Open Writing

He said, “Those goddamned liberals would screw up a free lunch.”

She said, “Have you ever thought of running away?”

He said, “Those goddamned Democrats couldn’t find a cross in a Catholic church.”

She said, “We have two children,” even though no one who knew them had ever seen more than one.

She had a refined, one could say almost genteel, air about her, though there was little in the life she talked about that would support that impression. Her parents were, she said, “ordinary folk,” though her father, about whom she talked the most, appeared anything but ordinary. The picture she painted of him was in pale sepia, almost masking the reality that he had apparently been a neighborhood philanthropist in a small way; quietly helping out the needy and distressed.

He said, “I’ll tell you, those company bosses couldn’t run a goddamned hot dog stand.”

Though by his own confession, a devout Catholic, his utterances were peppered with “Jesus Christs” and “goddamneds.” In fact his conversation would hardly have amounted to anything without the liberal use of blaspheming profanity. Typical of many people his age, he had worked for the same company since high school, bound by a loyalty that was expected then, but discounted by the corporations in later years.

He had progressed in his job over time, but had aspirations that the company didn’t share, and was eventually sidelined into a dead-end position to wait out his retirement. If he’d ever had a generous streak, it was eroded by those final years; watching younger employees, for whom he had only disdain, rapidly climb the corporate ladder. When he eventually retired, the jubilation he expressed had a hollow ring to it, and an unspoken longing for what could have been, should have been, might have been, “If only those goddamned bosses had an ounce of brain.”

She said, “I loved my work, and my bosses were wonderful.”

She had worked all her life as a personal secretary to a succession of senior executives in large corporations; jobs that demanded a great deal more than just good typing skills and the ability to manage an appointment book. She had traveled extensively through her work, lived her bosses’ lives, and had perhaps picked up some of her air of refinement from those experiences. But there was something else.

He said, “That goddamned bozo, Fred! He and his wife Shirley practically drowned in martinis over the years. Jesus Christ, could they drink!”

They had joined the local country club once their child was older, though they didn’t play golf or tennis. They were part of a group of “social members.” Despite their apparently limited means, they were accepted and liked by the well-shod, right wing, conservative crowd. They talked the same talk, shared the same anti-Semitic, socially and racially biased views, and believed vehemently that everyone, but everyone, should stand on their own two feet, and that the indigent should “Just get their act together and quit waiting for welfare support.”

Their popularity within their circle was always a matter of some curiosity among the other people who knew them, but who were not part of their crowd, and who they regaled with sneering comments about their “friends’” drinking habits, social behavior and indiscretions. Comments about the very people they clung to and professed to admire and identify with.

She said, “We’re planning to build a winter home in the Carolinas.”

This came as a surprise to their friends because there had been no mention of such a move before the announcement, and it was hard for everyone who knew them to imagine how they would afford a second home. An even bigger surprise was the grand scale of the place they eventually built. Guests were encouraged, and all marveled at the opulence of the place, its location and appointments. The sheer ostentation went right over the heads of their group.

He said “I’m just glad I don’t have to keep the place up. Thank God there are all these lazy Mexican bastards to do the yard work and the maintenance, but you have to watch ‘em every minute otherwise they’d steal the goddamned shirt off your back.”

She said, “I refuse to say anything without my lawyer present. I have done nothing wrong, and this accusation is an outrage.”

Reports of their arrest had hit the national newspapers and TV. The country club crowd’s first reaction was astonishment and disbelief, but it wasn’t long before they were claiming to have known all along that there was cause for suspicion.

They said, “Something’s out of whack with those two. Stands to reason you can’t live like they did on their income. And that winter house. Did you ever see it?”

A few days later they were indicted on charges of blackmail, coercion and issuing threats, and were held in a minimum-security Federal prison without bail, pending a trial. As details of their alleged crimes emerged, it was disclosed that over a period of years she had sexually compromised her employers, and had elicited confidences that she later used to blackmail them. A shiver of apprehension spread through the country club as it was revealed that her victims had also included some of the membership.

It didn’t take long for the whispering and innuendo to corrode friendships and shake the foundations of a few marriages. Long before the trial, the “clubby crowd” began to disintegrate, and some members who had chosen to make a clean breast of it to their wives were not seen there again.

It wasn’t clear what role he had played, except possibly that of enforcer when victims rebelled.

She said, in a statement to the press during her trial, “If I go to jail he’s going too.” Later, she plea-bargained for a reduced sentence by implicating him.

He said, “That bitch has the morals of an alley cat.”

She said, “He’s just an ignorant jerk.”