Suburgatory

by Linda Keenan

  The other tenet of the American Nazi Party is social justice for the White working class. “Of course, I believe that the White working man is now nothing more than a wage-slave, tax-cow, and cannon fodder, with their White babies forced to suck off the teat of the Jew-controlled formula-industrial complex,” said Tipton.

  “The only problem with this one …” she whispered, “is that I grew up in [the posh Connecticut suburb] Darien, so it’s a little hard for me to talk the talk on the working man stuff, you know, The People of the Folk, and all that. And not to be a total bitch, but I have such nice teeth compared to my White brothers and sisters who believe as I do. So, yes, I really am the ‘Aryan from Darien!’ But you know, we hated Jews there, too.”

  SHOUT OUT

  I Am Certified Not Muslim …

  And I Love Your Feminine Area!

  Dr. Vijay Singh is a Harvard-trained gynecologist who practices at the Marley Street office building.

  Greetings, gentle townswomen! I am passionate about your genital and reproductive health and have been trained at the finest institutions, including the Harvard Medical School. Despite my proven commitment to ladies’ health, there seems to be some confusion about just who I am.

  I am a doctor first, a Sikh second, and certifiably not a Muslim. Sikhs are not Muslims. Trust me, Muslims are as strange to me as they are to you! I do have brown skin and I wear a turban, but I am not Osama bin Laden coming at you with a speculum, like some of you seem to think I am! And remember he is dead anyway. A turban is not a message that says, “I’m about to kill you, infidel American.” It’s just part of my religion and identity. I don’t look at all those baseball caps everywhere and think Red Sox Nation is coming to get me, even if it sure seems that way sometimes.

  Now to be fair we Sikhs have our terrorists, too, like the Muslims—one of them killed Gandhi’s daughter! That probably didn’t sound very good. But really, don’t you ladies know that we all have crazies in our shared genetic pool? I don’t see the British throwing cans of spotted dick at every Irish person they see. So yes Sikhs have terrorists, too, but none of them has ever hurt an American that I know of. Those were just a teeny handful of Muslim crazies that killed Americans, and I just happen to look like them! I am part of the 99.9 percent of nice, boring, not-Muslim Sikhs out there.

  In light of the many recent incidents involving ladies seeing my turban and immediately walking out, I am forced to change my cancellation policy. Now that my not-Muslimness and nice, boring qualities are on the public record, you will be charged a fifty-dollar cancellation fee if you decide I am too scary to do your pap smear. For those of you who are fair-minded and can see that I am simply a Sikh who just happens to look exactly like Mohammed Atta and wants nothing more than to keep your insides pink and shiny and healthy, I hope to see you in stirrups very soon.

  PAID ADVERTISER CONTENT

  Bar Mitzvahs by Shiksas

  So! You married a Jew! Maybe fifteen years ago or so? It was your Irish-American mother’s dream come true. “Don’t marry some Irish stumblebum, find a Jew. They make wonderful husbands. They never cheat. Just avoid the ones named Spitzer, Weiner, and Madoff.” Gosh, how did Mom know that? Because she’s Mom, of course, she knows everything!

  But your little not-really Jewish son is almost a man. And that shiksa in you wants a little representin’ at his upcoming bar mitzvah. That’s where Bar Mitzvahs by Shiksas comes in! Founded by goy goddess extraordinaire Erin Goodwin-­Gotbaum, our team of experienced shiksas will show you how to slip your cultural touchstones into the event with only the barest ripple of, “Oh, that’s the shiksa wife at it again.” Well, it’s your not-really Jewish child too, right?

  At Bar Mitzvahs by Shiksas we can make sure that “Danny Boy” and “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” just, you know, accidentally pop up on the DJ list. And of course we’ll have the bar fully stocked. What is with these Jews and their constitutional inability to get down to business and drink? Quite the cross for them to bear, it seems.

  For the Italian American, rest assured that Old Nonna Carnivale’s gravy with meatballs—pork, beef, and cheese meatballs, of course (are there any other kind?)—will suddenly appear on the catering tables. Oh, those kosher guests will never know the difference. Or if they do, they’ll think: Boy, these Italians might be a bunch of thugs but they sure know how to make a meatball. Nonna Carnivale’s meatballs will put that horrible, bland kreplach to shame! And don’t be alarmed, Jewish friends, when never-before-seen paisans—local guys from the shiksa’s own corner of the Old Country—just show up. Because the meatballs are that good. And like Jews, paisans stick together.

  Or what if your heritage is just a bit … trashy? Now for you, no event is complete without Pigs in a Blanket, but your adopted Jewish community might find that a bit … déclassé, and your Pigs sure as hell aren’t kosher either. Well, as we say quite often at Bar Mitzvahs by Shiksas: Tough titties! You, as the shiksa mom, let your child go unbaptized and now he’s probably going straight to hell after death—Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. The least these people can do is eat your Pigs in a Blanket! And with our help, very strong encouragement, and well-toned Shiksa biceps, they will. Oh yes, that’s a promise.

  So call us at Bar Mitzvahs by Shiksas! You can take the girl away from the goys, but you can’t take the goy out of the girl. Embrace it, shiksas! And of course, mazel tov to your wonderful bar mitzvah boy and his loving, attentive, totally faithful, moral, and stone-cold sober Jewish dad.

  Town’s Sole Goth Couple

  Wins Over Hearts, Minds

  Suburgatory, USA—The only teenage goth couple in town, once considered an oddity or even a menace, has won over local citizens with the intensity of their devotion to each other and their lifestyle.

  “Boy, that’s a lot of velvet. They’re like one tangled up unit—oh my God! Look, you can’t see their feet! It’s like they’re floating. Floating weirdo Siamese twins,” said postwoman Julie Serra. She had just delivered mail to resident Frieda Graber. “I didn’t even know there still were goths. I remember way back, that guy with the black hair from that gloomy rock band but then when I saw he got fat, I thought, Well, that’s over. You can’t love food and hate life, right? Hypocrite. But these kids, I think they’re for real.”

  The couple, who go by the names “Thanatos” and “Sylvrefyre,” first came to be known at Wagner High School by their refusal to separate during the school day.

  “These two were a couple of losers before they found each other. They were sad plus scary, to be totally honest. Like, maybe not Columbine scary, but … you know, like small-to medium-size time bombs. And now look at ’em.”

  Principal Gary Briscoe gestured to the couple, who were sitting silently on the basketball court, tracing invisible tear lines down each other’s faces. “Seriously, have you ever seen love like that? So yeah, I made some accommodations for them. I let them stay together and let ’em out of gym. Violates their ‘beliefs’ or whatever. And look what they gave me!”

  He fumbled under paperwork and produced an ornate pendant. “They told me it’s … where’s that Amazon slip … here it is … It’s a … ‘Vladeptus Black Rose Gothic Pendant,’ a ‘stealthy bat who guards the rose noir, whose perfume reeks of death.’ $14.95, on sale. Not bad. Now, I thought that was really thoughtful of them.”

  “I bet the sex is out-of-this-world great, too,” the principal said quietly, apparently not realizing he was on the record. “Wait, do goths have sex?”

  Parents who thought it was a phase that would end with the school year changed their minds during the summer heat. “I saw them walking all the way to Dunkin’ Donuts … in August. All cloaked up and crazy and all. I mean, a goth in August? That’s commitment,” said Seena Murray. “It’s a little sad because I remember Ashley—sorry I mean Sylvrefyre—when she was little and she was so pretty. I can still see that face, though, no matter how much of that insane makeup she puts on.”

  The couple tries to speak as little as p
ossible, but did issue a written statement: “We are thankful that the doomed, beautiful, and terrible people of this town have embraced us, and in return, we will honor their life essence long after their corpses begin their spectacular, eternal rot.”

  The one citizen not won over by Thanatos and Sylvrefyre is thirty-five-year-old Gina Hartnett, a former goth herself, who serves the couple at Dunkin’ Donuts. “Oh, please. I hated life before those brats were even born,” said Hartnett. “They’ll be at one of those fancy weirdo colleges like [nearby] Hampshire College before you know it.” Hartnett traded her goth getup for a Dunkin’ Donuts uniform several years ago, after running out of tuition money for Green Valley Community College when her father was incarcerated for meth production. “You want to really understand the excruciatingly awful pain of being alive? Spend eight hours making Coolattas. And go home with donut smell that won’t wash off. Try that for a few weeks, posers.”

  “Funny Racist Lady” Enchants Prominent Black Townsman

  Suburgatory, USA—A woman couldn’t contain her racist statements when encountering a black dad in town today, but rather than finding her offensive, the dad found her to be delightfully funny.

  Kellie Alda is a kindhearted and irrepressible mother of two who is so disturbed by racism that when she actually interacts with a person of another race—which is rare in this community—she can’t stop herself from injecting her darkest racial preoccupations into the conversation.

  She first saw Deshaun Watson and his daughter Amahlia while standing next to them at the annual marathon.

  “Oh hi! Good morning!” she said, holding the hands of her twins, Peter and Emma.

  “So … What’s a black guy like you doing in a place like this?” she asked, laughing nervously.

  Watson stared at her quizzically. “Just showing my daughter the marathon.”

  Five-year-old Peter looked up at Watson very gravely and said, “Are you a jigaboo?”

  Alda’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh my God! Peter! How mortifying, I’m so so sorry. I’ve been trying to teach Peter and Emma about the history and legacy of racism, which is a hugely important issue to me, so I was telling him all the nasty names for brown people that they should never use: sambos, coons, coloreds, negroes, blackies, jigaboos, jungle bunny, macaca, and you know, the big one, the N-one.”

  “Yeah, Peter, you might want to forget those other words and just stick with ‘black,’” said Watson.

  After a few moments, Alda leaned over and said, “I hope seeing this doesn’t bother you.”

  “Seeing a marathon?” asked Watson.

  Alda said, “Well, maybe I’m just really sensitive to race, but it’s like a white power rally to me. There’s a few black people being chased by an army of white people. I mean, I know it’s a marathon and all but doesn’t it look a little weird to you? Like they’re out to run down and lynch those poor Kenyans? Not that these Kenyans are poor. I’m sure they are rich in Kenya—I’ve seen them running on National Geographic—I mean—oh my God—I mean, on ESPN. They don’t wear shoes, but it’s by choice—better for running I guess! It’s not that they can’t afford it, hahahaha.”

  Alda never asked Watson what he did for a living, because, “I would just never want to ask a black gentleman what he does for a living. I mean, you don’t want to make them uncomfortable if they aren’t working, or doing something, you know, well you know, something else. This guy did seem kind of like a Mr. Mom. Which is great because, you know, black guys aren’t always so great on the dad thing let’s be honest… . What a fine man.”

  Later on, she saw Watson again at the park with Amahlia. Their familiar greeting attracted the interest of other park-goers. “Those moms are whispering and trying to hide their pointing! How disgusting, how utterly disgusting,” said Alda, convinced the other park-goers were racists. “A white mom and a black dad can’t talk to each other without thinking about, you know, interracial porn? No, even worse, I bet they are thinking about Civil War slave porn, which is the sickest thing I’ve ever seen. It was so dirty and wrong and I just can’t ever get it out of my head … and that slave’s upper body, wow, just wow…”

  Watson beamed at her in sheer amazement. “Wanna come back to my house? We’re going to get takeout,” he said.

  “Gee, well, hmmmm,” Alda thought. “Of course!” She whispered to this reporter, “How could I say ‘No’? He’d think I was scared of him, but I wasn’t, of course!”

  As she put the address in her car’s GPS, the system began guiding her away from the park and her own relatively modest neighborhood, and slowly but surely the houses got bigger and bigger until they pulled up at a gated house–complex of no less than twenty-thousand square feet, in the exclusive Westgate community.

  “Oh wait,” Alda said. “Is this guy a manny [male nanny]? But the kid is black, too. Could she be an adopted child of a white family? How many white families choose black babies … not that many … isn’t that awful? What horrible people there are in this world. Wait, could his bosses be … gay men? Hmmm.”

  But as Alda walked in, she slowly passed through a hallway lined with dozens of pictures of Watson in his NFL uniform, a picture here with Bill Clinton, there with Bono and Nelson Mandela. “Ohhhh. So that’s why the people in the park were looking at us? Not because you’re black but because you’re famous?” Alda said.

  “Well, probably a little of both,” said Watson.

  By this reporter’s count, Alda had said a dozen moderate to appallingly racist things. Did it bother Watson?

  “No! She cracks me up. Though not sure about my wife. Kellie’s the first person in town who’s even said the word ‘black’ to me. She just says what the rest of them are thinking and you can tell she’s a sweetheart. Nicest racist white lady I’ve met in a long long time. Who clearly doesn’t know shit about football, but that’s gonna change. She’s getting season tickets.”

  Mom Gives Up Pubic Hair for Lent

  Suburgatory, USA—An area mom is giving up pubic hair for Lent and can’t understand why others don’t see this as perhaps the most appropriate choice to honor the suffering and death of the Lord Savior Jesus Christ.

  “I mean, I’ve never done it, but my husband just mentioned it to me offhand. I know it will involve the flaying of my most sensitive flesh and then very itchy stubble and ingrown hairs. Now if that suffering doesn’t bring me closer to knowing what Christ went through on the cross, well, I don’t know what will,” said Polly Tanner.

  When Tanner told her “small group” of Women of the Word at church of her decision, most seemed stunned and suggested other possibilities such as giving up Starbucks or gossip. “Ha! Not giving up that last one!” Tanner winked. “I really pushed back on them and said [husband] James fully supported my decision. In fact, James even said this to me, ‘I would love you even more than I do now, if I saw how much strength you had in giving up pubic hair to honor Christ.’”

  Regina Clark, known as the most cynical of the church group, said, “Riiiight. Your husband wasn’t actually pushing you toward this idea?”

  Tanner said, “Of course not! I’ve heard ladies take it all off and I’ve thought about doing it and giving up my pubic hair in the past few years. But this year, I really felt God nudge me on my shoulder.”

  Clark said, “You know I love you, Poll, but you’re gonna get a ‘nudge’ the likes of which you will not believe, and it’s not on your shoulder.”

  Tanner replied, “Yeah and isn’t that horrific pain what Lent’s all about?”

  As she made her way to the appointment, Tanner talked about how she has always liked to take good care of herself to honor her Creator, whether it was through maintaining her hair, nails, or teeth. She thought the time had come to add her pudendum to the list.

  “It’s disgusting down there, to be totally honest. Like a hairy smelly swamp monster,” Tanner said.

  Doesn’t God accept her this way?

  “Well, smooth, hairless and clean, that’s how
I was born right? It was only after I turned into a totally out-of-­control trashy sin-crazy teenager that the hairy swamp monster appeared. I’m returning myself to God’s original innocent, perfect vision.”

  Tanner chose the salon where she normally gets her hair cut. She had requested that Cristina, who emigrated from Guatemala, do the waxing. “When they don’t speak English, it’s like they’re not even here,” Tanner whispered. “I just thought it would make things more, you know, socially comfortable.”

  Cristina warmed up the wax and asked Tanner what exactly she wanted.

  Cristina: Brazilian?

  Tanner: What? I’m American.

  Cristina: Clean? You want clean?

  Tanner: Oh yes, clean.

  As Christina began to apply the wax and started ripping, Tanner let the hot pain wash over her. “Wow. Regina sure wasn’t kidding.” The waxing continued in speedy fashion and tears began to collect in Tanner’s eyes. She said, “This was the right thing to do. I really understand suffering, better than I ever have.”

  Once she was mostly finished, Cristina asked Tanner, “The back? You want the back, too? Backdoor?” Once again, Tanner was confused. Cristina struggled to explain that she wanted Tanner to get on all-fours to touch up the buttocks area. “Your husband, he like the butt?”

  Tanner said, “What? I’m doing this for God.”

  Cristina just shook her head and muttered “Pinche gringo pendejo,” which translates to “fucking American idiot.”

  When Polly walked out, James Tanner was waiting for her. “Oh my God!” said Polly. “James never comes to pick me up at the salon! Look, he’s so proud of me.”