New Hampshire Is for Lovers

"You think he's too dark?" Heinie asked, tilting his head and squinting at the screen. "One shade too dark, am I right?"

His assistant, Carl Tuckerson, 24 and looking 16, considered this, watching the plasma screen through a thin fog emitting from the surface of the tub. "He's no darker than that one actress," he said, "the one with the great tits. The one who won the Oscar."

"He's definitely darker than her!" Heinie protested. Heinie reached for his Scotch, which he drank straight, from a collectible tumbler bearing the face of Sandra Bullock in "Speed 2." He loved Sandra Bullock, who he'd met once at an Austin benefit for some random disease. He'd gone just to meet her and ask her to marry him. He didn't want to think about that now. Hadn't gone as planned.

"Darker? You think?" Tuckerson said, watching Heinie's face. He loved Heinie unconditionally but knew he would have to wait for him to make the first move. "C'mon," continued Heinie, "Look at him! He's more like African black. He's not pop-star black. There's a crucial difference. There's an almost universally desired skin color, and it's a medium tan. All around the world, white people try to tan themselves to that point. You ever been to Scandinavia?"

Tuckerson had not, but if Heinie asked him to, he would. In a quick fluttery beat of his fragile heart, he would!

"You go to Scandinavia. Every lady you see has this tan. This caramel-colored tan. They have tanning salons on every corner. And that's the color people like in their black people. It's pop-singer black. Light brown, or beige, you know? But not much darker."

"Like the golfer," Tuckerson offered.

"Right."

The two sat for a moment, watching the C-SPAN audience stand and applaud for Hamilton. Every audience Hamilton spoke to, invariably and completely white, was only too happy to stand for this man, who made them feel infinitely less guilty about absolutely everything.

"His nose is too flat," Heinie observed.

"Is it?" Tuckerson said, and wanted to punch himself. Stupid! He hoped Heinie didn't think he was doubting him. He knew how much Heinie knew about everything, and how little he himself knew, for while Heinie had been educated at the University of Hard Knocks -- he told him this often and had a sweatshirt that underlined the point -- Tuckerson had graduated from Swarthmore, having studied Classics. Thus he knew nothing and wouldn't know anything until Heinie told him what to know.

"Way too flat," Heinie reiterated.

"You're right. You're so right. Now I see it. Wow. Totally flat. No bridge at all."

"And the nostrils. Way too flare-y."

"Yeah."

"You see how much they flare? Like manholes."

"Right. Big manholes. Man, you are so correct about that." Tuckerson had never kissed a man but knew this was right, he knew this man was the door through which he would pass on the way to joy, to enlightenment, to a life of light and glamour and fame.

"The strange thing is that while this guy's preaching about appealing to the middle, he's actually racially extreme, you know? If he was so serious about the middle, he'd be a little lighter, am I right?" Heinie warmed to the subject, impressed with his own powers of insight. Sometimes he wondered if his brain was wearing some kind of X-ray lenses that enabled him to see through all the hocus-pocus and lies, to see how everything worked, the patterns, the machinery, the sociopolitical equations in constant action, the 1s and 0s. He glanced at Tuckerson, who seemed to be closer than he was a second ago and whose mouth seemed to be quivering.

"I mean, the nostrils should be a little less nose-flare-y, right? I mean, really, how can a guy talk about bridging the gaps between us, leading one nation together and upward -- whatever he's always saying -- when he insists on being this totally black-black guy, right? Why not do the caramel compromise, am I right? The guy's just plain hypocritical, if you think about it."

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