SHOULDA, WOULDA, COULDA

By CALVIN TRILLIN

I was having trouble concentrating on the final presidential debate because I kept imagining Ross Perot watching alone in his Dallas mansion and yelling out the answer to every question the moment it was asked, like a particularly geeky member of Mensa taking in a week's worth of Jeopardy! tapes on Saturday night.

Perot was not the only member of the nationwide debate audience cluttering up my mind. I also thought of my friend James, who was watching the sixth game of the National League playoffs on a muted television while listening to the debate on earphones.

When James explained his plans to me on the afternoon of the debate, either he accidentally turned things around or I misunderstood him. I came away with the impression that he was listening to the baseball game on earphones while watching the debate on a silent television.

"Four strikeouts by Maddux so far, and not one walk--that's control for you," I could imagine the play-by-play announcer saying from Atlanta, as James watched Bill Clinton emerge slowly from behind the lectern, fix the questioner with a fearsomely sincere look, and speak words that were not heard. I found the thought of that disconcerting, but also--well, let's be honest about it--tempting.

My wife, who was watching the debate with me, had no way of knowing that these thoughts were running through my mind. She seemed to be having no trouble concentrating on what the candidates were saying, although I thought I heard her sigh every time one of them slid into his familiar campaign boilerplate. She looked puzzled when I blurted out, "Do you think this would be better with the sound off?"

"Shhh," she finally replied, apparently having decided that I couldn't have said what she thought she'd heard me say.

"It was just a thought," I mumbled.

In fact, my thoughts had by then turned to Michael Dukakis. I imagined him watching in his den in Massachusetts, wearing that helmet he wore in the unfortunate picture of him peering out of a tank during the 1988 campaign. Presumably, he wears it on debate nights, the way some veterans get out their old Eisenhower jackets on D-day anniversaries. He's thinking, as he often does during presidential debates, what he should have said when Bernard Shaw asked him how he'd feel about punishment if someone raped his wife.

"I'd tear his guts out," Dukakis says, glancing over at a mirror to see if he looks sufficiently impassioned. "I'd break his legs with my bare hands ..."

"Let me tell you the real story on that one," a squeaky voice interrupts. It's Ross Perot. It's what he has shouted out even before one of the citizen-questioners in San Diego can complete her question to Bob Dole about the economy. "Let's just take that one apart and see what makes it tick."

"Poland is under Soviet domination," Gerald Ford is saying as he watches the debate from an expensive condo next to some golf course. "Italy is not under Soviet domination. Hungary is under Soviet domination." Ford chants rhythmically, like a schoolchild naming state capitals.

"... I'd roast his gizzard," Dukakis is saying. "Feed his ears to the geese ..."

"Did you hear me?" It was my wife's actual voice.

"What?"

"I said O.K.," she said. "Let's see if it's better with the sound off."