Wry Martinis
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I was surprised to find myself so contentedly situated. I was a New Yorker, and New Yorkers—for the most part—are programmed to disdain Washington as a third-rate burg with not enough first-rate restaurants. Of course, Reagan changed that, for a time. The Eastern Shuttle was crammed with boldfaced names from “Suzy Says.” There was a touch of mink about the place for a while until the new tenants, a Greenwich Episcopalian and his what-you-see-is-what-you-get wife moved in and the ethos changed from Rodeo Drive to—go figure—Country Western. But all that was merely ebb and tide. It was permanent Washington, with its solemn absurdities, its motorcades of vanity, its noisy earnestness, its pomp and mitigating circumstance, its serene solipcism—to say nothing of its perfectly good, even terrific restaurants—that held me here.
Otherwise I suppose, I would have given the houseplants to the lady next door, dropped off Bartlett’s at the Vassar book sale, and caught the last shuttle back to New York.
I’m still perplexed about this elusive thing, the “Washington writer.” Is Charles McCarry a “Washington novelist” because he has written about spooks? Larry McMurtry spent a quarter century here—though he did keep a place in West Archer, Texas—but managed never to become a “Washington writer.” Lonesome Dove isn’t about Strobe Talbott at the disarmament table. Is Anonymous a “Washington writer”? Apparently not, as one hears he’s just bought a new house in Pelham, New York. It would be a stretcher to call my British chum Christopher Hitchens a “Washington writer,” though he has certainly created the most interesting, or as we used to say in foreign policy speeches, “vibrant” Washington literary salons going, with a Vermouth splash of Hollywood glam, owing to his Vanity Fair gig. Very casual. Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes, Kevin Costner’s coming. Barbra Streisand may drop by. Come early and have a drink, shall we say vers sept heures? Doesn’t sound like a “Washington writer,” does he? What about Edmund and Sylvia Morris, the Nick and Nora of biography (Reagan—Clare Boothe Luce). Are they “Washington writers”? Nah. Too exotic. But they’re here, thank heavens.
Was Gore Vidal typed as a “Washington writer” after The City and the Pillar? He seems more of a Washington writer now, in his umpteenth decade as a resident of Ravello, Italy, than he did after that first shockeroo of a novel appeared. He writes oftener and oftener these days about Washington. Nostalgie de la boue? An aspect of his narcissism? It was here, after all, that he grew up and first fell in love, with, now he tells us, a Saint Alban’s schoolmate. Perhaps in the end, you don’t have to live here at all to be a “Washington writer.” Perhaps—how does it go?—Washington is a moveable beast.
—The Washington Post, 1996
Wish I’d Said That
I was on a jury recently, and got to say something I thought I’d never get to say. It was during the preliminary process known as voir dire, French for “Interminable process that makes you regret ever having registered to vote.”
The judge was asking us a series of questions to determine our suitability to serve. He asked if any of us knew anyone in the intelligence agencies. Not wanting to share the particulars of my answer with a packed courtroom, I meekly stuck my hand in the air and asked, “Your honor, may I approach the bench?”
“Approach,” he said. I approached, feeling very puffed up and important.
The next day I recounted my thrill to my friend Geoff Norman, who happened to serve with Special Forces in Vietnam. He shared my excitement: “It’s like the first time I got to say, ‘Cover me.’ ” This rather put my big rhetorical moment in perspective.
For most of us, life is less dramatic than the movies. Few of us will get to deliver the really cool lines, like “Charge!” or “Sponge, clamp, sutures,” or “I’d like to thank the Academy.”
I suppose that most men, at some point in their lives, have imagined themselves saying, “Take her down to periscope depth.” Or even, “Fire torpedo tubes number one and two.” Who among us hasn’t found some excuse to say out loud, “Set your phasers on stun”—even if we were only holding a water pistol?
Space is the final verbal frontier. A lot of really studly things get said in space, starting with, “… three, two, one, ignition, liftoff.” But with my math SATs, there was never a chance I’d be the one pronouncing those words. Or, “Fire secondary stage booster.” Or, “The Eagle has landed.” Sometimes, when I land at the airport, I call my wife and say that, but from that to the taxi stand is downhill.
I have gotten to say some of the big lines. Once, as I poured out the ashes of a friend, I said, “We now commit his body to the deep, in the hope of eternal resurrection, when the sea shall give up her dead.” I’ve said, from the top of a ship’s mast after crossing an ocean, “Land ho!” Melodramatic I admit, but it sounded better than, “Yo, Spain!” A few times at sea, I’ve uttered those goose-bumply syllables, “Thar she blows!” I’ve said, on my knees, “Will you marry me?” A few years later, I said until I was hoarse, “It’s a girl!” A few years after that, “It’s a boy!” So I’ve been lucky. I’ve gotten to say the best of it.
A friend of mine tells the story about the magistrate in Scotland. The town drunk was hauled in before him for the umpteenth time. The magistrate looked down on him and said, “You have been found guilty of the crime of public drunkenness. It is the sentence of this court that you be taken from here to the place of execution and there hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may God Almighty have mercy upon your soul.”
The drunk fainted. As they were reviving him, the bailiff looked up quizzically at the judge. The judge shrugged and said, “I’ve just always wanted to say that.”
I know exactly how he felt.
About the Author
CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY is a novelist, journalist, and editor of Forbes FYI. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, daughter, son, and dog, Duck.