the Responsible wasn’t about to lose anything over sex, but thoughts of Clinton’s fate did not, at that moment, lower the level of Otis’s excitement over what in the hell was happening to him with a young woman named Sharon.
The thoughts were coming like split-second rocket shots. The stockholders, policyholders, and employees of Kansas Central Fire and Casualty would most likely not stand by him the way the American people had stood by Clinton. Annabel was no Chelsea, and he knew for certain that Sally Winfield was no Hillary Rodham Clinton. What was it that Republican congressman from Texas had said when asked how his wife would react to his having an affair with a young intern type? He had said he’d be lying in a pool of blood while she asked how in the hell you reloaded this damned thing. Well, Sally would probably handle it about the same.
Why was he thinking things like that, anyhow? For chrissake, here we are, taking a little ride on a Cushman Pacemaker, not having sex—under either the Bill Clinton or the Kenneth Starr definition.
Maybe I do need some world-renowned Ashland Clink help
, thought Otis.
He stopped the scooter back near the quilt. Sharon the nurse slid off and stepped up beside him.
“All right now, Buck, take off your helmet so I can really see you,” she said. “All I can tell through that face guard is that your eyes are dark and you have a mustache.”
The potential for a moment of awful truth had arrived. He said nothing.
She said, “Your voice sounds very mature, Buck.”
Otis raised his right hand to his helmet and gave what he considered a good imitation of a cowboy salute, something along the lines of what Red Ryder might have done. He couldn’t think of anything Red Ryder ever said, so he went with what he did know: “‘From out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse Silver—the Lone Ranger rides again! Hiii-yo, Silver, away!’”
He gunned the handlebar throttle, released the brake, and disappeared on his Cushman Pacemaker down the path, accompanied by a small amount of dust and the sounds of putt-putt-putt.
He was also moving his mouth ever so slightly while whispering—not singing—the words to the fourth verse of “Sunflower.”
Oh, the moon is brighter,
And the stars are bluer
And the gals are sweeter
And their hearts are truer,
And I’m here to state
There’s one who’s really great
She’s a sunflower
From the Sunflower State.
OB GIDNEY HAD called it about how Sally would react to Otis’s buying a Cushman. She theatened Otis. He either voluntarily went to talk to someone at the world-renowned Ashland Clinic about his problem or she would force the issue directly, through Bob and other doctors, or by some other means—gunpoint, if necessary. A
real
gun, not some kid’s BB thing.
She went completely over the edge upon his return from his hour-long Sunday afternoon ride, which he had taken off on without any discussion while she was working in her rose garden in back.
And she didn’t even know about his Buck-like spin with young Sharon.
“Corporate CEOs do not ride around on forty-year-old motor scooters wearing football helmets and carrying pop guns named for comic book cowboys,” Sally said.
“Maybe more of them should,” said Otis gamely. He laughed, trying to make a joke of it all.
Sally wasn’t buying. “You go to Ashland Clinic tomorrow, or I will get it done through Pete Wetmore and the board of KCFand C if I have to. They may not want an untreated lunatic running their company.”
“Pete wouldn’t have the sense or the courage or the guts or the smarts or the balls or the energy or the heart or the soul to do a goddamn thing,” said Otis.
“He’s going through the same thing you are—a midlife crisis of some kind,” she replied quickly. “It has hit him a little earlier in life than you, and it’s turned him to mush, that’s all.”
“He was born mush.”
“Go to Ashland!” she screamed.
So he
The thoughts were coming like split-second rocket shots. The stockholders, policyholders, and employees of Kansas Central Fire and Casualty would most likely not stand by him the way the American people had stood by Clinton. Annabel was no Chelsea, and he knew for certain that Sally Winfield was no Hillary Rodham Clinton. What was it that Republican congressman from Texas had said when asked how his wife would react to his having an affair with a young intern type? He had said he’d be lying in a pool of blood while she asked how in the hell you reloaded this damned thing. Well, Sally would probably handle it about the same.
Why was he thinking things like that, anyhow? For chrissake, here we are, taking a little ride on a Cushman Pacemaker, not having sex—under either the Bill Clinton or the Kenneth Starr definition.
Maybe I do need some world-renowned Ashland Clink help
, thought Otis.
He stopped the scooter back near the quilt. Sharon the nurse slid off and stepped up beside him.
“All right now, Buck, take off your helmet so I can really see you,” she said. “All I can tell through that face guard is that your eyes are dark and you have a mustache.”
The potential for a moment of awful truth had arrived. He said nothing.
She said, “Your voice sounds very mature, Buck.”
Otis raised his right hand to his helmet and gave what he considered a good imitation of a cowboy salute, something along the lines of what Red Ryder might have done. He couldn’t think of anything Red Ryder ever said, so he went with what he did know: “‘From out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse Silver—the Lone Ranger rides again! Hiii-yo, Silver, away!’”
He gunned the handlebar throttle, released the brake, and disappeared on his Cushman Pacemaker down the path, accompanied by a small amount of dust and the sounds of putt-putt-putt.
He was also moving his mouth ever so slightly while whispering—not singing—the words to the fourth verse of “Sunflower.”
Oh, the moon is brighter,
And the stars are bluer
And the gals are sweeter
And their hearts are truer,
And I’m here to state
There’s one who’s really great
She’s a sunflower
From the Sunflower State.
OB GIDNEY HAD called it about how Sally would react to Otis’s buying a Cushman. She theatened Otis. He either voluntarily went to talk to someone at the world-renowned Ashland Clinic about his problem or she would force the issue directly, through Bob and other doctors, or by some other means—gunpoint, if necessary. A
real
gun, not some kid’s BB thing.
She went completely over the edge upon his return from his hour-long Sunday afternoon ride, which he had taken off on without any discussion while she was working in her rose garden in back.
And she didn’t even know about his Buck-like spin with young Sharon.
“Corporate CEOs do not ride around on forty-year-old motor scooters wearing football helmets and carrying pop guns named for comic book cowboys,” Sally said.
“Maybe more of them should,” said Otis gamely. He laughed, trying to make a joke of it all.
Sally wasn’t buying. “You go to Ashland Clinic tomorrow, or I will get it done through Pete Wetmore and the board of KCFand C if I have to. They may not want an untreated lunatic running their company.”
“Pete wouldn’t have the sense or the courage or the guts or the smarts or the balls or the energy or the heart or the soul to do a goddamn thing,” said Otis.
“He’s going through the same thing you are—a midlife crisis of some kind,” she replied quickly. “It has hit him a little earlier in life than you, and it’s turned him to mush, that’s all.”
“He was born mush.”
“Go to Ashland!” she screamed.
So he
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