"Everything you’re guaranteed in this life. Plus – as an added bonus – the only thing necessary for human existence, air."

An elegant lunch in the brain of Charlie Culpepper meant the Jim Dandy Special at Jimmy’s Diner down in Fells Point. A half pound burger, fries with gravy, and a large Coke. Cholesterol and bliss on a plate.

            As we made our way down the dingy, poorly lit stairs to the street, the humor of the situation wore off and the duplicitousness of it seemed to manifest itself. I’d seen rehearsed irrationality before, but this was so obviously fraudulent that I don’t know how she kept a straight face. Just how naive did she think we were? No hard evidence of any kind. Not the usual, “he goes out of town on meetings every weekend and comes home with ladies undergarments.” No sudden expenses. No bills from other residences. Nothing. Indeed, what virile man in his right mind would give that toned, nearly perfect female the ole heave ho? She was hot in a trashy, Belair Road sort of  way. Most middle aged women would kill for a shape like that. And I suspect Charlie wondered about that too, but he wasn’t talking.

            When we hit the street, the accident was gone. All cleaned up. Just some idle gossipers hanging around talking about what they’d seen, what they would’ve done in a similar circumstance. The usual second guessing.

            The walk down Broadway was its normal distracting self. From the H&S Bakery, the hunger-inducing aroma of cinnamon bread mingled with the stench of tugboats’ diesels churning out in the harbor. A young, black, presumably homeless man was selling envelopes to passersby with the description that in them were the secrets of life. Charlie looked at the young fellow and thoughtfully handed him a crumbled dollar bill.

            “Ah,” the hustler said, “Soon you’ll know everything.“ He smiled. Charlie nodded and opened his envelope. It was empty.

            “Look Norman,” he said with a game show inflection, “everything you’re guaranteed in this life. Plus—as an added bonus, the only thing necessary for human existence—air.”

            “You’ll only encourage him.”

            “He needs encouragement, if he’s going to be a senator someday.”

            The existential hustler fit perfectly into Charlie’s cosmology and I understand his point. There is a kinky form of cynicism that is endemic here that seems different than other parts of America. It’s the realization that everybody has an angle. I only started to understand this viewpoint recently and I credit Charlie and his profession with that. Through his viewer, my world changed. Even the smallest things were manifestations of a larger truth.

            I can now rationalize fraud on an institutional level. It is my aspirin for dealing with the headaches of life. In a city as seemingly corrupt as my newly adopted home, all the day to day, Soviet-style lies seem relatively normal. And if  Ms. Hyphenated-Inbreeding would have just said “give me some dirt so I can take all of my old man’s money,” I’d have bought it. That makes sense and commands a certain respect, if only for the honesty of the request. Her story though, based on the idea that anybody really cared about losing an unfaithful mate in post-AIDS America, was beyond credulity. It was bullshit in a designer suit.