Dog Bites Man

by James Duffy

  "Done and done. I won't sweat what a few crazies have to say."

  "Give me a call when you want to come up."

  "Sure will. Peace, Eldon."

  Unlike his tormenter, Eldon was not about to hold a petty grievance against Putter, for his complicity in connection with the Wambli rally. And, he was satisfied, he was entirely sincere when he wished his successor well in his new job.

  . . .

  Eldon read his remarks through one more time before stepping out on to the Gracie Mansion porch on the dot of two o'clock, Edna and Jack Gullighy flanking him. He faced an astounding array of electronic gear and what one veteran observer judged to be the largest attendance at a mayoral press conference ever. He put on his glasses and slowly adjusted them. He began to read from the sheets in his hand:

  "After giving the matter careful thought, and talking it over with my wife, I have decided to resign my position as mayor of the City of New York, effective as of midnight tonight. Artemis Payne will thereupon become the new mayor. I talked to him on the telephone earlier this afternoon and wished him well. I repeat those good wishes now.

  "I am resigning not out of any sense of guilt or wrongdoing, but rather because a group of single-issue agitators seems determined to make this city ungovernable as long as I am mayor. And because the governor of this state has seen fit to exercise powers never before employed to make my future as mayor untenable.

  "For the past weeks, this city, and city government, have been distracted from serious business by a personal mishap of mine involving the death of a dog and unsupportable and totally false allegations about my conduct in office.

  "If I were being tried for these offenses in a court of law, or even the court of public opinion, I am confident I would be exonerated. But instead I face a 'trial'—if I can abuse that word—in which a partisan governor would be both judge and jury. The city does not need the confusion and bitterness such a 'trial' would entail. Hence my resignation.

  "I am proud of my administration and those who worked with me to achieve the goals we set forth in the campaign two years ago. But now I must move on, lest my continued presence on the public scene divert attention from pressing forward with the programs we have proposed. It is my earnest hope that the initiatives we have started can come to fulfillment, once the petty complications of recent weeks are forgotten.

  "The Founding Fathers of this country, particularly James Madison, were concerned about the effect of 'factions' on our political life. Today we have our own modern-day version of factions—groups of people whose political interest and awareness are focused on one issue only. I submit to you that single-issue politics is the greatest detriment to effective government that we face today: people unwilling to compromise, people pursuing their selfish goals to the exclusion of others. And I can think of no more vivid example than the members of the Animal Liberation Army.

  "So my parting words to the people of this city are these: Beware of single-issue politics and the divisiveness and civil gridlock it fosters. We all must try to compromise our differences, to recognize that others may have viewpoints or interests at variance with our own. Let us recognize that we must always seek common ground to enable us all, of whatever faction, to live in peace and freedom."

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Eldon had one piece of luck shortly after his resignation. The cover subject on both Time and Newsweek the Monday after he left office, his plight caught the attention of Henry Bartlett, the president of the newly established Elmwood College in Bagley, Minnesota. Bartlett and he had been colleagues years before at the University of Minnesota.

  Elmwood had recently received gifts endowing a chair in political science in honor of that perennial Gopher State politician, Harold Stassen. Sympathetic to Eldon's plight, and with an opportunity to attract a talented, if at least temporarily infamous, figure to the new campus, Bartlett offered him the professorship.

  It was an opportunity almost too good to be true. The Elmwood campus was very near where Eldon had grown up, and also within easy distance of the Hoagland farm. Once Eldon consented, the trustees of Elmwood quickly confirmed his appointment.

  The Hoaglands stayed on at Gracie Mansion until the movers came in mid-November. They did so despite the daily call to Eldon from Artemis Payne, ostensibly to inquire about the former mayor's well-being but really to determine when exactly he planned to vacate the mayor's house.

  Eldon and Edna were not deluged with invitations in the days before their departure. They spent most of their evenings packing boxes, Eldon trying valiantly to cull his formidable library of books, most of which had remained in the Gracie Mansion basement for want of shelf space during his time as mayor.

  Before leaving, the Hoaglands entertained at a buffet dinner for his City Hall staff. It was a wearing occasion; everyone tried to be jolly and upbeat, but there was a pall over the event that no amount of high spirits could lift. Jack Gullighy tried his best to change the tone of the party, but even he could not do it. He also announced to Eldon that night that he was going west to help the computer billionaire in his Colorado Senate race; it was time to make some real money again.

  . . .

  Eldon also had a farewell evening with Leaky. Carol Swansea was discreetly absent, though she had left behind a warmable supper, with the admonition that the two overgrown undergraduates should eat it. Leaky augmented the meal with a fine bottle of Grands-Echézeaux 1990, noting that the former mayor "deserved nothing less."

  After dinner they settled down to an evening with the scotch bottle. The ears of Governor Foote and various editors should have been burning as the two angry and slightly inebriated pals inveighed against them. Then Leaky asked his old friend if he had any regrets.

  "Of course I have regrets! I left the comforts of Columbia because I had a program—goals for the city. All on the scrap heap now, unless Putter Payne chooses to carry them forward, which he's under no obligation to do. And of course my name will be linked forever to that damned dog. Nobody will give me credit for anything else. Remember that congressman a few years ago who jumped in the fountain with a stripper—Fannie Fox, right? Mention his name today and that's the only thing that anybody recalls, even though he was one of the most powerful men in Washington."

  "At least Wambli wasn't a stripper."

  "Yes, I suppose I should be grateful," Eldon said, taking a long, reflective sip of his drink.

  "Actually, I don't think I'll mind being back in Minnesota. This city has become like the Balkans—every little enclave has its own agenda, which it pursues without regard to the rights or opinions or feelings of anyone else. That's true whether you're talking about animals, abortion, dirty artworks, race, the police—you name it. You accept my views, without compromise or accommodation—or else. Factions, factions, factions. Enough to send you to Dewar's, Dewar's, Dewar's." He reached for the bottle and poured a hefty refill.

  "Agreed. But let me ask you a question, Eldon. One that's been bothering me. What motivates those animal righters? We went to Alabama, for Christ's sake. Civil rights. Trying to help other human beings. Those animal rights kids don't seem to care about people at all."

  "Needless to say, I've been thinking about that. My take is that helping other humans has become too complicated. People one helps aren't always grateful. They turn on you. Or they don't live up to expectations. Animals are always grateful. They don't talk back. No drawbacks or disappointments. So the righters have the feeling of doing good and they get kicks doing it—trashing evil corporations, upsetting the medical establishment, terrorizing rich ladies in fur coats and so on. Great fun, and all psychic benefits and no burdens.

  "Or, Leaky, look at Edna. You think it was easy for her to give up patients in favor of teas at the mansion? Or more to the point, you think it's been easy for her, dealing with every conceivable skin disorder at the AIDS clinic where she's been working? Christ, Leaky, she wakes up at night after nightmares about the ravaged bodies she's seen up there. How many of those
self-indulgent brats could have dealt with what she's been seeing every day?"

  "Maybe you can change things back in Minnesota."

  "A little, perhaps. I hope so. But right now it's one more drink and then I have to go. No bodyguards to get me back to Gracie, you know."

  "You'll make it."

  As Leaky opened his apartment door, Eldon turned and embraced him.

  "Milford, you've been a great friend. My best friend."

  "That goes for me too, Eldon. But what's this 'Milford' business?"

  "Look, I'm so paranoid I'm afraid that someone from The Surveyor or The Post-News will hear me out in the hall. If I called you Leaky, they'd broadcast that nickname all over New York."

  "That's all right. After all these years I'm used to it."

  "No 'Going Back' tonight, I think," Eldon said.

  "No. Save that for next time, when I come out to Bagley."

  "Maybe we could do 'Shoot the Rabbit.' Remember it? Bea Lillie?"

  "Sure. . . . Let's go."

  They sang exuberantly:

  Shoot the rabbit,

  Shoot the rabbit,

  Old folks, young folks all get the habit . . .

  "I forget the rest."

  "So do I. But imagine, imagine shooting poor little rabbits. Tut, tut, fucking tut," Eldon said unsteadily. "But thanks again, Milford—Leaky—for lifting my spirits. Good food, good wine, good scotch."

  "What do you suppose Randy Randy drinks?"

  "Who cares?"

  . . .

  The governor herself was also taking her licks in other quarters. Except for The Post-News, which did everything but compare her to Joan of Arc, press and public opinion alike were critical of her arbitrary and drastic decision to force Eldon out. Her approval rating dropped significantly and reporters and commentators began speculating if she could win reelection when her first term was up.

  . . .

  Scoop Rice was not among those doing the speculating. Despite his minor-celebrity status with the reporters he hung out with at Elaine's, he decided that journalism, at least the kind practiced by Justin Boyd, was not for him. A Harvard friend was starting a newsmagazine on the Internet. He had managed to arrange substantial financing for the venture, so when he asked Scoop to join the effort, the erstwhile investigative reporter was willing. He was to be a correspondent at large, covering whatever he wished. He wasn't certain exactly what his focus would be, but it would not be the minor personal foibles of those in public office. Perhaps the peccadilloes of members of the Fourth Estate would occupy his attention. And he would do it without resorting to the shoddy tricks he had learned from Justin Boyd.

  Scoop requested a final audience with his editor.

  "I was about to call you," Boyd told him when he came into the editor's office. "I've got a new story idea for you."

  "Justin, I—"

  "Fits you perfectly. Add to your reputation as a mayor-eater."

  "I don't think—"

  "Wait, wait, let me finish. I just heard that our new mayor, Mr. Payne, is known around City Hall as 'Putter.' Did you know that?"

  "I'd heard it."

  "Apparently he spent a lot of time as the public advocate playing golf. And now that he's not responsible to anybody, he'll probably play even more—come spring, of course. I want you to find out where he plays, get people on the record—caddies, bartenders, club pros—about the time he spends on the links. Then we'll watch him carefully when the good weather starts and reveal the results to the public. Interested?"

  "Justin, I came in here to resign."

  "Resign? My dear fellow, you're my star reporter!"

  "Maybe so. But a friend of mine is starting an Internet newsmagazine and wants me to come along with him." (And I won't have to trick vulnerable Albanian wives or carry suitcases full of mice to get my stories, he thought but did not say.)

  "To do what?"

  "Correspondent at large is the title that's been suggested."

  "Covering what?"

  "I'm not sure, but I think maybe covering the press."

  "Oh, for heaven's sake. What's there to write about?"

  "Well, for starters, I thought maybe a study of the delight certain editors get in kicking public figures in—how do you say it?—in the achers. Surely as eggs is eggs, that would be an interesting topic."

  The terminal interview did not last long.

  (Several months later, Boyd himself was kicked in the achers when Ethan Meyner, tiring of The Surveyor's seemingly intractable deficits, folded the paper. A return to London would have been impossible; he couldn't go home again. He thought of becoming the new Lord Bryce, writing discerningly about the American colony, but no publisher trusted him to do the task properly. In the end, after spending the proceeds from the generous termination settlement Meyner had awarded him and from the sale of the Bentley, he took a job in desperation as the Morton Zuckerman Professor of Communications at the newly founded journalism school at Thurmond University in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Not what he had always longed for, but neither was being the Harold Stassen Professor of Political Science at Elmwood.)

  . . .

  The Hoaglands settled into their new, quiet life. Edna started up a dermatology practice and expressed herself amazed at the number of skin disorders among the local citizenry. "I think there must be something dreadful in the air out here," she told her husband.

  Both were grateful that there were no more inedible dinners from an incompetent chef it would have been politically incorrect to fire; no more press coverage of their daily lives; no more blownup effigies of Wambli; no more poison darts from The Post-News.

  Eldon did ask the proprietor of the country store near his farm to order a second daily copy of The New York Times (another Gotham expat being the regular buyer of the first one). It was thus he learned that Artemis Payne—who never called, either to chat or for advice, once Eldon had left New York—had appointed Sue Nation Brandberg as his commissioner of cultural affairs and, for that matter, was "dating" her as well. (The Times was not quite that explicit, but when the shots in the Sunday Times by its society photographer showed the mayor and Sue together week after week, Eldon—and more especially Edna—drew their own conclusions. They did not know that the new mayor was quite capable of delivering an Americanized version of OOOH! SHPIRT! that the widow Brandberg found most pleasing.)

  . . .

  On New Year's Eve, just before the start of the spring semester at Elmwood, the Hoaglands had a party. Some old friends, going all the way back to high school, were there, as were President Bartlett and his wife.

  There was much curiosity about what Eldon would be teaching. He told his guests what he had already agreed with Bartlett: a lecture course, Current Issues in Municipal Government, and an upperclass seminar, Postmodern Political Journalism. The titles were the college catalogue writer's; Eldon himself for shorthand called the lecture course Factions and the journalism seminar Faction, using the Columbia Journalism Review term.

  One of his listeners at the New Year's party said he did not quite understand the "Factions/Faction" nomenclature.

  "I do," Eldon said quietly.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  James Duffy, a retired lawyer, has written seven mystery novels—all starring amateur detective Reuben Frost—under the pseudonym Haughton Murphy. He resides in New York City.