Fools Rush In
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Local/County Local/County The Sunshine Bulletin 1A
Page 1A
THE WAGES OF SIN
by Margie Noessit
Most of our City Council members are the worst kind of hypocrites. Heaven forbid! said I when I received proof; but it is true. Believe it or not, these goings-on in Sunshine are inspired by Shakespeare. Talk about a pound of flesh! It would seem that the stellar leaders of our fair city have been plunging their greedy little fingers into the profits of our local fleshpot. During the last three elections, our city fathers have bitten Zona Flores for over eighteen thousand smackeroos. Yes, eighteen of the big ones. And you’ll never guess the winner of the Extortion Award. Our mayor, Melba Tosti, has hit up the ladies of the night for a whopping seven grand. No wonder her wig wardrobe increased. Next in the award lineup is Josephus (Holy!Holy!Holy!) Tyler, who received six thousand. Sunshine’s department store tycoon, leader of the Saved Sons Society, and pillar of the Living Witness Holy Confederation is always hot on the scent of corruption, but leaning on the members of our oldest profession is apparently okay. What do you want to bet that none of the lolly ever found its way into a collection plate? Third in at the gate is Gianni "Meats" Merlini, who stuffed two thousand, seven hundred into his sausage casings. Could it be the girls weren’t eating enough of his product? Running last, as always, is Lila Mae Warner, who took a mere twenty-three hundred over the years. Get the message, Merlini? The Sunshine Gentlemen’s Club prefers southern fried chicken to bratwurst. Chickens don’t eat so much of the green stuff. "I don’t think it’s fair," Zona said recently in an interview. "Whoring ain’t easy work and my girls is good girls and they work hard. What the councilmen take comes out of their earnings. I got the message loud and clear–if we don’t pay up, they’ll close us down. You’d think that the ladies, at least, would have some compassion for their sisters, but it ain’t so." The only councilman who isn’t on the bread wagon is Theodore Rainmaker. I asked Zona why. "Well, Teddy’s different. I guess, being as different as he is, he don’t consider whores as easy pickings." Perhaps it’s time for our citizens to wake up to the fact that this city is run by a clique of money-grubbing, power-mad yo-yo’s who should never be given any job as responsible as dog-catcher. Who will they hit when next they seek election–the halt, lame, and blind?
*** "
Her husband, Henny, looked up from the comics section of his Tampa Tribune. "What’s it about?"
"Our taking campaign contributions from Zona," his wife explained patiently. She avoided looking directly at him at breakfast; mornings were not Henny’s best times. His hair poked up here and there on his little balding head like broken reeds, and his normally florid complexion was pallid and pockmarked. Hunched over the table in his oversized bathrobe, peering nearsightedly at the newspaper, he reminded her of an armadillo.
When they had been courting, the only way she could look into his eyes was by sitting or lying down. He was a good half foot shorter than she was. Of course, right after her marriage, she’d really enjoyed the lying down part, but that ecstasy had been short-lived. Even though she had suspected that sex was overrated, copulation with Henny was really underdone, like a half-minute egg.
And she’d had to give up high heels. He insisted that she wear those horrible flats so she didn’t tower over him quite so much. She loved high heels.
"Margie Noessit claims that we made Zona give us money, or we’d throw her out of town. I never said anything about her leaving town. I went along because everybody else was getting some. Listen to this, ‘Running last, as always, is Lila Mae Warner, who took a mere twenty-three hundred over the years.’ If I’d known she was shelling out money like she did to Melba, I darn well wouldn’t be running last. This past election, I could have used another five or six thousand for posters. That way, the race wouldn’t have been so close."
"Mullet’s running."
She gasped. "Against one of us?"
"Mullet’s running. Got a call this morning, so I ordered a hundred pound. Wholesale cost is five cent a pound higher than it was last season. Have to add fried mullet to the menu and raise the price. Second time I raised the price in two years. Customers are going to bitch, and that’s for sure."
"For God’s sake, Henny, can’t you think about anything but the restaurant? I been insulted all over town and you talk about mullet."
Henny lay down his paper and grinned evilly at his wife. "Didn’t I tell you when you decided to go into politics that you’d be called names? Didn’t I? If you’d stayed on and helped me in the kitchen, like a proper wife, you’d have been a lot better off than you are consorting with those northerners."
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
The City of Sunshine, on Florida’s central west coast, perches uncomfortably at the mouth of the Hatchacootee River–the only river in Florida to boast a delta. The town is a backwater plagued by the Saved Sons Society, a seedy, chauvinistic outgrowth of the Living Witness Holy Confederation, and an ancient, leaking sewer system that has polluted everything in sight.
The city has seen its past leaders taken off to jail for various degrees of criminal activity, and its present politicians concentrate their efforts on trying to remain in office.
The dysfunctional City Council, as infamous for its bickering and backbiting as it is for the mayor’s chartreuse wig, are determined to install a beach on the delta, hoping to attract more tourists. This leads to outright warfare, not only among themselves, but also with local activists, who are concerned with the survival of the Polychaete worms, and the Department of Environmental Protection.
Then most of downtown is swallowed by a sinkhole.
About the Author
Gilliam Clarke is a water activist who has spent an inordinate amount of time working with politicians across Florida, in efforts both rewarding and frustrating.
A native of Washington, North Carolina, she worked in medicine, banking, and money management. She is married to a retired United Nations official, and spent some fifteen years in the Caribbean before moving to Florida. Contact with many Caribbean political leaders laid the ground for writing political satire, and Florida’s politics has proven even more fertile territory than the Caribbean.
She is the proud grandmother of a boy named Griffin, who loves to read.