Copyright 1995(c)

                         THE TIGER IN EXON'S TANK
                         A Ruby Begonia Adventure

     "He did what?" Ruby screamed into the telephone.
     "Surprised, are we?" asked a deceptively calm David.
     "Outfreakinraged is what I am," Ruby stormed. "I am out-
freakin-rage-freakin-edddd."
     She kicked the desk chair on Del's side of the room, moving it
into the desk ledge and tipping a cup of ice water and Del's
ashtray. 
     "Temper, temper," said David. 
     "Stop her, stop her," Del hollered, rushing to the defense of
her work space. "Get back, you beast," Del warned Ruby. Ruby
snarled. Del snarled back and Ruby backed up.
     "What *is* your problem?" Del asked, handing Ruby the mop and
watching critically.
     "They got laws coming on the Internet," said Ruby. "Jeez, next
they'll be coming around for 30 pieces of silver. This is America,
ain't it? What the fuh's goin' on?"
     "Legislature is legislating," said Del. "That's what it does.
I remember I had a friend once who said to me, "I'm a drunk. I
drink. That's what drunks do.
     "Legislature legislates sort of like he drank," said Del.
     "Well, they're all mucked up, I can tell you that," said Ruby,
stomping her foot and causing miniature piranha to dance on waves. 
     "I'm just the one to straighten them out, too," said she.
     "Off to Washington, are you dear?" asked Del.
     "Yep," said Ruby.
     "Do not take my Sterling Cooper suit," said Del.
     "Aw," said Ruby. "It's cold up there. That suit'll look to die
with that great camel Furchgotts knee-length cape I got for 99
cents what probably cost a hundred 25 years ago. A bright reddish
scarf, light wool, really feathery like that light yellow one -
bunched up at the neck and a big gaudy pin," said Ruby.
     "It'll look gaudy but it doesn't have to because it isn't
going anywhere," said Del.
     "It'll be so disappointed," said Ruby, almost inaudibly.
     "Tough," said Del, hearing that but missing Ruby's addition:
"And surprised, too," Ruby said even more quietly, patted the bag
and disappeared.
     Del and Dave always liked that part best.
     Ruby entered the legislature and sat in the spectator's
gallery, targeting her man. She wore the Sterling Cooper suit with
two-inch conservative black-fabric shoes and black Hanes hose. She
wore a boustierre under the suit jacket and had a red shawl draped
across one shoulder. The jaunty red rose she'd pinned to the lapel
was just right. Ruby lamented it did not have a rhinestone center
but Freeman had no taste.
     She sidled up to a page. 
     "Which one's Exon?" she asked loudly.
     "I'm Exon," said a voice, and Ruby beckoned by holding up a
matchbook from a local dinner club, dropping the packet an empty
seat nearby. He tried not to seem in a hurry as he moved to collect
it, anxious it wouldn't be there.
     She had him.
     The twosome rocked the night away, doing the twist and sipping
whiskey sours. They had champagne at the stroke of midnight and
mimosas thereafter. The tiddly twosome wound its way homeward for
nightcap cognacs, thankfully on foot.
     When they got down there Ruby discovered that he was not the
Exon Ruby had been seeking. Frank Exon from Adele, Georgia, widget
salesman and surprised recipient of Ruby's attention would be glad,
he said, to vote against Exon but didn't think the Senate would let
him. 
     The night was lost, the following day's vote was, too, and
Ruby came home. 
     Rudy, during her absence, had managed to go another round with
the neighbor's dog, Bear, in some sort of stubborn psychical
refusal to acknowledge the overtones of the other dog's name. Rudy
limped. First because he could do no other and later when he
thought it would guarantee favored treatment.
     Ruby sat around despondently making fudge, stirring her stumps
only to make a new batch. Fortunately, it was microwavable, the
only way Ruby could cook.
     "Ah, Rudy," she told the little red-brown dog, flipping him a
piece of fudge. "Soon, they'll figure out you're man's best friend
and they'll wire you up to convey my very thoughts. Egad, what
next?"
     Rudy caught the fudge on the first bound. Click. Whirr, Chomp,
he said, ears aloft awaiting the next bite.

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