RICK EDELSTEIN - IGNORANCE AIN'T BLISS

​Rick Edelstein was born and ill-bred on the streets of the Bronx. His initial writing was stage plays off-Broadway in NYC. When he moved to the golden marshmallow (Hollywood) he cut his teeth writing and directing multi-TV episodes of “Starsky & Hutch,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “Chicago,” “Alfred Hitchcock,” et al. He also wrote screenplays, including one with Richard Pryor, “The M’Butu Affair” and a book for a London musical, “Fernando’s Folly.” His latest evolution has been prose with many published short stories and novellas, including, “Bodega,” “Manchester Arms,” “America Speaks,” “Women Go on,” “This is Only Dangerous,” “Aggressive Ignorance,” “Buy the Noise,” and “The Morning After the Night.” He writes every day as he is imbued with the Judeo-Christian ethic, “A man has to earn his day.” Writing atones.

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Ignorance Ain’t Bliss
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Sometimes talking to you makes me feel like I’m whispering to the deaf.
‘Cause we disagree is no reason to insult me. Come on, the man is ignorant. And to make
matters worse thinks he’s smart. If you ask me he looks like man with legs dogs like to pee on.
Give it a rest, some people are born with less. Can’t blame him for a genealogical inherited trait.
Aggressive ignorance is not an inherited trait.
He must have come in with an over-abundance of lack.
He’s a human aberration.
Sounds like the beginning a rap. Come on, you can’t blame the dude for being born with a serious defect. Accept it.
I am not ready to accept aggressive stupidity particularly when he declares shit is so when it is obviously a fabrication to gratify his ego.
Jung’s rule: Can’t change anything unless you accept it. It’s fate, baby.
I hate, deplore, detest that word, fate. How about destiny, karma? Lets people off the hook when they do some dastardly deed. Oh don’t blame me it’s my karma, fate intervened, it’s my destiny from a previous life, I had no choice. Makes me bilious.
Bilious, dastardly, you’re on a roll. You’ve been watching those old English movies again haven’t you?
He keeps doing what he’s doing to our country, and yes, to quote a movie I saw last night, a dude in a pompous accent dropped something about...to this nation’s honor...
Nation? Jung reverb: A nation is a big, blind worm, has no honor.
We’re in the midst of a tsunami drowning in mediocrity and everybody nods like well-trained seals to say the least.
I’m sure you got one to say the most.
We’re being serenaded into a state of ennui while our foundation is crumbling. Wake the fuck up, this stupid, delusional man is hazardous to our health and well-being.
Oh come on, you’re exaggerating on the side of your prejudices.
On top of that, he’s a bigot.
Everyone who has an opinion about someone else is a bigot.
You’re really going to let him off the hook that easy?
Well, one thing leads to another and before you know it, you come up empty.
Sometimes one thing doesn’t lead to another.
 What does that mean?
 One thing could be just left whistling in the wind to wither.
You got to stop with those late night foreign flics.
Can’t fall asleep without ‘em. The man is an assassin!
You’re hangin’ by a thread. Assassin. Who has he killed lately?
You’ll see. When he feels too much pressure, too much judgment, when his narcissistic chasm isn’t being fed with approval goodies, he’ll get us into a war...but until then...well, how about assassin of the spirit.
Nice ring to it. Assassin of the spirit. I like it.
I’m talking real shit and you’re relishing a turn of words. Complacency leads to complicity.
Hey, man, stupidity has a shelf life. You’re over-reacting. He’s infantile.
And you don’t think giving an infant power is perilous? He is beyond corrupt, leading a non-functioning government which...
The government is functioning just as the cabal intends.
Hello! Cabal? You had to dig deep into the chasm’s treasures of dark fantasies for that one. Give me surcease with your cabalities.
Ingest this you disbeliever: Regardless of who is the president, minister, dictator, supreme leader, behind every revered figure-head is a cabal, a group of sinister, puppet-masters, industrialist billionaire power-brokers who determine policies and actions of...
Sound like you’ve been hanging out with Oliver Stone.
My favorite Oliver Stone quote: “Never underestimate the power of jealousy and the power of envy to destroy.” Totally relevant today don’t you think?
I think I may have killed a man.
Talk about a non-sequitur metaphor. I never met a for I liked. I’ll stop now.
You think I’m messing with you?
No issue, man. With you the game’s always on.
I’m telling you that I think I killed a dude.
What did you do, metaphor him to death?
Today. In the park. This morning. Well it was closer to noon.
You and your dark fantasies play better behind a few tokes maybe but I am stone cold not-stoned so change the subject for sanity’s sake.
I mean it. Not a fantasy. Thunderous reality.
Last month you told me that you were robbed of two hundred dollars and then you found two yards on your desk at home.
I was sitting on the bench. You know the one near the statue of somebody I never heard of but pigeons sure did. Are you listening?
With a jaundiced eye.
You don’t listen with an eye.
What time is it?
I’m telling you about the possibility of a lethal action and you want to know the time?
Movie starts at four thirty-five.
They play ten, fifteen minutes of ads and...
Ain’t that the shit. Enough ads on TV so I keep the mute button at hand but I pay my hard earned money for a flic and have to be bombarded with coke ads.
You’re not even curious about what happened to me and that over-weight must have been 289 if a pound. He was hard-wired enough not to care about anything as he came at me with one hand out for a donation, that’s what he said, donation...and the other hand balled up in a fist hungry for a face to smash into fragments or maybe do a major readjust on my cranium. He whispered in a phlegm-filled voice gurgling in his throat...are you listening?
You have my rapt attention, bro’.
Do you want to hear what he said or not?
Don’t leave a brother hanging. Roll on.
He said which hand, he said. Which hand? One of which was open for a donation and I mean a lot more than a dollar and the other balled into a fist with the intention of rearranging facial structure.
This is so good I hope you’re not bullshitting. I’m hooked. What happened? What did you do, or not do?
I was so intimidated that in order not give into fear I just shot up, kicked him in balls, he fell down and I was so stoked I kicked him in his head a few times screaming something about how fucking dare you and then ran and ran until I couldn’t catch my breath. I stopped, turned around and in the distance, far, I think I saw his maple-syrupped obese body lying near the bench.
Maple syrup...without pancakes?
Or maybe it was a shadow. I didn’t bother to check, believe me.
I don’t.
You don’t what?
Believe you.
I’m telling my boy about a life-death incident, apodictic.
Apo whose dick?
Apodictic. Absolute certainty. Just don’t be  casting aspersions on my tale of relevance. I thought you had my back.
Remember Tuesday a week?
Not really. What happened then?
You said your rent check bounced and the landlord was going to evict you from your crib.
Yeah, well, I thought that was, you know, I mean, a guy can forget.
You were never going to be evicted.
I thought I was! Isn’t that enough?
French saying something like, honi soit qui mal  y pense. It means something sort of he who thinks evil is evil or whatever.
The only thing I like about the French is their fries.
You haven’t taken your meds today have you?
I hate them. They make me drowsy.
Just for the first twenty-two minutes.
How do you know that?
You told me.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s all worth it.
What it are you talking about?
Life.
Worth it? No choice.
Sure there is. I can always off myself.
And miss all the fun?
You call this existence fun?
Mos def.
Name three things.
Pussy. Pussy. And pussy.
Smart ass.
I like a smart ass, too.
But then it’s all over.
What is?
Sex. I mean I like it. A lot. But sometimes it’s a lot of work.
Work? You talking about hookers, or the politically correct word, sex-workers?
No, I’m talking about...I mean when I was in my teens...we’d get it on without any thought and that was more than enough. Sex was great then.
But now?
Now with the me-too’s and harassment and all the celebrities being busted...hitting on a woman is dangerous and even then let’s say it’s consensual...
Nowadays you better get a signed agreement.
Amen to that. And you better make sure she comes, has the big O, for some women it takes a lot of work, you know what I’m saying?
Yeah, I do. It’s sad. I mean sex used to be just instinct but now sex has moved from the groin to the head.
I’d rather give head than get it. I love the taste of a woman’s pussy, but even then, I mean that woman I met in Jimmy’s...
She was tight. I remember, you scored and nodded to me when you two walked out. I knew my boy would be doing the flesh ‘n bones in favored time.
Yeah and she was totally into it. So when we ended up naked on the couch, we were so hot never got to bed, so then, man it was steaming, I started to go down on her that’s when she made a crack, oh you’re a muff driver, she said.
Muff driver.
Did I say driver? She said diver. I don’t like to talk during sex, it destroys the entire purpose.
Sex is sex...what kinda’ purpose?
That’s my point. Sex is my escape valve. Leaving my mind which is like a hamster never stopping on that not-so-merry-go-round circular job, or is it a guinea pig?
Is that a real question because you are missing the subject.
The purpose of sex is to disappear the world, which includes excessive verbosity, you know what I’m saying?
Oh yeah, okay, I got it.
So when a woman talks like a TV commentator telling you about the move you just made...
I hate that shit. I mean like I saw the play, I know the game, I can replay if I want or even slo mo, so why detail a great move into obvious banal and prosaic words.
Destroys the purpose.
What purpose?
Or how about those how-to books and stuff I’ve seen on talk shows...you know, talk about sex, tell your partner what you like.
That’s doesn’t work for you?
Again it moves into a verbalizing talk talk talk symposium and here comes the fucking world again. Or rather unfucking world debilitating sex into a rational event to be dealt with like paying the rent on time.
Well, sometimes what we feel, what I want to do with a woman doesn’t always...I mean like I like to fuck a woman from the back.
In the butt hole?
No, in the pussy, but I like her bent over and me pounding her butt with my dick in her juicy pussy. It’s a great feeling, you know what I’m saying.
Yeah, not my preferred, I’m for other positions myself.
Whose telling the story around here?
You got it bro’. Slip it on through.
Okay, so get this. One particular woman, when I suggested she get on her knees, ‘cause I am a considerate lover in bed mind you, not scraping her knees, no question about it, get on your knees, baby...you know what she did?
She acquiesced not to ruin a good freak-on.
In your dreams.
What did she do? I mean getting on her knees, especially on a soft bed seems to be a requirement of the moment I would say.
She said, and get this, hot and heavy ready to do the major in-and-outs, she said and I quote, I don’t do gymnastic sex.
Talk about a cold shower!
Ain’t that a pisser!
So what did you?
I did the missionary and then the required cuddling which I abhor but you know.
Oh yeah, the obligated rhetorical responses.   Did you like it? Was I okay? And you better answer in superlatives times ten.
She wanted to watch a movie which meant sleeping over but I did not feel that kind of bliss if you know what I’m saying although she played ignorant.
Ignorant ain’t always bliss.
Tell me about it.
    So what did you say, do?
    I made up some shit about having to get up very early, like six a.m. and I sent her home in a cab. I paid.
    It’s all a dance, ain’t it.
    Sometimes I wish I was a kid again and didn’t know everything I know. We lost the ability to be surprised. Everything’s out in the open. You do this, I do that, we do these together, you ask this, I answer that. It’s like we’ve been drenched in sterilized information. Somedays I feel like resigning from the dance and just get into porn. I never disappoint myself and don’t have to talk afterwards. Annihilate the me-and-you-baby.
Uhmmm hmmm.
Hello! Anybody home? You’ve disappeared on me.
    Yeah, sorry, I was tripping.
    Want to make this a two way street?
    Two way street?
    Tripping on what, how, where, when, you know, a regular conversation like I was talking and you were listening but apparently that’s just not happening. What’s going on? You’re somewhere else.
    Oh, okay. Although I’m a...how can I say it...okay, I’m not sure how you’ll react to...nah, let it go.
    Too late for that. Talk to me bro’, you know I got your back. What’s messing with you?
    Okay, may as well because eventually...I know this may freak you out, you know your cousin Denise?
    Of course I know my cousin. Knew her since she was a kid. What is she now, seventeen.
    Nineteen. Next month.
    How do you know that?
    Don’t do a mutant on me but...well Denise and me, we’re an item.
    Denise and...what are you saying, she’s a kid and you’re...
    Ten years older...
    Twelve. You had your birthday bash at Jimmy’s last month remember. Jesus, yeah, Denise was there, but I didn’t know you two were...you been fucking?
    Like I said, we’re an item.
    Ain’t that a kick in the ass. I never would have suspected. She is built pretty great isn’t she.
    Pretty. Yes. Great. Yes.
    So you two, huh?
    Uhmm hmmm.
    How long this been going on?
    Maybe three four months, five maybe.
    She’s my first cousin you know.
I know.
My Aunt Katherine’s daughter. You and Denise. Who woulda’ thunk!
We got a good thing going.
All right. I guess. I mean, I never woulda’ suspected, I mean, I always thought of her as a kid and you, well, you’re a grown up dude, a full-on adult and Denise, I mean, you’re in your thirties already.
Just started. Besides, chronological age is not an issue for us.
You don’t think it should be?
Do you?
Well I don’t know, I mean, maybe, yes, because, Denise! Jesus fucking Christ she’s always been a kid, my Aunt Katey’s kid, I never see her as, you know, you don’t think of your relatives in a sexual way, you know what I’m saying? You two are fucking right?
Like I said...
An item, yeah. A rose by any other name and shit. Denise. Hmmm...I always liked her body but I thought I was a dirty old man to have such thoughts about my cuz but you know I pushed ‘em aside never thinking that my bud, my ace-boy would be doing my...hmmm...you and Denise. So how is it?
Good.
Just good?
Yeah, we’re good. We get along great. She makes me laugh, a lot?
Laugh. I never did see that side of her. Makes you laugh. Ain’t that a kick.
We like the same movies, and I’ll bet you didn’t know this, she’s a great cook.
She’s cooking for you?
Sometimes, yeah. Particularly pasta.
I love pasta.
I know.
How do you know?
Denise told me.
But she never cooked pasta for me. We’d always eat out at Mario’s with her mother. Three of us enjoying pasta, you know, never cooked for me, she didn’t.
Well, maybe some time, maybe.
So it’s serious you and Denise? I mean she cooks, Denise, Aunt Katey’s kid cooks, whew and what did you say, oh yeah, if you two are laughing together a lot, that’s serious ain’t it?
Laughing, serious, oxymoron.
What did you call me?
Not you. Laughing serious, contradiction. Oxymoron.
Not so much a contradiction. When a man and a woman...a woman...I always thought of Denise as a kid, when a male and female laugh a lot together, they’re serious, no contradiction. You and Denise, hmmm, never woulda’ connected those dots. So tell me more.
Not much more to tell. We’re great, we enjoy each other...
Like the same movies and laugh yeah I know. But I want details.
Details?
She’s my cuz, come on.
You’re talking like an old fashioned dude challenging your kid’s suitor or something.
Hey, she’s what, how many years younger than you, yeah I know she’s built great, you said she’s nineteen right, so I’m entitled as her older not distant-cousin to know things, right?
You’re not her father, man, lighten up.
Okay okay...just tell me this...I mean we’ve been talking about sex all day...I mean, okay, after all she’s kin, so tell me, is she good?
Good? In what way?
You know what I’m saying.
I think I do and I’m not all that cool getting down with information that is personal and private.
Hey we’ve been talking beyond personal private shit all day. Come on, bro’, does she get on her knees, does she like, you know the entire whole everything kinda’ action? I got a right to know, after all she’s my Aunt Katherine’s daughter, my first cuz, who just so happens to have a great body which of course you also noticed but now, it’s beyond notice ain’t it?
You’re going over the line.
What fucking line?
You’re being...hey, me and Denise are an item, let’s leave at that.
Leave it at that? Did she ever tell you I saw her naked?
Yes, when she got infected or something with a hundred and four temperature, she was what maybe twelve, thirteen if a day and you and your aunt gave her ice cold baths and alcohol rubs until the temperature came down to almost normal by the time the doctor came who said you did exactly what he would recommend. She thinks you saved her life.
She said that?
Yeah.
Even then she was built real good, particularly for a kid, what fourteen I think.
She says twelve or thirteen the most.
I mean...so you and my cuz are doing it...never would’ve suspected.
She thinks a lot of you. Admires.
Admires me?
Yeah...she said you saved her life with that ice cold bath.
And alcohol rub On her entire body.
She loves you, you know. You’re her favorite relative.
Relative. Hmmm. Cousin, yeah, that’s a relative, sure.
Everything cool?
Yeah, cool, sure. And well, I love her, too, after all, she’s kin, family, you know what I’m saying?
Yeah, sure.
So you better not, well, we talk a lot about women and our...what I’m trying to say...when you save somebody’s life, well that’s an indelible mark, you know what I’m saying?
Like I said she has nothing but great feelings for you.
You and Denise, huh?
Yeah, we got a good thing going.
Well, all right then but...listen...Denise, she’s special, got a place in my heart, even with that great body, so you better be treating her good, what I’m saying is, don’t be doing anything that hurts her because Denise, even with that great body, well, she’s family.
Hey, man, I’m not saying we’re going to get married or anything, it’s just we got a...
A good thing going, yeah. Make sure it stays that way.