Ringing Out the Oscar

Published December 2002

OBl Discussion: https://www.greatsociety.org/forums/index.php?topic=1241.0

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If there’s one person who knows how to party like it’s 1999, it’s Texas billionaire Oscar bin Laden. At least, that’s what he slurred at me when he called. It was during one of his customary 3am drunken ravings. I don’t know why the fuck he calls me whenever he gets drunk, but I know I share a list with Janet Reno so it can’t be all bad. Anyway, he said he knew how to party and when New Years Eve came around I would see for myself. Of course, whenever Oscar says stuff like that, my first reaction is to call the FBI. But then old Oscar BL said he meant to be nonviolent this year, in observance of the Celebration of Muhammad’s Giant Penis which, legend has it, spoke for the first time on New Years Eve.

It’s not a well-known Muslim holiday. Historically speaking, it’s been eclipsed by Muhammad’s rule against the consumption of alcohol which, coincidentally, came into the popular Islamic canon around the same time as the somewhat offbeat New Years Eve incident. Either way, Oscar was a traditionalist and a student of Islam. He knew all the weird holidays and took full advantage of the opportunity to take a day off from work then booze and whore his way across DC.

I had taken Oscar’s threats to involve me in a New Years party somewhat lightly. Sure there was the Halloween thing, but most of what Oscar promises falls through. I remember, once, he said I would die horridly in flames and agony at a particular time. When that moment passed, he called me up and said that it could only have happened “with the help of Allah.” So I should be “grateful” that “Allah was momentarily distracted.”

Strange bird, that Oscar BL.

As we approached the New Year, it became more apparent that the “NYE party,” as it became known, was going to be a reality. The problem, of course, is that Oscar had some problems getting around DC. It was New Years Eve, close to 6pm, and I was about to kick up my Ledo pizza a notch with Chubby Chucks Hollerin Hotsauce when Oscar appeared at my bedroom window.

I let him in through the out door, as his custom had been for several months, and he dragged in a shopping cart full of liquor and pornography. With an ancient Arabic curse, he sat down on my bed and began pulling loose strands of hair from his beard and placing them on my pillow.

“It’s colder than Abdul ibn Abdar’s grave out there, Nacho!” he barked.

“Who?”

“Nevermind, you remorseless heathen.” He began to provide the details about the party which, apparently, was going to take place at Paulie’s house. Paulie’s family was going to be there as well. Being a Spanish Catholic, Paulie had 79 siblings. Or, at least, he claimed relations with 79 other Spanish Catholics who always hung around his house. For New Years, Paulie had promised to “Indian Wrestle” Oscar BL for the “fate of the world.” The winner would be decided by a jury at the stroke of midnight and, from that point, US foreign affairs would be decided by the victor. It sounds eccentric, yes, but I’ve learned that Paulie has unusual clout with the US government. I also knew that Paulie used to wrestle gypsies in Spain and never lost, so I had quite a bit of money riding on that crazy Spaniard.

Oscar finished up with the usual plea for help. “So you’re driving me over, right?”

“What?” I was kicking my vodka tonic up a notch and not paying too much attention to the coded messages within Oscar’s rambling story.

“You’re driving me to Paulie’s…?”

I shook my head. “No way, Dr. Jones. New Years Eve means there’ll be 80 hundred police checkpoints between every woman’s bra and panties. We’ll Metro from the distant suburbs. If we miss the last train, we’ll sleep on Paulie’s floor in a pool of vomit.”

Oscar shook his head. “No, no. Metro is no good.”

“I’m not driving, that’s for sure.”

“No, you have to drive. I don’t drive.”

“You don’t or you can’t?”

Oscar shrugged, “I can’t. I don’t commute at all. I find the Metro to be alarmingly creepy and driving to be violently inhuman.”

“So how do you get to work?”

“I work from home.”

“What can you do from home?”

“I funnel an inconceivably large amount of money to certain individuals through a vast network of untraceable offshore trust accounts.”

“Which individuals?”

“Well, my dear Nacho, that’s none of your bleeping business.”

I stared at him for a moment, wondering if it was worth pursuing this line of questioning. Probably not. “Did you just say ‘bleeping’?”

“Don’t fuck with me, Nacho. Are we going to this party or what?”

“Okay, but if I drive I can’t drink.”

“I don’t understand how that’s my problem.”

“I…guess it isn’t.”

“Well!” Oscar stood up. “There it is. Let’s go.”

Spain is 6 hours ahead and Paulie refuses to acknowledge time zones. When you’re with him, it’s always Spanish time. In my younger days, that was an acceptable eccentricity. As I rapidly approach the advanced, elderly age of 30, I’ve found that drinking at 7am every day is a little difficult to maintain. Of course, New Years had passed by the time we got to Paulie’s place at 7pm. He was on the floor singing some Spanish Legionnaire song, his wife was perched on top of the refrigerator (she has a great arm, so it’s best to keep an eye on her when she has the high ground) and Paulie’s brothers were all huddled on the couch in a post-drunk pass-out.

Oscar, just starting to party, jumped into the center of the room and began gyrating his narrow hips. “I’m headin’ down the Atlantic Highway, looking for the love getaway –”

Paulie’s wife got him right between the eyes with an unopened bag of Dixie cups. Oscar went sprawling.

Paulie cheered. He stood up and grabbed my hands, then we spun around the room. “Goddess on the mountaintop,” he sang, “Burning like a silver flame!”

“No Bananarama!” Oscar shouted, struggling to his feet and lurching towards us. He knocked Paulie against the wall and the two of them stood there, facing each other for a tense moment.

“Traveling in a fried out combie!” Paulie said.

“On a hippie trail, head full of zombie!” Oscar replied without hesitation.

I hid my face in my hands, “Oh, Sweet Jesus…”

Paulie shoved Oscar away, “I met a strange lady, she made me nervous. She took me in and gave me breakfast!”

Oscar lunged towards Paulie, slamming him against the wall. He threw an underhanded punch and knocked Paulie to his knees. “And she said, ‘Do you come from a land down under? Where women glow and men plunder? Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder? You better run, you better take cover!'”

Paulie rose, took a deep breath, feigned left then threw a vicious right hook. Oscar flew across the room, crashed into a bookcase and fell to the floor in a heap. “Buying bread from a man in Brussels.” Paulie moved towards Oscar, who rolled to a crouching position in the corner. “He was six foot four and full of muscles.”

Oscar launched at Paulie, who sidestepped and grinned. “I said, ‘Do you speak-a my language?'” he said as Oscar slammed into the wall and fell backwards.

Paulie leapt over and put his booted foot on Oscar’s neck, “He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich!” Paulie pushed down hard as Oscar clawed at the foot. “And he said –”

Somehow, Oscar gained purchase. He flipped Paulie to the ground and rolled over on top of him, then he began to deliver a sickening barrage of punches against my poor Spanish friend while he screamed the chorus once again.

Paulie’s legs reached up and wrapped around Oscar’s head, twisting and throwing Oscar off of his position of power. Paulie landed on top of him and delivered a solid blow to Oscar’s nose. The Texas Billionaire’s head rebounded off of the floor twice. Paulie grimaced, blood pouring through his teeth. “Lying in a den in Bombay, with a slack jaw and not much to say. I said to the man, ‘Are you trying to tempt me because I come from the land of plenty?’ And he said –” Paulie stood up and stumbled over to the drinks table where he shakily poured himself a glass of Johnny Walker. Then he repeated the chorus. Oscar, bloody and beaten, started to crawl towards me, trying to say something through his shattered mouth.

It had happened so fast, I wasn’t quite able to understand how the fight started. Paulie’s wife, still on the fridge with a bottle of champagne ready to throw, seemed to be stunned as well. Finally, she shrugged and threw the bottle. It cracked against Oscar’s head with a sickening thud and ricocheted against the snacks table. The carefully balanced crackers and cheese trays fell and shattered to the ground, pulling the tablecloth out from under the Spanish flag centerpiece and onto the floor.

Paulie shouted, “And the flag is still standing!” as Oscar collapsed at my feet with clawed hands clutching my shoes, his mouth and nose a mass of gurgling, bubbling blood.

“Jesus Christ, Paulie.” I said.

He shrugged, wiping the blood off of his face. “I think I know my fucking 80’s music, sweetheart.” He spit at Oscar. “Nobody tells me whether or not I can sing Bananarama songs.”

I wasn’t sure what to do, but Paulie’s wife solved that problem when she threw a pressure cooker at the back of my skull.