The Global War on Morris (9 page)

Morris Feldstein, whose worst crime to that point was succumbing to a lunch invitation at the Sunrise Diner.

POLL

SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 2004

“A
nd so my truth is that I am a gay American.” From behind his desk in the White House, Karl Rove watched the Governor of New Jersey make the proclamation. He watched it on his VCR. Over and over. Forward and rewind, forward and rewind. “And so my truth is that I am a gay American.”

It was music to his ears.

Rove turned to a thick stack of polling data from Ohio, peering at toplines and crosstabs. Digging his index finger into data as if taking its pulse. Concentrating that famous encyclopedic mind of the American political landscape. And not just the landscape as a whole, but specific zip codes. Especially zip codes in swing districts of Ohio.

Ohio was the battleground in this presidential election. Ohio, with its shallow pools of undecided and persuadable voters. Their values were a complicated grafting of incompatible principles. The
self-described “evangelical moderate women” in the suburbs of Cleveland; the “national security Democrats” near Youngstown; the “family-values Blacks who support social spending” in Toledo; and the “right-to-life Catholics who oppose the war” near Dayton.

These were the individual swing voters whose decisions could swing a precinct, and that precinct could swing a whole county, and that county could swing all of Ohio, and Ohio would swing the entire election.

Rove rubbed his eyes, as the small print of the poll grew fuzzy. The news hadn't yet seeped into the data. But it would. Over the next few days and weeks, the images of the Governor's announcement—not to mention the relentless footage of thousands of gay people demanding same-sex marriages in San Francisco—would help the undecideds decide. By putting a giant God-fearing, gay-bashing, gun-loving wedge between them and John Kerry.

And that would seal the deal
, he thought.

Fear. Fear was the ultimate wedge issue. And who was tapping on their shoulders in the dark, reminding them of the dangers that gathered and lurked around them? The terrorists, who threatened their survival and the gays, who threatened their marriages.
Boo!

Rove was satisfied that Kerry's post-convention bounce was easing. It was coming back to earth. An earth infiltrated by gays and terrorists and illegal immigrants. Which made Rove smile.

D
own the corridor, in the Vice President's office, Dick Cheney suppressed a frown.

“Secretary Ridge is reluctant to raise the Homeland Security alert at this time,” Jon Pruitt had just reported.

“Reluctant?” Cheney repeated, lifting his eyebrow. He glanced at Scooter Libby, who sat stiffly in a Queen Anne chair.

“There's no credible justification at the present time. We already raised the alert for various financial institutions without any supporting intelligence. We can't keep doing that.” He sighed, almost painfully.

Cheney remained silent. Libby would do his work for him:

“How about the suspicious foreigner videotaping the Brooklyn Bridge?” Libby asked.

“His hobby is photographing bridges. Wants to publish a coffee table book. Not blow up a bridge.”

“That group of foreign students taking out books on nuclear fission from the library in Boston?”

“Students at MIT.”

“Okay, what about those guys who pulled out that prayer rug at the airport and started praying toward Mecca before getting on their plane!”

“We checked it out. Evidently the airport chapel was already taken. By Baptists who were praying before getting on their planes.”

“Still . . .”

An uneasy quiet settled on the Vice President's office.

Libby broke the silence. “Let me be clear. We go into our convention in two weeks. We need the right atmospherics on this.”

Pruitt said, “I think we have the right atmospherics. Tell the voters we don't need to raise the threat level! Why? Because the Republicans are keeping you safe. Period.”

Libby nodded his head in protest. “If people feel safe, they'll start paying attention to other issues where we may be . . . soft. Which means they just might elect Kerry. Who will make this country less safe. And expose us to an attack by our enemies.”

Good boy, Scooter!
Cheney thought
.

“As counsel to the Secretary of Homeland Security,” Pruitt said as officiously as he could, “I simply do not have the comfort level to advise him to increase the threat level based on . . . political considerations.”

“Political considerations? Who said anything about that?” Libby snapped.

“Not me,” said Cheney. And he cast a glare that sent a searing pain through Pruitt's stomach.

CHINESE TAKEOUT

SUNDAY, AUGUST 15, 2004

“W
hat's wrong with the ribs, Morris? You're not eating your spareribs.”

Morris chewed on his Kung Pao chicken from the Great Neck Mandarin Gourmet, but he wanted to bury his face in his hands and moan, “Leave me alone for God's sake!” That, of course, would be unprecedented behavior for Morris. And it would upset Rona. So, to keep the peace, he feigned a slight smile, and said, “It's fine. I'm just full.” And continued chewing. Through gritted teeth. The food was bland.
Bland like my life
, he thought. Another Sunday night. Same take-out order from the Mandarin Gourmet, same white cartons and silver handles with the brown sauce overlapping the brims. Same fortune cookies and tiny plastic packets of duck sauce; same comment from Rona about eating more ribs. Same dark room dimly lit by the chandelier from Fortunoff. Same beige walls with
washed-out portraits of Jeffrey and Caryn as children. Reminding him that his life had never been updated.

Except for one thing: Morris had never felt this way before. His lunch with Victoria had changed everything.

Ever since that lunch, a restlessness coursed through Morris's veins. Nothing satisfied him. Not even the Mets one-run win over the Diamondbacks on Saturday. He couldn't even concentrate on Turner Classic Movies' weekend tribute to Claude Rains. Victoria intruded on almost every minute of the past forty-eight hours. How she crinkled her nose when she chewed her food, how she swept loose wisps of blond hair behind her ears, how her dress swirled above her knees when she walked.

How she laughed.

He had spent the entire weekend considering the contrast between that scintillating one-hour lunch with Victoria, and the bland and unsatisfying totality of the rest of his life.

The lunch with Victoria was a curve ball in Morris Feldstein's infinite extra-inning game of no runs, no hits, no errors.

“Are you sure you're full?” Rona asked, chewing through her Special Chicken and Vegetable in Garlic Sauce. “You hardly ate! Have another sparerib. You love spareribs, Morris.”

“No. Full.”

“Have another, Morris.”

The sign outside on their lawn said:
RONA FELDSTEIN, CSW
. Just down the hall, in her small office at the end of the house, she probed and peeked at the innermost anxieties of imperfect strangers. And here he was, just at the other end of the table, married for thirty-four years, and what is her professional evaluation? Have another sparerib, Morris.

He felt a twinge in his chest; in a place he estimated was roughly where his heart should be. Just like the feeling he had in Dr. Kirleski's office. Only now it seemed worse.

That was the other thing about the past few days. The anxiety
attacks. The chest pains. The signs of a midlife crisis halfway through a crisis-free life.
Is that my heart beating faster?
he thought.
Or, does it always beat this fast but now I'm overly sensitive to it, which is causing anxiety that's making my heart beat really, really fast until it will stop altogether? Gottenyu—is it hot in the room, or is it the Kung Pao? Stay calm,
he coached himself.
No need to panic. I'm Morris Feldstein. Bad things don't happen to me (or good things, for that matter). I'm not the type to have heart attacks or panic attacks or any kind of attack. People who jump out of planes—they have
mishagas
. Risk takers and workaholics. Not pharmaceutical salesmen who don't make waves. We just go on. And on . . .
and on . . . and on. No runs, no hits, no errors. No anxiety, no ecstasy.

He felt better. More relaxed. More like himself. He was ready to attack the evening with a newfound energy. He would plunge into the RoyaLounger 8000 and watch the ESPN Game of the Week.

And then Rona asked, “Were you going to watch a game tonight, Morris?”

“I was. But if you—”

“No, it's okay. If you want to watch the game, we'll watch—”

“What do you want to watch, Rona?”

“Nothing. It's just the Summer Olympics. In Athens. Look, what's the big deal? I can miss them. They'll be on again in four years.”

And the pain returned.

“CHECK, PLEASE”

THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 2004

T
hat day, sitting across from Victoria at the Sunrise Diner, Morris's eyes kept investigating the way her blouse clung to her chest and her skirt clung to her hips; how her forearm muscles bulged when she brought a drink or a fork to her lips; and how other men in the diner took mental snapshots of her.

So Morris was mentally unprepared for Victoria's question:

“Morris, how come you never talk about your wife? Tell me about her.”

He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Rona.” Because that pretty much said it all.

“That's it?” Victoria giggled.

Morris felt a slight nudging of the Feldstein Anxiety Anticipation Index and began tapping his foot. Then he fidgeted with his wine
glass, moving it from one side of the plate to the other and watching the streak of moisture it left. “What do you want to know?”

“What does she look like? Do you have a picture?”

A picture
, he thought. He couldn't remember the last time he looked at the picture of Rona buried in his wallet. He fumbled through his inside jacket pocket, unfolded the wallet, and produced the only three photographs it contained: two high school graduation pictures of Jeffrey and Caryn, and a photo circa the 1990s of him and Rona taken at a dinner function he couldn't remember. Someone's bar mitzvah or wedding. Or maybe one of those Celfex Employee Appreciation dinners he hated. They sat at a table cluttered with plates and glasses and a huge floral centerpiece. His arm was extended across the back of Rona's chair. She assumed her standard pose: her head cocked at an odd angle, her eyes widened. In that photograph, her auburn hair fell below her shoulders. More recently, it was cropped, and assumed an unnatural red sheen.

He passed the picture to Victoria, who studied it closely. “Awwww, you're cute.”

“Who, me?”

“Yes, you.”

“No. I'm not cute.”

“Well I think so.”

Victoria returned the picture, pressing it into Morris's palm. And when she did, she let the tips of her fingers rest there, just for a moment. But long enough to send a jolt through Morris's body, as if she had rubbed her feet on carpeting on a cold winter's day and shocked him. So that he felt the hairs jump on the back of his neck and a tingle pass straight down his back and into his groin.

“Rona's okay. But you know how it is.”

“I know. Jerry.”

“You drift apart.”

“Eighteen years. That son of a bitch.”

“You run out of things to say.”

“But you never stop fighting.”

“We don't fight,” said Morris.

“You will.”

“She just doesn't . . . understand me anymore.”

“Jerry never listened. Never.”

“You develop separate interests.”

“Like a pizza girl. That—”

“It becomes . . . boring.”

“Painful.”

“Suddenly you have nothing in common. Nothing. Rona loves to watch the news. I love watching the Mets.”

“Let's go Mets. Doubleheader tonight. Benson is pitching. Bad trade, I think. How about you?”

That was it. That was the moment. A question about Rona, with a follow-up question about the Mets' pitching rotation. Marking the one time that Morris could not keep his feet reliably on the ground. Because Victoria D'Amico had swept him off his feet. Rona didn't know the difference between Benson and Leiter. And here was Victoria—not exactly
The Bill James Baseball Abstract
, but she understood Morris. At his most primitive level. The Mets.

As they drank the last of their wine, Victoria looked at her watch and exclaimed, “Oh my God, Morris, we've been here so long we can go right to dinner. Or skip the diner and go right to the Bayview!” And giggled.

The Bayview was the Bellmore Bayview Motor Inn. It was also known as the “Pay-Per-View Motor Inn,” the “Bellmore Bordello,” and “Schtups-R-Us.” And if you were slinging back a beer at Flanagan's Pub, which was just adjacent to the Bayview, you would here this joke:

“Question. How many people does it take to screw in a lightbulb at the Bayview?”

“I dunno. How many?”

“Two to do the screwing and—hold it—since when does the
Bayview have lightbulbs! Ha!”

Unfortunately for Morris—or fortunately, depending on how one looks at it—when Victoria made that crack about skipping dinner and going straight to the Bayview, he wasn't in his joke-receiving position. He was in no position at all to defend against a joke, now that he had lost his footing. So he responded, “Yeah, we sure could.”

To which Victoria curled her lips devilishly and said, “Oh, and don't you just wish.” Which also verged on humor in the playful, flirtatious “I-could-be-kidding-but-maybe-not, let's-just-see-how-you-respond” kind of way.

But Morris didn't receive that as a joke, either. He looked at Victoria seriously, even sadly, and said, “I do wish.”

Which even caught Victoria off guard.
Oh my God! Did he just say what I thought he said? He just crawled out on a limb? Now what do I do? Saw off the limb? That would be some reward for being honest. And look at those puppy dog eyes!

Victoria had a soft spot for honest men, puppies, and international drug counterfeiters.

The Feldstein Anxiety Anticipation Index began its inexorable ascent, forcing Morris to blurt out, “I'm kidding,” and then laugh, as if he were only kidding. He tried to regain his joke-receiving footing, like a staggering fighter who had just taken a sucker punch.

But it was too late.

“Let's go!” Victoria declared.

Now, Morris had to retract his retraction, otherwise he would have caused irreparable offense to Victoria and lost an opportunity to see her naked. So he promptly said, “Okay!”

And then there was the ritual diplomacy and negotiations that often accompany such arrangements:

“I mean, if you would, I would,” said Victoria.

“Do you want to?”

“Do you?”

“If you do,” Morris offered.

“When?”

“I have three more appointments—”

“I have to get back to Doctor Kirleski—”

“Oh.”

Silence.

“Tonight?” Victoria suggested.

“You mean
tonight
—as in when today ends?” asked Morris.

“No?”

“No?”

“I mean,” stammered Victoria, “yes. I was asking ‘no' as a question. I would go. After work. Only if you can, Morris.”

“I can.”

“Me too!”

“Waitress! Check, please!”

When the check came, the formerly good and decent model citizen Morris Feldstein reached across the depravity line. So flummoxed was he that he grabbed the first credit card in his wallet that his thumb touched, which just happened to be his Celfex-issued American Express card.

It was so unused that he hadn't even signed the back.