid.

  EPILOGUE

  Buddy the Lemur was given a permanent home in the Central Park Zoo, where he was a popular attraction for several months before suffocating himself when he got his head caught inside a condom thrown into his cage by a member of a field trip from a middle school in Queens.

  Denise Rodecker lost 127 pounds, got her diabetes under control, and is now a professional Zumba instructor.

  Officer Barton Hempledinger, the NYPD helicopter pilot who was shot in the scrotum, made a full recovery and sold the rights to his story, which became a made-for-cable movie, Manhood Down, starring Erik Estrada.

  Fook left Chuck E. Cheese immediately after his image appeared on the TV news. He remains undercover, working at Walt Disney World in the capacity of Pluto.

  Sue and Arnie Kogen were convicted of attempting to smuggle a firearm onto the SS Windsong. They died in each other’s arms from heart attacks during a conjugal visit.

  Peckerman’s Pants, the ones he wore for twenty-three straight days, are currently on display at New York’s Museum of Natural History.

  Maria never returned to the convent. She took her meager savings, bought a push-up bra, bleached her hair blond, and now sings the weather forecast at a local TV station in Tallahassee, Florida.

  Hyo, the Korean high school student who worked part-time at The Wine Shop, is now twenty-one years old and manages one of Horkman’s new stores. He is no longer Korean.

  Ramon, Ramona, Roman Jr. formed a merengue band called “Carlo, Carla, and Carlo Jr.”

  “Secure the Radius” is now a widely used military tactic, as well as the zone defense used by both the Duke and Georgetown basketball teams.

  Sharisse Fricker quietly left Cuba with a twenty-two-year-old professional bodybuilder named Miguel and two duffel bags. She settled in Central America, where, through a series of ruthless maneuvers, she acquired a secret controlling interest in the Panama Canal, for which she has big plans.

  Captain Sven Lutefisk was relieved of command of the SS Windsong and is currently working at a Long Island Starbucks.

  Charo is still performing, using a specially made bulletproof guitar.

  Coast Guard Salamander Unit 9 does not exist. Please refrain from any further mention of Coast Guard Salamander Unit 9.

  The Fruxnet computer virus spread rapidly throughout the Internet, where its most severe impact was a complete shutdown of both Facebook and Twitter, resulting in a spectacular worldwide increase in worker productivity.

  Brian Williams resigned from NBC Nightly News after the Horkman/Peckerman/Begley Jr. presidential race, stating, “I’ve worked far too hard for far too long to have to cover shit like this.” When last seen, he answered to the name “Tuffy” and was bending balloons at children’s birthday parties.

  The Mickey Mantle rookie card, which was worth $250,000 before Peckerman rolled and inserted it into his anus, was eventually sold at auction for $3.4 million.

  The Ed Begley Jr. / Sean Penn Administration, despite the best of intentions, wound up involving U.S. troops in four new foreign wars, including one with Sweden.

  Walmart, hoping to cash in on a hot trend, ordered three million Air China blankets, of which 2.999 million remain unsold.

  H.R. 623, which would return American toilets to their glory days, continues to languish, as it has for more than twelve unconscionable years, in the House Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power.

  Jeffrey Peckerman is currently serving a life sentence without parole for crimes arising from his reaction to officiating decisions during an AYSO girls under eleven division championship game.

  Philip Horkman visits Jeffrey every week, with the most benign and humanitarian of motives, which only makes it worse.

  Donald Trump is still at large.

  Click here for more books from these authors.

  OTHER BOOKS BY DAVE BARRY

  FICTION

  The Bridge to Never Land (with Ridley Pearson)

  Peter and the Sword of Mercy (with Ridley Pearson)

  Science Fair (with Ridley Pearson)

  Peter and the Secret of Rundoon (with Ridley Pearson)

  Cave of the Dark Wind (with Ridley Pearson)

  The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog

  Escape from the Carnivale (with Ridley Pearson)

  Peter and the Shadow Thieves (with Ridley Pearson)

 
Peter and the Starcatchers (with Ridley Pearson)

  Tricky Business

  Big Trouble

  NONFICTION

  I’ll Mature When I’m Dead

  Dave Barry’s History of the Millennium (So Far)

  Dave Barry’s Money Secrets

  Boogers Are My Beat

  Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway

  Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down

  Dave Barry Turns 50

  Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus

  Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs

  Dave Barry in Cyberspace

  Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys

  Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up

  Dave Barry Does Japan

  Dave Barry’s Only Travel Guide You’ll Ever Need

  Dave Barry Talks Back

  Dave Barry Turns 40

  Dave Barry Slept Here

  Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits

  Dave Barry’s Homes and Other Black Holes

  Dave Barry’s Guide to Marriage and/or Sex

  Dave Barry’s Bad Habits

  Claw Your Way to the Top

  Stay Fit and Healthy Until You’re Dead

  Babies and Other Hazards of Sex

  The Taming of the Screw

  OTHER BOOKS BY ALAN ZWEIBEL

  Clothing Optional: And Other Ways to Read These Stories

  The Other Shulman: A Novel

  Bunny Bunny: Gilda Radner—A Sort of Love Story

  Our Tree Named Steve (children’s book)

  North