Money Well Spent? by Michael Grabell

Bobber in his new duds.

It’s 9:45 a.m., and excuse me if I’m sneaking a peak at the clock every few seconds.  I work for the Army Corps of Engineers, and it’s not the most exciting job in the world.  I look forward to our 10 a.m. coffee break the way private sector workers look forward to 5 p.m. on Fridays, but I have to endure the anticipation five days a week, plus lunch, afternoon breaks and rush hour, which begins for federal workers at 3 p.m.  It eats away at you.

Face it, man–ranger chicks in Smokey the Bear hats dig mascots.

I look across the office at Buddy the Beaver’s desk, and I can see he’s doing the same thing.  “You about ready?” I ask hopefully.

“I guess,” he says.  “I can process these Form ACE-103A’s after break.”

We get in the elevator and head down to the basement cafeteria we share with the General Services Administration, the outfit that’s responsible for keeping the U.S. in tires, paper towels and other essential non-military items.  If you ever want to make someone yawn, just say the words “government procurement”–it works like a sleeping potion.

Seamore the Sea Serpent

We spot Seamore the Sea Serpent, another Corps of Engineers mascot, sitting over in a corner at a table by himself.  He’s staring off into space, looking depressed.

“Hey good buddy,” I say as we walk past on our way to the food, “save a seat for us okay?”

“Sure,” he says.  He sounds lost–even distrait, whatever that means.

We get our coffee and move down the line towards the cash register.  “Those donuts look good,” Buddy says.

“No thanks.  I’m trying to lose some weight,” I say, so I pick up a Columbo fruit-on-the-bottom strawberry yogurt.

“You’re kidding yourself,” Buddy says.  “A container of that stuff has as many calories as a light beer.”

“It makes me feel better, okay?”

“Whatever floats your boat,” he says as opts for the cheese danish.  “Why do you want to lose weight–you look fine.”

“Everything I own is tight on me.”

“Maybe if they’d let us get in the water every now and then instead of sitting behind a desk all day we’d be in better shape.”

“Filing triplicate copies of storm water runoff permits is important too,” I say.  You never know when a GS-4 is going to overhear you and bust you down to roadside trash collection.

We make our way over to Seamore’s table and his disposition hasn’t improved.

“How they hangin’?” I say with as jovial a tone as I can muster for someone who’s got 1,298 days left to retirement, not that I’m counting or anything.

“Okay,” he says.

“The floggings will continue until morale improves,” Buddy says, but Seamore isn’t in the mood for humor.

Buddy snacks on some Cool Ranch Elm Stix.

“Buck up, pal,” I say.  “You get paid well to do important work–isn’t that half of what makes life worth living?”

“What’s the other half?” he asks.

“Wild freaky sex with a hot babe like Barbara Beaver in Coastal Zone Management,” Buddy says as his distaff counterpart walks past, her hindquarters swaying rhythmically, like a bough buoyed by a breeze, to wax poetic for just a second. 

“I think he meant to say ‘love,’” I say with a note of Puritanical reserve.  As with all federal agencies, we are subject to a Dignity in the Workplace Policy.  “That’s what Freud said–love and work are the essential components of human happiness.”

Freud:  “You keep using the word ‘beaver.’  That’s not some kind of slip, is it?”

“Everything’s okay on the homefront,” Seemore says.  “It’s the work part that’s got me down.”

“Why?”

“The whole anti-government sentiment that’s running rampant in America today,” he says bitterly.  “Those Tea Party types have no idea how hard my job is.”

“You got that right,” I say.  “You play a vital role in keeping America’s drunken lunk-headed Ski-doo drivers from killing themselves by crashing into Lake of the Ozarks cruise boats.”

“Like the Larry Don?” Buddy asks.

 
S.S. Larry Don: The author once played bass guitar on the midnight cruise–try the Catfish Basket!

“On the nosey,” I say.

“Still,” Seamore says, “look at these little pills that are forming on the seat of my costume.”

“That’s going to happen with your cotton-poly blends,” Buddy says.  “You could go with 100% natural fibers, but they wear out so fast.”

“I don’t see why the government can’t buy us new costumes,” Seamore says.  “We’re men in uniform, just like the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.”

I cluck my tongue with disapproval.  “Seamore–you know the $3.27 trillion dollars in stimulus money that your grandchildren . . .”

” . . . and great-grandchildren,” Buddy adds.

” . . . will be paying for has to be used first on critical public services.”

Perhaps I shouldn’t have put it that way.  Seamore’s a proud sea serpent, and the color rushes into his face as he stands up slowly.

“You saying I’m not important?  You saying stupid stuff like crumbling bridges . . .”

Federal Register *yawn*

“Actually, they didn’t spend any of it on bridges,” Buddy says.  He keeps score when he goes to baseball games and when he reads the federal budget.

” . . . or to create jobs in areas of high unemployment . . .”

“Didn’t do that either.”  Buddy again–not me.  People are starting to look at us from other tables–I don’t want to get a reputation as some kind of small-government wingnut.

” . . . are as important as a new costume for me every couple of years?”  Seamore’s done, and he looks drained.  His face is red, he’s all teary-eyed. 

“Excuse me,” I hear someone say over my shoulder.  I turn around and see Ray Hefnertz, career bureaucrat for the GSA.  “Did you see today’s Federal Register?”

“No–what’s in it?” I ask.

“You guys are in for a $92,000 costume upgrade in FY2012.”

Bobber says–use your noodle!

I can almost feel the load that’s lifted off of Seamore’s psyche by this news.

“Are you serious?” he asks, with a tone as hopeful as if a doctor’s just emerged from an operating room where his mother’s undergone emergency surgery.

“It’s right there in black and white.  You guys deserve it,” he says, giving us a cornball “thumbs up.”

“There–does that make you feel better?” I ask.

Seamore accepts a generic facial tissue–this is a government cafeteria–and wipes his eyes.

“This . . . this is why I went into public service,” he says through sniffles.

“A crappy felt and foam mascot costume?” Ray asks, incredulous.

“Well, that and the pension.”

WASHINGTON, D.C.  He’s riding high after a stunning South Carolina primary win, and the heady elixir of success has Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich thinking big, with a proposal yesterday for a colony on the moon and today, in an appearance at a Florida assisted living facility, a plan to bring peace to the mideast through beach volleyball.

 
“There’s something very exciting about beach volleyball–I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

“They’ve got sand coming out the wazoo over there,” said Gingrich at a news conference to announce his latest policy initiative.  “We won’t have to spend a lot of money on groundskeeping–just buy a couple of rakes.”

“Wedgie!”

Gingrich caused a stir when, at the Republican National Convention in 1996, he launched into a misty-eyed tribute to beach volleyball as a characteristic product of American values.  “Forty years ago beach volleyball was just beginning,” Gingrich said in an unscripted departure from his prepared text.  “No bureaucrat would have invented it, and that’s what freedom is all about.  That and bodacious babes in bikinis.”

 
“Lower marginal tax rates–yes!”

Gingrich’s remarks were ridiculed at the time as the product of a mind frazzled by the partisan battles he had fought as the leader of the Republican Revolution of 1994 and the principal author of its “Contract With America.”   He withdrew from public life in 1998 to spend time cataloging his collection of “Gong Show” VHS tapes.

Classic Gong Show episode, 1976

Gingrich will propose a 10-team league with franchises in major cities such as Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Samarra, and playoffs that will include “wild card” slots, which Gingrich also hailed as a product of the American genius.  “Now that the oppressed peoples of Arab nations have tasted freedom,” Gingrich said, “they will be quick to embrace the wild card format.”

“Cold beer here–get your cold beer.  Somebody–anybody?”

Asked whether the scantily-clad females that have propelled beach volleyball to top TV ratings during U.S. winters would be a tough sell in Muslim nations where women must be clothed from head to toe, Gingrich laughed.  “You’ve got to be kidding,” he replied.  “Next thing you’ll tell me is the guys in the stands won’t want cold beer.”

WASHINGTON, D.C.  In a daring move presidential historians are calling the equivalent of Richard Nixon’s trip to China, President Obama today tapped a former Bain Capital employee to head a federal agency and promised to lower corporate taxes.

“My old lady wears Talbots–yours should too!”

“He’s been glued to the TV set watching the Republican debates for months,” said Vice President Joe Biden, shaking his head.  “I guess some of that stuff rubbed off on him.”

Former Bain employee Jeffrey Zients will serve as acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, the agency whose projections of the costs of federal programs are ignored by Congress.  “Jeff is a really smart guy,” said Obama senior presidential advisor David Axelrod.  “He’s not like so many private equity types who are lured into religious cults by The Osmonds.”

The Osmonds: “Two more and we’ll have a Supreme Court!”

The National Economic Council said in separate but related move that the President will propose a reduction in the corporate tax rate.  “He’s serious about this,” said Gene Sperling, the White House’s director on the Council, the principal forum used by the President to incorporate the practice of voodoo into the nation’s fiscal affairs.  “If you play as much golf as he does, eventually you turn into a Republican and start wearing goofy-looking clothes on weekends.”

Sperling:  “Hey–I just work here.”

House Speaker John Boehner took credit for converting the President, saying it was a “guy date” to see “The Iron Lady,” a biopic about former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher starring Merryl Streep, that convinced the President to adopt supply-side theory after years of struggling with his conscience and losing.  “We both gave it a thumbs-up,” said Boehner, “although it was a little light on the union-busting for my tastes.”

 
Boehner:  “I had him before we’d finished our first jumbo buttered popcorn!”

The First Couple has displayed flashes of GOP style in the past, with the First Lady shopping at Talbots and the acquisition of a Portugese water-dog, an ur-WASP pet.  “He’s got to look ahead to the time when he will be a very young ex-President,” said historian Arthur Walsh, author of “Calvin Coolidge: Wild and Crazy Budget-Balancer.”  “The waiting lists for some of the better country clubs are very long.”

                                                                  The Boston Globe

“I hate typos!”

A story in the Metro Section of Tuesday’s Boston Globe incorrectly stated that The Grateful Dead’s “Anthem of the Sun” is the worst acid-rock album of all time.  That distinction belongs to Blue Cheer’s “Vincebus Eruptum.”  The Globe regrets its error.

In an op-ed written by Harvard professor Paul Krugman in Sunday’s “Week in Review” section the first and last names of a member of the acid rock trio “Cream” were reversed during the process of paste-up and layout.  The drummer’s name is “Ginger Baker,” not “Baker Ginger.”  The Times apologizes to Mr. Ginger for the confusion.

“I only have two names–you’d think they could get them right.”

In last month’s Woman’s World several ingredients were omitted from the recipe for Acapulco Gold Congo Bars.  In addition to those listed, prior to baking a dash of turmeric should be sprinkled onto the milk-egg mixture and a lid of primo weed should be folded into the dough before it is placed in the butter-lined pan.

“Mom–these brownies are great!”

The bond tables in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal incorrectly listed the bid-asked spread for common shares of Amalgamated Steel.  The opening price was 5 1/8, and the closing price, when played backwards at 33 1/3 rpm, was Yoko Ono must die.  The Journal apologizes, but is not about to give you your money back.

The Home Improvement pull-out supplement to Sunday’s Kansas City Star should have mentioned that the brown-colored blotter acid available at Home Depot can cause negative hallucinations, inducing freak-outs and . . . oh my god . . . the plaster is crawling off the walls and coming towards me!

If you’re a writer, or if you want to be a writer, you’ve probably suffered from writer’s block.  Consider Henry Roth, to take just one famous example.

Henry Roth

In 1934, when he was 28, Roth’s novel Call It Sleep was published.  It didn’t do well, and after he abandoned a second novel, Roth gave up writing and worked as a firefighter, laborer and teacher, among other occupations.

Call It Sleep was re-published in the 1960s, and this time was a success.  It sold over a million copies and was hailed as a masterpiece of Jewish-American literature.  You would think, with that kind of wind at his back, a writer might be able to get in touch with an idle muse and crank out book number two; not Roth.  He didn’t start writing again until he was 73–a forty-five year layoff–at which point he wrote a six-novel cycle, four of which were published in the mid-90′s as Mercy of a Rude Stream.  The final two books of the cycle remain unpublished.

I don’t share the critics’ enthusiasm for Call It Sleep, but I sympathize with Roth.  How would you like to be stuck at your desk for nearly half a century, tearing page after page out of your typewriter, crumpling them up and starting over?

Of course, if you don’t want to write, and you don’t write, you don’t have writer’s block.  You go on about your life, drinking beer, driving around, watching hockey, without the nagging sense that you should be–writing something.  You’re not a blocked writer–you’re just a beer-drinking schlub.

But if you want to write and you can’t, you have writer’s block.  For those who write to live–like newspaper reporters and others who tap at a keyboard all day for a paycheck–if you have writer’s block you lose your job, and the threat of unemployment usually means you reach deep down within yourself and start writing.  A guy I know who completed all the course work for his Ph. D. but couldn’t finish his dissertation was ultimately cured of writer’s block by law school, where he had to write, or fail.

Which brings us to those who live to write.  You’ve got something to say, and you can’t find enough time in the day to either write, or sit in a place where, if inspiration happens to strike you, you’ll be in a position to get it down on paper.  Like Virginia Woolf’s “room of her own.”

Virginia Woolf:  “Would you please go away, please?”

If, despite having your pencils lined up and a fresh piece of paper in your typewriter, or a cool white computer screen in front of you, you find yourself unable to write, it may be because you’re not nacreous enough.

You take the pearl, I’ll eat the oyster.

“Nacre” is the substance that forms the inner shell of an oyster.  If an oyster gets an irritating object–a rock or your brother-in-law Lamar Gene–trapped within its mollusk mantle folds, it secretes nacre around it to make its existence more bearable.  This reaction to an irritation produces a thing of beauty–a pearl.  Once enough pearls have been formed in this fashion, a necklace is made that is strung across the bodice of a little black cocktail dress.

Elizabeth Taylor:  And to think, not long ago it was just the pearls that were irritated.

One theory of artistic inspiration–and more importantly, production–is that writers and other artists create their aesthetic gems as a reaction to the sort of irritation that produces pearls.  While this theory isn’t true in all cases–I can’t write when the two long-haired chihuahuas next door are yipping at my cats–it has enough basis in reality to have been the subject of a highly-regarded study by the eminent literary critic Edmund Wilson, The Wound and the Bow.

Edmund Wilson:  “Why did you put me directly underneath Elizabeth Taylor?  She’s so irritating!”

The central figure of The Wound and the Bow is Philoctetes, the Greek warrior whose foot was bitten by a snake.  The wound festered and his foot smelled awful, causing the Greeks to abandon him on an island.  They later discovered that in order to win the Trojan War they needed Philoctetes’ bow and poisoned arrows.  They go back and get him and the bow and arrows, and Philoctetes hides in the Trojan Horse and kills many Trojans when he gets out.

Philoctetes:  “Has anybody got anything for Warrior’s Foot?”

Wilson concluded that artists were like Philoctetes, because their feet stink and people avoid them. 

I’m kidding!  Wilson drew an analogy between Philoctetes and a number of writers, such as Dickens, who use a psychic wound in their lives as the spur, the inspiration and the source of their art.

So if you have writer’s block, it may be because your childhood wasn’t unhappy enough, but there’s nothing you can do about that now, is there?  There are other ways you can “get nacreous,” however, and thereby jump start the creative process and become the world-famous writer you’ve always wanted to be.  Here are a few suggestions from the Famous Pained Writer’s School of Writing:

Bed of nails

Self-torture.  Lying on a bed of nails hurts, but you’ve got to suffer to sing the blues or write the Great American Novel.  Available in twin, Queen, King and Alexander Woolcott sizes.

Alexander Woolcott

Artificial stimulants and depressants.  Alcohol is a time-tested method of getting your muse to cooperate, up to the point where you get the dry heaves.  Experiments during the 1960s with lysergic acid di-whatchamacalit, or “LSD,” on the other hand, tended to produce works with opening lines such as the following:  “It was a dark and stormy night, and as I looked out the win–OH MY GOD–THE CARPET IS EATING MY TOENAILS!”

“You writin’ sumpin?  Well kiss my ass and make it a love story.”

“Slumming It”.  Many writers–Orwell and Steinbeck come to mind–deliberately expose themselves to substandard living conditions in an effort to experience life in its rawest form, facing hunger, bedbugs, and guys named “Mitch” who say it’s your turn to buy the next bottle of high-alcohol ”bum wine.”

Night Train and Thunderbird:  Not available wherever fine wines are sold.

Not exactly a pleasant existence, but on the other hand, it is irritating.

Unions—
are very special people–
They’re the luckiest people in the world.
Each paycheck—it drives you quite berserker–
They take part of your dough, that’s cold
Soon, it gets kind of old,
Earning more than workers—real workers.

Charities—
are very special people.
They’re the luckiest people in the world.
They own stuff, and yet they pay no taxes
They run health clubs and sports teams
And have wealth beyond your dreams.
Kinda tough, but that’s just what the facts is.

All these people–special kinds of people—
They’re the luckiest people in the world.
With persons, flesh-and-blood type . . persons,
You get a feeling deep in your soul
Says they’re donuts, not the holes.
As for corporate stiffs,
You may need them if you’re scared of
People–people who are . . . people–
They’re the suing-est people . . . in the world.

 
Peaceable Kingdom, by Edward Hicks

Congress started playing nice in this fashion in the wake of the Tucson shootings, but the whole thing seems transparently factitious, like the friendly handshakes at mid-field before the coin toss at the Super Bowl.  Just seconds later, the two herds of behemoths are slamming their helmets into each other, trying to push a leather ball across lines of demarcation they defend as jealously as the 39th parallel, the latitude that separates North from South Korea right through the middle of their negotiating table.  For pure unadulterated duplicity, the only thing comparable is pretending you didn’t punch your kid sister who scooched onto your half of the back seat during a long vacation drive.

North is north, and South is south.

To borrow a phrase from some unknown lush, whiskey and water spoils two good things.  In Catholic grade schools and Jewish Orthodox synagogues, males and females are separated.  Some things are just better off kept apart.  That’s the way we do it here in Massachusetts, where a Democrat who hugs a Republican runs the risk of stiff sanctions.

What’s that you say?  Is this one of those crazy laws you read about in Reader’s Digest, like “It is illegal to walk a salamander after dark in Keokuk, Iowa”?  Nope–it’s for real.  Here in the bluest of blue states, a Deputy Legislative Counsel for the state Democratic Party was charged with assault and battery for hugging a female lawyer as he exclaimed “My favorite Republican!”

Well, it’s a slippery slope.  If you let Democrats hug Republicans, pretty soon they’ll go after independents or Libertarians or Green Party members.  Better to nip this sort of thing in the bud, the way Rudy Giuliani’s “broken windows” approach to crime prevention curtailed more serious violations by adopting a zero tolerance policy for the small stuff.  When it comes to public policy clarity, you want your opponent lined up across from you in a three-point stance, a la the Patriots and the Giants, not wandering in your backfield, waiting–just waiting–to hug you.

We take extraordinary protective measures here because Republicans are an endangered species in this state.  In the last mid-terms, which President Obama characterized as a “shellacking” nationally, Democrats won all statewide offices and all Congressional races here.  Republicans gained 25 seats in the state legislature, but they’re still a distinct minority in both houses.

It wasn’t always thus.  The standard operating procedure had historically been for Republicans to provide adult supervision through the governor’s office, sending extravagant spending items or cockamamie affronts to freedom back to the populist Democratic-controlled legislature.  If they succeeded in overriding the veto, fair enough, they won.  It was like a tennis match.

Lord Acton

When the governor and the legislature are both Democratic, things tend to get out of hand.  Our last four Speakers of the House of Representatives have been indicted by federal authorities, and not all for your typical garden variety public corruption charges.  One lied under oath about his role in a gerrymandering scheme that reduced minority representation in the legislature, giving the lie to the state party’s claim to be the ones who keep the interests of such voters uppermost in its mind.  Then there’s the wife of a Democratic congressman who went to jail for laundering $7 million for a brother who set up an illegal off-shore gambling operation.  And the former Senate President who receives a $200,000 tax-free annual pension, even though he helped his fugitive brother escape prosecution for assorted crimes including murder.  Piddly stuff like that.

A safe place to put your money.

Or consider the Democratic pol caught on videotape stuffing bribes into her bra.  I have a personal connection to this former state Senator, who is now in jail.  She once gave me a lecture on fiscal probity when a charter school whose board I served on ran a deficit.  I call no fair–she gets to deposit petty cash in her foundation undergarments, I don’t!

I omit the names not to protect the innocent–there aren’t any–but because you’ve got better things to think about in the run-up to the Super Bowl, like did anybody ever pull Tom Brady’s hair in a pile-up before he cut it?

It has been said that a Massachusetts Republican would be a Democrat somewhere else, and this is perhaps true; the first and only black U.S. Senator from this state–Edward Brooke–was a Republican; the first female elected to Congress–Margaret Heckler–was a Republican; the first and only female governor of the state–Jane Swift–was a Republican.  Republicans have nominated at least two gay men for statewide office here–Democrats none.  Politics ain’t bean bag, said Finley Peter Dunne’s Mister Dooley, and my adopted state’s Democratic Party is heavily populated by Italian and Irish men who play for keeps; for them, running for political office isn’t a matter of noblesse oblige, it’s a fight for the best job many of them will ever have.

Finley Peter Dunne

A man whom I met in the twilight of his career as a public works contractor told me that the founder of his firm, upon returning from Europe at the conclusion of World War II, decided to set up offices in Missouri, Illinois and Massachusetts.  Why those places, I asked, noting that I’d lived in all three.  Because they’re the easiest states to rig bids in, he said.  Take that Louisiana!

I’m sure that if the numbers were different and Republicans had as many opportunities for graft and corruption as Democrats here the number of local miscreants would be more evenly balanced between the two major political parties.  As Lord Acton said, however, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  And “Too rich to steal” rarely works as a campaign slogan, so such a balance is unlikely anytime soon.

Massachusetts Republi–raccoon caucus.

If we don’t allow people to hug our Republicans without a legitimate reason, it’s for reasons of sustainability, not necessarily a lack of pulchritude.  Back when Michael Dukakis was first thinking of parlaying the soon-to-evaporate “Massachusetts Miracle” into a run for the Presidency–and I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of voting a straight “D” ticket every election cycle–I met with a lanky blonde Republican political operative to hand over the results of some tedious research into public transportation.  “Don’t you hate it when you stay out all night and forget to bring a change of underwear to the office?” she said, all girlish but slutty innocence.  “Yeah–right,” I mumbled.  “I detest that icky feeling the next day,” she added as she stepped into the elevator.  Maybe I was missing out on some good parties by not being more–bipartisan.

So please, if you come to visit our state, don’t feed the raccoons, and don’t hug the Republicans.  The population of the former will only increase, and the number of the latter could get even smaller. 

If that’s mathematically possible.

“Aren’t you allowed to drive in the breakdown lane?” she had asked as she hung on the back of the headrest on Linda’s seat.

“It doesn’t make any difference,” he had said without looking back.  “The lane ends up ahead, and people won’t let you in without a fight.  This is the Italian section.”

“I’m Italian,” Janet said with a tone of irritation that was subdued in accord with the formalities that obtain between hosts and weekend guests, but not excessively so.

“I know—I’m just saying,” he said, trying to exculpate himself from blame for the unintentional insult.

“Just saying what?” Janet asked.

“This is an area where you can get your tires slashed for taking up a parking spot if you’re not from the neighborhood.  People don’t take slights—major or minor—lightly.”

Janet sat back in her seat and Greg patted her knee.  “Calm down,” he said.  “We’ve got plenty of time.  We’re not checking bags.”

Every now and then there’d be a break as a traffic light changed in their favor, and he’d make as much progress as he could before things would jam up again.

“What terminal are we in?” Janet asked.

“Delta is B,” Greg said, and that seemed to make her feel they’d made it—just A and B and they’d be there.

They turned into the entrance to the airport as they came out of the tunnel, drove past the rental car exit.  Terminal A was closed so there was no traffic backed up there, and after waiting a few minutes at the entry to Terminal B they were at curbside.

“Thank you guys so much for such a great weekend,” Janet said to Linda as she gave her a hug.

“Good to see you, old man,” Greg said.  He was like that, an investment banker, a latter-day Tom Buchanan without the polo ponies, self-consciously fusty, but fun nonetheless.  He’d ordered a hundred dollar bottle of wine at dinner the night before, but he had also recounted—with photographic accuracy—some Pee-wee Herman routines from before the bust in the porn theatre.

“Sorry I was a little crabby back there,” Janet said as she hugged him softly.  “I should have trusted your driving.”

“Actually, you shouldn’t,” Linda said.  “His sense of direction is slightly defective.”

“Take care of my old roomie, okay?” Janet had said, and then kissed him.

“Don’t worry, I will,” he had said.  “She’s got me on a short leash.”

They got back in the car as others were bearing down on them, and waved as they drove off.

“Bye,” Linda had yelled out the window, then he changed lanes to get to the exit and they were back in line again, waiting to get in the tunnel.

He wasn’t sure what to make of the weekend, whether he was being auditioned for groom or what.  It had been more than a little uncomfortable, having to split the bill with a guy who probably made five times what he did.

“Did you like them?” Linda asked.

“Sure, they’re a lot of fun.”

“Greg’s kind of full of himself, but he’s better than her old boyfriend.”

“Why’s that?”

“He was like you—too quiet.  Janet needs somebody . . . outgoing.”

“You’re right—that’s not me.”

She didn’t know how to take that—whether he’d had a bad time and was now going to go into hibernation at his place until the next weekend, the way he did whenever they’d had a spat, or it hadn’t been a good weekend for her to have sex.

They drove on in silence for awhile and she realized that, whatever they were going to do, she needed to go back to his place to get her briefcase for work Monday.  As much as she would have liked to have him drop her off in Chestnut Hill, she had to get her things.

“I . . . uh . . . hate to mention it, but I have to go back to your place,” she said gingerly.

“You don’t want me to drop you off at your place?”

“I left my stuff at your place Friday night, and I need it first thing Monday morning for a meeting.”

He let go with a sigh; he’d have to drive through the Fourth of July crowd—hundreds of thousands of people—all because she hadn’t planned ahead.

“No problem,” he said as he turned and headed down Storrow Drive, the Charles River on their right.

The Esplanade was already filling up even though it was barely mid-afternoon.  The bridges were filled with people carrying coolers and blanks, and cops were stationed on the river side to check for liquor.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she turned to look at him.

“It’s okay,” he said.  “I just have to get off at the bridge, and then go into Cambridge, make a U-turn and come back.”

He said it, she thought, with a tone that suggested he was taking her on the Oregon Trail.

“You don’t have to be that way about it,” she said.

“I’m not being any way,” he said as he looked back to his right, into his blind spot.  He changed lanes.

“Yes you were,” she said.  “They were my friends, and this whole weekend has been an imposition on you.”

“I said it was okay,”  he said, but even though his words were intended as mollification, he sounded angry.

“Janet and I are good friends,” she said.  “We promised each other we’d be in each other’s weddings, and not make the other buy a stupid-looking bridesmaid’s dress.”

She realized as soon as she’d said it that was the wrong thing to bring up, where things stood with them.

“Um-hmm,” he said as he exited onto the Mass Ave bridge.  He held the car at the yellow line while hordes of people walked by on their way into Boston.

She tried to think of something to say to take the edge off the conversation, but he wasn’t in a mood to talk, she hoped just because of the traffic and the people.

“This is going to take forever,” she said when she saw the line of cars headed into Boston on the bridge.  “I’m sorry.”

“These things happen,” he said.  “Do you have your key?”

“Yes—why?”

“I’ll park on Marlborough, and you can go up and get your stuff and I’ll take you to your place.  By the time I get back it’ll be the middle of the concert and the traffic will be lighter.”

So that’s how it’s going to be, she thought.  He’s had enough of me for one weekend.  Fine—probably better that they have some time apart.

The cars were stopped on the bridge, but somebody waved them into the flow and so they only had the width of the river to go.  She felt stiff and hot, and he seemed to have switched his mind off the weekend on to work already.

They stopped and started in silence, he looking down towards the Hatch Shell at the big boats that had moved into position for the fireworks.  Ordinarily he’d have said something, she thought, joked around.  The silence was painful.

They proceeded by intervals of four or five cars, which was how many could make it through the stop light before traffic jammed up on Comm Ave; the cross streets were gridlocked, with everybody trying to get into town for the big celebration, while she was just trying to get her things and get back out, back to her apartment to take a shower.

They made it across the water, one block to go, when they heard a siren up ahead and watched two fire trucks go past on Comm Ave, probably on their way to put out a hibachi fire on somebody’s deck.  The commotion meant that they missed a green light, and the congestion was worse than it had been all day.

“Might as well turn off the engine,” he said as he reached for the key.

“Don’t—I want air conditioning,” she said, and he looked at her with a barely-concealed scowl, as if she were eating up provisions that had to last them for a long time.

“Fine,” he said, and put his right hand back on the steering wheel.  “You could just open up your window,” he said as he caused the driver side window to roll down.  The breeze from the river was faint, but it gave the car a sense of space—the smell of the water.

“What’s the point of having air conditioning on if you’re going to open up your window?” she said irritably.

“Okay,” he said, as he pushed the button to raise it again.

They sat there for several minutes, which seemed longer than they were.  The cars in front of them weren’t moving; perhaps the fire was just a few blocks down from the intersection.

“I’m sorry, I have to turn the car off if I’m going to get you back to your place, I’m almost out of gas and it’s Sunday,” he said after a while.

“All right, she said.  She pushed the button on her side as he did on his, and he turned off the car.  They were silent and sweating, but at least the wind off the river cooled them down.

As they sat there, a bearded, disheveled man made his way up the line of cars from Marlborough Street, walking between lanes, talking and gesturing to the cars on either side of him.

“What’s he doing?” she asked.

“I dunno.  He looks like one of those guys who hawk newspapers at stop signs.”

“Except he doesn’t have any papers.”

They could see people in cars causing their window to go up as the man made his way towards them.  “Turn on the car so I can roll my window up,” she said.  “He scares me.”

He turned the key in the ignition but the man was almost at the hood of their car, so they hadn’t time to close their windows and heard him speak with a firm voice and a lusterless, almost business-like tone.

“Fuck you,” they heard him say to the driver two cars ahead of them, “And you,” to the next driver, “and you” to them as they sat there, his wild eyes glaring at them through the window, “And you” to the car behind them, “And you, and you, and you,” off into the distance, making his way across the river, cursing as he went.

Traffic started to move, catching them unawares.  They rolled slowly forwards, happy to be making progress, relieved to have the man in the rear view mirror.

He turned onto Marlborough Street and, halfway up the block, stopped the car.  They turned and looked at each other and, like a balloon popping, started laughing all of a sudden, for no reason and with no explanation other than relief now that the long day was behind them.

“I’ll go get my stuff,” she said after a while with a conciliatory tone, her eyes tearing up from the release of the laughter.

“I’ll park the car and come up with you.”

“I hope he understands I’m not faking how pissed I am.”

Dear Fake Romance Advisor:

I read what you wrote to “(Formerly) Loving Hubby in Osawatomie” and don’t think you solved his problem at all.  A man can’t “fake” affection with a wife who makes him sleep in a camper trailer out back beyond his do-it-yourself smoke house.  This is grounds for divorce where I come from, and am wondering why you always take the side of the woman.

Floyd Nurth, Newport News, VA

“I hate when he gets post-nasal drip!”
Dear Floyd:

I know it takes “two to tango,” but it only takes one to read what I wrote, which I quote in pertinent part: “If necessary, you can ‘lure’ your reluctant wife to a romantic rendez-vous in that smoke house you’re so proud of by stringing up a selection of meats and cheeses for her delight.  A woman doesn’t need to fake her enthusiasm for tasty smoked Gouda single sandwich slices.”

“She doesn’t understand my need to burp.”

Dear Fake Romance Advisor:

I perfected my fake orgasm many years ago and am quite proud of it.  Recently I surprised the “gals” in my book group by performing my impersonation of myself after I have received something nicer than the cheap costume jewelry my husband usually buys at big box store going-out-of-business sales.  Long story short, I set off the smoke alarm in Mara Louise Katz’s kitchen, which of course brought the fire department to her house.  It looks like there will be something in our local paper about it this Thursday, and am wondering if you have any advice as to how to explain things to my husband when he reads it.

Dotty Moaglin, Paducah, Kentucky

“You’ve got some kind of wart on your knuckle.”

Dear Dotty:

You can make “lemon squares” from the lemon of your deception by telling your husband you did it to keep your marriage together and anyway why should he care because he still got laid?

Dear Fake Romance Lady:

I am exhausted trying to fake interest in football for my husband.  Whenever I suggest we watch ice dancing or the National Division 1 Dance Team finals he always says “Look at the ratings–normal people prefer violent contact sports that produce concussions–duh.”  Then he goes off to the kitchen for a beer and honey-roasted peanuts, which leave stains on the couch.

I am at my wit’s end–how do I get him to fake it for me?

Cynda Twohig, Rancho del Vista, California

Dear Cynda–and my what a pretty name!

I hope you remembered to write your own wedding vows as I suggested in my home videotape “Fake Your Way With Romantic Cliches!”  If you didn’t, you will find that the revised wedding ceremony in the Book of Common Prayer includes a promise to “honor thy husband’s weekend programming wishes, unless there’s nothing on besides NASCAR or pro bowling in which case you can make him watch a Lifetime ‘disease-of-the-week’ movie.”