Some of you know that I had a weird near-brush with a President of the United States. I never met the man, but in the calendar year of 1966, both Donald Trump and I were students at Fordham University. Some of my friends and acquaintances were in classes with him, or had played some sandlot sports with him, so he entered my world, but as nothing more than a drive-by mention.
The excerpt:
“The person who best symbolized my animal house years at Fordham was Fat Joe. When I was a junior, he had already graduated, but he still came by the dorms every night to drink with us, to chew the fat, and to play cards. The following year brought more of the same, presumably because he had neither friends nor options. Silly Lenny, who was my friend and Fat Joe’s former roommate, explained that Joe had not always been fat. He had been a svelte and athletic 160 pounds as a freshman, but had gained close to a hundred pounds by the time I knew him. We asked Fat Joe how he could have gained so much weight, and he attributed it all to constipation. By his own admission, therefore, he was totally full of shit. He was completely correct in that assessment.
Fat Joe used to brag to us in crudest terms about his love life, portraying escapades that would make Casanova seem like a monk.
“I know right away when a woman wants it, Wolf, I can smell it.”
We found his claims highly unlikely for two reasons.
* First, because he spent seven nights a week playing poker with us;
* Second, because he was Fat Fucking Joe.
Shortly before graduation, our conclave of animals convened to vote for the “douchebag of the year,” as we had every year. For the seniors among us, this marked our final chance to participate in this solemn and time-honored ritual, so we felt as if we were fulfilling our sacred duty to memorialize not merely that year’s biggest douche, but the biggest douche we had known in our time as comrades. Each voter had to list ten names in ranked order. The Pecker, who had arrogated to himself absolute authority as our election official, was forced to tear up Rudy Cassoutie’s ballot because Fat Joe’s name was not to be found anywhere among the ten nominees. Rudy was our chum, but he obviously had to be disqualified, given that Joe was not just a big, fat, fucking douchebag, but was the biggest, fattest, fuckingest, douchebaggiest guy in the history of Fordham University.
And that was no small achievement, given that Joe was in the same Fordham class as Donald J. Trump. ”
In the unlikely event that you enjoy this kind of crap, you can buy the book here. Fair warning. You probably expect it to be funny, and some of it is, but you probably also expect it to take nothing seriously, and in that respect you will be disappointed. It is funny and sad, as if written by Nabokov without the talent.
To be fair, I should note that Trump was not a fat guy at the time. The obesity came later. He played a varsity sport (squash!), was known even then as a solid golfer, and was said to be a total stud at many intramural sports. One classmate recalled a story of Trump punting a football 50 yards while wearing his street shoes.
Your writing voice is the reason I’ve been here as long as I have, and the book made me appreciate you all the more, G.
ObDisc: Just a satisfied content reader.
What happened to Fat Joe? Did he become a professional poker player 🤪
I doubt it, since he lost consistently.
When I graduated, there were still sophomores and juniors in our poker group. And when those guys graduated, they left behind more underclassmen for Fat Joe to annoy. Given the great continuity of life, he was still there for decades, like Wooderson in Dazed and Confused, until he finally died from a heart attack when he couldn’t handle the excitement of drawing a straight flush on the river.
Well, that’s the way I would write it, if I ever created a sequel.
The reality was very different:
He had a happy ending.
He linked up with the love of his life during the year after I graduated and stayed married to her until his death in 2019. Before he settled down with Marie, Fat Joe had been so lonely that he had to be part of our poker group. We were his family. He drove us crazy with his bragging and his neediness, and the fact that he never stopped talking, but … you know how it is. He was one of us. To paraphrase the American Pie kids when they described Stifler, Fat Joe was a douchebag, but he was OUR douchebag.
His relationship with Marie replaced his need for the poker group, and saved him from what was obviously a very lonely life. He got his act together, got an MBA from Fordham, and became the very picture of responsible domesticity – 2 kids, 4 grandkids, and a lifetime of selling insurance so successfully that he bought big home and a summer house on the Jersey shore. His skill as a non-stop bullshitter made him perfect for his career choice.
Good career. Good wife. As far as I know, he died a happy man, admired by everyone in his church group, and much loved by his family.
Appreciate the American Pie reference and your writing skills. Glad he finally, hopefully, found a calling other than poker and happiness 🙂