A Game of Clue

You can always tell...

Old friends from NYC to San Francisco still don’t know about my leftist defection. There aren’t many good openings to tell them my news. ‘How are the kids? And oh by the way I’m voting for Trump.’

Thud.

That, and I fear the souring of our relationships. As a result I get to read texts that read, “Let’s catch up after Indigenous People’s Day. Fuck Columbus!” And I swallow my bile and text back, “Sure!”

The irony is lost on so many friends. Sigh.

A vacation last week with Mr Miller—our first plane trip in forever—sans kids—was out to northern Cali, to stay for a week with one of Miller’s oldest pals. Now this friend is a nice guy, a culturally but not religious Jewish New Yorker who’d relocated as far away from Brooklyn as he could without leaving the continental United States. Incredibly generous with his hospitality, it makes writing about the negative aspects of our trip tricky. I feel guilty. I hem. I haw. I procrastinate.

I really shouldn’t.

Not after such a lovely, magical week spent combing rocky beaches for smooth round stones, shells and sea glass. Not after sunny, meandering desert hikes that ended in fragrant, shady redwood forests. Not after drives so scenic I never put my phone down for all the gorgeous photo ops. We saw grey whales, harbor seals, golden eagles, starfish, anemones… Strolled through tiny towns where we considered local art, bought a couple souvenirs, tried on all the hats at the surf shop. The fish was fresh, the beer cold, the weed plentiful, the hot tub always ready and parked right under the stars. Our friend knew how to host.

But there was a little snag in the beginning. Tiny thing, really.

It started at a corner gas station along the two-hour drive to his seaside abode from the airport. We’d stopped for a top-up and Geoff criticized a buddy of his who’d had business dealings with the IDF.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because they’re the aggressors,” he said, dropping the first clue that this might turn out to be a long, awkward week.

I confessed I donated to the IDF. I thought expressing my support for Israel’s soldiers might serve as a clue of my own that maybe we should leave politics out of vacation conversation.

After my proclamation, it’s possible my husband shuddered in the front seat. Maybe a thought bubble appeared over his head that read, “Now she’s giving my hard-earned money to trained killers?” But I am theorizing.

Miller and I popped out of the car to grab some coffee while the car filled with gas. I asked him just how far left Geoff is. You know, to manage my expectations. Get my bearings.

“Oh nothing extreme,” my husband said. But I couldn’t tell if he was trying to minimize his friend’s politics or if he really believed it. Either way I was dubious, and we were a long way from home.

Long way from home.

I’d have to find out for myself.

“Do you think your friend would have been better off doing business with Hamas?” I asked Geoff as we drove further north along the coast. As in, just how much did he hate Israel, himself and western civilization?

“Oh no way,” he said and I felt sort of saved.

Once we got to Geoff’s house we were dazzled by his giant windows overlooking the Pacific. He boasted that he cleaned for us, which was very sweet. He was clearly excited to have guests.

We took a tour of the house and dropped our bags in the front bedroom—the one with the ocean view. Geoff was kind enough to take the second bedroom, on whose bedside table rested a book entitled An Indigenous Peoples’ History of The United States.

My second clue.

One of my favorite pastimes is to read the one star reviews of books I hate. I had a feeling I’d hate this one. Here is one of the reviews:

Pure propaganda

A very well written piece of propaganda designed to to foster white guilt in children. The continuous attempt to paint the European settlers as evil and to make natives pure as saints is so obvious.

On the drive back to Geoff’s after dinner the first night I rode shotgun. I’d begun to realize with alarm that perhaps I was a third wheel on a boys’ week and the thought of sitting in the back seat again started to enrage me. And PS, why hadn’t my husband offered me the front seat? How was he being so oblivious?

Before we arranged ourselves in Geoff’s Toyota, like the queen I am in my dreams, I said to Mr Miller, “Why yes I would like to ride in the front,” to which he responded with a confused laugh and said, “Did you want to ride in front, honey? All you have to is ask.”

“I prefer to be asked,” I clarified, and with that I’d set the rules for the rest of the vacation, at least as far as travel seating went.

As we curved along the coast, Geoff and I compared stories about our parents’ deaths and subsequent rows with siblings when it came to dividing estates.

Geoff’s sister had cheated him out of his share of his mother’s estate. He said that he hated her so much that he would rather put a bullet in his sister’s head than in Trump’s, as if to illustrate the depth and breadth of his searing revulsion in terms everyone would understand and agree upon.

There’s no one more despised than Trump!

If clues were drops of water I’d have drowned in this one.

“That would be really offensive to a Trump voter, you know,” I said, half cryptically, half courageously.

“You voting for Trump?” he laughed. “I’m sure he’s a nice guy.”

“I’m only saying the man was shot at, someone tried to put a bullet in his head and that’s a really shitty thing to say.”

Mr Miller remained silent in the back seat.

I surprised myself yet again at the tender feelings I seemed to have toward Trump. The left after all depicts the man as Hitler, but when the right shows you stories like this and this, you kind of can’t help genuinely liking the guy. At the same time, I couldn’t fathom that Miller hadn’t briefed Geoff. Especially after our last vacation.

Obviously that was my job.

“Let’s not talk politics on this trip, please,” I said.

“Uh huh,” Geoff muttered.

A little while up the road we passed a house. It had a worn wooden balcony with a giant faded American flag draped vertically over it.

“These guys are total assholes,” Geoff said, gesturing to the house. “They have a sign, it says, ‘honk and we’ll drink.’ So obnoxious, but what do you expect from Trump voters?”

I saw red. “I thought we agreed to not discuss politics!” I said, exasperated. I whipped around in my seat. “Honey?” I said, pleading with my husband.

“Yeah it’s really best if we don’t talk politics,” Mr Miller said, without force or urgency.

“I just don’t get why you wouldn’t do this one thing,” I said, when we finally rolled into his gravel driveway.

Before he got out of the car Geoff turned to me and said, “The misunderstanding here is that you thought just because you told me to do something, I’d do it.”

It knocked the wind out of me.

Had Miller seen? Was he a witness? Had he already gone in the house? Did he know his friend was a giant asshole?

Of course Geoff probably thought I was a raving bitch. Maybe he wished he could put a bullet in my head. You know, if I really got out of line.

Women, am I right?

At 56, Geoff hasn’t married, and has no children. The way he sees it, he doesn’t need the government’s approval. He doesn’t need a piece of paper to officially recognize a permanent relationship. His take reminded me of Jordan Peterson, whose knowledge and wisdom about marriage and parenting have validated my own life choices many times.

Geoff wasn’t used to being told what to do. He was a free man after all, responsible to no one, obligated only to himself.

Inside I ran to the bathroom and burst into tears. I didn’t know what to do next. Pack? Scream? Never come out of the bathroom? This was one of Miller’s oldest and best friends, and here I was, making trouble, based on my inconvenient politics, yet again.

My husband walked in. I gauged his mood. Would he be angry? Exasperated? Sympathetic?

To be continued…