I rarely, if ever, quote from my own writing. But after reading Monsieur Donald considers his cabinet nominees have “by far the highest I.Q. of any cabinet assembled” I couldn’t help thinking of good old, brain-challenged Dwayne Ivers.

Dwayne appears in a novella-length story I call The Crab Walker by Moira Duffy. Among other exploits he’s responsible for the death of a young woman he abandons on a sand bar off the Florida Panhandle shore of the Gulf of Mexico. This is Dwayne when he first appears in the story:

Dwayne was like a kid let loose in Disneyland. He grabbed the shopping cart and hit the summer stuff first. The beach umbrella with the pink and orange flowers was real pretty. The how-can-I-help-you gal said she’d hold it for him while he did the rest of his shopping. What else they need? A tent, for sure. And a cooler.

He picked up a shovel on the way to camping goods. In the sports section he got a real fine fishing rod, plus a bucketful of live bait out of the fridge. Plus a fish grill shaped just like a fish.   That reminded him they needed a camp stove and a lamp.

He came to a full stop at the tarps. The beach umbrella was way prettier but it would stand out for miles. That was the thing with him. He was always thinking sharp about shit like that.

Bug spray. Oh yeah, knife to gut the fish. Maybe she’d like some magazines for when he wasn’t around? He picked out some girl stuff plus a Bible for Teens.

Hit the food section. Man, this was what money can do for a guy. A five-pound bag of salted pecans. Every kind of Doritos on the shelf. Packs and packs of Mountain Dew and Root Beer. Onion dip. Cheez Wiz. Salsa. Canned cocktail franks. Regular franks. Buns. Marshmallows, strawberry flavoured licorice. Mustard. A bucket of peanut butter.

Over in pastries, the cake lady was making way tiny pink rosebuds on a cake. She sure worked neat and regular and he told her. She didn’t look up or say thanks. Pissed him off so he made like he was gonna jump her. She skipped one of the rosebuds and got angrier than pitbull Jeneece.

           He walked by produce. Folks needed greens or fruit for vitamins. He picked out a nice California seedless watermelon and a big bunch of green grapes. Remembered they’ll need toilet paper and walked back for some.

He topped everything with fresh roasted chicken, a bag of Chicken Nuggets with extra honey sauce and a whole deepdish sausage pizza.

At the cash, the woman ran his two one-hundred dollar bills through the scanner – Hairy Moment of the Day. He almost bolted. What if the Soranian guy he’d been loaded with funny money?

She handed back his change and told him to have a good one.

He loaded up the cart real quick and called a cab from the special phone in the entrance. He’d always wanted to do that. Cabbie showed up and looked at him funny when he gave the address. “Gettin picked up over there,” he fibbed. Cabbie shrugged and dropped him off in the middle of the scenery like he ask.

Making his way to the boat with the groceries was a shitload of work on account of the upended trees and keeled-over houses. But he had it all figured out. First, he take out the supplies. Then he go home and pick her up like nuthin special goin down. If the old crow was around, they’d slip out across the creek and through the back of the Mall.

After that: Paradise Island Forever for Dwayne and Angie.