When I came back to New York City after having been in Andalusia, it took me longer to get into the city than it had for me to get from Atlanta to New Jersey. Why?
Because of the communists. Fidel Castro was in the city for the UN convention. Yuck.
Communism. Scary stuff. The bad guys. “The evil empire,” as Ronald Reagan called them.
As a child, I feared the communists worse than Yankees, worse than my third-grade classmate Burke “The Killer” Hulsey, worse even than having to eat my Aunt Agnes’s potato salad.
The communists were the ones responsible for everything bad in the entire world (except for Sonny & Cher). The communists were why I had to hide under my desk and put a science book over my head periodically in school (as if my earth-science book could deflect a direct hit from a nuclear warhead).
But then when I was 11 years old, I learned on average, there are 7.5 guns in every household in the Great State of Alabama. I figured that if the commies ever did attack, we could defend ourselves. In fact, if the fools had come up through the panhandle, it would have been a sport. I can see the bubbas now: dressed up in fatigues, painted faces, driving a calvary of dilapidated pick-up trucks, and hollering into their CB radios, “Hey Dwain, we got us another Ruskie out here on the bypass! Whole!” A godless-commie sneak attack would amount to target practice in Alabama.
In sixth grade, a visiting Yankee cretin, T. J. Eckleburg asked me, “Why would the communists want to invade Andalusia anyway?”
He was a man of limited vision, clearly.
“Well, there’s the armory,” I correctly pointed out.
“So?” he asked.
“There’s the domino tournament–maybe the communists like dominos,” I stated firmly.
“Whatever,” Eckleburg said.
“It’s the fastest route from the capitol to the beaches and therefore it is the fastest route from the beaches to the cradle of the Confederacy, Montgomery. Those commies probably know that if they got Montgomery, we’d be devastated,” I correctly reasoned.
“You Alabamians just don’t get it,” Eckleburg sneered (he was from Queens), “nobody in the USSR even knows where Alabama is!”
My first instinct was to take off my seersucker jacket and smite Eckleburg on the head with my earth science book. But being an 11-year-old gentleman-in-training, I simply turned to my classmates and said, “Eckleburg is a communist wuss.” At that point, Burke Hulsey decided to smite Eckleburg for me. Sneer tactics–they work.
Later, I did find out that Andalusia must be a center for western thought and power.
Why else would a Triton nuclear warhead be dropped on our city? You tell me. I’m not kidding here: two years ago, the United States Navy was testing nuclear missiles in the Gulf of Mexico. They shot one up, and the son of a gun landed between Gant and Andalusia.
Naturally, it wasn’t armed–but what does this say to you? Coincidence? I think not. I can only surmise that it was a commie plot to test the feasibility of microwaving South Alabama.
I ran this theory by Oliver Stone at a cocktail party here in Manhattan, and he said it sounded like a good movie plot.
So there Eckleberg, wherever you are.
But since I’ve been researching this story, I’ve noticed some disturbing things.
Yesterday I went to a party at the fancy apartment of Alexander Eristoff, a member of the Russian exiled aristocracy (don’t ask how I got to go). Mr. Eristoff’s family was made royalty by Peter the Great. As you can probably imagine, the Eristoff apartment is a little bigger than mine. Mr. Eristoff is a man who isn’t really fond of the communists seeing as how if it weren’t for Lenin, he’d still be sitting pretty in some Russian palace. Come to think of it, the communists probably aren’t really fond of him, either.
This notion got me a little concerned. I’m not paranoid, it’s just that everyone is out to get me. At night, I look under my bed for communists.
I wondered if his apartment was bugged. I decided to speak into the plants and light fixtures just to make sure they weren’t tapped. In the bathroom, I made faces at anyone who might be behind the mirror. Finally, I whispered “One Adam Twelve, One Adam
Twelve” to the Eristoff’s dog to see if it might bark back to me in code–it licked my face, which I took as a good sign.
But when I got home, things looked bleak. There was a message on my answering machine that said, “Andalusia must not know about operation ‘Square Dig-Up.”‘ My car keys were missing this morning. Sonny & Cher were playing on the radio. My shoes feel too tight. As I was faxing this article, I got a phone call that hung up before I could answer. . . I think it’s a plot! A conspiracy! A cavalcade of treacherous communist schemes designed to thwart a great American like me from telling the truth to the people of Andalusia.
So Andalusia, if you don’t hear from me next week get together a posse of bubbas to come to save me. And remember–Castro flew over Andy to get to that little island of his.