Big Mike is the life of the party, especially when there is no party. He is perhaps 60, tall, heavy set, wide, blond and famously lucky with the local ladies. Mary Biscotti tells me that he has entertained numerous ladies in this guest room bed I write in. Mike easily acquires the gratis, and eager companionship of women half his age and younger, even before he “got the fat shot, and lost seventy pounds.”

Mary Biscotti explains: “Mike, even before he lost all that weight, when he was really big, always got the girls. He is helpful, good-natured, has a deep, friendly voice, and most important, he looks you right in the eyes. When Mike looks into your eyes, you know he is thinking about you—not a mean shit-head trying to cut you down. And when you are a woman—like that 18 year old girl that was just here, as pretty as she is—you feel like somebody, like you matter. That’s Mike.”

Mike is also not a political guy. He is one of those folks who has worked in construction, has spent a life as a volunteer fireman and believes that society and its laws and officers are set up to help out the common man, that the “every day guy” is supposed to get a fair shake, even if it rarely seems to occur. Mike has a houseboat named Driving with Drunks. He does like his beer. As a drinker he doesn’t get hammered, but prefers the long easy buzz for a lot of friendly conversation. Mike has a few cop friends and has been a peacemaker in various domestic conflicts, advising against calling the cops at first gripe, that the cops have better things to do, like stop car-jacking and house-breaking rings.

I sat up memorial day night and spoke with Mike. I offered to bring out some things for the ladies of 4 generations who were enjoying his banter and he was inclined to help. I said, “”Bro, they are enjoying you, not my reptilian personality.”

To demonstrate Mike’s populist, centrist, civic American sensibilities, here are two monologues.

Danny

“Now Danny, a great guy, good guy, my roommate for 15 years, best wingman in the world, never swooping in, right. He hates the Ukrainian cleaning lady and locks her out of his room. She does a good job, but is sometimes in there all night. We figure she’s sleeping there. Dude makes no mess, always there for you. Once, I do him a good turn. I have these two girls in the hot tube, girls who want to get laid and are young—I mean young, right. I have to go to work so leave him with them—can’t miss, right? The one girl calls me up next day and says, ‘What’s a matter with your boy? I wanted to get laid and he left me hanging.’

“So, I ask Danny and he says he fucked her. Well, this girl wouldn’t lie about that. Well finally, after 15 years, Danny comes to me and says, ‘I have to apologize to you, Mike.’

“‘About what?’

“‘I’m gay, bro!’

“‘I don’t care—you didn’t try to suck my dick. Whatever, it’s your life.’

“Well he was really apologizing for lying to me. I Do Not care if someone is gay—more action for me, am I right? Like I said, perfect wing man. But then, you get these gay guys who have to run everything, cry all the time, take over, push all of their a nip there and a tuck here and I’m a broad—bullshit. I’m fine with the reality that a certain amount of dudes want to suck cock and that they are sucking some cock other than mine. Then they have to push their politics and tell me who to hate. I care about people, so I vote for the one choice that has not obviously had a lobotomy, and people want to hate me for that.”

…

Asbury Dark

“I have a big boat—it don’t go fishing! Its for drinking, tie right up to the bar. The place is down on the shore, not far from Asbury Park. Was having a great time, some nice girls lined up wanna have a good time, and you got stabbings. Stabbings, right, like that’s a good time? Now, it wasn’t too bad, since I got locked in the bar for my own safety—not a bad place to be locked in, right. I’ll take it.

“Who is it that does this shit? I’ll give you a clue—they came from Asbury Dark, a bunch of blacks that live down there with all the faɡɡots around Asbury Park. Not only do they come to places where people want to have a nice time and start fights over stupid shit, like really stupid shit, like what comes out of their mouths, but they have to stab. I have some cop friends, a state trooper friend, and they are like all these guys are none of them white, and they are down to fight with us.’

It’s not like with us, if we do something stupid and the cops roll up and say, ‘Hey, stop doing stupid shit or you’re getting locked up.’ No, they fight the cops. I used to be all about equal this for equal that, every body has got a right, and so on. But there is only one kind of people that do this shit, start fights at a good time, break out weapons and then fight the cops: niցցers. It’s time for this shit to stop—yet somehow that makes me the bad guy?’

Big Mike, thank you for being the right kind of Big Mike, and for that six pack of Miller Lite.