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How Bunny Stoked the Cold War

(Big Corn Island, Nicaragua) Years ago a poor fisherman hauled in a large squarefish* just off the beach at Sally Peaches. He hid it for an anxious, appropriate period then negotiated with its Colombian owners for a lucrative finders fee and a guarantee that he would be left alone to spend his hard earned cash as he saw fit.

The unwritten rule on recovered cargoes like this stated that if the cocaine smugglers reneged and did harm to one of the “locators” there would be no more returns. The unearthed commodity and its finders would adopt a tight lip approach and make other arrangements to unload the merchandise elsewhere, leaving the original cocaine cowboys with a knee-breaking loss of money and face.  

The lucrative discovery had propelled Hector Conjejos, or “Bunny” as he came to be called, from a net mender to a high roller. He shared his bundle all over the island and built a pink hotel on the spot of his find. No one was surprised when he called in Bunny’s. The now wealthy fisherman had become quite popular with the island ladies with all that loot at his disposal.

“Bunny got real handsome almost overnight,” said Renelle Downs, a longtime resident of Southwest Bay, in her carefully drawn-out Creole. “He be nice enough but he still funny lookin’ to me.”

But it was one lady Bunny desired — the stunning Beatrix from neighboring Little Corn Island, who had it firmly in her head that she would soon go to New York and be a model. Despite the fact that Big Corn itself was becoming a fashion-shoot destination she would never be satisfied hanging with Bunny in the islands while Gotham called. Even with Bunny’s unending attention plus a daily fare of crab and champagne it was only a matter of time before she flew the coop.

He had to act before she vamoosed and left him on his knees in the sand. If she was set on New York he would have to reinvent himself. The old Bunny, no matter how charming and rich, just wouldn’t do this time around. Beatrix was the prize and certainly worth the effort. He had never been to New York but the city’s skyline was already etched on the palm trees.

Bunny began poring over fashion magazines on the porch of his adjacent restaurant. He must have looked a sight all dressed up in a yellow jumpsuit and cowboy boots but nobody said anything. After all, it was his hotel. In addition, Bunny had been a Golden Gloves boxer in his youth and could have easily kicked their assembled asses.

Some days Beatriz would join him in the hammock, digesting styles in vogue from Rio to Rome. Their conversation glided from Paris to Milan with Bunny expounding on trends and fads, sans the barest of credentials. He seemed to delight in heady squabbles as to the absence of wool from the Caribbean wardrobe and why grass skirts never caught on in Mongolia.

“I didn’t know you had such an interest in my future profession,” she would say.

Bunny explored her green eyes and slender figure and just sailed along, smiling wide.

He read everything he could find and even travelled to Managua to attend several beauty pageants studying theme, atmosphere and learning how to build a proper standup runway. 

One morning a tall thin European bellowed a greeting while Bunny was having coffee on his porch amid the red flowers of an African Tulip tree. When he reached the steps he introduced himself as Sergei Cassini and said he was on Big Corn doing a fashion shoot.

“I was searching for some props and the lady at the desk sent me over to talk to you,” said Cassini. “She also said you a sort of fashion icon and astute in the ways of the world.”

“Did she then? said Bunny

“I’ll be needing an old fishing boat, a beater surf board, an oak barrel and mess of coconuts,” said the man.

“Come up and have a drink,” said Bunny. “When will you be wanting these essentials and where? I will see that you have all that you need. Cassini, heh? I know that name.”

“My brother is Oleg, the famous designer. I guess I’m riding on his fame but only when the iron is hot. Otherwise I am in New York dealing with business responsibilities there.

“My brother is Oleg, the famous designer. I’m riding on his fame but only when the iron is hot.”

“Oh, what kind of business Mr. Cassini? asked Bunny

“We have Russian restaurants in Brighton Beach. Do you like sausage and kraut? How about blinis?”

“I like bikinis,” laughed Bunny.

“Don’t be fooled by the Italian surname. We are Cossacks. Our mother was Countess Marguerite Cassini and her husband, our father, was Count Alexander Loiewski, a Czarist diplomat. His maternal grandfather Arthur Paul Nicholas Cassini, Marquis de Capuzzuchi di Bologna, Count Cassini, had been the Russian ambassador to the United States during the administrations of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.

“In 1917,” he continued, “the family was forced to flee our native Russia after the Bolsheviks came to power. Aristocrats were not on their post-revolutionary dance card. We left a houses, land and bank accounts behind, finally settling in Italy where the family began using Cassini instead of Loiewski. 

That was long before my brother went to work for Paramount Pictures and later created the Jackie Look. “Better than most-Second to none” was his mantra.” 

Bunny listened, floored by his good luck at meeting this well-connected filmmaker. The next day he delivered the props to the filming site along with a mess of crabs and beer compliments of his restaurant. Cassini thanked him and invited him to stick around.

“That’s quite a trove of magazines,” said Cassini, when the two met up the next day on the shady porch. You may have the best resource library in Nicaragua. Are you chasing a dream?”

“No. I’m chasing a slender 115-pound beauty that wants to become a fashion model in New York. I figure if I bone up on the ins and outs I might find work, maybe as a designer or a photographer.”

“Have you thought of writing? All of the magazines on your table pay for features and critiques,” said Cassini. New York is home to a better class of writers than Hollywood. Anyone can take a photo and write a review but it takes real talent and insight to detect the wrong crease or a poor button selection. It’s the little things that separate the critics from the bumbler. The pay won’t be much at first but it doesn’t look like you need the money.”

Sadly, Bunny had the literary ability of a leopard slug. He was hard pressed to write – even about fishing, a profession he had embraced for decades until that splendid afternoon when the squarefish surfaced on Sally Peaches.

“To me, the void is most apparent when analyzing and assessing the fashion scene in more remote circles,” continued Cassini. “Everyone writes about the hot spots but nobody talks about the hidden agenda.”

“The hidden agenda?” asked Bunny

“The subtleties of an arena not known for compelling attire or cutting-edge design, you know like Eastern Europe, North Korea or Canada. Imagine a piece on Hungarian cocktail dresses or Canadian swimwear. It may sound less than inspiring, but nobody’s doing it,” he smiled. 

Bunny was speechless. He hadn’t thought this plan all the way through. He was, after all, rich, literate and owned a camera. Maybe he could publish fashion articles and capture the lovely Beatrix in the shuffle.

“I’d be interested in pursuing that,” he said to Cassini who was now on his third Flor de Cana of the morning.

“It makes the most sense. But first you’ll need a nom de plume…something familiar…something very American,” he pressed rubbing his hands together slightly.

Bunny thought for a moment. American? Who was the most American American? He wanted a name that was familiar yet remote, a name that demanded attention and provoked passion.

“How about John Wayne?” asked Bunny

“Now that might attract the kind of attention that we seek,” Cassini laughed. “I like it. Now you just have to be a little haughty, a little snotty and a bit impetuous to pull it off.”

“Besides brushing up on my grammar, where would I begin?” queried Bunny trying on his new status before he so much as picked up a pen. “I don’t know anyone in New York.”

“I could make a few phone calls,” offered Cassini. “I have people in the business that come into my restaurant a couple of times a week,” he winked. “I’ll ask around.”

The next day, when the men met, Cassini was full of enthusiasm.

“We have friends who might be interested in reading your stories. They are in New York. They are always looking for feature pieces from the little known sectors of the globe. They are Russian like me, and vehemently anti-Soviet,” he continued.

“Do you have any problem writing scoops and anecdotes that ape the Politburo box suits and mock peasant dresses that hang like curtains that have seen their last performance?”

“Do you have any problem writing scoops and anecdotes that ape the Politburo box suits and mock peasant dresses that hang like curtains that have seen their last performance?”

Bunny thought for a moment, then he thought about Beatrix.

“Not on your life,” he said, suddenly feeling a part of something big and exiting.

“Good. Your first article might talk about bad haircuts or what happens when the Soviet leaders try to grow beards like that fellow in Havana, said Cassini, wheels a-turning. My friends up north have files of photos and eager editors. You’ll have more support than the Lend Lease Act.”

Over the next two weeks the two concocted a symbiotic plan that would win the hand of Beatrix and give the Soviets a black eye in the garment world. Before he knew it he was on a conference call with several of Cassini’s friends and assorted editors.

“We hate the Bolsheviks,” said one. They can’t even make decent pelmeni and their shchi tastes of sawdust and the blood of White Russians!”

Another chimed in saying the Soviets spend the day mainlining borscht and chasing their vodka with pickled cucumbers. How gauche. If they ever offer you kasha tell them you have already eaten.”

He began a weekly column from his porch, comparing western and Eastern European styles even though he had never been there. 

Reporting all the rage, propped up by a slew of media goons at Coney Island, was the new Bunny.

Meanwhile his associates in New York had hit a home run with ventures like Kiev Coiffures, an elite Carib-Volga line of exotic exercise clothing and private label deck shoes dubbed Sevastopol, Yalta and Trotsky.

“Hey, we’re not…you know…” said Cassini pushing his nose to the right with his thumb like Bunny had seen in the gangster movies.

“We’re not the mob but sometimes we do some work for them.”

At first the Kremlin liked all the attention until they figured out the articles were making them out to be bozos.

“Who is this John Wayne?” they demanded at the United Nations.

“Potato Head Styles” may have been the kicker. He had struck a nerve and would soon go to New York. He would have the beautiful Beatrix, who was hedging on her grand designs of moving to New York. He also noticed that she had gained quite a bit of weight on the lobster and champagne. 

Finally the two journeyed to New York together. Bunny was a sight in his yellow suit, Tony Lamas and montecristi hat while Beatrix looked delicious in a lavender suit and white silk scarf. They passed the time making fun of the clothing worn by other passengers and ordering bottles of wine.

Pen in hand, Bunny was like the bad aroma of a Wahoo fart. No one escaped his volcanic eye. He slammed Aukland wool caps, red shukas from Nairobi, jute sarees in Kolkata and white knee sox in Cleveland. 

Then he went back at the Soviets – an easy target especially for someone with no taste or knowledge of the subject at hand. These pathetic scribblings led to much publicity and became the source of great humor in Hungary, as well as what was Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

“It was almost like the articles hit the mark because they were so poorly written,” said Cassini years later.

Meanwhile up in America then President Eisenhower was having none of it. Prior to Cuban Missiles and Sputnik, a moneyed Bunny was embraced under the umbrella that protected Somoza Regime, the Panama Canal and particularly the US-owned United Fruit Company. Keep Commies out of the banana trees and all of that misdirected Latin-America policy mumbo-jumbo was the order of business. 

“He’s on our side,” they liked to say after reading one of his vile and disparaging articles like Ivan Goes To The Beach and the newest on the Red Army’s Tartar Woolens. 

But what really opened the door is that Bunny was a scratch golfer having picked up the game from Crimean seamen who often waited out storms in Bluefields, on the Nicaraguan mainland. They taught him to putt and chip like a pro. Everyone knew Ike couldn’t resist playing nine or maybe eighteen. besides, Bunny appeared to be a source of much desired information on Central American society. They played a few rounds and Ike won. Bunny now had a friend in the White House.

It was on that trip to the US that Bunny and Beatriz met the famous Russian dissident and tailor Yakov Yakir, who had just competed his new Vicuna Wool spring collection from a Leningrad (now St Petersburg) jail cell. Yakir, the acclaimed inventor of the Kerensky G-string was momentously freed for a highly anticipated fashion show featuring Anouska Lebedev, the legendary model and niece of former president Boris Yeltsin. 

One day a phone call from New York was a stark reminder – “We see a way you can further embarrass the Reds”, said the groveled voice on the other end of the line …and so part in loyalty and part in fear he kept up the fashion pieces only this time with digs, daggers and booby traps certain to belittle the Soviets. His favorite locale was the beach.

“They resembled wobbly walruses in cheap polyester,” he wrote. “Their fur hats made everyone else at the beach itchy. They dared not approach the sea for fear that the suits would disintegrate with contact with salt water. Small birds sought out the material to build makeshift nests while sand crabs would not approach.” he puffed. “Some paraded around in painfully brief Speedos looking like marshmallows wrapped in Kalamata leaves.”

The Kremlin reaction was now swift and merciless. Troops were repositioned on the Chinese border and vodka prices went up. Political enemies were sent to Siberia. Many feared a repeat of the bloody Stroganoff Skirmishes between Poland and Czarist Russia in the 18^th Century.

“Who is this John Wayne?” the Soviet bosses screamed.

“Who is this John Wayne?” the Soviet bosses screamed.

Soon fashion critics all over the world were swimming to Bunny’s sloop anchored in Peconic Bay., near Springs on Long Island. His articles were now being reprinted in Turkish as well as the romance languages. What was harmless chatter in most ports became mean and slanderous indictments levied by an Istanbul culture at odds with Russia since Mahmud of Gazni in the 11th Century. 

Meanwhile Beatrix fell in love and married the singing Irish bartender at the Clare To Here Pub, located on the first floor of Bunny’s Upper East Side apartment building. Opting out as a model she moved back to Little Corn Island with her new husband and opened a dive shop/tiki bar at Fowl House Beach. She hasn’t seen Bunny in years.

Footnote: History buffs continue to deny this and many other stories appearing on this website. They cannot, however, deny that when the Soviets went into Afghanistan in 1979 most of the troops were wearing white after dark, and khaki from the Caucasus. The regiments were often outfitted in kaftans and terliks with matching yushmons from the spring Breznev collection… and that validates this account and about buttons up further conclusions on this end.

And Bunny? In his own words: “I’ve had about enough of blacktop, taxis, overpriced pizza and cold weather. This high-roller literary life isn’t for me. I’m going fishing for a long, long time. Punch my ticket for Sally Peaches.”

– Kevin Haley

Say hey! Happy 90th to Willie Mays. One of the best.