Tuesday, November 21, 2017

J

ack had a friend named George whose father was a state representative for about two months before a sex scandal caused him to quit. George's father didn't quit because the sex scandal ruined his political career, though. Actually, the sex scandal was all a giant ploy planned by George's father so he could gain media attention before the launch of his new reality TV show, Political Incorrectness. The show ended up being a hit, but it also led to George's mom divorcing his father due to the fact that the sex scandal ploy involved a sex tape that highlighted George's father having sex with two paid novice adult actresses whom he managed to hire as his interns. When George's mom caught sight of the sex tape on Facebook and got laughed at by all of her friends at the golf club my parents went to, it didn't matter that George's father told her he was planning on doing the stunt in advance. The shock was too devastating and she managed to drive both his BMW's around their side driveways and into their swimming pool. One on top of the other. With George's mother in hiding because of her embarrassment and George's father off in Washington, D.C. to film his popular but awful reality show, Jack and I had asked George one day during English class what he was doing to cope with the pain of his family's destruction.

George simply threw us a look of shock. "What do you mean, pain?" he said. "My father's making more money than ever, my Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Snapchat followers have shot through the roof, my mom won't stop buying me concert tickets in order to compete with my dad for my love, and – with all the fan base on my social media—I'll be certain to have their votes when I run for political office. Trust me. Divorce and scandal were the best things that ever happened to me. Don't ask me about my sister though. She ran away from home."

I had heard about George's sister, Georgia. Georgia had posted suicidal thoughts on all of her social media the day she witnessed her dad spreading the family seed with the interns over the gardens of his work office she had helped decorate for nine weeks!

"Damn him!" Georgia had once said to George and Jack and I one evening after a long day of school. We were splayed out comfortably over an Italian-imported couch watching the 90-inch television in his living room when she had burst in with only a towel over her front. (George looked at her with the greatest of embarrassed horrors.)

"Put some clothes on, Georgia! What the fuck! I have friends over!"

But she merely ran over to her father's brand-new iPad he had most likely filmed the sex tape with and threw it from the couch-- through the living room window-- and watched it crack as it tumbled down the hill to the neighbor's cactus garden.

"What the hell did you do that for?" Shouted George, now standing up. George always wore a collared shirt and tie these days. He wanted to live the political life so he would be ready when it started. (He was also many times a flamboyant, cringe-worthy prick. Like in this instance.) "You don't have to be such a cunt all the time you know!"

Georgia would normally run at her brother in a heated fury and rip his hair off his head to form a bald patch. (This has happened.) But this time was different. Her face all of a sudden broke into a hysteria of sobs, and she charged out of the room, crying. She stomped up the stairs and slammed the door to her room. And that was the last time I ever saw George's sister Georgia in person. I only have seen her suicidal messages lately and then spotted some Snapchat stories of her bragging how great it was to live with retired old strangers who took care of her financially and emotionally. I could have guessed by the videos that she was somewhere in Florida. And by looking at the way she was so careful not to get any of the dudes she was accompanying on camera while she showed herself half-dressed on yachts and high-rise condos over-looking the Atlantic Ocean, it was obvious she had found several sugar daddies online so she could escape the brutal atmosphere of her family.

I felt both bad for her and disgusted.

"Don't feel bad for her," assured George this Thanksgiving weekend when we went to visit him. "She's just crying for attention. Like always." George would then go on to checking himself out in the mirror, adjusting his closet of two hundred ties to see which one went best with his white shirt. The blue one looked best, I told him, but he insisted on the red. Insisting it made him look powerful. "Every guy needs a power tie."

I rolled my eyes at him with revulsion. But I had to hand it to him and give him the props he deserved. He was now president of the associated student body ASB two years in a row, was head of the debate team, and was doing an after-office internship with Barack Obama's notorious paper pusher Jeffrey Wright. Jeffrey Wright was a closet Republican, but knew working for Donald Trump would ruin his career, so he settled for the lowest position in the white house staff as far away from the oval office as possible.

George would be our president someday. And if hanging out with him ensured I could keep a few intelligent opinions in his ear, I thought maybe, just maybe, one of my intelligent whispers could save us all.