Edmund Callipeaux – artist, college instructor, lives in St. Louis Park.
Lady PodTron – Edmund’s sister-in-law, jukebox hero, avid reader of Better Homes and Gardens cookbooks, lives on the North End.
LeTigre – Edmund’s wife, televangelist, lives in St. Louis Park.
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Edmund Callipeaux – 14 November 2009, 4:00pm
Yesterday, I was driving slowly down LaSalle Avenue, in Minneapolis. It was 5-o’clock and I was on my way to pick up my wife, LeTigre from work. As I crept down the street, through rush hour traffic, I noticed a guy standing on the sidewalk, waiting to cross the street. He was dressed in hip-hop music rap-singer attire with a big, puffy white baseball cap that was half-cocked and tilled to one side of his head. He wore a white and light-blue matching combo hooded-sweater and big baggy pants tracksuit along with a white undershirt and big white, oversized basketball shoes. Everything about him was baggy and loose and lanky-looking. He also had a bunch of gold chains hanging from his neck (Bling) and as he stood at a slouch, he looked directly at me as I sat in my car.
He was staring at me.
And he looked oddly familiar.
As I inched forward in my car, the guy continued to stare at me, slowly turning his head as I rolled past him. I wondered if I knew him from somewhere, but no names were popping into my head. Furthermore, as he stood there, silently watching me, he nodded his head up and down as if he were listing to a mellow beat of some kind.
Was he someone famous?
Had I seen in a magazine?
Or perhaps I had seen him on MTV?
The sense of familiarity was unnerving. As I was stuck behind a bus, I tried to act causal, but he continued to stare at me and nod his head up and down. It was a little disturbing. Finally, traffic began to open up, and I was able get around the bus. As I drove away, I glanced once more at the mystery hip-hop-man, and making eye contact with him, it hit where I had seen his face before. It wasn’t that I’d seen him on TV, or in some celebrity magazine, but rather...
I have seen this man every time I look into a mirror!
Or, as the Germans say, he is my exact doppelgänger.
Weird!
Same height.
Same face.
Same posture.
Same everything, apart from the clothes!
The whole time he was standing there, staring at me, wasn’t because he was some freak! No, he was standing there nodding his head as if to say, “Yeah, we look good today.”
As I drove away, I tried to glance back again, and then catch him in the rearview mirror, but he was gone - - I wonder who he was? How exciting!
Throughout the day today, I’ve worked out a bunch of questions regarding this whole doppelgänger phenomenon - - I wonder if he has similar interests as me? Similar likes and dislikes? Does he like cheese as much as me? And if so, what are his favorites? Bleu? Cheddar? Swiss? What kinds of music does he like (apart from Hip Hop)? The Beatles perhaps? Is Star Wars his favorite movie? Does he like to gamble?
I hope I see him again the next time I’m driving down LaSalle.
For now, I've decided to give the guy a nickname until I meet him in person. I’ve begun to compile a list of questions in a notebook that I’ll keep with me at all times. Since he looked like a mellow Hip Hop version of myself, with baggy clothes and a tough-guy attitude, I’ve decided to call him, EasyC.
So stay tuned to this blog, and when I finally find EasyC again, I'll interview him, and I’ll report back to you with all the details regarding just how deep our similarities run. – EC
Me photographing myself would be just like me photographing EasyC._____________________________
Lady PodTron – 5 November 2009, 4:00am
Part I
“That’s the spot where Eddie and I had our first kiss,” said my sister LeTigre as we drove past a park that’s across the street from the Cathedral in St. Paul.
“That’s so sweet!” I said (as I thought to myself…I think I’m going to hurl).
“Yep, that’s the spot,” replied Edmund as he continued to drive along Summit Avenue. “We stayed up all night on our first date…and we watched the sunrise from the top of Summit Hill that morning. You can see the entire river valley overlooking downtown St. Paul from up there.”
Here we go again.
Edmund and LeTigre were about to launch into the story of how they met (again).
To tell you the truth, I was not impressed with Edmund the first time I met him. He was this skinny little dude with a long ponytail - - very elflike, actually. My sister said he looked like Johnny Depp, but I thought that he looked like a skinny little dude with a long ponytail. (I stress the Elflike characteristics – gangly limbs, pointy ears, mischievous eyes, always seems like he’s hiding treasure.) He wasn’t like one of those big elves in that Lords of the Rings movie, he was more like the little ones in that movie, Willow with Val Kilmer. He looked like a pathetic version of the elfish Val Kilmer in that Willow movie!
Long before I had ever met the elfin Edmund Callipeaux, our paths came very near to crossing. In 1985, I was waiting tables at a Chinese restaurant in the Highland Park neighborhood of St. Paul…at a place called the Beijing Circle. (For those of you who know Highland Park, the restaurant was right across the street from the dollar movie theater.) And as I learned - - many, many years later - - Edmund also worked as a busboy/dishwasher at this restaurant during this same time period.
Coincidence?
Fate?
Who knows?
Highland Park Village.
The Beijing Circle was the type of Chinese restaurant that could have been found in any American neighborhood in the late mid-century. It was largely decorated with dark colors of deep wood tones and red hues. It has since closed up, and it’s gone now, but in its heyday, it was the local Highland Park connection for American-Chinese food with a touch of style (fancy-cheap-chic-faux-American-Chinese-crap-style). It had an entrance off the street that led to a hostess stand, where patrons would be treated to white-table clothed seating within the dimly lit ambiance. Busboys scurried about the dining room as they ushered items to and from the kitchen. The owners of the place were a husband, cousin (and/or mistress?), and extended family-team who greeted their customers as royalty - - Highland Park Royalty who were learned in the tantalizing ways of Chicken Chow Mein, Moo Shu Pork, Sweet and Sour Soup, and the LEGENDARY Pu-Pu Platter.
The dollar movie theater, in Highland Village.
Within the crowded dinning room, innocuous paintings of serene landscapes containing black ink-brushed characters of foreign words overlooked these diners as they partook of the menu’s various delights while listening to demented instrumental versions of songs such as Baby Elephant Walk. And at the end of each meal, a fortune cookie or two was placed tableside along with the check - - an act that sweetened the blow of the somewhat overpriced food.
I seem remember some of these fortune cookies:
Patience is just another word for laziness.
Worrying leads to happiness.
The sweetness of your voice is but a thin veil to the bitterness in your heart.
The largest Band-Aid is but a temporary fix for the smallest of problems.
Unimaginable riches await you if only you were to perform a fanciful dance upon this table, RIGHT NOW.
Spontaneity is a quality that must be valued, but never acted upon.
Your bubbly personality is like champagne to others, sweet and peppy at first, but then a headache latter.
Cheese is the answer to life.
I may have made up a few of those, but my point is that the mixed messages that these cookies dispensed to unwitting (or shall I say, witless) Highland Parkers alluded to what the casual Beijing Circle patron did not see firsthand. For beneath the veneer of fortune cookie promises and sweet and sour soup, sat a smug, laughing, jolly-monster of a restaurant.
For instance: Livingston. Livingston was an eight-year old boy who was the youngest son of the restaurant owners. And Livingston knew everything about everyone who worked at the restaurant…. and he knew everything about anything that anyone did while on they were on the clock. He monitored employee breaks while he sat by the soda pop dispenser and marked down each and every personal beverage for employees. 4¢ for each and every glass of pop we drank. Now, four cents may not seem like much, but when you’re only making $2.15 an hour, four pennies here and there can add up fast.
There were no freebies with Livingston, and there was no reasoning, nor negotiating with him either. The kid was mad about enforcing any rule for any reason. And his high-pitched voice…yelling and calling out rules and rule-breakers. I can hear that shrill voice calling across the decades in my mind. I wonder if I’ll ever forget that little kid? I wonder what he’s doing right now? Whatever it is, I’ll wager it involves yelling at people and enforcing arbitrary rules…. I’ll bet he’s a football or a baseball umpire!
Another shot of Highland Village looking down Cleveland Ave.
Maybe I remember Edmund working at the Beijing Circle, and maybe I don’t…it’s hard to say. All the busboys and dishwashers who worked there all fit the same bill: gangly, pimply, clumsy, ill-fitting pants, clomper shoes, vacant eyes, covered in pimples and grease…. Zombies really. I wasn’t much older than half of them, but these boy-children that worked the back of the house were a different breed of Dungeons and Dragons-playing, Monty Python-quoting, mouth-breathing, barfing-through-their-noses-group of weirdoes that ever saw daylight. Edmund could have definitely been one of them. Hell, he may have been their Divine Leader for all I know!
And so, when my sister, LeTigre announced that she had met this guy, and that he looked like Johnny Depp…I didn’t make the connection right away.
LeTigre and Edmund met in 1993 at a newly trendy coffee shop on bourgie Grand Avenue, near Dale Street, in St. Paul. (Actually, that coffee shop was not far from the park where they had their first kiss.) Like the Beijing Circle, the coffee shop no longer exists, but it was one of those cafés that sprang up around town and then quickly disappeared between that time when coffee started to be cool and before Starbuck’s infiltrated (and killed) everything. As the story goes, Edmund was at the shop working on sketches for a mural at the behest of the owners. These paintings were never to come to fruition, however, by the time my sister entered the café, Edmund was seated at the only table that had a free chair.
Ordering her coffee drink at the counter, LeTigre walked over and asked Edmund if she could join him at his table…. they struck up a conversation…. and the rest is history: They’ve been inseparable ever since. A match made in heaven, they say.
(hurl?)
Their first date consisted of Edmund picking up LeTigre at our mother’s house. He and LeTigre then drove down to Nye’s Polonaise Room, in Northeast Minneapolis. To this day, no one really knows why Edmund suggested Nye’s…but they went there and had a great time. (No one knows how he could have thought of Nye’s because Nye’s was a hip place back then, long before the western suburban dead eyed suburbanite-masses discovered it, and ruined the place…and so it doesn’t add up how Edmund knew about the place.) The next day, LeTigre told me that it had looked like Edmund had cleaned out the cab of his little blue pickup truck especially for her, but that he had forgotten an empty can of Tahitian Treat rolling around in the open bed of the truck.
It was the Tahitian Treat that initially impressed both her and I. After that first date, the two of them were inseparable. They did everything together: they went out on dates every night, they took road trips in Edmund’s little blue truck to such exotic places as New Ulm, and they laughed and giggled and weirded-out everyone around them with their lovey-dovey hurliness.
Years later, we traced our histories back, and discovered the Beijing Circle restaurant connection. During this conversation, Edmund explained to us that it was the only job that he has ever been fired from. Or, as he puts it, it’s the only time he’s ever been laid off from a job.
As the story goes, Edmund wasn’t happy working at the Beijing Circle. He and his goofy high school friends all had jobs there, but over a time, they all began to hate the place. (I believe him too, as restaurant work went, it was bad.) Edmund said that one day the health department came in cited and the place for a bunch of violations and gave the owners a two-week period to make corrections. During which time, the owners preformed the cheapest, quickest remedies possible - - and therefore didn’t make the working conditions better for Edmund or his friends. “They went for the quick-fix. They slapped a Band-Aid on this or that blatant health code violation and and called it good!” said Edmund.
A proverbial Band-Aid found on the sidewalk near the site of the old Beijing Circle restaurant.
Soon after that, Edmund was at a family party where he spent some time venting his complaints about the restaurant to a cousin. He told this cousin that the restaurant had painted over all the greasy, food-splattered kitchen walls rather than clean them properly. Edmund also explained how a bunch of other half-assed attempts were made by his employers to fix other problems cited by the health department. Finally, showing his hands to his cousin, Edmund exclaimed that there was never any hot water in the dishwasher, and so after a few minutes of washing dishes, his hands would be freezing! Edmund told that every time the back door to the kitchen was opened (which was about every 15 minutes on a busy night) the breeze from the door would travel down the stairs, to the basement, and blow out the flame to the hot-water heater. And so there was never any hot water, and thus all the dishes were being washed in ice-cold water!
All to which the cousin replied, “Interesting.”
The next day, Edmund and one of his grimy little friends walked into the restaurant to begin their afternoon shift. However, waiting for them just inside the entrance was the owner who promptly asks, “Which one of you called the Health Department?” The two kids looked back and forth at each other and mumbled a few consonants and vowels that didn’t quite form any actual words, after which the owner told them both that they were, “Laid off, I’ll call you when I need you.”
Later that week, Edmund discovered that the cousin that he had spent all night complaining to at that party was actually a restaurant health department inspector for the State. And he had taken all of Edmund’s tip-offs directly to the restaurant that very next morning and walked through the kitchen with information that only a dishwasher/busboy could have any knowledge of…thus inadvertently placing Edmund under suspicion…and ultimately losing him his job.
“I didn’t want to work there anyway,” Edmund said, “Although I am still keeping my schedule open in case they ever call me back.” He said that he used to work Monday and Wednesday afternoons and Friday nights, and so he never makes firm plans during those times in case he gets called back in to his old job. I pointed out to him that the lay-off happened in 1986, and it’s now 2009, and the restaurant has since closed…so I don’t think that he will ever receive that call to return to work.
“I should have been collecting unemployment all this time,” replied Edmund as he continued to drive down Summit Avenue.
Edmund was lucky to have been laid off from that place. It was a dreadful restaurant. I lasted a little while longer, but eventually, I ended up getting the hell out of there myself.
Part II
Many years later (I think around 1995) our paths crossed again at another local St. Paul restaurant. Edmund and my sister had been dating for 2 years, and so I knew him as the person whom my sister thought looked like Johnny Depp (hurl). Around this time, Edmund had been painting murals in a family restaurant in Highland Park called Joey’s Malt Shop. When the owner found out that Edmund had experience flipping hamburgers, he was hired on as a cook. And after a short time, he was promoted to be a part-time manager. Soon after that, I applied for a waitressing job at Joey’s Malt Shop and Edmund became my boss.
At the time of my hiring, I thought to myself, “He wouldn’t dare boss me around if he knows what’s good for him.”
In truth, however, Edmund was a good manager who didn’t lord over everyone and he kept the place running just fine. It was just a job for Edmund, not an opportunity to make everyone else miserable (as it seems to be the goal with most restaurant managers).
Joey’s Malt Shop was a family restaurant, and so most of the clientele were under the age of 10. Families would flock to the place because of its fun atmosphere and cheap burgers, fries, and malts. To help maintain order amongst all these children, the restaurant had several toy-plastic-water-games that we would pass out to the kids while they waited for their food. They were little plastic aquariums, with little plastic fish floating in water, with white-plastic buttons at their bases that the kids could press to force air through the contraptions and thus make the fish swim.
One day, I took a family’s order and promptly gave one of these water games to each of the children sitting at the table. However, I inadvertently gave a larger toy to one kid and a smaller toy to the other (the toys came in 2 sizes: small and large). This act immediately caused trouble at the table - - as the child holding the smaller toy broke down and started crying that his brother had a better toy. Seeing that trouble was brewing, Edmund quickly brought a second, large toy to the table and swapped it out for the smaller game. (Disaster averted.)
Walking back over to where I stood, Edmund cautiously told me to try to bring the same sized toys to tables with 2 or more kids at them, so as to avoid any further child meltdowns. It was the closest thing to a reprimand that I ever got from Edmund. I was glad he told me about the toy-size rule. Because after that day, even though I had learned my lesson, I made a point of ALWAYS bringing different sized toys to children sitting at the same table (and I tried to guess which kid had the shortest fuse and thus gave him or her the smaller of the toys). It was great fun watching Edmund try to calm the kids down. Great fun (and that Edmund can move quickly when he needs to)!
Edmund and my sister continued to date, and were married in January of 1999. I eventually warmed to Edmund, and in 2005, I began to treat him like a normal person after the accepted period time (during which a sister is required to torture her beloved younger sister’s boyfriend/fiancée/husband) had expired. – LPT
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LeTigre – 16 October 2009, 7:00 a.m. (Eddie’s 40th Birthday!)
The Birth of the Dewtini!
I must be insane.
Why else would anyone on Earth follow the lead of Edmund Callipeaux?
Why would anyone ever find herself saying aloud, 'Hey Eddie, that’s a great idea!’
Hopefully, anyone in their right mind would know instinctually that any idea, or suggestion, that has been floated by Edmund Callipeaux is likely to be based on a twisted logic that makes sense to no one.
Heck, referring to an online dictionary for the word, specious (as in Specious Reasoning, the title of this blog), I find it to mean: deceptively attractive.
Therefore, considering Lady PodTron’s initial take on Edmund as elfish (deceptive) and my observation that he looks like Johnny Depp (attractive), I can only say that his sense of reasoning beguiles me to no end.
As I write these words, I am reminded of one of the early entries to this blog. Within the text of part 2 [of the Accounts of the Life of Edmund Callipeaux] Kidpowertool tells the tale of Eddie’s purchase of 96 hotdogs for the grand price of 99¢ - - just over a penny per gruesome dog….
Talk about deceptively attractive…yikes!
In the story, Kidpowertool writes about how Eddie had found these cellophane-packaged bricks of 48 wieners at a Florida grocery store for the sale price of 99¢ - - by one, get one free. I immediately knew that there would be no stopping Eddie from getting 2 bricks of these dogs, but I put my foot down on his doubling of his investment.
Kidpowertool writes:
Ed had seen his menu laid out for him for the next few months at the price of pennies and his wife had seen otherwise. (This is why, to this day, if Ed is perceived to have the most reasonable plan of action amongst all the people present in a group, I know that there’s something wrong and we need to keep brainstorming.)
Kidpowertool’s parenthetical aside illustrates my point - - if Eddie’s reasoning seems to be the most reasonable, then there is SOMETHING wrong with the whole scenario - - and hence the title of this blog…. Specious Reasoning.
So, I must be insane.
A normal person would see Edmund’s logic for what it is, abnormal.
Take, for example, our honeymoon in Chicago. Edmund and I have both loved the city of Chicago for a long time. And so we decided that The Windy City would be the perfect destination for our honeymoon (and it was - - only some crazy stuff happened).
We booked a hotel and decided to take the AMTAK from St. Paul to Chicago’s Union Station. The train ride was long and scenic; about 10 hours across Wisconsin and down into Illinois. It was winter and everything was covered in snow and beautiful-looking. I remember that we ate in the dining room car of the train, and due to the compacted space, we had to share a table with a mother and her teenage daughter. They quizzed us about our lives and got overly excited that we were on our honeymoon.
Arriving at Chicago’s Union Station, we decided to walk to the hotel rather than to hail a cab. Actually, we thought it was a relatively short distance to the hotel, and so we didn’t consider catching a cab or a bus ride. Being in a big city like Chicago is fun and exciting, and for a while, we enjoyed the walk. However, shortly after embarking on this journey, it started to get dark, cold, and snowy. And as we walked through the mounting blizzard, we eventually lost the sidewalk somewhere near Lincoln Park on Clark Street. Somewhere about a half-mile from the hotel, we looked at each other, and as the snow blew around us in the darkness, we were blinded by the on-coming headlights of cars.
I remember thinking, “It looked like such a short distance on the map!”
I think that I also remember a single tear running down Edmund’s check.
“Toughen up, Edmund!” I said against the darkness, as well as the blowing wind, and the cold.
We maintained our pace through the snow and the cold, eventually arriving at the hotel. As the building came into view, it was a towering high rise silhouetted by blue- and red-flashing lights. And as we continued to walk, we noticed that the lights were emanating from several squad cars and ambulances that were parked outside the hotel entrance. I’d say the ratio was about 1:3 for ambulances to cop cars...all lights flashing, lighting up the night like the 4th of July.
Crossing the street, we walked between two squad cars, across the sidewalk, past a bunch of people, through the building’s front doors, and into the hotel lobby.
At which point Edmund and I said, “Oh.”
For within the lobby stood a crowd of people. (Or perhaps it was a party of people.) It was a mass of folks all talking and filling the lobby in front of the check-in counter. We weren’t sure who was there for the cop cars and whom for the ambulances. As we had just arrived, we stood in the lobby, assuming that the mass of people formed some sort of line leading to the check-in counter. However, after several minutes Eddie said, “I don’t think any of these people are standing in line.”
I looked around.
And I realized that it was a party!
It was not a line of folks waiting to talk to the hotel manager, it was a crush of people standing around, having a good old time; having a party! And they took no notice of us as we pushed our way to the front counter, and positioned ourselves in front of a clerk.
“May I help you,” the clerk behind the counter said.
He then checked us into the hotel and gave us keys to our room. As we were going over the details with the man, Edmund inquired as to all the people filling the lobby to the gills, and also to the cop cars and ambulances out front.
“Oh, that’s nothing to be concerned with; we’re currently experiencing an overflow of guests that have been displaced from the Chicago Housing Authority,” said the clerk.
“What do you mean,” replied Edmund.
“Well, sir, the snowstorm and cold temperatures that we’ve been experiencing in Chicago over the past 24-hours have forced people from their public housing and our hotel has been commandeered by the city to make accommodations,” said the man behind the desk.
“What do you mean,” replied Edmund.
With a calm look on his face, the man continued to explain, “This past summer, the City began to relocate the tenants of its various high-rise housing-projects. Throughout the fall, and into the winter, there have been many tenants who have refused to leave their apartments. However, as the City has cut off all power and heat to the premises, the tenants have now been forced to abandon their homes due to the on-going cold temperatures and weather.”
“My God!” replied Edmund.
“Your room number is 735, Sir.”
Making our way through the throng of people, we found the elevator, and took it to the 7th floor. Finding room 735, we turned the key and walked in with our bags. Immediately, I was struck with how small the room was. Throwing our bags onto the bed, Edmund said, “This will work just fine.” However, plopping himself down alongside our bags, the bed-frame gave out, and the mattress slumped down on one side.
Standing up, Edmund crouched down on his knees and looked under the bed. He reached his hand toward one of the posts holding up the foot of the bed and said, “This is broken. Someone just jimmied it to hold the bed up.”
The slight headache that began during our tumultuous walk from Union Station spiked as he stood up and threw back the sheets and covers from the bed. Eddie said, “Well…the bed is broken, and the sheets are filthy.”
Looking at the sheets, I could only imagine that that the Charlie Brown character, Pigpen had slept in our bed the night before. The sheets were covered with dirt and grime!
“Maybe some coalminer stayed here last night after a hard day in the Chicago coalmines,” replied Eddie as we took in the bed situation.
"Are those footprints?" I said as I pointed at a dozen or so size 10 shoe-prints on the white cloth.
Luckily, Edmund called the front desk and they moved us to another room. Coincidentally or not, the new room was directly above the original room…and it was exactly the same shape and size (however, it had a clean bed). And by shape and size, I mean to say that it was about 7 by 7 feet - - just a little bit bigger than a double bed, and it wasn’t square either - - it had 6 walls. Who knows who designed this crazy place?
“Well, the new room looks good,” said Eddie. “Room #835 - -all prime numbers…that’s a good sign.”
At any rate, the room was fine and we settled into the space with our bags. Turning on the TV, Eddie asked me if I’d like to have a refreshing beverage.
“Refreshing beverage? What do you mean by that, Edmund?” I asked.
“You just wait,” replied Edmund. And with that, he ran out the door and down the hall.
What I did know was that Edmund had brought a small bottle of Bombay Sapphire Gin with us on the train from St. Paul. What I did not know was that he was on his way to the hotel vending machine to purchase a can of Mountain Dew, as well as a can of Sunny Delight. Returning to the room, he said, “Man, there’s a lot of kids running around out there.”
Laying out his mixers and his gin on the bedside table, he said, “I think this is going to work just fine!”
I said, “Edmund, what are you doing there?”
“Don’t you worry, my beautiful wife,” replied Edmund.
At which point I watched him fill a tall glass with:
1/3 Bombay Sapphire Gin
1/3 Mountain Dew
1/3 Sunny Delight
“I think this is going to be just fine,” he repeated.
He then added a few ice cubes to the glass and handed the concoction to me. I eyed the greenish-orangish liquid with suspicion as he proceeded to mix up another for himself. “They didn’t have much else to choose from at the vending machine. So I had to improvise…I think that you’ll find this beverage to be deceptively attractive….
"I call it a Dewtini,” exclaimed Edmund.
“Do you expect me to drink this?” I replied.
“Cheers,” said Edmund as he extended his glass toward mine. “We’re married and we’re on our honeymoon!”
“Cheers,” I confirmed as I tilted the glass to my mouth.
Minutes later, my headache was replaced by a general blindness due to Eddie’s Dewtini mixture. He was already on his second as a void began to close in around me. “Edmund, what is wrong with you?” I whispered as I grasped at the air in a vain attempt to try to find his neck in order to strangle him.
Dewtini….I must be insane. As darkness washed over me, I heard Edmund’s distant voice say, “It’s the best of gin, Mountain Dew, and Sunny D…what more could you want, baby?”
The following morning, I was awakened to the noisy laughter of children. I looked up at the ceiling and then around the room. The makings for Eddie’s Dewtinis were at the bedside table. The sun was out and its light was pouring in through the window. Beautiful, I thought, and then I saw Edmund’s Dewtini mixers again and I thought about how I had lost my vision, and also how I had wanted to strangle him the night before. But then I thought about his elflike appearance, and for some reason, my anger began to dissipate.
Then there was bump at the door and Edmund woke up. Opening the door, we ascertained that all the kids staying at the hotel were using the hallways as their playground. “This place is crazy,” said Edmund, “It’s 7:30 a.m. and this place is already rocking at full speed. I wonder how many cop cars and ambulances will be out there tonight? We should get out of here, and besides, they’re out of Sunny Delight in the vending machine.”
I said, “This place is madness.”
To which Eddie replied, “But our love for each other will endure throughout the ages.”
“Yes, Edmund, that is true…God help me, but that is most assuredly true.” – LC
