Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned by Kinky Friedman Page B

peculiar truth.
    "Now what in the world," I asked, not unreasonably, "has Donald Trump got to do with this?"
    "Trump owns Trump Towers. It was his property and his people who had Teddy arrested and put away in the nuthouse. I'm going to teach Trump that he'd better learn to forgive those who trespass against him. Besides, I never much liked people who always put their names all over buildings. And I don't like the buildings. And there's just a bunch of Gucci crap that nobody can really afford and nobody really needs inside those buildings and it makes everybody who visits here believe that all this capitalistic detritus is what America's all about and they're the only ones who buy it anyway because they want to be how they think we are and it's all Donald Trump's fault."
    "Can't argue with that," I said. I wasn't exactly sure what she'd said but it had sounded pretty convincing.
    "Don't look so worried, Sunshine," she said brightly. "I'll take care of Trump and you look after Fox. It's as simple as that. The courthouse is only a few blocks from here, you know."
    "But I've never bailed anybody out before."
    "Good. It'll be on-the-job training. By the way, I thought you were wonderful today. The diversion worked perfectly. Then you got Teddy on his way safely. Then you even came back and got me. And I'm glad that you did. I'm very, very proud of you, Sunshine. If I still believed in heroes, I swear, you'd be mine."
    "I'm nobody's hero," I said. "I'm just trying to figure out what I'm doing and why I'm doing what I'm doing. I mean, these little hobbies of yours and Fox's seem to be becoming increasingly dangerous. The risk involved this morning, as we've already seen, proved to be extremely dangerous."
    "Dangerous, yes," said Clyde, taking my hand in hers across the table. "But the most dangerous thing in the world is to run the risk of waking up one morning and realizing suddenly that all this time you've been living without really and truly living and by then it's too late. When you wake up to that kind of realization, it's too late for wishes and regrets. It's even too late to dream."
    In her eyes, I could easily see her concern for me. It was almost as if she thought that I, not Fox, was the one who was languishing in prison, and maybe I was. She gave my hand a quick squeeze. It worked again. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw her smiling at me in a sad-happy way, like a circus clown smiling at a crippled kid. There was such kindness in that smile. If everybody would have stopped what they were doing for a moment to notice, it probably could have warmed the whole city of New York.
    The waiter came and I paid the check and we walked out of the restaurant and drifted down Mulberry Street like two shadows in the cold golden sunlight. I had my arm around Clyde now and I had no illusions that I could control whatever was going to happen. We walked together for a while and looked in windows but I never knew if I was seeing what she was.
    I kissed her hair in front of the Church of the Most Precious Blood. Then I kissed her precious hands. My "well-grounded sense of judgment" was telling me that something was wrong with this picture but I ignored it with little conscious effort. It was like a still, small voice speaking to me across my alcoholic dark ages with a message something to the effect of this: that this woman was a ticket for the train to hell. I now realize that no other person can truly be considered a ticket to hell. You choose the path to hell right from the restaurant menu. Then you select the person you wish to travel that path with you.
    We walked hand in hand down a block or two, past several funeral homes, onto a small street that ran alongside a park. On one side, young black boys were playing basketball. On the other side, old Italian men were playing boccie ball. I recall vividly the image of Clyde standing in that little park feeding the pretzel I'd bought her to the birds and the squirrels.
    "Be