Alyssa
and Larry had been close friend throughout college. Alyssa was the youngest of four girls and was
very close with her family. Alyssa had
emigrated from the Dominican Republic when she was young and she travelled back
frequently. It is holy week for
Catholics and Alyssa plans on spending it in the Dominican Republic. Although this particular trip is going to be
for a special occasion as Alyssa’s niece is getting baptized and she’s going to
be the godmother. Alyssa is the only one
of her siblings without a husband so she invites Larry to go with her. Larry is a good pick because he knows Alyssa’s
family very well as he has been included in family events and in college. Since
Alyssa lived with her sister, Larry spent many nights as he had a summer job
but nowhere to live so he nomadically went from friends house to friends house
while working. Alyssa’s sister, who is
now the mother of the girl being baptized, was very accommodating and very
hospitable to Larry. This is all despite
Larry being a far-right conservative and Alyssa and her entire family being
liberals.
Alyssa’s
brother-in-law Kevin has travelled down with them. A local driver has been hired to pick them
up. They file in the van and the driver
looks back and sees four girls and two guys.
They will not be staying at a resort but, instead, renting a villa and
will be at local beaches. The driver is
now explaining to Kevin that the real Dominican Republic (DR) is very different
from the resorts. He tells them not to
go out at night because they will be raped.
Kevin
is bored with the conversation but he asks, “Everyone or the girls?”
The
driver responds, “Everyone”
Kevin
nods his head but as he turns away his body language suggests that he’s not
buying any of this. They arrive at the
Villa and see that the pool hasn’t been cleared of leaves and there’s no
net. Larry decides this will not deter
him. He changes into a bathing suit and
jumps in the pool. He realizes there’s
no wind so he picks up the leaves by hand and leaves them on the side of the
pool. As he does this for a couple
leaves, he realizes that they will not blow back in so he keeps doing it. Eventually Kevin changes into his bathing
suit and helps him. As the pool is
slowly cleared of leaves, the girls decide that the pool is clean enough for
them so they change into their bathing suits and jump in while drinking the
local beer, Presidente’s and mixing rum with Agua de Coco or Coconut
Water.
Meanwhile
back in the United States, Robert Mueller is about to release his report on whether
or not Trump colluded with the Russians.
While cleaning the pool, Kevin asks Larry what he thinks about it.
Larry
says, “I think it was a two year cover up operation. Mueller is trying to save the reputation of
the department of justice and the FBI and cover up for Obama for either being
duped or intentionally using a false dossier to invasively spy on the Trump
campaign. Even if they were tricked, it’s
still wrong because they didn’t even bother to try to verify the dossier yet
they swore they did. They’re just liars
and now Mueller is desperately trying to legitimize the illegitimate dossier. “
Kevin
said, “Yea well, it may not have been enough to charge him beyond a reasonable
doubt but there may be some damaging stuff.”
“Anything
can be looked at as damaging stuff. Comey
gave a 20 minute speech about all the negative things Hillary did with her
e-mails. Calling her negligent and shit,
and besides, if you take things out of context, anything can look bad. Let’s take Mueller, Papadopoulos writes an
e-mail to the Trump campaign that he’s been invited to Russia to meet with
people. The Trump campaign responds, ‘nobody
is allowed to go to Russia and accept this offer.’ Mueller only tells you about the first e-mail
and omits the second because it ruins his narrative. That’s dishonest. That’s what people do when they’ve got
nothing and they’re making shit up.”
“Well
there were other people indicted”
All three
of them outlines my point; Papadopoulos covers up the entrapment because they
had a Maltese professor by the name of Mifsud tell him about dirt on Hillary,
which he never produces only to try to get it pulled out by an Australian
diplomat months later, but he fucks up and says ‘damaging information that
Russia possess’ which is public information.
But, doesn’t change the fact that Mifsud was only there to entrap
Papadopoulos. I mean they interviewed
Mifsud in February 2017 and let him go.
If he was this horrible Russian asset, why was he allowed in the United
States and why did the FBI let him go?
Because he’s probably a Western asset.
Then you have Flynn. This is the
part to cover up that they used a CIA spy by the name of Halper against Flynn. I mean the FBI agents that interviewed Flynn
said they didn’t think he was being deceptive and Comey said on January 24 that
Flynn was being truthful. Then you have
the Cohen part. Even with Cohen working for Mueller and turning against Trump,
he still says he’s never been to Prague like the dossier alleges.”
“Yea
but Cohen set up meetings to try to build a Trump tower in Moscow.”
“That’s
actually my point on what Mueller does.
An international real estate agent is trying to build a building
internationally and you think that’s sketchy because Mueller twisted the words
to make it seem sketchy. The real story
actually provides more evidence against collusion than for.”
“Oh,
that you have to explain.”
“Sure,
Cohen sent an e-mail to a public e-mail server at the Kremlin that anyone can
e-mail. It’s like you e-mailing a
senator in that online database to e-mail your senator. Anyone can do it. Hell I’ve done it to my Senators. I’ve never met them. This
proves that Trump didn’t have a back channel or any privative way to talk to
Putin. If he did, Cohen wouldn’t have
had to go through the general e-mail.
So, if he had no way to privately talk to him, they couldn’t have
colluded.”
“You
seem to know a lot about this.”
“I have
to. I’m a conservative living in New
York City and I have to debate you liberals all the time”
Kevin
laughed, “Well I’m going to have to check your information but you seem to know
your shit.”
“Thank
You”
At this
point the girls had gotten in the pool and Alyssa said, “Larry, can we please
not have political discussions? Let’s
just enjoy a week of vacation. Just
drinking and chilling on the beach eating fresh seafood.”
“I’m
okay with that” Larry said.
After
spending the day hanging out in the pool and having dinner, the group decided
to go to a party on the beach. At first,
Alyssa was scared about the local driver’s comments but now she was over
it. Larry noticed all the girls tying
their purses to their arms but didn’t really know why. When they got to the club, Kevin told Larry to
walk behind the girls while Kevin walked in front. Again, Larry was unsure why until he got into
the party. It was so packed that men
were constantly grabbing at the girl’s purses hoping it’ll come loose. When they weren’t grabbing purses, they were
grabbing butts. Larry was getting angry
but he had no idea who to blame for the grabs as there was a sea of
humanity. This is common in the
Dominican Republic as they don’t have the same respect for women as America
has. The general public is like this and
no bouncer will help. Instead, you have
to pay to be in a more private area where you won’t be groped and have your
purse attempt to be stolen. Kevin does
exactly that. The rest of the night goes
by uneventfully as they danced on the sand while Larry drank and watched
because he didn’t like dancing.
At
around two in the morning, the group leaves the party and heads back to their
car. Kevin gets in the driver seat and
attempts to turn the car on but nothing happens. They quickly realize that the battery is dead.
They look for jumper cables in the rental car and don’t find any. Kevin tells the girls to stay in the car
while he tries to flag someone down to jumpstart the car. After about five minutes, Alyssa decides she’s
going to help Kevin.
Larry
knows that there’s no way he’s going to talk her out of it so instead says, “I’m
going with you”
Larry
is the only person there that doesn’t speak Spanish but his intention isn’t to
talk. The second he steps out of the
car, he feels a cloud go over him and his attitude turns to murderous
rage. He is technically mad that Alyssa
would endanger herself by going out on the streets at two AM but he’s channeling
it to anyone that tries to hurt her. As
she walks up to people in their cars, Larry stands behind Alyssa with his left
hand under her arm ready to grab it to play tug of war if someone else grabs
her. The other hand is on a spring
assisted three inch blade attached to his waist. Larry is amused that as people are talking to
Alyssa, they’re looking at him. He doesn’t
even pretend to be friendly as he stares a hole into everyone as if to dare
them to try something. One person with a
van had his trunk open and Alyssa stands in between the man and the trunk. Alyssa is 5’3” with a sporty build so it
would be very easy to shove her into the trunk so quickly nobody would
notice. He rolls his eyes. Larry was surprised at two things. One was how many people were on the street at
two in the morning and the other was how nobody seemed to have jumper
cables. Alyssa approaches another guy
heading towards his car and asks him if he has jumper cables. The guy sizes up Alyssa and quickly glances
at Larry. He grabs Alyssa by the arm and
yanks her towards him. Larry immediately
clenches his hand around her other bicep that he’s always been positioned under
with these talks. His hand unclips the
knife from his waist. The guy reaches to
his waist and pulls out a machete and brandishes it. Larry, however, wasn’t going for intimidation;
his pointer finger releases the spring to snap the blade up and he lunges the
knife into the side of the guy’s neck. The
guy drops the machete and grabs his neck as he drops to his knees. For the first time since they left the car, Larry
speaks and says, “Can we go back to the car now?”
Alyssa is
shaking. Hearing Larry’s voice seems to
snap her out of her trance. She bends
down and picks up the machete and cradles it to her chest. Larry puts a sympathetic hand on her shoulder
and says, “Come on, let’s go back to the car”
Alyssa
nods and they walk. Larry put his arm
around her waist and Alyssa leans her head against him as she continues to
clutch the machete with both hands. She finally
releases the arm nearest Larry and wraps it around his waist. They get back to the car and they hear the
click as the doors unlock. Larry gets
into the front seat and Alyssa gets in back with the other three girls. She’s still really shaken up and the girls
notice. They ask what happens but she
just shakes her head. They glare at
Larry who stares straight ahead. His knife
is closed and clipped to his waist again.
About 30 seconds later, Kevin comes back as a taxi cab pulls up. He pops the hood and hooks up the jumper
cables and jumpstarts the car. He hands
the taxi cab an American 20 dollar bill and the cab driver is very
appreciative. Kevin then drive back to
the villa.
The
rest of the week goes by uneventfully. They
have a ceremony for the baby and Alyssa gets back into the swing of things
putting what happened to her behind her.
After the trip, it’s time to go back to the States. Larry and Alyssa are sitting next to each
other on the plane and Alyssa says, “Well, it was nice having a cheap
weak. Now it’s back to the high taxes of
America.”
“At
least Trump gave you some money back.”
“Those tax
cuts were for the rich”
“What
do you mean? Only the rich didn’t get a
tax cut.”
“I got
less of a refund.”
“Did
you notice that your paycheck was bigger?”
“Well,
yea but I got a lower refund”
“Because
less was taken from you. The pool to
refund was less. You got a tax cut.”
“But
the news said that they didn’t work.”
“No,
the news said people got lower returns.
That’s both true and misleading.
Actually, it’s not even true because as more and more people filed, it
turned out that even refunds went up but you’re still on the earlier
stories. 92% of people got tax
cuts. The only people who didn’t are New
Yorkers and Californians that pay more than $10,000 a year on property
taxes. You don’t own a home, so you are
not one of them. You got a tax break.”
“Whatever,
the rich should pay their fair share.”
“80% of
the taxes were paid by people who make more than $100,000. They are paying their fair share. The top 1% paid 27% of all the taxes. Also, one third of people that got returns
didn’t pay anything in income tax. Some,
were actually paid in income tax and then got a refund on top of that.”
“Whatever,
Bernie’s going to win next year so it’ll all be better”
“All be
better because he wants to double our taxes and tax the wealthy at 52% killing
jobs because you can’t hire people because you have less money? You also can’t invest. Government sucks at spending your money. You’re much better at it. Like this great trip to the Caribbean we took.”
“Well,
I think he’ll beat Trump”
“Yea,
you thought Hillary would too.”
“Bernie
seems confident”
“So did
Hillary but if Bernie is so confidant, why does he want to expand the voting
pool?”
“What
do you mean?”
“He
wants to allow prisoners in jail to vote.”
“Well,
I mean they’re people too.”
“They
may only be residing in a city because they were arrested. Prisons are normally in minority
communities. You want them voting on
policies that effect them? When you
break the law and get imprisoned, you forfeit your right. Your right to vote should be paramount. It’s asinine.
I’ve known you for over a decade, you’ve never told me you wanted
inmates to vote.”
“It
never came up”
“Yea because
before Trump, everyone knew it was stupid.”
“Hillary
won the popular vote.”
“Again,
I ask why Democrats want to expand voting to illegals, inmates and 16 and 17
year olds if they’re so confident?”
“Look,
I never thanked you for saving my life.”
“Your
welcome”
“I
mean, did you see the size of that knife?”
“Didn’t
you take it with you?”
“Yea, I
did, so I know how big it is.”
“Yea
well, my little knife won the knife fight.”
Alyssa gave
him a dirty look, “Really?”
“Why do
you think I went with you? My sole
purpose was to fight if we got in a sticky situation.”
“I love
you”
“I love
you too Alyssa.”
“What
if he died?”
“Then
he can’t kidnap any other girls”
“You don’t
feel bad?”
‘Nope”
‘You don’t
think they’ll find you and extradite you to DR”
“Nope,
nobody knows me that was there except you.
I don’t think you’re going to turn me in. There’s no way for them to know who I am and I
don’t think they’ll really look.”
“Yea,
you’re probably right. Sorry for trying
to scare you.”
“I’m
not scared.”
“Okay,
well thank you.”
“My
pleasure, now just stop listening to fake news and think for yourself.”
Alyssa smiled,
“I’ll let you get away with that given what you did for me.”
Larry just
smiled.
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