How many tacos you going to eat, Ma?

Mabel wiped a dribble of Tapatio hot sauce off her chin and bit into another loaded spicy halibut taco at a freaky fish shack on the Harford Pier overlooking the wonderful spot where Port San Luis meets the Pacific Ocean.

As many as I want, she said.

Mabel slurped and finished her drink.

Now, somebody please order me another margarita, she said.

The cross-country trip went well in the fully refurbished VW bus Casey picked up from an aging pot dealer in New Jersey. Casey decided to stop on the Central Coast because his favorite Bugs Bunny cartoon episode took place in Pismo Beach. Disappointed that the clams for the local restaurant chowder now come from New York, he wanted to give this famous beach a sacred hippie blessing to maybe help bring the long-gone mollusks back where they belonged. Then the Bay Area’s newest commune could drive north through Big Sur before landing in Berkeley where the three expected to live.

With Casey’s teacher’s pension and Social Security, proceeds from the sale of the Scranton house, Mabel’s Social Security and library pension and the little money Zerelda saved from her mother’s insurance policy when she died, they felt confident they could rent a tiny apartment and contribute to the community.

Mabel planned to form and organize the Purple Panthers, a radical group of beret-wearing feminist senior citizen women to “take it to the man,” as she put it. Casey leaned toward going back into environmental patriotism that laid waste to capitalism and its bastard corporate spawns with destruction that only harmed parasitic profiteers, an act of liberty he considered societal self-defense. Zerelda wanted to make and sell “radically scented” candles at farmer’s markets with aromas she envisioned such as “The Moment” and “Enlightenment.”

Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything, Casey said.

Neither Mabel nor Zerelda knew about Casey’s secret cash stash he earned from a handful of select international online LSD transactions over the past few years. Only a choice group of super acid headliners knew about the world’s most notorious underground LSD producer known as “Spacy Casey.”  

Scranton might have seriously progressed if our hero had unloaded a couple of barrels full of product into Lake Scranton and turned the city drinking water supply into a magical mystery tour. But, good boy that he is, Casey listened to his mother. Maybe that’s the moral to this story, Scranton lives matter assuming your mother has a functioning social conscience and isn’t a member of the Scranton Junior League, the Chamber of Commerce or the Democratic and Republican parties.

Zerelda leaned across the table and patted Mabel’s hand.

Do you think we’ll get homesick, Mabel?

No, I do not, dear.

Casey jumped up from the picnic table and ran to the juke box. Punching in the numbers, he returned and stood with his open hands extended. Zerelda clapped in time to Mexican Norteño music as Mabel stood and embraced her son. Sliding slowly to the left and sliding slowly to the right, they danced as smoothly as perfectly whipped guacamole spooned onto a warm tortilla chip.

Knowing they belonged in California, this intrepid trio had successfully escaped the dark political corruption, cruel provincial peasants and their priests who turned a good little city bad. Raising his hand over Mabel’s head, Casey gently spun his mother in a slow pirouette to the blaring brass horns and accordions that played on small speakers and echoed throughout the restaurant. Then they returned to a basic two-step, the way Mabel had once taught Casey how to dance on the night before his high school senior prom.

As you might expect, Mabel led.

                                                                    The End

You couldn’t miss it.

Todd got bug-eyed and pointed.

What’d you do to your lip?

Kelsea paled, spun on her red high heels and clacked down the hall.

The next morning at 9 a.m. Todd’s supervisor called as he was working his way through monthly expense reports in his cubicle.

Could I see you in my office?

When Todd got there he saw the woman from Human Resources looking like her cat got sick on the shag carpet. His supervisor sat behind her desk wearing a turtleneck sweater and a scowl.

We’re going to have to suspend you, she said.

What did I do?

We do not tolerate male employees making inappropriate comments about female employees’ bodies.

What did I say?

You asked Kelsea what she did to her lip.

So what did she do to her lip?

Todd, please.

I’m serious.

Kelsea has been receiving Botox treatments that are personal and none of your business.

I thought her dog bit her.

Todd.

Her top lip swelled up like she chomped on a hornet’s nest.

Do you want me to call security?

How was I supposed to know she flipped her lips?

You weren’t.

I thought she hurt herself.

She didn’t.

I was concerned, is all.

The company is concerned about providing a safe and secure work environment, Todd.

I didn’t know Kelsea would take offense.

That’s why we’re ordering six months of sensitivity training for you.

What about when I chipped in for a wedding present for gay Allen in accounting?

Don’t push back on this, Todd.

OK, you win.

This is not about winning, Todd. This is about eradicating daily acts of micro-aggression in the work place.

Fine.

Thank you, Todd.

He stood.

He turned.

Before he left he turned back and spoke to the Human Resources officer in a calm, caring voice.

By the way, you look a lot better with your hair dyed black than you did with those peroxide roots sticking out of your head.

Gawking at the cracked dressing room mirror, combing a dangling strand of thin hair while trying to figure out where the plugs would be if he really was Joe Biden and had hair plugs, Timmy Kelly prepared for his debut at Club Pocono.

Located as the landfill gull flies about three miles west of the Mt. Airy Casino resort and spa, Club Pocono smelled like a urinal deodorizer and drew a rowdy bus trip clientele mostly from the Bronx, New York. Kelly worried the mostly Black Rikers Island prison guards and transit police officers in the audience might take offense at his Corn Pop imitation, but fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke. Squaring his shoulders he tried to reassure himself.

I can do this, he said.

Hooking the stems of smudged aviator glasses behind his ears, he prepared to take the stage as America’s only Joe Biden impersonator from Joe Biden’s birthplace. For all Timmy Kelly knew, he might be America’s only Joe Biden impersonator anywhere. If his nightclub act worked out, God willing, as Joe would say, he might one day land a month-long gig at Mt. Airy where he dreamed of headlining for a better breed of riffraff during the summer vacation season. Mt. Airy wasn’t Atlantic City but it was close enough to Scranton for all the guys from his Minooka neighborhood to come up whatever night they wanted and drive home drunk without worrying about falling asleep, crashing and killing themselves on the four-hour trip back from AC. If the guys killed themselves, then who could he count on to come see his show?

Staring intently into the mirror Timmy Kelly practiced one last time.

Here’s the deal, man, he said.

That’s no malarkey, he said.

C’mon, man, he said.

Then with the widest Green Ridge lace-curtain Irish grin he could paste on his puss he charged through the parted stained velvet curtain to the beat of the three-piece Scranton Values Band he assembled from the Alcoholics Anonymous group he used to attend. The combo kicked into “Hail to the Chief” that sounded more the football fight song at Scranton High, but there was no turning back now. Timmy bounded onstage in that herky-jerky, elbows-pumping jog Joe Biden uses when he wants to impress people with his alleged youthful virility.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, I’m Joe Biden, he said.

One look at gangly Caucasian Timmy Kelly under the flickering blue spotlight and the all-Black crowd fell out laughing, pounding thick fists and beefy forearms on the tables. But the laughter stopped by the end of his first bad joke. Nobody applauded after his second one-liner. By the time he reached his fifth gag, he was ready for the clincher.

Timmy Kelly launched into his Corn Pop imitation in an exaggerated Black dialect.

The first full Miller High Life bottle came from the front row. A chair slammed against his hip.  The Scranton Values Band threw down their instruments and ran for their lives as three weight-lifter corrections officers stormed the stage. The show did not go on.

At that very moment WNEP-TV Channel 16 broke into their normal Easter Sunday programming with news about Harry Davies when the bald anchor solemnly said, “He is not risen.”

The former Scranton mayor keeled over dead that evening when he fell into a garbage compactor at the county jail. Scranton Times Tribune reporters scrambled to write about the deceased longtime public servant while the editorial board unanimously agreed Harry Davies was the best mayor Scranton ever had, thanking him on the front page for his service.

Gino never saw the news report.

After renting a one-bedroom apartment near the ocean north of Myrtle Beach, Gino met a woman at the fishing pier. Standing beside a hand-lettered sign that read “I Have Worms,” she smiled a drunken smile that never left her face as she sold cheap bait and jelly jars of moonshine she made in the bathtub at her mobile home.

Gino quickly fell in love. Mustering all his courage, he asked the first question that popped into his thick skull.

You come here often, ma’am?

Immediately interested, Priscella (misspelled but named for Elvis’ wife) asked her own question.

What’s your sign?

Gino stammered.

Uh, the bull.

Priscella outlined his astrological traits.

Taurus is known for a love of worldly pleasures. You are down-to-earth, practical, hardworking and meticulous in everything you do. You work at your own pace and do not like to be bossed over.

Gino blushed.

Yep, that’s me, he said.

All Harry Davies could do was watch in horror as hundreds of cases of bogus COVID-19 tonic he needed to deliver to pre-paid cash customers whose money he already spent went up in smoke. No doubt some anti-Christ Antifa terrorist had torched the truck Harry Davies had hotwired and driven from the U-Haul lot.

Who would commit such a sacrilege against Scranton’s favorite former mayor?

Mabel.

The militant senior citizen had to act when Zerelda told her about Harry Davies’ tap water tonic scam. All it took was four Molotov cocktails to do the trick. Mabel guzzled the beer before filling the bottles with rubbing alcohol she bought by the barrel for her arthritis. Then she cut an old pair of Casey’s undershorts into strips (the ones imprinted with faded pictures of Cheech and Chong), stuck the tattered pieces into the bottle necks, threw on a bright beret and headed to the future crime scene to light a match.

Harry Davis later called the cops on his cell phone.

Some old broad named Mabel left a note confessing to the crime on behalf of the Feminist Purple Panthers and calling me a dick, he said.

The cop on the desk asked Harry if he owned the flaming truck that took the Scranton Fire Department two hours to extinguish.

Yeah, I rented it from where I took it.

You mean stole it?

I borrowed it.

You can turn yourself in if you like or we can send a hungover SWAT team for you, the cop said.

WHHHATTT?

All that survived the blaze was two oil drums full of what the police suspect is LSD, the cop said.

I don’t know about LSD, Harry said. The last trip I took was to the Mohegan Sun casino on the interstate.

The desk officer quickly lost patience.

That old broad as you call her is a well-respected librarian who read me children’s books when I was a kid, the cop said. She also said she’ll testify against you in court if she has to. She opposes the death penalty but says in your case she might change her mind. And if you try to escape, she’ll forgive me if I execute you.

That night Harry Davies sat alone in his cell at the Lackawanna County Prison, a flea-bitten joint loaded with guards more crooked than the inmates. Donald Trump couldn’t save him now. Harry’s public defender said Harry realistically faced about 163 years in prison for the LSD because the sentencing judge had experienced two unexpected bad trips (the side effects still made the judge feel like an amoeba) and wanted to get even with the Scranton Welsh drug cartel the judge was convinced Harry Davies headed up. As a result, Harry got the worst case of acid reflux in the history of modern medicine. President Biden wasn’t about to grant a pardon in this case.

When Casey brought back the trout from his fishing trip and couldn’t find the charcoal for the grill he called for his mother.

Your mother’s freshening up in the bathroom, Zerelda said.

Freshening up for what?

She wants to leave for California in the morning.

When Mabel came out of the bathroom she wore a worried look.

You can’t dose the Scranton water supply with LSD, she said.

Aw, mom, Casey said.

Innocent people might not be able to handle all those tabs and microdots, dear. Babies, especially. Lucy in the sky with diapers just doesn’t cut it, Mabel said.

Cool, Casey said.

Pulling a flip phone from his jeans, Casey dialed Gino’s number.

The caper at the lake is off, he said.

Gino sighed.

Probably for the best, he said.

If you ever get to Berkeley give me a call, Casey said.

Same goes for Myrtle Beach, Gino said.

Of course the two men’s paths would never cross again. Nor would their Scranton legacies ever matter to anybody except the rare nerd chemistry student who considered Mr. Weatherhogg the best chemistry teacher ever.

When we get to California I want to drink 1,000 glasses of pinot noir, Mabel said.

I want to dance on the corner at Haight-Asbury, Casey said.

Do Chinese qi gong breathing and stretching exercises overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Zerelda said.

I want to meet Grace Slick, Mabel said.

Meditate until my navel falls off, Casey said.

Be happy, Zerelda said.

Zerelda couldn’t control herself and had to ask.

So we just split?

We just split, Mable said.

When Gino arrived at his favorite Lackawanna River fishing hole, another fisherman had already staked out the spot. Gino set up about 15 yards downstream, sneaking sideways glances at the other angler who sang classic AM radio oldies songs out loud to himself as he reeled in and cast and reeled in and cast again. Turning with a wave, he shouted a greeting to Gino.

What’s happening, bro?

Gino ignored the man he pegged as an escaped mental patient. After about 15 minutes of sneaking peaks at the old-timer haul in fish after fish, Gino had to say something.

What are you using for bait?

Marshmallows.

I’m serious, Gino said.

I’m Casey.

Gino wasn’t sure if the old coot was putting him on or not.

You’re pulling in a lot of brown trout.

They like garlic with donuts, too. How about you, brother? What are you using for bait?

Hellgramites. Most people never heard of hellgrammites, Gino said.

I forgot they existed, Casey said.

Been around for a few million years.

Longer than me, Casey said.

I’m Gino.

Pleased to meet you, amigo, Casey said.

I’m not Mexican.

Day of the dead, dawn of the dead, Grateful Dead, what’s the difference?

Aren’t you that retiree Harry Davies hired to deliver his COVID tonic?

Scranton holy water right out of the tap.

I’m so sick of his bullshit, Gino said, and that goes double for that nutcase Pastor Earl with those militia bullet heads who want to take over the world.

I heard Earl passed, Casey said.

Gino shook his head so hard his Elvis sideburns wiggled in the wind.

He didn’t pass, he failed.

Went right over the edge, I heard, Casey said.

Rest in pieces, Gino said.

Casey perked up.

Maybe we should retire, man.

I already did but Harry Davies pulled me back into the crooked Scranton hustle.

I can do the Scranton hustle, Casey said.

Now he boogied like a disco dancer, shimmying to his left and shimmying to his right.

Shake your booty, Casey said.

Gino tried not to laugh and then got serious.

Wouldn’t it be great to fish whenever you wanted wherever you wanted? I’d love to fish up there at Lake Scranton, he said.

I swim naked at the lake all the time and fish whenever I want to, Casey said.

It’s illegal to drop a line up there at the reservoir, Gino said.

The trout swim naked, right?

Gino gave Casey the fisheye.

Establishment laws only let the government control our bodies, Casey said.

I’m thinking about moving, Gino said.

Me, too, Casey said.

Where to?

California here I come, Casey said.

Myrtle Beach for me, Gino said.

You married?

My wife died, Gino said. You?

My dear old mother wants to see the Pacific Ocean before she crosses over to the other side.

I never been to the West Coast, Gino said. Never been anywhere really except the Jersey Shore a couple times on the casino bus. Born and raised and spent all my life in Scranton.

Where did that ever get you?

Scranton.

Harry Davies symbolizes everything wrong with this place, Casey said.

Earl did, too.

One down, Casey said.

We ought to do something about it, Gino said.

If you’re serious you can help me set things straight, Casey said.

Gino’s pulse raced.

Casey danced a little more of the Scranton hustle.

Have a marshmallow, he said.

Gino gobbled up five fat ones.

We better get ready for our trip, Casey said.

Jen bellowed with revulsion.

Josh did a joyous touchdown dance in the middle of the living room, knocking over an end table in the process.

Did you hear her? Did you hear her?

Jen started to cry.

Baby Jen dribbled spit down her chin.

Our little girl said her first sentence, Josh said.

Baby Jen said it again.

Fuck, I dropped the hammer, she said.

My mother’s going to be here soon to take her for her walk, Jen said.

This moment hung huge in their lives, especially for the most beautiful two-year-old on the block. With cheeks rosy as a sun-kissed McIntosh apple, Baby Jen’s black hair hung in a mini-pageboy to her ears. The corners of her mouth turned up just so, turning her smile into a soft band of delicate grace.

Innocence and style created a baby beautiful enough for a national diaper commercial. Actually, Jen would turn down a magazine diaper ad because of the shitty connotation that would follow her little darling through her life like a frenzied stalker, turning Baby Jen’s otherwise spotless image into a coast-to-coast poo poo joke.

Josh ran for the kitchen and returned with a jar of banana custard pudding.

Don’t you dare give her a reward, Jen said.

Look at her face, he said.

The child had stopped smiling.

She thinks you’re mad at her, he said.

Oh, princess, Jen said.

Baby Jen smiled again.

Fuck, I dropped the hammer, she said.

Jen screamed again.

She must have heard those goddamn construction workers next door, she said.

Fuck, I dropped the goddamn hammer, Baby Jen said.

Josh fell on the floor laughing.

The doorbell rang.

Hiya kids, Jen’s mother said.

Oh, Mommy, Jen said.

Baby Jen tried to talk but the words came out garbled because she had a mouthful of runny banana pudding.

I want a divorce, Jen said.

Mom spun and faced Josh.

What did you do?

There you go, just like your daughter always blaming me, he said.

Now Josh had gone too far.

Mom shot her words with the intent of a firing squad facing a doomed prisoner, raising her voice above the din of the construction crew next door who continued pounding, yelling, laughing and cursing.

Look at you, she said.

Jen jumped into the act.

Yeah, Josh, look at you, you worthless slacker, you.

Mom followed up with a vicious verbal barrage. Jerking a thumb to the construction noise outside, she pointed at the musical instrument Josh had lovingly placed on the sofa when he finished practice.

Instead of working like real men you’re home all day on the couch playing that violin of yours, she said.

Baby Jen‘s ears perked up.

Fucking violin, she said.

Idling outside the bar, the yellow Scranton School District bus sat driverless and empty. Each morning the driver stopped for a bottle of Miller High Life and a shot of Old Grand-Dad bourbon whiskey. After delivering the neighborhood Catholic hooligans safely to their teachers he always made the same statement

Little bastards, he said.

Earl first met the driver at the saloon that opened at 7 sharp each morning while on a recruiting trip for his armed militia and church. The driver was good material since he hated all people of color.

This morning Earl had a plan.

That one’s on me, he said.

The driver beamed, as in Jim Beam.

Get him another when he’s ready, Earl said.

Praise the Lord, the driver said.

Then Earl excused himself to go to the men’s room. Instead, he slipped out the side door and jumped behind the wheel of the bus. Adjusting the mirror he checked his teeth and winked at himself.

U.S. Capitol here I come, he said.

The militia should already be waiting outside the church for pickup. Earl spent most of the night cleaning the guns, grenades and a used World War II flamethrower so the tactical gear would be ready to throw in the bus for the trip to Washington. The congregation should be willing to die for freedom although Earl told them they’d emerge from this mission as winners.

Earl could no longer contain himself so he screamed.

Yeah! Storming the Capitol! Yeah!

Nobody waited as he pulled to the curb in front of his ramshackle church. A stray dog trotted up and peed on the front tire. Earl fumed. Running into the building where he once saw God he grabbed the flamethrower, strapped a bullet belt across his shoulder and stuck the three grenades he bought at the farmer’s market from a deranged West Side National Guardsman into his fatigue jacket pockets. He grabbed a shotgun and a Glock, and a family-sized bag of Pennsylvania Dutch potato chips for the drive down. No Fritos for Earl. Earl hated illegals.

As he entered the Interstate 81 on-ramp and headed south, Earl envisioned the coming firefight. Screaming like Daniel Boone at the Alamo, he’d slam the bus at high speed into the fence. Coming out like Al Pacino in Scarface, he’d open up on the ill-equipped guardsmen or guardswomen or transguards or whatever politically correct woke libs call themselves these days. Rolling the first grenade under the first cop car he saw he’d yell “post time” as he crouched like one of them Chinese kung-fu fighters. Check that. He hated Chinamen for giving America the lab flu virus. He’d spring into action like a one-man Panzer division, Rommel the Desert Fox himself going after Chuck Schumer and his lap dogs that only eat kosher dog food.

Earl growled.

Grrrrrr.

Then he’d open up with the flamethrower, clearing his way all the way to the Capitol steps screaming, “Fire in the hole!” as he ran through the door looking for the Senate to take over on behalf of his nation yearning to be one nation under God invisible with liberty and justice for just us.

Screw that Zerelda, too. She stood him up. Didn’t make the bus trip. Too smart for her own good. Not nubile enough. Goddamn woman! Screw God, too. His boy didn’t motivate Earl’s congregation enough to make the trip and defend the country, so what good is either one of them long-haired freaks? Do unto others? He’d do onto others. What’d God name the kid Jesus for, anyway? Name a Jewish baby after a baseball player from the Dominican Republic? Sure, that makes sense. Earl, Travis, Clayton or Wayne would have been better.

Around Hazleton, a one-time coal baron capital for capitalist coal barons, Earl slowed the bus. Flashing orange lights on a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation sign warned him to reduce his speed. Earl stepped on it. No government sign was going to tell him what to do, how to live, who among his cousins to marry.

Fifty turned to 60. Sixty turned to 70. Earl laughed. Yeeehaw! God bless America. Check that. Earl bless America. Joe Biden’s wife wears combat boots. Scranton Lives Matter! That last line stuck in Earl’s head ever since he heard Timmy Kelly yelling it when he was drunk and campaigning for mayor. Had a nice ring to it and since Earl now lived full-time in Scranton his was a life that mattered. All lives mattered, but Scranton lives mattered most. White Scranton lives. Christian Scranton lives. Male Scranton lives. Let my Scranton people go lives.

Now the lights warned Earl to slow even more. Seventy turned to 80. Road out, said the sign. More lights, red this time with bigger black letters that said, “ROAD OUT!”

Earl turned up the radio and sang along with a man with a rebel accent belting out a tune about loving his pickup truck more than his wife, more than his mother, even. He warbled about drinking warm beer with his blind hound dog. About how deer season was better than heaven and that there’s everything right about marrying your dead brother’s divorced sister.

At 80 Earl broke through to the other side, crashing through wooden sawhorses and going off the edge doing about 90. He didn’t miss a lyric as the descent began. About 100 feet before impact it dawned on Earl he was in trouble.

Oh, shit, he said.

Police found Earl’s denim jacket dangling from a tree branch. After the explosion, all that remained of his dream was a little flag in the left breast pocket he planned to wave for the TV cameras once he took over the Capitol.

The flag said, “Trump Lives.”