Franken's Stein

“Sir, Can you spare a dollar?”

“No, I can’t.” I had watched the tall, thin guy approach, FBI emblazoned on his black T-shirt in giant white letters. Now, I see the small print: “Fat Bottom. . . . .” something or other, having to do with girls. I know I’m in a priceless moment. MasterCard is the card of evil: master requires slaves to exist. VISA is the permission to adventure. Thank God I carry only that!

But my VISA cards are tapped out, and that relates to why I’m there on the main drag of Puerto Vallarta. I’ve driven my friend Enrique to Western Union to pick up the 16,000+ pesos that his octogenarian, American benefactor has wired him. He’s promised to share some with me. Times have been tight, and worse, Fernando, my former supposed business partner, has, a few days before, scammed me of the last $250.00 of the $1,000.00 an angel named Jim had sent me, although when Fernando did it, it wasn’t yet my last. I’m still pissed at myself that I allowed that to happen, but at least it wasn’t $15,000.00, which is what I have roughly calculated Alfredo (aka Cornelio Prada Diaz) had gotten out of me. My ability to cope with devils has improved vastly, although bottom line: I’m again dead broke.

But here he is, a light-skin Mexicano, maybe even an American ex-pat. His English is impeccable, and he’s as respectful as an Army foot-soldier, which is exactly what I know in my intuiteevo he is. For the top Mexican drug cartel. I quickly and concisely nut-shell for him the gist of all I’ve discovered about the evil in the World, which has now concentrated itself in the US Republican Party, and has already been stopped dead in an irreversible way. We have already saved ourselves from the worst! It is too late for evil to win. It sure was a close game; we came within the barest of shaves of it going the other way.

After I wrap up, I write out all my contact info, knowing we’ll someday sit down and swap war stories—I can tell by the condition of his teeth he’s got good stories to tell.
As have I.

*********

New facts to report:

Fernando (Ruben Fernando Gomez Merino: gmezmerino@gmail.com), who changed his name legally from something he was given at birth in Columbia, had tried to enlist me so that his Mexican, godfather Hector and he could hide a land scam behind the twin powers of my Kenan surname and my service to Tennessee Williams, and “sell” a $290,000,000.00 parcel of land, the first of a contiguous tract of land twice the area of the city of Puerto Vallarta and located equidistant between that city and San Sebastian del Oeste. He had hypnotized me with plans whose qualities he and Godfather knew would intoxicate me, given my own lingering prejudices, and they had promised unlimited riches in return for my promise to market to the cream of the US crop.

But three people had confirmed the truth: The land had been stolen from a slew of rightful owners. Over the years, Godfather had, one-by-one, disappeared and murdered them all, then laid claim to the land. His crafty “selling” of the land to the smartest, brightest, and most accomplished (in the true sense of the words), would enrich him even further, and then if the labyrinthine law ever caught up with him, those people would be forced to totally back him to spare themselves the ultimate embarrassment of the truth: the BEST had given in to the Devil himself—or so, at least, it would appear.

But then, Verizon’s and Google’s (was it Google? I had only glimpsed the headline) plan to charge for prime spots on internet searches would guarantee that only the news favored by the US Republican Party SYSTEM OF EVIL would show up in any search. And Republicans would steal even more wealth in the process!

Perfection of Evil.

Perfection of connection of drug-dealing, kidnapping, torturing, murdering Latin criminals to the US Republican Party. Praise Jesus! In my head, HE had delivered, and, now, I HAD FINALLY ACCOMPLISHED MY EARTHLY MISSION.

Or, thruth-be-told, they had done it to themselves—I had only been the accountant.
TENNESSEE LAUGHS!!! (Thank you, Gary Tucker. See my Tennessee Williams memoir for details: www.walkingonglass.net )

ALSO: The machine called “Fernando” had broken down completely only a few days earlier in the living room of the owner of the oldest of the PV canopy tour owner/operators. Fernando getting entirely lost in his pretzel logic as Jeff and I listened with to-China-dropped jaws.
I prepared for two or three days, and then yesterday morning, I marched into the offices of TIMOTHY Real Estate Group, and told “our” “Russian” contact there that I had totally lost faith in Fernando’s proposed plan, but said little else. It still seemed possible that I was mistaken. I would NOT harm the innocent if rumors of my claims got out and I was wrong.

But I wasn’t. Evidence soon flooded in in support of my understanding. NOTHING suggested otherwise.

And now my (our) adversaries had gotten wind of my actions. “The FBI” had arrived to respectfully ask exactly what I knew, and he was most deferential—until he too broke down in the end, and began asking pretzel-questions about Navy intelligence and my desire to give him a non-existent-to-me dollar.

So this morning, I sit at my computer, my nose demanding I take (as they pronounce it locally), a “chower.” And as I was typing all this verbiage, Enrique showed up hours early, ready to hit the road for a couple of days or R&R, him paying.

My Daily Bread. Praise Jesus!!!

Amen.