Emma Who Saved My Life by Wilton Barnhardt Read Free Book Online Page B

ending, for sure.”
    Most people had drifted back to the drink table, talking amongst themselves. “… it’s nothing short of vindication for everything we’ve worked for,” said some bearded man with thick glasses.
    Susan said intently without removing the cigarette from her mouth: “C’mon Dick, for me. Say you’re sorry.”
    In leaving, I do so with this prayer: May God’s grace be with you all in the days ahead.
    â€œThat’s it?” someone whined.
    â€œDamn,” said Emma, “I was waiting for a big scene, Checkers-style, not a dry eye in the house.”
    Nixon faded out, the commentators took over, and the party cheered distractedly. “Bring out the pot!” someone yelled, and there was a general drift to Susan’s bedroom, repository of the marijuana.
    Susan crushed her cigarette into an ashtray, shaking her head in dissatisfacton. “He didn’t say he was sorry. I wanted him to say he was sorry.”
    The party at large: “Susan, get over here and get your pot!”
    Lisa and I were still on the sofa. Emma went to get another drink, leaving us with a thought: “Watch for a Nixon comeback in the ’80s, mark my words.”
    Lisa slapped her knee. “Well,” she sighed, still thinking about the speech, “that was short and sweet. No grandstand play.”
    There was brief drama as two guys attempted to hijack the TV to watch the Bogart movie on Channel 9, while Sally and Joan demanded to watch the followup and news analyses of The Resignation on PBS. Then Susan swept in—“Here it is, gang! I bet Dick is doing some serious drugs tonight, too!”—and a group of potheads devoted themselves to rolling joints for the party. Susan turned her attention to the TV squabble: “ No TV at my party! Put that away and come with Mother Susan…”
    I expected something longer, I said to Lisa, concerning The Resignation.
    â€œIt’s like Richard the Second by Shakespeare,” said Emma, descending on us from out of the blue, sitting right on top of the drinkstain on the sofa, oblivious. “A man presiding over his own disintegration, his kingdom going to hell while he makes speeches, postures, eloquently defends himself—does everything but save his ass like a normal human being. Oscar Wilde too.”
    â€œYou are probably the first person in history to compare Nixon to Oscar Wilde,” said Lisa.
    â€œYou know what I mean, the idea of setting up your own downfall and then playing out this grand tragedy as you martyr yourself. Remember Oscar brought it upon himself—he was the one who sued his boyfriend’s daddy for libel. At the trial, of course, Wilde loses, loses everything, his respect, his career, his wife and kid, throws it away so he can sit up on the witness stand being witty and brilliant. It’s like Nixon and the tapes. Both men insisted they were innocent, eloquently, authoritatively, and yet they knew they weren’t, they knew their very ‘proofs’ of innocence were going to condemn them. You need to be more of a psychologist than I am to figure out that one.” Emma hit me gently on the knee. “But you know all this, huh? Being in the theater: Oscar and Richard the Second. ”
    Yeah sure.
    Emma was about the smartest person I’d ever met up to that point. Maybe even after that point—intelligent, I mean. I should mention that I was officially drunk at this point too. In fact, I told Emma artlessly that she was the most intelligent person I’d ever met.
    â€œWell you must not get out much,” she said, patting my knee again.
    Lisa and someone I really had to meet when they got back from buying cigarettes named Mandy were gone. So I tagged along beside Emma, who left me standing outside the bathroom. I thought about making a pass at her. NO, that would mean abject mortification. Just the first day in town. Unless I came up with a