I met with the letter “u” at a bar next to the YMCA in downtown L.A. where he had a room. There was an initial reluctance on his part regarding the interview. The twenty-first member of the alphabet and last of the full-time vowels had not been heard from in several years. I don’t know if it was by design or not. But I knew that his perspective on the founder of the QAnon movement would be unique. Our chat was pleasant. We ordered drinks, then I showed him the headline about the latest conspiracy theory.
u: Yeah. I saw that. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Some people will believe anything.
EON: Do you hold your former partner responsible?
u: Listen, I’m not here to trash Q. He and I were tight for a long time. We did a lot of good things together. I’m proud of that.
EON: Have you heard anything from him lately?
u: No. He’s a recluse. Like some Howard Hughes character. People hang posters and flags with Q on them, but who really knows what he looks like now? He’s lost his identity. He’s a symbol for something I’m not sure he believes in or even understands. The Che of the right.
EON: What does he believe in?
u: (??????) I can tell you what he DOESN’T believe in. He doesn’t believe in Jewish space lasers or dead presidents coming back from the grave. He may be fat but he ain’t stupid . . . Well, maybe . . . (??????). He believes in a good gag.
EON: Does he believe that the 2020 election was stolen?
u: He don’t care if it was. He’s not into politics. I don’t think he’s ever voted.
EON: How do you suppose he fell in with the radical right?
u: I think he saw an opportunity to screw with people’s minds. It could just as well have been the left. In the sixties, it was the libs latching on to ?????. “Let’s all drop acid and levitate The Pentagon”. Today, the wing nuts are on the right. He’s just picking on the feeble-minded.
After some pinball and a few more drinks, the conversation turned to the old days.
EON: You guys were close. Always seen together.
u: He was pretty dependent on me back then. He couldn’t spell jack s??at without me. But he always got top billing. It was always Q-u. Never U-q. I didn’t care. I was a team player. You mentioned, “t” and “h” earlier. Yeah, they were a pair that did well. But both could work apart from one another. Q was useless without me. I can’t tell you how many games of Scrabble players have lost with him sitting in the tile rack waiting for little old ???. Ten point letter, but can’t spell shit! Now, his highness is a big deal. Gone solo. An opium for the ?????.
EON: That’s what you call his followers? Asses?
u: Right now, Q is the one-eyed man in the land of the blind. What the blind don’t know is that the lights are off and the king can’t see shit either.
EON: How do you mean?
u: He’s not real bright. I mean, if you start a conspiracy theory about a pizzeria with a basement full of baby-eating leftists, choose a pizzeria that really has a basement. That makes the baby-eaters believable.
EON: Not very well thought out.
u: He needed a lot of help. That’s why he got paired with a vowel. Vowels make things happen. Without me, he’s just an “O” with a tail. “K” could do what he does. He has no phonetic value. I hate to bring that up. It’s not his fault that he’s phonetically inferior. But it’s true. And you just can’t expect much from him.
I quickly cut him off before his comments got uglier.
EON: What are you up to these days?
u: Life’s been a lot slower since the split. Promoters call about a reunion, but that’s really up to him. I have hobbies now. And I still get together with “S” and “A” to appear at rallies and sporting events. It’s great to hear the crowd chant our names. “U-S-A! U-S-A!” . . . It never gets old . . . It never gets old.
u ordered another round, but I had what I needed for the story. I thanked him and told him it would be in the Sunday supplement. As I got up to leave he gave me a message for Q. “Tell him I think it’s a great gag.”
