It was with a pep in his step that Robert Quinlan, a recently retired corporate attorney hailed in his firm’s parting tribute for, among other fine qualities, his “unfailing courtliness,” emerged one bright autumn morning from a 66th Street medical building. Here he was, the brand-new recipient of a cardiologist’s clean bill of health, which followed last week’s thumbs up from his general practitioner, and on the cusp of a lovely day in Manhattan with his wife, Helen, who, after hosting her book club back home in Brooklyn, was just then en route to meet him downtown. (First up was a matinee of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg at Film Forum, after which they’d stroll a bit, perhaps visit a few galleries, have a glass of wine somewhere and finally eat an early dinner at a Yemeni restaurant recommended by the Frenkels.)
All of it left Quinlan feeling spry and chipper, and, with Dr. Wick’s reminder to keep getting lots of exercise fresh in mind, he decided to set off south on foot and go as far as his high spirits took him.
Besides, he’d always loved Manhattan, where he’d worked his entire career, yet nowadays didn’t make it into the city very much, instead mainly occupying himself—delightfully, to be sure—with reading and gardening and walking the dog. It would be a pleasure to roam these streets again.
Thus, onward Quinlan strode, ever so faintly grinning, neat silver hair agleam in the sun, until he felt his phone vibrate at 60th and Fifth. Withdrawing it from the inside pocket of his barn jacket, he tapped on a text from his daughter, Claire, in Chicago and saw she’d attached a clip of little Henry strumming a ukulele. Promptly going to a nearby building plaza bench, Quinlan pushed his wire-rimmed glasses onto his head and watched.
“Adorable!” he wrote back the instant the video was done.
Then, since his phone was already out, he couldn’t resist a quick scroll through the Times.
But soon Quinlan was on the move again, riding the sidewalk tide as adroitly as he used to. He’d just deftly dodged an oncoming double amputee in a wheelchair, deploying a quick sideways hop embroidered with a touch of the matador, when there was a minor uproar across Fifth Avenue. Glancing in its direction, Quinlan momentarily thought an exotic bird with brassy yellow plumage was being paraded on someone’s shoulder—but no, he immediately realized, it was a Trump impersonator.
Quinlan stepped to the curb, out of the flow of foot traffic, to revel in this mockery of the monster who’d tortured him for nearly a decade. It was amazing! The impersonator, surrounded by a small chanting crowd, had accounted for every crucial detail. The ludicrous coif and preposterous skin tone, of course, but also the asinine glower, the girdle-necessitating girth, the itsy-bitsy fist brandished ridiculously to convey “strength”!
Even the fist! marveled the beaming Quinlan. That miniature nub! How on earth did one manage to so realistically simulate such an unnaturally tiny hand? This seemed extraordinarily difficult. This seemed borderline miraculous. This seemed…
Quinlan looked more intensely at the impersonator. Then, in a real-life replication of a camera movement he somehow associated with Antonioni, his optical focus suddenly zoomed out, dramatically expanding his field of vision and revealing that, without having been aware of it, he’d gotten as far as 56th Street and was standing across the way from Trump Tower. Once again, he bore in on the impers—
Robert Quinlan’s innards lurched. Every inch of his skin turned to fire. His gleeful smile became the crazed glare of a man possessed. This was what he’d lusted for, fantasized about—but had known in his heart of hearts could never happen.
And yet here he was, stalking across Fifth Avenue, oblivious to the cars braking all around him, about to unleash upon Donald Trump, disgusting global menace, a torrent of invective that’d make the bastard weep.
***
Everyone wanted to hear Quinlan’s tale. What mystified Helen, who knew better than anyone the depth of her husband’s contempt for Trump, and who felt this same contempt not a bit less acutely, was how little satisfaction he appeared to take in telling it.
Right from the start, Robert’s demeanor vis-à-vis the encounter was strange. How, she wondered, could he possibly have been so calm, almost somber, walking into Film Forum? So bizarrely restrained, seemingly even a smidge reluctant, while relaying his account in the popcorn-smelling lobby? It made no sense! His story deserved to be shouted from the rooftops!
“Well,” he’d said in a soft, slow voice, after a hesitantly delivered prologue that had her jumping out of her skin for the real juiciness as they stood beside a framed Yojimbo poster, waiting to be admitted to the theater. “First, I told him to go fuck himself.”
Helen’s hands flew straight to her heart, as though it were aflutter.
“And then?”
“I said, ‘Shouldn’t you be committing treason somewhere, Fatso?’”
Helen hopped girlishly in the air, then shook her fists in exultation.
“Anything else?”
“I asked if he’d sold any state secrets today.”
“Oh, yay!” Helen cried, shimmying her fuchsia-swathed shoulders and giving him a smooch.
“That’s got to be it, right?” she asked, wiping a smudge of matching fuchsia lipstick from his cheek.
“No. I also told him he’s a dunce, a slob and a loser, and that I know he knows it.”
Even now, almost a week later, while dicing beets from the farmer’s market, replaying it in her mind gave her a thrill. What more could a right-thinking person ever hope for? What?
Yet there at Film Forum, as people overhearing the conversation clapped and cheered and, in the case of a snowy-bearded man in a beret holding a copy of Berlin Alexanderplatz, took Robert’s hand and offered heartfelt thanks, her husband looked deeply uncomfortable, indeed slightly pained, and quickly absented himself under the pretext of needing to use the bathroom.
And he’d been no different in the days since, with all the friends and family eager to hear the story from the horse’s mouth. Yet, aside from occasional flashes of verve tied to discussion of Trump’s appearance (having made particular impressions at close range were the weirdly satanic eyebrows, the small, pale pink mouth Quinlan found evocative of a blow-up doll’s and the comprehensively sagging visage that summoned Auden’s “wedding cake left out in the rain”), Robert evinced little excitement about his experience, his tone bland, his presentation perfunctory…and that curious reticence reemerging whenever he was pressed for further details.
The complete strangers who approached him on the street, having heard God-knows-how, he refused to indulge at all, pretending to be in a rush and speed-walking away.
Volunteering at the library one morning, Sadie Simonds from three houses down, with whom they regularly socialized, suggested to Helen that perhaps Robert was conflicted, his conduct at Trump Tower being so starkly at odds with the sober, decorous persona he’d always carefully tended. This struck Helen as potentially shrewd, and so, that evening, as they sat reading in the parlor, she gently poked around with the idea.
Not raising his eyes from Stendhal, Robert just grumbled inarticulately.
Helen gazed across the high-ceilinged room at him, utterly at a loss.
“Well, Robert,” she sighed.
“Please just remember that it makes people happy. So many of us have been miserable because of that…wretch. We’re living vicariously through you.”
Again, Quinlan only grumbled.
***
Quinlan stood at the kitchen window with his coffee, watching Helen rake backyard leaves in the morning sun. Then a curtain fell over his eyes and she vanished…
He’d been able to get amazingly close to Trump, separated from him by a double layer of police barricades but, after wedging himself between a couple of fellow onlookers, not more than fifteen feet away. To see him in the flesh was disorienting, unreal-seeming, and for a few moments Quinlan simply gaped, bouncing on the balls of his boat shoes and chewing his lower lip. Then something about the line of demarcation between Trump’s heavy orange makeup and his untreated skin, running downward from his temple to where his jowl was stuffed into his shirt collar, brought him to his senses.
As Trump, planted in the center of the sidewalk and ringed at a short distance by stone-faced Secret Service agents, avidly posed—fist aloft, scowling “toughly”—for photo-snapping supporters, Quinlan, pairing untold hours of mental rehearsal with spontaneous inspiration, began launching the stream of ridicule which would, in the coming days, give so much joy to so many. Yet it was nothing, that joy, absolutely nothing, compared to the monumental exhilaration he himself experienced that morning, bellowing across the barricades. For even as Trump continued posing without reaction, Quinlan had no doubt, given his proximity to the loathsome beast, that his devastating abuses were being well and truly heard.
Alas, the confirmation of this conviction would be his torment.
“You’re a dunce, Donnie!” Quinlan now screamed, eyeglasses askew. “And a slob! And you know what else?! A LOSER! A very strong loser! And I know you know it, Donnie!”
Suddenly, Trump dropped his fist and swung in Quinlan’s direction. For a second, his eyes darted back and forth along the barricades. Then his glare zeroed in on Quinlan.
Without releasing Quinlan from his sights, Trump, crooking a stubby finger, beckoned one of his entourage, a pudgy, balding man with wraparound sunglasses and a beard meant to do the work of a nonexistent jawline. The flunkey jumped and, after presenting his ear to Trump’s mouth, also turned to Quinlan. Giving a quick tug to his lapels, he approached his boss’ heckler.
“Do you have something to say to the president?” the man whispered in Quinlan’s ear. His breath was a mixture of coffee and onions.
“The president?” Quinlan scoffed, smiling sardonically.
Trump’s minion leaned back in.
“The president would like to hear what’s on your mind. If you want to share it, now’s your chance.”
Quinlan peeked over the man’s shoulder at Trump, who continued to glare at him.
“Let’s go,” he commanded.
The lackey pulled back the barricade and, once Quinlan had been patted down by an agent, led him forward. Quinlan’s mind reeled with his endless options for insult.
Then, just as they were drawing up to Trump, the man abruptly stepped in front of Quinlan, so that Quinlan found himself looking at his reflection in his wraparounds.
“The president will give you an audience under one condition: that you address him properly.”
“Meaning?”
“That you call him ‘Sir.’”
Quinlan snorted.
“The president is very bravely standing here, ready to endure the vicious, totally unfair attacks of someone who clearly doesn’t appreciate him. Which, by the way, I find extraordinarily heroic on his part. All he asks is that appropriate respect be shown for the office of the presidency.”
Quinlan stood in silence, torn. Then, like God speaking to Moses, the voice of President Obama sounded in his head: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
“Okay,” he said.
With a nod, the henchman moved aside.
Quinlan and Trump regarded each other. Trump’s straw-like hair fluttered in the breeze. Quinlan watched him lift his eyebrows, waiting.
“Well, Sir…” And before Quinlan could get out another word, Trump, smirking, was gone.
***
No, he’d never tell a soul—least of all Helen. He’d never tell a soul and it would gnaw at him to the end.
Quinlan sighed, put down his coffee and went to help his wife in the yard.