put it, âtake the short swordââquit before they bounced me off the air.
On the other hand, I didnât want to make it any easier for them by quitting prematurely, not if there was a chance I could stay in television a while longer. I donât know why. It wasnât like television had been bery, bery good to me. But it certainly had its high points, like the vigilantism series, and it was kind of like a home to me. Iâd been with ANN since the beginning, and if I made it to my next anniversary Iâd get a silver-plated satellite pin and a signed certificate from Georgia Jack Jackson.
âIâm flying down to Miami late tomorrow,â Bob said, putting on his coat. âIâm going to miss a few of the meetings.â
Now I suddenly saw the whole picture. It could go any way for me, and McGravy wouldnât be here to stand up for me in the executive meetings, so I had to be extra good and make an extra-swell impression on the higher-ups.
Bad news indeed. The Stoly bottle behind the oak bar was glinting at me most invitingly. But before I could consider the temptation further, McGravy said, âDonât do it, Robin, remember Max Guffy.â
The door into Buddyâs opened and the resulting draft blew Bobâs comb-over up, so it stood almost on end, exposing his bald spot. He didnât notice and was about to go when I pulled him back and gently pushed the hair back over his bald spot. âLook nice for your date,â I said.
Bob smiled at me, kissed my cheek, and said again, âRemember Max Guffy.â Then he left me to finish my beer alone.
Max Guffy was a good reason not to give in to the vodka goddess. It was such a good reason that I pulled out my reporterâs notebook and wrote it down, inspirational saying number 247: Remember Max Guffy.
As if I could forget him. Getting avant-garde undertaker Max Guffy had been a real coup for me, as heâd never done a television interview before and heâd never allowed cameras into his operation. For months Iâd schmoozed him, and finally he had agreed to talk to me, without cameras, in preparation for an on-air interview that would set the tone for my special report on death in modern America.
The meeting began well and we established what I thought was an immediate rapport. Then Guffy showed me around the embalming, makeup, and hair facilities, where I had the dubious privilege of watching three dead people sitting side-by-side, strapped into chairs under hair dryers while a stylist coiffed a fourth corpse in front of a mirror. Afterward, we sat in Guffyâs eerily quiet office and I confessed I felt uncomfortable, knowing that most of the people in the building were dead, that we were outnumbered, so he poured us both shots of vodka from the full bar he kept in his office for the bereaved.
Now, it wasnât just vodka, it was Zubrowska, a beautiful, hard-to-find Polish vodka that goes down like water and leaves a light honey aftertaste in the mouth. As you can imagine, a swift shot of Zubrowska really loosened us up. Before long we were laughing together like old friends and exchanging mordant undertaker jokes. When he offered another shot, I was feeling rather warm and convivial, and took it. I hadnât had vodka for a while but I thought, hey, Iâm in a funeral home. How much trouble can I get into here?
One slip of the tongue later, and an angry, red-faced Max Guffy was asking me to leave his office, saying he wouldnât speak to ANN if his life depended on it.
He called me âtabloidesque.â
No more vodka, I resolved after that. As I said, that day with Guffy was the second-to-last time I had vodka, so clearly my resolve didnât last long. The last time I had vodka (and rather a lot of it) was with comic Howard Gollis, on our fourth date, the night we almost had sex.
Blessings in disguise, bright sides, silver linings ⦠I wanted to believe in all that stuff,
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