“To have compassion for those who suffer is a human quality which everyone should possess, especially those who have required comfort themselves in the past and have managed to find it in others. ”
― The Decameron
“‘All in’ is our anthem and point of pride. Illinoisans staying home for the good of each other and the good of our state . . . Be all in. ‘All in Illinois’ means we care about one another, we care about our communities. We are one Illinois, and we’re all in this together.” JB Pritzker
Recap of Parts I-V
Wesley Dioneo is the only son of Chicagoland real estate tycoon, Martin Dioneo and his society maven wife Allyson. Martin Dioneo caught the COVID-19 virus from his Laplander personal trainer and is on a ventilator in Chicago's Northwestern Medical Center. Allyson is holed up in the couple's massive east Lake Shore Drive apartment building a score of yards from the iconic Drake Hotel.
Allyson has sent Wesley Dioneo to the family get-away home at Stop 30 lake Shore Drive in Long Beach, Indiana. Wesley is a senior at St. Ignatius College Prep and had been since the school shut down on March 16, 2020. Ally immediately sent Wesley to Long Beach, where he can be safe.
Wesley invites over his pals and trusted companions, the Nardo Bothers and Habib( Declan & Brian) and Habib Samer for a few days of social distancing, Super Smash Brothers and Pater Dioneo's Czech beer cellar. The quartet do what young men do - eat, play and spirit up the atmosphere with verbal assaults upon cant and cowardice. They tire of Super Smash Brothers, if that does not stretch the imagination, wit and Wesley proposes a story telling contest with the prize of his high-end kayak going to the person declared the winner.
Into this subjective yarn tossing arena will arrive six LaPorte County lovelies: Addison Pawliak, Paisley Ewan, Aaliyah Justice, Genesis Mullen, Kennedy Lynch, and Amy Kinsley Briddlestone. Wesley decided to allow Declan Nardo the opportunity to tell his tale about beating Chicago Bulls 1993 Title winning Myrmidon John Paxson at a game of horse, when the aging NBA star visited La Lumiere's Marsch Gym, a few years after that school own the national high school basketball title. Addison Pawliak, Paisley Ewan, Aaliyah Justice, Genesis Mullen, Kennedy Lynch, and Amy Kinsley Briddlestone arrived at the Stop # 30 address of Wesley Dioneo at different times and by different modes of transportation.
Part VI - March 25, 2020
On this Wednesday, while the COVID-19 plague gave elected officials all over the nation an opportunity to exercise executive authority over the people who elected them - shutting all business, mandating a universal stay-at-home order, stopping travel and dominating the very compliant news media.
No one rebelled, but some tried to exercise common sense and were immediately arrested and hauled into court. Essential businesses, like the vitamin factory where this writer works remained open and employees were mandated to wear masks, gloves and maintain a social distance of 6-12 feet from one another. People shrugged and went about shipping Gummie Vitamins for Women, Men, Children, Stressed, Sleepless, or WOKE Americans. In Chicago 12 people were gunned down; Governor Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot extended the stay-at-home-order to well past April 7, 2020. What can you do? Get a haircut? Well, only you if you are the Mayor.
But our tale about tales is set in Indiana! Most definitely. Northwest Indiana is a part of the Chicagoland market for media, politics and consumption. Smart Chicagoans buy homes in this lake front region, because the quality of life is far superior to the Big Windy. Kids do not get gunned down every three hours, as they do in Chicago and Indiana is not a bankrupted oligarchy run by a Governor who waddles with penguins and traffics in marijuana.
The waddling oligarch of an Illinois Governor put Illinois on its knees and under house arrest.
The Governor of Indiana responded to the threat of the mystery virus with far more common sense. Therefore, citizens felt more at ease walking, riding bikes and visiting friends and loved ones.
In Long Beach, Indiana ten young people, high school seniors, ate submarine sandwiches from Jimmy Johns and began a story-telling contest. Jimmy Johns sandwiches all tasted the same, be it turkey, beef, ham or vegan. The taste was secondary to the filling of the maw and bags of Salt and Vinegar Chips overcame whatever disappointments the purchase might allow to creep into the smart and savvy minds of early adults.
After eating half of an erstatz Italian sub from Jimmy Johns, Wesley intoned, " Let the contest for the Old Town Sportsman Minn Kota begin ! Remember. Each story must fulfiill each of the five following requirements
1. The story must amuse
2. The story must teach a lesson
3. The story must reveal the character of the person telling that story
4. The story must be something to bring people together
5. The story must acknowledge our own mortality
Ladies, Declan has a yarn that would reignite a campfire on the plains of Wyoming long cooled by the Western Winds. Declan Nardo, ladies and Gentleman!"
A round of enthusiastic catcalls and faux fanfare greeted the thick-set basketball star of La Lumiere ( local teams only and not the national tour squad, mind you - Declan was good but not destined for D-1, D-2, or D-Zed college teams. ) Basketball.
" Last November, when we getting ready for the season, JohnPaxson, the old GM of the Chicago Bulls came to talk to us about team building and trusting your teammates. Paxson went to LeMans Academy in Rolling Prairie - the schools that's now a priest school for some Mexican Catholics. He went there knew all about La Lumiere and followed the Lakers when we won the national title,
I play on the local squad, me and Brian. My left-handed shots suck donkeys. Brian is way better than me. Anyway, Paxson went on and on and on and everyone wanted to get to the main house for dinner with boarders, but I liked him and stuck around.
He asked me, " How 'bout a game of HORSE?" Now, he is number 5 and scored the winning basket in 1993. None of us were even born, but you know . Anyway, I figured he's an old guy and how good a shot can he have now. "
The game of HORSE is played between two people and called shots are the courtesy. If you call your shot, Hook, Set, Jumper, Backboard, In with Rim, Nothing But Net, that is what counts. If one makes the basket, the opponent must make the exact same shot and from the exact same position on the floor. If one misses he gets a letter, until the first player with HORSE totals out.
" So, Paxson gave me first shot. I went to the top left side of the Key and called Set Shot - Nothing But Net. Missed. Paxson went to half court and called Jumper - Backboard - nailed it.
We shot back and forth for twenty minutes, and Paxson called Under Hand from Free Throw Line SWISH and Nailed it.
I did the same and nailed it.
Then he says Left Hand Set Shot -Back Board!
I am so screwed. I am dead!
He missed.
I called Shot from the left top of Key Swish. Dropped like a bad habit! John Paxson Missed. HORSE!!!!!! I beat Number 5!
John Paxson shook my hand!"
At that, a weak round of applause nodded a nice bit of approval for Declan Nardo's true account of his victory over a legend. He was only "dead" for a moment.
Wesley called up the lovely Amy Kinsley Briddlestone.
Amy tossed her golden locks and chirped, " Mine is a tale of struggle and courage in the face of circumstances of birth. Jimmy Bond owns the great Jamaican Restaurant and Pub over on Route 12 near the old Knoll Brothers gas station. Jimmy is half Chinese and half English.
He was born in Jamaica - a Jamaican Woman's Detention Center called Fort Augusta. Portmore, Jamaica. His mother had been a secretary to British Colonial Governor in Kingston in 1962. She was a beautiful bi-racial woman whose father had been a drunken Hong Kong police man and mother a gorgeous Irish prostitute. Her name was Moira Taro.
Miss Taro was enthralled by Dr. No, a nuclear engineer who bedded the young Moira and put her to work spying on the British.
She was told to study the actions of a British MI-6 agent James Bond and to intercept any reports she may have filed concerning Dr. No's radioactive wave experiments on his private island at Crab Key.
Miss Taro invited Bond to her mountain cottage for a tryst - that's a date, boys - and try and get him killed by Dr. No's many agents on the island nation.
They did the deed.
Miss Taro secretly enjoyed her dalliance with handsome James Bond, but she was betrayed by him and arrested as a terrorist.
After Dr. Julius No died in an explosion that destroyed Crab Key, Miss Taro was tried in a colonial British Court to ten years at hard labor.
She was pregnant by Bond. In August 1962, Jamaica became a Commonwealth Nation, but Miss Taro was still considered a dangerous enemy of the Crown.
Her son James was born in 1963, on the same day that JFK was assassinated. The lovely, but vile Moira Taro died of uterine cancer in January 1964.
Jimmy was handed over to a Jamaican family by the child courts one year after his birth.
They had a Jerk Chicken cantina and huge following. Jimmy Bond learned to jerk meats, as well as run a restaurant. He was not a black man, but grew long dred locks and learned to play the bass guitar. For a while he had hoped that Michael Manley would improve the lives of Jamaicans, but he was just another Communist gangster and his policies ruined the business of Jimmy's adopted parents.
When Manley was re-elected as Prime Minister in 1989, Jimmy Bond moved to Miami and applied for United States Citizenship.
Jimmy played bass for Jimmy Buffet on two national tours and bought in on a Jerk Chicken restaurant in Bonfield, Illinois. Jimmy Bond's became a regional hotspot with great food and hot music.
In 2010, Jimmy Bond bought his restaurant on Route 12 and moved to Michiana Shores.
Life had not treated him well but hard work and a sunny outlook made Jimmy Bond, Shaken but Unstirred!"
Habib spilled Russian dressing out from his Jimmy John's sandwich all over the carpet. " Sorry, Dude! My bad. Amy, that's the Bond Movie. Is that plagiarism? Besides, Cool Runnings is way better food. Dude, I got the spill. God. "
Wesley began cleaning up the Russian dressing.
Part VII - Russians and Hamlet
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