Dinner With Freddie

by Humberto Fontova

Sure enough. Freddie, my Pinko-Poofter neighbor (see last article), arrived ten minutes early. Each soft little hand held a bottle of wine. He looked primed to rip into the braised backstrap of the deer he denounced me for assassinating.

He peeked into the kitchen where I slaved over a hot range. "Ummmm!" He exclaimed with an eye-flutter. "Smells heavenly in here!"

I gulped deeply from my whiskey, wiped my mouth with my apron, and turned around. "You’re in for a treat Freddie, my boy." I rasped as the whiskey seared my throat. "See here?" And I lifted the lid. "Thumper Jambalaya...nice hunh?"

"Oh yes certainly looks wonderful. But I..."

"And here!" I banged the spoon on the pot bubbling in the rear. "Donald and Daffy Gumbo Ya-Ya." I pointed towards the microwave. "Bambi’s in there, on the serving platter."

"Great!" He smacked his lips and rolled his eyes dreamily. "I can’t wait!"

I turned quickly, shuddering with revulsion. Shirley balks, but I insist we throw out any silverware he uses when he dines over.

"Monica!" Freddie called to my teen-aged daughter upstairs. "Dinner’s served.... Hurry before it get’s cold." Monica was home from LSU for the holidays. They get along well. Freddie helped pick her prom dress last year, did her hair, suggested a restaurant – the whole bit.

"Like your meat warm, do ya Freddie?" I said while pouring a hefty glass from his Chateau- something-or-other.

"Sure," he twinkled. "Doesn’t everyone?"

"Of course we do!" I said while raising the wineglass..

"Oh brother," Shirley (my wife) sighed. "He’s starting already....Monica! Hurry down honey. Show’s about to start."

"We all like it warm, Freddie, because that’s what fresh meat tasted like before the discovery of fire. Warm, the temperature of the blood of a living mammal. That’s how our primeval ancestors ate it, Freddie, like all predators."

"Oh Humberto PLEASE!" Shirley huffed. "Not now. Can’t you ...."

"Carnivores, especially those lovable cuddly wolves your California buddies get so giddy over, start ingesting prey while it’s still alive, Fred!" I gulped again, emptying the glass. "They hamstring or disembowel the elk to bring it down. Then dig in while it’s still moaning and writhing in agony. Those big furry puppies daydream about that when Cindy Crawford, Darryl Hannah, and Kim Bassinger nuzzle with them for the cameras."

"That’s awful." Freddie sighed. "And must we really hear all this while..."

"Your cat too, Freddie." I snapped. The effects of the wine and whiskey were beginning to manifest. " He knows that his claws..."

"It’s a she, for your information," he corrected.

"Okay, whatever. I watched her by the bird feeder the other day. She grabbed a squirrel, Freddie. Shoulda seen that! It was..."

"No!" He gasped. "Little Muffin would never ...."

"The Hell she wouldn’t Fred!" I raved. "She knows her claws and fangs weren’t made for that mush you give her in a bowl. She craves fresh blood. She longs to feel her fangs sink into a squirrels throat, to hear the piteous squealing as he scratches and thrashes, to feel the life slowly ooze out of it – then to rip straight into it’s heart and liver, smacking her lips, and licking her bloody chops in delight.... And that’s exactly what she did, Freddie. I saw the whole thing.... Geezuz, and I used to hate cats."

"Humberto!" Shirley glared. That’s enough!... Come now. Don’t spoil..."

"We’re no different Freddie. Look in your mouth – never mind! Point is, you have incisors too. And your eyes point forward Freddie, like those of all predators. Behold the hawk or falcon. His eyes point forward, unlike the duck or pigeon, his prey. Their eyes lie on the side of their heads. Behold the wolf and leopard and indeed, Muffin. Forward again. The deer, antelope, and squirrel, also on the side of the head. And your’s are blue Freddie.... Know why?"

"Well," he said sheepishly while fluttering his eyelashes. "They’re actually colored contacts. I decided...."

"Never mind! Blue eyes blended better with the snowy landscape inhabited by your north European hunter ancestors. They allowed them to sneak closer to prey.... Hunting’s encoded into your genes Freddie, give in!.... Hunting made us what we are!"

I emptied my second helping of wine then leaped from my chair towards the bookcase, just as Monica entered.

"OH-No!" She wailed while rolling her eyes ceiling-ward. "Not again, mom! He’s grabbing that STUPID book of his again!"

"Stupid book??!" I wheeled around and shook the dog-eared copy of Jose Ortega Y Gasset’s Meditations on Hunting. "A work of genius!" I yelled. "Ortega was the century’s most acute philosopher!"

"Yeah, right," Monica huffed. "My philosophy professor says he was a reactionary."

"Figures! "I howled while turning to Shirley. "See?!.. See what we’re paying for!"

"She won a scholarship." Shirley said in her best Alice Kramden. "Remember?"

"That’s not the point." Then I turned to my multi-earinged (but mercifully, still untattoed) daughter.... "Tell me Monica. What philosophers are they teaching you about up there? Rosie O’Donnel or Courtney Love?"

"Alanis Morisette, actually" she said smugly. "We’re discussing her lyrics."

"Heaven help us!" I shrieked, then opened the book and read: "Man’s being consisted first of being a hunter." I looked up with a Nicholson-type leer. "Hear that folks. That’s not some editorialist at the NRA or Ducks Unlimited. That’s the man who wrote Revolt of the Masses – I don’t suppose they’ve assigned that for Philosophy class, huh, Monica?"

"No, Da-ad" she said with another eye-roll. "But in English they assigned Maya Angelou’s...."

"Silence! Before I puke! Now back to Ortega: ‘If we imagine our species to have disappeared in the Paleolithic era the word "man" would lack meaning. We would have to call him hunter."

Then I pointed a white-knuckle fist inches from Freddie’s face. "And you." Then I looked around the room with a lunatic leer, pointing. "And you...and you.You’re all killers! Every time you buy a hamburger you’re paying for the death of an animal, you’re putting a contract – a hit if you will – on a poor stupid cow. YES! It’s called the law of supply and demand – don’t suppose they’re teaching you anything about THAT up in college, huh, Monica!?.....

"No...but we learned about John Maynard Keynes and...."

"Figures! " I snarled. "Anyway folks, I make my own hits, like Mikey Corleone. Remember Michael Corleone, Freddie? Remember when he whacked Police Chief McCluskey in that restaurant..Huh?..... BLAM!! I slammed the table with my fist. "Right through the neck! "

"WHATCHIT, you clod!" My wife screeched. " You’re spilling the...."

"Ooops!"

"And watch the lamp behind you!...and the coffee table!.....And there goes the red wine all over the Damn RUG!"

"Ooops! Here, I’ll get the towel..Nothing to it.... Well, same with this deer we’re eating, folks. Poor sucker was enjoying his meal just like McCluskey, contentedly munching away on acorns. He hears my safety click off...looks up – BLAM!" I slammed my fist into my palm inches from Freddie’s nose. " Right through his white throat patch. Never knew what hit him."

"Mom tell Dad to shut-up! Please!"

"We’re all killers!" I turned back to Freddie."It’s encoded into your genes Freddie! Be true to your human heritage. Stalk the fields and forests, not public toilets!"

"HUMBERTO!!" Shirley yelled as Freddie tried to leap to his feet. " STOP IT! You’re...!"

"Yes! Freddie!" I seized him roughly by the shoulders."I’m going tomorrow morning.

Come with me and prey on deer and ducks, not boy scouts and altar boys!"

"Oh!..OH! Shirley! "Freddie shook free and looked towards her for succor, nearing tears. "He’s IMPOSSIBLE!! This man is so mean! Simply impossible!" .

"More wine!" I snarled while holding out my glass.

"Get it yourself!" Monica glowered. "Mom? Don’t!....You’re not his slave!"

"You!" I pointed at Monica. "You stay outta this, before I backhand ya!"

"Aahh-Ahhh!" Monica went apeshit. "Mom Did you hear that?! Heard Dad?! Ms Rabinowitz my Sociology professor says I can sue you for abuse and..."

"The HELL with that DINGBAT!" I raved. "Probably a DYKE too!...Now get me some more WINE!"

"Aaah-Aaah!...Dad you’re such a...a...a...Fascist!"

"Oh Monica, hush-up." Shirley said. "You know he’s never laid a hand on you. He’s just showing off in front of Freddie." Then she turned and yelled."Humberto!You know Freddie doesn’t do those type of things! You apologize this minute! And after drinking all his wine. Now you apologize! I MEAN it!"

Amazing, simply amazing. Pinkos excuse all manner of human perversion because of some "genetic predisposition." Take Freddie for instance. He claims he was born that way. So it’s okay. It’s normal. Well, my ancestors hunted daily for 99 per cent of our stint as a species. Geezuz, if EVER something was genetically pre-ordained, it’s me whacking out Bambi and Thumper.

But noooooooo! That’s "species-ism," according to Freddie’s California buddies. I’m a "mass-murderer." Unreal....liberal reasoning is simply unreal. Listen up:

"Hunting is the master behavior pattern of the human species. Man evolved as a hunter, he spent over 99 per cent of his species’ history as a hunter and he spread over the entire habitable globe as a hunter." That’s Chicago University anthropologist . W. S. Laughlin.

"The distinctive human brain evolved in consequence of predatory co-operative hunting." Cambridge Anthropologist W.B.S Leakey.

"Man is Man and not a chimp because for millions of evolving years we killed for a living." That’s Robert Ardrey

"50 percent of our central nervous system is made up of fatty-acids ONLY AVAILABLE IN MEAT." That’s Michael Crawford of Britain’s Nuffield Institute of Comparative Medicine.

"Humans are built to eat meat.The craving for meat is wired deeply into our system. " That’s no publicist from the National Rifle Association or American Cattlemen’s Association. That’s Howard Bloom, scientist, author, New York Academy of Science member. His book, The Lucifer Principle, was hailed by Leon Uris as "an act of astonishing intellectual courage."

Maybe for a New Yorker. I guess up there it’s considered gutsy and thrillingly iconoclastic to say people like meat. Wouldn’t cause a ripple in New Orleans, Dallas, Miami or Atlanta. Bloom continues: "There is one hormone – cholecystokinin – designed to carry a message from the full stomach to the brain, quieting the appetite. The digestive system refuses to send that hormone on it’s way until fats and proteins move from the stomach into the intestines. In other words, your body withholds this hormone to keep you hungry until you’ve swallowed some meat."

Put that in your vegetarian pipe and smoke it.

January 17, 2000