OLD FRIENDS ARE LIKE GOLD

So, what have we learned?

Maybe I'll start with the art of survival. An inexact science when dealing with the morons in Chancery here in old Boston. (There, I said it. 'Old Boston'. In some circles just a while ago, that slip could have found you on the Wall.)

When I was seven, my dad uprooted our family, yet again. That one had been the third time in the same school year. Me, an elementary school egg-head, it was not a good idea for me to be changing schools that often. The first day on the playground at my third school of that year, I had been beaten up. Badly, I might add.

It was my fault, really. When the oversized bully spied me, it was me who approached him. Me, I intended to go for laughs. So I told him a joke - a dad joke - and when he paused to look quizzically at me, I hauled off and belted him. I considered it preemptive.

Initially, that had put the playground crowd on my side. They'd never seen the bully laid out like that.

Two things happened from that. One, the bully got up. I shouldn't need to recount what followed, you can use your imagination.

Two, when I got home dad asked about my injuries. I leveled with him - I told him I was having trouble making friends. I'd said, "Why can't we go back to the other town, at least at that school I had friends."

Then his little ditty, which he would sing as seriously as it was melodious. "Two types of friends, we have the new and the old; one is silver, the other is gold."

Ok, I'm procrastinating. I'm sure you did not wish to read my old grade-school traumas.

Remember what this was about - number one was to list the learnings we may have had. Number two was to put those learnings into the context of survival.

My learning began with going backstage at the particicution grounds, where I said goodbye to my frat buddy, the Eye-guy, yes the friend who had got me embedded into the Sons of Jacob, had even got Eleanor our house as well as all that looted art.

His hands were bound, he had large Guardians on each side. Seeing me approach him, he offered a weak, "Say, Joe, could you do an old frat-buddy a favour, just for old-times?"

I knew he understood when I said, "No can do, dude, no can do. This is nothing personal, it's a simple transaction, that's all." It occurred to me that me using the familiar designation of 'dude' with him, must have stung. I'd not meant it that way. Usually that's a word he applied to me. Maybe he was thinking that if he'd been more polite with me - his old pal - it wouldn't have come to this.

It was Aunt Lydia's voice coming over the public address system. It was starting. As she was instructing the Handmaids to form a circle, she enunciated my buddy's fictional crimes - of rape, of violating and killing a pregnant Handmaid…. you get the idea.

As the Guardians muscled him out onto the field in front of the stage, it occurred to me that neither Aunt Lydia nor Blaine had told me why my buddy had to go. I wanted to call out one last time, 'Look, dude, this is nothing personal. It's not that I'm not grateful for what you did for me and Eleanor.'

But I didn't. Soon, the commotion of wild and murderous Handmaids drowned out everything else.

I went to my SUV, and was driven back to Chancery.

ALLIANCES 'R US

I knew I was asking for the moon, but I could not resist.

Lydia Clements was Gilead's iron lady. We'd reached an uneasy agreement. From my lofty position in the New Gilead Chancery, I could do things for her. For her part, Aunt Lydia had an iron grip on the Bloodlines Genealogical Archives locked away in her Ardua Hall fortress. In exchange for things I could do for her, she'd feed me info about my brother Commanders in Chancery. Where they'd buried bodies, etc. Transactional economics. I could do that stuff in my sleep.

I was betting the farm on assuming that I was her only Chancery benefactor. Although I wouldn't put it past the old bat to be playing three or four of us for fools.

This ask, though, was tougher. At least my proposal merited this visit by Lydia to my lonely house. (Beth and Sienna were long gone, and I had never put in the paperwork for replacement marthas. My Eye-guy had been a Psych major in the before-times. He'd called my neglect in the martha-department a 'micro-aggression' against myself. Having to cook and clean for myself - as a Commander! - was my way of punishing myself. For what happened with Eleanor. The big reveal on that, he and Eleanor had dated before we'd met. He had been sweet on her. He knew all about her challenges. His fondness for her had gone a long way to promote our longevity. Enough said; I don't want to stray too far from having Aunt Lydia, herself, standing across my desk from me.)

(Besides, my Eye-guy, he was now gone.)

"Commander Lawrence," Lydia opened, "I want to thank you again for rescuing and returning Aunt Janine to us. That girl is a natural in helping Handmaids adjust to their high calling."

I reminded Lydia that those sorts of favours were what we did. Her raising the topic of the one-eyed-Aunt before I'd said anything put me at a slight advantage in the negotiation to come. I'd not yet offered or even said anything. On such transactional-slips turned whole empires and their longevity. Not to mention the tenures of Commanders.

OFJOSEPH NUMBER FIVE

What I was proposing to Aunt Lydia was met with silence. Man oh man, I could not read that woman.

She eventually said, "Well, you do have The Witnessing in your favour. The one that Commanders Waterford and Winslow had arranged." Having had four previous Handmaids with not one pregnancy were part of those dreaded Bloodlines Genealogical Archives. Getting rid of my own file from there was one 'ask' I knew would not work with Lydia. No one voluntarily gives up that kind of influence. I'd have to have her appointed as High Commander to be able to exchange for those pieces of paper. (And our current High Commander was not budging.)

She continued, "And this one has just been taken from her own baby. She's also not had proper preparation at Ardua Hall. She's a 'recent arrival', although I'll give you that she knows the lay of all this land."

Sensing a shift in the power dynamics of my office, without asking Lydia went over and got a chair. She placed it where she had been standing. Without asking, she sat with a troubled look on her face.

She continued again, "Then there is the issue of lingering entitlements. She may feel entitled to unHandmaid things. So if you don't mind Commander Lawrence, I now need to ask you your intentions."

The thoroughness of Aunt Lydia's thought should not have surprised me. Trying to buy some time in this shifting relationship between an Aunt and a Commander, I asked, "You mean my intentions with regard to a new Ofjoseph?"

"No," she said sharply. "Your intentions in general." She studied me. "As a widower, you may need time. Mrs. Lawrence was a valued, 'Wife of Gilead'. I know that you know that I still extend to you the most sincere of sympathies in your loss."

Bullshit. I mean, if Aunt Lydia was being sincere in that, my estimation of her just went down considerably. Truth be told, she was calculating. I liked her better as an old bat.

I said, "Aunt Lydia, you are correct, it is not your concern. But if you must know, truly I am not ready for remarriage. And if I were, I can assure you that making Serena Joy Waterford the new Mrs. Lawrence is not in the cards."

THEY COME EQUIPPED WITH A MARTHA

It was a two-fer.

Aunt Lydia had agreed to Ofjoseph #5 coming into the house on the condition that I employ a Martha. So much for my micro-aggressions against myself. It would have made my Eye-guy, frat-brother Psych major happy that I was on the mend. If he had been around.

Serena Joy, Ofjoseph #5, settled herself into the bedroom on the opposite end of the upstairs hall. It was weird. She had that 'shell-shocked' look to her. Rarely came out of her room. Me, I couldn't help but envisage that narrow strip of hallway as being where Dr. Malek had stuck a steak-knife in Aunt Lydia's back. I wondered if I should get the new Martha, whatever the hell her name was, to have Serena Joy searched each time she ascended the stairs to her room. Not that she left her room much. But I did not want to appear paranoid.

Annoyed, but not pair-annoyed.

Ok, I get it. The Ceremony was awkward. One did not have both Dr. Malek as well as June Osborne in the house as Handmaids and miss that part. With Eleanor it had been more than that, it was verboten. But let me tell you how awkward The Ceremony was with Serena Joy around.

It had been a couple of weeks. I'd just come back from The Chancery. Late. Dinner for one was being set in the dining room. (Neither the new Martha nor Ofjoseph had ever yet ate with me.)

But on my arrival from the garage below, the Martha was (uncharacteristically) not in the kitchen. Everything was on the boil, leaning to look into the far-off dining room I could see the plates all set out. It looked like we may be having some company. But no one was around. I bellowed for the Martha, probably got her name wrong, and heard her calling from the sitting room.

Setting down my hat, coat and briefcase, I ventured forth. Entering the stone cold silent sitting room, I observed the Martha standing at attention by the bookcase. And as I live and breath, there was Serena Joy festooned in red, kneeling on a red pillow in front of the fireplace. Me, I was expected to secure the Bible, turn to the bit about Bilhah, and start the evening's gala festivities.

Fuck me. No, belay that. Bad choice of words. I told Ofjoseph to get up, which she did. Both she and the martha stood frozen, rooted to where they were. Mainly to maintain the one-sided conversation, I asked her to go stand over by the martha.

There they were. My girls. (I slip that in just to anger any future progressive who might read this. My frat brother used to say that I did stuff like that out of lingering bitterness over campus-feminists, and my failed tenure. God, I miss him!)

The martha stood frozen in obvious fear. She had that look of someone terrified as to what was going to happen next. She wasn't shaking, but almost.

Ofjoseph was different. She stood there as the most pliable figurine I'd ever seen in a biological entity. She was simply going to do what was commanded. She was a bit of an automaton, at least her vacant face looked like that. Her eyes didn't seem to focus anywhere in particular.

Me, I was tempted to launch into a stand-up routine, just to try to pry a smile from either of them. "A Commander, a martha, and a Handmaid walk into a bar….." But, no. This scene did not play well for laughs.

"Ok, ladies," I finally said, "Here's the deal. There is no Mrs. Lawrence. As to the possibility of any future Mrs. Lawrence, that, my friends, is none of your business."

The respective demeanors changed not one whit. Fear on the left, limp pliability on the right, and me stuck in the middle with you. I was going to demand that they lighten up, but there are some things even a Commander cannot command. Not even in his own house.

So I finished, "Here's the deal. No Mrs. Lawrence, no ceremony. So where's my dinner?"