The Forb solves the cell phone problem.

I walked into The End of Time by myself this morning, abandoning Winnie to the decorating of our apartment for Christmas. She’s very excited about our first Christmas together, and I have an aversion to arranging cute little do-dads in the place where I eat and sleep. It all works out for the best.

I was barely in the door when The Forb signaled for me to join him at his table. His morning newspaper was shoved aside and he was scribbling on a piece of paper. He looked feverish.

“Max, I’m writing a letter to the editor of that rag of a newspaper of yours. I’m going after this thing about banning cell phones in cars. I could care less about cell phones in general, but I maintain my view that the world is dominated by idiots.”

I ordered my coffee as Mirna floated by, carrying a couple of steaming mugs of something and humming an unrecognizable tune. “And you want to read it to me, right?”

“That’s right. I’ll spare you my cultural critique, but I’m offering the world a list of other things that should be banned while driving a motor vehicle, since we’re so keen on preserving everyone from their own stupidity. Listen to this:

1.     Smoking. It’ll kill you eventually, but you don’t need to take others with you when you crash your car while trying to light up. Banned.

2.     Kissing. It’s almost impossible to kiss someone with your eyes open. No one should drive with closed eyes. Banned.

3.     Sex. Goes without saying. Banned.

4.     Other people in the car, especially children. Other people are the biggest distraction ever. My ex-wife is evidence of that. Banned.

5.     Eating. The consumption of a bean and beef burrito while driving is a recipe for death, the indigestion notwithstanding. Banned.

6.     Manual transmissions. The addition of a clutch pedal and six possible shifting positions makes driving way too complicated, especially for the population of morons that we all seem to be. Banned.

7.     Praying. No one should be allowed to pray while driving, for two reasons: First, many people pray with their eyes closed. This puts it in the same danger category as kissing. Second, the Almighty would surely be offended when one second you’re praising his holy name, and the next you’re flipping the bird to the guy who just cut you off. Banned.

8.     Car radios. Too many buttons and too much stupid music. Banned.

9.     Day dreaming. If you’re thinking about something else, then you’ll drive right up somebody’s tailpipe. Driving takes focus. Banned.”

“Wait a second,” I said. “How in the world can the police monitor ‘day dreaming’?”

“Easy,” said The Forb. “They just look for people who look glazed over and are smiling. If they’re smiling, then they are either talking on a cell phone, listening to the radio, praying, or having sex, all of which are banned. If none of those things are provable, then the cop defaults to a charge of day dreaming.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Of course it is, Max! Don’t you recognize irony when you hear it?”

I left The Forb to his work and found my own table just as Mirna brought the coffee. I thought about that crazy list and almost started laughing. I thought about each one that The Forb had listed: Kissing, sex . . . All in a car. Hilarious. Graphic. Interesting.

I finished my coffee and went back home to see what Winnie was doing.

I come clean about my wedding.

Okay. So it’s time to quit fooling around. My niece Daisy, never one to shy away from exposing falsehood, called me on the phone after she read yesterday’s post and put me in my place.

“Uncle Max, it’s Daisy. Your niece.”

“As opposed to Daisy, my 150-pound Rottweiler?”

“Funny. Look, it’s time for you to put down your crack pipe and tell the truth. Your story was cute, but totally bogus. You’d better clean up your act or no one will believe you when you actually are serious about something. You’re a journalist—you should know this.”

Daisy’s right. I need to come clean. Winnie and I did get married, but not in the way I described yesterday.

I did take her to a restaurant—sort of. It was a little take-out taco joint and we ate our food while sitting on the curb looking out on the street. We did stroll by a body of water, but it was the lower end of Fifth Street where a water main had broken. There clearly was that moment when my love for her bubbled to the surface and I turned to her to ask her to spend the rest of her life with me. She looked deeply into my eyes and spoke gently:

“You have some cilantro on your front tooth.”

I picked it out and re-asked the question. She said yes, and we set out to make our plan. Father Gene actually didn’t conduct our ceremony since neither one of us is Catholic and we had decided to get married right away. We got married at City Hall, and Father Gene came as the witness. But he hosted a wedding party for us at his rectory, and we had a great time. I took Winnie out to meet my parents, and they were happy for us and not entirely disappointed that they had not made the trek to our wedding. They don’t have TIVO, so they don’t like to miss their shows.

It’s true that The Forb and Limerick Bill paid for our trip to Montana. But it was at the Hotel Montana in a town fifty miles from here. We were there for two days rather than two months. The Forb said that, because it’s an election year, I can pay him back by listening to his deeply informed views about American politics. I can hardly wait.

It’s almost true about my job. I asked for the new position, and they’re still thinking about it. I moved into Winnie’s place, since it doesn’t require sandblasting prior to habitation.

Okay, so I made up the first story. It was a good one, and the one I would have chosen had I been able. But the true part is that Winnie and I are married, and Life at the End of Time will take a different turn.

Maxwell is back!

I must apologize to my formerly faithful readers for being AWOL all these months. I have no excuses, but plenty of reasons that I hope you will understand. Here are some of them:

The newspaper for which I write gave me a more substantial job than just being a freelance columnist, so now I actually make a living with my writing. I also moved to an apartment that has room for more than one person and a small family of cockroaches. Then I spent two months in seclusion in a ranch-like retreat in Montana.

Why, you might ask, did all these things take place? Hmmmm?

Because Winnie and I got married.

That’s right—we got married. At the end of the summer things started heating up for us. I looked at my reflection in the mirror one morning and asked myself if I wanted to risk spending the rest of my pathetic life without Winnie. I knew that I didn’t, so I took her out to a nice restaurant and then on an evening walk at the edge of town near a lake where people stroll on warm summer nights.

I looked at her and thought about how she was alone in the world—her mother gone, her father and brother acting like thuggish trolls—and how I was alone as well. In the time that I’d known her she had changed my perception of her being uptight and prudish to someone with great depth and beauty. I began to consider myself to be a slob not worthy of her company, which was probably a good place to start.

I asked her to marry me, and she said yes without inquiring about my financial status or potential genetic anomalies. She wanted a small, quiet wedding, one in which her remaining relatives would not be invited. My parents were there, my sister and Daisy showed up, and most of the good folks from The End of Time filled in the rest of the gaps. Father Gene did the honors, which might have broken a few church rules, but I don’t think he cared.

Much to my surprise, The Forb and Limerick Bill got together and sprang for the honeymoon at the retreat in Montana. Apparently The Forb had some old business connections that owed him favors. I was able to email my work to the newspaper, and Winnie and I had a great time in the wilds of Montana for two months.

So that’s the story. Now that we’re back and teetering on a life that is respectable, Life at the End of Time will resume. There’s more to tell, of course, but that will have to wait. Stay tuned.

Daisy Has a Crisis

“Uncle Max, I am cursed. God has destined me to be surrounded by idiots.”

For such a bright young woman, my niece had a hard time remembering about the relationships of different time zones in the US.

“Daisy, I’m sure you’ve already had breakfast, but it’s only 6:00 in the morning here.”

“Yes, I have had breakfast, thanks for asking.” She took a breath and recharged her tirade. “So I had to go to this weekend conference for this class I’m taking, and they threw me into a room that I had to share with three other girls. THREE, Uncle Max. It was at some camp or retreat place or something, and there were two bunk beds in each room. These girls were freaks. I mean FREAKS.”

Daisy’s voice hit an emphasizing pitch that almost slipped past the borderline of my ability to hear sound.

“What do mean that they were freaks?”

“You won’t believe it, Uncle Max. First, they were all nerds and couldn’t even engage in a meaningful conversation. It was one-word responses to everything I asked them. I finally gave up. Second, they were all completely bizarre. One girl had a moustache—you know, like the peach fuzz that girls have, except multiplied by, like, a million. The other girl had about eight whiskers on her chin that looked like they could poke out your eye if you got too close.”

“Did they work at the circus?”

“No, they go to school, like me. Oh, wait. That was a joke, right?”

My dear niece was more of a nerd than she wanted to admit. We often despise those things that remind us of ourselves.

“Right. But please continue. This is fascinating.”

“I thought you’d like it. You could write an article about it, and no one would believe it. Anyway, the third girl was all proud of herself because she said she didn’t believe in God, which I could have cared less about anyway, but she thought it was a big deal so when she actually talked, it was about that. On top of that, she had all these demands about space in the room because she can’t stand feeling closed in.”

“So, Daisy, you roomed with two girls sporting bizarre facial hair, and one who was a claustrophobic atheist.”

“You got it. I’m telling you, Uncle Max, you can’t make this stuff up.”

I thought about how this could be the set up for a really bad joke, but couldn’t bring myself to make light of this event that had so traumatized poor Daisy.

“Anyway, I just needed to tell someone. Thanks for listening, Uncle Max.”

I ended the call and decided to get up. I thought I might get to The End of Time early, have coffee, and figure out how to write about Daisy’s experience without implicating her or her erstwhile roommates. One should never make fun of women with facial hair.

I also needed some time to consider how I might get Winnie to unleash her own collection of family secrets that she so carefully protected.

Liberal or Conservative: Looking for a fresh label

A few years ago I flew out to visit my sister and her family. When I was introduced to my sister’s book club friends, one of them wanted to know if I was one of those “liberal media types.” She apparently assumed that because I wrote for a newspaper, I was a leftie and could be lumped in with the commie hordes of broadcasting.

I asked The Forb once why he read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, but never the local paper in which my column appeared.

“I don’t read that rag,” he said. “Too conservative for my tastes. Besides, I get enough of you here every morning.”

It’s funny how those labels get thrown around and stuck on people. The Forb sounds like he despises political conservatives, but in practice he hates both conservatives and liberals and speaks boldly about his views. He is an equal opportunity despiser.

As I sat with Winnie this morning in The End of Time, I watched Father Gene come in and sit down, his warm smile bringing grace to the room. What was he? Since he didn’t take a hard line on same-sex marriage, but responded with reflections on theology and the Bible, was he a liberal or a conservative? I didn’t know.

As I thought about it, the labels as we use them today only serve to describe opposing agendas. But at their heart, the descriptions both have value and should, ideally, work together in creative tension.

At its best, conservative means that there are traditions and practices that have value, and they should be protected—conserved. There is a built-in caution in conservatism that is concerned about abandoning the past too quickly in favor of things that may not have lasting value.

At its worst, conservative means fearful protectionism, naming demons and villains when its sacred ground is challenged.

At its best, liberal means that all ideas may come to the table for consideration. Traditions may still have value in this sense, but they shouldn’t lock us into the past, but rather give us motivation to engage the future.

At its worst, liberal means to embrace “progress” at any cost, regardless of history and consequence. In this way to be liberal is to be like budding flowers that have been severed from their roots. They’re attractive for awhile, but soon will be discarded for freshly amputated pretties.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that I want the best of both those categories if I have to have anything at all. Being locked into one or the other is suffocating to me, and risks being linked to people and ideologies that do not speak for me.

I need a new label. Liberative? Conservatal? How about person? Or human? Or maybe just Maxwell.

I was disturbed from my reverie by Winnie sniffing as she leaned her head on my shoulder. She was crying. I put my arm around her and looked at her face.

“What’s going on, Winnie?”

“I miss my mom,” she said. I handed her my paper napkin and she wiped her eyes.

“I know,” I said. I thought about the funeral service, and the people in her hometown, and wondered if she had any contact with them. I remembered the imposing figures of her father and brother, and tried to imagine what comfort they might send her way.

“Have you heard from your family?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, and I won’t.”

“They won’t contact you?”

“No,” she said. “And I don’t want them to.”

As much as my heart was surrendering to Winnie, I still realized that there was much under the surface that I didn’t know or understand. She was a much more complex person than I thought when we first met at the café. I was content in the knowledge that I was simple and shallow. She probably had me figured out before our first kiss.

I made it my intention to rattle some of the family skeletons in her closet.

The American Flag and Church

Winnie and I sat together at our booth, holding hands and sipping our coffee. We hadn’t really talked too much about this relationship that was happening to us, and I was fine with that. It was enough for me just to be with her and enjoy our moments of intimacy, which so far consisted of hand-holding and the occasional smooch. I was happy to delay any further complications.

We watched out the window of the café as city workers adorned streetlights with American flags and patriotic banners, getting things ready for the annual Fourth of July celebration that would stir the hearts of the nation and give a much needed boost to beer sales. I usually spent the Fourth at home alone watching movies or getting caught up on my columns, but this year could be different. I decided that I would do something that Winnie wanted to do, even if it meant suffering through a fireworks show. However, I wasn’t quite prepared for her request when she spoke it.

“Maxwell, would you like to come to church with me this Sunday?”

Because I am a cynical writer, I have chosen churches that are very different from the kind to which Winnie is accustomed. But no matter the church, I have always avoided showing up with the faithful on Sundays where the celebration of national holidays might possibly meld with the body and blood of Christ, causing him to bleed red, white, and blue. I have a real problem with that, so I usually find something else to do on those days.

“Is there something special happening this Sunday, Winnie?” My faked innocence was just a panicky attempt to dodge her question.

“Oh, you know,” she said, “just the regular church service, but with some extra American flags and songs like God Bless America and The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Things that churches do on the Fourth of July.”

I knew it. I would rather have my skin peeled off with a rusty corkscrew than sit through a church service like that.

It’s not that I don’t love my country—it has nothing to do with that. It’s just that I don’t think Jesus is any more partial to people in America than he is to people in Taiwan or Lithuania or anywhere else. It’s great to be thankful to live here and all, but these church services border on nation-worship, and it gives me the creeps.

I remember reading about how the Nazis managed to convince the state churches in Germany to take down their crosses in the sanctuaries and replace them with swords, and to remove the Bibles from their altars and display Hitler’s Mein Kampf instead. I’m not making any comparisons here, except to say that we humans can screw up worship in the blink of an eye if we aren’t careful.

I don’t even like seeing American flags displayed in churches. Again, it isn’t because I am against the country—I just don’t see the point. You display a flag for different reasons: To show that you are on US territory (unnecessary, in my view, when you are already in the US), or to stake a claim (like when Russia planted a flag on the sea floor under the north pole), or to prove that you are patriotic (which it doesn’t do). None of those are good reasons to put up a nation’s flag in a church.

Also, when you look up “flag protocols” on the Internet (the font of all knowledge), you learn that when a flag is displayed in a church, it has to be given prominence over any other flag, including the flag of the Christian church (where in the heck did that come from?). If the American flag in a church demands dominance, I think the message is not a good one.

So, I am re-cementing my commitment to avoiding church at all costs on the Fourth of July. That’s it. End of discussion. I turned to Winnie to give her my answer.

“Sure, Winnie. I’d love to go with you.” I am such a wuss.

She leaned her head on my shoulder and squeezed my hand. “You are so sweet, Maxwell. How about instead we go to the lake and have a picnic? Then afterward maybe we can go see a movie.”

I’m pretty sure that I love Winnie.

Father Gene speaks out about gay marriage in New York

“As a man of the cloth, Padre, I assume that the gay marriage decision in New York would cause your righteous anger to rise up and shout, ‘Unclean!’”

I was surprised at first to see The Forb sitting with Father Gene when Winnie and I walked into the End of Time. When I heard the topic of conversation, I knew that The Forb was sparring for some action. Winnie squeezed my hand and slipped over to our booth, not wanting to join the controversy.

It was strange to realize that my booth and become our booth.

“Sit for a minute, Max,” said The Forb. “There may be a story in this for your paper.” I sat, signaling to Winnie that I wouldn’t be long.

“So what do you say, Father, about this whole thing? Will God smite the Big Apple?”

Father Gene sipped his coffee and smiled. He struck me as a man who refused to take the bait in a potentially hot conversation and wasn’t driven by anxiety. He set his cup down and looked at The Forb.

“The New York decision doesn’t surprise me at all,” he said. “Our society is one that is based on the idealization of individual rights. When the values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—good values, it may be argued—are the bottom line of a culture, then those rights will have to ultimately be embraced by everyone. Old boundaries are destined to be pushed back or broken altogether.”

“But what about men marrying men, and all that?” The Forb was clearly not getting the response he had anticipated. “Shouldn’t the church be upset by that?”

“The church in its many forms will, for the most part, object to the New York decision and all that will come from it,” said Father Gene. “And well-meaning people will attempt to change hearts and minds by debate and legislation. And none of it will work.”

“So you’ll just roll over and play dead while the sanctity of marriage—a sacred trust that I’ve managed to violate several times—is swept away by the liberals?” said The Forb. “And if all the yelling and screaming that you Christians do won’t work, then what will you do?”

“There will still be plenty of yelling and screaming,” said Father Gene. “And I don’t hold out much hope for that to change. But I believe there is a way that we Christians need to go.”

“Where is that?”

“In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says this: ‘Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well.’ We Christians have joined the battle for the culture on the culture’s terms. We need to engage with Jesus.”

The Forb looked at me uncomprehendingly, as though I could interpret Father Gene’s words. I shrugged and looked back at the priest.

“Here’s what I mean: When it comes to marriage, the church has allowed the state to set the agenda. Sure, we have our ceremonies and blessings and rituals. But until the state says it’s a marriage, we don’t recognize it as valid. Now that the state wants to set the agenda a new way, we resist. We can’t have it both ways.”

“I thought marriage was a big deal in the church. Isn’t it a sacrament or something?” said The Forb.

“Yes, for us Catholics it certainly is. And it remains very important throughout the whole church. But these state decisions about same-sex marriage are the equivalent of the state suing us and taking away our coat—the coat that we call the definition of marriage. I believe that now it is time for us to give the state our cloak as well.”

“I don’t get it,” said the Forb. I remained silent, not getting it either.

“The cloak is the collaboration between church and state when it comes to marriage,” said Father Gene. “We need to give that up as well. It is a collaboration that needs to be untangled, and it is time that we viewed marriage within our own communities of faith as something that runs deeper and more significantly that merely the exercising of rights.”

“So you don’t think that the church should do weddings any more?” said The Forb. “Wouldn’t you give up some serious revenue by doing that?”

Father Gene smiled. “It would indeed be costly. I definitely believe that the church should do weddings. But we should do them as faith communities, calling people to deep commitments, rather than merely performing religious services that leave people to the ravages of a culture that discards marriages like last week’s trash.”

“What about the legalities of marriage?” said The Forb. “The church can’t do anything about that.”

“True,” said Father Gene. “But that is the realm of the state to confer legal rights. It is the church’s role to call people into faithfulness before God and his people. It is the church that has to define marriage as a relationship that is grounded in God’s good creation. But I’m getting over my head here. Sorry to sermonize.”

“It’s a puzzle to me,” said The Forb. “Let me know how it all turns out.” He got up and retired to his regular spot, losing himself behind the morning paper.

“It’s too complicated for me to write about, Father,” I said. “Let me know when you preach about it. I might show up.”

“I may have to wait until the Sunday before I retire to preach that sermon, Max,” he said. “I’m not sure it will play well in the US.”

I didn’t think it would play well in Rome either, but I kept that to myself. I left him and joined Winnie. She didn’t ask about our conversation, and I didn’t tell.