N.J. Chronicles - 2016 Day 1, part 3

Spin the wheel, baby

My father applauds the Rumpster again. “See,” he says turning to me, “he tells it like it is. Just try to ask anyone a question these days at a store or a gas station. No one speaks English! They’ve even taken over the TV. Nothing but Spanish programs. What’s happened to this country?” he asks.

I decide to not remind my father that his own parents didn’t speak any English when they arrived in New York before the First World War, that one of his uncles and many other people he knew never learned English in fifty years here; that he grew up amongst immigrants from dozens of countries, just as it is today. Even our kindly old Italian neighbors across the street hardly spoke any English after many decades here. “Heya’ boy,” the old man used to call to me. “Yuwanna some nica tomat?” The Gambados had a wonderful vegetable garden in their back yard. I adored them as a child.

Now a huge cry of excitement turns my attention back to the TV. Oh boy, here it is, the perennial favorite Let’s Make a Killing. An oversized young woman costumed as a baloney on white bread sandwich with yellow mustard skillfully integrated along the crust of the bread has just won a lifetime supply of diet Coca Cola, and an all you can eat umbilical cord to the nearest Dominos.

Upon hearing this, the baloney sandwich woman breaks out into an ecstatic Voodoo dance. She seems to be possessed, her breasts bouncing wildly up and down, even the baloney is shaking loose from the white bread. The studio audience is ecstatic over the performance. They rise to their feet spontaneously to cheer her on. The show’s host, a handsome black dude with a winning personality, encourages the contestants to let it all hang out.

Finally, the baloney sandwich woman wears down. She is huffing and puffing, trying to catch her breath. The host goes over and pats her affectionately on the back. “You sure got the moves on, Sally,” he applauds her. “You’d fit right into our hood. Now where is that husband of yours hiding?”

The Baloney Sandwich points up into the audience seating. The cameras zoom in on him. The host introduces him as Bob, a sales manager at Shoot To Kill Guns and Ammo in Jesus Pocket, Alabama. The host calls Bob down to join them on stage. He, too, is a scale buster and costumed as the Michelin Tire Man. He has trouble dislodging himself from his seat. His neighbor, costumed as Porky Pig, cheerfully grabs hold of his hands and pulls him free. A cheer rises from the audience for the heroic effort.

Bob rolls down the aisle and climbs up on stage with his wife. They attempt to embrace but they are both too enormous for such intimacy. They look like American Botero subjects on acid.

The host asks the husband if he would like a new car for his Michelins. A synergistic wave of awe rises from the studio audience and surges across the American air waves. The Golden Calf Idolaters, the Minion of Mammon, the American Dream Delusionals all rise as one in their homes throughout this Great Land to applaud Bob.

Bob looks ecstatic. Now it’s his turn to try out his Watusi moves. Like his Baloney Sandwich wife, the boy can shake it! He looks like a human waterbed wildly undulating out of control. Then the Baloney Sandwich wife joins him. The audience is going ape shit. The entire set begins to wobble. As the camera pans in on the husband, I can see now that he is not actually wearing a costume. The Michelin tires are just rolls of body fat painted to look like tire tread.

The husband suddenly drops to the floor and begins rolling around like a huge human truck tire. The host is howling with laughter at the spectacle. He looks like an anorexic stick figure next to the huge ones shaking it up his stage.

The husband finally stops rolling around. The entire audience gives the human tire a standing ovation. These two are instant stars. The camera now pans to a curvy model who stands invitingly before a luminous curtain that parts to reveal Bob’s gleaming new car. The couple run over to it and engage in some auto erotic foreplay. The model wisely runs for cover as the lucky couple fondle the car’s heated mirrors, custom sport wheels and flashy custom grill. Then programing cuts to another commercial break as the studio audience whoops it up.

And here he comes again: Rumpty Dumpty hard at the campaign trail. My father hears his voice and turns his attention to the TV. The Dumpster knows all the housewives, the Dreamers, the dementia-addled coupon clippers, are all tuned in for the forthcoming Big Prize. The Dumpty one speaks to America from the depths of his heart. He reassures the fixed income people that he will decimate Obamacare and personally create Dumpty Care to replace it. Dumpty Care, he promises, will never, ever, in a million years be connected to the evils of Socialism.

“I promise you that my healthcare plan will not in any way be tainted by liberal Commie ideology. Rest assured you will still pay through the nose, lose your home, all your possessions, your investments, gold teeth, jewelry and die in some low rent old age home while me and my cronies get filthy rich on your misery - and you will love me for it because this is America and in America we are free to fuck each other up the ass all day and night. Am I right? It’s my right to fuck you over just like it’s your right to fuck over the next guy. Do it, hit a homerun, score big, fuck your neighbor, and go play a few rounds, bing, bang boom. This is why we are the greatest nation on earth. You want Obama Care? You want equality? You want the mud hut monkey boilers moving in next to you, stinking up the neighborhood, because that’s what you’ll get. I don’t think so. You want to live in my tower, meet me on the links. Vote for me, it’s a vote for America.”

“See that!” my father exclaims proudly. “Obamacare is socialism. This country is going to the dogs.”

I decide not to explain to him that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the forty-hour work week, child labor laws, paid holidays, overtime, workers compensation, unemployment insurance and the minimum wage are all socialist programs. I also decide not to remind him that he was a union worker most of his life, that he and my mother always voted Democratic, that his family benefitted from Roosevelt’s New Deal in the depths of the Great Depression.

But Rumpty is not quite finished. “You’re Americans,” Rumpty exclaims, “We lead the world forward. No bare foot Rag Head Sacred Cow Rice Chompers are going to tell us what to do - we tell them. We tell the Atheist Tree Hugger Progressive No Guns No Jesus Fuck our Brave Troops Fighting for our Freedom in the Shithole World In- tell-ect -u – als where they can shove their sushi rolls. Yeah, that’s right. Our enemies – you know who they are. You know what they look like. I promise you, they will never ever take our freedoms away. Americans Unite,” he implores the daytime TV viewers. “Make our country Great again.”

“Yeah,” my father responds enthusiastically to the Dumpster’s jingoisms. “Make America Great again,” he repeats.

I have not yet had my coffee, and I am already overcome by a terrible free-floating depression. But back to the show. The Big Moment is coming, America. Hold on to your hats. Jesus is about to land his space vehicle in Missouri, the Jesus Squirrel Whisperers are busy transcribing sacred Jesus messages delivered in Squirrel Tongue from on high, and here the entire audience is dressed in Big Prize costumes, jumping up and down, honking their horns, wildly waving their arms to try to get the Celebrity black dude host to choose them.

The contestants are all pissing in their pants in anticipation of spinning the Wheel, choosing the door, the box, the curtain behind which is that shiny new car, boat, dining room set, hot tub, the all-expenses paid trip to Kathy Lee’s Cambodian designer wear sweat shops that will transform their lives, bring them peace, love, and happiness.

The Great One, of course, understands this. These are his people, and they in turn love him - he who spins the biggest Prize Wheel of them all in the American Dream: the Dumpty Casino Towers. This is the ultimate, the real gold ring on the merry go round. He is the Great American Success Story. He has it all. He shares our dreams, he is the true American hero. All these liberals who mock him, want to bring him down, just don’t get it with their Bleeding Heart Liberal Jew ideology.

The Baloney Sandwich woman suddenly turns toward me, looks me right in the eye. “He’s in the Tower, not you, schmuck,” she taunts me through the TV screen. “He’s the winner, you’re the loser. Any fool can see that. You have nothing but your superior attitude, your I’m better than you snide condescending elitist scorn. Look at that old piece of shit car you’re driving, your cheap loser suit. Even your mountain of books are all used. You call that success? And you think I’m delusional. Ha. Take a good look at yourself. You’re a nothing.

I have to admit it, the Baloney Sandwich Woman is right. Rumpty Dumpty is the winner. You may want to imagine that he is an aberration, but he isn’t. He is, I’m afraid, the true personification of the American Dream, the All American pin up boy, the big winner in his gold tower. I’m sorry to tell you that it’s time to admit that this is who we are. The Baloney Woman is right: the Dumpty One is the winner. You may want to imagine that he is an aberration of some great ideal, but he isn’t. He is the dream, he is America.

The truth is, there never was an ideal. Never. Repeat after me: There never was an ideal. Now keep saying that to yourself as you watch the news. The U.S. Constitution was just another scam of hype and hustle. The game has been rigged since day one. It never was the Athens of Pericles or the Rome of Cicero. There is nothing to fix. This is the American Way. The Dumpty One is the American Success Story, not some bogey man escaped from the asylum. He is what you get when you open up all the cages and let the Hyenas free to run the shop. All that just so the Baloney Woman can spin the Wheel of the Big Prize.