Blinded by the Fright: 2

Mary Bartley, pictured at the beach with her two boys, an accomplished wife, mother, and expat

 

Mary Bartley didn’t know what to do with so many puppies.

The gorgeous Delta Gamma had, through a strange set of circumstanced, ended up volunteering to help out at Evolución. It had all occurred quite by accident; a second thought.

The first thought, of course, was to find a way to get Michael Berton, the Amtrak derailment and hysteric at the Villa Verde with Envy to shut up. He just went on and on and on about it was an outrage that so many expats bitched about overcrowding at the Evolución no-kill dog shelter run by Silvia Cortés, a dog-faced Mexican and animal lover to a fault, without actually doing something about it.

The truth is that his face, ravaged by lipodystrophy was bigger outrage, but Mary Bartley did not want to digress.

 

Amtrak derailment in Mexico and full-time hysteric about town, Michael Berton, host of Villa Verde with Envy

 

“Buy blankets, bitches! Donate dog food, pricks! Volunteer a few hours to help and not just criticize, assholes!” he ranted, wearing a toga, sandals, and a tiara, as he stood in Santa Ana, where a few Mexican youngsters were skateboarding.

The demented queen had been walking up and down Calle 60 between Santa Lucía and Santa Ana all morning pleading for expats to help the dogs.

“Go! Go forth and help out, fucking losers!” the gracious host yelled. “Feed the dogs! Love the dogs! Adopt a dog!”

Harriet Riggs, done with her shift at the Mérida English Library of Scams, was enjoying the show, a bag of popcorn. She called Mary Bartley, who had been having breakfast at the fashionable Hotel San Ángel, to come over.

For some reason—perhaps it was her training at the Peace Corps when she treated the medically insane in Botswana for two months—that she managed to calm the dreadful creature by promising to volunteer at the dog shelter.

“Yes, Michael, you have succeeded!” she said. “You recruited me!”

“I did?”

“Yes, Michael, please take a seat and we can celebrate your success with a glass of water and some sedatives,” she said.

And that’s how she found herself, on her knees at Evolución, with four puppies.

How did I get here? she thought.

And for some reason, as the cute little puppies squirmed and wagged their tails, she thought od David Bryne’s profound words:

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down

Letting the days go by/water flowing underground

Into the blue again/after the money’s gone

Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

And her life in Mérida was, indeed, same as it ever was!

 

Expat life in town was same as it ever was … same as it ever was …

 

Then her cell phone rang; it was Harriet Riggs. The Delta Gamma picked up.

“Yes, Harriet?”

“If your back is hurting from all that grunt work at that dog pound, want me to book you a massage?” the volunteer librarian asked.

“That’s so kind of you!” Mary Bartley said, surprised.

“Ellen Fields—for one week not pretending to be in town is in town—and she’s a masseuse,” Harriet Riggs said.

“Isn’t that the crook whose stepson only managed to get away from her by killing himself?” she asked.

“That’s the bitch.”

“Oh, no, I’d rather you book an appointment with Célida at Coqui Coqui,” Mary Bartley said. “I want nothing to do with that fucking loser, the Shields woman.”

And with that, she hung up.

 

Non-American expats, such as Nicolás Malleville and Francesca Bonato, were of a different class than the Americans in town

 

Harriet Riggs knew the Delta Gamma girls preferred Célida Padilla over at Coqui Coqui, the chic place run by Nicolás Malleville and his wife Francesca Bonato. Then the librarian took out her tablet to find out if Ellen Fields was, in fact, a masseuse. A bitch that lies about living in Mérida could lie about anything, Harriet Riggs thought as she went on Internet Explorer. I remember how she sought sympathy crying, ‘My son is dead! My son is dead! Please be kind to me! My son! My son is dead!’ Yeah, right, what that fucking bitch did not say is that that stupid suicide didn’t slip out of her womb, fucking fraud.

 

Ellen Fields, whose expert touch will melt all the stress from your body

 

And then she was stunned by that brazen fraud’s laughable claims. Harriet Riggs cracked up as she read:

“How I Got Here, by Ellen Fields.

 

I spent many years working in a chair in the computer world. I know the dangers of sitting and living with a lot of stress. Now I work to relieve pain and stress for my clients. I have a special place in my heart for knowledge workers, those of us who sit in front of (mostly) a computer all day long, using our minds while neglecting our bodies. I also like to work with anyone that is getting older… as we get older, we start to feel aches and pains, stiffness and soreness. Massage can really help to keep that to a minimum! And I’ve seen enough evidence to know now that regular massage keeps us younger… my 80+ year old mother gets massages weekly and she’s in amazing health!

So I went to school to learn about bodies and how they work… which, by the way, is still a mystery in so many ways. I have earned my California Massage Therapist License (#53469, for those who care) and now I am a Certified Massage Therapist (CMT), professionally trained with over 700 hours of instruction at the California Holistic Institute in San Luis Obispo, Upledger Institute and other providers. I am certified through the California Massage Therapy Council and a member of Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals (ABMP). I’m proud to be able to offer this important service for healing, relaxation, relief and blessings to my clients.

As I see it, every massage is a moment in time where healing can occur and peace can be expanded.”

Harriet Riggs laughed so hard she pissed her bloomers.

 

 

The Emancipation of the Singing Slaves

 

And it came to pass that Claire Wentworth’s marvelous idea of securing Maya children as Singing Slaves became a sensation.

Under the pretext of sponsoring their education in the musical arts, American and Canadian expats enslaved scores of Maya children from all corners of the Yucatán peninsula. In no time American and Canadian expats about town could be seen walking down the street or sitting at outdoor cafes followed by young children prepared to sign at the snap of his or her master’s or mistress’s fingers.

The sight of two old gringas, running into each other on the street, stopping to chat accompanied by Singing Slaves, became a familiar sight. One old gringa would offer a compliment to the other on her Singing Slave, and the compliment would be returned. Then one would ask for her friend’s Singing Slave to sing a song. After the request was granted, the other Singing Slave would be instructed to sing as well. The old gringas would swoon at the melodious voices of the Maya youngsters and how these otherwise little savages managed to learn the greatest hits of groups ranging from Fleetwood Mac to the favorites selected from the Lawrence Welk playlist.

Mérida’s Historic Center, in fact, fast became awash with the sounds of Singing Slaves—constituting an arresting phenomenon—and ripe with the promise of becoming a scandalous tourist attraction.

What Claire Wentworth had not anticipated, however, was that outrageous arrivistes and social climbers would pursue Singing Slaves with such desperation: what was once fashionable became … ordinary.

Ordinary?

Yes, Singing Slaves became ordinary in their abundance: their sheer popularity rendered the Singing Slaves, as a cultural phenomenon, into the … commonplace.

Indeed, in the months that followed the number of Singing Slaves exploded, creating, for instance, problems no one, least of all Claire Wentworth, could have anticipated. At the outdoor cafes one would find several tables of gringos having meals with Maya children standing next to them, ready to sing for their gringos on command.

Conflicts, not surprisingly, erupted when several Singing Slaves sang at the same time. It was not uncommon to hear gringos in Mérida bicker among themselves the way the bickered in, say, Miami Beach or Boca Raton:

“Will you have your Slave lower his singing? I can’t hear my Singing slave sing!”

“We were here first, you idiot! Our Singing Slave has priority!”

“Not if he’s singing off key!”

“Off key? You wouldn’t a song properly sung if your life depended on it, Appalachian fuck!”

“Who are you calling an Appalachian fuck, you money-grubbing Jew.”

The Mexicans were aghast, not knowing what to do; the Mexicans were unaware of how rapidly American society was coarsening.

 

Smoking, Non-Smoking sections were followed by Singing Slaves, Non-Singing Slaves sections, creating headaches for all

 

Mexican restauranteurs, after all, had only begun to makes sense of Smoking, Non-Smoking, and Smoking Free regulations in place. Now, they had to make sense of Slave Singing and Non-Slave Singing sections. And it became so complicated: Non-Smoking but with Singing Slaves; Non-Smoking with Non-Singing Slaves; Smoke-Free but Singing Slave Friendly; Smoke-Free and Singing Slave-Free; etcetera.

The situation became so unmanageable and critical that the Mérida Chamber of Commerce scheduled a meeting, at the request of restauranteurs and bar owners, to adopt guidelines on how Singing Slaves were to be accommodated at various establishments. Restauranteurs that had karaoke bars protested the unfair competition of Maya youngsters signing a Capella. Bar and cantina owners protested that gringos were insisting on bringing their Singing Slaves into their establishment when the law was strict in not allowing minors into places that served liquor.

Who would have thought that children singing would degenerate into such a quagmire? Certainly not Claire Wentworth, that’s for sure.

Then something happened—something no one could have foreseen.

It occurred on the third Friday of the month when the Mérida Chamber of Commerce was scheduled to take up the issue.

Claire Wentworth was at Apoala in Santa Lucía with Harriet Riggs during that fateful Friday Happy Hour. The women were having drinks before going out to dinner at Nectar, which had become Claire Wentworth’s favorite restaurant after Chef Roberto Solís had a spectacular debut in New York.

She asked Harriet Riggs if she thought that making her Singing Slave into a eunuch would prevent his voice from changing once puberty struck. Harriet Riggs didn’t know either the medical or legal answers to that. She didn’t even know if Claire Wentworth could have such an operation performed on the boy.

“Why not?” the WASP wanted to know. “He’s my property.”

“To us, he’s your property, Claire,” the volunteer librarian said. “But since you are, technically, his sponsor and not his legal guardian, I’m not sure if you could demand a doctor perform elective surgery on him just like that.”

The women continued to debate practical castration when other gringos arrived and sat down at nearby tables. One of them ordered his Singing Slave to sing. Claire Wentworth thought the song was awful; she ordered her Singing Slave to sing a competing song, hoping his song would drown out the offensive song. Then another Singing Slave began to sing—and moments later, a fourth Mistress ordered her Singing Slave to sing.

Claire Wentworth looked over.

John Powell, the 9/11 refugee from New York and failed retailer, was at a table. His Singing Slave was singing Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”

Not so magnificent, she thought.

She looked away and saw Jeremiah Tower, the former cokehead and failed celebrity chef who had struck out spectacularly when he tried to manage a turnaround atTavern on the Green in New York, sitting with a group of friends. His Singing Slave was signing Sylvester’s “Mighty Real.” Next to that table faux chef David Sterling, entertaining a couple of limp-wristed sissies, with his Singing Slave signing Madonna’s “Holiday.”

These Singing Slaves were making it impossible for her to enjoy her Singing Slave’s rendition of Astrud Gilberto’s “Girl From Ipanema.”

The cacophony of sound was maddening. She looked around and glared at the table of faggots who had their Singing Slaves sing lowbrow music only the tragic enjoyed. Claire Wentworth was about to lose her WASP demeanor.

And then—without explanation—something remarkable happened.

Some say it was divine intervention. Others say it was demonic possession. No one can say with certainty, other than to confirm that while songs by Gloria Gaynor, Sylvester, Madonna, and Astrud Gilberto were competing to be heard, the Singing Slaves stopped singing.

They all fell silent.

The old gringos were surprised, not knowing what to make of it. Claire Wentworth, John Powell, Jeremiah Tower, and David Sterling looked confused, turning this way and that, trying to figure make sense of the sound of silence.

Would Gloria Gaynor survive? Who made Sylvester feel mighty real? Did Madonna take one day out of life to celebrate? Would Astrud Gilberto declare that Claire Wentworth was as tall and tan and young and lovely as a Brazilian bombshell?

No one knew.

And then, after a terrifying moment of ominous silence, the Singing Slaves opened their mouths.

 

Tomorrow belong to whom?

 

“The sun on the meadow is summery warm,” one Singing Slave sang. “The stag in the forest runs free,” another Signing Slave began. “But gather together to greet the storm,” a third Singing Slave sang. “Tomorrow belongs to me,” Claire Wentworth’s Singing Slave sang.

What did it all mean?

Before anyone could even think—which was a leap of faith considering the three tragic homosexuals in question—the Singing Slaves proceeded to sing in unison:

Osama bin Laden we children have heard,

Osama bin Landen we see.

That somewhere a glory awaits unseen.

Tomorrow belongs to thee.

And they continued to sing:

Osama bin Laden we children have heard,

Osama bin Landen we see.

That somewhere a glory awaits unseen.

Tomorrow belongs to thee.

 

Were the Singing Slaves being radicalized by ISIS?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29Mg6Gfh9Co

Claire Wentworth didn’t need to be a clairvoyant to understand what was going on: Mexico’s Singing Slaves had been possessed by ISIS!

Not so magnificent, she thought.

“Harriet!” she said, excited and animated.

“What?”

“We have to get out of there!” Claire Wentworth said.

“Why?”

“My dear, we are in grave danger!” the patrician WASP said.

She motioned for the bill, grabbed her things.

“Danger?” the volunteer librarian protested. “But our drinks! It’s Happy Hour!”

“I’ll explain to you later!”

“But Claire, just when these stupid kids are finally singing like a real choir!” the volunteer librarian protested.

“Choir?”

“Yes, like a choir?” Claire Wentworth said, taking out money to just leave on the table. “This isn’t an ordinary song these little monsters are singing! This is a pledge to Osama bin Laden, for Christ’s sake!”

“Osama bin Laden?” Harriet Riggs asked. “I thought it was that Nazi song in Cabaret.”

“Oh, my dear, these children have been indoctrinated—and to think we let them into our homes, into our lives!” Claire Wentworth said.

The women hurried off. Claire Wentworth drove frantically to her home while Harriet Riggs, as instructed, searched for how to rid themselves of these Singing Slaves.

The women debated the merits of exorcisms. Claire Wentworth pointed out that anything a Christian could do to reign in Islam would be interpreted as a “crusade” by Radical Islamist terrorists. Harriet Riggs researched how the Americans had rid themselves of slaves before. Both agreed that if ISIS were the enemy—and both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump agreed on that point—than they had to find a way of liberating all these slaves so they could return to their villages.

“Lincoln!” Harriet Riggs said as the women arrived at Claire Wentworth’s gracious home.

“What?”

“We have to proclaim these Singing Slaves emancipated, Claire.”

“Brilliant!” the patrician WASP said.

The women rushed to Claire Wentworth’s library and began to write a document to be sent to every expat in Mexico.

After several revisions the women were happy with themselves. They checked their statement once, twice, and a third time. When they were satisfied that they had found the answer to protect themselves from these ISIS-possessed Maya children, they went to Outlook and prepared an email so massive it could be construed as spam.

The women took a deep breath, conferred one final time, and, in unison, said a silent the Lord’s prayer. Then Claire Wentworth hit the “Send” button. The women looked at each other and agreed that this called for several rounds of stiff drinks.

As they left the library, instantly, expats throughout Mexico received the following message:

 

A Proclamation.

Whereas, in the year of our Lord two thousand sixteen, a proclamation is issued by the American Expat community in Mérida, Yucatán, to wit:

“That immediately, in the year of our Lord two thousand sixteen, all persons held as Singing Slaves within any State or designated part of a State of the Yucatán peninsula, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the American Expat community of Mérida will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

Now, therefore I, Claire Wentworth, Expat Extraordinaire and Neo-Colonialist, by virtue of the power in me vested as a sister of Delta Gamma of the United States, do, immediately, in the year of our Lord two thousand sixteen, and in accordance with my purpose do publicly proclaim for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States of the Yucatán peninsula wherein the Singing Slaves thereof respectively, are this day set free—and ordered to return to their wretched little villages!”

 

And with that, the Singing Slaves of Mérida were emancipated.

 

The Maya youngsters were freed from slavery, which put a damp on the musical life around Gringolandia

 

 

 

Tawana Lochte

 

A Very Special (and Sober) Message from Harriet Riggs, volunteer librarian at the Mérida English Library of Scams:

I want to apologize for my behavior last weekend—for not being more careful and candid in how I described the events of that early morning and for my role in taking the focus away from the many drunks fulfilling their dreams of getting drunk. I waited to share these thoughts until it was confirmed that the legal situation was addressed and it was clear that my fellow librarians would be released from the city jail.

It’s traumatic to be out late with your friends in a foreign country—with a language barrier—and have a stranger point a gun to stop you from looting their store and demand money to repair the vandalism in which you engaged before they let you stagger away to your Uber. But regardless of the drunkenness of anyone else that night, I should have been more responsible in how I handled myself and for that I am sorry to my fellow alcoholic librarians, my fans, my fellow drunks, the library sponsors of scams, and the people of this great city who allow us expats to puke in their streets with impunity. I am very proud to represent the best of Americans in Mérida and this situation could have and should have been avoided. I accept responsibility for my role in this happening and have learned some valuable lessons.

I am grateful to my drinking buddies and the Mérida English Library of Scams, and appreciate all the efforts of the fine men and women at Bacardi rum, Patrón tequila, Ilegal mescal, Corona beer, and Johnny Walker Black whiskey, and the people of Mérida who have welcomed us to this great city—even if climate change is transforming it into an infernal hellhole—to provide us with a lifetime of great memories, and scores of destitute Mexicans to wait on us and our every whim for next to nothing. There has been too much said and too many valuable resources dedicated to what happened last weekend, especially the hate speech directed against those whose pursuit of urolangia include pissing in public, so I hope we spend our time celebrating the great scams and debauchery we have indulged in, and look ahead to celebrating future alcoholism.

I, and Tawana Lochte, will be more careful!

 

Tawana Brawley falsely accused four white men of rape, and Al Sharpton (fat pig pictured in the background) exploited the misguided girl’s fabrication to advance his political career as a charlatan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawana_Brawley_rape_allegations

La Negrita: 5

 

Mérida English Library of Scams was always in the news …

 

Harriet Riggs was making herself a gin and tonic at the Mérida English Library of Scams’ clandestine cantina out in the patio garden.

The library, of course, didn’t have a liquor license, but everyone knew Mexico’s laws applied only to the Mexicans and not to the expats about town. Under the insidious management of Dan Karnes the library, as she had calculated, had raised more than $137,000 USD from illegal liquor sale—and neither collected applicable sales taxes, nor reported its business income to tax authorities.

That’s why Harriet Riggs felt entitled to make her gin and tonic a double—on the house.

 

Barry Zahn, and his man boobs, was mocked for the foolish old man that he was

 

When she turned around to walk back into the library she looked over and saw none other than Barry Zahn, with his goofy smile, walking over to her.

Oh, God, not this asshole, she thought.

“Harriet!” Barry Zahn said. “Good morning!”

“What brings you to the library?” she asked. “I didn’t know you were acquainted with the alphabet, let alone how to assemble the string the letters together?”

“That’s funny!”

Barry Zahn’s man boobs always distracted her. This morning was no different; she was mesmerized by the way his nipples jiggled like jelly as he spoke. On more than one occasion Harriet Riggs thought she should buy him a training bra from Victoria’s Secret as a birthday present—for herself.

“I wasn’t joking,” she said, taking a sip of her gin and tonic. “What do you want?”

“I wanted to get permission to put up posters for Mérida Rouge’s conference on climate change,” he said.

Barry Zahn was such a brainless follower of people like Nancy Anza and Ellen Fields that he was known about town as Barry Zahn-bie. Harriet Riggs joked that he should wear a dog collar to make leading him on a leash that much easier.

“If you want, Barry, leave them with me,” she said, smiling. “I’ll find the perfect place to put them.”

“That’s great!” the idiot said, enthusiastically.

Harriet Riggs smiled and it occurred to her that if this fool left town, everyone would be better off. She was staring at his tits jiggle underneath his polo shirt when a devilish idea occurred to her.

“May I borrow your cell phone?” she asked.

“Why?”

“The battery on my iPhone died,” she lied. “Those darn iPhones! I’m glad Steve Jobs is dead. Saves me the trouble of killing the fool!”

“I know what you mean,” he replied.

She raised her hand and he, like an apocalyptic zombie, handed her his cell phone. Then he excused himself to use the men’s room.

“It’s no longer the size of a walnut, is it?” she said.

“My prostate?”

“No, you’re brain,” she replied.

He laughed, trying to make the most of the reality that not unlike most men his age Barry Zahn was suffering from more frequent urination.

She watched as he walked away and it made her happy.

 

Not unlike many expats in town, Harriet Riggs was hot for Ray Kelly and often masturbated to a fantasy about going down on the law enforcement stud

 

Harriet looked at the cell phone, searched for the navigator, and asked Siri for the New York City police number. (“The NYPD non-emergency switchboard number is 646-610-5000,” the knowledge navigator said.) She was about to dial the number when it occurred to her that the NYPD was filled with smart people. Ever since Ray Kelly whipped the department into shape, it was hard to pull a fast one over New York’s police. (Harriet Riggs had the hots for Ray Kelly, even if he did look like Popeye. She was fond of masturbating to the fantasy that she was a bad girl and Officer Kelly first frisked her, then made her strip, searched her every cavity, and then made her go down on his rock-hard baton.) He had a certain appeal she found hard to describe.

She reconsidered calling the NYPD. Then it occurred to her: everyone knew the Port Authority Police Department was comprised of idiot cops. (“The main number for the Port Authority Police Department is 212-435-7000,” Siri said in her monotonous voice.) She dialed the number and, for absolutely no reason other than just to have a little bit of fun, reported there had been gunfire at Terminal 8 at JFK airport. (“It’s an attack! Like Brussels! Like Istanbul!” the volunteer librarian stated with conviction. “I can confirm it! Gunfire! Gunmen! It’s a terror attack! Terminal 8!”) If she could not fuck with New York, what was the point of being an empowered American woman?

Then she hung up.

When Barry Zahn returned from the men’s room, he wanted to engage in small talk. Harriet Riggs was not having any of it. (When he said he was thinking of running for the board of a gringo charity, she replied she didn’t care about his running for whatever the fuck; he frowned.) She handed him his cell phone and tried to get him to be on his way.

“The posters,” he said. “You won’t forget, will you?”

“Forget anything that has to do with Nancy?” she laughed, sipping her gin and tonic. “Oh, Barry, never, ever!”

Happy, the man and his man boobs were on their way. Harriet Riggs looked on with disgust across her face. Barry Zahn was guilty of the one unforgivable transgression: He was a bore.

No wonder so many people called him Boring Zahn-bie.

After she finished her drink, she walked out of that mess of library and got in her car. She had an appointment to meet Elizabeth Silva, a Chicago native who moved to Mérida a few months back, eager to make it big as a realtor. She had promised to help Harriet Riggs find a more gracious home if, in return, Harriet Riggs allowed her to promote her real estate venture among the library’s members.

As he turned right on Calle 47, a few blocks from Paseo de Montejo, she heard a news bulletin on Sirius radio. “Police in New York are investigating what caused people to report hearing gunshots at John F. Kennedy Airport, the city’s busiest. The report, confirmed only by the PAPD and not the NYPD, triggered a series of evacuations of several terminals and caused panic among passengers. The PAPD’s confirmation that shots had been fired inside the terminal triggered New York’s ‘Active Shooter’ plan. Hundreds of flights were cancelled or delayed and thousands of passengers were evacuated from the terminals affected. After an hour, however, the NYPD Special Operation issued the following statement on its Twitter account: ‘JFK UPDATE: All terminals searched & cleared. Negative results. All affected terminals will resume operations shortly. No shots were fired.’ Normal operations are expected to resume tomorrow morning.”

Harriet Riggs was delighted with herself: What fun!

 

Thousands of terrified passengers fled JFK terminals on a fake “active shooter” non-event

 

She hoped the authorities would trace the crank phone call to Boring Zahn-bie’s cell phone. This was not the first time that Harriet Riggs had called in a false terror event, of course. She did these things on occasion because she thought it was her civic duty to do these things; it gave law enforcement the opportunity to put into action all those wonderful plans to keep the public safe from terrorist attacks that never materialized.

“If you buy an umbrella and it never rains, you might as well use it in the shower!” she had told friends on several occasions. “And if you’re going to spend a billion bucks to defend New York against imaginary terrorist threats, the least you could do is have a few fake drills to justify your hysterical approach to law enforcement!”

She pulled up to Oliva Enoteca, on the corner of Calle 47. She loved the place. She wanted to share it with Elizabeth Silva, especially since the Chicago native said she wanted to treat Harriet Riggs to a fun wine bar. Harriet Riggs thought it was a great opportunity to enjoy some fine wines. After all, Claire Wentworth always told her that, in the spirit of Diana Vreeland, they should always strive to share something marvelous.

Oliva was marvelous and she wanted to share it.

“Oh, Harriet, it’s so good to see you,” Elizabeth Silva said the moment Harriet Riggs walked in.

 

Elizabeth Silva, a new expat in town, moved to Mexico to be able to kidnap her own daughter after a judge in Illinois ruled her ex-husband was the more competent parent

 

Elizabeth Silva, a woman in her mid-50s, had been twice divorced. She had two children, one in college and the other with living with her ex-husband. Child Protective Services testified on her husband’s behalf, arguing that he was the fit parent for the coupe’s twelve year old daughter; the judge, whom she considered to be a short-dicked misogynist, agreed.

She had arrived in Mérida, determined to make a go of it and, when she was back on her feet, have she wanted her daughter come down for a visit. It was her plan to then take custody of her daughter. It was her plan to keep her daughter in Mexico, believing it would be a difficult matter for her husband to enforce divorce court ruling issued in Illinois. Why would a Mexican court enforce a ruling issued by an American judge who ordered a mother to be separated from her daughter?

Indeed, she was convinced that no Mexican court would take a child away from her mother. This made her confident, especially the realization that she could use Mexico to exact vengeance on her no-good husband. That no-good asshole had turned her in after she came home with opioids she had stolen from three houses when she spent one day going to eight open houses around town.

“I see you’ve started enjoying the wine!” Harriet Riggs said with a laugh. “Don’t blame you! The wine here is terrific!”

“Yes, it is!” Elizabeth Silva said. “I needed a drink—I hope you don’t mind. I was such a wreck!”

“Why would I mind?”

Harriet Riggs didn’t care how much this alcoholic Midwesterner drank; she wasn’t picking up the tab.

“Haven’t you heard?” the angry divorcee said. “It’s happening all over again!”

“Heard what? What’s happening all over again?”

“The police thwarted terrorist attack in New York!” she said, hand trembling as she took a sip of wine. “The police stopped at Brussels-style massacre at JFK!”

“Oh, Liz,” Harriet Riggs said, taking a seat. “That was a false alarm! It was all bullshit! There was no active shooter!”

“Bullshit?” she said, offended.

Harriet Riggs snapped her fingers to get the IMONC’s attention. She was beginning to realize her new best friend du jour was a hysteric. She was going to need a good pharmacist if she was going to adjust to living in Mérida.

“I mean, Liz, no shots were fired,” the volunteer librarian said. “It was all a false report, as I said.”

“Well, just because there wasn’t a terrorist attack doesn’t mean that people, at that time and in that moment, didn’t believe it was real and believe they were in imminent danger!” she protested. “In their minds they were under attack and their bodies reacted to the terror as if they would have responded had it been real.”

Thank fucking God I had a gin and tonic before driving over here, Harriet Riggs thought.

“Really?”

“Do you see my hand shaking?” she asked.

It was trembling slightly.

“Parkinson’s?”

“Parkinson’s?” Elizabeth Silva protested. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Then what?”

“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” she said. “I’m suffering PTSD from the faux attack at Terminal 8 at JFK! I already took two sedatives—and this is my third glass of wine.”

It then occurred to Harriet Riggs that if PTSD was treatable with sedatives and wine, it might be something worth acquiring.

“How long have you been suffering from PTSD?” the inquisitive volunteer librarian wanted to know, just to make a few mental notes.

“Well, for years I was a wreck, but I didn’t know why,” she said. “And it wasn’t until Mary Fetchet told me that I suffered from PTSD that I realized she was right.”

 

Mary Fetchet’s political power depended on recruiting more and more 9/11 victims, especially since so many first-responders were dying of cancer, diminishing the ranks of her fan base

 

“Mary Fetchet?” Harriet Riggs said. “That name sounds familiar.”

“It should,” Elizabeth Silva said. “Mary is one of the founders of the Voices of September 11.”

“Oh, now I know who you mean,” Harriet Riggs said, her lips pursed. “The 9/11 charlatan.”

“What?”

The IMONC placed a glass of wine in front of Harriet Riggs.

“She’s that woman dedicated to recruiting more 9/11 victims for a living,” Harriet Riggs said. “She’s the one promoting victimhood for profit, right?”

“What’s wrong with that?” Elizabeth Silva asked. “Sometimes people don’t know they’ve been victimized until someone points it out to them. I mean, I had been living with PTSD and I thought it was, I don’t know, menopause or something.”

“But it wasn’t menopause.”

“Of course not,” the aspiring realtor said. “It was full-blown PTSD.”

“I see.”

“And Mary told me all about her ‘Help Us Enroll One More’ program.”

“Help us enroll one more what?” Harriet Riggs asked.

“One more 9/11 victim, of course!”

“One more victim?”

“It’s not too late, you know,” Elizabeth Silva said. “It’s still possible to sign up and be a victim of 9/11. In fact, there’s a recruiting campaign going on right now. We need all the 9/11 victims we can get when lobbying Congress for more money.”

“But didn’t 9/11 happen almost fifteen years ago?” Harriet Riggs said, confused. “How can you be a victim at this stage?”

 

New York was desperate to enlist more victims of September 11, in order to continue to shake down Congress for more money

 

“Harriet, medical science has progressed much since last century,” she began, making eye contact with the IMONC to order more wine. “Today we understand that PTSD can be triggered by many things and can take years to develop. Remember, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which catalogues all psychological illnesses, first made mentioned of the term only in relation to brain injuries caused by force or electric shock, but that was back in 1952, the Dark Ages of psychological knowledge.”

“Really?” Harriet Riggs asked, intrigued.

“The 1940s and 1950s were an age of ignorance,” Elizabeth Silva pointed out. “That’s when perfectly normal things were treated with shocking hostility!”

“Like what?”

“Like what?” Elizabeth Silva repeated.

The IMONC appeared. Elizabeth Silva ordered two bottles of wine, to make efficient use of time. Harriet Riggs liked her new best friend du jour even more after she ordered two bottle of wine, even if she was a PTSD 9/11 hysteric.

“Yes, like what?”

“Well, like all kinds of things!” she protested.

She didn’t look too happy, being forced to think of something sensible to say.

“Well, how about Rose Williams?” Elizabeth Silva finally asked, with rhetorical flair.

“Who?”

“Her brother was famous playwright, that cocksucker, Tennessee,” she said.

“Oh, yes,” Harriet Riggs said, remembering.

“Rose, like a healthy, normal teenager was fond of masturbating—and her mother had her lobotomized for it!” Elizabeth Silva said. “A young woman, in the process of self-empowerment by enjoying the pleasure of her own pussy, and she’s treated as if she were insane. America in the 1940s was a land of savages.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Harriet Riggs said. “If women were to be punished for masturbating, they would have placed Cyndi Lauper on death row by now, since that bitch is always playing her danger zone!”

The IMONC appeared with both bottles of wine.

“And we continued to live like savages until 1980 when the DSM’s third edition recognized PTSD for the first time, although the definition of what constituted a ‘traumatic event’ was relegated to an event that had to be ‘outside the range of usual human experience’ and also severe enough to ‘evoke significant symptoms of distress in almost everyone.’”

Harriet Riggs was impressed. As far as she was concerned, someone who was so knowledgeable about their faux illness was either an accomplished hypochondriac or a first-rate con artist.

“My God, Liz, you’re an authority!”

“More than that, Harriet,” she said. “I’m an advocate of ‘concept creep,’ fighting for the continual expansion of diagnoses for greater inclusion of anything and everything.”

“That’s commendable!” Harriet Riggs said.

“Ever since Mary opened my eyes to the possibilities of being a victim of 9/11, I’m there!” she said. “I’m the most devoted 9/11 victim you could ever imagine!”

Harriet Riggs, of course, was not entirely ignorant of PTSD; working at the Mérida English Library of Scams was a stressful job and sometimes she had meltdowns. Indeed, she had lost sleep, in a very PTSD, fashion when the library had been sued by a Mexican citizen Dan Karnes had swindled on behalf of the library. The Mexican, poor fool, had purchased hundreds of books and paid for their delivery to the library on the promise that the library would reimburse him. That never happened, of course, and after years of back and forth, he sued the library for fraud.

“What do you mean by ‘possibilities’ of being a victim?” she asked.

“It’s simple,” she began. “If you are an official victim of 9/11, then you are entitled to all the financial benefits of being a victim of 9/11 since our country honors and stands by all the heroes of 9/11 and their families.”

“Benefits?”

“Money, hello?” Elizabeth Silva said. “You can’t very well be a victim without being—”

“—compensated?”

“Well, of course!” she said. “What’s the point of being a victim if you’re not going to be compensated for it? If you’re going to be a victim for free, that’s stupid! For instance, I’m going to document this debilitating trembling in my hand—a recurrent traumatic episode that was triggered by the attempted terrorist attack on JFK yesterday—in order to have a chronology of my compromised life suffering from PTSD!”

“Document?”

“In my journal,” she said, as she filled up the women’s wine glasses. “It’s like a diary, except it’s filled with the scandalous details of my life.”

“Journal? Diary?” the confused volunteer librarian asked.

“I have to document every single episode, the better to substantiate my status as a 9/11 victim,” the faux 9/11 victim said.

“Where you in New York on 9/11?”

“Who cares?”

“Doesn’t the federal government care?”

“Harriet, if you were alive on 9/11 and had a pulse, then you fulfill the criteria to be a bona fide victim,” she said. “That’s the beauty of Mary’s program of signing up one more victim, don’t you see?”

Then it dawned on Harriet Riggs: Voices of September 11 was an organization that certified 9/11 “victims” in order to shakedown the federal government.

She loved it. She admired the simple brilliance of such an outrageous scam.

“Where were you on 9/11?” Harriet Riggs asked.

“My ex-husband and I were on vacation at the Four Seasons in Sydney,” she replied.

“Australia?”

“Of course!”

“And you’re a 9/11 victim?” Harriet Riggs asked.

“Well, I was so traumatized by seeing the towers fall over cocktails in the lobby bar that I, years later, developed PTSD,” she said. “I remember like it was yesterday.”

“You do?

“Why, yes!” she said, taking a gulp of her wine. “At 8:46 AM, New York time, Mohammed Atta and the other hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the 93-99 floors of the North Tower. Seventeen minutes later, Australian television interrupted regular programming to report on the terrorist attacks taking place.”

“Really?”

“Do you know what time that was?” she asked.

“In Australia?”

“Sydney is fourteen hours ahead of New York,” she explained. “At 11:03 PM, Australian time, we first saw reports in the bar at the Four Seasons where we were having our late-night drinks.”

“I can understand your reaction—to have drinks interrupted!” the volunteer librarian said, shuddering at the thought.

“Tell me about it!” she said. “It was very, very traumatic!”

“I can believe it!”

“I was so upset, I couldn’t have a drink for days, can you imagine?”

“I can see how your PTSD developed—forced into sobriety at a time when we didn’t know what was happening!” the volunteer librarian said.

“I’m glad you understand!” she replied. “You’d be surprised at the number of people who doubt that I’m a 9/11 victim because I wasn’t in New York or Washington on 9/11.”

“But I don’t doubt your victim status, and I’m glad you’re a protected class!” Harriet Riggs said.

“Do you know what’s happening next month in New York?”

“What?”

“Dr. Steve Cozza, Associate Director, Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Uniformed Services University, is presenting his research paper on the kind of PTSD that I have!” she said.

“What?” Harriet Riggs asked, surprised.

“I have it here,” Elizabeth Silva said, reaching for her tablet.

Harriet Riggs poured herself more wine while Elizabeth Silva searched her notes. The aspiring realtor looked up and handed her friend her tablet.

“Read it,” she asked the volunteer librarian.

 

Steve Cozza specialized in the long-term impact of bereavement due to terrorism, which is radically different from long-term impact of bereavement due to non-terrorism

 

“Sharing our Findings: Investigating the Long-Term Impact of Bereavement Due to Terrorism: Factors that Contribute to Trauma, Grief, Growth, and Resilience,” Harriet Riggs said.

“I’m still processing my grief,” she said. “All these years later—and for decades to come.”

“Decades to come?”

“Oh, Harriet, I intend to be a 9/11 victim for decades to come!”

“And what does Professional Hysteric Mary Fetchet says qualifies as PTSD?” Harriet Riggs asked. “A bad hair day?”

“I suppose it can, a bad hair day. Yes, it can! If you have a bad hair day on an important day and you stress out about having a bad hair day on an important day,” Elizabeth Silva said with authority. “That can lead to the development of debilitating PTSD.”

“Does Listening to Rihanna give you PTSD?” Harriet Riggs asked.

“Listening to Rihanna can give anyone PTSD!” Elizabeth Silva answered.

Harriet Riggs agreed with that; she felt sorry for all the PTSD that Chris Brown must be suffering after being forced to slap Rihanna around just to shut that needy bitch up.

“Really?”

“Harriet, trust me on this one,” she said. “You should sign up and become a 9/11 victim. It’s the best financial move I ever made!”

“Financial move?”

“Of course!” Elizabeth Silva said. “To have Mary and her group lobby Congress for more money year after year? It’s a dream come true!”

Elizabeth Silva suspected that that when she kidnapped her daughter the following year should something go wrong, she could always use her certified 9/11 PTSD as a defense.

Harriet Riggs was delighted to have Elizabeth Silva as her best friend du jour. And she vowed to enroll as a 9/11 victim the moment she got home by logging on to www.voicesofseptember11.org and searching for the “Help Us Enroll One More!” campaign. She also planned to read up on the 9/11 WTC Health Program to learn all the talking points she needed to fast track her application. Harriet Riggs would be surprised when she found out that registering as a victim of 9/11 was easier than getting a library card.

Her friend summoned the IMONC to order another bottle of wine—and some olives, cheeses, and breads. Harriet Riggs felt a tinge of guilt, seeking financial profit from the trivialization of PTSD and scamming the federal government, but that could be solved with a couple of additional bottles of wine.

If the United States had embarked on over-medicalizing the human experience and making the trauma of a bad hair day into a psychiatric disorder, she was ready to go along with the ride.

All the way to the PTSD bank.

She reached for the bottle of wine and realized that her hand now trembling slightly.

PTSD? The power of suggestion? Was she channeling her Acting 101 from college?

“Oh, Harriet!” Elizabeth Silva said, shocked.

“What?”

“Your hand!”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re suffering from delayed onset of trauma!” Elizabeth Silva explained. “You’re only now experiencing the terror of the attempted terrorist attack at JFK, Harriet!”

“I am?” she asked.

“You are!”

“I am!” she asserted. “It’s all coming back to me! The horror of 9/11is all coming back to me! Flight 11! Flight 93! The Pentagon! That hole in the ground in Wherever, Pennsylvania! The pancaking of the Twin Towers! The deliberate detonation of World Trade Center 7 by the Bush administration!”

“There you go!” Elizabeth Silva said.

Harriet Riggs looked at her left hand as it trembled slightly.

“I’ll be your witness, Harriet,” she said. “You have just suffered through a 9/11 PTSD episode.”

“Yes, that’s what it was!” the volunteer librarian said, bordering on opportunism. “I believe I have PTSD like so many, many 9/11 victims!”

“And it took the foiled terrorist attack at JFK to bring it all back to you,” Elizabeth Silva said.

And Elizabeth Silva was right: Harriet Riggs had no reason to be ashamed of being a 9/11 victim.