Savages

—Have mind-blowing multiple orgasm.

“I asked for three things,” Eleanor says.

“If I get it right, it will be three things,” O answers.

Eleanor’s tough, though. She doesn’t pull two and a half bills an hour from a slough of jaded SOC trophy wives by being a wimp. She levels her gaze at O and asks, “And what three achievable steps will you take to move you toward your goal?”

O nods and reads:

—Put C batteries on Mom’s shopping list

—Find some time for myself

—Think about the pool boy

40

They pick Ben up at John Wayne Airport.

Chon thinks you gotsta love an airport named for a draft-dodging movie war hero cowboy who trademarked his gay, pigeon-toed mince into a macho money machine. Bought half of south Orange County back in the day, practically owned Newport Beach, like fuck the movies, real estate is where the treasure be.

Aaarrrrhh.

All those cats—Wayne, Hope, Crosby—they bought up big chunks of the California Dream—Newport Beach, Palm Springs, Del Mar—and sold it like they sold their celluloid fantasies. Sunshine, sailing, golf.

Lotsa golf.

Martinis on the green, sly in-jokes, thousand-dollar hookers waiting in the carts, blow-job bets on birdies, bogeys, whatever rich white guy my small dick isn’t as small as your small dick crapola. Get your ball on the green, on the green, on the green green green.

Losers get the sand traps.

Iraq. Stanland.

What’s the club they use to get out of the sand traps? The wedge? Chon wonders. Yeah, as if, wouldn’t that be nice. Stuck in the Stan, just have your caddy hand you your trusty wedge, take a sweet swing, and you’re out on the green.

Martinis and blowies for everyone, my good man.

He and Ben played golf once. Took the pony down to Torrey Pines, got ripped on speed, and did nine holes in like seven and a half minutes, whacking at that ball like Cossacks swinging at heads. Didn’t replace their divots, of which there were many. Ran from shot to shot like they were dodging sniper fire. Hit the ground and roll, come up swinging. Until an indignant steward came and tossed them off.

Thrown off the beautiful greens.

Off the Dream.

The Duke, Der Bingle, and the Bobster don’t want you here anymore.

Ben wanted Chon to object—I’m a war veteran, I fought to protect your right to shoot eighteen holes on a beautiful California morning by the sea by the sea by the beautiful sea you and me you and me oh how happy we’ll be. I bled for these holes. Without men like me, the clubhouse whores would be wearing burqas, my friend.

But Chon wouldn’t do it. Refused to summon up the righteous indignation. Truth was, he didn’t go to Stanland to defend his country club. He went because he was already in the SEALs when those cocksuckers flew airplanes into the WTC.

He didn’t say that to the steward, though. Guy was already cardiac-paddle-ready, so Chon just said, “Keep it green,” and left without further incident.

Anyway, now he’s at John Wayne Airport. You fly into Orange County, they let you know what you’ve gotten into, pilgrim. Don’t be fooled by the hip surfer thing, you are in Rich Republicanland and you’d better behave accordingly or they’ll let the Duke loose on you.

As if.

Just a short while ago the Republicans were objects of fear and hatred—now they’re just pathetic assholes. Barry took them to the paint and cut their throats. (O-BAM-a!) Now they walk around like white frat boys in Bed-Stuy, talking tough to show they aren’t scared as the urine streams down their chinos into their cordovans. Obama has these dweebs so turned around all they can do is get behind some fat junkie DJ, a gibberish-spewing PsychoBimbette from the Far North, and a tele-dork who gives adrenaline-crazed, 1950s-style “chalk talks” (speaking of little white dicks) like some health-class instructor in a sex-offender unit.

Chon has a mental vid-clip of this clown choking on a chicken bone in a restaurant, rolling on the floor while the black and Spanish waiters and busboys fall all over each other hustling to dial 511.

Of course the Dems will find some dazzlingly random way to fumble at the goal line; they always do (“What did you say your name was, darlin’? Monica?”). In the meantime Chon can’t wait—can’t wait—for the inevitable moment one of these clowns chokes on an open mike and calls Obama a nigger. It’s going to happen, you know it’s going to happen, it’s just a matter of time and it will be a blast to see the dazed befuddled expression on that pasty stupid face as he realizes his career is deader than a Kennedy.

POSTMORTEM CAREER COUNSELOR

And your career died how?

CHUCKLEHEAD

I called Obama a nigger.

POSTMORTEM CAREER COUNSELOR

(Incredulous pause)

Wow.

In the meantime, the GOP just settles for other kinds of buffoonery. Chon’s personal fave is the guv of South Goober banging the chica in South America while claiming he’s on a hiking trip in the Appalachians (on “Naked Hiking Day,” no less).

Then crying about it.

The other thing about Republicans—they cry on TV these days like a twelve-year-old girl who didn’t get invited to a birthday party. (“It’s okay, Ashley—Brittany’s a jerk—everybody loves you.”)

Republicans didn’t used to cry.

Democrats cried and Republicans mocked them for it.

The way it should be.

Ask John Wayne.

Chon used to hate Democrats as weak-kneed yuppie hypocrites, a party of closeted gay men too gutless to come out and stand up for who they are. He still does, but since Iraq—since the Sock Puppet got his leash yanked by Mr. Wilson—who Chon really hates are Republican politicians. Not to put too fine a point on it, Chon thinks they should be hunted down like rabid dogs, shot, and tossed into a common pit, with lime poured over their rotting corpses so they don’t emerge some Halloween night like the zombies they would otherwise become.

Anyway …

41

They find Ben in baggage claim waiting for his green duffel bag, like he’s still some college kid coming home from a field trip to Costa Rica.

He looks thin like he always does when he comes home. His skin, in that particularly weird, Third World way, is simultaneously tan and pale—dark from the sun with a sub-layer of infection-induced white underneath. What is it this time? Anemia? Hep? Some parasite that’s crept under his toenail into his bloodstream?