VD

Happy V.D. to one and all. Did you get it all together, guys? Get the flowers or chocolates, or whatever turns your lady on? Did you remember to make your reservation at that restaurant she keeps mentioning? Or is this the year of the great rebellion and you said, “Enough is enough” when you were invited by your local restaurant to a cupcake wine-tasting a whole week before the date, thereby instituting Valentine Week: cupcakes on Friday, dinner out on Saturday, breakfast in bed on Sunday, roses on Monday, a teddy bear on Tuesday, lingerie on Wednesday, bonbons on Thursday, a singing Valentine at her workplace on the day itself, so everyone can see how much you love her.

Among the single, Valentine’s day is a day of possibility. A day on which you are entitled to take your chances and declare your love.

Let’s begin our Valentine voyeurism with Steve, son of Wayne, who has been hanging around Brittany Brown for months now, and aside from an occasional kiss, nothing happens. Each time they see each other, the relationship begins anew.

So, what’s wrong with him? Didn’t we just say? How would you like to be Wayne’s son? He can’t find himself, doesn’t know who he is. Who he is has always been determined by who he isn’t. He’s whatever the person he’s talking to is not. It’s the way he grew up, always taking the other side.

Since Wayne was arrested looking for love in all the wrong places, he has been coming down to the student lounge with Melissa. Actually, he’s been going everywhere with Melissa who was appointed his watchdog by a friendly judge. He’s on a short leash when he’s there, but Brittany, who is touched and flattered, knowing she was the cause of his incarceration, albeit temporary, usually idles over and stops for a few minutes of conversation. Like yesterday.

But yesterday was different. A lot of people had braved the blizzard and a lot of profs didn’t show, so the lounge was full of people not yet ready to take to the roads, exhilarated by their freedom and their conquest of the elements.

Brittany left the little circle she was sitting in with Steve, as soon as she saw snowy, wet, Wayne walk in the door, and beat him to his usual seat. Melissa was accosted by a fellow classmate with a question about, of all things, their recording class. Wayne and Brittany stopped in front of two club chairs, but didn’t sit down. She grabbed his arm. “I’ve been listening to Rush Limbaugh,” she said.

Uh-oh, no good can come of that, right? Limbaugh fills your head with terrible, undeniable facts you wish you hadn’t heard.

“Did you hear about that grocery, Trader Joe’s? They were all set to open a store in Portland, built by an African-American construction company in an African-American neighborhood. The locals wanted it. Why not? Isn’t Michelle Obama always on their case for eating bad food, and on the stores’ case for not providing good food in black neighborhoods?”

Wayne nods. He can’t see what she’s so worked up about. And she’s worked up, all right. She’s squeezing his arm, and he likes it. She continues, “Well, it was blocked. The mayor and some outside organization said – no, they can’t bring that store there because it will improve the neighborhood, the rents will rise and the poor people who live there will be displaced.”

She grabbed the other arm. “You live in a ghetto, they keep you in a ghetto. They don’t care that you and your kids could get jobs, eat better food, and save some money. They can’t let their Blacks move up the ladder; these community-interest parasites sound a lot like plantation owners. It makes me so mad! I Googled Trader Joe’s while I was listening. If ever there was a store of the people, this is it. A fun place that sells quality, healthy food at regular prices. And the clerks all wear Hawaiian shirts,” she trailed off.

Then Melissa joined them, and they talked about the slippery roads, the huge snow piles in the parking lot, and the wind, but at least it’s warmer the terrible cold we’ve been having.

That was yesterday. Steve had been watching Wayne and Brittany. He couldn’t hear them, but he saw the intensity, and suddenly, today felt like taking the other side from Wayne. His own side. He felt his chest expand, and his shoulders broaden.

Today, the day itself, he is going to do something about it. There is no gov class today. He is going to present himself at her house (He knows where she lives.) and essentially, persuade her in person to be his valentine. He’s nervous but confident on the ride down – clear roads and four-foot snow banks. There’s no place to park so his car is halfway into the street. The sidewalk isn’t shoveled but after he wades to the door and sees the happy surprise on her face when she opens it, he knows he’s in.

She shows him to a seat at the breakfast bar. She’s in jeans and a sweatshirt and doesn’t look like she’s going anyplace, but when he says, “Are you doing anything tonight? Would you like to go out to dinner?” all at once, so as to give her a way out, she takes it! And says, “Oh, sorry, I can’t. I’m having dinner with my girlfriend.”

Ow. That hurts. “Dinner with your girlfriend? On Valentine’s Day? Can’t you put her off to some other day?”

She gives him a pained smile. “Oh, no, I couldn’t do that to my girlfriend,” she says.

He’s feeling sick. He thought he had this in the bag. He was already turning over restaurants in his mind. Poor guy doesn’t know he couldn’t get a reservation if he wanted one. He thinks of Wayne. He wonders if she’d cancel the girlfriend for his father.

Wayne wouldn’t give up. Wayne would bull his way through. He gets an idea.

“I’ll take you both out,” he says, “wherever you want to go.” Steve! There are some pretty pricey places in this county.

Brittany blushes. “Oh, no,” she says sadly. “That wouldn’t be the same.”

He brightens at this. She wants to be alone with him. He feels better. Relieved. This isn’t the end; it’s only the beginning. “You’re right,” he says, standing up from his stool, going over to hers, and pulling her out of it. He puts his arms around her and kisses her. She lets him, but that’s all she does; she lets him.

“My girlfriend will be here any minute. We’re spending the day together,” she says. He backs off. The girlfriend again. Okay, she’s got other things besides love on her mind. He kisses her  on the cheek and says, “See you soon.” He intends to be there the next day to put things on a proper footing.

And where is Wayne, anyway? Wayne is having Valentine’s Day dinner at a big table, in a large kitchen with a big, old, wood/coal/gas stove, a big, heavy, porcelain sink atop a crude wooden base, and a painted bread cupboard with flour sifter, board, shelves, and drawers. There’s a daybed under two windows against a wall, and a floor to ceiling built-in dish closet, two feet deep, against another.

The table is full of black-haired, bright-eyed people. Wayne is seated between a beautiful smiling woman, and her husband. He’s Wayne’s former cell-mate, the stonemason.

Poor Wayne. He’s having the time of his life with this big family in this old farmhouse, where everything is woody and worn except the bright shawls draped over the old couches, and the clothes of the girls, all made by their mother Maria, who wears only black. Juan – we met him briefly, in jail – is that horror-of-horrors to Wayne – an illegal alien.

While they both waited for their wives to bail them out, Wayne found out all about Juan and can’t help but be glad that the industrious fellow managed to get his girlfriend out of their gang-infested town fifteen years ago. He’d made enemies fighting corrupt police, and wanted to get as far away as possible. They worked their way across the country, got married in a little church in Las Vegas where no one asked for their ID. Their kids were all born here; they’re citizens. Only Mom and Dad are criminals. And Wayne wants to ship them back to Mexico?

Juan and Wayne get along famously. Juan and Maria are, if anything, more right than Wayne. Obviously, they don’t believe in abortion or birth control; there are seven little heads at the table. Juan has never taken welfare of any kind. No food stamps, never been “employed” so no unemployment when he’s out of work. He does anything that’s called for. Roofs, walls, sidewalks… Maria makes clothing and sells it to boutiques.

They don’t follow politics. They mind their own business and wish everyone else would do the same. So it comes as a surprise to him when Juan, at the end of the meal, leans over to him and says, “I’m worried. The government is buying up all the guns, and the ammunition. All departments. Homeland Security I can understand. But the EPA is buying guns. And even the Department of Education. What do they need them for? I thought they wanted to get rid of guns.”

Maria hears him from the other side, and whispers, so the kids won’t hear, “They expect trouble. Nobody likes them anymore.”

It is a soothing place for Wayne to be. But he has disappointed Doreen, who thought that on this day of all days, he would belong to her. She’s been taking turns baby-sitting him with Melissa, but sometimes he manages to sneak off – they don’t know where – and that’s what he has done today.

Melissa, thinking Wayne will be safely with Doreen, is, with several other people in the class, at a restaurant where Rick Zapata, and a band he put together for the occasion, is playing old-fashioned love songs from the thirties, forties and fifties. Pre-rock.

Rick is not political either, but he is worried about things Americans don’t worry about. He knows a lot of history. His family is history. He knows that dictators always give the people something to win them over to their side. He sees the government spending and spending, giving and giving. Nobody has to work anymore. The government will take care of them. But who’s going to provide the money if nobody works? Work makes wealth. Who’s going to pay the gigantic bills we’re running up? He’s been talking to Caesar, who has been talking to everybody.

Caesar says we need a new party, that the Democrats and Republicans are merging, are grabbing all the money, and there is nobody to stop them. He’s looking for a name for the party, and candidates to run under its banner. Rick is considering.

So is Natalie, who is spending the evening with Billy the Kid. Caesar, still living at the Winery, has been talking to Natalie about the platform of his new party. She’s recruited Billy to write the marijuana manifesto for the platform.

Her parents, Donny and Ann, the only really normal couple among our acquaintances, are at the local expensivery, where they will be dining on pink and red food. Strawberry soup, crabs with roe, a salad of beets, red onion, and red cabbage, for dessert cherry pie and black cherry ice cream. They’re drinking their own wine, Radiant Rose. The restaurant ordered 40 bottles and is charging twice as much as the winery. Ann is happy. She’s the only person she knows who has successfully navigated the Obamacare website, and she is looking forward to her already scheduled appointment with Dr. Wise.

Dr. Wise learned long ago not to schedule patients on Valentine’s Day. He leaves it open for emergencies. He was on call all day, and is now up in his study in a David Nivenesque smoking jacket, with all the sophistication and elegance that he has when he is at work, wearing his simple, slim, suit. Dr. Wise never lets up, never has an unwise moment. Would never be caught in a sloppy sweatshirt and a dirty pair of pants.

The doorbell rings just as he is taking a cup of coffee from his new-fangled single-brew contraption. He puts it back down and answers the door. He’s puzzled. This is not supposed to happen.

He opens the door, and standing before him is the girl of his dreams, a dark-haired goddess in ripe, rosy pink. She’s fed up with and furious at Wayne. She’s been storming around her house, looking within to discover what would restore her happiness, her peace of mind, her self-esteem. And she found there, the good doctor, who, she realized, is always there for her when Wayne isn’t.

Dr. Wise has received a Valentine. Totally unexpected. And not out of pity, either. Oh, no. Not out of pity, out of spite. But David Niven has always had a way with women, and by the time they finish coffee and he has put champagne on ice, Wayne the catalyst has been forgotten, and the debonair doctor is operating under his own steam.

As is another single gentleman of our acquaintance, Professor Monroe. Dr. Monroe, not of the Monroe Doctrine. Good looks will get you everywhere, and we find our friend being taken to dinner by a cadre of little-girl gov enthusiasts. They’re at a pub, talking shop; “Of course he’s not a Marxist,” says our savant. “If he were, he’d be trying to destroy the existing institutions from within. He’d be dismantling the economy. He’d be taking over the banks, the financial structure. He’d be nationalizing health care, and leaving people with no recourse but the government, he’d be turning groups against each other – blacks against whites, women against men. And mostly, poor against the rich. He’s not doing any of those things.”

Don’t laugh, guys, he really said that.