Our Day with Cecil
Giving up the Right to be Right
Late at night, dressed in black, I watched for cars as Bobby shook the can and drew a circle with a slash over the word Bush. We snuck away, giddy in our juvenile bonding.
"Breathe," I side-mouthed the word as we walked by a police cruiser, endeavoring to look like a middle-aged couple strolling in an upscale neighborhood --which wasn't hard because that's exactly how we looked.
Over the next few days, all hell broke loose in the editorial section of our local newspaper. I love morally outraged people when they're not me. They're so funny. And politics (or religion) gets everyone going.
Copycat vandals added to the sign --green, rust, and gold. Then someone repainted it to its original red, white, and blue, but it had rained, leaving pretty, long streaks. I drove out of my way to see it every day, calling Bobby at his engineering job.
"Honey, they're trying to fix 'our sign' again, but it looks terrible! Pathetic!"
Bobby wasn't into it anymore. He was a vice president of a small company. He wore a suit. I was attracted to the suitness of the whole thing. The suitness and the houseness. Bobby had his shit together. I didn't. I had given some of my best years to a spiritual community and was ready to make the world my monastery. Maybe Bobby's world.
I remember the exact moment I fell for Bobby. We were having coffee standing near his terrible artwork at dawn. He had big prints from Target in this gorgeous house. We gazed out over the coast from his high nest before work. He was wearing that suit. I was in a long T-shirt. I felt like I had walked into a kingdom lacking nothing but one queen and decent art.
Then, as if to seal the deal, Bobby said, "Let's not have sex for a few months to get authentically intimate." His men's group had given him that idea. I was honored.
Carly Simon's song Anticipation played in my head whenever I pulled into his driveway.
Once he said, "We're going to go have the most expensive hamburger ever," and drove us to a hangar in his old BMW. Then we jumped into his little plane. Bobby yelled, 'Clear!' and before long, we were wondering what the hell insects were doing up at 10,000 feet. We walked to a hamburger joint in the San Juans and were home in bed by 11 pm.
We fought a little bit here and there, stupid stuff I felt so stuck in, like, Is this his stuff, or is it my stuff? I honestly didn't know then. I know now. It was my stuff. It's always mine. Any non-peace in my being? That's on me.
We met at a personal growth course about relinquishing one's right to be right. Some people don't ever do that, and they end up dead right. Bobby and I wanted to learn to be humble.
Bobby knew I had super-funny friends and felt most at home around funny people. I came home from a trip once to find a book on Bobby's bedside table entitled How to be Funny, and it just about broke my heart. It was by the guy who wrote Married with Children, one of the un-funniest people on earth.
When Bobby decided to confront the guy who sexually abused him as a child and forgive him, I was a 'hell yes.' I saw the greatness of Bobby's heart. He would offer peace to a man he had hated for so long. He said he had stopped demonizing the guy and had a new friend when he returned from that trip. They discussed writing a book together about the incident and its aftermath, but his abuser died not long after that.
I went to an art store to buy more paint --this time glittery teal and pink --asking the saleswoman what paint was best for defacing campaign signs. Without reaction, she directed me to a rack.
With five little paint balloons in a box like new puppies, I drove to the sign. It had become a masterpiece. I wanted to steal the whole thing and hang it above Bobby's sofa, thrilled about the color and composition.
I fingered one of the rubbery, teal puppies. This feeling was too delicious, but it also had an irritant in the middle of it.
Suddenly, a thought pierced my glee: I'm an anti-war activist involved in a signage war. I'm a big hypocrite. I took my balloons and went home.
"Honey, I realize we gotta knock it off," I said to Bobby as I entered.
He had already realized that. I'm so self-righteous. I hang on longer.
"And we gotta make it right, honey," I picked up the phone.
Bobby grabbed it and called the Republican headquarters.
"If our new relationship is going to fly, we better learn to drop our positions now and then," he said.
They were shocked. "No one has ever come clean before, and certainly no one your age," the lady said.
"Yeah, well, my girlfriend and I are about 13 in our development." That made me laugh.
They wouldn't take our money, well, Bobby's money, but recommended we go out with Cecil, who fixes signs.
"You guys got a lotta nerve, admitting to this," Cecil said over the phone with a slight Southern drawl. Then, he invited us to a barbeque that night with a group of his Republican friends. I was busy and glad to be. I couldn't imagine attending Cecil's party with people who know I'm a staunch anti-Bush vandal. I felt a little like an old punk-rock girlfriend in New York who acted in a Hall and Oates video. "I just hope I don't have to touch any of them," she said in her cool, dark way.
We decided to meet the next day, Saturday.
Cecil's house was easy to find as Bush signs obscured his yard.
When I met his wife, Eva, I extended my hand, self-conscious about introducing myself with my name, Vanda, pronounced precisely like vandalism --without the lism.
Eva was a gracious Chinese woman raised Buddhist in Hong Kong and San Francisco. She had been a Democrat but switched at some point.
"If Kennedy were alive today, he'd be a Republican." She talked passionately about responsibility and welfare and even cried when she said her mother would never need to go on welfare.
I was impressed with this interracial, Republican couple. I didn't think Republicans married other races. I didn't know you could be Buddhist and a Republican. If you are a Christian, I still believe you must be a Republican, but I could be wrong. Judgy judgy judgy is my point here. I don't have a clue. I'm so much like Socrates that way.
"I gave my life over to Christ recently," Eva said. I shot a glance at Bobby. I didn't want to go way out of my comfort zone. I was just there to fix signs.
We bumped along in Cecil's truck, all of our femur bones touching.
"Eva's a much better person than I am; she's got religion in her heart," Cecil said.
I wanted to say, "Well, that's good because she's going to have to feed a lot of poor people if her Republican agenda goes through," but I didn't.
I was embarrassed to be in a vehicle sporting all those Bush bumper stickers. I noticed people looking at us on the freeway. I thought of signaling 'I am being kidnapped' to them in sign language.
Cecil was indefatigable in his zeal for signage. Location after location, he talked about signs, vandalism, and his commitment.
I watched Bobby, so strong and capable, a man with whom I was endeavoring to fall in love, and the spry 69-year-old Cecil.
"Heya, Bobby, bring the Bush Blue over here, wouldja? "Cecil drawled.
"Sure, Cecil, Here ya go." They were so chummy.
"I just don't like it when wars become political," Cecil said as he steered the pick-up truck onto gravel near a shredded signboard.
"Aren't they all political?" I asked. Bobby nudged me with his long femur bone. Cecil believed we still fight wars for honor, freedom, and justice. And that America is the greatest country in the world.
I thought America had become the biggest imperialist asshole. Any other view seemed naive to me. No, honestly, any other viewpoint seemed stupid to me.
Soon the five hours were over. We drove home in Cecil's truck. We liked Cecil. He liked us. More gracious invitations from Eva. Our first two Republican/Christian friends.
Bobby and I had to go. We had a personal growth workshop—something about creating peace in relationships.
One day, Bobby jacked up my duplex with car jacks and was under there fixing timbers as only an engineer could.
I was on the phone with my coach, who asked me,
"Does your relationship have integrity?"
"What do you mean? I asked.
"Well, whenever you talk about comedy, you are 100%. Whenever you talk about Bobby, you're 100%. But whenever you talk about your relationship with Bobby, you're never 100%."
I stood on my porch, looking off into the trees as Bobby worked. It hit me right then like a punch.
I was using him.
The thought grossed me out. I was in it for what I could get out of it.
"Bobby," I asked when he came into the house, "Does our relationship have integrity for you?" I told him my whole conversation with my coach and how I felt I was using him.
"Well, it's not like I didn't dangle that carrot in front of you, either." He said.
There we were, endeavoring to fit square pegs you-know-where and finally telling the truth about it. Our connection wasn't meant to be a romantic one.
But it found its proper expression.
I didn't have money to pay Bobby for all his work under my house, but I had an expensive mountain bike I offered him.
When we are self-righteous and morally outraged, without peace in our hearts, we get a hit of gratification, a bit of groundedness in a world of disharmony. Some people even mistake it for being passionate.
Recently, a friend asked me what I did not like about Q anon.
"I do not know; it's just weird, right?"
"How do you know it's weird? What about it is weird?" he asked.
"I don't know, the Pizzagate thing?"
I admitted I knew nothing about it except that intelligent people I knew said it was a conspiracy.
Have you seen anything true suppressed by the mainstream media ever?" My friend asked me.
"Ok, point taken," I said, and that's all it took to have a friendship with a Q anon person.
As I watched Bobby load my mountain bike into his Beamer and drive away to the world of money, airplanes, lousy art, and campaign signs, fear danced with the excitement in my belly. I'll never meet a man that cool again danced with Every 'no' is one step closer to a 'yes.'