by Jeff Soloway
It was almost a relief to spot the lie. “There, Mom.”
“Don’t be a child, Jacob. You saw how unbalanced the young man was. He might have done anything. Now watch this. It’s the climax.”
A widening still of Abraham Lincoln’s gaunt and soulful face, then brief clips of Martin Luther King orating before the Washington Monument, John F. Kennedy smiling regally in coattails, and Ronald Reagan relaxing with an ax by a pile of wood.
“All great Americans,” my mother said, “who got shot. Do you think everyone will get it? Carlton loved the concept once I explained it to him.”
Whether or not they grasped the whole message, the crowd was awed to silence. I was impressed too. Just as our subconscious mind picks up scraps of our real-life experiences and arranges them, with a strange and unassailable logic, into a nightmare, so the mesmerists of the television news, with the help of Chomp’s experts and, apparently, my mother, had arranged the events of this cruise into Chomp’s imagined assassination plot. I felt I had plunged into the collective mind of the Chompians. I was dreaming their dream, which they believed to be the Witch’s guilt nightmare.
I looked back to the plaza. The security men were still in formation. The smoking worker stood up and flicked his cigarette away. It made rings of fire until it settled in the sand.
And now a pale brilliant light streamed over the crow’s nest, re-illuminating Chomp, and the screen filled with his giant face. We could see both images together, the small and the enormous, the direct and the mediated. Seeing them together, and at the same time watching the eerie coordination of the smiles spreading across both images simultaneously, I understood for the first time the concept of a three-in-one God.
Chomp lifted his hands, and the cheering slackened enough for him to speak: “Looks like I’m a hard guy to kill.” The response was an explosion of ecstasy.
Chomp smirked down at the crowd, both spoofing John Wayne and embodying him. He understood the irony of acting, how the greatest stars can at the same time fake and define emotional expression. Just as Chomp learned to look tough from a mid-century ham, so would his fans and staff learn to look tough from him. Being tough—or actually beating people—was a different skill, learned in a different way.
Chomp let the smirk fade. “Tonight we mourn Clark Wolfson.”
“A hero,” my mother murmured.
“A hero, big-league,” Chomp said. “In his honor, we celebrate the birthday of what he hoped for. What many of us have hoped for—a new nation. One full of freedom. Look around. You’re in the place. What should we call it?”
The response was immediate: “Chomp, Chomp, Chomp, Chomp!”
He laughed them off, but leaned away from the microphone, to give the chant a little space to grow.
“Mom!” I had to cup my hands around my mouth. “Time to go!”
“Just listen!”
“America,” Chomp declared, and the crowd went quiet, “has abandoned us. We have to start fresh like the Pilgrims, very savvy people, look how they soaked the Indians. The Pilgrims, if you remember from history”—my mother nudged me in the ribs—“got fed up with tyranny in Europe. Well, we’re fed up with tyranny in America. Plus the crime. Plus the schools. We love our country, folks, but let’s face it, the place is falling apart. Grade schools in all fifty states are burning flags instead of reciting the Pledge. Teachers in inner-city high schools are selling their students crack. Last year, every single college in America had a mandatory—mandatory!—wear-a-burka day.” Here he stumbled for a moment around the platform, arms outstretched, like a blind zombie, as if burkas were also opaque from the inside. “Meanwhile, statues of our greatest heroes—Andrew Jackson, Stonewall Jackson, Bill Cosby—are every day getting smashed up. History is not dying, my friends. We’re jackhammering it.”
He nodded and wiped his forehead. On the screen his handkerchief looked as big as a parachute. Whether Chomp was joking or an idiot no longer mattered to his people. The sophisticates would laugh at his satire. The ignorant would relish the new absurd facts with which they could bash liberals.
“The courts are sick, Congress is sick, cities are sick, the highways have potholes the size of sand traps, plus every few miles they suck tolls out of you by camera. I call them vampire cameras. I call this country a vampire country. America—let’s face it—sucks. Time to start fresh. They know it, all our enemies. They’ll do anything to stop us. You know it. First they tried to vote us out. Then tried to shout us down. Today they tried to kill me. It didn’t work! It will never work! We have built a fortress in the sea. And let me tell you: It is beautiful.”
His face was unbearable. I looked over the crowd. One woman, at the back, not far from me, had also shifted her gaze. She was staring at me. She wore a long, dark gown, unsuited to the beach, and carried a martini glass between her fingers like a flower. She was Mrs. Chachkey. Her celebrity husband was by her side but, as usual, failing to notice her wandering gaze. She wiggled the glass at me. I nodded at her.
Chomp was now proceeding to a real-estate pitch. His face had vanished from the screen, replaced by images of the gorgeous beach in daytime, kids splashing in the sparkling water, athletes and models sunbathing, fit middle-aged couples right out of Viagra ads drink-clinking in chaise lounges, all images I knew from RMB’s press packet.
“Have I mentioned the tax rate? It’s zero. Does zero work for you? On Chomp Island, the people are in charge. That means laws that make sense. No flag burning. No making fun of the police or the military. Everybody here speaks English. No gangs, no terrorists, it’s an island. People say you can’t beat death and taxes. Well, we’ve dumped the taxes part. Bring on death! Chomp Island will have the best healthcare, because we’ll have all the best doctors. Best safety pros too. We’re offering housing and citizenship discounts for civilian heroes—cops, firemen, prison guards—and, folks in the military, you are absolutely free. Just get your CO’s permission, we’ll get you a beautiful villa on Chomp Island.”
“What’s this all about?” I asked my mother.
“He wants the military to come. He’s communicating with the brass. Most of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are his appointees. He’s convinced that each one will bring his whole chain of command.”
“The island isn’t that big.”
“That’s why he wants to expand.”
Chomp now pointed to the camera. “We need you. Every great nation was born in a war. America. Israel. Serbia. Who wants to be Canada and go begging for independence? I’d rather fight. We’ve already had our first casualty.”
A new image of Clark appeared on the screen, this one from his younger, heavier days. He was standing between two hefty buddies, all of them pulling University of Michigan sweat shirts more or less taut over their bellies. The Wolverines must have been winning.
“It’s from his Facebook page,” my mother said.
And now we saw an image of Carlos screaming atop the dinner table, while passengers around the table gaped in astonishment.
“But the fight is not over. Someone sent this killer. Someone from the pathetic and dying government of old America. Was it the utterly unfit current president? Was it the last loser candidate? I am close now, so close, to discovering the secret. It’s worse than you imagine. Who wants to live in a country where your leaders are murderers? Come live with us. Come live in freedom. In paradise. You’re all invited, all Americans, all true Americans. Thank you and good night!”
The Special Report concluded, and the screen went blank. But Chomp—the real one—was still both lit and miked.
“The TV report is over,” he said. “Fox is kicking it upstairs to the experts, who, I’m sure, are in love. But now I have a special message. To you, my beautiful Chompians. We have our own business to settle. We have one more battle to fight, right here. I have discovered, I am sorry to say, that there is a spy among us.”
>
“What does he mean now?” I asked.
My mother shook her head. New to her.
“And now I’m asking every single Chompian, whether on the island or tucked away in bed on the ship, watching me on TV, maybe, I’m asking you to help find this man. This spy. So dangerous. So violent. Take a look.”
My face appeared on the screen.
It was a shot from my author website; I was standing on the ridge over Machu Picchu, with the shark-tooth peak of Huayna Picchu looming over my windswept hair. My chin was scraggly with a half-tended goatee. My face was set in a hard-eyed stare into the distance. I looked—there was no denying it—like a real jerk. Had they Photoshopped it to add extra douchiness? All my efforts to appear rugged and worldly made me look instead pretentious and sinister.
I couldn’t look away from my own face. A thousand other people were staring with me. Perhaps the image was simultaneously showing on the ship’s TVs too, in which case maybe two or three thousand were staring. Every one of them hated me. The crowd hissed, howled, and swore at me. My name appeared in thick letters over the conveniently clear Peruvian sky. Now they had my name to hate too.
I looked at my mother, who was also staring at the image. Her lips were parted, her eyes wide, her whole expression overflowing with shock and dismay. Her hopes of power, influence, and fun were withering in the gleam of my enormous, ridiculous face.
She lowered her gaze. I could imagine what she was thinking. Her hopes were not, after all, quite dead. She had one chance to save them. She could give me up. She could call out to the crowd or, more discreetly, find the nearest guard. Maybe she was right now trying to convince herself that doing so would save my life. After performing her duty, she could plead my case before Chomp and try to win my acquittal. This could make Chomp love her even more. Had anyone so beautiful ever sacrificed so much for him? She could retake her place by his side, now more powerful than ever. Even Harvey would fear her.
I found myself rooting for her to betray me. Shouldn’t one of us live like Chomp, without compromises? What was love to him, or compassion, or guilt? Hurdles you could choose simply to stroll around rather than leap. So do it, I thought. Walk away from me. These days I always bitched about my mother. I found her sarcastic, prickly, and petty. But once she had been better than a god to me; she had been a god who descended to earth to talk to me, laugh with me, admire me, entertain me, bestow her gifts on me personally. People had looked at her with awe, while she had looked at me with love. And where had all that got her? I had forsaken her to live with my father. Why let something as ordinary as maternal instinct kill her ambitions? Why shouldn’t she be queen of an island nation? I would understand. And maybe this was the only way to thwart Chomp’s worst impulses. Maybe we were together sacrificing me for the world.
“That fucker,” my mother said. “I will ruin him.”
The affection I felt just then would have to compensate for surrendered ambition. We two would never amount to anything. Good for us. The Chompians had chosen their team; we, being family, had been assigned our team, but it didn’t matter. There was no switching sides.
“Turn and walk slowly away,” I said quietly. “We’ll wander down to the staff by the beach. They’ll hide us.” No stranger would recognize me in the moonlight, as I stood goatee-less and in a hat. What I really hoped was that someone in the crowd would finger some random Chompian who resembled me and we could make a break for the ship in the resulting chaos. Or better yet, that I would see Chuckles hit the beach with his thousand-strong army of RMB crew members, come to rescue us.
“Look at that face,” Chomp was saying. “Some of you have seen it. I sure have. Makes me want to throw up. That twit sat at my dinner table.”
My mother grabbed my hand as we turned. “Someone’s staring at us,” she whispered.
“Who?”
“Don’t look.”
But I already had. It was Mrs. Chachkey. She had already recognized me. She knew me. Our eyes met, struck, clanged. I could do nothing to stop her. Running would only make me look guilty. And still I retained some hope. At dinner, we had exchanged words of sympathy and cynicism, little tokens of humanity. Would they be enough to preserve my escape?
Mrs. Chachkey turned away and took her husband’s hand. She pulled him farther into the crowd, out of sight.
“My God,” said my mother. “She’s going to find Harvey.”
For once my mother had failed to understand. Mrs. Chachkey was leading her husband out of sight. In case he recognized me too.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
But Chomp wasn’t through: “This man conned his way to my table. How’d he manage that? Like they all do. With a woman’s help. Maybe you saw her too. She played her game perfectly, but I was never fooled. She was trying to sell stories to CNN. We need to find her too. Here she is.”
My mother and I both looked to the screen.
It was her cruise ID photo, from earlier that day. A wrap was draped modestly over her shoulders, and her smile was broader than usual. Nothing smarmy, nothing arrogant. At that moment, she was happy. The morning had been difficult, but her vacation was about to begin. The small pleasure she took in being photographed only made her face more appealing. No one could reasonably object to it.
The crowd of Chompians could. They flung their words like rocks: bitch, whore, slut, cunt. Few had noticed me at dinner, but many had seen and admired her, and their resentment was colossal. She had eaten shrimp by Chomp’s side. She could have knifed him at any moment. That no one but Chomp had suspected her testified to the subtlety of her witchcraft.
“If you know their whereabouts,” Chomp said, “either one, let us know. Tell any guard. Give a shout. Who knows who’s paying them? When we find them, they’ll tell us the truth.” He smacked his fist into his palm. “Five minutes after we get them alone.”
We turned from the crowd. I remembered my sunglasses and gave them to her. People were buzzing but no one was shouting. They hadn’t yet seen us. Would Mrs. Chachkey have second thoughts? She’d shared no pleasant secrets with my mother.
I glanced up at the plaza. The security men there were huddled in consultation.
“Slowly, Mom. We’ll be fine.” Maybe Erica would save us. Like Chomp, I was depending on friends to supply the troops.
“People are looking,” she said.
“Just walk”
“Do you hear that?”
I turned. Some fresh commotion had bubbled up at the front of the crowd near the ship. People were pointing to the wheelchair ramp. A woman was standing on its railing, one hand braced against some pal’s upraised stiff-arm, the other hand cupped against her mouth. Shell.
“Listen!” Her voice soared over the crowd’s rumble, even to us. “Listen to me! I saw him!”
Security guards were jogging down from the plaza across the beach to her. They would see us if we tried to slip away to the fireworks crew.
“I know where he is!” Shell screamed, but it was hard to hear over the sounds of people hushing one another.
I could see her at this distance. Could she see me? I knew Shell. I liked her. But she was a woman very unlike my mother and Mrs. Chachkey. She was young. She was devoid of cynicism. She believed in Chomp. She had also—I was certain—believed in me.
What do people live by, their aspirations or their affections? Like my mother, Shell desired a place in the great events of her day. She wanted to be a hero. But in whose eyes? Not mine, surely. Maybe Chomp’s. Certainly her own.
“She’s looking straight at us, Jacob. Don’t move.”
I didn’t. As I had rooted for my mother to betray me, so I rooted for Shell to spare me. She could point the men away down the beach. She had already helped me escape. She could do so again. She had chosen her side, my side. But for some people, the battle within themselves is endless.
The crowd was quiet. Chomp had built a movement on hate and suspicion. Its future depended on the continuing segregation of people by ethnicity, by race, by neighborhood, by politics. But people’s natural tendency is to like other people. The more they mingled, the more Chompism was defeated. Shell looked over the crowd. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. As the silence wore on, I knew Chomp’s day was over.
“Mom,” I whispered, “she’s going to draw the guards away. When they do, we walk as fast as we can toward the water. If we see the plaza is empty, we run back to the ship. Are you ready?”
“Jacob—”
“It’s all right, Mom.”
Forget the beach; she could send them over the dune, toward the yurts. We could escape unseen. This was the key to Chompism after all—to exchange little notes of humanity with your enemies. This is how the nation would survive, in the end.
“He’s right there!” Shell cried. Everyone heard. She pointed. Everyone turned. Her finger and a thousand gazes were all aimed at the same place—at my mother and me.
Chapter 27
Security surrounded us. Jimbo, his thick eyebrows matted by the humidity, pushed past his CHOMP-jacketed colleagues. He spun me around, shoved me against the kiosk wall, and clamped handcuffs behind my back. But he gallantly permitted my mother to have her hands cuffed in front. “So she can pray,” he said.
“I want to speak to Chomp,” I said.
“President Chomp.” Jimbo flicked his finger against the bandage on my temple, remembering just where he’d clocked me before. Unprepared, I gave him the satisfaction of stumbling into the kiosk. It’s hard to balance with your hands behind your back. That Jimbo was still trusted after two screw-ups told me how much Harvey valued spite and cruelty. But then, Jimbo had already redeemed himself by killing Clark.
“Ex-President,” I said, after I’d settled myself.
Jimbo’s eyes widened. I braced myself for a battering, but he only smiled thinly, almost shyly, as if he were flirting in anticipation of our next date. He was finding strange new depths to his soul.
