 |
A couple in trouble Can This Relationship Be Saved?By Rick Horowitz
When they first started going together, they were such a cute couple -- everybody said so. They came from different parts of the country. They'd grown up in very different circumstances. They even practiced different religions. None of it seemed to matter. People looked at Al and Joe and said, "These guys can go the distance." This was back in the summer of 2000. (With all that's happened since, it seems like a lifetime ago.) But back in the summer of 2000, when Al chose Joe to be his one-and-only, the match looked positively heavenly. They seemed to be everywhere together, and reveling in it -- hugging at the microphone, finishing each other's sentences. If Al was inclined to be a little too earnest -- and he was, even he'd admit it -- Joe was always ready with a quip to lighten the mood. If Joe came on a little too mild from time to time -- and he certainly did, it was just the way he put things -- Al was always ready with a full-throttle speech that could rattle the balconies. They were such a cute couple -- everybody said so. The pain, and the bitterness that would follow, were still months, even years, away. Can anyone come so close to achieving a lifetime's dream and not be wounded by the failure? Can anyone fall so excruciatingly, infuriatingly short of a goal and not be forever damaged? For Al, those days -- the autumn of 2000, the winter of 2001 -- were the worst, and Joe was there to comfort and console him. He'd have another shot at it, Joe would tell him; he'd earned another shot. And if he chose to take another shot, Joe assured him, Joe -- Al's great admirer, Al's special friend -- would gladly stand aside. When he said these things, Joe must have meant every word. And when he heard them, Al -- poor wounded, damaged Al -- must have believed them. And believed, too, that he could take his own sweet time deciding. Wrong. Joe had had a taste of the spotlight, a moment on the big stage. He'd enjoyed it. He could even imagine doing it again, traveling the country, being part of a couple -- only this time, he'd be the one doing the choosing. The problem was, these things take planning, and time. But how much planning could he do when Al still hadn't made a decision about his own plans? The longer Joe had to wait, the more difficult his task would be. The longer Joe had to wait, the antsier he felt. He owed Al so much, and yet... When Joe started criticizing Al in public, Joe looked pained. (But then, he always looked pained what he criticized someone; it was one of the tricks he'd learned.) Not that he wanted to criticize Al, of course, but he had to confess: Some of the things Al had said back in 2000 had probably cost them some votes. That whole "people vs. the powerful" business, for instance -- it turns out Joe had never been comfortable with that. He'd never used the phrase himself. He'd just never been convinced that that kind of divisive rhetoric was the right way to go. Though it pained him to say so. But not nearly as much as it pained Al. Al, who'd been running the "if only"s back and forth in his head since election night, who'd be running them back and forth forever. After all he and Joe had been through together, as close as they'd come to winning the big prize, as crucial as every vote had turned out to be, for his partner even to suggest that Al's loss was Al's own fault...! Had Al ever criticized Joe for...for being too much in love with his own sense of humor? For trying to slip one punch line too many past Dick in their big debate? Dick had swatted it out of the park, and people decided that Dick wasn't such a cold fish after all, that George and Dick made a cute couple, too. How many votes had that cost him? But Al never said a word. And this is the thanks he gets? Poor wounded, damaged Al -- he responded the only way he knew how: He wrote an op-ed article, and he fired back, defending his phrases, and his principles. He never mentioned Joe's name. He didn't have to. It's over. Posted 8/6/02. Get
all the latest on politics (and other contact sports) right here at
"Rick's"!
|
  |
Rick Horowitz
