Pete Limpelli and the Clifton Expedition

NOTE - This section of American Project contains adult language and content and is therefore not suitable for minors.

Episode 19

Clifton hill, like many hills in Cincinnati, was buttressed by a grey concrete retaining wall, which snaked and wound in a sad cold ribbon, keeping the remnants of once dense forests, and the remnants of once proud houses from tumbling down.

Pete Limpelli’s Lincoln Towne Car made the great sweeping turns up the mountainside, and Pete now hummed to a Duke Ellington song on the radio.

“Bah ba dum da dum dumm,” Pete hummed. His tea tree oil toothpick jammed back by the gold crown in his lower molar. Pete, in his disgust, had gnawed the toothpick to a pulpy, frayed remnant that somehow stayed together like fasces around an ax.

Pete was taking the A train up McMillan to Clifton.

Walking down the hill, on the sidewalk, which was flush up against the grey concrete retaining wall, was someone with a blonde Statue of Liberty Mohawk, and a shirt with the sleeves torn off. The shirt said “Meat is Murder,” and Pete Limpelli chuckled to himself. Meat was murder, he thought. Maybe, thought Pete, this guy, this punk rock kid would be somebody to talk to.

***

The kid was sort of chubby. Sort of rotund. Pete wondered, for a New York minute, how that kid, that punk rock kid could be a vegetarian and fat. Pete had only really known three serious vegetarians and they were all skinny.

Pete slowed the car. He pulled to the curving curb of McMillan, and threw it in park. He threw on his blinkers, and touched the electric window passenger open.

“Hey kid!”

The kid stopped, and turned. He squinted and peered into the front seat of the Lincoln.

Pete saw a strange hairline around the kid’s Statue of Liberty Mohawk. It looked like a wig. Under the Mohawk was a jowly, round face and a nose like an Indian Chief. Over top the cut off shirt, Pete Limpelli saw a braided gold rope with a giant horn shaped maloccio dangling from it. The maloccio swayed as the punk kid rested his hands inside the window of the passenger door.

The kid, who now, up close, looked to be in his sixties, was out of breath.

***

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Photograph by Nythan James.