The Minnesota Candidate

by Nicholas Antinozzi

  A scant second later, Tom heard the sound of men charging up the stairs. They charged out onto the roof and scattered. Beams of light danced over his head. Terrified, Tom held his breath. The men stayed out on the roof for what seemed like an eternity. Tom felt an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia, but he fought to control it.

  Finally, Tom heard the sound of the door opening and of footsteps in the stairwell. He then waited for what seemed like a very long time. Slowly, Tom pulled himself from out of the narrow space of the chimney. The flashing red and blue lights were gone. Tom eased himself down to the top of the small doorway. He then hung off of the top of the little shingled roof of the doorway and he dropped to the rooftop. Tom crept to the ledge and saw that the shotgun was gone. He then peered over the top and saw that the parking lot was indeed empty.

  He knew he had to get out of there, but Tom was afraid of what he would find at the bottom of the stairs. He bottled up what was left of his courage and crab-walked to the stairwell. Without a weapon, Tom felt as naked as a newborn baby. The stairwell was completely black and Tom did his best negotiating them by memory. He tiptoed down the wooden stairs, his heart pounding with every creak and groan. He clutched the handrail and when it stopped at a landing, Tom would grope blindly for the next one. When he finally reached the bottom, Tom felt up the wall, searching for the doorknob.

  When he found it, Tom held his breath and he gave it a turn. The steel door swung open and he was bathed in candlelight. Tom could see that his arm was covered in soot. He looked down to see that his entire body was coated with the black dust. He stepped into the silent store and surveyed the damage. Tom’s heart sank as his head swiveled on his shoulders. The store was completely ruined, but there was no sign of Louie or of his father, Bing. Tom wanted to believe that they had been taken into custody, so he focused on the shattered glass door and he crept across the rubble towards it.

  The lone candle burned on the counter and that was where Tom spotted the blood. The wall behind the counter was painted in gore. Tom found that he couldn’t bring himself to look behind the counter and he kept moving. He stopped at the door and fell to his knees. And then he vomited. He stayed there until he had purged the contents from his stomach, retching with the dry heaves long after he was empty.

  Feeling woozy, Tom ran from the store and out onto the sidewalk that bordered Lowry Avenue. He stopped behind trees and ducked behind parked cars to catch his breath. He had gone four or five blocks when he thought it would be safer to take the alley. Mentally exhausted, he chided himself for his stupidity. The night was silent and as dark as any he had ever known. The only light he could see came from emergency vehicles, but they were many blocks away. During his blind flight, Tom crashed into parked cars and several trash cans. Undeterred, he continued running.

  After several blocks, Tom ventured back to Lowry Avenue to get his bearings. He could just barely read the street sign that told him he was crossing James Avenue. He was happy at his progress. The streets in North Minneapolis were alphabetical and he was getting closer to the Mississippi and the Lowry Avenue Bridge which would lead him back into Northeast. He jogged back to the alley and continued running. He ran until he came upon Lyndale Avenue, a main east-west thoroughfare that paid no heed to the alphabet system. From where he stood, Tom could see the bridge, but he would have to cross the four deserted lanes of Lyndale Avenue to reach it.

  Tom looked up and down the dark street, gathering his courage. He waited until he caught his breath and then he ran. Tom felt as if his footsteps on the concrete sounded like the beating of bass drums. He continued running until he reached the base of the long bridge. Tom stared across the inky black river and thought that Northeast Minneapolis had never looked so good. Then, on legs that felt like rubber, Tom ran up the pedestrian side of the bridge. His lungs burned as he jogged up the incline. Tom pushed on, determined not to stop, praying that his luck would hold out. Halfway across the bridge, Tom’s heart nearly stopped. Up ahead, a car was turning from Marshall Avenue, onto Lowry, and was heading right at him. Tom dropped to his belly.

  Tom covered his head and waited for the inevitable. He could hear the car as it slowly approached. He was sure that he had been seen and someone had reported him. He wondered if it was true what he had heard about death. Would it be like falling asleep and waking up in another world? Tom didn’t know. As the car drew nearer, Tom flattened himself out as much as he could, quietly cursing his thick stomach. He tried to control his labored breathing, but found that it was impossible. He was a dead man, Tom was sure of it.

  But then the car rolled past him. Tom listened as it continued cruising at the same slow speed. He lifted his head and watched the taillights as they grew smaller. He then sprang to his feet and ran as fast as his legs would carry him. Wild with excitement and still riddled with fear, Tom got too close to the edge of the sidewalk and he tumbled onto the bridge deck. Tom rolled like a square wheel and pain shot through his body. He lay sprawled out on the bridge for a long time, too afraid to check for broken bones. Finally, Tom staggered to his feet and began to assess his injuries. Nothing appeared to be broken, but his left ankle felt sprained and he was covered with bumps and bruises.

  With tears in his eyes, Tom pushed on. Lightning bolts of pain shot up his left leg, but Tom did his best to ignore it. Blood trickled into his eyes from a cut on his forehead, and Tom brushed it away with a soot-covered hand. The cut stung as if he had pressed salt into the wound and Tom had to stifle a scream. Without even looking to see if the coast was clear, Tom crossed over the four lanes of University Avenue. Desperate to return to the safety of his mother’s house, Tom did the same at Central Avenue. Exhausted and feeling faint, Tom jogged down to 26th Avenue.

  With only a few blocks to go, Tom slowed to a brisk walk. He had made it and as tired as he was, Tom’s heart soared at the familiar sights. Drunkenly, he continued up the hill to Pierce Street and he hung to the right. He had never been so happy to be on his own street. He imagined stripping off his dirty clothes and taking a hot shower, then crawling into one of the brand new beds. He was so tired that he could barely keep his eyes open. Suddenly, he smelled wood smoke and Tom sniffed at the air. He wondered what was burning or what might have burned. He shook his head, desperate to reach his mother’s house. Halfway down the block, despite the blackness, Tom thought something looked out of place. His footsteps made splashing sounds on the concrete sidewalk.

  Then he saw the silhouette of his mother’s fence, but it was jumbled and loopy. Tom staggered forward, his mind not comprehending what he was seeing. Red embers glowed where his mother’s house should have been. Tom raised his hands up to the heavens and screamed a silent stream of curses. Utterly defeated, he staggered onto the lawn and collapsed. Tom buried his head in the new grass and he wept.

  Chapter 18

  Dawn was just breaking in the pink sky and Tom found himself staring up into the angry faces, and drawn guns, of uniformed police officers. “Who are you and why are you here?” shouted one of the angry men.

  “Holy shit,” said Tom, “I’m Tom Picacello, this is my home… This was my home. Someone tried to kill me!”

  An old woman was led into the circle of guns. Alice Kindersley leaned close to Tom and looked at him over the top of her glasses. “Yep,” she said, “that’s him. That’s Doris’ boy, Fat Tommy. Sorry about your mom’s house. That’s just a shame.”

  “You were out after curfew,” barked one of the cops. “But under the circumstances, we’ll let it pass. Don’t let it happen again.”

  Tom could think of a hundred snappy replies to this, but he just nodded his head.

  “You look pretty bad,” said Mrs. Kindersley. “Why don’t you walk over to my house and we’ll get you cleaned up. I thought you were a black man and that’s why I called the police. You can’t be too careful. Thank God the telephones are working.”

  Tom could see that Mrs. Kindersley was already well into her second or third pot of coffee. “T
hat would be great,” he said, barely getting the words out before the old woman began rattling on about her arthritis.

  The sparkling clean bathroom smelled like the inside of an old hospital, fresh bleach over spilled bodily fluids. Tom barely noticed, he stripped out of his clothes and put them into the plastic trash bag that Mrs. Kindersley had given him. The shower wasn’t hot, but it felt wonderful as he scrubbed the soot from his body. Tom was happy to see that the swelling was gone from his ankle. He tested it in the shower, finding that it barely hurt. Soon, the bottom of the pink bathtub was as black as coal. Tom thought of all that had happened and he was just happy to be safe and sound. After he had finished in the shower, Tom cleaned out the tub. He then dressed in Henry Kindersley’s old clothes. He had always thought of the quiet man as being as big as an ox and he was quite humbled when he found the loud plaid shirt and green nylon slacks fit him, snugly.

  Tom hauled the trash bag out of the bathroom and found Mrs. Kindersley out in the kitchen. The house smelled of sizzling bacon, fresh coffee, and fried eggs. “Oh, that smells so good,” he said. “Thank you so much.”

  Mrs. Kindersley smiled and pointed Tom to the table. “It’s just nice to have someone to cook for. Tell me about what happened. I want to hear all about it. I’m surprised the firemen didn’t find you. Do you know that they didn’t get here until the fire was nearly out? Why, you should have died in that fire. Your new wife was just over there, the poor woman. She left in a real tizzy. How do you like your eggs? Henry liked them runny, but I could never eat them like that.”

  “My wife was here? Did you talk to her?”

  “Oh no, I barely know her. What would I have said?”

  “Oh no,” grunted Tom, trying to remain pleasant. “I wish you could have caught her. I’m sure she’s worried about me.”

  “She was barely here for five minutes. It takes me that long to get to the door.”

  Tom knew that wasn’t true, but he was hungry and the phones were working. Besides, he knew the truth was that Alice Kindersley was just lonely. This wasn’t the first time in his life that she had corralled him into sharing a meal with her. Tom also wanted some time to think about what had happened last night. And while he didn’t want to lie to Shari about what had happened, he wasn’t sure how much he wanted to share with her, or anyone else, for that matter. Mrs. Kindersley poured Tom a cup of coffee and sent him to the table. “Thank you,” he said.

  “You look so nice in Henry’s clothes,” she said, flipping eggs in a frying pan.

  The kitchen in the old house was grass-green, and it had been green for as long as Tom could remember, with green countertops and green appliances and green carpeting. The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was as clean as a museum. The old woman wore a white blouse over blue slacks and a pair of house slippers. Tiger, Mrs. Kindersley’s cat, circled her leg as she stood at the stove. Tom’s stomach growled as the smell of breakfast taunted his nostrils. He sat at the little kitchen table and he spooned sugar into his coffee. He thought he would play it by ear with Shari. He knew she would be devastated that the house had burned down and he didn’t want to overload her system. He didn’t know much about Bell palsy, but he knew he didn’t want it coming back.

  Alice Kindersley dished them both up and brought over Tom’s plate of food. He licked his lips as he waited for her to join him at the table. Hanging above the table was a print of the Grace photo, the old man praying over bread. You never ate at the Kindersley’s table without first saying thanks. “Would you like some milk?” she asked.

  “No, thank you. Coffee is fine.”

  “Henry never liked milk with his breakfast,” she said, taking her own plate over to the table. “Do you know that he’s been gone for fifteen years?”

  “Where does the time go?” replied Tom.

  “I think it speeds up as we get older. Will you please say Grace, Tommy?”

  Tom took Alice Kindersley by the hand and said the little prayer his dad had always said at the dinner table. He let go of her hand and he smiled. “This sure looks good,” he said.

  “Well, dig in, Tommy. I have plenty more on the stove.”

  Remembering the power outage, Tom taste tested his food. He didn’t want to say anything to his host, but he was worried that something may have spoiled after sitting in a warm refrigerator. He found that everything tasted excellent and he began to fill his empty stomach. As hungry as he was, Tom found it hard to remember his manners.

  “I was watching the television news this morning,” Mrs. Kindersley said, dipping a chunk of toast into her egg yolk. “What do you know about being a Muslim?”

  “Not too much,” replied Tom, honestly. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, haven’t you heard? They’re talking about making us all convert to being Muslims. Isn’t that the silliest thing you’ve ever heard? Why, they don’t even believe in Jesus.”

  Tom chewed on a piece of bacon and thought about this. “They can’t make us convert into anything we don’t want to believe in. The Constitution guarantees the separation of church and state.”

  “That’s not what they were saying on television. We’re in a State of Emergency and they said that means the Constitution goes out the window. Peabody can pretty much do whatever he wants. Did you hear he changed his name? Oh, his poor mother, can you imagine?”

  “They can’t force us to convert to Islam.”

  “They’re saying that it’ll make things easier, you know, just to have one religion.”

  “What else did they say?”

  Mrs. Kindersley took a small bite of hashed browns and she chewed. “They said that things were really bad over in North. People were ignoring the curfew and they went around killing the Muslim people. Have you ever heard such a thing? This whole world has gone crazy, if you ask me.”

  Tom swallowed a mouthful of food and he sipped his coffee. He knew that wasn’t true, but he knew he couldn’t tell the old woman about it. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said.

  She shook her head. “That’s what they said on the news. I guess the police have been rounding up people all morning. They killed a bunch of them, too. That’s why I stay out of North Minneapolis. You don’t go over there, do you?”

  “No, I don’t, not unless I can’t help it.”

  “That’s good,” she said, “it’s safer over on our side of the river.”

  Tom continued eating his breakfast, mulling over what Mrs. Kindersley had told him. He knew that he could never admit to being across the river. He was going to have to report the Mercedes as being stolen. Tom thought the best plan was to say that he had forgotten his keys in the ignition. Shari would be angry about that, but there was no getting around it. The SUV was the only thing that linked him to that part of town. Tom still had his cell phone and he removed it from his pocket. “I don’t suppose you would have a phone charger to fit this?” he asked.

  Mrs. Kindersley laughed. “I wouldn’t own one of those,” she said. “They give you cancer. Finish eating, then you can use my telephone, Tommy.”

  Tom nodded and returned the phone to his pocket. He had written down the telephone number to the lake house on a business card, and for occasions such as this, he had it stuffed into his wallet. He continued eating while Alice Kindersley continued rambling on about this and that, barely pausing to take a breath. President Peabody wasn’t the only world leader to convert to Islam and change his name. The Canadian Prime Minister and Mexican President had done the same thing; as had the leaders of several other countries, including Sweden and Germany. “I heard all of the French people have converted, but you know how they are. I just don’t understand any of it.”

  Tom didn’t understand it, either. He finished his breakfast, but remained at the table for a long time, listening as the retired schoolteacher filled him in on what she had heard. The sudden rash of conversions wasn’t limited to politicians. High ranking military officials were also jumping their respective religious ships. Business mogul
s and entertainers, professional athletes and renowned scholars, both men and women, were lining up at their local Mosques to renounce their Christianity, accepting Islam as their religion. Tom couldn’t believe his ears. “And this is happening all over the world?” he asked.

  The old woman nodded her head. “That’s what they said on the television.”

  “That’s just insane. What do you think is causing them to do such a thing?” Tom asked, digging out his wallet and walking over to the green telephone that hung on the kitchen wall.

  And then Mrs. Kindersley did something that Tom would remember for the rest of his life. She pointed to her temple. “Mind control,” she whispered. “They’re using microchips.”

  Doris was already dressed when she heard Shari start up her little sports car. It was just after dawn and the sky was filled with pink and purple. She watched the red car as it sped down the driveway and out of sight. She then waited at the window for an agonizing five minutes. Doris had caught the fever again while she slept. She no longer cared what Marie thought, or Lumpy and Steve, for that matter. Doris was going into the big house if it was the last thing she ever did. She crept up the stairs and tried the doorknob to the master bedroom. As she had figured, the door was locked. Doris had prepared for this and she pulled the hat pin from her purse. She stuck the pin into the center hole of the knob and found the release button. She then opened the door.

  “Good work” whispered Marie.

  Doris spun around and faced her sister in-law. “What are you doing out of bed?”