'Have either of you ever been arrested?' Dale asked Timmy and me. It seemed an odd question to ask, but Dale's tight look and bright eyes suggested she had something in mind.
I said, 'I've been manhandled a few times in the line of duty by the Albany criminal justice establishment, Dale, and I wear every scar from those encounters as a badge of-not honor, I guess. Bemusement would be more like it, mixed with disgust.'
'And what about you, Timmy?' Dale said. 'Have you ever been arrested?'
His fiberglass-encased foot bobbed once, his face went white, and sweat popped out on his forehead. Timmy stared at Dale and said, 'No. I've never been arrested.'
'But I have,' she said with a look of triumphant contempt. 'Haven't I, Timmy?'
He said, 'Oh, hell. You were in that ACT-UP group Oh, hell.'
'Yes, I was in that ACT-UP group, oh, hell. In April 1987. I see it all is starting to ring a bell now somewhere deep inside your big, adorable head. Bong, bong, bong.'
'Jeez. I felt bad about that. It was after the Health and Human Resources Committee vote on AIDS home- care funding, right?'
'Right you are, Tim.'
'And your group thought Assemblyman Lipschutz shouldn't have compromised so much with the Republicans on the budget. You all came over to the office and wouldn't leave-there were forty or fifty of you, as I recall-and you demanded to see Myron.'
'Asked nicely to talk to him,' Dale said. 'Forcefully but nicely.'
'No, you demanded to talk to him. Except, as I remember it, he was off in a meeting somewhere with the Speaker.'
'That's what you told us at the time. That was all bullshit, of course.'
'And you refused to leave the office. Your whole group sat down on the floor, and you said you weren't leaving until Myron heard what you had to say. You were the spokesperson for the group. That's when I left. I went over to the Speaker's office to see if I could pry Myron out of the meeting.'
'Uh-huh. So you said.'
'And while I was over there, the Capitol Police got word that you were sitting in Myron's office-'
'You called them, Timothy! Admit it! You told us we could meet with Assemblyman Lipshutz, and then you went out and called the cops, and we all got arrested. We spent the night in the lockup while you were probably down at the bar at Le Briquet having a good laugh over how you put one over on the dyke and faggot riffraff.'
'Dale,' Timmy said, 'you are wrong, wrong, wrong-as you are every once in a great while You are as sharp as they come, Dale, but you don't know me. Or Myron Lipshutz. It was Assemblyman Metcalfe, across the corridor, who called the cops on you, and both Myron and I were furious when we came back to the office fifteen minutes later and found out what had happened. It was Myron who got you all a lawyer from Lambda Legal Defense, and it was Myron who, a week later, got another twelve million transferred to AIDS home care from the health administration budget. So if that incident is the cause of your attitude toward me, an adjustment is in order. An apology, I'm sure, is much too much to hope for.'
Janet and I each had a swig of beer and watched as Dale carefully considered this. Finally, she said, 'How come we never heard this version of events at the time?'
'Because,' Timmy said, relaxed and enjoying himself now, 'Myron knew he'd never get the extra twelve million if it looked like he was in bed with extortionists. He wanted results, not a lot of-'diarrhea' was Saul Alinsky's term for righteous public explosions that make the demonstrators feel better but achieve nothing lasting. And Myron got results '
Dale sniffed. 'The twelve million was a drop in the bucket, speaking of diarrhea. Anyway, without ACT-UP there to remind the legislature of the huge, crying need, the appropriation would have been half what it was.'
'That is correct,' Timmy said. 'ACT-UP and other better-behaved groups-each group in its own way-got their points across. They made a big difference.'
Dale seemed to relax a bit. She gulped some beer down, then said to Timmy, 'Okay, Timothy, my man. You passed the test. You're it.'
'Gee whiz, thanks.'
' 'Gee whiz.' There's another one of those old-timey exclamations you like to use that we hardly ever hear anymore. Sort of like 'golly gee.' Or 'gee willikers.' I don't suppose, though, that there would be a genetic predisposition to those funny expressions in any of your progeny. So, Timothy, you're it.'
Timmy shifted uneasily on his chaise. 'What do you mean, 'it'?'
'Janet and I decided several months ago to have a child I'll be the biological mother. We need a sperm donor, and with Janet's endorsement I've been testing you to see what you're made of. You've passed the test. We need to get to it soon, if you're healthy and it's okay with you, because my clock's running out. And let's not fool around with turkey basters, either. That's so cold and clinical for such an intimate- sacred really-ritual of creation. So Whaddya say, Tim, old man? Are you up to it? Ready for some fructification?'
Timmy stared at Dale, and even though it wasn't, his look was that of a man whose hair was standing on end.
Later that night, in June's four-poster, Timmy said, 'I hope you're not hurt that they didn't ask you, Don '
I said, 'No, their reasons for chosing you are perfectly valid. They think you would be the more loyal and loving and attentive father- or father figure, as Dale insists on calling it-and they're right. If they had asked me, I'd have said no thanks, I've never had the urge. But you knew right away it was something you'd missed in life, and you wanted deeply to do it, even though you'd never realized it before.'
'That's right.'
'But I'll be interested to be the father-figure-in-law-once-removed, or whatever you call it.'
'I know you will.'
'I don't know about those names they've picked, though. Shira Osborne-Kotlowicz? Yussie Osborne- Kotlowicz?'
'That's up to them. The names sound fine to me.'
'You're not going to press for Sean Callahan-Kotlowicz-Osborne? Or Heather Kotlowicz-Osborne- Callahan?'
'No, I don't care what the name is. I'm just- exhilarated is the only word for it-at the idea of creating a human being that's part of me and yet will have a life-a life! — that's all its own.'
'I understand that, Timothy. It's not what I want, somehow, but I hear you, and I love it that you're thrilled.'
'I am relieved, though, that Dale relented and is willing to use indirect means for the impregnation. I guess I could have managed it, but-really. Geez.'
'She's still threatening to jump you some night, though. And, hey, you might be surprised. There might be another revelation in store.'
'I have a feeling,' Timmy said, 'that I would have figured that one out earlier in life. It isn't as though I wasn't encouraged to do so.'
'Just think,' I said, 'you're going to make a human life, and the whole story of that life started with Skeeter back in high school in Poughkeepsie. I'll bet he'll be happy when he hears about it, and even proud.'
Timmy became thoughtful at the mention of Skeeter. After a moment, he said, 'Maybe Eldon would make a good name for a baby.'
'Yeah,' I said. 'Or Eldona.'
We talked for a long time under June's canopy, and decided that one day Eldon or Eldona would be editor of a great newspaper, or- if great newspapers didn't exist anymore in the twenty-first century- a series of feisty pamphlets passed from hand to hand.
Epilogue
Dan Osborne plea-bargained a sentence of one year for his role in the jewel robbery. Tacker Puderbaugh and
