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The Bosses' Nephew (4)

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 09 January 2012

Hits: 1557

For the village idiot he has rare moments of utter, supreme clarity.

Not that he's stupid, not by a long shot, but his intelligence isn't of the sort that's conventionally measured, he wouldn't pass an IQ test. But socially, well, for a guy that eats with his fingers and is more than willing to *uck anything that moves, well, he's not quite as easily pinned down as all that.

Sometimes, at the bar, making a drink or passing time until it's busy, he tells me shit. Shit he doesn't tell anyone else, because, really, who else would get it? 

He's talking about his cousin, Fredrica, who "Is such a whore, I'm not kidding, such a dirty fucking whore, she'll fuck anything.....she's like me, only a woman..."

This is the joke, only he's not joking, her damning trait not being that she's like him, or indiscreet or a slut, no, it's that she's like him and she's a woman. Women aren't like that.

And he's telling me about the business cards of the car dealers - today a slow day, but for some reason we have the owner of a Toyota, a Chrysler and a very fine Luxury car dealership in for lunch. They're not talking, different tables, but the nephew is telling me what their business cards should say:

"I sell cars" for the Chrysler and the Chrysler and Toyota dealers.

 For X, the owner of the Luxury dealership - he's got the card worked out - "I don't sell cars, I sell dreams....", and it's funny, because it's right, every adolescent who's done well and saved their money finds their way to this dealership to fulfill their childhood dreams, too sadly they don't usually get there until their in their 40's or 50's....

And he brings up another, the character who sold the owner of the restaurant the imaginary luxury car that never arrived - it just says "I sell dreams"  - it's brilliant, in it's way, but he has to tell me this in a lowered voice, cautious of eavesdropping, this is still a sore subject no one dares to broach...

In a way he's the Shakespearean Fool, the jester or idiot who somehow speaks truth to power, in all other aspects an idiot, but in some other ways he's dead on the money, but here, of all places, he can only speak his mind to me, his talents are squandered....