My Impotence Precedes Me

Luigi Al Denti's cataract eyes issued me a surreal P.T. Barnum stare. “I know I haven’t been always truthful with you in the past. I don’t blame you for not believing me but I gotta tell you somepun about my vacation down the seashore.”

I fretted, “Tell me that you didn’t get into trouble with the law while on vacation.”

“Not this time. I may as well just say it. Joe, you are in the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum.”

“I certainly am an exhibit in the Ripley’s museum in Atlantic City.” We gained each others full attention. I asked, “Now if I can pick your brain, what the heck did you think when you saw my statue?”

Luigi tugged on the plastic tubing line of his portable oxygen unit for no apparent reason. As he searched for the right words, my ears bent to the steady oxygen bursts into his nasal passages. A place on his face begged for my pardon before continuing.

“Ugh, forget about me for a minute.” he dismissed. “There were visitors in your chamber over by the well that the poor girl fell down. They were saying mighty cruel things about you wearing a beekeeper’s costume.”

I winced at the expected turn of events. “Did it remind you of how some ignorant people have treated your handicap in public?”

“Yeppers.” Luigi replied agreeably. “That is why I stuck up for you. I told them folks that didn’t know better a thing or two. I said that I know you. I said you can say what you want about the guy but he is an impotent person. Joe Torn is a social worker for the retarded. They all just stared at me for the longest time. I sure shut them up.”

Joe Tornatore in leaner times