The President's Palm Reader: A Washington Comedy

by Robert MacLean

  “Oh! Can I come?”

  “I doubt it but I’m sure you fake it superbly!”

  “Hey listen honey, why don’t you get your big red feet outa here!”

  “We’ll leave,” I suggested.

  “She’ll leave.”

  I turned to Alberta. “Go away now.”

  “Who’s going to make me?”

  They circled like strange dogs. No change in the music warned the patrons what was happening. They seized a pair of drinks each and emptied them at one another, drawing incidental hey-what-the-hecks from dancers-by.

  I covered my cajoans and backed out of range. They charged one another and the crowd closed and roiled around the screams. Mindful of my record with the police I slipped away unnoticed.

  After that I lived in fear. I lurked in my room, avoided the beach, saw only those I knew as friends. The heat didn’t help my nerves. As the season ripened the temperature rose and there was always a wet spot where you lay on the bed. If you forgot and crossed your legs you looked like you’d peed your pants. When the wind blew it just made the dead fan creak and you felt hotter.

  I was playing solitaire on the bed one day when I heard a scream and she ran by nude on the balcony. I put a nine on a black ten and reviewed the options.

  She came to the door and craned her head in. “There’s a snake in my room!”

  Black two on red three.

  It was plausible. One of the comforts of the second floor is your relative remoteness, creepy-crawly-wise, but it was plausible.

  “Joseph,” I called, “the lady has a snake in her room.”

  He was standing outside smiling obsequiously at prospective customers as they passed. “Mr. Word,” he said with weary patience, “there is no need to shout it.”

  I moved a sequence to the jack onto a queen and turned up a five.

  “I can’t go back in there.”

  Five on six, turned over an ace, put it up, deuce on ace, turned up a seven.

  “Well you could offer me a towel!”

  I jerked my head at the bathroom, put the seven on the eight, turned up the six, the five, the king, moved the queen, turned up the jack. Be interesting to lose some time.

  She sat in the corner waiting for Joseph to come and shoo the snake away, holding a face towel in front of her, all you got in this place, pressing her things to her ribs. Those of you who have taken male bodies will appreciate how this information seeps in at the corners of the eyes. I put up my threes, my fours.

  She leaned forward and felt the shave on her ankles, ran a finger up the cleft in her calf, inspected the polish on her toenails. Long toes.

  Sixes. Sevens. The eight came out. The nine.

  “Do you like my toes?”

  Well, I fell in love. That first time we did it exploded a tension so irritating I was just a whole other person when we lay there afterwards. We were partners in a new peace.

  After that you might have seen us diving like dolphins in the surf, leaning together as we strolled in the wash, joining hands in a restaurant to comfort each other after the waiter’s intrusion.

  I don’t know how it happened, maybe I was just bored. Maybe it was just the easiest thing to do. I mean you fall in love and it shifts your whole metabolism, right? And if it isn’t reciprocated it’s like a nervous breakdown, you lose all your grace, have to start from scratch. This was all laid out for me!

  “Do you love me?” she said.

  “Sort of.” No use spoiling her.

  “You do to me what I’d do if I were a man.”

  Yes, I had found my sensual twin. My missing half. I was the man who had found the woman. Been found by the woman, I don’t know.

  What the hell, I was happy. The chaos of life became a mere subject of conversation. We lay in the lap of long afternoons washed by the breeze, drenched in bird chatter and the lazy sound of the sea. At night we socialized with the local characters and wound up downtown slow-dancing to Roy Orbison.

  “Of course we can’t go on like this,” she said.

  I pulled my head back to see, still blissfully unaware. “Huh?”

  “We have to take some thought for the future.”

  “We do?”

  “I can’t go on living on your money.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I wouldn’t either if there was more of it. How long can we live in a hotel room?” She gave me a you’ve-been-hitting-the-orgasm-button-and-forgetting-to-go-to-the-feed-tray look.

  “It’s not so bad!”

  “Don’t you think it’s time we moved on?”

  “Moved on! I’m established here! I have standing in the community! I can’t run out on my practice!”

  “Some superstitious old biddies and high-profile yuppies who treat you like a tourist attraction?”

  I couldn’t make her understand! The quiet life, the woman of my dreams—I was satisfied! Safety! Security! I was a petit-bourgeois at heart, I knew that, but we were living under the mercy of some dispensation here and I didn’t want to gamble with it.

  But she was in flight from marriage and convention. What did she know of the upsy-downsy life? It didn’t seem quite fair. Under other circumstances this might have been the moment to rethink the relationship, suggest a trial separation.

  But I had swallowed the whole milkshake! Already her hips and thighs impressed me as moral qualities. I didn’t even want to risk bluffing!

  “Hey,” I reminded her, “they’re flying in special! I’m getting a hundred a reading!”

  “Oh,” she laughed, “I think we can do better than that.”

  3.

  I asked the bartender the time.

  Late.

  They weren’t coming.

  He polished glasses and pretended he didn’t notice I was being stood up.

  Nobody much in the bar. I could go up to the room and watch TV. Maybe walk around, see what was happening. Didn’t look like much of a scene but you could never tell.

  Where were they?

  You get a couple having a reunion, anything can happen! Drinks. Remembering. He was a star, he looked good. Getting a little older maybe but there’s no make-up like half a bottle of wine in the other person.

  I hooked my heels on the stool and moped expressively.

  “Here he is,” she said.

  I spun around smiling. With relief of course but I knew I was supposed to. You have to promote yourself a little, she said. When you look at someone with joy you seduce them, she said.

  I glowed.

  “How are you,” said Belton, and shook my hand.

  “Let’s take a table.” She wove out into the room but when I turned to follow he held my hand so hard I couldn’t work it free,

  His smile was cold.

  “Oh, Belton,” she said, “don’t be so dangerous.”

  He watched me while we moved to the table.

  As we were sitting she said, “Did you eat something? We had a marvelous dinner. Dooflabies with little things on them. I hope we’re not too late. We had some catching up to do.” She gave him an intimate smile.

  He took her hand. “Let’s get this over with and get out of here.”

  “They wanted to close the restaurant on us. Really, this town shuts down at ten-thirty! All these career jockeys have to be first at the office in the morning. Belton had to tell them who he was.”

  Hey! my eyes said but she was ordering. I mean all right, embassies had to be re-established, but what was this?

  “Old reporter trick,” he grinned. “They kill the music and turn the lights up to get you moving, you get out your pad and take notes, tell em to watch for your review. Scares the shit out of them.”

  “Isn’t he marvelous?”

  “We’re gonna call it a night,” he winked. “Been a while.”

  “The greeting is absolutely greedy when I get back from anywhere,” she explained. “I can see his eyes in the dark, it’s frightening. Let’s have our drinks first.”

  We watched the w
aiter place them.

  “When I first met him I said nobody has shoulders that wide, remember? He said I’ll strip to the waist if you will.”

  Their fingers nuzzled.

  I felt violated. You get these people in Indian train stations who slip things into your tea. You wake up and your money is gone, your bag, your shoes. Leaves you wondering.

  Of course I was the interloper here. They were the couple. He raised his glass. “To the Wonga,” he said. He was one of those people who said to the Wonga. Kowabunga kind of guy. “Bottoms up,” he leered.

  “Belton, do shut up.”

  When they love you they hate you, his grin said. “Let’s go home and see if it still fits. See if you can still get around it.”

  I don’t know, I just didn’t like the mother.

  “Darling, don’t, you’re exciting him.”

  He yawned, stretched. “Nighty-night,” he said.

  “He’s a brute in bed,” she admitted.

  “Getting late.”

  “But we haven’t talked to Word about the program yet!”

  “What program?”

  “Well I had this idea about Word appearing on the program.”

  “No, Alberta! No! What do I have to say? No! No fortunetellers!”

  “You are stubborn. He’s so stubborn.”

  “We went through all this before! Do I have to say it again?”

  “Strong, really. He’s strong.”

  The suspicion crept into his face that he was being cajoled.

  “Talk to each other for a minute,” she said, and got up and left the table .

  We watched her go, unable to focus our emotions. “Have you been screwing my wife?”

  “No!” I said, and not without a trace of conviction. Right now I wasn’t all that sure who’d been screwing who.

  He leaned over me, put his arm on the back of my chair. “You don’t have to lie to me,” he said.

  This is always a presumptuous thing to say. Usually it’s said by women. Don’t listen.

  “I know that,” I said. “I think she’s just trying to make you jealous.” I’d have been glad to believe I was wrong.

  “If I find out you’ve been playing footsy with Alberta I’m going to mash you down with my fork.”

  I nodded understandingly. “I think she has this statement she wants to make, but it’s you she wants to make it to. I’m not really even in this.”

  “You’re in it, all right, dipshit. I’ll pop your head up your ass and roll you away like a tire, you watch.”

  We sat and thought about that until she came back. “There is still a belief in this country that people like to dry themselves with hot air. Did you arrange everything?”

  “We’re not arranging anything,” he said, holding her chair firmly.

  “What is it? We don’t want much money. Did you discuss money?”

  “We? What’s this we?”

  “This is my career, Belton. I certainly helped you enough with yours. If I hadn’t guided you to the right people you’d still be doing the Sports Roundup in Hookerville. Remember those jackets?”

  “You don’t need a career! I have a career!”

  “It’s all you do have! We never see one another! At first he needed drugs to go that fast and it scared me. Then he did it without the drugs and that really scared me! It’s what drove us apart, finally.”

  “What drove us apart was gonzos like this one!”

  “Those were gestures, Belton. If you’d been aware of me at all you’d have seen that.”

  This left my own status somewhat in question but I was reluctant to intrude any remarks. I don’t know if you’ve ever sat in third while a couple reminisces like this. It’s not so great.

  “You’ll want to talk alone,” I said, getting up.

  “Wordy, you sit down.” Her look gave me no choice.

  “You were supposed to be having babies,” he growled.

  “Oh, I do want babies, really I want hundreds of them. I want the whole world to come out between my legs. Later.”

  “Does cut into your fooling-around time,” I put in. Just to be safe.

  He watched me put my drink back on the table.

  “It’s my fault,” she told me. “I seem to seek out situations where I’m being dominated. I’m as capable as anyone but I can only fall for someone who’s more so. But Belton really,” she pouted, “we can’t live like all those wretches with mortgages! I can’t just sit home all day and do my nails!”

  He looked at her long and grim.

  “So you want out.”

  “Darling,” she said, touching his hand, “I am out.”

  They held on it. He nodded faintly.

  “All right. You’re out. We’re both out. We’ve known that for a while. So why come to me?”

  “For help.”

  “No. Why? Finished is finished. Is finished. Good-bye.”

  “Of course you’re right. It was foolish putting myself at your mercy again. I don’t know why I do it.”

  “Don’t con me, Alberta.”

  “Con you! A moment ago you were hot to trot!” She did seem offended. He’d given up easily.

  He shrugged and took out a cigar. “Nothing lasts forever,” he said. He unwrapped it, sniffed it, rolled it, wet it. “It’s time to go on to other things.” He lit it, puffed, blew smoke at her. “We have to learn to grow,” he said.

  “I wish you’d thought so before. He hums his theme music in his sleep. I was on the point of wiring the taps in the tub.”

  “At least I don’t snore,” he said. “You snore.”

  “I do no such thing. You are the most spontaneous liar imaginable.”

  “Look,” he said, “can we be honest for a moment?”

  “Oho, listen. Now he wants to be honest. Well?”

  “You snore.”

  “My mother said he was evil.”

  “You make a noise like a pig,” he beamed.

  “Wordy? It’s not true! Tell him!”

  He gazed at me softly. “Uh-oh.”

  My smile was giving me a face-ache. I studied something on the table.

  “You are a sadistic maniac,” she said.

  “I like to think so.”

  “And you won’t do this for me? For old times sake?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well. There goes my career.”

  “Oh revoyer.”

  “I guess I’ll just have to live on my support money.”

  He stopped looking at me and looked at her.

  “Not that you’ll care. You’re so rich.”

  “I’m not exactly rich.”

  “Yes, you’re exactly rich. I’d so much rather have done it on my own.”

  “You left me,” he pointed out.

  “You threw my cat out the window,” she countered. “I asked him to take care of the cat while I was gone and he threw it out the window. From the eighth floor. While I was going down in the elevator. It was all over the sidewalk when I came out to the taxi.”

  “I threw the cat out while you were leaving. Not before. That doesn’t count.”

  “Oh darling, let’s not argue. The lawyers can do it. You tell yours about Wordy and I’ll tell mine about Twinkles. Fifty-fifty! “

  “Who?”

  “Your Special Assistant. Pudgola.”

  “Tiffany? She works for the show!”

  “That’s very persuasive, darling. You see? It will all take care of itself.”

  “All right, wait a minute. Do I hear you saying that you will not sue for alimony if I give you your spot?”

  She arched an eyebrow.

  “Put that in writing,” he said, “and he goes on television.”

  4.

  The elevator rose silently, swinging my stomach by the Slinkies. I leaned listlessly on the bumpers. This was no good, no good.

  Suddenly I was party of the third part in the break-up of a marriage. Certain to be the sacrificial victim. Faced with the angry husband I generally elect to s
troll. Get gone. I was going on TV with the guy!

  “Fifteen minutes should do it,” she’d said. “And the right questions. Don’t make a fool of him, Belton.”

  “I’ll make a fool of him when I’m good and ready,” he grinned.

  And what were the right questions? Suppose he probed at my past! Before leaving for the colonies I’d been involved in some business ventures. Limited-offer things.

  YES! MAKE ME THREE INCHES TALLER FOR ONLY $99.99 PLUS HANDLING!

  After your check cleared you got a slab of styrofoam to stand on, by which time I had changed box numbers and was pushing the $49.95 one-hundred-percent-guaranteed rat killer, two blocks of wood plus wallet-size photocopy of instructions. SIMPLY PLACE RAT’S HEAD ON ONE BLOCK AND BRING SECOND BLOCK DOWN SHARPLY.

  All perfectly legal of course but the FTC was starting to send people around. What the hell, it gave the targets a little hope for a while! But suppose I was recognized!

  No, the further this promo tour got the less I liked it. There had been a moment of relief there when it all seemed to be crumbling on the launch pad. Now that it was set I knew it wasn’t for me.

  It had been a wrong decision, that’s all! Hasty! I’d just done it to show off. Show her I could.

  “No,” I’d said. “No! Why should we leave this, this paradise! If we make it we’ll only come back to a place like this! “

  “Banana fritters, banana milkshakes, banana pancakes. I can’t eat any more bananas!”

  “What do you want, beluga caviar? I just want to stay here and protect my reserve!”

  “In this hole? Look at it!”

  “It’s part of the ambience! The palm trees, the fishing village -”

  “The tweed toilet paper.”

  “Our friends are here!”

  “Your friends. Your tirelessly hip friends. Failed actors. Failed writers. Dealers. They’re all failures but the criminals! Is that what you call paradise, sitting around all day with these resort rats?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, you’re used to a better quality of friend. You want Gstaad. You want Saint Moritz. You want to rent a Greek island and have everybody over.”

  This wouldn’t quite do. She didn’t like to be accused of having less decadent friends than mine. “I only want us to be successful while we’re still young enough to enjoy it,” she sulked.