Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (4 page)

 
          
 
Derry said, "They're racists."

 
          
 
"How do you—"

 
          
 
"Hey, Dad!" Christopher shouted.
"Get a load of your horoscope. Man, this is heavy!" He read aloud the
wisdom of the oracle of the Lampoon. " 'Taurus: Your life isn't worth a
plugged nickel. Your house, your job and your family are all forfeit, and
unless you send a million dollars in unmarked twenties to the editor of this
magazine, you will be cornholed to death by a tribe of Aleuts.' "

 
          
 
Christopher rocked back in his chair, laughing
in the peculiar way that made him sound like a novice with the Vienna Boys'
Choir.

 
          
 
Sarah snapped, "Christopher!"

 
          
 
"I didn't make it up," Christopher
insisted. "It's right here. What's an Aleut?"

 
          
 
"Protected by the First Amendment."
Burnham smiled at Sarah, who didn't smile back.

 
          
 
"O ye guardian of our sacred
rights," she said. "Look who's suing the Post to get at some poor
reporter's notes."

 
          
 
"That's not me. That's the Justice
Department."

 
          
 
"No, it's That Man." The words
distorted her face as if she had sucked on a lime. "You're an extension of
That Man."

 
          
 
"No I'm not. I'm a flunky. A flunky is not
an extension of anything." Burnham yawned. "Did you put wine in the
piccata?"

 
          
 
"Sherry. Why?"

 
          
 
"I didn't sleep worth a damn."

 
          
 
"That's conscience, not sherry. A
teaspoon of sherry won't wreck your sleep."

 
          
 
Burnham sighed. "What do I have to do,
hire a taster? I am allergic to ethyl alcohol!"

 
          
 
"That is a load of B.S."

 
          
 
"Bullshit," Christopher advised
Derry, who nodded sagely.

 
          
 
"You think I quit drinking because I
wanted to?" Burnham said. "I loved drinking—not wisely, maybe, but
too well. The doctor—"

 
          
 
"You believe everything that Albanian
lulu you—"

 
          
 
"He's Armenian. And just because you
haven't heard of the specialty is no reason to dump on it. He's an
orthomolecular—"

 
          
 
"—lulu. I don't care what he calls
himself. He's a blue-ribbon, prime-cut lulu. He has you convinced you're
allergic to everything on the planet and he's the only one who can cure
you."

 
          
 
"You, madam," Burnham said, smiling,
"are a medical Luddite."

 
          
 
"What's a Luddite?" Derry asked
without looking up from Bloom County.

 
          
 
"Same as an asshole," Christopher
said confidently.

 
          
 
Sarah poured herself a final cup of coffee and
pressed the "off panel on the Toshiba machine, which acknowledged her
touch with an obedient beep. "I owe that yahoo one thing," she
conceded. "Allergic or not, before you went to him you sure had a hollow
leg. I've never seen —"

 
          
 
Burnham held up a finger, and Sarah knew right
away what was coming—not exactly, but generally. The raised finger gave it away
every time.

 
          
 
"That is the worse," he said.
"A fortress which soon surrenders has its walls less shattered, than when
a long and obstinate resistance is made."

 
          
 
Sarah paused. "Is there anything that man
didn't say something quotable about?"

 
          
 
"No. Thank God. Like a dirty mind, Samuel
Johnson is a perpetual solace. He argues all sides of every issue. He's
ammunition for any battle. And the great thing is, he's always right.
Always."

 
          
 
"It's not fair," Sarah said. "I
want someone on my side."

 
          
 
"Let us go to the next best: There is
nobody; no man can be said to put you in mind of Johnson."

 
          
 
"Not bad. Who said that? Maybe I'll
recruit him."

 
          
 
"Guy named Hamilton. Not worth it. Shaw
might work for you. Or Oscar Wilde. But he's too mean. I'll think."

 
          
 
Burnham emptied the dregs of his coffee into
the sink, rinsed the cup and filled it with cold water. He shot his cuffs and
washed his hands and dried them, then held them up as if prepping for surgery,
and strode to a comer cabinet. With two fingertips he opened the cabinet door.
There, arrayed above him like a phalanx, labels facing front, were his bottles
of vitamin pills.

 
          
 
On the shelf below the bottles were seven
clean Pyrex bowls, custard size, enough for a week. He took down the first
bottle, the largest—vitamin C, ascorbic acid, 500 milligrams—and counted out
the pills.

 
          
 
Sarah stood across the room and watched,
wishing she wouldn't, incapable of not, mesmerized as thoroughly as when she
saw the frog on the dissecting table in biology class.

 
          
 
He used to have to look at the prescription,
to be sure of numbers and dosages, but now he sorted the pills as rapidly as a
pharmacist:

 
          
 
Three thousand milligrams of vitamin C; 500
micrograms of B-12, 100 milligrams of B-1; 400 international units of vitamin
E; 25,000 units of vitamin A; 500 milligrams of dolomite; 30 milligrams of
zinc; 10 milligrams of manganese; 500 milligrams of magnesium gluconate; two
200-milligram capsules of B-6; one large yellow capsule of Zimag C, and one
large mustard-colored capsule of B-complex.

 
          
 
Each day's pills went into one Pyrex dish. Burnham
closed the cabinet door, dumped the dish of pills into his palm and swallowed
them, all at once, with water.

 
          
 
"Does the President know he's got a
vitamin bomb working for him?" Sarah asked. "He could light your fuse
and blow nutrition all over Russia."

 
          
 
"Chemically," Burnham said, chasing
the pills with a last gulp of water, "I'm the most finely tuned member of
the White House staff. My body is a temple of chemical balance."

 
          
 
"Have you told the President?"

 
          
 
"Why bother?" Burnham chuckled.
"You know what he'd say: 'Son, that's about as much use to me as tits on a
canary.' "

 
          
 
Burnham tightened his tie and brushed some
Froot Loop crumbs off his loafers. "Do you need the car?"

 
          
 
"Yes." Sarah started to say why, but
she intercepted the words before they could escape her mouth. She blushed.

 
          
 
"Let me guess," Burnham said,
grinning. "A fund-raiser at Hickory Hill. James Taylor'11 be there. And
Warren Beatty. And . . . let's see . . . Dick Cavett."

 
          
 
Sarah's silence confirmed Burnham's guess.
"D'you know what the President said the other day? He said, 'How can
anybody take Ted Kennedy seriously, when he has people working for him who are
all named Didi and Muffie' " —Burnham waited a beat—" 'and Sarah.'
"

 
          
 
"The hell he said that. Not to you. He doesn't
say anything to you."

 
          
 
"He said it."

 
          
 
"To whom?"

 
          
 
"Evelyn Witt."

 
          
 
"Doesn't that woman have better things to
do than call you with gossip? Why doesn't she erase tapes, or—"

 
          
 
"She was doing me a favor. Warning
me."

 
          
 
“Tough. He's not running again."

 
          
 
"He thinks, fuddy-duddy that he is, that
just because he pays me fifty-seven thousand dollars a year—No! Fifty-nine
thousand, as of last Friday—he has a right to expect some loyalty."

 
          
 
Christopher said, "You got a raise?"

 
          
 
"Sort of. A formality. Not really
a—"

 
          
 
"Can I get a new box? Mine sounds like
puke."

 
          
 
Burnham glanced at Sarah and saw her staring
at him. He tried quickly to answer Christopher, but she spoke first.

 
          
 
"Why were you promoted?"

 
          
 
"I wasn't! I mean, it was a—" He
cursed himself for a fool. He envisioned suspicions rearing their heads like
garden eels in the sands of Sarah's mind. A promotion at the White House had to
mean the approval of the President for a job well done, and, to her, a job well
done for this President was, by definition, a blow against peace, fairness,
decency and the School Lunch Program. "It was a time-in-grade thing.
Routine."

 
          
 
"What else does it mean besides
money?"

 
          
 
"Nothing! Forty-eight dollars every two
weeks. That's it." Why was he lying? He was a terrible, transparent liar.
His skin changed color, his eyes refused to look at the person he was lying to,
he always protested too vehemently. Why hadn't he concocted a credible evasion?
"Increased access," maybe. Something like that.

 
          
 
It was too late. The lie was in place and
would soon fester.

 
          
 
He felt that he was beginning to rot.

 
          
 
Evidently Sarah decided not to challenge him,
for she looked away and said, "Who does he want you to be loyal to?"

 
          
 
"Whoever he picks. He still has over a
year to go."

 
          
 
"You're supposed to hang around, wait for
him to pick some . . . orangutan . . . like the Vice-President?"

 
          
 
"I am."

 
          
 
"Well, I'm not. If he thinks I'm about to
support that cretin . . . The man who said ERA is a bunch of dykes with penis
envy."

 
          
 
"One of Ben Klammerer's lines. I think
he's gone on to greater heights, like chief writer for the Teamsters
Union."

 
          
 
"I don't care who wrote it. The
Vice-President said it."

 
          
 
"It got a laugh."