by Chris Lynch
The calls, though, against all odds, turned out to be a boost.
“Oh, um, like, Gordie, ah, Mr. Foley, I just wanted to say that it took a real man to talk like you did to that Sweaty person like you did in front of so many ears. My boyfriend said you were a wuss, but he’s a loser anyway.”
“Gordie.” This voice was deeper and sultry, probably ten years older than the previous caller. Maybe even voting age. “I just want to tell you that I don’t care what other speeches I hear in this campaign, you’ve won my vote. And are you going to be out on any baby-kissing tours before the election?”
Sol cued up a woo-woo sound effect, then Mad Matt cut in. “He’ll be touring the clubs on Landsdowne Street about midnight on Saturday, babe. Wear a pink corsage and something strapless.”
Everybody was so much faster than me.
“Ah, I love babies,” I said.
Matt cut off his mike. “Shut up,” he yelled at me.
“Yes, hi, Gordie? One quick question: My boyfriend Pauly, right? He wants to have sex with me. And, well, I say, Okay, but you have to tell me you love me first. Right, so he says, Ya, sure, you know I do. So I say, Great, then tell me. So he does it again, he says, Of course, you know I do. So I say it again, Good, Pauly, so tell me. And he says it again, You know I do. So the thing is, does that count? Even though he can’t actually, you know, say it? I think maybe it does, huh? He really loves me, right, Gordie? Technically, does the you-know-I-do stuff qualify, and if so, should I go ahead and sleep with him?”
Matt cut in before I could even close my fell-open mouth.
“I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.”
“Thanks,” she said.
Dead air.
“Seems to me,” I finally croaked, “that if a guy can’t say a word, there should be some sort of rule that he can’t perform it either.”
Dead air.
“So... I should, then?” she said uncertainly.
I sighed, tiring too quickly these days. “Ya, sure, go ahead,” I said.
She thanked me with a squeal and a giggle, and Pauly hollered, “Thanks, dude,” laughing in the background. The phone slammed down before I could get back to her to fix what I’d done.
But not before I felt the stinging in my belly for it.
“Hello? This is Maureen Tisdale-Morrissey calling.”
Matt swung for the fences. “Mau-reeeen Tis-dale-Mor-ris-sey!” He signaled Sol, who instantly hit up the theme music from Dragnet: Buuuuum de bum bum.
“Maureen Tisdale-Morrissey. The esteemed deputy mayor, former very close associate of one Fins Foley, and, most importantly, current front-runner in the mayoral runoff election. See, Gordie, it’s official, there isn’t a woman left who can resist you. Maureen, tell us, are you going to vote for our boy?”
All I could think of: Set up. Again. I was set up. Again.
“Well, Matt, I have to be honest and say that no, I don’t believe I will. I think I’m still going to go with me.”
“Well then, must be a clandestine rendezvous with the candidate you’re sniffing around for. That’s the other reason the ladies are all calling.”
She laughed. “Well, Matt, don’t think it hasn’t crossed my mind. I’m only human.”
I stopped thinking about the setup. I started listening to her. They talked about me, in front of me, as if I weren’t even there. Like adults had always done when I was a kid.
“Actually,” Maureen continued, “my daughter would be more interested in Mr. Foley. She told me to say hi to him.”
I was confused. Was the opposition being nice to me? I had been told not to expect that. Or was she zinging me and I just didn’t get it?
“How old’s your daughter?” Matt tossed.
“Eleven,” she returned.
Zing.
“Seriously, though,” Maureen added, “I wanted to call and say that I think it’s a fine thing Gordie is doing here. I believe the young people should be very involved in the political process, as a learning experience at least. He’s a fine boy, and has been since the first time I met him, which was, I believe, when he was batboy at one of his grandfather’s legendary soft-ball barbecues.”
I had forgotten all about that. She made me all waxy for a minute there, thinking about this whole political-dynasty thing the way I used to think of it—as softball and Italian ice and love spilling all over my grandfather for no particular reason.
“I remember,” I interrupted politely. “That was fun.”
“Yes it was, Gordie,” she said sweetly. “We all had a lot of fun over the years. I was glad to be a part of it. And, to let you in on a little secret, if I were not running myself, I probably would vote for you for mayor.”
“Whoa,” Matt said. “If that’s not the most ringing nonendorsement I’ve ever heard... Listen, Maureen—can I call you Mo?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Okay, Maureen, when can we get you down here, face-to-face with young Foley, on the show? It’ll be dynamite.”
“No, no,” she said. “I’m not going for any of that. In fact, if my campaign manager knew I was on the air this long, he’d have a fit. I only called out of my personal fondness for Gordie, and out of respect for his family. What I would like to do though—Gordie, are you still there?”
“Oh, ah, ya.”
“What I would like is to get together with you personally, off the air. To have a friendly discussion of issues just between us.”
I shuddered. She was a professional, and had her sights on me now, knowing me to be a fake. This was the same feeling O’Dowd gave me.
Except she was so nice.
“Okay,” I said. “You wanna come to my house?”
Maureen laughed. “You’re cute. No, I think a power breakfast at the Meridien will do. One day next week—after the primary.”
“After?” Matt asked, sounding much more astounded than he needed to, I thought. “What if—god forbid—our boy is no longer in the race after Tuesday?”
Maureen smiled. You know how you can hear that sometimes over the phone, when a person smiles? She smiled a big generous one. “Gordie will be in the final. He will make it through the primary. That’s a prediction.”
“Holy smokes, a bona fide prediction, right here on my show,” Matt gushed. “That’s never happened before. At least, not a correct prediction anyway.”
“Thank you,” I said to Maureen, as if she had actually somehow placed me into the final. “And, ya, breakfast. It’s a date.”
“My people will call your people,” she said. “Bye-bye.”
“My people get home from work at about six,” I said.
Matt cued up a song and started playing it low, under the chatter. “We Are the Champions,” by Queen. A bit optimistic, I thought, but it gave me a little rush anyhow.
“Wow. She was really, really nice,” I said, on air, about my main opposition.
It occurred to me that I probably shouldn’t have done that. But Matt cranked the song, and I didn’t care what I shouldn’t have done.
I ACCEPT, EXCEPT
AS PRIMARY DAY APPROACHED, things got hot. I registered. Not to vote, which I had forgotten to do before the deadline and which would have proven embarrassing to the campaign had Da not informed me that of course I was registered—retroactively.
No, I registered. I was on the map, all over it, in fact. Small news items started appearing here and there, from press releases my diligent campaign workers produced.
“Foley vows to raise pay for all city teachers.”
“Did I say that?” I asked Bucky, who was communicating with me more over the FinsFone, less and less face-to-face.
“Yes, you did, you populist hero. And let me compliment you on a masterstroke. That kind of thing plays big. Keep it up and soon you’ll be as beloved as you-know-who.”
“Thanks. Second question: Can I do that? Raise their salaries?”
“Not a chance.”
“So why did I—”
&
nbsp; “Listen, take a day out of the office today. Go shoot some hoops down at the Boys’ Club.”
This too was becoming a familiar pattern. I was almost never required at the office anymore. Which was fine, since the office was a serious drag, with the snotty college kids figuring me out, bossing me around, using words they knew I couldn’t understand.
“Fine with me,” I said. If I was going to spend my Flexible Campus days working on my J, that would be fine with me. Then, when my fairy-tale stint as boy mayor and hot radio ga-ga deejay was over, I’d hit the NBA running. Could happen.
I’d probably shot hoops at the Boys’ Club a thousand times before. Sometimes with Mosi. Sometimes with Sweaty. Sometimes with a few of the last-cut school b-ball rejects who were just about my speed. And lots of times, since it wasn’t really a very popular club, by myself. Which, of course, is the best way to shoot hoops, because you can be great, when you’re alone in a gym.
But I had never shot with actual Boys’ Club members before. Certainly not perfect fund-raiser-commercial, dirty, happy needy ragamuffins from a Dickens Boys’ Club. Yet in they tramped, boisterous and happy and annoying as hell, breaking the great silence, stealing the ball from me, taunting me.
The photographer—but of course—came in just in time to catch me looking like a dolt, chasing after squealing gargoyles a foot shorter than me who simply refused to give me back my ball.
“Foley Pledges Complete Support to Struggling Inner-City Program.”
That was the headline over the photo op. The caption read, “Mayoral candidate Gordon Foley has a ball with city kids.”
They always had a place for me to go. Something’s being built, Gordie. Run over there and get your picture taken at the groundbreaking. Something’s being torn down, Gordie. Get over there and look forlorn. But remember, don’t say anything, for chrissake. We’ll release a statement lamenting the passing of an era.
An extended interview with me was printed in The South Side Sentinel, a weekly tabloid that was a longtime Fins Foley mouthpiece. I must admit, I came off very witty and sincere and informed on all the issues. I talked about my girlfriend, making her sound like Sweet Polly Purebred, and my mom, making her sound... actually, making her sound just like she is. I got misty over the whole thing. I hope to someday meet the man who allegedly interviewed me, so I can thank him.
My junior-year yearbook picture accompanied the article.
I started getting letters. From girls. Too young to vote, mostly, or too old for... anything.
School was a different story. Another issue of The School Newspaper was out—sigh—and I sat in the library reading it. Mosi no longer delivered me the bad news, unable to bear it, I supposed, so I had to pick it up in the street or the library like everyone else.
“... began his speech to supporters with the questionable joke... ‘What’s on the plate, cocaine?’”
“I can’t believe it. I cannot believe these no-life I-Team ginks sent somebody to my fund-raiser.”
I read on.
“It turned out to be only a taste, a sampling of what appears to be a pattern of drug references that the candidate cannot resist making, such as this from his candidate questionnaire profile...”
I threw the paper across the library, pages spreading out and fluttering to the floor like autumn leaves.
Smack. I was clomped across the back of the head.
“I’ll pick it up,” I said, figuring it was Mrs. Clancy, the hundred-and-twelve-year-old bantam librarian.
“I don’t give a shit if you pick it up.” It was O’Dowd. He smacked me again.
“I wish you’d stop doing that,” I snapped.
“Oh, do you really?” he answered.
Smack. I didn’t feel that one, only heard it. It was Mrs. Clancy. She smacked O’Dowd.
“Leave him alone, ya punk,” she said.
O’Dowd raised a backhand as if to whack Mrs. Clancy with it. Just for show. Even O’Dowd wouldn’t hit Mrs. Clancy.
“Oh, I just wish you’d try it, ya punk. Ya coward.”
If I had one tenth of her spit... I thought.
“I read your interview in the Sentinel,” she said, smiling at me. “You sounded very nice. Good boys talk about their mothers like that.”
“Oh, ya?” said O’Dowd. “Have you read The School Newspaper?”
“No!” she barked. Then she shushed him. “No talking in my library. And don’t you lay another finger on this boy.”
The bell rang, and my study period ended. O’Dowd, who didn’t actually have a study period, followed me out, toward the next class he wasn’t supposed to be in with me. Once in the hallway, with hundreds of students crisscrossing, he stepped on the heel of my shoe, giving me a flat tire. When I bent over to fix it, he stepped up behind me, kneed me hard in the tailbone, and sent me crashing down on my face.
Traffic in the hallway, in the immediate area around where I’d sprawled, stopped. I recognized all the faces that stared down at me, but I didn’t really know anybody. Because for so long I was happy enough to have it that way. Most of the faces showed some kind of pity, but they weren’t exactly giving it up to me. O’Dowd, of course, was leering down at me, then around at the spectators for approval, then down at me again.
It came over me then that I needed to say something. That I needed to address my peers. From right there flat on the floor.
“I never wanted this, you know. I never really wanted any of this stuff that’s going on here. It just all kind of was dumped on me, and then things got out of my control, and then words started coming out... that really had nothing to do with me. With who I really am.”
I didn’t know what I was trying to accomplish there, but—maybe because I spoke to them from the seat of my pants—I seemed to make contact with my classmates. Probably for the first time.
Burt Sybertz, a behemoth of a football lineman and a shot-putter, a useful athlete but with zero star quality, put his hand out to me. “You don’t have to be a dick all the time, Bob,” he said to O’Dowd.
As I took Burt’s hand and he pulled me up nearly off my feet, I repeated, “Well, like I said, I never really wanted this in the first place.” When I was standing, I was face-to-face with O’Dowd.
“But I want it now,” I said.
PRIMARILY
I SHOWED UP AT my local polling station shortly after it opened at seven A.M. It was in the basement of the Curley School, which I had attended from kindergarten through sixth grade. Not all that long ago, as one of my old teachers pointed out on her way in to vote. I reminded her to remember me when she pulled that lever. She patted me on the head.
I wore a blue jacket with gold buttons, a powder-blue shirt with a white collar, and a painted Jerry Garcia tie from Bloomingdale’s. I never thought I could feel good in a jacket and tie, but I felt real good. My dad had bought me the outfit as a primary-day present, giving it to me at breakfast that morning.
“So,” I said. “I’ve won you over. You’re in my corner.”
“Son, I am always in your corner. I have been so pleased to see you taking on new challenges, reaching for something, working. I’m really proud of you, Gordie...”
My father is a very precise speaker. When he talks, you can hear the commas, you can hear the question marks and the semicolons. And you can hear the ellipses.
“But...” I helped him along.
“But, I never voted for my father, and I’m not voting for you. I love you both, but I don’t love your version of public service.”
“Jeez, Dad. Y’know? This is a hairy day for me. You could fake it. You could just lie. It’s a secret ballot, not like I could check on you.”
“Gordie... I considered that. Then I reconsidered. I figure, when the smoke clears, I will have done more for you, as your father, by showing you what I value and standing behind it.” He shook his head at himself, working it out as he spoke it. “Does that make any sense to you?”
“Well, my head’s kind of busy today. But, ya, i
t makes a little. And I have a feeling—when the smoke clears—it’ll make more.”
He smiled. As far as he was concerned, I got it. And for the moment, that was good enough for both of us. I smiled back.
“Anyway,” Dad said, knotting my new tie around his own neck because he knew I had no idea how the thing worked. “I wanted to make sure you looked fine on your day.” He slipped the tie up over his head and lowered it over mine, even though I only had on a T-shirt yet. “I hope you win without me, Gordie.”
“Actually, Dad, I was sort of hoping I could lose with you.”
So I went out into the fray with the feeling I could not lose. Just a feeling, a funny, unrealistic thing a guy’s dad can give him without hardly trying.
Fins had called me, and Bucky had called me, but that was all pep talk and bluster. This was a workday for me, and no press release from my staff could pretend to be me. I hit the booth, voted for myself—the first time I had voted for anyone—and stepped back out into the light with a strange feeling, a powerful feeling.
Not that I had voted for me. But that I had voted. I really was a player now.
“Remember Gordon Foley when you cast your ballot.”
“Hi, I’m Gordon Foley. Think of me when you’re voting.”
“Gordon Foley for mayor. Thank you.”
“Fordon Goley. I’m your man.”
“Hi. Uh... bye.”
“Hi, ma’am, Gordon Foley here. Can I kiss your baby?”
“Well, yes, he is my grandfather.”
“It’s parked right over there across the street. Sure you can look at it, right after you go in there and vote for me.”
I handed out my flier to everybody with hands. If they raised those hands to refuse, I pretended not to understand, and slipped it between their fingers. Six feet farther down the sidewalk lay a small carpet of my literature, with the black-and-white picture of me grinning and waving as I stood up in the Studebaker Gran Tourismo Hawk.
“Will you please consider me when you’re making your choice for mayor?”
It had become almost mindless. The words had begun to float from my lips without being launched by me. Until somebody heard, and responded.
