JUDAS CRADLE
The Jewish editor got me. Set up like a bowling pin with no way out and no way in. The guy who won an Emmy sent me to the OFFICE. I knew it didn’t bode well after I was fired from Yellow Taxi. I had called Mr. J at Mountain Valley and he said that the boy I had turned over my route to was doing such a terrible job I couldn’t get any money. “He’s your employee—you turned my route over to him—you bought my business.”
“Sorry,” he smiled over the phone, “wait until summer.”
I called my accountant. “You’re broke. You owe me money,” he said. “You told me not to get a lawyer,” I said. “Oh, well, I’m an accountant.”
I was being sent to the office of the HEAD MASTER at Full Sail Center for the Recording Arts a week after signing new forms with the financial aid office. The HEAD CHEESE was five foot two and about 150 pounds of high energy. “I’m the producer for Shaquille O’neal’s new rap album.” He chattered while seated behind his desk, thumbing through a folder. “You’re classmates are afraid of you,” he said glancing over the top of his folder. The office had industry posters plastered on the walls along with gold records and Emmies and a bronzed upright penis muddled in with the trophies on a corner table.
“Dick?” I asked.
“You’ve also been accused of sexual harassment,“ he chattered on.
“I’m a student.”
“You’ve made anti-Semitic comments to one of our instructors and I quote, ‘some of my best friends are Jewish’ and ‘Jews control the entertainment business in New York.” He said.
“They may be big babies and I think their belief system may be out of date, but some of my best` friends are Jewish,” I said. “I was raised a Catholic and I think that’s a lot of hogwash too. What kind of school is this? And don’t get me started on the Moslems” I figured he was recording the entire sequence since it was a recording arts school.
“We had a meeting and we decided you won’t be graduating with your class.” He said.
“Why?” I asked.
“They don’t like you,” he said.
“They don’t like you either!” I answered, “They don’t like anybody.”
“And you stink.” He said.
“I bathe every chance I get—what about the guy with the dreadlocks—have you ever sat next to him?”
“This is all about you,” he said.
“No it’s not,” I said, “If I’ve offended anyone, I’m sorry.”
“You’re not sorry.”
“I said I’m sorry,” I said.
And he really said this: “If you’re sorry, you’ll leave school now, and after your class graduates you can come back and finish.”
I stood up, turned around, patted myself on the behind and said, “Kiss my ass.”
Little Gary called security.