Doctor Duke Returns, Weighs In on School Board

The Doctor called me late last night, the first time I’d heard from him in a month. “I’ve been in Indonesia,” he said, “working on a couple of deals. If they bear fruit I’ll be sitting pretty, like mega-rich, big time. Boo-yah.”

“Congratulations,” I said. “So I guess you’ve decided not to run for school board.”

“Not so fast grasshopper,” he said. “Have you seen today’s News-Press?”

I hadn’t. Since Wendy McCaw bought the News-Press and the paper began its descent into Libertarian mediocrity I’ve avoided it like the plague. Travis Armstrong and Randy Alcorn strike me as uptight, constipated buttholes who believe that their rigid view of the world is the only view, and don’t even get me started on that airhead, Starshine Roshell. (What were her parents toking when they slapped that name on her?)

“Well,” said the Doctor, “that egomaniac Bob Noel is running again. Yep, the 76-year-old curmudgeon is going for another term because he thinks he’s the only independent voice on the Board, the great defender of the public interest, paragon of moral rectitude, the only member who can’t be bought, influenced, cajoled, blah, blah. Claims the community wants him to run. Your boy Rob Kuznia said Noel was the favorite of the ‘Educated Elite.’ Can you believe that shit? What Kuznia meant to say and would have said if he had any cajones is that Noel is the darling of well-off white folks. Jesus Christ, is Kuznia Noel’s long lost lovechild or what? Not a word about Noel’s pedantic, grandstanding style, his intellectual bullying, nada and nothing but praise. Kuznia should be ashamed of himself. He should reach around and paddle his own ass for gross sycophancy and then jump off Stearn’s Wharf.”

“I don’t think you’re going to make the filing deadline,” I said. “You probably missed it already.”

The Doctor snorted. “Yeah, maybe, but I can still toss my newfound wealth against Noel. Maybe I can buy Kuzina off, get him to write an objective piece about old Bob for a change. I mean, Bob, enough already. Slide into retirement and give up the ghost. Take up stamp collecting or nude sunbathing.”

I heard a match strike and a sharp intake of breath, followed by a long pause and then a long exhalation. “God, Indonesia was a trip,” the Doctor said. “Remind me to tell you about it sometime. I’ll be in touch – when you least expect it!”