With her hair piled on her head like a sticky pink cotton candy beehive, Timmy Kelly’s sister, Shannon, painted her toenails cranberry red and sipped a strawberry wine cooler straight from the bottle. Wearing a headset and baby doll pajamas she took the first call of the day.

When Shannon started her home business making psychic telephone connections at the beginning of the pandemic she hit the motherlode. Making personal contact with long dead Irish relatives in the great beyond became her greatest talent for snaring the typically stupid Irish-American wives of typically stupider Irish-American husbands who craved a link to the old sod but never thought to leave Scranton on a AAA tour.

On this call Shannon breathed into the phone between sips of warm cooler and said, your great-great-great-great-great granny’s coming through loud and clear.

Oh, my God, what’s she saying?

That she’s so proud of you getting elected as president of the Irish Women’s Society.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, how does she know?

The angels gossip, Shannon said.

Does granny see me from heaven?

Yes, yes, she says you look just like her when she was young and beautiful and living in Scranton’s sister city Ballina in County Mayo where Joe Biden’s people come from.

Mother of God, she didn’t say I’m beautiful, did she?

She did.

She didn’t.

She did.

Can I call her back next week?

I’ll see what I can do to get you a discount, Shannon said.

Shannon hung up struggling to keep from laughing and spitting cooler across the room.

The next call came immediately.

Goddammit, get off the phone and get your skinny ass over here fast. We got a problem, Judge Dombroski said.

Don’t you talk to me like that you fat tub of shit, Shannon said.

Harry Davies is trying to blackmail us.

What do you mean us?

 He’s threatening to tell my wife we’re having an affair.

That’s your problem.

It’s yours too if he posts them pictures I took of you on parade day that shows you wearing nothing but a green pointed St. Patrick’s Day hat doing the Riverdance while I played the accordion.

Shannon dropped her voice several octaves, lower than the guttural howls of an alley cat coupling in sweltering summer street heat.

I’m seeing a holy vision, Shannon said.

Frazzled, the judge took the bait.

What? What do you see?

I already posted the pictures on Facebook, Stash. They got more likes and shares than the video of my dog saluting during the national anthem at Trump’s inauguration. What I’m seeing is your wife weeping in divorce court and you losing your re-election bid. I’m seeing your million dollar ten-year-term salary flying out the courthouse window. I’m seeing me getting national publicity as a centerfold poster girl for an alt-right psychic militia and telling my story on CNN.

Shannon, please.

Pretty please with Irish Mist on top?

We’re going to have to kill Harry.

With kindness?

No, with a car bomb.

At that very moment while deeply pondering his existence, Casey Weatherhogg stared at the vanilla peppermint candle he lit five minutes earlier for his daily meditation. A voice in his head told him Zen is knowing you’re alive and doing something about it. Zen is doing nothing that’s sometimes doing something. Zen is doing something that’s sometimes doing nothing.

Doing his best to find peace of mind, Casey worried he might hurt somebody if he dosed the Scranton reservoir drinking water supply with a whole batch of basement-brewed LSD. Casey wanted to help, not hurt. Maybe he could find a way to just get the acid into the water fountains at the county courthouse where the mind-blower would at least add points to the sheriff’s office staff IQ. Or put it in the bishop’s aspergillum he uses to sprinkle holy water on the faithful with the words in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Jerry Garcia.

Casey asked himself a serious question upon which his whole existence was based: How far do you want to take this mission of mercy?

Further, he said.

Further.

Digging into his bowl of soggy corn flakes, Gino chewed hard and loud, loaded with pride in his refusal to watch one second of the inaugural swearing-in ceremony on TV. With the inmates storming the asylum two weeks ago and COVID-19 bugs spreading all over town, as far as he was concerned Joe and Kamala should have taken the oath with the same sense of urgency as LBJ aboard Air Force One, Jackie at his side wearing JFK’s blood on her dress.

But, no, mega-celebrity Lady Gaga ruled. Access, prestige, power, corporate cash, authority and elitism made Gino sick. Garth Brooks singing about amazing grace made him sicker. Country music sold out a long time ago. Tex Ritter would have refused a spot at Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Gino wondered if Joe was a closet drinker. And he bet Kamala got high. Born of Jamaican ganja heritage on her father’s side, she’s a California girl where recreational pot’s been legal since 2016 and was now living in the VP’s residence in the District of Columbia where pot’s also legal. If Gino was a member of the White House press corps he’d ask Kamala when she last smoked a joint. Yesterday? Today? As far as he was concerned, Kamala had weed written all over her.

Retired for only a few days, Gino already had way too much time on his hands.

When he first went to work 25 years ago at the federal prison in Lewisburg, he saw himself as a tough, no-nonsense law and order disciplinarian.  Now he couldn’t even keep the crooked former Scranton Mayor Harry Davies out of the trunk of his car. So he put in his papers instead of putting up with an internal investigation and local news reports insinuating he had something to do with Davies’ prison escape. At least they couldn’t blame Davies’ presidential pardon on him. That surprise came right from Trump.

Welcome home, Harry.

Shoveling stale breakfast cereal into his mouth got Gino thinking about Corn Pop.

To hear Joe Biden tell it, Corn Pop was a bad dude and he ran a bunch of bad boys. The guys in their Minooka neighborhood tagged Gino with the nickname Corn Pop as soon as Biden’s questionable story started making the rounds in 2017.  Other than the snooty lace curtain Micks in the upper middle-class Green Ridge oasis where Biden lived for the first decade or so of his life, nobody in any legitimate American blue-collar neighborhood believed the Corn Pop saga.

Biden’s I-grew-up-in-Scranton-timeline is debatable, of course, because even Biden’s handful of childhood pals can’t seem to agree on the exact dates he lived at his grandparents’ house or moved to Delaware. Ask Joe and he’ll exaggerate, forget, not quite remember or tell you he walked on the moon in 1969 with his best girl, Jill, who was wearing an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, yellow polka dot bikini. Loyalist Biden lore claims their hero lived on North Washington Avenue for years, but nobody seems to know exactly how many.

By the time Biden publicly told the Corn Pop story, the real Corn Pop was long gone, dead and buried in the first state. Nobody in Scranton gave the story much thought even if the seemingly tall tale were true. The legendary Wilmington confrontation highlights 19-year-old honkey lifeguard Joe Biden carrying a six-foot length of chain, Black gang leader Corn Pop wielding a rusty straight razor, and two bad boys in a gang called the Romans also wielding rusty razors Joe said developed lethality from dipping them in a rainwater barrel. These marauders eventually backed off. Joe’s body parts remained intact instead of jiggling in Corn Pop’s pocket or dangling from the mirror of a stolen Cadillac.

With Gino’s Calabria Italian-American olive complexion, as they say in Scranton, some of the guys had tagged him as colored long before America elected Biden Vice President. Previously known in his Irish neighborhood simply as Gino the Wop, for many years Gino felt good about his heritage and station in life, not at all like the Stations of the Cross Jesus endured. He had that nice federal prison job with great benefits. He loved his wife until she died. And most people respected his position as a guard, or correctional officer as he demanded people characterize his career.

But when he said he believed Biden’s Corn Pop story the Minooka gang let him have it with all the bigoted white male malice they could load into abuse that would follow Gino until six peers carted him off to the cemetery in a box. That first day Gino proclaimed he believed Joe, neighborhood hero Timmy Kelly led the brutal verbal assault.

You’re shitting me. Joe Biden made that up like he makes up everything else. I bet he had Corn Pops for breakfast that morning he first told the story to them American-African kids, Kelly said.

All these years later, Gino had an idea. Stepping to the cupboard, he reached for a new box of cereal and froze deep in thought.

Corn Pop and Joe had a bond, right? What if Joe and I continue that relationship in these terrible times of racial unrest, a black-and-white connection like Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson singing Ebony and Ivory? What if I announce I’m Corn Pop’s son, Sugar Pop? After all, back in the 50s Corn Pops cereal was called Sugar Pops.

Ever since Ann Marie took a stroke and died last year, Gino lived like a recluse drinking too much, eating Progresso canned minestrone soup every day and going to work surrounded by white-collar millionaire convicts and Mafia degenerates.

Everybody thinks they’re better than me, Gino said out loud.

He lit a Parodi cigar and had to admit he never felt like he mattered. Gino felt tears form in his eyes. The strong smell of tobacco burned his nostrils. Gino wanted a piece of the action. Why couldn’t he get something out of Biden’s election? Gino embedded his own scrappy roots in Scranton all his life and didn’t own a $2.7 million beach house in Rehoboth Beach like Biden does.

I’ll make Biden’s election work for me, Gino said. I’m dark-skinned whether I like it or not, been dark since I was a bambino. Guys call me colored and mean it. If Corn Pop had a kid with a white woman he’d be just about my shade and age. Maybe I can cash in by asking Biden’s people for a couple of small government contracts in Scranton, ghost work like the good old days where I can just pick up a check and only show up at the office for the Christmas party.

Yeah, OK, everybody knows I’m Italian. A couple old-timers still remember my christening. But I’ll say I’m strong enough to admit I’m adopted, that my parents never wanted to tell the truth to protect me, and Corn Pop wanted his boy to grow up in Scranton just like Joe Biden. Yeah, yeah, I’m feeling Black already.

Alive and woke and living in Scranton, Sugar Pop was, as Joe Biden might say, ready to build back better.

Oogabooga, my brother, said Earl Schmidt.

Timmy Kelly lifted his aviator glasses and looked hard at the reverend.

Huh?

Earl explained.

Black cave men used to say boogabooga. White cave men said oogabooga. Now that’s our battle cry for the civil war, Earl said.

Civil war?

Earl kept talking.

Pay attention, boy. White cave men warring with Black cave men started at the beginning of time. We won because we stood our ground evolving into people like the Flintstones and the Rubbles, Fred and Barney cruising around after work at the factory, marrying beautiful white girls like Betty and Wilma. Black boogs hid in the trees grunting and blaming white men for all their problems just like they do today. Oogabooga is our code so the deep state swamp people and them Black Lives Matter boogaboogas won’t know what hit them now that the shit storm has arrived.

Kelly stood spellbound realizing for the first time just how severely nuts Trump had made his paranoid followers who believe with all their burned brain stems their man is the white Messiah leading them from the cave and into the embrace of heaven.

Still, the pastor raised more questions than answers.

Kelly scrunched up his face.

The shit storm?

Two capital S’s, like the German Waffle SS. Why do you think we meet at Waffle Houses all over the country? The Waffle SS, the shit storm, that’s what we’re calling the race war.  

Timmy saw no value in telling Earl the Nazi Waffen SS had nothing to do with sourdough syrup. As a professional Joe Biden impersonator with big dreams of performing in Atlantic City, Timmy needed to beware, especially among berserk Trump freaks inspired to stop the steal after Dems rigged the election.

Timmy Kelly held out his hand palm up.

You got the hundred bucks, Earl?

You got the VIP inauguration passes?

Timmy pegged Earl as a pushover. Word on the street described Earl as a low IQ redneck hillbilly with a speaking-in-tongues church in West Side who was looking for a way into the swearing-in. Timmy had every intention of ripping off the reverend and disappearing back into his own tribal neighborhood where he felt safe. Only Earl was nobody’s fool.

Where’d you get the tickets, by the way?

That’s confidential, Timmy said.

You going to the inauguration in Washington with us, Mr. Kelly?

They need me here.

You ain’t got no real tickets, now, do you, boy?

With that, Zerelda glided into the room with the harsh grace of First Lady Melania guiding the televised White House Christmas tour that never was.

Put your hands up, she said, pointing a Sig P226 9mm equipped with night sights at Timmy’s nose with all the glee of a SEAL war criminal getting pardoned from a life sentence for massacring civilians.

We got him, Earl, she said.

We got who?

We got ourselves a captain in the Joe Biden Clone Army, Earl. The Jews are breeding battalions of look-a-like Bidens to unleash across America trying to cloud our minds and sperm our women to do their bidding.

Earl screamed.

Sperm our women? Inject them with wild liberal spermazooms? My God, Zerelda, that’s worse than shape-shifting, blood-sucking reptilian humanoids invading Earth to control the human race.

The Joe Biden Clone Army is a million times worse than the lizard people, Earl.

Turning on Timmy, Zerelda spoke with the cold authority of a guerrilla field commander.

How’d you like to make a hostage video, Joe? Tell the world you voted for Trump.

Meanwhile back in his basement, Casey dipped a soup spoon into the tub loaded with liquid LSD for a taste. Ummmm, he said like he was sampling chicken corn soup at the German church bazaar. Upstairs in the attic, Mabel lit a joint and planned her next mission.

Back in the Minooka section of town, Gino wrote a resignation letter to the prison warden.

And former Scranton Mayor Harry Davies settled in to make a few phone calls to friends who were always good for bribes and kickbacks, political cronies who would do anything he wanted for fear he would rat them out to the feds.

Pssst, he said when the first potential felon answered the phone. Did you hear what Joe Biden did in law school?

Petrified the cops had his house surrounded Gino answered the phone on the first ring.

Let me talk to Harry, said Judge Dombroski, who Gino always called Dumbroski.

Gino obeyed.

After all, the man was a Scranton judge.

Escaped federal prisoner and former Scranton Mayor Harry Davies grabbed the phone.

You’re free, the judge said.

Harry did his happy dance.

Now the president wants a favor in return for your pardon, the judge said.

A quid go pro? So what else is new? What’s my liberty going to cost me?

The president wants you to make up rumors about Joe Biden like his peeing the bed when he was in law school and spread the dirt all over Scranton. People know you, Harry. You’ve got credibility, the judge said.

Yeah, the same people who voted for me voted for Biden, Harry Davies said.

On the other side of town, in a shabby makeshift West Side church for armed Trump supporters and assorted other fanatics, Earl Schmidt got a phone call, too.

I hear you’re looking for tickets to the inauguration, Timmy Kelly said.

Like about 100, Earl said.

I got two seats right behind Jill going for $50 a pop.

When can I pick them up?

We deliver.

Shivering with rolling waves of excitement, Timmy Kelly jumped into his new used Corvette, getting heat flashes at the mere thought of driving all over town with the top down. So what if the temperature peaked today at 34 degrees? Career change required sacrifice, especially if he expected to become mayor of his and Joe Biden’s hometown. This Kelly green Corvette exuded genuine Scranton power, privilege and authority even if it was the cheapest Corvette he could find listed on Autotrader. Still, the 1984 model with 138,000 miles on the odometer and an asking price of just $3,899 made Timmy’s point. If that goof Joe Biden can do it, anybody can do it.

Scranton Lives Matter!

Driving over to the gun church with the counterfeit inaugural tickets, Timmy started talking out loud to himself like he was giving a campaign speech.

Here’s the deal, man. Joe loves his Stingray so Timmy Kelly loves his. OK, so Joe’s Vette was a 1967 cream of the crop car. Nowadays you’d have to pay about $150,000 for one in good shape. My car’s different but Scranton Democrats will understand. What do they know anyway, especially that NEPA for Joe Facebook page gang loaded with Joey junkies and devotees. Like always, parochial Democratic Party disciples will vote me into office without even thinking.

Timmy Kelly must have watched his favorite video 100 times with then Vice President Joe Biden behind the wheel of a 1967 Stingray in a special 2015 TV segment of Jay Leno’s Garage. The way Joe gripped the wheel underhanded like a street racing fighter pilot helped Timmy polish his mannerisms to get his impression down. The way Joe showed his teeth helped Timmy smile the smile that would get him through the rest of his life. Joe told Jay his father headed up one of Delaware’s largest Chevy dealerships and gave him the car as a wedding present. That confused Timmy because he always thought Joe came from the working-class where nobody owned a new car let alone a Corvette that cost about $5,600 in 1966.

After 11 years as a chauffeur for Judge Dombroski, supported by a few extra under-the-table bucks hauling corpses as a professional pall bearer, Timmy Kelly stood ready for public office. Our man in Scranton was ready for leadership. Just like Joe.

Over at police headquarters, Casey Weatherhogg tried to persuade his 95-year-old mother, Mabel, to come home and not start any more trouble, at least not yet.

Please, Ma, he said. The magistrate told me he knows and respects our family roots and wants to release you on your own recognizance.

Screw her and the Democrats she rode in on, Mabel said.

Ma, the cops are only charging you with disorderly conduct. The judge will likely recommend community service, Casey said.

My community service is growing weed in the attic, Mabel said. I might fire up another joint at my preliminary hearing.

Aw, Ma, why would you do that?

To show Joe Biden and all his lace curtain Green Ridge lickspittles that since the country’s gone to pot, the people need to go to pot too.

If I were a congressman I’d be honored to join the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC). Hope for a better America is anchored there.

But I’m just a senior citizen living in Joe Biden’s childhood hometown, a Scranton voter and loyal progressive who retired after decades of full-time journalism fighting racism, sexism and other rancid forms of bigotry, including Donald Trump. I will fight inequality and injustice until the day I die.

I know from experience why voters distrust government. I know why voters from both major parties often resent elected officials’ patronizing our lives and ignoring our concerns.

I also know that the Congressional Progressive Caucus must expel my congressman, Matt Cartwright, who represents the 8th Congressional District because Cartwright is not a progressive.

The CPC is comprised of nearly 100 progressive members of the U.S. House of Representatives and one U.S. Senator, according to the caucus website.

If you doubt my judgment on Democrat Cartwright’s bogus progressive credentials, try to get a straight answer about his position on any progressive policy from him or any high-ranking member of his staff. I’ve tried and failed for years – and I’m a longtime Democrat and constituent.

Our mousy man in Washington even waited until the last minute to sign on as a co-sponsor to the current article of impeachment. I asked in writing this week for answers to basic questions about why Cartwright waited so long in the wake of armed insurrection, but nobody from his office responded, not longtime local Scranton staffer Bob Morgan, Chief of Staff Hunter Ridgway or Press Secretary Melvin Felix.

A wavering company man of the worst kind, Cartwright regularly exerts more fearfulness than leadership, holding out until the last moment before making crucial decisions. Then he does what elite Democratic Party bosses tell him to do. Or, he spews double talk to draw the least amount of pushback from conservative constituents he wants to appease. Cartwright usually tries to have it both ways.

Abortion rights?

Wishy-washy.

Immigration?

Wishy-washy.

Guns?

Wishy-washy.

Gender equity?

Cartwright has donned his tuxedo and attended an elite male-only dinner for years. I regularly and publicly called out his presence at the bigoted Lackawanna County Friendly Sons of St. Patrick event to no avail. His staff eventually stopped responding to all my requests for answers or interviews even though Cartwright had previously appeared regularly as a guest on my Northeastern Pennsylvania news talk radio show.

Ask Cartwright hard questions about forward-looking principles and he hides. Derelict in his duty, Cartwright is just another slick lawyer slacker who takes more than he gives and gives as little as he can contribute to the already unfair fight for gender equality.

America can no longer afford wishy-washy.

I respect the increasingly deadly reality that makes congressional public service in Washington increasingly risky. That’s why progressive bravery is all the more necessary if we ever hope to expose the meek moles among us.

Cartwright’s refusal to publicly support progressive issues amounts to tacit approval of the enemy. Yet he dares call himself a progressive? And progressives welcome him to their caucus?

Check out the “Progressive Promise” on the CPC website and see how many principles inherent in that sacred promise to America Cartwright has broken. Committed progressives who take the heat and sacrifice daily should be as offended as I am by Cartwright’s opportunistic willingness to play toxic politics with our future.

Allowing Cartwright to use the caucus to make himself look good is just plain wrong. Such a key group of lawmakers as the CPC must not support his duplicitous public policy fraud. Cartwright’s legislative hustle of his own colleagues is sleazy, abusive and unacceptable.

Taking sides takes courage. We better stick with people we can count on when times get tough and tougher. Survival literally and figuratively depends on whom we can trust.

American progressives can’t trust Cartwright. Let him find safe haven elsewhere. Self-absorbed political greed has no place in a strong world of enlightened policy.

It’s time for a truly progressive Democrat, a woman, to challenge Cartwright in the next primary. It’s time for change that benefits good people upon whose backs Cartwright makes a good living with good benefits. It’s time to show Matt Cartwright the door.

Unloading all 30 rounds from his trusty AR-15 into the big screen TV video replay from the Capitol siege, Earl Schmidt calmly turned and faced the congregation that sat packed into his living room like lead bullets in a dull tactical clip.

Two dozen faithful congregants rushed to church within a half hour of Earl calling them to the emergency service to save America. Word spread fast that patriots including some from Northeastern Pennsylvania had attacked the deep state government and needed prayers.

Earl disagreed.

They needed tanks.

Shell-shocked parishioners stared in fear.

More Al-Anon than QAnon, the believers represented a motley crew of drunks, the terminally lost and mixed-up societal malcontents awaiting sentencing on a variety of county misdemeanors and the occasional felony. One particularly troubled congregant the counseling center sent over swore he dated Joe Biden’s sister, brother and mother all at the same time. The group listened with rapt attention as Earl shared the good news and the bad.

The president incited the people to do his bidding, he said. Then the president didn’t walk with the people.

Instead of the Rapture, we got the Rupture, Earl said.

Then he had an idea.

Earl asked for volunteers.

Who wants to go to the inauguration?

Every hand in the room shot toward the heavens.

Adjusting their glistening bullet crowns off which reflections of Armageddon shined, the flock then picked up their assault rifles and filed from the room in tense silence, leaving the newly anointed Prince of Fleece to plot how to turn around this unexpected setback so Trump’s abandonment benefitted him and his bride.

Meanwhile, back in the Hill section, Casey Weatherhogg had an idea of his own.

You know Joe Biden opposes legalization of marijuana, he said to his mother.

Sonofabitch, Mabel said. And where’s my COVID vaccine? I’m 95 years old, forcrissakes!

Casey taunted his dear mother, knowing full well he was pushing her into action.

You gonna let Joe Biden treat us aging potheads like that?

The all-but-empty Green Ridge bus dropped Mabel at the corner of Fisk Street and North Washington Avenue, the newly christened road now known as Joe Biden Way. The bus driver gave her a nice smile and unloaded Mabel’s lawn chair. He even set it up at the corner. Mabel thanked him and pulled the metal folding chair with rust around the green and white plastic webbing right smack snug against the new street sign pole so comfy cushy she could lean against the metal, which she did.

Pulling her Berkeley hoodie over her head and tight around her neck, she retrieved a pack of rolling papers and a sandwich baggie full of pot from her black plastic purse. Expertly, she began to craft a nice, fat, tight joint made from the finest, most potent “Hill Hippy Halcyon” she grew in the attic.

Putting a stick match to the tip, she fired up her protest.

Mabel smoked a lot of medical marijuana. But she liked her homegrown stock best. She wanted full legalization at low cost for consumers. She wanted to buy stock in a company. She wanted to get high whenever and wherever she pleased. For all she knew, Joe Biden never smoked a joint in his life so he didn’t know what he was missing.

And that homespun bastard opposed legalization.

Old People Power demanded direct action, guerrilla theater that required making an incendiary point people remembered, a candle lit in darkness that possessed the power to burn, baby, burn. Dissent in front of Joe Biden’s childhood home, though, required a special demonstration, a unique outcry for justice from a simple woman smoking a simple Scranton herb that produced a combination head and body high with the impact of a pink cotton candy pillow wallop over the head and falling into a bathtub brimming with warm chocolate pudding. Mabel’s domestic “Hill Hippie Halcyon” always did the trick.

Pulling out her cell phone, Mabel dialed 911 to turn herself in.

Come quick, she said, pot heads are attacking Joe Biden’s house.

An hour later, two heavyweight Scranton police officers approached just in time to hear the padlock click at Mabel’s waist. Mabel adjusted her purple beret, set her jaw and sucked deeper on her second joint.

That old coot just chained herself to the Joe Biden Way street sign, one cop said.

The other cop seemed miffed at his predicament.

I better get overtime if the paperwork makes me work past the shift change, he said.

Film at 11 showed a grim lieutenant sweating despite the cool weather as he sawed through thick steel links Mabel chose to secure herself to the street sign. Stoned and happy, she sang an old Negro spiritual whose lyrics she kept forgetting as she giggled hysterically each time she bumbled the song.

Right on, she said, raising a bony fist as tattooed SWAT team members picked her up chair and all, depositing her in the back of the prisoner transport van.

Right on.

In a garish courthouse office stinking of cigar smoke and loaded with cheap golf trophies, Republican Trump confidant and Lackawanna County President Judge Stanley “Stash” Dombroski opened former Scranton Mayor Harry Davies’ letter.

The judge quickly read the contents then nervously picked up the phone.

A woman answered.

White House switchboard, how may I help you?

Over in the Hill Section of Scranton, Casey Weatherhogg sat stoned on the couch beside his mother, Mabel. They watched CNN in silence as pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Casey stood and did some impromptu yoga postures before heading to the kitchen for some carrot sticks.

Want your medical marijuana, Ma?

And two beers, honey, Mabel said.

In West Side, Earl Schmidt, self-proclaimed pastor of the new Cathedral of the Eternal Donald, brandished a loaded AR-15 and pointed the rifle at the TV. A man wearing a blood red flag emblazoned with the name TRUMP and tied around his neck rappelled down the side of the U.S. Senate press gallery. He landed on a 200-year-old mahogany desk with a thud.

We got your back, brother, Schmidt said.

About 71 miles south on Interstate 81, behind the gate of a penitentiary near Frackville, former Scranton Mayor Harry Davies went to work at the prison carwash. With two clean wipe-down rags stuck in his back pockets of his matching khaki pants and shirt, he stood waiting for other inmates to do the soap and water wash before stepping forward to help dry the car. Strictly against the rules, of course, inmates washed the cars of certain VIP guards and other prison officers for free.

A black 1985 Cadillac with a “Scranton (heart) Biden” bumper sticker immediately caught the mayor’s eye. Harry Davies didn’t know who owned the car but nobody other than a full-blown Scranton yahoo would put a Biden bumper sticker on his car and drive it to work at a prison where you’d be asking for trouble because most staff and inmates hated Biden.

Strange as it sounds, the guards simply turned over employees’ car keys to the inmate cleaning crew. The inmates returned the keys when they finished because inmates usually obey the law in prison. Harry Davies used the Caddy’s key to pop the trunk, inserted the key back in the ignition, crawled inside and pulled the lid closed behind him. After pushing aside two cases of Keystone beer and a 12-pack of beef jerky, the mayor settled in for his ride to freedom.

Ten minutes later he felt the car move, then stop, parked in an adjacent lot to wait for the vehicle owner’s shift to end as he or she heads back home, presumably to Scranton. After a nap, Mayor Davies awakened to the sound of the driver gunning the engine. At first he thought he’d suffocate from the thick fumes swirling around his head burning his eyes, choking and gagging him. Then he realized he wasn’t inhaling most of the noxious exhaust because the toxic vapor was getting sucked out the rust holes in the big boat’s undercarriage. Mayor Davies popped his first beer and stretched out to enjoy the ride.

Looking forward to two days off, Gino wanted nothing more than peace. At about 4 p.m. on the second day, Gino headed to the Caddy’s trunk for more beer. Screaming before the lid fully opened, Gino jumped back, assuming a fighting stance like in the Kung Fu movies. Whatever wild beast found its way into the trunk now found its way out. Reeking of stale beer and strong urine, the creature struggled to sling one leg over the fender and roll out, knocking over empty beer cans and spilling pale yellow liquid on the garage floor. Gamey, with spicy dried meat on his breath, Harry Davies rose slowly in a living version of the evolutionary chart showing man’s upward climb to civilization.

Screaming now in recognition, Gino tried not to pass out.

You’re him, you’re him, you’re the mayor.

Harry Davies looked worse than the beef jerky.

I’m calling the cops, Gino said.

I wouldn’t if I was you, the mayor said.

Gino lowered his voice.

What do you want?

I beg your pardon.

I said what do you have in mind?

Pardon me.

Exasperated, Gino raised his voice.

I SAID…

No, no, said the mayor, stop repeating yourself. I’m talking about a real pardon, a presidential pardon. 

Stunned, Gino stood trembling with his heart pounding like a Led Zeppelin song in his throat.

Give me your phone, Mayor Davies said.

Who you calling?

Judge Dombroski, the mayor said.

Trump’s golfing buddy?

A grizzled Harry Davies snickered.

They’ll love me at Mar-a-Lago, he said.

Finally mustering the courage to confront Timmy Kelly face-to-face, Gino stood trembling on Woodlawn Street outside Hank’s Hoagies where they picked up take-out to eat in the car after their walk at the Little League field where Joe Biden played as a kid.

Gino bought a Hank’s Italian. Timmy got a Hank’s regular. Each hoagie on a National Bakery roll with Hank’s special sauce cost $4.25.

Your campaign slogan’s racist, Gino said, his words muffled through his mask.

Timmy only wore a mask if somebody made him put one on.

Scranton lives matter?

Black lives matter, Gino said.

But Scranton lives matter, too, right?

Black lives matter, Timmy.

Don’t all lives matter, Gino?

We’re pro-life Catholics, Timmy. Of course they do.

Then Scranton lives matter.

‘Black lives matter’ means we should pay attention to the wholesale slaughter of Black people.

Timmy smirked.

Like they’re baby seals?

Gino knew he’d lose this argument.

Mostly armed white cops kill mostly unarmed Black men, he said.

So that makes it OK for them to loot?

Most protesters don’t loot, including Black people.

You’re taking sensitivity training courses at the prison again, aren’t you, Gino?

I’m reading and watching the news more since my wife died. History teaches us a lot if we’re willing to listen. We weren’t friends with anybody Black growing up in the neighborhood, Gino said.

Yeah, you Italians were bad enough.

Gino closed his eyes like he was trying to hide from his father when he was little and being bad.

C’mon, Timmy, I’m serious.

You think Scranton voters will call me racist because I tell them their lives matter?

The Black ones will.

How many is that? Two?

Most people we know will vote for you for mayor.

Then why change my campaign slogan?

You’re twisting the meaning of the words. You’re disrespecting people of color.

Timmy raised his eyebrows in an overly dramatic fashion.

People of color?

Gino flinched like a timid boxer expecting to get hit.

That’s right, people of color.

That’s racist, Timmy said.

What’s racist?

You said people of color.

That’s what we’re supposed to call them.

Then why can’t we call them colored people?

That’s different, Timmy.

Sounds the same to me.

Like all Black people look alike?

You said it, Gino. I didn’t.

You really don’t get it, do you?

What I do get is that ever since the George Floyd riots white people are getting blamed for everything. My family never owned slaves. I’m Irish. We were slaves. White men particularly need to know we still matter. And I’m just the guy to tell them.

You sound like a Trump supporter, Gino said.

Timmy reached into the pocket of his blue sport coat, pulled out a cheap pair of aviator sunglasses he bought online, put them on and kicked into his best Joe Biden imitation.

Look, man, here’s the deal, he said.

Gino rolled his eyes.

Timmy spoke in the old-fashioned Scranton accent the way everybody’s lace-curtain Green Ridge parents sounded back when Biden was attending St. Paul’s Elementary School. They said ScranTun with a hard T instead of SranUNN the way the working-class pronounced the name of their hometown.

Listen, Timmy said. And this is no malarkey. Scranton lives matter because all lives matter especially Scranton lives because Joe Biden’s from here and we take care of our own.

Gino started to respond.

Will you shut up, man, Timmy said.

Gino gave up.

Whatever you say, Mr. President, he said.

New Year’s Day or no New Year’s Day, Mabel wanted her vaccination.

Pampered U.S. Sen. Bob Casey who lived just down the street got his shot and he’s only 60 years old, slithering his way into line ahead of her and every other vulnerable senior citizen in town. Smart-ass U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, that smirky little weasel, got the vaccine, too.

COVID or no COVID, me-first politics never changes among flunky establishment political hacks in hard coal country.

Dressed in a red K-Mart sweat suit matched with leopard print slip-on sneakers and no socks, Mabel grabbed an old-fashioned metal bottle opener from the drawer, popped the cap on a Stegmaier Gold Medal Beer and pulled up a chair to the kitchen table. Opening the yellowed scrapbook she kept since she was 12, Mabel started to read. A proud retired public librarian, Mabel knew her local history.

She knew about the Algonquin-speaking Munsee Indians (a subgroup of the Delaware) and the white settlers who entered the region in the mid-18th century. She knew the Electric City got its nickname when blood-sucking capitalists in Scranton developed America’s first electric-operated trolley system in 1886.

One of Scranton’s shrewdest elders, Mabel also knew Joe Biden’s past.

Sipping the first beer of the day while her son Casey secreted himself in the work space he created by the coal bin in the basement, Mabel paged through the thick chronicle she compiled and reviewed occasionally to remind her where she’d been. Some of those memorable times sparkled as some of her happiest times living with her mother and father in the Hill Section in the very same house where she lived after she married and gave birth to her boy, the very same house where she cared for her parents and husband until they died, the same warm home she and her son still shared.

Some of those times also broke her heart.

Polished brown oak stairs and amber floors shined almost golden in the afternoon sun. The house pulsed with character. So did Mabel. Draining her brew, she stood and went to the refrigerator for another bottle. With a snap of the wrist the cap flew into the air and bounced off the floor. Taking two long swigs, savoring the foamy, bitter taste, she licked her lips.

Mabel sure loved her lager.

But she loved equality more.

Tomorrow she would notify the Biden transition team of her request.

She already wrote the first paragraph of the email.

“I’m a nonagenarian feminist volunteering to help Joey lead the world, the nation and Scranton to a better place. That’s why I’m inviting him to accompany me to the next all-male Lackawanna County Friendly Sons of St. Patrick dinner.”

Holding up a magnifying glass to a page in her scrapbook, Mabel read a Biden quote from an interview the then vice president did a few years back with a weekly Irish-American newspaper.

“Edward F. Blewett my grandmother’s father, was the first Irish Catholic state senator. He was also the co-founder of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in Scranton around 1908. There is still a plaque in existence in Scranton showing he was one of the founding members,” Biden said.

Mabel knew Blewett was not the first Irish Catholic state senator in Pennsylvania. That distinction belongs to the Hon. William McSherry (McSherrystown, Adams County), 1813-1817, according to the official state Senate website. And she never met anybody who could locate the plaque Biden claimed existed in Scranton.

Mabel despised the Friendly Sons.

To this day these misogynistic misanthropes continue to inflict traditional Scranton Irish-American male chauvinism on the community. The dinner has grown each year into a must-go-to business and political event, so much so that about 1,500 tuxedo-clad sexists now gather to shovel ham, cabbage and potatoes into their fleshy gobs while swilling down drinks carried to their tables by underpaid women servers, the only females allowed into the party. Thus continues the lads’ dominant role in Scranton society where no women need apply for equal opportunity.

Mabel would show them the error of their patriarchal ways.

Time for change was long overdue, especially since Biden appeared three times over the years as the Friendly Sons’ featured dinner speaker, more than anybody who ever graced the dais with stale jokes and a heavily starched ego. Mabel pitied even the smartest, strongest women in town who feared these men and refused to confront the brazen injustice carried out by their husbands, fathers, brothers, lawmakers, judges and other elected and appointed public officials, including company men Sen. Casey and Rep. Cartwright.

Mabel long ago pegged her hometown as America’s death bed, a thick, lumpy mattress on which social evolution ends its run. Despite the city’s funeral parlor décor with pasty pallor, loyal natives loved the place. Scads of these male supremacists attended the segregationist Friendly Sons’ gala. Mabel called them pale penis people like they were some sort of alien life form that descended from outer space intent on taking over the globe. Maybe they were creatures from another planet.

Biden’s two faces might be all the proof civilization needs.

Mabel watched closely when Biden wormed his way into former President Barack Obama’s world as vice president. She knew Obama needed a back-slapping white man to pull votes from blue-collar white men like the Friendly Sons who might hesitate before voting for a Black candidate. She knew Biden often played up his phony white working-class roots on the campaign trail, especially focusing on Scranton and Pennsylvania, a battleground swing state that could determine the outcome of the presidential election.

Willing to say and do anything to become vice president, Biden said and did anything to become vice president.

Incensed when Biden swore he had an uncle who worked in the coal mines, Mabel became more livid at his lie when she saw Biden laughing on national television about how he made up the story to ingratiate himself to voters. Mabel took the insult personally because she did have family members who worked in the mines. After 45 years as a coal miner, her father died from black lung that collected anthracite dust in his lungs and formed deposits around airways called bronchioles, scarring and destroying portions of his lungs and blood vessels. Pneumoconiosis, known as black lung disease, eventually killed him.

When Biden’s overwhelmingly white middle-class cheerleaders boasted, “He’s one of us,” Mabel would sizzle with contempt and say, “No, he’s not.”

Mabel re-read the words she had pasted in her book when Biden’s mother died at 92 in 2010, and the vice president issued a statement. One sentence caught her eye and stuck in her craw.

“Together with my father, her husband of 61 years who passed away in 2002, we learned the dignity of hard work and that you are defined by your sense of honor.”

Guzzling the last of her beer, Mabel slammed the empty bottle on the table and again re-read the phrase “sense of honor.”

Yes, Joey, Mabel said. You are defined by your sense of honor.

That’s why Mabel would refuse to take no for an answer as to whether Joe Biden would be her date for the Friendly Sons’ dinner. Vaccinated and ready to shatter the banquet hall glass ceiling, Mabel and the new president would break new ground whether he liked it or not.

Mabel and Joey would attend the Paddy’s Day bash together.

And she wouldn’t wear a bra.