Cockeyed

“I understand,” the reporter said, “that the Lottery Commission is actually paying out nearly two billion dollars so that even after taxes you will still end up with an entire billion dollars.”

“Hey, does Warren Buffet pay his own taxes?” Hu

“Not on your life.”

“We’re going to get the check on Friday,” Art said. “They’re going to present it to us on The Today Show. Isn’t that fabulous?

They probably don’t remember that about ten years ago when we went down to hold up a sign on Hu

“I wasn’t arrested,” Hu

— one of the biggest queens I ever saw wearing a uniform —

that big black ol’ Miss Mary Mary Quite Contrary told me that Al thought it was pretty fu

Katie Couric.”

Timmy said, “We have to put this on the calendar. Friday morning at seven.”

“Maybe we should have a few people over.”

The Cha

Before she could speak, though, the screen suddenly went black. A few seconds later one of the anchors on the studio news set appeared and said, “Well, it looks like we’ve lost Tiffany.”

“Yes,” said his female colleague, “But wasn’t that fascinating?”

Looking unsure of how to respond — even this codger seemed to understand that hint of mint cracks were a thing of the past — the anchor simply nodded and moved on to the house fires and convenience store holdups that somebody at the TV station thought the people of New York State’s capital region needed to know about.

ChAPteR two

“Uncle Hu

Art Malanowski was seated next to Hu

“Nelson, don’t you talk to me about sleazy!” Hu

“Girl, you had just better watch your tongue when it comes to sleaze, what with you working for those Wall Street rip-off artists who practically made the whole economy of the country crash down on everybody’s head but yourselves. If you calling my friends sleazy isn’t the pot calling the kettle un-ironed chiffon, I don’t know what is.”

“Uncle Hu

financial institution. Badly off as we are for the moment, we have few personal regrets down on State Street. Secondly, it is you whose past is finally catching up with you. Good grief, why would we even be sitting here talking to a detective if you hadn’t been so totally reckless and irresponsible, chasing after all those seedy characters for all those years. And you still don’t know how to control yourself.” Nelson looked at me and said, “Did you catch Uncle Hu

I said I had.

“Well, you tell me, Don. Did Uncle Hu

by complimenting Matt Lauer on his ‘nice basket’?”

Hu

The nephew, a carefully toned, attentively groomed man in his early forties, sighed heavily and said to me, “So you can see what we’re up against.”

I said, “Matt Lauer seemed to take the comment in stride. It isn’t clear he even knew what your uncle meant.”

“Oh, girl, he knew,” Hu

Art added, “Don’t you believe, dearie, that that was the first time anybody ever said something nice about his bulge to Missy Matt Lauer. And everybody knows about the casting couch at NBC. Do you think those people on those shows get those jobs just on their looks?”

“Brian Williams, Alex Trebek, Chris Matthews, Perry Como back in the old days — they all had to put out,” Hu

“Do you see what I mean?” Nelson said to me disgustedly. “Is it any wonder that somebody on Moth Street cut the Cha

cable the other night with an ax, presumably to shut my out-of-control uncle up?”

CoCkeyed 11

“Nelson,” Hu

“Possibly the Fromes,” Art mused additionally.

“Now you are making my point for me,” Nelson said to his uncle. “Some people just do not appreciate your flamboyant personalities and have it in for you. They don’t like the constant sexual i

“It is true,” Hu

“Ho!” Nelson rolled his eyes. “If only they were col ege boys.”

I said, “So, are you also gay, Nelson?”

“Yes, I am. There seems to be one of those genes jumping around in the Van Horn family. But it’s one thing to be gay and it’s another thing entirely to make a sorry, obscene spectacle of yourself, and your family, and most of gay America. A friend who works for the Human Rights Campaign in Washington called me last night and asked if there wasn’t anything I could do to control Uncle Hu

Hu

12 Richard Stevenson

“So, Nelson,” I said, “it’s not only your uncle’s well-being that led you to bring him to me? Are you also hoping I might help alter his personality? That’s really outside my area of expertise.”