Punch Drunk

Yes, you wild things, we are still at the party. Hope you can hold your liquor better than some people. Jason, with the aid of several more glasses of the pink punch – he was thirsty – and not feeling like talking to anybody at all, has been poking around in back rooms of the Wagmans’ modern mansion where he ought not to be. He found a pool table and hit a few balls, a library and read a few pages. He’s acting like a spoiled adolescent taken to a party and refusing to participate.

By the time he wanders back into the main hall, he’s greeted with the remarkable sight of his wife standing at a wrought-iron podium in the middle of the grand room, surrounded by a semi-circle of people perched on the couches and chairs they’d been circulating around, and an army of rented seats called into action.

Brenda looks shockingly comfortable up there in her form-fitting lavender dress draped with veils. Demure. Not at all whorish at this distance. He’s missed most of the speech, but he’s been hearing it for a week and knows it by heart. You heard part of it in the car coming up. Here’s where he came in.

“Yes, I did say ‘form’. Children are made, not born. Babies are born. They are made into children by the people around them. That means you, even if you have no children. It means you even if you never deal with a child, because someone you deal with does, and how you influence her or him will influence that child.

“These children will become the people we make them. They’ll run our schools and our businesses. They’ll be our artists and musicians, our scientists, and doctors. They will create a society, but it will be the society we have set them up to create. Whatever they do is our doing, their failures our fault.

“I believe the best word to describe what we need is, more. M - O - R - E – more. More parenting, more thought, more learning, for more children. More nutritious food, more loving care, more time, and if the parents can’t provide it, we will.”

Exactly who “we” was, she left unclear, which may be why she garnered such applause. Then it was time for questions.

First one, a zinger. From a national newspaper (this is a special election, in an off-year. No one else is running for congress.) A pert young woman asks, “What do you think of trillion-dollar national health care?”

Health care? She was worried. All this talk about cost-effectiveness – people having to be worth saving. Her mother didn’t produce anything but waste products, but as her mother, she was infinitely valuable. End-of-life counseling and suicide pills was ugly; she didn’t like it. Wagman knew. He caught her eye.

“Our nation has not provided equal health care for all, and we must begin to do so immediately,” she said. He smiled. Her reward for being a good student.

“Mrs. Shapiro, how do you feel about President Obama’s attitude toward Israel?” Smartass. Just because her name is Shapiro. “Does President Obama have an attitude toward Israel? I thought he had an attitude about diplomacy versus violence, and I am completely with him. I don’t like violence.”

Then Wagman is marching toward her, holding his arm out like he’s stopping traffic. “Let’s quit while we’re ahead,” he whispers when he gets to her. He turns to face the audience, puts an arm around her and says, “That will be all until next time. Thank you, Brenda, and thank you all for coming. We hope you enjoyed yourselves. You’ll be hearing from us soon.”

A number of guests got up, nodded their good-byes and left: those for whom it was a job and those who had plans for dinner.

After a few more of Wagman’s invitations to dismiss, the rest knew that they’d been told to leave.

Not everyone is gone, however. Clyde Waters wants to talk to the candidate. About business. His business. Drugs. When Wagman lets down his guard and leaves his congressman to escort Nicole Evans, the congresswoman, to the door, Clyde sidles up to Brenda like a seller of “feelthy peectures”, to sound her out about abortion.

“I’ve had some trouble with my top salesman, who refuses to sell our ‘morning after’ pill.”

“I’m not surprised,” she replies. “A lot of men just can’t empathize with women.

“No,” he says. “This is a woman. Quite a woman, in fact,” he can’t help but add.

For those of you who are students of geometry, the triangle has closed. The construct is shaped. Unbeknownst to all, Mr. Waters has performed the introduction.

“I hope her position is not too widespread. I hope it isn’t yours.”

“Ohmigod, of course not! Abortion is one of women’s basic rights. It’s the right to pursue happiness.” This does not come out the way she wanted it to.

Jason has finally spotted Clyde, his only friend on the premises, and headed toward him. He hears this last remark and enters the conversation with, “What about the rights of men? Don’t they have any say?”

“Men?” Brenda answers. “Any man whose woman doesn’t want his baby is probably getting what he deserves.” She turns to Clyde. “And any woman who stands in the way of her sisters’ pursuit of happiness is no woman at all.” The two men exchange a guilty, knowing glance. Waters assured, and Jason in hot water, for sure, make way for Wagman, who has rushed back to his charge, having discharged the other lady at the door.

It’s the end of the party, when everything gets weird. Jason has had more than the nothing he’d planned to drink. Brenda and Adele are collapsed on a couch; Mitchell and Nina are in the kitchen. He wanders back out to the fireplace and spots the curved stairway.

He’s pretty far gone. He puts his hand on the banister, slides it up a bit, and lets his feet follow. He’s going upstairs. Faster and faster because he doesn’t want to be stopped. As soon as he gets to the top, he quickly goes around the bend and is in a corridor with thick carpeting. There are a lot of doors, all of them closed. He opens one. Peeks in. Big bamboo bed, mosquito netting curtains, wicker chairs and dressers, like another world. Maybe the master bedroom. He closes it.

In the next room, on a white rug, two white couches are conjugating under their sprinkling of colored cushions. Bordello-red curtains complete the scene.

This is fun. He opens the next door. Big mistake. Dirty clothes all over the floor, bookcases full of stuff, posters plastering the walls. This must be the son’s room. What was his name? Something strange. Griffin. No. Phoenix. That was it. Phoenix. How to produce a wacky kid – name him Phoenix.

He could hardly make sense of what was in the room; there was so much. His eyes strayed through the tangle. Got to the messy bed. There was someone sitting beneath the rock stars on the wall and on top of the confusing-graphic bedspread. Two people. One was a boy with hair the color of blood. The other was a girl in a Grecian tunic, with her hair up. Between them was… what was that? Goddam if it wasn’t a bong. A big, blue, plastic Dr. Seussish contraption. The crazy son had his daughter on his bed and was feeding her marijuana.