Hide Your Purse, Girls, Andrew’s Back

Marquel, TPVs NYTimes Crooks and Corruption Section correspondent, was sucking his thumb when he read Cuomo Wraps Up Israel Trip After Visiting Tunnels. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, on a tour to show support for Israel, visited a tunnel near the border with Gaza Thursday that was said to have been dug by the militant group Hamas.

Marquel was there, he’d hopped the governor’s own jet, with his handwritten press pass, and took the tour of the tunnel. Cuomo reflected not a bit about what it must mean about the determination of the Palestinians. Instead he said, I swear,

“I didn’t know they were so long. I thought they went a few yards.”

He smiled the whole time as if that were happy information.

Everybody knows about the tunnels. We all know they went miles, were electrified, bulkheaded with cast cement and were meant to facilitate bloody attacks on kibbutz residents. I looked at Cuomo’s aide. I mouthed the words, “he doesn’t read?” The aide nodded no. I mimed “TV?” No, again. Radio?” No. I inched up to the aide and asked what he does all day.

“He tries to avoid all the investigations he’s quashed.” He asserted.

“That’s being a governor?” I asked,” sounds like a crook.”

The aide said, “Many New York governors have been called crooks. One actually governed from jail.”

“Jimmy Walker,” I said.

“How’d you know that?” He asked.

“Unlike you and your employer, I’m a New Yorker through and through. My father lived through mayor Walker.”

“He liked him?” He asked.

“No, he liked a state that had so much chutzpah it didn’t give a damn about the people. It reminded him of Russia without the borscht.” I said. “But the fact is, Mayor Walker didn’t govern from jail.”

“No?”

“No. He went to jail when his term was up. Then he escaped from jail and fled to Europe with the co author of On The Town,  Betty  Comden, and damned if I didn’t see her at the Public Theatre a few years ago in the audience.” I said.

“No kidding,” he said.

“Swear to god. She didn’t look like a show girl anymore but she had happy eyes.”

Cuomo was bubbling. Like a schoolkid. It didn’t seem to strike him that this tunnel was built for killing. He couldn’t stand still. “Don’t I take you to cool places?” He said, handing out little New York state cuff links. “We have tunnels in New York, too,” he said, giggling. “Would you like to come see them?”

One of the soldiers said, “we’ve seen them. The Holland Tunnel from Newark.”

“But also,” Cuomo added, “the Lincoln and the Triboro, and don’t forget the Brooklyn Battery!”

I continued to talk to his aide. Something echoed in my ears, almost a child’s cry, but I ignored it. We continued to talk New York politics and Palestinians.

Suddenly sirens went off. They tried to hustle us off to the entrance. All of a sudden I was overtaken by a hitherto vestigial New York patriotism. “Where’s Andrew?” I shouted, noticing the lack of any prancing figure in our midst.

Suddenly two heavily armed figures pushed through all of us. “They’re going to kill him! They think he’s been kidnapped” I said.

A high ranking soldier came to me and said, ” he’s gone missing. We can’t afford a kidnapping.”

Suddenly, everything clicked. “No! No!” I said. “I know where he is. I can get him!”

The officer spoke into his radio. I think the chase was momentarily cancelled.

“You’ve got sixty seconds,” he said gravely.

“Ssssssshhhhhhh!” I commanded. “Total silence!” I said.

Everyone stared at me. I knew what that child’ cry had been and what I had to do. I put my hands around my mouth to amplify it and screamed at the top of my voice, “ALLEE ALLEE IN FREE! ALLEE ALLEE IN FREE! ALLEE ALLEE IN FREE!” I put my finger to my mouth to keep the silence and we listened. Little prancing steps from a distance. Getting closer. And closer. Suddenly Andrew was in front of us, bouncing from one leg to the other.

“I win,” he said.

“You won, governor” I said. The officer was talking into the radio again but he gave me a high five and then twisted his finger around his ear, pointing at Cuomo.

Yeah, crazy, I said to myself, thinking, presenting the next next president of the U.S., who couldn’t resist hiding in a tunnel and shouting the child’s cry,

“betcha can’t find me!”

Betcha can’t vote for him, I hope.

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BY MARQUEL: Hide Your Purse Girls, Andrew’s Back