Grifter’s Palace

I got a personal advance recently from Leslie Stringfellow, who is president of the A.G.A., with the identity of the 2018 recipient of that organization’s most prestigious award.

The A.G.A. is the American Grifters Association and the award is fondly known in grift circles as “the Grifty.” The physical award itself is a clever genuine Formica replica of a handshake with the fingers crossed on one of the hands. It is presented annually to the grifter who has raised the grift bar in taking down an especially juicy score that has garnered significant public attention and gained new respect for the time-honored practice of confidence tricks. Past Grifty winners include the Kardashian family, Billy Graham, and NFL president Roger Goddell.

Stringfellow explained that the Grifty’s for 2016 and 2017 were unanimously awarded to Donald Trump, whom he referred to in awed tones as the Babe Ruth of Grift. I told him I thought that maybe the Barry Bonds of Grift might be more apropos, given Bonds’ steroid-powered home run record. He ignored me.

“Never in our wildest schemes did anyone in AGA ever think one of our humble ranks could ever sleaze himself – or herself as the case almost was – into the biggest score in the history of grift,” Stringfellow – or “Stringy” as he insisted I call him while checking out my watch – went on. “Never did we think that one of us could be the guy with the pen and the endless checkbook. We gave it to him in ’16 for getting elected and the ’17 award was for the way he took care of business once he was in there. Dang, it was a regular Grifter’s paradise. Around here we’ve taken to calling the White House Grifter’s Palace like in that great grifter movie “Greaser’s Palace.”

“And let me tell you, brother,” Stringy warbled on, warmed to his rap now. “Donald J. Trump is unequalled for the one simple and pure reason: he runs his grift for all the world to see and enough of the world eats it up that he can go on to the next hustle. The guy is an endless creator of shadiness. He is our Prince of Darkness – heck, make that our King of Darkness. He could steal your radio and leave the music.

“And for this year, we’re giving the Grifty hands down to the fabulous Omarosa. Just like Trump, she needs only one name, and she has well-earned her award. She has made being a sneaky evil harridan into an art form of grifterism. I mean, look, she went from a TV loser to having a desk right outside the Oval office, the highest salary of the staff, a title nobody understood, and – here’s the payoff – she never hit a lick, never did a damn thing anybody could see except evil around and make everybody scared of her. That was a new chapter in grifting!”

When I reminded Stringy that Omarosa had to be escorted from the White House, he shrugged and said, “Yeah? But now she has a new book and is going on 60 Minutes and playing tapes she made in the White House and all. This woman has no quit in her.”

When I said that the book bad-mouths Trump as being racist and misogynistic and getting senile fast and that Trump has called her a lowlife, Stringy winked and said, “Sure. He’s just going along with the grift. They smell alike, baby.”