Window

Last weekend was supposed to be my weekend with the kids, but Lucy took them when I was unexpectedly hospitalized. That meant our weekends were now swapped, and the kids were to be with me this weekend.

Only one problem: when this was originally scheduled as my weekend without the kids, I had made plans for a work-related dinner on Saturday that I could not get out of. Lucy agreed to take the kids overnight.

That saved the day: I could attend the dinner. It also opened a window of opportunity for a sleepover date after the dinner.

I called Anna. She’s been glum that we haven’t been together in a little while. She was glad this opportunity had presented itself, and she would meet me at my place once my dinner was over.

That afternoon, the kids and I played basketball and soccer. We had the park to ourselves, as it was pretty cold. Once they were off with their mom, I went to my dinner engagement.

It started well. I was seated opposite a woman who was opening a business with her husband. She was full of infectious enthusiasm and energy about it.

To my right was a blowhard lawyer who came to dominate the conversation. As he talked, I realized that he was stoned off his gourd. Being so stoned in this context is very déclassé . This was an art party, and at these, you sometimes encounter people with money who assume that being among artsy folk means they can be “bohemian”—to the detriment of good manners.

His spouse was shunted to a far corner, apparently unwilling to talk much.

He chose me as his foil, and so throughout dinner, he offered tedious and facile opinions about art, my area of expertise. I didn’t care to get engaged. He said MoMA’s new architecture was awful. It’s disappointing, I concurred. Too few very good artists are recognized, he pontificated. It’s a hard field, I agreed.

The conversation shifted to politics, and really, in polite society, it just shouldn’t have. But what can you do? The Bush inauguration is days away, and people are thinking about it.

My elbow mate posited the opinion that Ralph Nader had been on the payroll of the conservatives in a conspiracy to steal the election from the Democrats. Oh no, I corrected. While it is true that some conservative groups feigned support of Nader in the hope that his candidacy would divide the opposition, it was preposterous to believe that Nader was in on some conspiracy to steal the election for Bush.

Oh, he was quite sure of this. Nader was in cahoots with Bush.

I saw that he was positioning me. For the sake of impressing the table, in his mind, we would have a debate. He would stake the position of agile thinking: all ideas should be considered plausible unless proven untenable. Thus, unless it could be proven otherwise, Nader’s presumed complicity with the Bush administration was at least possible.

I would be painted as an unrepentant lefty, stubbornly defending Nader against any suggestion of his selfish interest. I was supposed to maintain that Nader was pure good, Bush was pure evil, and ne’er the twain shall meet.

How could I be sure, he argued, that Nader was not in the pocket of the conservative right? Didn’t his candidacy work against that of Kerry, and thus in support of Bush? Wasn’t the theory worth consideration?

I checked my watch. Jesus, nearly eleven.

Some theories don’t need to be debated, I said. They can be dismissed out of hand, being based on profoundly stupid assumptions. No one else cared to take up his theory, so that topic was mercifully cut short.

I was mentally checked out and I made it clear: if this is the level of dinner conversation, I have other places to be.

The check came. I paid my respects to the host, got my coat and walked briskly to Houston Street to grab a cab. I phoned Anna; I’ll be at my place soon.