Wry Martinis (4 page)
Authors: Christopher Buckley
B
ROKAW
: Mr. President, Governor, thank you for coming. I’m sorry Mr. Perot declined, but he’s a teetotaler. How do you take your Martinis?
B
USH
: Dry as a bone, with fruit, and on the rocks.
C
LINTON
: I’ll just have a beer, thanks.
B
USH
: Whoa, what is this, Miller Time? I thought we were going to be hefting Martoonis.
C
LINTON
: Where I grew up, in a place called Hope, people drank corn liquor. Gin was for country clubs.
B
USH
: I wouldn’t start in on country clubs if I’d got
my
putter caught in a wringer for belonging to an all-white club. If you see what I’m
driving
at … heh-heh.
C
LINTON
: I was never in that club. OK, maybe I played a little golf there with businessmen, so I could target a few incentives on them. We can’t all buy infrastructural investments out of our trust funds, ya know.
B
ROKAW
: How do you want your Martini, Governor?
C
LINTON
: In a beer glass. Olives on the side. Got any peanuts or crackers?
B
USH
: What’s the matter? Got the munchies?
C
LINTON
: Tom, I govern better stoned than he does straight. Not that I ever did get stoned.
B
USH
: Hold on. But I’m glad the subject of peanuts came up, because I think everyone in our wonderful country remembers Mr. Peanut, from Plains.
B
ROKAW
: Your point being, sir?
B
USH
: Exactly. Mmm. I’ll have another. Little less vermouth this time.
C
LINTON
: Thank you, Tom. First, Al Gore and I happen to believe that there is a place for mixed drinks in today’s post—New Deal Democratic Party. So I’ll have another, too. Second, I’m proud to have an environmentally aware running mate who’s orthographically sensitive to basic tubers. Third, could I get some more olives? In Arkansas we’re working closely with the horticultural community on issues of olive-grove deforestation.
B
USH
: Thank you. Mmm. Much better. Still a little wet, but getting there. I’d like to ask the Governor what he drank over there while he was learning social engineering at Oxford during the Vietnam War.
Draft
beer? Oh, Bar, Poppy’s throwing ringers tonight!
C
LINTON
: That’s been gone into again and again, so I’m not going to go into it. Could I get another, with olives?
B
USH
: You know, Tom, after I was shot down by the Japsters while serving my country, which Governor Elvis here wouldn’t know about, I was paddling like a wet cocker spaniel in those shark-infested waters down there. Not fun. Know what I couldn’t stop thinking about? Aside from that fellow some people don’t like to talk about—G-O-D? Wrapping my lips around an ice-cold see-through. How about another?
Thirsty
just thinking about getting shot down.
C
LINTON
: Tom, it’s hard to enjoy getting tanked when so many people in this country can’t afford gin. The Germans and the Japanese are way ahead of us in terms of gin availability per capita, and Japan has the highest gin-to-vermouth ratio in the world.
B
USH
: Seems to me the last Diberal Lemocrat, capital “D,” capital “L,” we elected was also anti-Martini.
C
LINTON
: There you go with that negative stuff. OK, one more. And keep those olives coming, Dan—er, Tom.
B
USH
: Just wave the vermouth bottle over the glass. Don’t even have to take the cap off. That’s how Uncle Herbie used to make ’em. So where were we? Losing track. Out of the looped.
C
LINTON
: Isaiah Berlin used to say that Hank Williams was like a fox but Elvis was like a badger.
B
USH
: Berlin,
great
city. Wall. Down. But didn’t see any foxes there and darn sure didn’t see any badgers. Ah.
Thank you. Mmm
… Now,
that’s
a Martini. Just the way Gorbachev liked his. How do you think I got him to give up the Commie thing? That’s right, gave him Uncle Herbie’s recipe.
Worked.
C
LINTON
: The Germans are way ahead of us on walls. For failed Quayle four years of … I don’t know who’s driving home, but it better not be me. That’s why I’m proud to have Al Gore for my designated driver.
B
USH
: Gotta say, Hillary—a fox. Hair band, love it. Tipper—more of a badger, maybe, but still,
good woman.
C
LINTON
: Hey, weren’t we supposed to have some TV cameras here?
B
USH
: Hold on,
por favor.
That was all worked out ahead of time. So don’t cry for me, Bosnia-Herzegovina. But, Tom, gotta say, good format. If you gotta debate, this is how to do it.
—
The New Yorker
, 1992
Educatíon
T
O THE
D
IRECTOR OF
A
DMISSIONS
, S
T
. E
UTHANASIUS
S
CHOOL
: I am writing on behalf of my godson Lawton, who is applying for admission to your pre-pre-nursery program. At only two and a half, Lawton displays a precocity remarkable for his years, and a noticeable interest in geology. Only yesterday I saw him purposefully at work in his sandbox. I asked him what he was doing, and he held up a fistful of sand and said, without hesitation, “Sand!”
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I have known Lawton literally all his life. From the very first day I met him—the day he came back from the hospital, in fact—I have been tremendously impressed by his intellectual …
by the fact that he didn’t throw up on me.
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Lawton, though only two and a half, has packed more into his life than many a three-year-old. Just last summer, he went to Richmond to stay with his grandparents for a week. When I asked him about his observations on the city, he told me … “
Rishmond! Gaaa!
” … that he only wished he had known it before the war.
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I am godfather to several children, but none of them, by the time they were two and a half, had exhibited quite the grasp—or depth, certainly—of spatial relationships that Lawton so manifestly does. For instance, when I gave him an engraved wooden box, he immediately understood that the lid was hinged and …
slammed it down on his fingers, possibly foreclosing a career as a concert pianist.
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Among his many extraordinary qualities, Lawton, at only two and a half years old, displays a fine musical ear. His favorite afternoon activity, aside from reading …
chewing on books, actually
… is to sit on the lap of his nanny, who has, I understand, already taught him the rudiments of conversational Lithuanian, which suggests an exceptional language ability on his part, and to play some of his favorite tunes …
that is, pound on the piano with his fists until the dog urinates on the carpet
… admittedly simple ones, but with a brio that is striking in a child so young.
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Let me tell you about a special young man named Lawton.
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Lawton is most definitely not your normal two-and-a-half-year-old.
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What can I tell you about Lawton? That by the time he was two and a half he was already conversant with the work of Stephen Hawking?
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Lawton! Just to hear his name fills me with hope for the future of our country.
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Look, what do you want from me? He’s two and a half, for Chrissake. He’s a toddler, an infant. A
kid.
He does what kids do: squirms, spits up on your new silk Hermès tie, sticks his fingers into electrical sockets, hits other kids, tries to set fire to the dog, swallows sharp objects, falls downstairs during dinner parties, crawls into sooty fireplaces and then across the new wall-to-wall carpet. What do you want me to say—he’s got a one-man show at the Whitney? You know, schools like you give me a big fat
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SHUTDOWN
RE-START
I am delighted to be writing on behalf of my godson Lawton. Since he’s only two and a half, I’m not sure what to say about him except that he seems pretty happy and normal and smart and clean. He doesn’t have lice. I can’t see why he shouldn’t get along with the other kids in your school. His parents
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Lawton’s parents, as you may already know from their application, have a combined household income of well over $400,000 p.a., with a
very attractive projected earnings potential. And I am not even counting bonuses, which, if I’m not speaking here “out of school” (ha-ha), I understand from recent conversations with them should be in the 100—150K range (combined) this year. Additionally, as dedicated Episcopalians, they tithe, and I happen to know that their favorite charities are educational ones.
SAVE PRINT
—
The New Yorker
, 1993
Con Channel
A group of conservative political operatives is
expected to announce today the launching of the
Conservative TV Network
, a 24-hour pay cable-television
channel expected to debut in early 1996.
—
USA Today
5-6: P
RAYER
(Mandatory).
6-6:30: N
IKKEI
T
ODAY
—Highlights from the day’s trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
6:30-7: ¿D
ÓNDE
E
STÁ
M
I
C
AFÉ
? (Educ.)—Communicating with your servants.
7-8: G
RRRR
!—Host G. Gordon Liddy lets Camille Paglia shave his head; N.R.A. chief Wayne LaPierre on why White House shooter Francisco Martin Duran missed.
8-9: G
IRL
T
ALK WITH
M
AUREEN
R
EAGAN
—Does liposuction work? Also: Is Patti Davis really Ronald Reagan’s daughter?
9-11: P
HYLLIS! WITH
P
HYLLIS
S
CHLAFLY
—Pacific tuna fishermen explain how dolphins commit suicide by hurling themselves into the nets; also: how to tell if your son is queer.
11-11:30: G
ET A
J
OB
!—Talking back to the homeless.
11:30-12: H
OW TO
M
ARRY A
M
ILLIONAIRE
(Educ.)—Hostess Arianna Huffington shows how to find out how much he’s really worth;
guest Mercedes Bass talks about her new seven-billion-dollar studio apartment on the Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
12-1: P
ERLES
B
EFORE
S
WINE
—Strategic thinker and gourmet chef Richard Perle whips up a perfect
soufflé atomique.
1-2: A
S THE
W
ORLD
B
URNS
(Drama)—Kent is forced to reconsider his views on multiculturalism when he learns that Binky is actually Scottish and not Senegalese.
2-4: M
IDDAY
M
ATINEE
—
Red Dawn
(1984): Communist paratroopers occupy a Colorado high school. With Patrick Swayze. (Violence; Russian profanity.)
4-4:30: M
IDDAY
M
ATINEE
P
ANEL
(Public affairs)—Michael Medved asks: Could it happen again? A Colorado school principal argues that students today are well armed enough to repel any invasion; N.R.A. chief Wayne LaPierre disagrees.
4:30-6: H
OW’D
Y
OU
M
AKE
O
UT
T
ODAY
?—Stock-market update, with
Wall Street Journal
editor Bob Bartley; guest Malcolm Forbes, Jr., talking about how he did.