First things first. I call the Chief of Police. I tell him the Mayor knows of the giant, public DNA and location database they keep, and the Mayor wants to know where his Mommy is. Chief tells the Mayor that he’ll get back to him post haste. It’s as easy as that. Now I’m thinking that I’m afraid to know where my mother is. That it can’t be good. That Father ESP’s you’ll find out on your own sounded more ominous than hopeful.
I pick one of Solomon’s pens out of the trash. This one has Tony’s Sub Shoppe and its address on the pen. The thing is even shaped like a submarine sandwich, rubber and lettuce leaves bend under my fingers. I put my Home souvenir, the book from my father’s room, on the empty desk. Maybe I should take a page out of my father’s book and write me up a happy ending for me and my mother.
I write:
I find my mother.
She is happy and she continues to live in happiness for the rest of her days.
I tear that page out of my father’s book, crumple it, and toss it to the floor.
I go back to the phone and leave a message for the Ass-May telling them I want Melissa’s adoption of the Pier-girl expedited and the Pier-girl’s medical care taken care of or I won’t be a happy, cooperative Mayor. I try for an intimidating I-lead-you-follow tone, but it comes out sounding like a whiney pretty please. I hang up, but I call back and leave another message telling them I want Home’s funding tripled. Inspired by this sudden attack of Mayoralness, I pick the BLT-sub-pen up again, go back to the book, open it up to a blank page somewhere near the middle, and write.
60
MAYORAL MANIFESTO RHYMES WITH PESTO
MAYORAL MANIFESTO
Rhymes with pesto!
After the cross-outs, I tear out the page and try again.
OUTLINE OF THE MAYOR’S POLICIES
-Deporting the homeless is morally and legally reprehensible. Ending the practice will be priority number one of this administration.
Nice. I’m proud of that.
-In addition, we will work toward the reintegration of current deportees. Social programs and initiatives will include shelters, educational support, and breakfast and lunch programs for the children. For the adults, professional skills training, affordable housing, health care, and general social service support.
I write more. Pie in the sky kind of stuff that I know won’t get done, but I’m writing it anyway.
-City will comply with environmental law and cease its dumping practices under Pier.
-There will be tougher restrictions on emissions and a ban on SUV sales. I will work toward eventually replacing fossil fuel engines with clean-burning fuel alternatives and hydrogen cell batteries.
-Farm will be regulated by the Mayor’s office. I will require Farm to publish its engineering programs and practices, along with any and all pertinent pesticide and chemical use information.
-I will end Farm’s long-term, binding employee contracts and regulate the working conditions.
-I will raise minimum wage to a living wage.
-Ad Walkers will be pushed back to 500 feet away from schools and residential homes.
-I will work toward a goal of socialized medicine and subsidized higher education.
THIS IS JUST A START!
61
KING FOR A DAY, FOOL FOR A LIFETIME
My policies list fills one side of one page. I add my John Hancock to the bottom. Then I manually copy the list onto another page, sign it, and tear out both pages from the Book of Empty. I leave my office, walk down the busy hall, and toss a copy to the Ass-May’s secretary. I stand outside of their office until a City Hall beat reporter recognizes me. It doesn’t take long.
The press-man snaps a digital pic and says, “You got anything for me, Mr. Mayor? How about five minutes?”
I say, “I do have five minutes but you can’t have them.”
“That’s no way to start a relationship with the media.” He’s young like me. Wearing a brown suit topped off with a fedora. He has thin, wispy eyebrows, but they meet just above his nose, making him look permanently angry.
I notice some other people starting to mill around, listening to us. Likely recording us. I say, “You’re probably right. You can have this instead.” I give him the second copy of my Mayoral manifesto.
Press-man looks at me funny, like I’m the innocent child who just drew a picture of torture and mutilation. He looks over both of his shoulders, making sure no one’s perched on his back. He reads it again and laughs.
“You sure about this, Mr. Mayor? I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you a mulligan, if you want. I’ll tear it up and you can give me those five minutes instead. No harm, no foul.”
“I’m sure. No mulligans. Print it, broadcast it, disseminate it. Do whatever it is you do.”
He flips open his cell phone and smiles. He says, “You’re a fool.” Those eyebrows almost separating so he doesn’t look angry anymore. It’s more of a surprised look. Or constipated. I have a crazy urge to bring him to my office to show him the refrigerator and the plaque on my wall and ask him who is the fool? Instead I walk to my office alone. Other media moguls converge on me but I don’t give them anything and close the Mayoral door in their faces.
The phone on my desk has a blinking red light. There’s a message. It could be a message from the Chief of Police with my mother’s whereabouts. It could be a message from anybody. I don’t know how to feel or what to believe or what to hope.
I’d left the office with my Book of Empty open on the desk. It’s still there, and open. I sit and re-write the happy ending to my mother’s story. I stare at the story and at the blinking red light. The two choices are incongruous. The dream of happily ever after versus the blinking red light, a command to listen to this. And I think about red alerts and ambulance lights and other warnings and alarms associated with blinking and red.
I close the book and pick up the phone. The message plays. The message is from the Chief of Police and he knows where my mother is. He tells me. He tells me my personal-universe-shattering news in casual conversational tones and I break up into parts and pieces all over again. There’s the relieved piece that is rounded and smooth. There’s the so-goddamn-angry piece with torn sections and jagged edges. There’s the I-need-to-laugh-for-the-rest-of-my-life piece, light and wafer-thin. There’s the sad and hurt piece that is bent and wet. There’s the I-really-am-a-fool piece with its odd angles and colours that won’t match any other piece. There’s the logical piece with square and rectangular edges, easy for fitting, this piece thinking only about how to get to her and how to put myself back together.
But this time the puzzle of me will never fit back together and all of the king-for-a-day’s horses and all of the king-for-a-day’s men can’t put this fool-for-a-lifetime back together again.
62
THE NOTE I SHOULD’VE WRITTEN
It was early and I was alone in the kitchen, staring out the window. Dirty streets with tumbleweed trash, broken windows behind wire-mesh cages, leaky tar roofs, rusty cars missing headlights, cracked streets and sidewalks, smoke stacks above it all in the background making clouds that didn’t take the shapes of fluffy bunnies or god. Our neighbourhood was decaying, at least to the eyes of the eighteen-year-old me. Maybe it was always that way but it seemed worse because I wasn’t a little kid anymore, because I knew my mother couldn’t protect me from the bad things anymore. But I wanted to protect her and I had convinced myself that was the reason I was leaving.
So there I was. Eighteen-year-old me sitting at the kitchen table, trying to write a note to my mother. I had planned on telling her the night before, but she went straight to bed after getting home late from her night-school class. Who knew what class as she’d changed her focus of study seemingly every week. But hey, at least she was trying.
I had convinced myself I was doing the same by signing six years of my life away to Farm. It seems I can only be honest with myself after t
he passage of a significant amount of time. It’s safer that way.
The note:
Mom,
I wanted to talk to you about this face to face but I’m a chicken. . . .
Of course, the eighteen-year-old me didn’t realize the prophecy of this opening statement.
. . . I knew you’d try to talk me out of it. But this is something I have to do. I need to be on my own and Farm gives me the opportunity to do that and help you at the same time. Through the recruiter, I’ve already set up a plan where a portion of my paycheck is automatically deposited into your chequing account (yes, I got your account number by going through your pocketbook, sorry). You’ll be able to keep going to school, and maybe even work a few less hours yourself.
The bus leaves this morning. I am sorry to do this to you in a letter, but it’s the only way I can do it. I will call when I get settled. I love you.
It got the job done, I guess. But this is the note I should’ve written:
Mom,
I’m leaving because I can’t stay in this neighbourhood anymore. I’m leaving because I can’t stay in City anymore. I’m leaving because Mr. and Mrs. Lopez died. I’m leaving because he left. I’m leaving because like father like son. I’m leaving because I can’t watch you fall apart anymore. I’m leaving because the Farm recruiter found a sucker. I’m leaving because he simply asked me to. I’m leaving because I simply said yes. I’m leaving because the spider in the elevator shaft is real. I’m leaving because I’m too old for attention even if I still want it. I’m leaving because you tell me too much about you and your boyfriends. I’m leaving because I’m your son, not someone else. I’m leaving because you haven’t decided what to do with your own life. I’m leaving because I know what I just wrote isn’t fair but I still wrote it anyway. I’m leaving because I can’t save you. I’m leaving because you can’t save me. I’m leaving because I don’t know what else to do. I’m leaving because I’m afraid, afraid I’ll never get out otherwise, afraid of you, afraid of everything. I’m leaving because I don’t know anything. I’m leaving because I’m sorry. I’m leaving because I don’t know you. I’m leaving because I don’t know me. I’m leaving because I love you. I’m leaving because I don’t love me. I’m leaving because I need to forgive you for that night. I’m leaving because I need to forgive myself for that night.
I left the real note the eighteen-year-old-me wrote on the kitchen table, pinned under a sweaty, mostly empty glass of orange juice. Water beads rolled down the glass and onto the paper, making a circle, and smudging the ink of my signature. I left the glass there and I left the apartment, closing the door so quietly that I knew no one heard it shut.
63
FILLING THE BOOK OF EMPTY
I have a plan.
Back in a limo, but I’m hijacking this one. This is supposed to be the take-the-Mayor-to-the-Shriners-brunch limo. I tell the driver, the same Mr. Rolly Polly who drove us all that long-ago night, to take me to Farm or I’ll have him shipped below City faster than he can say Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down. I’m allowed one token abuse of power.
Fifty minutes of high-rises, intersections, and traffic-lights later, we’re through City and rolling down the Farm access road. Trees, dirt, and dust. My Mayor’s cell phone is red, Batphone red, and I call ahead to Farm to let them know the Mayor is coming and that the Mayor expects access to wherever it is he wants to go, the Mayor is done sneaking around. The receptionist assures me my visit and tour will be well above satisfactory. I tell him don’t bet on it.
The Book of Empty is still with me, only it’s getting to be not so empty. I’m writing one word, a different word, for every page. Sometimes I write the word horizontally, then vertically, diagonal, parabolic, concave up and concave down. Sometimes I write the word so some of the letters are higher than the others, but nothing too radical so that the particular word can’t be read. I use big letters, small letters, capitals, lower case. I outline some words and some I make bold and block by pressing hard with the pen and retracing the sticks and curves that form the letters. Some words mean something, some mean nothing.
A sampling of the words: insect, mob, duck, reality, fart, lies, words, dog, incompetence, suffering, piss, hole, love, donkey, eye, me, dump, forget, scream, numb. I will give this book to my mother. Maybe it’ll fit together and tell her what I need to tell her. Maybe it won’t.
In no particular order (do you believe me? do you believe in anything?), here’s what some of the pages look like:
64
TAKE A FARM TOUR AND SEE CLETUS
I tense up as we pull through the giant, swinging white-picket fence gate that will funnel us into Farm’s main entrance, the tourist entrance. My stomach is full of malformed butterflies, their wings stunted or incomplete or misshapen or spotted with malignant growths, and these freak wings flutter spastically, irregularly, or not at all. I imagine they’ll die soon, and that’s supposed to be a comfort.
The limo drives down a short gravel road lined with bushes trimmed into animal shapes. The landscapers, dressed in their Farm-issued overalls, stop what they’re doing to smile and wave at the limo. Apparently they’re okay with the former-terrorist Mayor. They can’t see me through the tinted windows, but I want to hide anyway.
The limo stops in front of the reception hall, which is adjacent to the large administration building. The reception hall is red and shaped like an olde tyme barn. Three meet-’n’-greeters sit on a haystack next to the barn’s swinging doors: two young and suitably attractive women in overalls and one Chicken. The birth-defect butterflies have a few twitches left as all my years of servitude and acquiescence training and Chicken-experience will be hard to wash out of my system.
The driver opens my door. There’s an explosion of sound, some tune with Dixie horns and ragtime piano and jangling bells and barker-shouted lyrics about Farm blares from speakers that are likely hidden in the haystacks around the barn.
Farm! You feed us.
Farm! You need us.
Take a Farm tour and see Cletus. . . .
I bend and yell into Rolly Polly’s ear, “Turn off your phone and wait right here for me.”
He nods. But I don’t buy it.
Chicken takes my hand and shakes it hard, then the women loop my arms into theirs.
“Welcome back to Farm, Mr. Mayor.”
“It’s an honour to have you here.”
I don’t say anything and let them herd me into the red barn. Inside, hay mostly covers the tram-tracks and animal stalls have desks, computers, and workers instead of horses and cows. More people, an assortment of desk-jockeys and tour leaders in their animal suits, come and shake my hand and pat me on the back. I wonder how many former Farm employees were really arrested or liquidated because of the Duck-attack and my escape. Well, I am Mayor, I suppose I could find out.
Two people dressed as the American Gothic farmers flank me, and flashes flash. A Cow hands me an insta-print of the special moment. The old guy from American Gothic leans over my shoulder for a closer look, and he scratches me right below my chin with his goddamn pitchfork. Blood drips off my chin and lands on the knot of my Mayoral tie. I don’t know if I can do this.
Pitchfork-guy says, “Whoops, sorry about that, sonny. These glasses are props and I don’t see through ’em too good.”
Someone presses a rag on my wound and it’s so far past the time to take control. I yell, “All right, all right. Everybody just shut up!” The room goes quiet. Thank somebody. Someone turned off the music and everyone looks a little scared, even the people in their animal suits. This is good. A little scared never hurt anyone.
I say, “You,” grab the Chicken by his wattle, and pull him close. I tell him where he is going to take me. The Chicken doesn’t say anything, but gives a follow-me wing-swipe, that wonderful wordless communiqué that only the privileged few Farm employees get to experience. Can you tell I already don’t like this vers
ion of Chicken? Chicken 2.0. I think I understand Jonah’s natural hatred for oversized poultry.
So the new Mayor dislikes the new Chicken, but he follows the feathered fucker to a tourist tram anyway.
65
HOW ABOUT SUPER-MASSIVE-BLACK-HOLE HATE
Being so reliant upon a Chicken wasn’t part of my plan. I’m trying to be flexible.
We drive through Orchard and I have to trust Chicken 2.0 to take me where I want to go because I don’t know where she is. I mean, I know where she is but I don’t know how to get there from here. Story of my life.
The Batphone goes off, flashing red and the ring screaming like a smoke alarm. It better not be the driver calling me.
“Hello?”
“What are you doing?” then, “We’ve never seen a roomful of Shriners so angry.”
The butterflies tickle my belly with a couple of death twitches. I say, “Did you take care of Melissa and Home for me?”
“Of course,” then, “We took care of each as soon as we got the message,” then, “Which was before you stiffing the Shriners,” then, “And before the City-wide press release of your ‘Mayoral Policies.’”
“I’m sorry about the Shriners, but I found out where my mother is, no thanks to you. And the Mayor has to see her now.” I have a plan, remember. The plan includes referring to myself in third person. Besides, I knew this call was going to happen. Trust the Mayor.
Swallowing a Donkey's Eye Page 19
