Today, Cerise and I attended a memorial service for the great-grandmother of Cerise’s graduate school thesis advisor, with whom she afterward became a close friend. Consequently, being almost like family, Cerise merited an invitation to great granny’s farewell, and I, being Cerise’s Significant Other, could not refuse to accompany Cerise to the ceremony. The occasion itself being a remembrance of what amounts to the dowager of an extended family of prosperous, white, progressive liberals, the event was very well attended. The grand dame had spent many decades working in the name of various left-wing causes, including civil rights, labor organization, the creation of national parks, the preservation of endangered species and protection of the environment. As the long procession of speakers recollected her accomplishments, I learned that during the last forty years, she had traveled extensively to places such as Nepal, Belize, Tuvalu, Kenya, New Guinea, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Bangladesh, the Congo, Bolivia, and the Australian outback to perform such diverse acts of selflessness as are described in the Beatitudes. She clothed the naked, fed the starving, inoculated children against dreaded diseases, built homes, drilled village wells, saved whales, wolves, sea turtles, ferrets and all manner of beasts – and a few plants, too. It was while on that type of mission – one to save the caribou from the oil companies, preserve the permafrost from the ravages of the gold miners and eradicate endemic mosquito-borne maladies among the native population in central Alaska, that she dove, without a second thought, into the icy rapids of the Saas Na River to save a seven year old French tourist who had fallen in. Neither of them has ever been found. She was 104.
The memorial lasted three hours, during the final two of which, my iPhone vibrated incessantly. Since I had taken the precaution of recording an explanation of my whereabouts during this particular time frame, and requesting that the caller leave a voice mail message, I wondered, as the service ended, whether it was indeed possible that between thirty and forty people had called me during a three hour interval on a Sunday afternoon. As I checked my Recent Calls, however, it was evident that all but one from the Japanese embassy requesting a consultation about the Fukushima Daiichi radioactive water leak and another from the State Department Near East desk about Syria had originated from the same number, in the 202 area code. The numerous voice mails and texts clogging my iPhone’s memory were all from someone named Porsche Mercedes Lexus Acura Qadriyyah Shabazz-4X, who had meticulously left her full name every time she called or texted me. I returned her calls and messages as Cerise drove us to the wake in Chevy Chase.
Porsche: Yo, who this be?
Tom: This is Tom Collins. I’m returning your calls.
Porsche: About time you did. How come you don’t be pickin’ up the damn phone when I call you, fool?
Tom: I was attending a solemn ceremony.
Porsche: So how come you don’t go outside and talk to me when I call?
Tom: I was sitting in the center of a long row of people, all of whom were very absorbed by the proceedings.
Porsche: For two damn hours?
Tom: Three, actually.
Porsche: Three hours? I guess you be goin’ to the bathroom real good before that, huh? Sit there for three damn hours ignorin’ my calls.
Tom: My apologies, ma’am. How can I help you?
Porsche: Well, they say you be the smartest person in Washington DC.
Tom: Which is a lot like being the tallest building in Baltimore.
Porsche: Baltimore? All I know about Baltimore is they got hand-dancin’ and crabs. What Baltimore got to do with it?
Tom: To do with what, ma’am?
Porsche: To do with what I called you about, fool!
Tom: I don’t believe you have actually told me what that is, ma’am.
Porsche: Well [expletive] it! How I supposed to, with you babblin’ on about Baltimore and [expletive]?
Tom: Sorry. May I ask how you got my number?
Porsche: Donna Brazile give it to me. I be workin’ for her.
Tom: I see. And Ms. Brazile requested that you contact me with respect to which issues, specifically?
Porsche: Day-um! You be talkin’ some mighty fancy [expletive] ofay cracker [expletive], you know that, fool? You a queer or somethin’?
Tom: No. Why did you call?
Porsche: ‘Cause I been told to call you!
Tom: About what?
Porsche: About Minyon Moore, that’s what!
Tom: You mean, the Minyon Moore who is a long-time aide and confidant of Bill and Hillary Clinton?
Porsche: And Donna Brazile’s BFF, too!
Tom: And you are calling, I presume, in response to the recent developments concerning the ongoing grand jury investigation of Jeffery Earl Thompson, owner of the District of Columbia Chartered Health Plan?
Porsche: Uh-huh, that be him – the Governor.
Tom: Governor?
Porsche: Yeah. Jeffery Thompson be the governor of DC. Don’t you know nothin’, fool?
Tom: Well, I know that folks call him “the Governor.”
Porsche: That ain’t what I hear. I hear he be the governor.
Tom: All right, I guess that he could be called the governor of the District of Columbia, in a de-facto sense.
Porsche: “De-facto?” What the [expletive] kind of fancy-[expletive] faggot honky talk be that?
Tom: It means that, while Mr. Thompson may never have been elected governor of DC, and while, in fact there is no such post to which he could be elected, he nevertheless functions, in fact, as the governor of the District of Columbia.
Porsche: Whatever! That’s what I say! He be the Governor!
Tom: Yes, I understand; and the Governor is under investigation for allegedly using $653,000 to fund a covert operation to help Vincent C. Gray win the 2010 Democratic mayoral primary by secretly paying Sulaimon Brown to defect from the Adrian Fenty campaign and run for mayor himself, all the while defaming Fenty at every opportunity. In addition, three close associates have also admitted that they took money totalling over $300,000 to make “straw contributions” to various political candidates the Governor favored, thus violating campaign finance law.
Porsche: Huh – well, I don’t know nothin’ about that [expletive], okay?
Tom: Of course not. But you do, I presume, know the fallout from that particular investigation has been the discovery of an additional $608,750 that the Governor allegedly gave a New York marketing executive named Troy White to deploy “street teams” working for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, allegedly with the express intent of getting Clinton voters to the polls during the Democratic primary elections in several key states.
Porsche: You sure do talk a lot, you know that?
Tom: Just making sure we both understand each other, that’s all. Now, I’d wager that the problem you have contacted me concerning Minyon Moore is that she is the person who allegedly introduced Mr. Thompson to Troy White. That, combined with the fact that the $608,750 was never declared as a campaign contribution, also would, if proved true, constitute yet another case of the Governor scheming to commit an act of corruption in DC politics, but this time involving Ms. Moore.
Porsche: And she don’t know nothin’ about that.
Tom: Of course not. Initially, White contacted a Hillary Clinton campaign staffer named Guy Cecil and pitched him the idea of hiring White’s firm to use White’s marketing “street teams” to skew the Democratic primary votes in Clinton’s favor. But Cecil demurred, after which White searched for an alternative strategy. He got in touch with Minyon Moore, who introduced him to Thompson, and then Thompson allegedly slipped White the six-hundred-eight grand and change under the table to do the same thing Cecil wouldn’t sign off on officially because…
Porsche: Yeah, yeah, so what? Politics be politics!
Tom: Especially in the District of Columbia. But as we know, Ms. Moore strongly asserts that she had no idea what was going on.
Porsche: And she didn’t have no idea, neither!
Tom: But I’m guessing Ms. Moore is having a hard time getting anyone to believe that, despite the fact that your boss, Donna Brazile, has told the media that Minyon, in addition to being the most honest person in politics that Donna knows, is also so completely clueless that she couldn’t figure out what was happening when she introduced Troy White to Jeffery Earl Thompson.
Porsche: Now you listen here, Tom Collins, and you listen good! I met Minyon Moore and I know what Donna say about her have to be true, ‘cause it don’t take but five minutes and anybody can tell that Moore lady ain’t got the street smarts of a [expletive] ant! So you tell me, Mister Big Shot Washington Consultant, how we gonna prove that?
Tom: You have a cell phone with a camera?
Porsche: You think I just fell of a [expletive] turnip truck? Of course I do – I got a Samsung Galaxy S4!
Tom: Good. Then here’s what you do first. Get Donna to take Minyon down to 14th Street at Thomas Circle about eleven o’clock PM on a Saturday. Donna should tell Minyon that all those other women standing around are there for a hot-pants-and-high-heels wig-and-hair-extension convention, and they are all waiting for a shuttle bus to take them to the DC Convention Center. Then Donna should start trying to recruit them as Democratic voters. Meanwhile, you make a video of Minyon in that situation. And if what you say is true – and I’m sure it is – she will join right in and try to get those hookers to join the Democratic National Committee.
Porsche: Hmmmm. Yeah, okay – you be pretty smart for a white man. What else you got?
Tom: After about half an hour of that, have Donna take Minyon on down to DuPont Circle and you make a video of her standing around near the fountain while street dealers try to sell her drugs.
Porsche: You kiddin’ me? That silly old [expletive] couldn’t cop onesies outside a Seven-Eleven on Georgia Avenue!
Tom: Exactly – and that’s what your phone video of her will prove.
Porsche: Oh, oh, I get it – she be thinkin’ all those guys walkin’ up to her and startin’ a conversation just wanna talk about health care or somethin’.
Tom: No doubt she will. Then, after that, Donna should take her to Phase 1 on DuPont – that’s located at 1415 22nd Street.
Porsche: Wait a minute! That be a big lesbo bar, don’t it?
Tom: Yes, it does. Donna should tell Minyon that she’s taking her there to meet young feminists with an interest in Democratic Party policy initiatives. You follow her and Donna in, and start making a video of Minyon’s actions.
Porsche: Which gonna be, she ain’t gonna have no idea at all these women be comin’ on to her, right?
Tom: Like you said – not a clue. She’s going to stand there amidst a sea of dykes thinking they’re all just Ms Magazine subscribers concerned about women’s income disparities and holding the line against the Tea Party Republicans on abortion clinic regulation.
Porsche: Okay, then, how do we bring it on home?
Tom: Next stop, Anacostia. You know about that crap game out in the alley behind Red Hot Johnson’s?
Porsche: You think I some kinda ‘Bama, just got here on the damn Trailways bus? Everybody know there be a crap game every night of the week in the alley behind Red Hot Johnson’s since 1946, ‘cept when the rain too hard or the snow too deep.
Tom: Well, after the gay bar, take her there. Have Donna tell Minyon that these are some of Donna’s friends getting together for a Washington DC African-American version of Monopoly that’s played outdoors with no board. If you can verify on a phone video that Minyon Moore will believe that, then you will have proved that Minyon Moore will believe anything – including that Jeffery Earl Thompson is just an ordinary DC businessman and that Troy White is a cross between a choir boy and an eagle scout.
Porsche: But what about…
Tom: Sorry, have to go, we’ve arrived at the wake.
Porsche: Wake? Who be wakin’ up at five thirty in the [expletive] afternoon?
Tom: Tell you what – call me at my office tomorrow and I’ll explain.
Porsche: Oh, all right, I guess. Meanwhile I be tellin’ Donna Brazile about your bright ideas and [expletive].
Tom: Um, sure – ‘bye!