Maeve was one of those really lucky people who were born unto money. Her father made money on simple things like parking garages, laundry mats and gumball machines. He made Maeve a partner in a Jazz club he owned and purchased her house for her as well as paid her taxes. To make her feel as though she was doing something more than just spending money, Maeve’s father purchased a club and made her “The Boss”. There were accountants and general mangers and everything worked just fine without Maeve. Maeve’s main job was to travel the world to find good wine. They stopped serving food for a while and people stopped coming to the club for the most part. They once served juicy steaks that commanded $45.00 a plate. Free range, grass fed Bison was their specialty. These bison roamed not far from where Custer met his match and then they wound up on plates in downtown Detroit. This all came to an end when Maeve took over.
Maeve physically accosted the chef and sous chef and then invited food shelters and the homeless to take all the meat in the restaurant and so they did. For a good week or so, the most fabulous smells emanated from vacant lots not far from downtown Detroit. Salads with nuts and alfalfa were served and not too many people cared for that. Maeve’s father convinced Maeve that she had to at least serve exotic cheese from Spain, France and Germany. Maeve picked the cheeses herself from farms that she visited while in Europe. She wanted to be sure that none of the animals were being abused or exploited in the giving of milk. The club began to rebound a bit.
The next order of business was to make the Jazz super club a Jazz club once again. Maeve’s unwashed, unshaven, slovenly bust out of a husband was only allowed to play his homemade Blues on Sunday nights after 9pm until everyone left which was usually around 11pm. George spent the rest of his week watching their toddler son who spent his time watching Elmo and throwing handmade German blocks with numbers and letters on them at their cat. George was very nervous about their son Nathan being abusive towards the house cat since his wife was a member of PETA. George hated the indifferent feline for pissing on his 1959 Guild Guitar that was once played by Dwayne Eddy. George tried to get the pungent smell of cat piss off of his guitar but it was to no avail. The cat urine had saturated the wood. And so George played his $20,000.00 collector‘s item and had to put up with the smell of piss. For that he hated the cat. Their son just loved making the cat run and hiss by throwing finely crafted blocks from Germany. He was after all a boy.
Now when Maeve was not finding exotic wine and cheese for her Jazz bistro in Detroit, she was flitting around the world in a quest to find stuff that was good but that nobody had ever heard of. Maeve came back from Bilbao, Spain and featured a Basque guitarist that she met and managed to have relations with while visiting a small farm. Dunixi played at a small café near the ocean and was handsome with long hair and a rugged four day growth on his face at all times. He wore a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the top four buttons unbuttoned and clam digger pants rolled up. He wore a tortured face and banged Gypsy like music on the guitar and sang in Basque. He spoke no English and nobody spoke a lick of Basque and so for a week the Jazz bistro featured the great Dunixi. Some people swore they had heard of him and really they hadn’t. After Dunixi, there were Mexican guitarists and Brazilian guitarists and even a large Samoan looking man from New Zealand who played the Didgeridoo while another man played dissonant Jazz on a tenor saxophone and read poetry. Maeve made it with all these men. It was like big game hunting for her. She loved her husband and her son dearly but at the same time the domesticity bored her and besides, saving animals was really her passion.
Wherever Maeve went, she donated money to people that were fighting zoos or stores that sold leather goods or even grocery stores. She didn’t have the time and energy to be a foot soldier and so she showed up at rallies to speak and throw money at those that had given up their lives to more or less walk in the path towards a non-carnivore existence for humanity.
Maeve came home in her H3 Hummer that was gift from her father late one evening to their Farmington Hills mansion that had a large circular drive, two water fountains in the front and a pool sized Jacuzzi in the back. Maeve decided after closing the club for the night to come home and go directly to the back yard and hop into the Jacuzzi. The light sensor light in back that detected motion was out and the night was as dark as pitch. There was no moon and not enough starlight to see one’s hand in front of their face. Maeve crept down the wooden staircase to where the dial was to start the jets. Maeve stumbled and fell buck naked over a bag of garbage that was left on the bottom step. As she was falling she kneed the head of a large raccoon that was feasting on the garbage left in the bag. George didn’t make time to change the light earlier in the day and was afraid for himself that he would cross the path of a coyote and so he made the decision to leave the plastic bag full of garbage on the steps until morning. Maeve had interrupted a large male raccoon’s feast.
Maeve screamed George’s name as if she was being killed. She stood on the dewy, wet grass. The raccoon was not moving aside for Maeve to climb the stairs and get into the house. George was paralyzed with terror himself. He was too afraid to go outside and risk being killed by robbers or rapists and thought did come to him that if they offed his lovely wife, he stood to make a lot of money. George stood in the shadows of the kitchen and let the chips fall where they may. He was rooting for a violent finish.
Ray, an architect from next door, was single and liked it that way. He built his home and modeled it after a Frank Lloyd Wright home he had seen in Wisconsin. Ray was in bed watching a movie when he heard the blood curdling scream. He grabbed his Maglight and the only weapon he had which was a great household appliance called a Swiffer.
Ray jogged over in his University of Michigan shirt that had a huge yellow M on a blue shirt and a pair of shorts. Ray was shocked to see his neighbor who was tall and shapely with breasts that were not too droopy for a woman of forty and not a strand of hair that could be detected around her vagina. Maeve actually had five out six visits necessary to complete the laser surgery and the last one was sort of like taking out the weed whacker after cutting the grass: just to get those hard to reach areas that the mower and edger cannot reach. To the untrained eye, Maeve was as bald as the day she was born.
After a good three seconds of the Maglight which was directly on Maeve, was then focused on the raccoon that was showing his teeth and growling. The raccoon was not going to leave the buffet he created without a fight. Ray poked at the animal that swiped at the Swiffer.
“Get him! Oh my god! Please get him!” Exclaimed Maeve, as she did her best to cover herself with her hands.
Ray jousted with the raccoon that hissed and edged closer to him in an attempt to climb the fence and take off. Suddenly Maeve didn’t seem to care if the animal was in danger of dying. She came to understand what animals know all too well; it is either the raccoon or them that were going to lose. Ray swung the Swiffer like a Louisville Slugger and smacked the raccoon in the ass, sending it tumbling over the fence. Maeve cried tears of relief and hugged Ray as she sobbed. Ray wanted to put his hands on her firm ass but instead patted her on the back the way a parent consoles a child who skinned knee. Ray had from a distance admired the woman’s free spirit and take charge attitude as well as her body. Ray gambled that to be forthright would be welcomed and so he rolled the dice. He spoke in a fake drawl. Ray was after all watching Cool Hand Luke on DVD when all hell broke loose.
“Anytime you need a real man… I mean a man you can depend on; you know where to find me. Whether you scream into the night or ring my bell. I am here for you Ms. Maeve Magorn.”
Ray grabbed her chin between his thumb and index finger and planted his warm tongue in her mouth. Maeve did not mind since she was already numb. George stood at the kitchen window and watched his wife kissing the neighbor who was still holding his wife with one hand and the Swiffer in the other.
Maeve slipped on her polka dot underwear with little ties on the side and walked in through the back door to find her husband standing in his white briefs with a bit of rust stain in the front holding the telephone. George’s hairy man boobs sagged as did his second trimester gut. His helpless expression only angered Maeve more. George couldn’t speak or blink as he stared at his angry wife. Maeve’s nostrils flared and her lips disappeared. George knew he had to speak and said the only thing most humans say when they cannot fix a situation properly.
“I’m so sorry…”
Like most other situations, it did nothing but further angered Maeve. Things were thrown and there was screaming and the sounds of an infant crying. Ray thought to himself as he settle back into bed in his quiet room and resumed the movie that maybe having nothing, like Luke said, was a cool hand.
