OCR Text |
Show Acting Alone Page 4Q3 (an amusing new transitivization of an old intransitive verb for the sake of euphemism), were the famous fellow to develop the wrong, shall we say, attitude. Unconnected, unknown, constantly vanishing, his solicitous mother locked unreachably up in a psychiatric ward, Sammy very well might develop the wrong attitude as it were by random chance. But, so what? Good point, political theorist. Besides, the Edwine boy - though approaching thirty and possessed of a certain undeniable energy on a purely cerebral level - was as emotionally unstable and morally pliable as any miserably female teenager. Senator Nimrod had only to send the old woman in Kiev that dossier, to get her to take a broom to Sammy's fat backside, and he had gone yelping like a puppy, or wee-wee- weeing like a little piggy all the way home. He was too young and amateurish even to know what a contract really was. The supererogating folks in Intelligence had been so considerate as to pay Sammmy's lawyer pal in Dallas a few thousand dollars to fill that ludicrous ghostwriting contract full of holes as Swiss cheese; but that had ultimately proved unnecessary. It was as though the Edwine boy didn't know the meaning of the words ironclad or legally binding or lawsuit. And yet Sammy wanted so pathetically, so badly to play the journalist. And Elder Cicerone was providing him with the opportunity to live his dream. In his heart, to be perfectly honest, the Elder had hated to see Senator Nimrod send that dossier out to Kiev and get poor old Mother Wamsutter involved. Farm mothers are the marrow in America's spinal cord. As such they deserve a little peace and security and freedom from corruption's irritation, if anybody at all deserves these things in America in these latter days. Elder |