What they ate

Redneck taste.

For all the supposedly fine food they ate in their travels around the world, on their cruises in Platinum level, (Dud said, "Tommy and I took two cruises a year.")  for all their dinners at the Ritz Carlton Chicago, they had no palate.

For Dud and Tommy, the height of pleasure was the $11 luncheon buffet at the Hyatt.  They loved everything about the Hyatt.  They loved the lobby, the waterfall lounge, the smell of America.  They thought it Merida's classiest hotel, which it was not. What it did have was an American chain name,  strong air conditioning and a staff who tried to speak English.  

"The table is set," Dud described so...thrilled, "and the fork is just so, and the water glasses and the placemats, and the napkins, and it is, so...civilized! You know...American."

I ate there with them once and the food was dreadful: lukewarm, dry, tasteless, gelatinous, uninspired but they kept oohing and going back for more.  I could barely find a thing to put on my plate.  I thought, oh well, and I just dropped it, like I dropped all the incongruous things that were starting to build up.

They would rarely eat in any other restaurant in Merida, i.e. a Mexican owned restaurant and when they did, they didn't like it.  "I don't see why everyone thinks that place is so great," Dud would scorn.

They lived in Costco.  Wouldn't even consider a Mexican supermarket, or Mexican goods, no matter if canned, packaged, shrink wrapped or frozen.  They were sure they'd get sick.  Tommy would come home with his stolen SUV laden with Costco frozen food and bagged, ready to eat salad.  Everything in their cupboard was enormous -- the chip bags, the blue cheese dressing, jars of cocktail snacks, the peanut butter.  The freezer was stocked with cheap steaks, chicken cordon bleu, Chinese dumplings.  Dud could only store the yard-tall Kirkland vodka in a garbage pail.  He would go over to the garbage pail many times a day and pull out the vodka for a cocktail.  He had a glass of cranberry juice in his hand starting at 11a.m. every day.

Dud was the cook.  He would set out Uncle Dum's breakfast and then lunch as if he were a 50's housewife.  The salad in a salad bowl, the meat, the now mushy frozen veg and always a baked potato wrapped in foil.  Tommy would be running around all day doing God knows what, selling stolen goods, finding credit card cloners...and when he came in, would eat two hardboiled eggs whilst standing at the kitchen counter and then run out again.

Since Dud couldn't cook and they didn't have any money to entertain, all their parties were "pot luck" --- "because it was ever so much more fun this way."  It's why they always jumped at my offers to cook my delicious meals.   They would invite people in for a pancake brunch (that's cheap) and spaghetti  (cheap too).  Occasionally Tommy would risk a stolen credit card on lunch at Hacienda Xcanatun.  Both times I ate there with them, his credit card was rejected.  "No problem.  I've got another one," he would say.  Of course he did. 

Stupidest New Year's ever

That was last year when the scammers were in my life.   

As I write, it is New Year's day 2014 and I am recalling New Year's 2013.

Oh how the days pass and my disdain and anger grow.  They are but insects and I crush them beneath my feet.  Oh how it feels so good.

A year ago, I offered to treat the scammers to my precious New Year's eve ritual.  I offered to make my traditional, piping hot, steamy, creamy delicious, pungent, comforting, inspiring French Onion Soup.  Served with excellent French bread and real gruyere for the croutons.

It was the usual:  me, Eva, Dud, Tommy, Uncle Dum.  (You've noticed, their names change with each entry.  Because it doesn't matter what their names were.  All were fake, and they aren't worth having real names.  Yes, that's how I feel.  Queen Moi doesn't like to be scammed.)

I arrived with my pot of lovingly brewed soup.  Tommy had bought some crap crostinis from Costco, laden with fat and taste chemicals.  "No," I said.  "I'll make the real croutons."

Dud poured crap sparkling wine. We ate the soup on the patio.  It was golden.  We all found ourselves incredibly full after our soup -- onion soup does that.  That's why I never order it as a starter.

So full, that when Dud served a tray of Costco frozen hors d'oeuvres no one wanted any.  The dumplings, empanadas, breaded chicken were dried out to the point that his plastic wrapped chemical dipping sauce would not save them.

Dud couldn't believe this tray of crap he had "made"  just sat there, unwanted.  The party seemed to be over.  It was ten o'clock.

Tommy excused himself to go to the bathroom.  When he didn't come back.  Dud checked on him.  "He fell asleep," he said and started scouring the kitchen with his Dawn fervor.

Uncle Dum didn't care about anything.  He just sat there.  Eva and I looked at each other.  "I'm going home.  Want a  ride?"
"Yes!" she said.  We gathered up our pots and things and made our escape.
Dud was perplexed at our glee as we slipped out the front door.  He shook his head and said, "What a stupid New Year's eve."

So, today...on this sunny cloudy evocative New Year's Day morning I wonder where the hell are they, and what stupid New Year's eve did they have last night?

I spoke to Eva in Miami, tucked away in her new private life, away from the scammers.  "I bought some lamb chops, some wine.  It will be just me and it will be good."

I am alone with my memories, wonderings and wanderings.  Becalmed.  Adrift.  It will always be good, excellent, better.

No gifts please

The assholes made a big deal of "no gifts" please, and "we don't give gifts at Christmas," and "Christmas is for children."

Of course now its clear.  They had no money to spend on gifts.   Any money they did get their hands on was for sustaining themselves.  They wanted no stuff, because they had to move quickly and lightly once their scam was over.  Remember, it was them and the dogs in their stolen Mercedes, plus a few pairs of bermuda shorts and Costco Hawaiian shirts.

But me being me, and loving Christmas, and loving surprises of even the most humble sort, bought them three tiny, precious, thoughtful gifts.  Monogramed linen handkerchiefs.  How luxurious was that -- linen handkerchiefs, hand monogramed by local nuns.  I carefully supervised the initials of their last names:  M for Dud, M for Tommy and E for Uncle Ron.

They were dismayed when I handed my little wrapped packages around the table.  They opened them and were speechless with...blank looks.  Most people are thrilled for a personalized, thoughtful gift of luxurious proportions, no matter how inexpensive.  But they were curiously cold, turning over these gems.

It was as if I had received a handkerchief monogramed with an S.  I now understand it was because those weren't their initials because those weren't their last names.  So yes, meaningless.

Christmas Shrimp

The assholes' idea of a Christmas eve celebration was a huge bowl of pre cooked Costco shrimp.  Of course, they started out inviting us with the promise of a classic, seven fish Christmas eve dinner.  Ooh, I thought, this would be good.

But it quickly turned into an enormous bowl of pre cooked Costco shrimp.  Their idea of heaven.  All you could eat.  Shrimp.   But how much shrimp can you eat?  Five or six, maybe.

Eva was living with them as Bob had only been dead about 6 weeks and she was in no shape to be alone.  Everyone complimented the assholes on their generosity, for how they took Eva in and helped her with every little thing.

"We promised Bob we would take care of her," they replied.  Oh, they were helping her all right.  They were helping themselves to her bank account, her debit card, her dead husband's credit card.

The mountain of shrimp?  Courtesy of Eva's dead husband.  The Nikon camera Tommy bought for my daughter?  Same.  "Don't tell Dud about it," Tommy said when he delivered the camera, standing outside my door, not wanting to come in.   Now I understand.  Tommy didn't have any affect about the camera, it was just something he had promised and for some reason, felt compelled to deliver.  He had no interest in placing it in my daughter's hands, seeing her reaction, receiving her thanks.

Dud would have had a fit knowing Tommy was spending their precious stolen resources on someone other than themselves.  

I know...

...that this is confusing.  It is for me too.

 I've been messy, just getting it all out there.  I haven't offered a coherent narrative yet.  All I've been able to do is offer bursts of rage, regret, lies, sadness, bitterness, loss, wonderment, shock, dismay.

Soon, soon, I'll be able to tell the story.  To start at the beginning and take you to the end.

Evil is as evil does

What the hell does that mean?

I discovered evil late in my life.  Evil happened to other people or, it was a distant concept, both historical or geographical.  I counted myself lucky to be far away from evil.   I used to believe in the inherent goodness of man, and that things like genocides or wars or murders were isolated incidents of atoms gone bad.

After meeting the boys, I now believe in "the banality of evil."  Now I am wallowing in it,  I know that evil breathes alongside of me in every hour of the day.  It is a dormant cancer that lies in wait in everyone's body, evil is waiting to erupt given the chance.

I used to trust people and now, I will keep my counsel, keep to myself.

I want to get out, away from it.  Europe, pastry, handbags, beaches.  Meditation, yoga, poetry, flowers.  Prosseco, candles, dawn.  But now that I have observed evil this close, there seems to be no exit.  I smell evil all around me.  Evil is pervasive.  The ability of people to be evil astounds me, makes me breathless.  Makes me quiver.

Why are we so fascinated by evil?  And yes, we are.  We love movies filled with evil -- evil characters, evil happenings.  We sit in the comfort of our own lives and watch others misbehave on the movie, tv and computer screens, in books and in newspapers.   And we love it.  We read books about evil characters and doings.  We can not believe it.  Could someone really be so evil?  And then we read some more.

How do people turn evil?  Are they born evil?  Do they become evil?  Is it a turning of event or simple body chemistry that makes neurons clash in chaotic ways, removing all reason, compassion, intelligence and mashing them up to form evil.

Originally, I thought this story was about the boys' scamming Eva, stealing her inheritance.  But yesterday I found out, something worse happened to Eva.  She had been living with evil all her life and she never knew it.  Discovering that you have lived for 28 years with a sociopathic husband, who you never really knew, who lied and scammed, who was a sexual addict, a liar in all things, a man without feelings.  I can't believe Eva isn't just a puddle on the floor.

I found out it was the meeting of two evils that created a new, fresh evil, visited upon the innocent suspect Eva.  It didn't happen to me, but just realizing it gives me the existential shakes. Eva's husband Bob meeting The Boys was a sprinkle encrusted bomb meeting a wrapped candy.  A huge explosion of scammer scamming scammers.

Lesson learned:  if something doesn't feel right, believe it.  If something doesn't feel right, step away.

Every day now my phone rings and it is Eva for her hour of ranting.  I settle down as she starts screaming into the phone, vomiting her hatred her fury her confusion her fear her powerlessness.  Over the two men who ruined her life.

I don't say a word.  She doesn't want me to say a word.  When she first started calling, I tried to say things, to offer explanations, solace, solutions and then I learned she doesn't want my words.  She just needs to vomit.

Yes, evil breathes alongside of me.  

Thoughts on Evil

Evil comes into lives at different moments.  Are there actually those blessed ones to have never had it cross their paths?  Consider that and them, lucky.

Some discover evil as children when the wayward hands of relatives or ministers steal their childhood.  Others, like me, later in life.

Once evil has entered your life there is a stain.  It informs everything you do, every person you meet. It is exhausting to know of evil, because then you have to watch for it.