Breaking Up with Andrew Cuomo by Conchita De Luto

Breaking Up with Andrew Cuomo
Conchita De Luto

I must confess that as COVID-19 accelerated my aging process and sank me into a deep state of funk that the experts at the New York Times now call “languishing,” I developed a mad crush on Andrew Cuomo.

For several months, my sister even referred to him as “your boyfriend.”

My partner, understood that I was polyamorous only in my heart and went along with it, enabling my schoolgirl crush by calling out every morning at 9:30 PST, “Andrew Cuomo is on!”
I would then scamper out of my Zoom infested office in my old man pajamas, grab a cup of coffee and sit on the edge of my coffee table, in front of the TV, hanging on his every word.

“What a man!” I whispered to my mug of coffee.
“Isn’t he great?” I asked my partner who shall remain nameless.
“Better than an orangutan.” Said Man-of-Few-Words.
When Cuomo’s “address to the nation,” was over, I felt buoyant with optimism and I would call my sister who would have more to say than “better than an orangutan.”
“Isn’t he great?”
“Who?”
“Andrew Cuomo.”
“Yeah, it feels good to have someone make sense out of this horrible mess,” she would agree.
But then I couldn’t help myself, “He is the perfect combination of the stereotypical tough guy and the kind father you never had.”
“My dad was never unkind.”
“I mean father as the universal father, you know, the one we, none of us, ever had.”
Nada.
“Like the epitome of masculinity. Like a benevolent macho.”
“Sure,” she said. “Your boyfriend makes a lot of sense and we need that right now.”
Not getting what I needed from my sister, I turned to Siri.
“Siri, is Andrew Cuomo single?”
“What does Andrew Cuomo do in his spare time?”

I found out several interesting facts about Andrew Cuomo.
***He was once married to a Kennedy. Did you know that?
***He adores his mother.
***He cooks spaghetti for his adult daughters on Sunday! Imagine that!

Honestly, I visualized Trump raping a woman in a Bergdorf Goodman’s dressing room while Cuomo stirred bubbling tomato sauce with a giant wooden spoon on a Sunday afternoon in New York.
That did it. It was as clear as crystal, that I was head over heels in love with Andrew Cuomo and he didn’t even know I existed. It was not unlike what happened with Ralph Woodhouse in high school.
Then the story broke. First came the young, overly thin woman wearing a bare- backed dress at a wedding. Why of course, she felt his clammy hand on her back! What choice might he have had?
Slobbery kiss?
Did he drink too much? That can happen at weddings.
When the second story broke, I called my friend Ersi, “So do you think he ruined this young woman’s sex life?”
“Well, that’s what I heard. Apparently, when he asked if she would consider having sex with an older man, she was so creeped out she never wanted to have sex again.”
“That bad?”
“Yeah, made me think of what happened to me at my cousin Cristi’s quinceañera.”
“Stop.”
“Yeah, my tío Victor was drunk, as usual, and I was wearing a halter dress. Remember those? He put his sweaty meaty hand on my back and pushed his hot tequila marinated lips on mine like a stinky suction cup.”
“Gross, Ersi. You never told me this.”
“Well, it was a long time ago, and it never stopped me from having sex.”
“Lucky for you.”
“No shit.”
“Okay, but should I break up with him?”
“Yeah, you need to break up with him, Conchita.”
I gave this matter serious thought.
And then the realization hit me hard. I was a feminist, and I couldn’t have this. I wrote him a little note:

Dear Andrew,
My heart is broken. I thought you were my hero, and it turns out you’re not. It turns out you’re just as creepy as all your other smarmy baby boomer has-been alpha male compadres trying to hang on to the old-world ways of treating women. I don’t hate you but I’m mad.
May you be forgiven,
Conchita

Later that week, I read my letter to Ersi.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Just my luck, right?”
“Yeah, you didn’t have a lot of boyfriends but most of them were bad.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Ersi, though was not ready to let it go at that. “Now the real question is, should he be removed from office?”
“Fuck no.”
She laughed. “You still love him!”
I laughed. “Touché!”
“So, he shouldn’t resign?”
“Not on your life. One thing is for him to be a creepy asshole, taking unfair advantage of young innocent women, and another is for him to resign. If he resigns or is removed from office for this, we will tip the scale so much politically that only Republicans get to be creepy assholes, and not just for sexually harassing and in some cases sexually assaulting women, but also, for fomenting racism and running our country into the ground. And that just wouldn’t be fair.”
“In other words, we need our fair share of assholes?”
“Exactly.”