Small World

I wished my cousin a happy birthday on Facebook, and Jack Wagoner, a law school compatriot, jumped in to ask how we knew each other. I created what I thought was a great answer:

We went on a crime spree together back during Prohibition. I had my gat and Lisa had hers. We confronted Al Capone in Hot Springs. Told him to hand over his booze or get the heck out of town. He was “blown away” – and we got our booze. I’ll let your imagination fill in the blanks.

We ruled at Oaklawn after that, and each of us ruled a bath house, too. We had the finest food, the best masseurs, the sleekest automobiles, and the widest whitewalls on our sleek black automobiles. We dressed in ropes of diamonds and decorated the ballroom at the Arlington with our mere presence. Crowds threw flower petals down before us, and the soles of our shoes never touched the soil.

Then liquor was made legal. We were forced out of business and grudgingly retired to a small lake in southeast Pulaski County, where I spent hours reading books, and Lisa chased after children. She swam and played on the Lake, basked in the sun, and entertained lavishly. I hid out at my mama’s, too disgruntled for company, and thought about taking revenge on the damn government. How dare it make liquor legal? I was making money hand over fist, running all those vices out of my bathhouse in Hot Springs! Now I hung out at a Lake House, where the only mineral water came in a bottle, and other bottles were professionally filled with legal booze. What a hideous way to live!

Not only that, Lisa and I both had to work hard to avoid the golf course. Our great-grandfather, the sports-loving Scotsman, conspired with his sons-in-law to build the silly thing, and generations of Campbell-spawn have proven themselves to be pathetic duffers out there. Just ask our cousin Donald K Campbell, III. That’s right. My law partner. Do you know how hard it is to work with a family member? I have to be nice to him. Mama says so. And his daddy says he has to be nice to me. It sucks! Lisa Jacobs is the only cousin I’ve ever been able to be partners with – and that was partners in crime.

Well, I’m not counting Lisa’s sister-in-law, Kendall Pickens Jacobs, who wasn’t a family member yet when she and I were partners in crime. That was eons ago. We maintained dens of iniquity from Arkansas to New Jersey to New York and back again, and no one knew but us. Well, and our “clients.”

I was shocked one morning when I got up, and Kendall told me my ears had grown overnight. I looked in the mirror. Fearing donkey ears like Pinocchio, I looked into that mirror with some trepidation, let me tell you. But no, no donkey ears greeted me. Instead, they were the floppy ears of a friendly dog. I had dog ears! How was I going to work if I had dog ears? This was a tragedy! And I had a class that day!

It wasn’t as though I could just call the plastic surgeon and get it taken care of immediately. I asked Kendall if she had a gat. She thought I said “cat,” and offered to take me to the Humane Society. I burst into tears, thinking she wanted to be rid of me, but eventually, I got up and took a shower. I had to. One just doesn’t bag law school classes and think one can get away with it.

So that afternoon, after lunch, just moments after I had reached the plastic surgeon who agreed to take me on an emergency basis that very night, I walked into Torts class. And there you were, Jack Wagoner. There you were, with your irreverent grin and your lack of empathy. You crowed about my misfortune, “Oh, look!” you notified the entire class at top volume, as though you were the paper boy selling the “Extra” edition of the paper because some really juicy news had broken. Like Superman’s identity had been revealed. Or Batman had been unmasked. Or the bill had come in for the $6,000,000.00 man.

“Look!” you yelled again, barely containing your laughter. “Orsi’s a dog-eared slut!” The entire class looked. None of them were surprised about the “slut” part, but all of them wanted to see my ears. John Pagan could not get anyone’s attention that day and declared the class a complete loss. I’ll never forget his cruel words: “Well, Ms. Orsi, I’d say you are an attractive nuisance, but you’re just a nuisance.” That hurt worse than Kendall’s offer to take me to the Humane Society.

After that, I could only get a date with T. Kevin O’Malley, who took me to a wrasslin’ match out at Barton Coliseum, where grannies called encouragement to their favorite athletes by crying out endearments such as, “Rip his fucking head off!” How low I had fallen. T. Kevin and I only stayed until the first granny yelled, but several others yelled as we left. I was terrified. I didn’t have my gat, which Kendall had taken from me the moment I declared myself a danger to my own life upon seeing the shape and size of my fur-covered floppy ears.

So it all belongs together. Me, Lisa, Kendall, you, Skip, Don, everyone. It’s the Great Circle of Life, Jack. So now you know how Lisa and I know each other. We go WAY back.

Jack said, “Orsi, I am so honored to have you devote that kind of time to entertaining me.”

What are you talking about, Jack?! I entertained myself! …And then you told me you called other people “dog-eared sluts,” which absolutely crushed me.

Last Updated on June 19, 2011 by Anne