Barkley Bohner, Celebrity Philosopher

Chapter Nine

My initiation into Trudy's family came not too long after our epic first meeting, the one that began on the mean streets set to imaginary bongos. Her father was in town kind of sort of just visiting, on business.

We drove to the Jersey docks, past stacks of shipping containers and parked outside a concrete block building. We went through a dispatcher’s office to “out in the back,” where a poker game was in progress.

A balding man sipping a vanilla milkshake looked up. He acknowledged Trudy with knowing glance, and, with no further ado, looked me straight in the eye.

"You remind me of Harvey Korman of the Carol Burnett show," he said.

How was I supposed to respond to that?

He sized me up, then asked: "Do you sleep in your pajamas?"

This time I thought I needed to say something: "Do hospital gowns count as pajamas?" I asked.

Except for the window air-conditioner, the room went deadly silent. Soon after, I learned that my inquisitor had spent two years, on life support, in a hospital gown. The six others at the table collectively sucked in their breaths, as did two men posted on opposite sides of an ancient refrigerator.

Trudy pretended to look for a dropped earring. Or maybe she was trying to rip open the linoleum to push me under.

Her father slurped on the remains of his shake, then stared into the bottom as if reading tea leaves. He looked up and did a quick Morse Code with his eyebrows. Everyone tensed up. He did another Morse Code and everyone breathed easy.

Trudy found her pretend earring and pretended to put it back on.

Refrigerator Man #1 brought out two vanilla milkshakes – one for his boss and one for me – while Refrigerator Man #2 produced a chair and gestured that I sit. Trudy's father started dealing.

I gathered that being seated at the table entitled me to address my host as Rick rather than Madagascar Fred (though certainly not O'Toole), but I was taking no chances. I simply acknowledged my host with deferential nod, took my seat, picked up my hand, and shot Trudy a reassuring look.

Are you sure? she silently shot back.

As sure as Stevie Wonder with a harmonica, said the look on my face. Poker is poker. That's all there is to it. She took the hint and made for the door, indicating she would be back.

She returned two hours later. She popped her head in the door, appraised the situation, shot me an approving look, and announced she’d have a driver waiting for me.

The game went on all night. By the time we all leaned back on our chairs, with our stacks of chips in more or less the same order as when we started, the situation had changed. I was part of the family.

Not long after, O'Toole independently corroborated my father's account of God's unusual residence in the belly of a snake, not to mention his appalling sense of fashion. "He's God," he pointed out to me over vanilla ice cream. "He can dress any way he wants. He doesn't have to please anyone. Just ask any woman going through hot flashes."

"You would think that someone like God would have taken the trouble to get things like that right," I protested, pouring vanilla sauce on my vanilla ice cream.

"Who cares?" my father-in-law answered, pouring vanilla sprinkles over his vanilla sauce. "God gets to make His own rules. It's His reality against yours."

My reality – our reality – is not God's reality and doesn't get capitalized. That may explain why God is laughing at us. That's why our only purpose here on earth is to make God laugh. Both my father and my father-in-law were insistent on this.