Winners of the 10th Annual
Love Made Me Stupid Award
If you just happen to be holding a few shares in the Hallmark Greeting Card Company, you my friend are in luck. It appears the pentagram you burned in the front yard, and the accompanying satanic ritual you held to manifest more loot for your luggage, is finally paying up. My clandestine source (who most days reclines on the steps of 14 Wall Street) just tipped me off that the company’s stock just went gunshot. This cheery swab of investor’s intelligence can mean only one thing. That’s right kids, it’s Valentines Day. A genuinely magical time for those who have hooked up with their soul mates. These fortunate targets of cupid’s eagle eye, celebrate with heartfelt exchanges of flowers, expensive gift sets of Godiva chocolates, and endearing yet nauseating public displays of affection. Conversely, those with nobody to love them at all, achieve new, super-human levels of envious jealousy and resentment. Understandably, they all hate you. It’s true and you know it. The lonely hate those in love. Especially on February 14.
Around here, Valentines Day has been ceremoniously renamed and is subsequently celebrated as Love Made Me Stupid Day. And I swear on my dead bookie’s cadaver, that nothing this side of Mulholland Drive tickles my third and fifth vertebrae more than excavating the historical archives of correspondence I amass all year. Like a non-medicated hyperactive child running amok in the mall, I diligently search for trinkets of the romantically dimwitted to re-print for your cynical amusement. This year, two people I attempted to help privately, honor the Love Made Me Stupid Award. When you read their letters, it will be easy to see why they are this years undisputed winners.
Dear Black Guy,
I am hoping you can help me. I met an incredible woman at an explosives convention about a year ago and we have been dating ever since. She is a former runway model who now manages a non-profit organization that helps other models get off heroin and back to just smoking weed. Mr. Black, she is an utterly fantastic woman that I hope to marry one day. However, there is a catch. I have done some very bad things I am not too proud of. If Gwen were to know about my past, I am afraid she will stop loving me and leave. Yet, I feel to keep it from her is completely dishonest. Mr. Black, I am absolutely nuts about this divine creature and I don’t think I could live without her. Hell, I don’t want to live without her!
Call me Mr. X
Dear Mr. X,
Damn bro, what do you do, sit around in your 99-cent store knickers, and listen to stupid country and western love songs all day? You lived without her for 42 years already. Get a grip for Christ sake! Of course, it is dishonest to keep secrets from the woman of your dreams. On the other hand, if you had sex with her sister, knocked her up, and subsequently addicted to crack, well, its best to keep that to yourself; least you wind -up like that Bobbitt kid... But here’s what I want to know... What could you have possibly done so morally wrong that a rational person would not forgive you for?
Note: Why did I ask that question?
Dear Big Black Guy,
Forgive me for being so vague about the history of my misgivings. Over the years, I have grown to be a reserved and a justifiably paranoid man. I will attempt explain.
All my life I have been a compulsive liar and a brazen criminal. As a child, I made a killing selling lies and excuses to other kids to use on their unsuspecting parents. I was hell-bound to join the worse gangs and hung out with all manner of hoodlums. As a result, I stole and stripped-down my first car at the age of 12. During my teen years, I specialized in identity theft and credit card fraud. I tried my hand at pimping for a while but I was too sensitive for that line of work. I always gave the girls my cut. What can I say; I got a weak spot for hoes. My point here is: Gwen thinks I am the most morally upstanding person she has ever met. How will I tell Gwen I plan to have Al Goldstein as the best man at our wedding?
I went to Yale on a curling scholarship, but I had my pick of Ivy League schools because I effortlessly managed a 4.0 average since pre-school. With an I.Q. of 198 however, comes the teeming luxury of having time to engage in recreation on the devils playground. And take part I did. In due course, I realized my true life’s calling was not any particular vocation. So long as my chosen line of work was dishonest or against the law, I would ultimately be happy. Mr. Black Guy, how will Gwen feel when she knows that it just kills me to earn an honest living?
Though I found school boring, I discovered the university atmosphere perfect for learning the fine art of falsifying records, extortion, and blackmail. I shamelessly rigged student elections, forged thousands financial documents and even fixed the ballots so my girlfriend was voted home coming queen... And if I had the chance, I’d do the same thing for Gwen.
After college, I went to work for The State Department in a general investigative division. This is where the sky-scraping cost of higher education truly paid off. Because I spoke fluent German, Swahili, Russian, Mandarin, French, Italian, Portuguese, Farsi, and Esperanto I was a perfect CIA candidate.
I spent a year in academy training. But I took up bomb making on my own, ya know, as a way to meet girls. After the academy, I was dispatched to Russia under the guise of being a graduate student. My real assignment was spying on a Russian diplomat and scientist who it turned out was innocent of all wrongdoing. That is, until he met me. Not only did I rope him into illegal arms dealing, I pocketed nearly all of the money. Since I was still technically on duty to conduct surveillance on him, I set the poor guy up in a sting and he was sentenced to life
I was let go of active duty but still on payroll for several years. The Feds wanted to know who and what I knew. Of course, the nitwits never just came out and asked me. Instead, they had about a dozed different G-men tail me for three years. They finally threw up their hands on the mission because the agents kept having fatal “accidents” on the job. I know they were accidents because my good friend Salvatore “Johnny Shoes” Bommarito from Bensonhurst, who specializes in “accidents”, told me so. During that time, I was living in Midwood Brooklyn. My first order of business was to get cozy with the Russian-mafia. Boris Krashikov became a great friend who I loved right up until the moment he lost a friendly game of Russian Roulette. Boris was sort of a lawyer who helped you find ways of getting around the law. At his funeral, I met the beautiful and captivating Xenia Petrovsky. She was an illegal Russian immigrant who made her living by translating subversive underground erotic fiction from English into Russian then selling it on the black market. We dated for a year and got married in St Peter’s Square on Valentines Day. Within minutes of the ceremony, Xenia was arrested by the secret police and has not been heard from since.
Back in the states and alone again, I moved to D.C. and tried my hand again at pimping. Only this time I was determined to do it right and quickly discovered that politicians are the best customers. They pay whatever you ask and are easily shaken done for hush money. In fact, I got my start-up capital from respected congressional representative who ultimately found 250 G’s was a small price to pay for keeping his cross-dressing secrets out of the public eye. Mr. Black, there really is no sweeter marriage than prostitution and blackmail. Those were the good old days. But I will never be able to share these sweet memories with my lovely Gwen.
Nowadays I am retired from most criminal activity. I have an honest tax-paying job. I work for a computer ad agency by day. I moonlight at night by creating and selling internet viruses and infectious computer worms. Gone are the days of pilfering 11 million bucks from a bank in Oslo. And I really do miss weapons running. There is a warm fuzzy feeling you get when you sell an AK747 that is almost romantic. It is not unlike the high one has when you get to say: “Well congressman, what did you think of the tape?”
Sometimes I think about going back to flying. Well, not flying per-se. But, ya know, finding ways of bilking the airlines for millions of dollars. That is how I stumbled onto the flight insurance game. The money was superb, but I got out of the industry because it was too risky. I mean, one plane goes down and I was out on my ass. I sold the business to an Arab sheik who gave the company to his son as a gift for graduating from of the Wharton School. Three weeks later, a jet crashed taking out an entire family whose policy collectively was worth 198.9 million. The company went bankrupt and I’m told the kid was so humiliated by his failure he joined the Taliban.
Mr. Black, I can’t tell Gwen that I invent pop-up ads for a living. Much less, my obsession with stripers, porn stars, and smoking the chronic everyday. I feel sorry for the kid because she will never know the spiritual high one gets from flat-out robbing a person blind.
But here’s the problem. I have never been caught at anything. I’m as clean as a whistle. I have made millions of tax-free dollars and never been audited or questioned. If I do confess to Gwen, it could possibly be a subconscious way of punishing myself. Ya know if it doesn’t work out. Dear Big Black Guy, what do I do?
Mr. X
Dear X,
I religiously believe and have always recommend couples being 100% brutally honesty with each other, no matter how dire the consequences. But not here. In your case, I vehemently recommend unyielding, brutal dishonesty! I cannot stress this enough: nothing good will come from telling the truth in this potentially disastrous matter. Let’s face it, deceit is how, and why your life works …period! If you start being good, responsible, and trustworthy now, you are only doing it to please her. How long do you think a relationship can last when you deny who and what you really are? And for Christ sake, put your thinking cap on man. If, god forbid, you lovebirds ever broke-up, she would be able to black mail you for years until you could safely bump her off. Mr. X, I am telling you, man to man, brother to brother, do not let this angel of yours know about your past. Lie, lie, and keep lying damn it!
Three weeks later, I received a certified letter from a young woman with a similar problem.
Dear Big Black Guy,
I have been dating a highly intelligent, charming, kind man for close to a year and I believe we were made for each other. He is honest, honorable, and so innocent I’ll bet he’s still a democrat. He is unique however. Kind of a sexy mix between Mr. Rogers and Kevin Bacon. I like that in a man. I know he’s about to pop the question but I feel horrible because he doesn’t know the real me. I have been a spy for the CIA since graduating Yale at 19. And trust me; I’m no Valerie Plame either. I carry a Smith and Wesson 99 mm handgun, a German Lugar, a derringer, two switchblades, noon chucks, brace knuckles, tesor and stun guns, a mini crossbow, a blowgun, mace, smoke bombs, and my hands are registered lethal weapons. I fronted as a model while traveling the world as a secret agent. I retired from the runway but still conduct surveillance on suspected subversives here in the states. Damn the Patriot Act. Presently I pose as a caseworker to help models on drugs, but being a spy is my passion and of course my real career.
Arnold has no idea about any of this and I am afraid I will have to tell him because I have been offered a job in Washington. The assignment is tracking a man who used to be an agent and slipped threw the governments fingertips. Naturally, I would be traveling a lot and but I also don’t want to leave him. Long distance relationships are hard enough, but with traveling, spying and lying all the time, I think is a bit more than I can handle. But I love him so much. Mr. Black, I am torn. - Ms G
Dear Ms G,
If you love this poor man, do not take this job, and by no means do you tell him what your real work is. Being what he believes you to be is the only salvation of your relationship. On this one, you just have to trust me.
Notice I am again recommending dishonesty.
[Final letter from Mr. X.]
Dear Big Black Guy.
I know it has ages since I last contacted you, but frankly, I have been too embarrassed to write. All i can say is: Mister, I should have listened to you all along. Gwen got a job offer in Washington but would not tell me what it was. I found this odd and extremely frustrating. Even after relentless badgering, she would not divulge what it was. I turned blue with anger and grew so desperate that I lost all sense of reason and wound up telling her about my past. Literally everything. At first, she didn’t believe me and stormed out in a huff. A half hour later, she returned and asked me to repeat the whole story again in detail. Little did I know, she was wearing a wire and the Feds were right outside in five unmarked white vans. I was arrested on the spot and charged with treason, international espionage, mail-fraud, embezzlement, forgery, income tax evasion, the list went on forever. Interestingly, they never found out about my selling weed. Gwen came to my trial everyday and cried her heart out as she had come to regret turning me in. I was convicted of 89 felonies and given four consecutive life sentences. I am illegible for parole in May 3007, but Gwen promises to wait for me.
So you see Mr. Black, if you will show me one final dignity; I request to be honored as winner of the Love Made Me Stupid Award of this year. I am confident your readers will agree that I am the stupidest man alive.
Dear Mr. X.
Indeed you are. Sir, you are hereby awared with honors!
Thank you. Stay in touch.
Just Ask: The Big Black Guy and all contents in the collection titled You Always Hurt the One You Love is protected under the law by the United States Copyright office. Any publication, public performance, duplication or recording is prohibited without the written permission of the author Gaz O’Connor. Copyright 2005
This is am uncorrected proof.
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