Sauce for the Gander

This is going to be the tricky part, Mitch thought. Getting her to go along. It would not be easy. Adele had done her job – thoroughly and competently. She’d gained the candidate’s trust. He had to laugh at the Men are Morons comment. Adele was one of the boys. Nobody wanted to dress the lithe and lovely Mrs. Shapiro in the chunky styles of Michelle Obama, a woman twice her size. Adele was a genius. The best they had.

While the shopping spree was taking place, the three male boys reconvened at Grogan’s. Nat had a neat little apartment a few towns away. Two rooms. A big one that as kitchen and living room, and a small bedroom. A private room and a public room. What more did anyone need?

Mitch felt good at Nat’s. Self-sufficient and simple. The kitchen tools hung out, and there weren’t many of them. A thick pine table with four heavy chairs dominated the space, and here’s where they sat, on fat cushions, with big mugs of coffee in front of them, working out what Brenda Shapiro did and did not believe, what she stood for, what her opinion was on any issue that might come up.

That is, any issue on which Obama had not yet spoken. If he had, she was with him one hundred percent. That left less and less every day. She had to be careful not to come out with what would become the wrong side of an issue.

Nat and Chauncey were in love with her, that was obvious. She was their ticket to mattering. The party that’s out is nowhere. Locally, theirs was out. Always out. A perpetual losing team.

But now everything was turned upside-down. Obama had long coat tails, even if officially they didn’t offer rides. Not even Republicans were allowed to speak against him, even though the bastards did anyway. Everybody else knew it was time to shut up and let the man do his job. Even if you didn’t like some things that were happening, or it looked like they weren’t working, you had to believe. If at times you couldn’t quite do that, at least keep quiet about it.

Electing a Democrat would show support for the historic president. It was the decent thing to do. Like that farce in Minnesota where they re-ran the rules to give the election to Franken. Nobody believes there was any proof that Franken had won; everybody knew it was an undecidable 50-50 split and what went on were after-the-fact judgment calls. But nobody cared. With him in the Senate, there will be no party-line filibusters to obstruct Obama’s programs.

How he would love to have been part of those all-night strategy meetings, with the tremendous urgency of having to win, to devise the ways and means to do so, and then, finally, doing so – winning. Yes, he’d like a taste of winning. He badly wanted his little filly to come in.

But what about the owner of the horse? He’s got to co-operate. He has to want the same thing you do, or you’re not going to get it. There has probably never been a successful candidate whose spouse was not on board. Certainly not one whose other half was kicking and screaming all the way to the oval office. Hillary could have buried Bill with that Gennifer Flowers business. Instead, she went on television to tell the world she knew her husband couldn’t keep it in his tweeds, but gosh darn, if she can forgive him, you can too. What a woman.

A woman. That’s what was needed. Brenda’s husband was getting screwed. Or maybe he wasn’t. Either way, she had a new man in her life, and he didn’t have the equivalent. In fact, she had a few new men in her life. Adele included. They were going to escort her, and if he wanted to, he could tag along as Mr. Brenda. But even Bill hadn’t done too well in that role. Couldn’t keep his hands off. Couldn’t stay in the background.

Mitchell didn’t think that’s what lost her the election. The fickle finger did that. Something bigger and better came along. Black trumps Woman. The right Black appeared. A white Black. It might never happen again. Grab it.

They had, and now Obama’s running with the ball, as fast as he can, before they catch him. He knows they’re going to catch him; it’s only a matter of time. He’s run away with all the money. People won’t get mad till they look in their wallets and find out it was theirs.

Yeah, a shrewd guy, Obama. Much smarter than he, himself. Obama used the good fortune of his looks to get him up there, while Mitch had frittered away his own good fortune on small-town politics, until it was too late, and his look-alike had queered his deal.

Lost chances. He didn’t want to lose this little consolation prize. He’d almost had an idea before he started thinking about the former First Couple. What was it?

A woman. That was it. Jason needed a woman to take his mind off his wife, and what she was doing. He needed a taste of guilt, so he could feel magnanimous – let her have her own good time, because he was having his. Yes, that was it.

He ran some women through his mind, then it hit him. Why not make it a foursome? He and Nina seemed to hit it off at dinner; come to think of it, he’d had a clear field, she had kept him entertained.

Would he be jealous? He had to check it out. All he saw was a tantalizing picture of Brenda, with that cleavage she’d kept hidden all these years. He could submerge his masculine territorialism, like an Eskimo, and share his wife. Now all he had to do was throw them together. That would be easy.

Meanwhile, Jason has returned to the drug company. He’s forgotten all about Ms. Longlegs. He’s forgotten her name, if he ever knew it. Too much has been going on in his life that he doesn’t like, and it’s pushed out all the things he does. He’s sitting at a stranger’s desk, brooding, as he corrects, undoes, reinstalls, whatever it takes, he’ll do it.

He’s nobody. He’s the husband of a woman running for Congress. Someone else in the family is wearing the pants. He’ll soon be wearing an apron. What’s worse, his wife is doing things for another man that she wouldn’t do for him. That fucking make-up. She didn’t throw it back in Wagman’s face, like she’d thrown it back at him. For Wagman, she put it on. That was enough for him; he knew how to read the signs.

He was mad, he was sad, he was frustrated, his ego was badly battered. When along came …

Bumpitabumpitabump