Cockeyed

“Our show has evidence,” O’Malley declared, “that the so-called lady shown on viewers’ screens is in fact a female impersonator — a drag queen, if you will, who is just one of the retinue of gay lowlifes regularly harbored by you at your Moth Street home here in New York’s state capital. These are people who will not only benefit directly or indirectly from the state’s billion-dollar payout but will also, through becoming celebrities, influence young people across America to adopt the homosexual lifestyle. What say you to that?”

The camera went in for a close-up on Hu

“What a…what a pack of bald-headed lies! I know that my friend is the real Marylou Whitney because I have seen the horse’s face tattoo on her upper thigh just to the right of her ample bush.

And if she did have a dick, I certainly didn’t notice it. Or, if I did take note, and since then it has slipped my mind, I probably figured if Marylou Whitney wanted to have a dick sticking down from between her legs, then that was her own freakin’ business, and it is certainly none of my business or yours!”

Now the camera cut to O’Malley’s ashen face, as he said, “I apologize for that. We’ll take a break and be right back.”

CoCkeyed 109

Timmy said, “Yuck.”

“I was a little afraid of this.”

“This is not going to help. Not Hu

Now another erectile dysfunction ad was ru

I said, “I should not have let this happen. Hu

O’Malley and his people used Hu

“Well, you said you advised him against going on. Maybe you should have hit him over the head with a chair.”

“He was determined to do it. And he never even got to show the picture of his mother.”

“O’Malley said her disappearance might be a hoax. Is that possible?”

“No. Who would benefit?”

“Maybe she staged it herself. Without Hu

To throw the Brienings off track. She has a history of deception, after all.”

“The embezzlement?”

“Don, she’s a criminal, for God’s sake.”

“Reformed. Mother Van Horn has been law-abiding in recent years. And sober.”

The get-an-erection commercial ended, and O’Malley reappeared. His look was one of disgust mixed with triumph. The chair next to him was empty. He peered into the camera and said gravely, “As for the wisdom of the Lottery Commission awarding one billion dollars to a plainly unstable radical homosexual who 110 Richard Stevenson

is going to utilize his celebrity to promote sexual deviance and poor taste, ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case.”

O’Malley glanced to his right as a noisy commotion broke out, and soon we could hear a plaintive cry. “Mom! Mmmmooooommm!”

“We have plenty more evidence,” O’Malley went on, trying to ignore the ruckus, “that Mr. Van Horn is morally unfit to receive a large sum from a state agency. Focks News has learned that a former altar boy was served alcohol by Mr. Van Horn and sexually violated by him when the boy was a minor.”

I said, “Oh no. Stu Hood!”

“The arsonist?”

But the picture that came on the screen was not Hood but that of Mason Doebler, the bearish owner of the Pontiac Firebird Hu

Timmy said, “That guy was an altar boy?”

“Now a grown man,” O’Malley said ominously, “but haunted by the pain and humiliation he suffered at the hands of the predatory Huntington Van Horn, Mr. Mason Doebler has informed Focks News that he is suing Mr. Van Horn for three hundred and seventy-five million dollars —”

More loud voices could be heard, and then suddenly Hu

Trinkus screamed, “Stay live, stay live! America needs to see this! He’s a terrorist!”

“Violence follows Huntington Van Horn wherever he goes,”

O’Malley boomed. “Late last night, supporters of Mr. Van Horn shot a Focks News cameraman who presently lies wounded in an Albany hospital. I urge you to offer your thoughts and prayers for…this brave cameraman.”

The wrestling match proceeded a few feet from O’Malley, who leaned back in his seat and gawked.

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“This is my mom!” Hu

“None of that has been proven,” O’Malley said, “although of course our thoughts and prayers also go out to this elderly senior citizen, whatever she might be up to.”

“If you see her,” Hu

Bill O’Malley said, “Who are the Brienings?”

ChAPteR fifteen

I drove over to Moth Street in time for Hu

Still, I wondered if there was any way I could have kept Hu

help keep him from becoming the cultural right’s poster boy for abominable homosexual depravity.

Bill O’Malley had not gotten an answer to his question about who the Brienings were, and as I drove I tried to formulate a story for Hu

While I had Nelson on the line, I told him I had met the Brienings, and it was my belief that they were not directly responsible for the disappearance, but that the threatening letter they had sent Mrs. Van Horn might somehow have caused Mother Van Horn to panic and bolt. Meanwhile, I suggested, we ought to respond with vague evasions to any questions from the press or the police about the mysterious Brienings.