Waking up with Ronald Bump in 1986
by Stephen Cooper
Lying in his monogrammed red velvet pajamas he glared into Louis the XIV’s most opulent of mirrors. Large and rectangular it was framed in thick 18 karat gold and encrusted with precious stones. Looted from Versailles during the Revolution, Bump’d gotten it in a slightly less bloody transaction, bamboozling it from a big boob — a red-faced French businessman.
Looking at his Rolex, Bump was angry.
Why hadn’t Griselda woken him up! He loved Griselda, and was sure she loved him, but she’d been slipping lately. He’d told her a million times: Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous was doing an unauthorized piece on him airing at 9AM. Damn it, it was 9:07!
Getting out of bed, he glanced outside at his mansion’s sprawling grounds. Green verdant fields stretched for acres interrupted only by clusters of lush, well-tended vegetation. Slowly, lazily, a parade of marshmallow clouds sauntered by. The sun had long risen over the impenetrable 15-foot tall wall Bump’d paid a fortune for; it framed his entire property like the Great Wall of China, but taller.
A shorter, nine foot interior wall with turrets and guard posts marked the perimeter of a large area circumscribing Bump’s manse and backyard — an area Bump dubbed the “compound.” Bump liked that word, “compound.” Made him think of the Kennedys and every time he said it he imagined himself as President; who knows, maybe he’d run someday?
Not that he’d liked Kennedy that lefty liberal loon. But, like most Americans, Bump’d been transfixed by those happy Hyannis Port home videos — the romping, frolicking, yachting first family — sunlight reflecting between the crystal blue waters and their polished sparkling smiles.
Looking down at his own fountain with its white marble statute of Michelangelo’s “David” that’d cost a fortune on imported Italian marble alone, Bump thought to himself, “that damn Griselda!”
Watching his David stoically emit a constant stream from his manhood into the water’s center, Bump thought about his billionaire oil-man friend Rutherford and what he’d said the other night at the club. They’d golfed, sauna’d and were sitting in the lounge afterwards with stogies and snifters in hand when Rutherford said:
“Life’s too good in this country Bump, and that’s why they’re comin’. Pouring in right over the border. Illegals. More n’ you think. Folks a lot different than you an’ me. You get a flood of em’ comin’ and they’re clusterin’, cohabitatin’, creatin’ their own communities. They’re takin’ over this country! You can see that Bump, can’t you? It’s an influx . . . . Ain’t none of ’em good for crime, I tell ya’. Now, to be fair, I can’t complain much about their women folk . . . mostly quiet types. You’ll see’em cleanin’ country clubs, hotel rooms, fancy homes, or maybe, workin’ fast-food. They keep to themselves, mind their kids, don’t trouble no one. But here’s the thing Bump, we can’t let’em. Hell,that’s why they keep comin’, bringing ’em babies and men: Cause they can!”
Nodding at the boozy memory, looking feverishly for his remote, Bump yelled, “GRISELDA, YOU’RE FIRED!”
Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. public defender who worked as an assistant federal public defender in Alabama between 2012 and 2015. He has contributed to numerous magazines and newspapers in the United States and overseas. He writes full-time and lives in Woodland Hills, California. “Waking up with Ronald Bump in 1986” was first published in Unhinged Magazine: http://unhingedmagazine.com/2016/02/waking-up-with-ronald-bump-in-1986/