asthmatic losers who actually tended to say it to him, letting him know that he too was a loser.
Sam was his best friend, who else could possibly qualify? Joel had been thinking, the other night, of everything they hadn’t shared. Piano duets.
Middlemarch.
But they had shared so much: Sam’s hernia operation, Joel’s periodontal work, all the vacations, all the people they’d buried. They were best friends.
Maybe that was better. Maybe they would actually mean more to one another if, say, they had dinner every couple of weeks, with something to talk about, stuff to catch up on, instead of dinner every night, with the only sound the intermittent clack of silverware on plates. Maybe they could simply love one another, now that sex was out of the way.
They had known such couples. Guys who had broken up and then become best buddies. Maybe this was how they could be. Sam and Joel: the exes. Maybe they could even use the nonrefundable tickets! What did you do for vacation? Oh, I went to Provincetown with my ex.
Sam and Joel, the Jets. Womb to tomb, sperm to worm. Just as soon as sex was out of the way.
A couple of days later Joel took a long lunch, mostly just strolling around the Hill, then spent the rest of the afternooncatching up on the
Congressional Record.
There was a whole week of issues he hadn’t been through. Lots of great stuff. Last Wednesday Senator Byrd had inserted one of his thirty-page term papers, explaining how the line-item veto had brought an end to the Roman republic. Also there was one of those nifty eruptions of gang warfare in the House. Some Republican called the President a liar; some Democrat demanded that the member’s words be taken down, whatever that meant; then rulings from the chair, votes; all told, at least an hour of carrying-on, two gangs of apes screeching and mooning each other. On Thursday there were the mysterious House roll calls he had watched while waiting for Sam. Friday the House passed the Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary appropriations, a hundred pages of fine print that Joel read with the greatest care, looking for the little poison pills that would make the President veto it. Tuesday there were about a hundred new bills introduced.
Senator Altman’s aliens amendment had inspired the usual torrent of copycat bills. The less imaginative members had simply copied the proposal verbatim and introduced it under their own names. Others had grasped the underlying principle—that you could express your disdain for despised populations and at the same time save taxpayers money by cutting off Medicare for:
H. 2419, persons convicted of drug offenses;
H. 2471, flag burners;
H. 2502 and S. 978, simultaneously introduced in both houses, child molesters; and
S. 993, draft evaders amnestied by President Carter.
Joel wondered how many veterans of the Spanish Civil War were still doddering around. The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, if any were left, had better start hunting for health insurance.
Reading the
Record
these days was like reading about a snuffmovie. Not seeing one, no one had ever attested to having seen a real snuff movie. There was just a flurry of articles about them some years ago, rumors that connoisseurs could buy videos in which women were killed right in front of the camera. Even if such a movie existed, the most attentive viewer would be unable to say if he had witnessed an actual murder or just special effects, ketchup and maybe, if the budget allowed, some chitterlings. The whole thrill was simply in what was alleged about the movie, and you already had this thrill just reading the articles that purported to condemn it. The frisson was in the concept, there was no need to execute it: just to say the words “snuff movie” made a world in which every woman was a little more at risk of starring in one.
So with all of these bills. Even if any of them passed, the President might veto them, depending on what his pollsters told him that day. And they were probably
Sam was his best friend, who else could possibly qualify? Joel had been thinking, the other night, of everything they hadn’t shared. Piano duets.
Middlemarch.
But they had shared so much: Sam’s hernia operation, Joel’s periodontal work, all the vacations, all the people they’d buried. They were best friends.
Maybe that was better. Maybe they would actually mean more to one another if, say, they had dinner every couple of weeks, with something to talk about, stuff to catch up on, instead of dinner every night, with the only sound the intermittent clack of silverware on plates. Maybe they could simply love one another, now that sex was out of the way.
They had known such couples. Guys who had broken up and then become best buddies. Maybe this was how they could be. Sam and Joel: the exes. Maybe they could even use the nonrefundable tickets! What did you do for vacation? Oh, I went to Provincetown with my ex.
Sam and Joel, the Jets. Womb to tomb, sperm to worm. Just as soon as sex was out of the way.
A couple of days later Joel took a long lunch, mostly just strolling around the Hill, then spent the rest of the afternooncatching up on the
Congressional Record.
There was a whole week of issues he hadn’t been through. Lots of great stuff. Last Wednesday Senator Byrd had inserted one of his thirty-page term papers, explaining how the line-item veto had brought an end to the Roman republic. Also there was one of those nifty eruptions of gang warfare in the House. Some Republican called the President a liar; some Democrat demanded that the member’s words be taken down, whatever that meant; then rulings from the chair, votes; all told, at least an hour of carrying-on, two gangs of apes screeching and mooning each other. On Thursday there were the mysterious House roll calls he had watched while waiting for Sam. Friday the House passed the Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary appropriations, a hundred pages of fine print that Joel read with the greatest care, looking for the little poison pills that would make the President veto it. Tuesday there were about a hundred new bills introduced.
Senator Altman’s aliens amendment had inspired the usual torrent of copycat bills. The less imaginative members had simply copied the proposal verbatim and introduced it under their own names. Others had grasped the underlying principle—that you could express your disdain for despised populations and at the same time save taxpayers money by cutting off Medicare for:
H. 2419, persons convicted of drug offenses;
H. 2471, flag burners;
H. 2502 and S. 978, simultaneously introduced in both houses, child molesters; and
S. 993, draft evaders amnestied by President Carter.
Joel wondered how many veterans of the Spanish Civil War were still doddering around. The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, if any were left, had better start hunting for health insurance.
Reading the
Record
these days was like reading about a snuffmovie. Not seeing one, no one had ever attested to having seen a real snuff movie. There was just a flurry of articles about them some years ago, rumors that connoisseurs could buy videos in which women were killed right in front of the camera. Even if such a movie existed, the most attentive viewer would be unable to say if he had witnessed an actual murder or just special effects, ketchup and maybe, if the budget allowed, some chitterlings. The whole thrill was simply in what was alleged about the movie, and you already had this thrill just reading the articles that purported to condemn it. The frisson was in the concept, there was no need to execute it: just to say the words “snuff movie” made a world in which every woman was a little more at risk of starring in one.
So with all of these bills. Even if any of them passed, the President might veto them, depending on what his pollsters told him that day. And they were probably
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