As I made my way back home and thought about Wolverine’s wants, none of what he wanted was surprising.  He had passed me a folder with photographs of attendees at his soiree.  The photographs included names, brief bios, and pertinent career information.  The photos included high-ranking military officers, senior defense contractors, intelligence officers, especially from the NGA, and politicians.   He asked me to guard the folders like a precious secret.  He added he might have ideas in the future for stories on these folks.  The public might, he conjectured, one day like to know the kind of parties its bigwigs attended.  Wolverine could barely conceal his delight at having so many people enrolled in his book of eligibles to blackmail.

Despite the bar soiree having so much business-chat built into it, Wolverine, Tucker, and I had a good visit.  Tucker still had occasional moments where he was not in the grip of right-think dogmatisms. I still preferred his company to a feminist coven.   Tucker had yet to conclude that the Clintons and their minions were pedophiles running a kiddy prostitution operation out of a pizza parlour in downtown DC.  His refreshing skepticism about some looney hypotheses back then made him easier to talk to and snarled less.  He was still wearing, as I’ve mentioned, bow ties.  I liked it. He sometimes reminded me of George Will. 

If you spent half hours with Tucker, you did have to endure his boring sermons on how other people should live, but he was sometimes hilarious, often without knowing it.  Wolverine, Tucker, and I all got to know each other better that evening.  After all, there are limits to how well you get to know somebody from online chess or chatting on Skype. For example, I had no idea that Wolverine had known Chaucer.  They had first met as guests at Windsor Castle.  Some of the royals, perhaps the Queen Mother, could not get enough of them. Wolverine also loosened up after a few Campari.  At his inebriated best, Wolverine was a delightful raconteur. 

When I, at last, got back home, I made a surreptitious entry.  Once in, I rounded a corner to head into the kitchen.  Rather than the scent of tuna, I felt a bolt of pain shooting into my head. Bart sucker-punched me as I rounded the corner.  I took a right paw and then left to the nose.  She carried on about her eunuch (that would be me) daring to come home stinking of amaretto and cream. She calmed herself by beating me up, then evicted me from the kitchen without tuna.  I imagined I had escaped to a happier place.  I was wrong.  Fielding beat me up as soon as I entered the living room.  She resented me going for a ramble without her.  If she enjoyed anything in the world, it was a good walkabout.  I escaped her clutches, but I didn’t get to a happier place until I crawled into the bottom of my bed.  In the bed, I set myself up at Roberta’s feet.  Her body’s heat warmed me.  She muttered I was a good kitty and fell back to sleep.  Tell me you’re not jealous of my having a servant like that.  If anything is admirable in a servant, it is gullibility.  She never figured out I had been out.  Perhaps mike didn’t notice either, but I suspect he didn’t care one way or the other. 

When I woke up in the morning, I discovered irritating news.  Roberta had no prospects of a job at Fort Leonard Wood that paid the vast sum she viewed herself as worth.  As I think I’ve mentioned, she had set herself up with an associate dean’s gig in Saint Louis.    She had decided to let a flat in Webster Groves until she knew Saint Louis and its environs well enough to buy a house.  Then I heard more news worth knowing.  She was going to take Bart and me with her.  Fielding and my boys would stay in Saint Robert with mike.  They would travel with mike on weekends to visit us.  I was unsure whether I liked this arrangement. I hated the impertinence of my servants making these decisions with my input.  And why wouldn’t be mad.  First off, Fielding and the kids would be living in a much larger place than I would be.  That seemed clearly wrong.  Second, neither Roberta nor mike knew how long the arrangement would last.  Time would tell.  I was sure, too, that neither Chicago nor Quine would approve of weekly travel.  Quine in particular detested car trips.  Look at the picture above. You an see what a nervous Nelly he is.