Herself Read online

  David holds up the same glass jar he showed Gus in the car on the way to the pier. It’s filled with something resembling a viscous semiliquid sludge. “This stuff is known as black-water—which contains raw sewage—and which can be dumped between three and twelve miles offshore, so long as it’s treated with something called a Marine Sanitation Device—which is really just a fancy name for a sieve.” He gives them the three-mile-away subway stop perspective, and I notice a lot of reporters jotting it down. Aha—something simple that tabloid readers can sink their teeth into.

  “In a recent survey of black-water sewage treated by MSDs, sixty-eight out of seventy samples flunked their health test, and some of the gray-water samples exceeded the federal standard by as much as fifty thousand times the limit.”

  David swaps the black-water jar for another, only marginally less scary-looking, one. “This stuff is called gray-water, and it includes everything that comes out of the kitchens, the dry-cleaning facilities, the beauty parlors, and the photo shops. Paint, batteries, fluorescent lights, and oily bilge water get discharged into our waters as well; and plastics make their way into the ocean when incinerator ash is released, and when plastic products go down the toilet or through the pulpers in the galley. Believe it or not, cruise ships can discharge gray-water—which is totally untreated—anywhere at all, including just a few feet from where we’re standing.”

  A heckler shouts out, “Congressman Weyburn, do these guys ever get caught?”

  “The unfortunate answer to that is ‘rarely.’ On occasion over the years, these cruise companies have been fined for illegal dumping—when they’re caught doing the nasty in American waters. When they’re caught—which is, according to industry insiders, a very small percentage of the time, since the dumping occurs with obvious regularity.” He mentions the Song of America fines and adds, “The industry considers itself self-regulating, but too often the honorable whistle-blowers suffer repercussions for exercising their consciences and their integrity. Many of these reported discharges are also labeled ‘accidental,’ and most of these ‘goofs’ never reach public attention. We can’t allow the multibillion-dollar cruise ship industry to behave like a giant-sized bimbo and get away with a mere ‘Oops, I did it again.’ By the way, do you all know that most of the current cases of violations are by self-reports from persons on the ships themselves, because no one is monitoring the industry? No one. There is zero governmental oversight of this multibillion-dollar industry, these floating cities and casinos that are raking in our residents’ money and giving shit back—literally.

  “CACA will also close the loopholes that permit contaminators to continue to dump illegally even after they have been fined for doing so. My bill contains provisions for fines to be paid upon issuance and held in escrow pending the inevitable appeals. It also sets forth a time period for compliance with the new, more stringent standards regarding the disposal of waste substances and materials into our waters. Regular inspections will be conducted by fully staffed and adequately funded teams comprised of members of the U.S. Coast Guard along with NIH scientists and marine biologists.”

  “Yeah, but let’s say they don’t comply. Won’t they just laugh at the ‘punishment’?” the same heckler wants to know. I try to see what he’s wearing, which might give me a clue where he’s from, but he isn’t sporting a Save Our Oceans tee shirt or a similar sartorial tip-off. Still, he’s probably from one of the environmental groups.

  David is well prepared for the question, however. “Not if the ‘punishment,’ as you call it, is strong enough, sir. Non-compliance with the retrofitting timetable and with any citations issued by inspectors will result in a ban from U.S. waters and ports, something none of the cruise ship companies can afford. It’s time we did something serious about flushing out the offenders and passing some strong legislation to get the cruise ship industry to clean up its act.”

  The end of the speech is greeted with resounding applause, and, interestingly, a couple of wolf whistles.

  “Any further questions?” David asks the reporters. “Yes, in the pinstripes.”

  “Ed Wilson, Wall Street Journal. Congressman Weyburn, how do you think tighter regulations will impact the cruise ship industry here in New York?”

  “Mr. Wilson, cruise ships are the only unregulated partner in America’s multibillion-dollar travel industry. A significant number of their passengers come from the New York area. As I said, no cruise ship company can afford not to comply. With the money that many of these companies make just in incidental expenses on a single week-long cruise of just one of their vessels, exclusive of the money they make from each passenger on the price of the cruise itself, they could afford to bring three ships into compliance with federal regulations and environmental standards. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are notoriously anti-regulation because they claim it interferes with commerce. What it really interferes with is profit, and cruise ships already reap plenty of that, and pay no taxes on it. Cruise ship companies are lousy neighbors who have been getting a free ride for decades at the expense of our health and our environment. If they want to enjoy the benefits of citizenship, then it’s time we made them play by the same rules as everyone else. They’ve got to do their civic duty by cleaning it up.

  “Yes, Suki.”

  “Suki Glassman, Fox News. Congressman Weyburn, first let me say that I think you really look great. A lot better than the last time I saw you, about a week ago at the Manhattan Health Club. Can you tell me whether you’ll be seeing any more of Kelly Adonis?”

  “I’m not certain what that has to do with the Cruise Ship Accountability and Culpability Act. But I won’t be joining that gym, so the answer is no. Any real questions? Yes, you in the purple polo shirt.”

  “Hi, Congressman, I’m Jon Jennings from the Blade. You have a really nice singing voice, by the way.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Jennings. What’s your question?”

  “Was your singing that Stephen Sondheim lyric so loudly a subliminal way of outing yourself?”

  “Mr. Jennings, the volume on the CD was very high and there was a lot of splashing in the pool. I sang all the songs very loud, including ‘There is Nothing Like a Dame’ and ‘Tomorrow.’ If I’d been caught on camera crowing at top voice that the sun’ll come out tomorrow, would you be asking if I harbored secret ambitions to be a weather man?”

  “I have a follow-up question, Congressman. By your non-response just now, does that mean that you feel you have something to be ashamed of? Are you saying that people who are gay should feel ashamed of their sexual orientation?”

  “No, I’m not, Mr. Jennings, but you seem to be saying that. The subject of my sexual orientation is not the subject of this morning’s press conference, nor should it be a matter of consideration, or an issue, in my re-election campaign. New Yorkers care about electing the most qualified person for the job regardless of what he or she does in the privacy of their own bedroom.”

  “The lady doth protest too much,” shouts Jennings into his microphone.

  “I welcome any questions on the Cruise Ship Accountability and Culpability Act. If all you want is salacious tabloid fodder, we’re done for the day, and a sad day it is for the fourth estate.” David steps away from the mic, and Gus Trumbo and I walk alongside him into the mercifully air-conditioned passenger ship terminal.

  “Well, that was a fucking zoo,” Gus says in his characteristically blunt way. He undoes his bow tie and pops open a soda can. “Anyone want one?”

  “Dobson will be celebrating another field day, no doubt,” said David, slumping into a chair. “As long as he can keep a ball in play that avoids any of the issues in this campaign, he wins the day’s hand.”

  “Don’t mix your metaphors, David,” I groan.

  “That’s why you’re my speechwriter, Tessa.”

  “My radar is usually pretty good, but I never thought this ‘is he or isn’t he gay’ thing would survive so many news cycles. They’re like a starving do
g with a bone, aren’t they? Except for the eco-heckler and the guy from the Wall Street Journal, they seem almost completely disinterested in reporting anything substantive, even when New Yorkers’ health is potentially at risk.”

  “It’s obscene,” Gus agrees, removing his baseball cap and mopping his perspiring pate with a blue bandanna. He dabs at his brown brush mustache as well. “But just because the media is inviting you to mud wrestle, it don’t mean you should climb down into the pit with them. We’ve got to stay on message and stay above this are-you-gay bullshit. But we’ve also got to be careful about trashing the media to their dirty little faces—even when they deserve it—because then they’ll start gunning for you on their own. They won’t need a directive from Murdoch or whoever, to smear you at every turn.”

  “Where’s Freddy with the car?” David asks, holding an ice cold soda can to his forehead.

  He looks pale and drained. I think he may have taken on too much too soon after the angioplasty. I walk over to his chair and murmur in his ear, “You want me to ride home with you? Get you into bed, or at least onto a recliner, with a glass of something cold. Did you take your antibiotic this morning?”

  As if the gesture is something of an effort, David waves me away. “Even forty-three-year-old congressmen can have those days where they wish they could just crawl back under the covers.”

  “Want company?” I whisper. “We can just cuddle.”

  David shakes his head. “I just want to be alone for a while. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  I let my finger graze the top of his hand and he wiggles his forefinger in reply. “Talk to you then, then.”

  By the time I leave the passenger ship terminal and hail a cab for home, the reporters and camera crews have dispersed. But I am not looking forward to the evening news.

  Five

  August 3

  There’s a large part of me that always feels the need to fix everything. To make it right. I hate injustice and I hate to see people hurting. And right now David is a victim of both. I feel powerless because what I’m able to do, personally and professionally, hasn’t been helpful and I don’t know what else to try. He gave a terrific speech this morning on his home turf, raising an issue that has all but been ignored by most of his congressional colleagues and predecessors, and it seemed to fall on deaf ears. As his lover, I want to be able to be here for him in every way; I’m his biggest, most devoted fan, and I hate being incapable of chasing the demons away.

  August 4

  No word from David. He didn’t call me yesterday after all. I just left a message on his answering machine asking if he’s feeling okay. It’s still so soon after his heart surgery, who knows, maybe something happened.

  August 5

  Okay…if I keep calling him, I’m a nag. And God knows, that’s not in my nature; never has been. I’ve already left “How are you” and “Just wanted to say hi” messages, and my calls haven’t been returned. I suppose I can call David to discuss an upcoming speech, but there’s nothing on the front burner, so it would seem like a pretty lame excuse. On the other hand, why do I need an “excuse” (or even a “reason”) to call my boyfriend of three years? Lovers e-mail each other and talk on the phone all the time without requiring a reason. I’m too old to be stressing over this. I’ve been married, divorced for longer than I was wed—by this stage in my life I shouldn’t expect every day to be filled with hearts and flowers. This is teen angsty stuff I’m going through—the anxious heart palpitations, the rationalizations for why he hasn’t called. Dead? Under a bus? Too busy to send an e-mail or leave a message on my voicemail? Maybe we never get past it—the anxiety. Maybe it’s just part of being human. We feel so much more than we say most of the time. I suppose it’s a form of self-defense, in a way. Emotional armor.

  The following day, David phones me. I always screen my calls, so when I hear his voice, it’s with no small degree of trepidation that I pick up the receiver. Why do I feel nervous? This is silly. “Hi, baby.”

  “Hi, Tess.” He sounds a bit weird.

  “Is everything all right?” My heart is still inexplicably thudding in my chest. Can he hear this over the phone? I wonder.

  “I’ve had better days.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Tess, we need to talk.”

  The last four words of his sentence are the worst four words a woman can hear.

  “Okay,” I reply weakly.

  “I’d rather do it in person. Have you got any plans for this evening?”

  “No,” I hear myself say in the same tiny, deflated voice.

  “I’ll be over around seven then.”

  “Seven it is.”

  There’s a long pause during which it seems terribly clear that neither of us has anything else to say.

  “See you later, David.”

  “Bye, Tess.”

  He arrives at my duplex with a bottle of cabernet. “I think you’ll probably need this,” he says, uncorking it and heading to my china cabinet for a pair of wine glasses. “Tess, I’m just not good at this,” he says suddenly, the words tumbling out of him. “I care about you deeply, I’m immensely fond of you, I think you’re a stunning woman, and God knows you’re the smartest one I’ve ever known…but I…I want some time alone.”

  If he had cracked me in the head with a baseball bat, I couldn’t have been more shocked, nor could it have hurt any more than his last few words.

  “Wh-when did this happen?” I say, too shaken to sit.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. In fact, it’s just about all I’ve been doing for the past few days. It’s not you, Tess, it’s me,” he says as soon as he sees the tears begin to roll down my face. “You’re wonderful. But I just don’t think I can be in a relationship right now.”

  “You don’t think…?”

  “I was trying to go easy,” he sighs. “I know this kind of blindsided you.”

  “True. I sure as hell didn’t see it coming.” I sniffle, hunting for a tissue. “Look, David…if you want some space…some time off from ‘us,’ yes, sure, take what ever time you need.” I wonder if I even mean this. But I can’t exactly say to him, “No, you can’t do it.” And I know I wouldn’t mean that.

  “It’s not a matter of space…or time…something temporary…I mean, I just don’t want to be…I don’t…I want to be on my own, Tess. From now on.”

  “You’re breaking up with me.” The words aren’t much more than a gargle in my throat. “You are…aren’t you?” A Pinteresque pause follows. “Oh, God” escapes my lips as a strangled sob. He might as well have sucker-punched me.

  “There’s so much going on right now…my plate just feels too full, Tess.” He pats the sofa beside him and I perch. Part of me wants to be near him and part of me wants to be on another planet. “There’s this whole bullshit with the ‘gay’ accusations—”

  “But isn’t that more of a reason to assert our coupledom?” I posit, wiping my nose. “Show the world that all the mudslinging is particularly ludicrous because you happen to have a long-term girlfriend?”

  “I swore to you from our first kiss, Tess, that I would never drag our personal life into the spotlight, nor would I allow anyone else to do so.”

  “But that was then; this is now. I do see what you mean—your personal life—and mine—are nobody’s business, but I give you full permission to ‘out’ our relationship. David, we’ve been lovers for more than three years now. I love you and I’m proud of us.”

  “But it compromises both of us as professionals because we also have a working relationship.”

  “I am sure we’re not the first. Look, do you really believe that it’s better to allow Bob Dobson and the media to continue to propagate a pack of lies at the expense of revealing the truth?”

  “Tess, call it my Achilles’ heel, but my integrity will not allow me to let them run this campaign on their terms. My personal life is sacrosanct and always has been, and fiercely guarding my privacy in the past has
never been an obstacle to getting elected. Whether or not I’m gay, straight, single, married, have a steady girlfriend or am unattached, has nothing—nothing—to do with any of the issues in this campaign. The minute I put one toe over that line in the sand, Dobson has dragged me all the way into the surf.”

  “But no one is talking about the issues because they’ve still got their teeth sunk into this dish of scandal. And the scandal is an utter fabrication, to boot! It’s not as though you were caught redhanded—well, so to speak—with your cock where it didn’t belong and then tried to construct an elaborate denial for the obvious. Of course there’s no shame in being gay, but you’re not. End of story.” You know how with some people, the angrier they get, the calmer they sound? Well, it’s a very strange combination, but the more emotional I become, the more pragmatic I get as well. “Remember how the media refused to leave Mike Piazza alone about the same subject until he held a press conference and issued a flat-out denial. Yes, it was humiliating; true, it should have been unnecessary, but it finally put a period on the thing and people shut up about it—apart from the half dozen news cycles about the press conference itself.”

  “You know me better than that, Tess. To think I would ever capitulate. If I hold a press conference to announce, ‘Hey folks, there’s nothing wrong with being gay, but it just so happens that I’m not,’ and add that I’ve got a girlfriend—and you know what the next question will be: ‘Who is she?’—I’ve lost control and forfeited the upper hand to my opponent.”