I Really Love Jon Voight, Even If He Is A Conservative

Coco’s slightly bulging, hyperthyroidic eyes were pivoting about the room, hunting for him. Her pink velvet poppies twined around the assisted gold of her heavily hair-sprayed hair kept presenting different room views as she was checking who, among these tanorexic party goers, might be seeing her hunting.

Ah, Tyrone, her quarry was at last unwarily crossing the room towards--well not precisely but at least—if she repositioned herself—he was crossing at least obliquely in her direction.

She carefully figured and moved—even just trying to walk without limping after her bunion operation was painful, but now at least she was wearing her naked shoes without the embarrassment of those hammer toes, but the surgery did limit her agility, give her a fascinating gait as she tried to move near Tyrone’s path, a sort of skip with a coiling, sinuous reptilian sidle; and now—OK now, adjusting her calculated sidle a bit to the right, she was strategically near where he would pass—you know? and then turned innocently away.

On came, Tyrone, her unsuspecting host, passing very… very close now and Coco suddenly swiveled with surprising quickness, and seized his passing rawsilk clad sleeve, whispered up to him, "Now I got you!" chuckling playfully, "can't excape!" Trying to manage a maidenly upward lilt of her cigarette husky voice, peering up at him seductively from under amazingly long, charcoaly mascaraed lashes.

"Greetings," said the startled Tyrone, and wondering why Coco was whispering, "how’s it going Coco?"

"Oh, you know, I'm finely," she rasped now in a more normal tone "just simply finely. Listen. You gotta do me the coolest favor, you know? Now, please don't say no, will you? Will you, like for a favor? Pretty please with sugar on it?" Combining two different generations of hep and hip cool slang.

"Maybe," said Tyrone patting her bony hand while looking around to his other guests.

"Listen," she said to him, "you know,” whispering again, “I gotta meet Jon Voight over there. Honestly," here she threw open a perfumed hand in supplication, reeking with the penetrating formaldehyde of Nordstom’s #5, "I'm just simply stoked about a bad man like that. I mean, you know? Like when he acts!" Here she made an emphatic but indecipherable gesture with a palm, "he's so bad, he's super bad!” her voice going back in her throat, now becoming even huskier, which she knew was totally sultry, “I mean he's the baddest man ever in the movies you know?" cocking her head and rolling her violet contact-lensed eyes deliriously, "crimony,’ I said to Murgatroyd, 'you know, I said, lucky for you Jon Voight is a just conservative, 'I said; ' or you know Murgi,” exhaling up at Tyrone a very hip European version of Binaca, “you'd have lots of reason, to be jealous, anyways I just gotta meet him or die. Gotta tell him, you know--well, I won't tell him this, I promise I won't, but he does, you know?"

Now straining her bulging peripheral vision and putting a sideways hand over her mouth, whispering again, "He just makes my loins go moist, you know?"

Here she squeezed Tyrone's arm through his sleeve and leaned back, "Please be a totally cool friend and introduce me?"

"Awright," said Tyrone, with a puzzled smile, “Where is he, anyway?"

"Crimony," she said, dipping her beginning-to-wrinkle-under-the-tan knees, in an excess of squirming anticipation, "over there, where the crowd is, you know? just basking in adorations. And dude, you know, you are the coolest dude on Earth? for just this party, giving it for Jon Voight--crimony this is real rainbow coalition coolest ever, and having him meet all these, well, you know, these evolved progressives and all. He must be really stoked, grateful? I mean you know?"

"I suspect not," Tyrone said towing her in the direction of the star.

"Anyways it’s super cool," she said, "crimony, totally cool of you, like even if, you know, you especially since you are a very environmental person, you know? I know you’re green or PC, or, like me, for Barack, all that stuff; it’s just good for us at least to meet conservative people, doesn't bum me out at all you know? Some glitterati here think anybody," here she was opening both palms, as she and Tyrone were walking, in tolerant understanding of the unfortunate prejudice of the world, "you know? some types here in Hollywood; not mentioning no names,” (the upward lilt again) “but they just think it's so freaky to even ever talk about Bush or Cheney unless you jump ugly on, you know? Even that awful word, “conservatives”, because my husband, you know, Murgi? he just freaked out about me even saying I was going to talk to Jon Voight, bums him out. Well, Murgi, of course, you gotta know, he’s from San Francisco and he has that adorable light feathery voice, so metrosexual, like they do up there: and you know, so progressive or very far left or whatever that is up there with alternate sexuality and Hate Asberry all that stuff? But he's not testosteroney, you know? Not one of those dudes that, make you feel nervous, like they're gonna try to control you or something, more like a gal pal… ."

Here Tyrone interrupted, "Did Murgatroyd come tonight?" They had encountered a people wall surrounding Jon Voight.

"No, he, well he just couldn't afford to Tyrone," she said, "cording to him I'm just risking, you know, being so uncool tonight. But I even told him when I left, 'I got a wild hair tonight,'” (maidenly upward lilt again) “I said," she said this last with a cavalier acrylic flip of one long nailed French manicured index finger pointing upward.

"Crowd's letting up," said tall handsome Tyrone, resuming towing her determinedly again towards Voight. Tyrone had a small mustache and very dark, slightly eyebrow-penciled eyebrows; and, as they walked, he kept smiling at the braless, siliconed breast swaying, barebacked passersby, acknowledging greetings from spray tanned, sunglassed faces.

"Oh, hi Israel," said Coco, batting her very long false eyelashes, her voice suddenly breathy again, "Mash lom hah?" waving four slightly swollen jointed fingers of an arthritic upraised hand, throwing her head back opening her stretched-from-facelifting mouth and flashing her caps, laughing at her own heavily accented attempt at Hebrew.

“Mash lom meh? How’s Murgatroyd, Coco," said the tall passerby, a very dark man, with severe features and piercing eyes.

"Oh Israel, Murgatroyd was just saying, you gotta have lunch sometime. He'd be perfect for your next… ." but Israel was already gone, quickly taking himself out of earshot.

"Oooooh," she made a little squeal and put her brilliant white, plastic finger nails together prayerfully in thanksgiving, "wait'll I tell Murgatroyd that I pitched him to Israel,” (her upward lilt going up several octaves) “--I’ll be all, ‘Murgi Israel looked tres interesteresante when I mentioned lunch!’" she said this as they were now near breaching the diminishing people wall--Coco whispering fiercely again, "Murgatroyd'll get so freaked he wasn’t here, loves Jewish people—me too--they are the coolest, specially directors, but he'll go ballistic, about Jon Voight he'll fall on the floor and froth rabies bubbles at his mouth. When I’m talking to Murgi, I'll be like, 'Crimony Murgi, don't be so silly about conservatives,’ an he’ll be all, “I just can't be seen talking to them by Industry people if I wanna ever work in Hollywood again,” but I gotta say for Murgi, he’s very rainbow coalition. He has even—keep it a secret Tyrone--Murgi even watches Sarah Palin on TV, but keeps it turned down real low—oh hi, Nathan.”

“Nathaniel,” corrected the passing little black man.

“Of course,” she said extending her hand, "how is your wii, daught… ."

"It was my niece and she's better thanks," nodding his head and swiftly moving on, avoiding her wrinkled, bony hand that he knew would leave a nauseating scent imprint for hours.

Tyrone was forced to stop again at the edge of the crowd around Voight’s fringes .

Coco whispered up to him, "Can't never remember these African-Americans, all look the same to me. Isn't that awful? But look at Jon Voight there, land a livin, up close he’s tres charismatic, wowser, Murgi just absolutely freaks me out. Me, I gotta tell it like it is. Murgi says tolerance and rainbow coalition is one thing but conservatives are evil, he says, or why would Sean Penn, who even hugged Hugo Chavez, you know, and Frank Clooney and Barbra Streisand; whom are really, really cool for the Environment. You know the global heating thing like George Bush? I'm really bagging on poor Murgi aren't I?"

"Well," Tyrone stood as straight as possible to access higher perfume-free air.

"I am," she said, "I know I am." Here she grabbed her forehead and waggled it, careful not to displace her hairpiece, a gesture of self-reproof for not being able to help herself in her exuberant paroxysm of broad mindedness, "now, me, I'm no rocket surgeon but I don't go there at all, like Whoopi Goldberg, whom is just as broad-minded as all get out: conservatives are just as good as we are you know? Crimony, why, just misinformed, like children always going on about personal responsibility and such. I think even Sarah Palin herself, who everybody just hates, with that awful looking, deformed mongoloid baby, that is really her daughter’s, that should have been a abortion, are just lost, they don't get it. But some of them are, well, at least okay, but we are all human beans, aren't we?"

"Yes," said her host, "some,” frustrated that three morbidly obese people were blocking their path.

"But Jon Voight," Coco was forcefully whispering, "we gotta have villains in the movies don't we? I'm so crazy about anything artistic--if a person's a artist nobody can feel like it's freaky, that you’re unenviromental just meeting them. That's absolutely what I say to Murgi. Don't you think I'm right?"

"At this point I have no idea," said her host.

"That's the way I feel," she said. "I just can't understand mean spiritedness, you know? I mean, we got a Negro President, don't we, you know? Why, I'll tell ya what I think and I don't care who hears me," she said in the lowest possible whispered voice, "or nothing else--God, She made everybody, just the same as She did any of us. Didn't She?" Giving strong emphasis to feminine pronoun. "Oh, I get so furious at people being narrow mindedly about anything, even, I’ll say it, even conservatives, you know? It's just all I can do not to ever say something. Of course, I gotta admit when you get a bad conservative, like Laura Ingram or Michelle Malik, Anne Coulter—ack! I tell you, you know, I used to even get really freaked out by Ronald Reagan, so much like my mean father, but unless they’re simply terrible--I’m all to Murgi, ‘there’re bad progressive people, too, in this world. Aren't there?’"

"Possibly," said her host, “here we go… .

"Why, you know it’d even be cool to have John Voight come to my own house. But, I couldn't on account of Murgatroyd, but it wouldn't bum me out it at all. There, we can get through now, let's just go over and talk to him. Listen what’ll I do shake hands? Or what? What do you do with them?"

"Why, do whatever you want," said Tyrone putting a handkerchief to his nose to diminish the smell of her perfume.

"Guess maybe I'd better shake," she said. "I wouldn't for the world have Jon Voight think I was freaked about him being…guess I better just haul off and shake hands, just like with, with normal...that's just exactly what I'll do."

They reached the tall good-looking older actor with a cleft in his chin, now standing by the bookcase. The host performed introductions; the actor bowed.

"How do you do?" Jon Voight said.

Coco, this totally tolerant woman with pictures of Iraq and Barack all over her shirt, fearlessly extended her hand to the length of her arm and held it there untrembling for all the prejudiced Industry Hollywoody world to see. You know? Until the artistic conservative saw and shook it, and gave it back to her.

"Oh how do you do, Mr. Voight," she said, "how do you very do. I've just been saying to Tyrone,” who had by now totally exscaped, and thus causing Coco to look a little distressed at being exposed, alone over here, so she began speaking faster, “I've enjoyed your acting so awfully much. I've been to all your movies and we have lots of DVDs at home and everything. Oh, I just enjoy it!"

She spoke with great distinctness, moving her lipstick frosted lips, as if in parlance with death.

"I'm so glad," he said.

"Why I been a fan forever, I even saw you in A View from the Bridge off-Broadway years ago. You were that blonde headed eyetalian, gosh centuries ago, but you sure played a good acting role, gosh, I would never have guessed that you were--“here she stopped herself and recovered, “anyways when are you going to do another movie?"

"Well, you know I just played George Washington on television… ."

"Well, I’m all over it," she said, "I'll watch it for sure. Definitely. Crimony, here comes a awesome number of fans to talk to you." She was anxious to bury herself back in the camouflage of a group, "You’re just a regular guest of honor. Oh, is that Angelina Jolie, that girl in white? I've seen her someplace."

© Pierrino Mascarino