“Can you believe”? Silver Smith was a talker. She never had fear that someday somebody would use her words to hurt her. The thought had never occurred to her. People talk, and for Silver Smith, talk was just that. Why make it more than that? Talk show hosts say things, and sometimes they say too much. So it goes, get over it.
Still, Silver had opinions. She was not prone to holding them back. Like that stupid boy who actually thought that Republicans cared about people, she just so had to express her opinion about that. “Everybody knows that all they do is cut taxes for the rich people.” Silver didn’t consider herself an economist, but she had real experience with tax sheltered programs. The University Housing program had been really good to her when she had that roommate problem – it seems that some women just go to college to get high, get connected [not exactly the term she’d heard, but …], and get a joint bank account. Silver had difficulty getting Samantha thrown out of University housing, and she heard, just weeks later, the University, but after all, like the Campus Services counselor had convinced her to think, “what are we here for”?
“Tommy Cinnins is actually trying to defend the Republicans”. Silver looked across the table at Marta, who almost put her fork down. Silver realized that she better keep talking or Marta would get started. “Think of all the damage they’ve done the past eight years. I mean, all that money going overseas and we have so many people here who can’t afford their own houses and they can’t drive to work because they can’t afford the gas, and who do they give tax cuts to? They give the tax cuts to those rich oil companies that lined their election campaign pockets. That money could have gone into health care. They’re all about Corporations. What about the little people? Why the Democrats have been proposing sensible National Health Care since my mother was a child; she told me so.” Marta put her fork in her mouth, so Silver figured it was a good time to get a drink of water without fear that Marta would take up the conversation. Silver liked Marta, but the point wasn’t politics, it was Tommy Cinnins, and Silver realized that Marta would never get that.
“I was watching on cable last night, you know that guy who was a sportscaster and then made it all the way up to be like the politically incorrect voice of the truth about the Republicans and, his phrase, ‘your Government’”, Marta looked up at Silver, who, taking that as an acknowledgement, continued “and he said that eight out of ten Americans don’t think the Country is on the right track, and seven in ten don’t think the President or the Congress is doing a good job. I just don’t understand how Tommy can defend the President, who obviously has stopped everything the Congress has tried to do the past few years. I heard that they were going to stop providing access to low cost loans for Community Colleges. How can people learn if they can’t go to school?”
Marta broke in, briefly, “I guess they’re like Samantha, they go after the rich guy in the glass house …”.
Silver continued, almost as if she didn’t hear Marta, but she had, she just didn’t want to reveal that she was conflicted about what had happened. In fact she liked Samantha, it was just that she was always coming in late on the weekends and making noise and, well then there was that one time that Silver had walked in on Samantha with three other people, she wasn’t even going to think about that. Samantha had been the wrong person to live with at college, that was all, and that was all there was to it. But, she had been a little unfair she thought, since she was the one who was spending time in their room, playing that little Casio piano as if she was a music major. And while Sam packed her stuff, hadn’t they both enjoyed Madonna’s ancient hit “Holiday” – they’d had a good laugh together when she said, ‘it’s alright, really, I wanted to go to a Division 2 school in Atlanta anyway, now this is just my little Holiday on the way, I won't last at the Sorority, you know that’.
“Tommy thinks that the Republicans are going to win the election. What an idiot. Do you know anybody who is a Republican? I don’t, other than Tommy, of course. I think he needs to be rescued from his ignorance.” Marta looked at her while taking a bite out of a sandwich. Silver placed her soup spoon on the tray, stood up, saying “it’s been nice talking with you”, and she walked away.
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