The Best Four Years of Adam Becker - 7. Freshman Year - Chapter 7

The next afternoon, we were in mourning for our fallen third roommate: Tripp's TV died, right during the third quarter of the Saints-Ravens.

"It's only two months old," he said, more annoyed than anything, as he redialed Michaela for the third time. "You bet I'm going to return it." He held the phone to his ear for about twenty seconds, then flipped his phone shut. "She's still not picking up."

"She's in a dance rehearsal, I told you," Jordan said, mouth full of Doritos, cocooned in the red papasan chair. "She won't be out until nine."

"That's too late," Tripp replied, checking his watch; it was just after four. "Who has a six hour rehearsal on a Sunday?"

"She has a recital next Saturday," Jordan replied. "And don't think she's not going to expect us all there in the front row."

Tripp groaned, threw his head back.

"Why would she take the keys and disappear for six hours?"

"Because it's her car?" Jordan offered.

"You're the only one who drives it!"

"Look, I don't have the keys," Jordan said. She had reached the bottom of the Doritos bag; held it upside down and glanced up into it. "For the thousandth time. Just do it tomorrow."

"I have studio all week," Tripp said. "Michaela's not the only one with classes. Except mine are a little more intensive than..." He let his voice bitterly trail off. He was getting progressively bent out of shape--just kept staring at his TV, shaking with anger, willing it to turn on.

"We don't need to play Battlescar," I reminded.

"No," he said, "but I want to play Madden. It's a Sunday afternoon--I think I deserve it."

Worth pointing out that, nationwide, there were about ten football games airing, none of which Tripp had bothered to watch at The Boot or the Iota Chi house, or even in the Sharp 3 social lounge.

"Take the Wal-Mart shuttle," Jordan suggested. "You've been saying you needed to go to the store anyway."

"Yeah, the Tulane Bookstore," Tripp replied. "It's worth the premium on toothpaste to be able to just walk across the quad."

"Especially when you can just put it on Tulane accounts receivable," I added.

"Exactly," Tripp said. "That way Julia and Junior just think it's architecture supplies or something." He picked up his phone. "Who else do we know with a car?"

"No one," I said. "Try Michaela again."

He did. No avail.

"Just take the shuttle," Jordan said.

This back and forth went on for about twenty more minutes, before Tripp decided we would, in fact, take the shuttle, the TV being just too important to wait for Michaela and Maxie to be sprung from the dance building.

We being me and Tripp, somehow conscripted into service as the long-suffering roommate. Jordan took this opportunity to invent a study group that apparently met at 4:07, and shuffled off to Howard-Tilton Library.

The logistics of the TV were more difficult than we assumed. Tripp had kept the receipts from move-in stuffed in his desk drawer--I vaguely recalled Miss Julia hounding him on that, in anticipation of events like this one--but the box had been disposed of months ago.

It also weighed about five thousand pounds, a fact we only discovered when we tried to pick it up.

"Maybe we should wait until Erik's back," I said, because clearly me and Tripp were too weak to do this on our own. "Or grab Charlie."

Tripp smoldered. "It's your TV too."

It really wasn't. If anything, Erik used this TV more than me and Tripp combined.

We made agonizing progress down the Sharp 3 hallway, stopping maybe two or three times to "readjust our grip," but we finally made it over to the elevator bank.

Tripp called the elevator with his knee and, thirty seconds later it arrived.

"The shuttle picks us up on McAlister and Freret," Tripp said once we piled in, as if I hadn't been standing over his shoulder when he dissected the route map on his laptop back in our room. "Not too far," as if I also didn't know exactly where we were going, either.

We got to the shuttle stop just as it was pulling up--our first piece of good luck today--and hoisted the TV up the bus stairs.

"Oh, man," said the driver, grinning and shaking his head sympathetically, but not offering to help. We dropped it on an empty seat, and plopped down across the aisle from it.

We started moving down McAlister Drive. Tripp was staring at his broken TV.

"Maybe I'll get a bigger one," he said. "What do you think?"

The TV we had was awfully big already--it cantilevered precariously on the nightstand Tripp kept it on.

"Who are you going to get to carry it back for you?"

He rolled his eyes, smiled. "I'm just saying, my dad talked me into this one because he didn't want to pay for the bigger one. It's not that big of a jump."

"It's going to fall off the table if its any bigger."

"Please," he said. "I'm an architect."

I grinned. "Yeah, not so sure your dozen weeks of architecture classes makes you the authority on balancing TVs."

"Ha, ha," he replied. He thought for a second. "You know, you missed a great end of the night."

I had really not wanted to bring up last night, because I knew he'd get to the topic of my departure--it was so much easier lying once via text message, than repeatedly and to his face.

"Oh yeah? What'd you do?"

"We met up with the Iota Chi guys," he said. "They were at Blue Nile, just a few doors down. Morton said you should be murdered for being so lame and skipping out early on Halloween."

The story of my early departure hitting Iota Chi was also not a welcome development--I didn't want them to think I was the kind of guy who just bailed on a party, went home to go sleep, like Barry Greenbaum or anything.

Still, it was nice getting laid. Finally. The patina of excitement at fucking some guy for the first time had not yet dissolved

"Well, I just wasn't feeling great," I replied. "Too little sleep, I guess."

"Happens," he replied. "What'd you think of Erica?"

Despite the purpose of the evening, I really hadn't gotten much of a chance to interact with her; I was trapped with Lecherous Mollie and Drunk Janie for much of my short engagement at Snug Harbor.

"She's okay, I guess," I said. "Hot."

"Yeah, she's hot," he said. "She's, I don't know. She doesn't seem nearly as into Erik as he's into her."

"What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. He was talking about how awesome she was, and all of that, and she was just kind of, you know."

I didn't know. Tripp didn't seem to know exactly how to elaborate, either. Not a linguist like I was.

"Yeah, I don't know," he said again. "I just get a vibe. That it's going to end poorly."

"Maybe," I said. "Erik's a big boy. He'll be okay."

"Yeah," he replied. "Still. I hate to think he's setting himself up for disaster. Do you think I should say anything?"

Maybe it was me being a soulless, unsympathetic libertarian--there had been moments--but I figured that, under no circumstances, should Tripp stick his neck into Erik and Erica's whatever-it-was. I could just imagine the conversation. Not that Erik would take umbrage with unsolicited advice, but rather than Erik would not deal well with Tripp puncturing the delusional little balloon of his romance.

"If you want," I said. "I wouldn't. You think he'd appreciate that?"

"Well, it's not about what he appreciates," Tripp replied. "It's about telling him the truth, and hoping that he notices what we all saw last night."

I shrugged. "I'm not big on confrontation."

"Well, you had plenty to say about the TV," Tripp said, with a smirk.

The Wal-Mart on Tchoupitoulas Street was an experience. First off, most of the store was cordoned off still, behind plastic tarp. Katrina damage, looting damage--were they distinguishable? The result was a smallish, disorganized Wal-Mart teeming with people. And you hadn't seen real shady-looking, People of Wal-Mart-looking, crazy-looking bodies until you hit the truncated aisles of the Tchoupitoulas store.

We dropped the TV in a cart, and pushed it over to customer service for the return.

Tripp handed over the receipt. Things were not going well.

"See, the serial number is wrong," the customer service woman said, pointing to the line on the receipt. "You'll have to take this back to the Wal-Mart in Harahan where you bought it."

I could see the fury rising in Tripp, the color actually changing in his face. He was always so laid back--watching him get so unglued was fascinating.

"How am I suppose to get to Harahan?" he demanded. "I took the Tulane shuttle here. I don’t have a car."

The customer service bitch shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you."

"Tell me that you'll take back my goddamn broken TV."

She gave a more animated shrug. "We can't prove that it's this item if the serial number's wrong. See, the 3 and 9 are reversed on the TV."

"So what you're telling me," Tripp said, "is that I somehow stole a TV with almost an identical serial number, but not quite, and then returned it. Because that's the most likely situation--not that one of your genius employees miscopied the serial number."

Sensing this could go on for a while, I slunk back towards the liquor section.

At this point, I didn't really know liquor, beyond generics: gin, vodka, rum. The bottles were all so different: colors, size, price. I wondered if there would be a time in my life when I would say things like: "Oh, I only drink this brand." Instead of paying $3 for a cocktail mixed with whatever they keep in the plastic jugs below the bar. Maybe someday, when I'd be settled and snobby and pretentious.

My phone buzzed: text from Kevin Malley.

"What are you doing a week from Tuesday?"

A week from Tuesday was the election. Obviously a big day in the Becker family, but even moreso this year: my dad was up for his second term. He'd won re-election twice in the House, but this would be his first re-election as a Senator. We all knew what a second term of office meant: that he was a bigger dog, that he would be more than a flash in the pan. National ambitions--some seat at some table in the White House, whether or not he was at the head of it.

It was not something I was especially looking forward to.

I told Kevin, he replied: "Yeah, I know. I'm thinking of having some people over, if you guys want to swing by."

Did I want to see Kevin? Absolutely. Did I want to see Kevin knowing he'd probably gone home with Ginger from Gilligan's Island? Absolutely not.

I realized my fleeting crush on Kevin was entirely one-sided, and it was selfish and stupid to hold him at arm's distance, when he was a cool guy, we traveled in the same circles, and all he had ever been to me--to all of us--was friendly.

But, then again, I figured it was better if I just cut him out a little bit, until I got over the last hurdles of my crush.

"Maybe," I said. "I'll have to let you know."

"Sounds good. I hear you went home early."

Word spread like wildfire, didn't it, around Iota Chi.

"I wasn't feeling great, and I was super wasted." I hoped that would give me sufficient cover: so drunk, had to go home. All been there.

"Yeah," he said. "We had a fun night. Blue Nile on Frenchmen."

"I heard."

I didn't know how to talk to Kevin Malley, really, at this point.

"Fun night," he repeated, and I figured that was the end of that conversation.

Bombay Sapphire, Bombay. Blue glass, clear glass. I had no idea what the difference was, except price. Hendrick’s had a mysterious bottle. Same with the vodkas--you could discover the customer just from the bottle: the shape, the label.

Tripp came barreling towards me, shopping cart still ladened with TV.

"They won't take it back!" he growled. "Bastards. I have to get Michaela to drive me all the way out to Harahan. That's a half hour away."

"Hope there's no right turns between here and Harahan," I told him, with a smile. The joke did not dial back tension.

I followed Tripp back to the front of the store, where we waited for the Tulane shuttle to pick us back up.

"Maybe we should just get a cab," I said.

"I'm not paying for a cab, if I have to pay for a new TV," he told me.

Tripp, worth noting, didn't pay for anything: he had an even healthier allowance than I did and, knowing what I did about Miss Julia and Junior, I figured there was an incredibly small chance that they'd make Tripp shell out his own money to pay for a TV that broke two months after purchase.

"This is just so irritating," Tripp said. He pulled out his phone. "Ugh, now Michaela's out of dance class." He texted something. "She's coming to pick us up."

The Tulane shuttle immediately pulled up.

"Are we?" I asked. "Or waiting?"

Tripp didn't say anything, just looked at me in disbelief, as if it was audacious for me to even suggest we take the ride that was waiting for us, rather than the one that was just leaving the dance building all the way uptown.

So we waited. At some point, Tripp went in to get us McDonald's. Food lifted his spirits considerably.

"I think you were just hangry," I told him.

He grinned, then took a ravenous bite out of his Quarter Pounder. "I have a history of that. I mean, there's always a crazy amount of food at our house though. My friends practically lived at my house, and they would plow through everything in the pantry." He took another bite. "Especially after the storm. Our house was literally the only house still standing in the neighborhood." He shook his head. "It was depressing as hell, watching the news. I thought our house was gone for sure--we're so close to the water, I mean. Miracle of miracles. Could you imagine how sad it’d be to lose the house you grew up in?"

I shrugged. I didn’t feel that much attachment to our house in Hamlet, which I know sounded cold and unfeeling. I’d lived there roughly half my life; we built the house in 1997--after my dad won his first House re-election campaign and D.C. became more than just a temporary arrangement. For his first term, we stayed behind in our house in Summerlin, the crowded house we’d bought back when my dad was a washed-up minor league ballplayer for the Las Vegas Stars, before I was born, before The Mirage made him rich.

When I think about the house I grew up in, it was the house in Summerlin, the generic tract home with a red-tiled roof. Philip and I had bunk beds; I was nine when we moved, and thought sharing a room with a twelve-year-old was the coolest thing imaginable; he had different feelings about bunking with a nine-year-old.

We kept the Summerlin house for a few more years, until the beginning of my freshman year at Harrington; now, we had our ranch in Pahrump as our federally-mandated Nevada residence, which we tried to avoid as often as we could.

I didn’t love Nevada, but I loved that house in Summerlin--the house in Hamlet was too big; we never saw each other. I cried when we finally sold it--Philip, at the height of his high school assholery, gleefully told me I was being “weird.” Such an innocuous word that, for whatever reason, encapsulated too much in my mind. But first semester of freshman year was Philip at his most teenage--he was the Lincoln-Douglas captain on the speech and debate team, which meant I had to get everything approved by him; difficult when your older brother pointedly did not want you on his team. He sent back my affirmative case before my first tournament, the George Mason Invitational in Fairfax, with no edits, just “BE BETTER” in red block letters. And the next day was the rewrite deadline, so I stayed up all night to cobble something better together. I could still remember the desk I was sitting out when he handed me back my case, still remember exactly where on the page he’d carved out those two words--be better--but he was right: the new case was better.

We ended the semester on a better note than we started, at least, because I was a good debater--I made it to quarterfinals at Loyola, the highest of any of the freshmen. I think that was the first time Philip said he was proud of me. I know that was the first time Philip said he was proud of me.

I went down a rabbit hole--houses? Tripp was still talking about Hurricane Katrina; it was easier just to nod during these conversations, let him get it out of his system, the same horror stories that had become mundane with the twentieth retelling.

Finally: “Where is Michaela?” he asked, looking down to the edge of the parking lot.

“She’s like Godot,” I told him.

Kevin texted me again about eleven in the morning on Election Day, to remind me that he’d invited all of us to his place on Lowerline.

“Just a few people. Nothing fancy.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll see what we’re doing. I think Tripp wants to watch it here.”

“Invite’s for everyone,” he clarified. He was the kind of guy who was nice to everyone. Nice but straight, but what was I thinking--that I couldn’t have friends who were attractive and straight? That people didn’t like me? People did like Adam Becker--at least Erik did, Tripp, everyone from Iota Chi, the girls. And, obviously, I did think Kevin was cute, and sweet, and charming.

Of course, he had his arm around Ginger on Halloween, so that was all moot anyway.

“I’ll let you know,” I said, but I didn’t, and he didn’t text back either, so maybe he got the hint or maybe I was just overanalyzing everything and he just really didn’t care enough to follow up a third time.

Instead, we stayed in, to celebrate our new TV--slightly bigger, charged to Junior Callender’s MasterCard--that Michaela and Tripp had come back from Harahan with, like hunters with a buffalo, on Saturday morning. Charlie Baker managed to get a handle of plastic bottle vodka, and carted it into our room, along with vending machine bottles of Sprite, so it was officially a party.

I hadn’t seen him in a couple weeks. We were still friendly, of course, still did the occasional door knock if we were on our way to Bruff, but he’d been hopping around elsewhere--different friends, different social circle. Philip had told me about that: friends you make at the beginning of the year, friends you lose as quickly, and I figured that sort of thing happened a lot. But it was still almost surreal seeing Charlie sit on the edge of Tripp’s bed, making us drinks, because I saw his brother so much more frequently. He looked like Chris, but his mannerisms could not be more different--his deep, low voice; his percolating self-esteem--and it was almost surreal, like I was watching Chris Baker from an alternate universe.

“I don’t think I’m going Iota Chi, is the thing,” Charlie said, with an eyeroll, “and you know Chris. He’s going to take it all personally, like I’m rejecting some fatted calf.”

And I wanted to say something more comforting, but I could barely keep myself from smiling at that because I knew that was exactly how Chris Baker would react if he found out his brother wasn’t going to pledge Iota Chi. And then the selfish part of my brain chimed in with the subtle announcement that there would be one more spot available in the spring pledge class, and I wasn’t sure if I was on that short of a list, but it certainly didn’t hurt.

“Where are you thinking?” I asked.

“Who knows,” he said. With a triumphant grin, his mouth shaping exactly like Chris’s, if Chris could ever summon up that much confidence, he added, “The best one.”

“Someone thinks highly of himself,” Erik replied, reaching over for the vodka. “You’ll wind up at Lambda Nu when they have to rush the rejects the week later.”

Charlie took a long sip of his drink. “Shoot me dead if that ever happens.”

The door opened, and it was Michaela and Jordan. I saw Erik noticeably scowl at me, mouthed, “Again?”

“My room,” I mouthed, and he shrugged, took a sip of vodka-Sprite, as the girls filed into the room.

“What’d we miss?” Michaela asked, sitting down next to Charlie on Tripp’s bed.

“Nothing yet,” Tripp said. “Polls close on the East Coast in any second, though. But it’ll probably all be too close to call right away.”

“Doubt it,” Erik told him.

And, immediately after that:

“Chafee out!” Kevin texted, and I sincerely hoped he wasn’t going to do that all night, because I’d talked to my dad earlier on the phone and he seemed pretty bearish on the chances of Republicans eking out a tolerable night.

It was seven o’clock exactly, and CNN broke to announce that Lincoln Chafee had lost to Sheldon Whitehouse for Senate, in Rhode Island. I texted Kevin back: “Blue state.”

“Blue state,” I repeated to the group, out loud from my papasan chair, as Charlie and Erik high-fived over Tripp. Tripp, for his part, was wearing a Bush-Cheney 2004 shirt and had grown progressively more surly, as he drank more vodka and Congress fell away.

“Oh, this is going to be a bloodbath for you, Adam,” Charlie said, smirking. “Just wait.”

I was about to say something, except I felt my phone buzz again with another text from Kevin Malley--and then, a split second later, Wolf Blitzer called DeWine’s seat for Sherrod Brown in Ohio and, yes, he was right, it was going to be a bloodbath.

“Ohio!” Kevin had texted. “Purple state! Called right at eight!”

“What channel are you watching that you’re getting everything ten seconds before me?”

He didn’t respond to that, and I waited about a minute before I gave up and put my phone back in my pocket.

“If it’s any consolation, Becker,” Erik said, “I don’t want every Republican to lose. Your dad can stay, I mean.”

“No, that’s bullshit,” Charlie said. “If Adam’s dad is Republican #50, I’m going to start fucking crying and boycott Nevada.” To me, “You’re not even from Nevada.”

“I don’t have to be from Nevada,” I pointed out. “I’m not running for office.”

Everyone started getting really insufferable past that point, as things started to look bad--I was holding out hope for George Allen, but I couldn’t help but suspect macaca would kill him at some point in the evening. Tripp got annoyed. Jordan was the only one who wasn’t showing very much emotion.

“Are you a Republican or a Democrat?” I asked her.

She looked at me, disapprovingly, as if I shouldn’t have even bothered to ask her that. “I don’t know. Whoever’s winning.”

“Democrat, then!” Erik cheered. “I’ll take it.”

By the time they called Missouri for McCaskill an hour later, most of us had lost interest in watching the blue tidal wave sweep progressively westward, and we eventually just started playing King’s Cup in the middle of my floor with a deck of the Tulane playing cards I’d gotten in our orientation basket. Erik and Charlie were firmly entrenched in their good moods, Tripp in his bad one, and Michaela and Jordan ambivalent about the whole process but annoyed that we were all preoccupied. Nothing really mattered to me but Nevada, and the anxiety of waiting for everyone to trickle to the polls two time zones behind us was torture.

“Five, for guys,” Charlie said, toasting the air, and we all drank. He flipped over the card, and read: “'Take a professor to lunch.' Are these supposed to be actual orientation tips?” He looked back to us. “Hey, do you think they’d pay for that kind of thing?”

“I think this is more of a suggestion,” Erik said, as he plucked his own card. “Though I’d even take Dr. Hart out to Brennan’s, if Tulane was paying.” He read the card. “Nine. What’s nine?”

“Bust a rhyme,” Charlie told him, but before he could start, Wolf popped on for another bulletin:

“And, based on exit polls, we can predict that Senator David Becker will keep his seat in Nevada.”

And then they pivoted to coverage on Montana, which was a competitive race.

That's all they spent on David Becker's re-election--just a few off-hand words. I felt, what, relief, maybe. It was my dad’s first time running for re-election in the Senate--though he’d run a few times when he was in the House--and it was a big deal to win again. Validation, I guess, for a job well-done.

I was relieved that the waiting was over, but I wasn’t excited or anything. I was just relieved. I knew my dad, and I knew how six more years would pump him full of ambition. And I knew exactly what he’d do next: he’d start cuddling up to Rudy Giuliani for the VP nod in 2008, and then he'd win Number One Observatory Circle, and I’d get put under constant surveillance, an unwilling celebrity scion. There was a comforting anonymity that came with being a Senator’s son--it was the best of both worlds, because it was damn impressive, but most of the country didn’t even know who David Becker was, let alone who Peter Adam Becker was. And people would mention it, very seldomly down here but sometimes, as a bit of a neat party trick, an interesting fact about someone, but that was it. My last two years at Tulane invaded by being one-fifth of the Second Family was a terrifying prospect.

I didn’t know if the entire Second Family got Secret Service, but I predicted they would--I could be one heartbeat away from being a Bush twin, in the worst sense of the word, having guys in sunglasses camped out in the third floor study lounge.

“Congrats,” Erik said, as they predicted a win for Jon Tester. “And we won the Senate anyway, so everyone gets to go home happy.”

“Almost,” Tripp huffed, as he bitterly pulled a card. “Six, for chicks.” Michaela drank.

No, being Vice President wasn’t really in the cards, at least in 2008. Probably. Hopefully. My dad was too moderate for Giuliani’s ticket, too Southwestern for McCain’s, too perfectly-coiffed for Romney’s--who else was there? He wasn’t different enough to balance them out, to bring something other than similar earnestness, intelligence, and charm, which really didn’t matter at all for a Vice Presidential candidate. And he certainly wouldn’t waste a Presidential run in 2008, because he saw what direction this electorate was heading, so maybe I was safe, unless a dark horse popped up--some conservative Southerner looking to graft some moderate, Western credentials.

No. I was safe for now, at least safe until 2012, but I’d be twenty-four by then--I’d at least be out of Tulane, doing something on my own in some city where politics didn’t really even matter. I’d be different, better. Maybe I’d even be out to everyone by then, so “Becker Has a Gay Son” splattered in headline text across the front page of Politico wouldn’t be so agonizing.

My sister, Justine, texted me: “Yay!” She was off in Las Vegas, in a ballroom at the Bellagio with our parents and the throngs of adoring supporters. “Dad’s just about to get ready for his speech.”

There was no way for me to see my dad’s speech live on national TV, when the race wasn’t especially contested--or, looking at the precincts reporting and the speed of the call, even a very close--but I’d heard my dad speak more times that I wanted to anyway. He was a fantastic public speaker, obviously--gift of gab, as they said. Usually, I saw him speaking from several feet behind him. We were often called to be window dressing, smiling children in the back with my mother as we gazed on like Stepford Wives at his charisma and genius.

We all had to go back to Nevada in 2000, when he won his Senate seat for the first time. That one was a nailbiter--I remembered how excited Justine and Philip were to see themselves on the news, how even my mother cracked a smile at that when we saw the replay, how I was just happy we got to stay in the Summerlin house again.

Compared to that, 2006 was small potatoes. Re-election and college seemed to make our presence less of a big deal; he offered to fly me out to Nevada--”Why you wouldn’t go on a free trip to Vegas, I have no idea,” Erik had said, shaking his head in disappointed judgment, as if going to my dad’s re-election party was at all equivalent to a free rager in Vegas. Philip and I had both refused, as politely as we could, but Justine was out there, at the very least. Punishment for being in high school still.

I excused myself into the hallway, and called her up. I was a little drunk.

There was pandemonium on the other side of the phone. “Isn’t that exciting!” she shrieked. “Six more years!”

Six more years, Senator’s son. Six more years, for now, until political ambition propelled him to the next echelon, but no, there were bigger problems to have in the world, rather than well-connected lineage--who was I, thinking differently.

“Yeah, it’s great,” I said. “Tell him congrats from me.”

“I will,” she hollered. “Sorry, it’s loud here. Are you out? Are you drunk?”

“We’re watching it in my room,” I told her, ignoring the last part. “I just went into the hallway.”

“Mom wants to talk,” she replied, and there was a scraping shuffling for a few seconds.

“Peter,” my mom said. “How are you?”

“Happy!” I told her.

There was a pause, more chanting and screaming in the background. “I am too,” she said, finally. “Six more years, right?”

When I hung up the phone--they couldn’t talk long; they were due on the stage--I had another text from Kevin Malley, my millionth of the night.

“If any Republican had to win tonight, I’m glad it was you,” he said.

“It wasn’t me.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Six more years!” I told him.