Gin
On the day Donald Trump was elected
the President of the United States, I turned to gin.
While
my Utah family slept, only to be shocked in the morning by the headlines
announcing the new President-Elect, I was sixteen hours ahead of them, in
Seoul, South Korea, watching the returns. I was alone. My son and his wife were
at work, my grandson at school. When the
polls closed in Florida, it was 9:00 AM in Seoul and all day long, between
anxious bouts of comfort eating, I sat in smug, then stunned, silence, streaming
the election results.
To calm myself, I ate. Mind you, I dislike
Korean food, what with fermented napa cabbage kimchi, long-boiled beef bones
and cartilage, raw fish and eggs, pork intestines, chicken-stuffed waffles, and
a variety of concave, weeping vegetables.
Ten years of bi-annual month-long visits had not accustomed me to So Korea’s
traditional foods. Yet that day, raiding the cupboards and fridge in a panic, I
chewed obsessively on unspiced sweet potato, cold boiled beef bulgogi, and
gopchang (trust me, you don’t want to know.)
The electoral
guillotine dropped in slow motion. Trump won Florida at about 3 PM as I sat
gorging on leftover bim bop and watched the announcers twitch and twist,
pretending to be neutral, weakly plotting out Hillary’s remaining paths to
success. I plowed the refrigerator for
feel-good food and had to settle for leftover quail eggs that had served as Halloween’s
“Eat-The-Monster’s Eyes”—the children were required to swallow one before they
got a treat. I sipped a bit of soybean paste soup and gnawed on radish kimchi. I
began to tipple at the Korean beer—a sip or two equaled a full bottle of Utah’s
3% wash, and soon I was blearily cheering
Wisconsin: “Go Packers!” It didn’t help Hillary.
By the time the TV
anchors were flashing fake smiles and staring with glazed eyes at Trump’s
certain path to the Presidency, my grandson, Noah came home from school, cleared
the table of the leftover bowls and empty bottle of OB Golden Lager, patted my sagging
head affectionately, and said, “Munyah, let’s play gin.”
As it turned out,
it was the perfect distraction, not only because my seven-year old grandson is
a card whiz, but also because the analogy was so perfect. I fell into a deep metaphor.
In gin, the point
is to save books or runs, which was very close to whether to make book or run. I could bet on America’s resilience, return to
and stay in the states, doing what I could to prevent disaster, and cheerfully helping
to restore credibility to the flailing Democratic party. But that felt rather
like promoting painless childbirth. I
could run. But while the idea of joining Canada had occurred as a pre-election joke,
Canada took the threat seriously. By the time it became clear Trump would win,
Canada, flooded with calls from Americans wanting to emigrate, closed its phone
lines at the Immigration Service.
Better to make
books. Certainly I would not save kings (or queens, for that matter.) Perhaps
jacks—when I was a lawyer in my own firm, my loyal and delightfully eccentric
gay paralegal had been named Jack, and now he was definitely in trouble, given
that Mike Sessions would likely be nominated for attorney general, and Sessions
had voted for decades against every gay rights legislation that had come before
him, calling the likes of Jack (and myself, incidentally) “beasts.” Yes, I
could save jacks. Three jacks would do; if I could save four I might feel like
Schindler, saving Jews, or Desmond Doss, saving “just one more” soldier out
there on Hacksaw Ridge.
Even better,
“Let’s play with two decks,” I suggested, realizing I could save eight.
“Munyah,” Noah chided, “there’s no such thing possible.” Oh, Lord, I thought, will
that truly be true? Not possible?”
I’d save twos then,
spades and diamonds, hearts and clubs, in a black and red miscegenative configuration (that would show Sessions, who was also a
flaming racist; as a judge, he had called an African American defendant “boy,”
and accused his lawyer of “racial betrayal.” Sessions had been rejected as a
Supreme Court nominee for his racism.
Perhaps I should
make runs. But even that presented
problems. If confirmed, the new
billionaire philanthropist Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, will elevate
the lowly, embryonic ace of gin, gestating below the two card, to a sovereign
place above the queen, and there is nothing the woman can do about it. And as sure as 2 runs straight up to 10, all
the better-off folks from the needy neighborhoods will take DeVos’s vouchers
and skedaddle up to private schools and leave the poorest folks to attend the
least-funded public schools, where they will learn that the world was created
in seven days and evolution is what you do when you become good enough to go to
Heaven. Pass the Immodium.
“Are you going to
knock me, Munyah?” Noah asked, worried that I would lay down my cards before he
was ready to do so.
No, I wouldn’t. I
hadn’t been playing my hand cleverly enough. None of us had, ignoring the rise
in populist fury, neglecting to understand the willful disregard of the
disenfranchised working class, so angry at the stall in their lives that they
would elect a racist, anti-Semite, homophobic, xenophobic bigot rather than see
government proceed as before. Besides, if I knocked my grandson, everything he
held in his hand would count against him, and weren’t we struggling, my
generation, to make things better for our children and grandchildren, not
worse. I wanted him to have “the whole world in his hands,” counting for him, Ah, but Trump would knock him; he planned to
invalidate the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement, alienating the So. Korean people.
Not that So. Korea
wasn’t having its problems. The citizenry discovered that President Park
Geun-Hye had been running the government
through the secret advice of her psychic, Choi Sun-Sill. There were even
somewhat credible rumors Park had been part of a conspiracy to sink the ferry
that killed 300 Korean students, as a sacrifice to her former guru, Choi’s
father. Park’s oddly, just-appointed
officers of the ferry were saved, while the students died. Park could not be
found for eight hours, rumored to be huddled with Choi. Every day, millions of So. Koreans are
protesting in the streets, calling for Park’s resignation and arrest.
In that light, perhaps Trump will get along
quite well with the So. Korean President. And don’t get me started on No.
Korea.
So, of course, I
lost at gin. I was happy to see my grandson win. He truly believes he has the capacity to win, and that
he always will have. He believes in
Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, too. Me, I believe in what is known as the Big
Gin, when you plan and play all your cards successfully, even the last one you
draw; that card segues perfectly into your hand and thus leaves you with nothing
unwanted to discard. All is then right with the world. I would like to do
that,. I would like to see America do
that.
In the meantime, I
have returned home to the land of justice for all where I have signed petitions
to challenge Trump’s cabinet choices, to disperse with the electoral college,
to demand recounts in Wisconsin and Michigan, and to beg the Democrats to wake
up and listen: the low cards, numbers 2 to 9, may only count for five points
each, but add them together and they are worth more than all three of the ten-point
royalty cards: the king, the queen, and the
jack.
As soon as I
landed in the USA, I went directly to Smashburger where I had a delectable
cheeseburger, succulent fries, and a creamy chocolate shake. Then I came home. The
neighbor’s dog licks my face, my friends comfort me, the US citizenry rumbles
its dissent. I am reminded that we survived Franklin Pierce, Warren Harding,
and James Buchanan. We are a strong country.
And now I believe
I will toast my country with a true “big gin.” The kind with tonic and a touch
of lime. Anyone for a game on Monopoly?
