Diaphora (di-a’-pho-ra): Repetition of a common name so as to perform two logical functions: to designate an individual and to signify the qualities connoted by that individual’s name or title.
Earnie: Joey, Joey, Joey. You’re just like a baby kangaroo—you are your mother’s burden, but you’re a bad Joey, making her carry you around for the past 10 years. Joey the joey, it is time to get out of that pouch and make a life for yourself before you kill your mother, before you ride her to her grave.
Joey: What do YOU know dingo butt? Since my father died, it’s been me and Ma all the way. Sure, I don’t have a job and everybody thinks we live off her Social Security, but that’s what Social Security’s for. And to be absolutely honest, I do have a job. I sell gourmet popcorn on the internet. The business is called “Boom Bam” and it is a front for a dating site that specializes in “clandestine” dating. There, Mr. Cosmic Snoop Do-Gooder, Shit for Brains, now you know my biggest secret. I live here with Ma to conceal my assets.
“Boom Bam” clears 500K per year, but I have to keep it secret for the sake of my clients, some of whom are prominent citizens. I’m thinking about going into blackmail next.
If you tell anybody about me, I’ll have you tortured to death out in the desert.
Earnie: Holy hell-ride from outer space! I always knew you’d make good! You make my extortion racket look like bullshit. I make half what you do with twice the risk. So, scaring the shit out of my clients is part of my game. I like to send them pictures of bloody chain-saws and severed hands. Works like a charm to prompt timely monthly cash payments in my money drop, an old Mercedes parked in a junkyard with a mail slot cut in the trunk. Of course, I pay a modest parking fee to my buddy George who owns the junkyard. It’s called “Twisted Treasure.” Ha ha! Maybe we could team up.
Joey: There’s no room on my crew for you Earnie. Don’t get any big ideas either. Just leave well enough alone.
Earnie: Ok. Ok. Enough said. Never will I get in your face. My hands are off.
POSTSCRIPT
But, Earnie lied. He tried to muscle into Joey’s extortion rackets. First, Earnie flooded “Boom Ban” with fake logons, and started rerouting Joey’s clients to his site “Top Pop” selling decorations and jewelry made from 1960s soda and beer can pop tops. Then, he committed the ultimate breach of criminal friendship: he stole the trunkful of money stored in the Mercedes at “Twisted Treasure.” This is not “hands off.” Joey said to his crew. “Ever since we were kids he’s been stealing stuff off me, all the way back to my baseball glove when we were in Little League together. I never should’ve let it slide—my mom and his mom were good friends and I didn’t want to ruin that. It’s time to put an end to it.”
Joey took Earnie “for a ride” out to the desert, along with three of his crew members. Lucky for Earnie, he didn’t know what hit him. He was cleanly whacked and quickly dismembered with a chainsaw. Joey laughed, “Now he’s really hands off.”
Out of respect, Earnie put a photograph of one of Joey’s severed hands on the new edition of the “Payment Prompter” which he’d be sending to clients falling behind on their monthly “donations.” Joey thought the “Prompters” were the best idea Earnie had ever had.
Now, it was time for Joey to get to work on the blackmail scam. He was going to start at the top. He was considering Elon Musk or Kevin McCarthy.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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