DURING THAT summer recess we decided that the kids, one in Georgetown University, the other two now in Gonzaga, might want to visit Spain. They debated Grand Beach versus Spain and finally decided somewhat reluctantly that they had never been to Spain before. They also informed us that the Spanish kids at both Ursuline and Gonzaga were “snobs” and “stuck-up” and made fun of the way we talked Spanish …
“We don’t lisp the way they do,” Marytre insisted. “I hate it.” Also in their experience Spanish boys were totally not cool. They thought they were irresistible but were “gross” and “creeps.”
Mary Rose said she had met an occasional “nice” Spaniard at Georgetown but she agreed that even the nice ones were snobs who looked down at “Mexicans like us.”
“The woman from Spanish TV thought we were dolts,” I said, “because we talked with a Sonoran accent. Who can we look down on?”
“Tex-Mex,” Mary Margaret said and we all laughed.
We traveled on official passports so the Spanish government knew we were coming and had security forces waiting for us at the airport and keeping track of us all through the trip. Not cool. We were invited to a round of dinners every night for a week. Even less cool, especially since the Spaniards have the bizarre habit of eating dinner at eleven P.M.
Least cool of all was an invitation to speak to the Cortes, the Spanish parliament. Mary Rose informed us that in various forms it went back to the thirteenth century. She had become our expert on Spanish history. She also spent a lot of time on
her cell phone with a fellow Hoya named Daniel (NOT Dan or Danny) who was a Chicagoan but, heaven protect us all, a South Sider and a White Sox fan.
“I’m only a very junior member of the Senate,” I said. “I don’t represent the American government or the Senate. I think the State Department would not approve. Moreover, as you will note, Senor Presidente, I speak with a Mexican accent, indeed a Sonoran accent. Your members will of course be polite, but they will want to laugh.”
“We do not want you to talk policy,” the President of the Upper House of the Cortes argued, “but only describe how the American Senate works. The American Ambassador says he would be delighted. You are already very well known in Spain. They say you will be President some day.”
“They are mistaken.”
I called my office to make sure there was no objection from the State Department. Chris called back and said they would like to see a copy of my text, after I gave the talk. That didn’t seem unreasonable.
I wrote out a twenty-minute address in Spanish and gave it to Mary Margaret for correction of my mistakes. She approved of what I intended to say. My wife, by the way, attracted quite a bit of attention in Madrid. Some of the locals claimed that she was a true Spanish beauty. “Pre-Visigothic,” my know-it-all daughter claimed. “We are throwbacks to the original Celts, the kind you can still see up in Galicia.”
Our hosts nodded their solemn agreements.
“These people don’t look like Latinos,” Maran complained.
“They’re not, silly,” her sister informed her. “They’re Spaniards, a mix of Celts and Romans and Goths and Arabs.”
Anyway I was sweating profusely when I rose to the podium of the Cortes. I sensed that there was an undercurrent of anti-Americanism in the group. Who did this little punk think he was, daring to address one of the oldest parliaments in the world!
“Because Spaniards are an infinitely polite and courteous people, I presume you will not laugh at my atrocious Mexican accent. I grant my permission for you to smile discreetly. When I speak in Chicago, I am accused of not speaking good Mexican because my family and I learned the language of Cervantes
and Lope de Vega in Hermosillo where we spent some of our summer months learning the language and studying the culture of that infinitely fascinating and infinitely complex country. We are happy now to expand our experience of the wonderful heritage with which Spain has painted much of the world, such that the political entity in which our Congress works is called the District of Columbia. We are very grateful to the Admiral of the Sea for discovering us.”
There was polite laughter, not particularly forced, I thought. In the gallery my good wife gave me the thumbs-up sign.
“I have been asked to explain to you how our Congress works. My answer is that we work very hard much of the time and that the institution works barely if at all, and most effectively on the last day before recess. My feeling is that there is no such thing as an efficient parliament in the free world. If a parliament works efficiently, then some power behind the scenes is manipulating it. Inefficiency, incompetence, frustration are all necessary consequences of representative democracy. So, if you think you have problems, let me tell you some of ours.”
To my surpise much of my humor did survive translation. The applause at the end was genuine enough as were the handshakes and the comments over the wine we drank afterwards. In fact, however, the Spanish parliamentarians were considerably more interested in conversation with the women in my family. I couldn’t blame them.
We were about to leave for Toledo, Sevilla, and Granada and then double back through Barcelona and the Costa Brava. I knew my children would think it was not as nice as Grand Beach. Just as we were about to leave our hotel, Chris was on the phone.
“Let me read your very good friend Leander Schlenk.”
TOMMY GOES ON A JUNKET, SPEAKS TO PARLIAMENT WITHOUT PERMISSION
Cute little Tommy Moran, the Tom Cruise of the Senate, is reported to be thinking of a run for President two years from now. However, according to reports from Spain, Tommy already thinks he is President. Without seeking permission from the American Embassy or the State Department,
he talked to the Spanish parliament the day before yesterday, something that is usually reserved for visiting heads of state. Tommy attacked Senatorial junkets while he was running for the Senate, but now apparently he is changing his mind. His wife and children are traveling on the junket with him, including the daughter who allegedly cheated one of her classmates out of the valedictorian role. That case is still before the courts.
I felt sick to my stomach again. One can never escape from Leander, not even in our castles in Spain.
“What do you and Manny recommend?”
“The usual. We point out that once again Mr. Schlenk is careless with the facts. You are paying your own way. The invitation was cleared by the American Embassy and the State Department. The case before the courts is against the Jesuits and has been repeatedly turned down because of lack of evidence. Your daughter withdrew from the race. We print the text of your speech on our Web page. We deny that you are considering a Presidential race.”
I thought about it. I wanted to attack him, to destroy him. That would be a mistake.
“Go with it.”
“You want to see a proof for the Web page.”
“Not necessary.”
“Have a good trip.”
“I’ll be looking for castles in Spain.”
“Leander?” Mary Margaret asked.
She was wearing pantyhose and a bra, a costume that used to turn me on. Not any more. My fault.
“Same old stuff, junket in Spain on taxpayers’ money.”
“Does he believe that stuff?”
“’Course not. It’s what he does for a living.”
I do not, I told myself, have the stomach to be a United States Senator. I really don’t. Let Crispjin have it back.
During the exploration of Spain beyond Madrid, the kids vied with one another to see who had piled up the most knowledge, especially about El Greco. I opined that the man was sick and really thought people looked that way.
Daddy!
They loved Sevilla, Granada, and especially Toledo. If the purpose of the trip was to expose them to Spanish culture, it was a huge success, though they briskly dismissed Spanish boys as narcissistic creeps. They also were not enthused by Las Ramblas in Barcelona and rejected the concept that what bordered the Mediterranean in the Costa Brava was a beach.
“A beach has sand, DAD-dy!”
“Not gravel!”
“And there’s no room to walk!”
“It’s gross!”
“Grand Beach is nicer!”
“Let’s go home now!”
I tried to explain that not all the beaches in the world were like those in the Indiana and Michigan dunes.
Anyway, they managed to put on their bikinis and suntan cream and lie under an umbrella to protect themselves from the sun, which didn’t last very long anyway.
“We were never that way when we were kids,” I protested.
“I was! They’re fun kids. Enjoy them!”
“I do that!”
“They like to bait you, though this Costa Brava really doesn’t compare with Grand Beach.”
So we went home and went up to the Dunes for Labor Day and I was wiped out by some kind of Spanish bug and carried off to St. Anthony’s hospital on Labor Day Sunday. My stomach settled down and my fever went away and I returned to the Beltway furnace, more than ever convinced that I did not belong there.
One more year and I’d be able to announce my retirement in October and begin to relax.
I did have some fun at an Armed Forces hearing with the Secretary of Defense on a budget hearing.
“Why should we have any confidence in these budgetary projections, Mr. Secretary? They’ve been wrong so often, that I can’t believe any new ones.”
“Senator,” he said, trying to be patient, “war is an unpredictable event.”
Here was another burned-out case. He would be glad to escape from the mess he had created for himself.
“Like your prediction that the United States could win the war with a hundred and thirty thousand men?”
“We did win the war. Now we’re fighting an insurgency which we will defeat.”
“An insurgency which might not have happened if we had the force that General Sheneski recommended.”
“I’m not going to go through that argument again.”
“Why not, Mr. Secretary? I don’t think you’ve admitted yet that the General was right and you were wrong. Why did you think you could abolish the Powell theory of overwhelming force? Why didn’t you plan for a war which would continue into an insurgency?”
“Time, Senator,” said the chairman.
“Saved by the bell, Mr. Secretary.”
I walked out of the hearing and returned to my hideaway to work on the new book which didn’t have a title yet but was about the themes I had discussed in Madrid. My tentative title was “Why Democracy Doesn’t Work.”
Then Robbie surprised me when I was most vulnerable.