TO MY WIFE (That’s it, and I had to. Seriously. We were out to dinner a few months ago, and she asked how the book was coming, and I told her it was good, and she asked about the dedication, and I said, Well, the acknowledgments are going to be in the back, at the end. And she said, No, the dedication. You have to have a dedica- tion. And I said, Oh, okay, and she said, It should be to me. I didn’t say anything right away, and she said, Really, it should. Well, we don’t get out much, and it was a Thursday night, and I was just starting my second drink and thinking about how later on, back home, we might—you know. So I said, Okay. And we did. So I kind of had to. I can’t speak for other writers, but that’s how you get one from me.) CONTENTS INTRODUCTION............................................................1 One ROYAL FLUSH ...............................................................5 Two SUNDAY, BLOODY SUNDAY ..............................19 Three THE YOGURT OF WRATH ...................................31 Four MY SLACKS AT SAKS.............................................41 Five THE FIELD......................................................................57 Six I’M DREAMING...OF A WHITE...CHRI—ER, HOLIDAYS .....................79 Seven NEVER? EVER? FOREVER? ..............................89 Eight GODFATHER III: THE QUICKENING ..................................................101 Nine ADULTERY II: THE QUICKENING ..................................................123 Ten DEBBIE DOES DALLAS II: THE QUICKENING ..................................................143 Eleven WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE IN SHOW BUSINESS..............................................163 Twelve TEACH YOUR CHILDREN THAT LOU IS FUNNY ...........................................185 Thirteen THE FIVE LEVELS OF DRINKING .............199 Fourteen THE POETRY NOT YET WRITTEN ...........................................................217 Fifteen DRINKING II: THE SLOWENING ................235 Sixteen JERRY ALLEN ...........................................................251 Seventeen THE QUICKENING II: THE QUICKENING ..................................................273 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .........................................275 ABOUT THE AUTHOR CREDITS COVER COPYRIGHT ABOUT THE PUBLISHER [ iv] INTRODUCTION I DON ’T KNOW ABOU T YOU, BU T I SP END HALF MY LIFE looking at people through Norman Rockwell lenses: loving them, seeing their decency and generosity, smiling at the foibles of their children, feeling their sweetness and cheerful good manners in every small encounter of the day; watching the gentle rustle of a tree in the low, western sun and knowing, really knowing, the perfect joy of it; and so, so grateful for the mysterious good fortune to be born here, now, together. The other half of the time, I look around me and think, “How sweet it would be to kill them all.” Do you know that feeling? Do you know what I mean? Of course you do. We all do. Most people swing back and forth between light and dark like a silver-backed gorilla with nothing but time. Sometimes people act out their good instincts. This is called charity. Sometimes they act out their bad instincts. This is called strangling. And sometimes they shuffle quietly from home to work and back again, simply puzzled by it all. This is called The Rest of Us. Remember that old game where you pull the petals off a flower while saying, “She loves me . . . She loves me not . . . She loves me . . . She loves me not”? (You know, t he one where we seek to [ 1] confirm our affections by taking the most beautiful thing we can find and then mutilating it?) I’m thinking of patenting an updated ver- sion:“ She loves me. ..She can’t believe we ever went out ...She loves me. ..She’s stunned by how the passage of time doesn’t make my stories any funnier ...She loves me. ..She wants to bludgeon me whenever I’m chewing cereal . . .” Sunny Jim, that’s me. You, too? I don’t know how long ago water glasses were invented, but I’ll bet it wasn’t long before one of the designer’s cavemates held it up and said, “Say, Og, what do you think? Is the glass half empty or half full?” The nearest alpha probably responded with a narrow look and a sudden, two-handed arc from one of those Geogassic bats they all carried. Thus began our obsession with duality. “Are you an optimist or a pessimist?” we ask each other constantly, which would be the dumbest question in history if it weren’t so busy being trite. I reject it, because I’m neither and both. Don’t we understand? Macro isn’t bigger than micro; macro is micro. After all, what’s more noteworthy? A hundred thousand North Koreans turning placards in unison at a stadium, or one bite of a really good hamburger? (I know which one I’d rather have, and I’ll bet you a signed glossy of The Dear Leader that the North Koreans would agree.) That’s what this book is about—the hamburger and the sta- dium, the large and the small, the innocent and the cynical, division and unity. The joyous sylph dancing ’round the glade, while the plump bureaucrat glances up just in time to see Western Civilization spiraling down like a gumball at the Guggenheim. The American pendulum only swings to extremes. The news is on all day, but we know less and less; there’s music in every mall, but we don’t hear it; everyone has a phone but nothing to say. The chub- [ 2] biest of us have the strictest diets, because we can’t learn to modulate and moderate. It’s all or nothing. One bite of a cookie, and suddenly you’re on a plane to Vegas with a hooker. Extremes. Contrasts. Opposites. She loves me, she loves me not. For centuries, the book world has been divided into fiction and nonfiction. I’d like to propose a third category: friction. And, boy, am I the guy for that job. You see, to the Cranky Nitpickers of America—a club I’d join in a second if I weren’t already its president—it’s long been understood that the world is going to Hell in a handbasket. Concerning which, there are three things to remember: First, every generation in history has said the same thing since, oh, forever. Second. ..What in the world is a “handbasket,” anyway? Is it significant that it rhymes with a-tisket, a-tasket? And why is hop- ping one to Hell any worse than getting there the old-fashioned way? I mean, at that point, I wouldn’t think it mattered. Does anyone arrive in The Infernal Regions and buttonhole Satan on the subject? “Now look, bub, I’m sure this is all going to get pretty unpleasant, and probably stay that way longer than I’d like. I’m also guessing you don’t have a very active complaint department down here. Yes, yes, I see that poker you’re hiding, and I’ll bet I know where it’s going, but before we start this wingding there’s something I need to get off my chest: That trip over here in the handbasket was no day at the beach, let me tell you. Here, look at that. See those mesh marks? They’re probably going to scar. We’re like peaches in my family. And while we’re on the subject, a Lubriderm concession at the gift shop wouldn’t go amiss, either. Anything with aloe. Well, I’m an idea man. Say, isn’t that Stalin?” Third, and most important: Every other generation in history was wrong. Ours really is going to Hell, handbasket and all. Luckily, [ 3] the boatman on that gondola is as feckless as we are, and we’re not there yet. Soon, though. Soon enough. The world is about to see (a) a thousand years of horror, (b) a giant battle of good and evil, or (c) a lot more of the same. What better time for a collection of seventeen comic essays? In any event, here they are. That’s the goal of this book, and that’s what it’s about. To be funny. I think it is, and I hope you do, too. Which, come to think of it, must make me an optimist. She loves me ...She loves me not. .. She loves me. What other way is there to live? —Larry Miller [ 4] O N E ROYAL FLUSH MY WIFE JUST GOT A NEW DISHWASHER FOR US. SHE didn’t tell me, she just got it. I discovered this the other day when I came home from work and saw it being installed, but it was diffi- cult to learn any more just then, since she was in the living room with her friend Ilana, planning a party at our house that weekend for twenty-seven or so Little League parents. I didn’t know about this, either. “Oh, you’ll love it,” she said, with a wink and a wave of her hand, and turned back to Ilana, who was animatedly saying something like, “I think the pasta station should go in the playroom.” And I remember thinking, “You know, there may be some things I disagree with about Arab society, but, on the whole, you’ve got to admire the way they treat their women.” The thing about the new dishwasher was, I’d just gotten used to loading the old one. “It wasn’t cleaning well anymore,” she said after Ilana left. “Yes, it was,” I said. “No, it wasn’t,” she said. We could have batted this shuttlecock back and forth for a few more hours, easy, but ultimately it would’ve led me to turning curt and saying, “How would you know?” (Another night sleeping with [ 5]