Adams’ Apples
2 Breaking News
“RELAX, PEOPLE!” President says, “We’re not at war.”
President Malkin Muffley came on the air early this morning to reassure the American people after the spectacular show of outer space fireworks that the display was neither a hostile act nor an end sign of the world nor an alien invasion.
“I’ve had a lot of calls… a huge number of calls from important people… very important people… some of the most important people in the world… who called me begging me not to push the button that would destroy all our enemies. That would mean a world war and there would be a lot of big explosions… I mean bigger than anything you can imagine… all over the world, including here in the great US of A. Through the miracles of the internet and social media, I sat with these chiefs and smoked a peace pipe of prime Mayan Gold. I’m still a little high… very high… and very peaceful. I tell you all, the great people… very greatest people of the United States… go out and fill your bowls with happiness and have a puff with me. It’s all good.”
I tossed the paper aside shortly after it landed on my desk. I’d been up all night after the spectacular fireworks in the sky and we’d brought out a special edition at ten this morning after the first edition at five-thirty. I’d been tuned in remotely to the President’s address, so I knew what he had said. I was still digging through layers of government bureaucracy trying to find a clerk low enough in the government hierarchy that he’d actually know what was going on. I finally managed to reach Tim Titus—an undersecretary’s assistant’s administrator’s support staff’s flunky—who could tell me what happened.
“Yeah, Ramsey, I can tell you. Did you see it? Pretty spectacular. Anyway, you know there’s a lot of space junk and derelicts up in orbit. One of the old pieces—I’m talking fifty years old, you know?—somehow got its targeting beacon tripped. This was put up there back in the Star Wars era when everybody was throwing some kind of floating trashcan into orbit to compete with everyone else’s space junk. They were all supposed to be defense against each other so when one lit up, all the others out there lit up and had their own little pissing match.”
“So, Tim, you’re telling me an entire world war was fought in space in one night.” This wasn’t going to go over well with my editor.
“That’s pretty much it, Ramsey. A bunch of unmanned tin cans shooting at each other until there were none left standing. End of war. No winners.”
“That’s not much of a story. I need to fill twenty column inches for tomorrow morning’s paper. They expect in-depth reporting. Isn’t there anything else you can give me?” I flipped my pencil around through my fingers. I seldom wrote with it but had figured out how to type while still holding a pencil. It made me feel like a real reporter.
“Geez, Ramsey! You sure you’ve got tickets for the Superbowl for me? Seems like I’m giving a lot away here.”
“On the fifty-yard line. My publisher authorized me to give them to the person who could get me the most information.” The tickets were on the fifty-yard line in row ZZZ. If Tim could give me a little more info I’d toss in a pair of binoculars with the tickets.
“Well, this is all hush-hush, you know?” I grabbed a tablet and started to scratch notes. “But Admiral Thornby is having an affair with Senator Beal’s wife. From what she says, it’s a pretty small torpedo but it has a big explosion. I got that direct from the senator’s daughter who’s dating the guy in the next cubicle over from me. So anyway, Admiral Thornby says there might have been some minor spill-over into the atmosphere but no one was really hurt. It was mostly stray particles. There are probably some cell phones in Africa that aren’t working anymore.”
“Well, no real harm in that. Who are they going to call? Their cousin in Nigeria who’s trying to give away a hundred million dollars from a dead investor’s bank account? Tim, I’m dropping the tickets in a courier envelope to send to you right now. Thanks for being a reliable source.”
“Any time, Ramsey.”
I hung up the phone and started writing.
I filled my twenty inches for the morning edition with ‘reliable sources’ and finally headed home. Over the past few years there’s been a resurgence in the newspaper industry. Print is considered more dependable than electronic bits. As one pundit commented, “I’d believe a wrinkled pamphlet handed to me by a homeless man on a street corner before I’d believe anything I read on the internet.”
Of course, people still used the internet, but it was placed at the same level as supermarket tabloids. A step lower, actually, because the tabloids were real paper and ink.
“Honey, I’m home!” I called as I closed the connecting door from the garage.
“I’m in my office grading papers. Be a dear and bring me a drink before you make dinner?” Don’t go thinking that was a callous response by the wife of a man who’d been up for the past thirty some hours breaking the news of the century to the world. My wife, Dr. Elizabeth Smith, held a far more important and intellectually taxing job than I did. To Elizabeth, the kitchen is the room where ice for our drinks is kept. Me? I love to cook. I’m quite domestic and dinner was in the refrigerator and ready to heat. I’d given away six tickets to the Superbowl from the newspaper’s stock, but the story I wrote earned me an attaboy from Ed and permission to finally go home. I poured a gin and tonic for Elizabeth and made myself a martini.
“How was your day?” I asked when I brought her drink.
“Predictably horrible. You would think that sometime during their twelve years of government funded public education, someone would have taught these nineteen-year-old Neanderthals what a verb was. Now they are here for four more years of government funded public college and I’m starting with their ABCs.” A PhD in English literature had earned Elizabeth the right to teach freshman composition classes at the college.
“We could raise our own,” I suggested, stroking her cheek. I’d always wanted kids. We were just getting stable first.
“Back, Satan!” she laughed, pushing me away. “No little rug rat with a squeaky voice is going to be biting these ankles.” She mixed several metaphors while extending a bare leg from under her desk. I set my drink down and sank to my knees to catch the proffered gam. So beautiful. I could kiss these ankles and feet and calves and… Elizabeth moaned. “It’s a good thing you sing bass and not tenor.” I’d worked my way up to her knee, an especially sensitive spot that always got her motor running. “I’ll give you the rest of the night to stop that,” she sighed. “You know how horny these final exams make me.”
It was only September and I was pretty sure she was months away from finals, but who was I to argue? Then the timer rang in the kitchen.
“Dinner’s ready to come out of the microwave. Want to eat first?”
“What is it?”
“Goulash casserole.”
“Mmm. You really are Satan. I’ll have one helping as long as you promise to take me to the Stadium and help work off the calories afterward.”
Not a problem! She unfolded from the desk and stood. Elizabeth never spent any longer in her school clothes than required. When she got home, she slipped into a robe. I was pretty sure there was nothing under it but my wife, if experience told me anything. The language problem with her freshmen English students was probably the result of them being tongue-tied in front of her.
When I proposed, our senior year in college, she’d answered that since I could compose complete sentences while looking at her, she had no choice but to say yes. I went to work while she finished a master’s and a post-hole digger. Six years later, she was earning twice what I make as a stringer. It was a good choice for both of us.
“Now, where was I, Dr. Smith?” I dragged her robe off and she lay down on the bed, stretching luxuriously. Oh, what an inspiration that body was. We’d splurged on an extremely decadent king size bed from an exclusive manufacturer for our playground. The first time we slipped beneath the covers, we’d christened it ‘Smith Stadium.’ The sporting events were epic.
“Well, Mr. Smith, I think you had just started at my ankles and managed to lick and kiss almost to my knee. I’d hate for you to try to find your exact place and pick up in the middle. Perhaps you should take it from the beginning and make sure no steps have been missed,” she giggled.
“Yes, Doctor. That sounds like the right approach. Will you be grading on the curve?” I kissed my way from her ankle up toward her calf as I continued massaging her feet.
“I don’t think you’ll have any trouble following that curve,” Elizabeth panted. “None at all.” I pushed lightly and her legs parted so I could continue my progress. Before I got to the good stuff, I pulled back and started on her left ankle. She moaned.
“This story has parallel plot lines,” I whispered. “I promise to bring them together at the end.” I hit the spot just behind her left knee that was always so sensitive and she jerked slightly, narrowly avoiding kicking me in the face.
“Please, Rams. Please make love to me. I’ll make it so worth your while.”
“Yes, love. I’m here.” I crawled up her body and slipped inside her without guidance. I knew how to push her buttons but she knew mine as well.
“Yes. Right there. Put a baby in my tummy!” As much as Elizabeth said she didn’t want children around under foot, she didn’t mind at all the prospect of making them. It was a major trigger for me.
“I got you!” I crowed in the heat of passion. “You’re sure to be preggers now. God, I love you, Elizabeth. I wish we were really making a baby.”
“I know, love. One day I’ll let you. I’m just not ready yet. I’d want to start earlier in the fall so the worst is over while school is out the next summer. I’m only thirty and I’ll be tenured in two years. Then you can quit your job and take care of the rug rat.”
“Yeah. I can just imagine me as a stay-at-home dad. You know, I have a career, too.”
“Wouldn’t you rather stay at home and write your novel?”
“Well, there is that.” I cuddled behind her. “I love you, Beth. I could get into staying home.”
“We’ll see,” she whispered. Soon we drifted off to sleep, cuddled in the middle of Smith Stadium.
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