The ballad of Duke Cutty



David was born on a hill overlooking Keuka lake. If you asked his mother she might have told you even as a fetus he was a force of nature especially after she could compare David to her second born son Ed. His proud alpha father had a wealth of military discipline and education to pass on to David who soon was running the fastest, shouting the loudest and pushing the hardest at home and school.
It was as though he could never go fast enough. He was always dreaming of being a jet pilot so by the time David got behind the wheel of a car he was flying in his mind. Nothing could slow him down until at eighteen he crashed his car. After his face was wonderfully reconstructed he discovered the Air Force had rejected him due to his accident .
While his engine raced he kept a half hearted foot on the brakes.
He chose to drive a Volvo and went to work at the quiet company selling life Insurance with great success, persistence and drive.
His girlfriend Dana was a beautiful petite freckled Irish angel.
One day she crashed his Volvo but only lost her teeth which David paid to repair and he bid Dana goodbye forever. My shoulder caught her tears but that is all we could share
.
I was there the day he gave his Scarlet O'Hara speech about how he would never go hungry again. We were at McDonalds staring down at a dried out bitter fish sandwich oozing transparent tarter sauce.
David got a white female German Shepard 'Chris' who went everywhere be it business meetings or long fast drives. He also changed his own name from David to Duke. When he walked into a room and was introduced, people would often wonder who was Duke and who was Chris.
He was in full go getter mode as his address book grew to thousands of names. He told me that getting married would give him an advantage for promotions and taxes. So in front of me he got his address book and started with the A's and began calling women he hadn't seen in years and asked each one if they wanted to marry him. Some were already married and some thought he was joking but by the time he made his 11th call, a young woman from Scottsdale Arizona said yes and flew to Rochester NY. They were married by the Justice of the Peace and she started working at the urinal deodorant cake factory nearby. You could smell the scent she brought home on her clothes.
While still selling Insurance he began to sell coke that came in by yacht from Canada and Florida. He had to put up a $30,000 deposit for a steady supply. By the time he had paid back his wife for her part of the deposit, the marriage was over. He moved to a small town just outside the city and began selling in earnest until he had a network of sellers of his own.
He still could not go fast enough but not being a full fledged Citizen Kane with political aspirations he just kept growing his habit and income. He had a huge nest egg when a judge's son overdosed. Duke went full speed ahead and in his wake he left some of his sellers to languish in prison. Scott was one of his sellers and was a Hollywood handsome Rhodes scholar. Everyday but Sunday Scott had to haul barrels of nuclear waste as part of his 7 year hard labor sentence.
Duke escaped the brutal Lake Ontario winters and moved to Virginia.
Duke's brother Ed made a small statue out of gold that had been mixed with bits of teeth that a dentist had loaned him to transform in a lost wax mold. Duke told Ed to tell the dentist that he needed time to put it on exhibition for a year. Duke took the gold statue and put it in a safe deposit box and had the bank extend him a line of credit against it. He then jumped on a jet to Bangkok and bought some perfect Ruby and Emerald Gems on the new credit line. Back in the US the next day he rode a black Triumph motorcycle and was wearing all black leather when he showed up at my door and told me he only wanted $35,000 apiece for the gems he just acquired. I didn't have the money or interest so he zoomed away. I heard his bike a minute later when I noticed he had left his gloves. I put his gloves inside my suit jacket pocket. When he opened the door and asked for his gloves I put a glassy stare on my face and slowly reached for the gloves inside my left suit coat pocket. His eyes went wide with fear until I pulled out his gloves. He raged for a couple minutes and I never saw him again.

I heard from friends of his brother that Duke started flipping houses and invested heavily in Iraq war private contractors like Halliburton, Titan and Black Water. Most people would feel that they were set for life but not Duke. He is an alpha male control freak force of nature who never settled for something as slow as love. What love he needs he can finally afford. He has a brand new private jet and will never go hungry again.
In my mind I see him in his pilot seat starring straight ahead and straining his jet to outpace his memories, but it never goes fast enough.