They say, “We are speechless,” then, “Totally,” then, “Utterly,” then, “Without word.” Their voices sound more dead and robotic than usual. I can almost hear the steel gears turning in their robot-minds.
I say, “So, a press release. What do you think of my list of policies? Should stir things up.”
“Why don’t we start this way,” then, “By telling you what the populace,” then, “City,” then, “Your constituents,” then, “Think of your policies.”
“Lay it on me.”
“They hate them,” then, “Hate isn’t strong enough,” then, “Maybe nuclear-hate,” then, “How about supermassive-black-hole hate,” then, “That one might fit.”
We drive by some apple-picking ATVs and they stop what they’re doing to wave at me. We’re close enough to see their forced smiles looking a little more forced, a little more confused because some guy in a suit with a bloody tie is sitting alone in a tourist tram.
I say, “You’re exaggerating.”
“No,” then, “We’re not,” then, “Your policies have spawned instant protest,” then, “Riots in the streets,” then, “Riots on the steps of City Hall,” then, “The police and City Guard were forced to use tear gas,” then, “Tasers,” then, “Rubber bullets,” then, “Billy clubs,” then, “Hundreds of people arrested and injured,” then, “Thirty-two people killed by suicide bombs,” then, “All because of how much they hated your policies,” then, “More specifically, your homeless policy,” then, “You should see the signs,” then, “Hear the slogans,” then, “Thousands of people chanting: Hell no, they have to go,” then, “Has a nice, retro-ring to it,” then, “Love the old-school activism,” then, “Or how about the simple but effective: Deport the Mayor!” then, “This is not an exaggeration,” then, “Not even close.”
I should not be surprised by this, should not be hurt by this, but I am. I’m such a sucker. I say, “As long as I am Mayor, you are not allowed to utter the phrase old school.”
They say, “That’s fine,” then, “You won’t be Mayor for much longer,” then, “We feel it our duty to inform you,” then, “Upon our counsel and advice,” then, “City Selectmen have enacted emergency impeachment hearings,” then, “You and your policy release endangering the public,” then, “Coupled with your irrational public behaviour,” then, “Is enough to have your mental state declared unfit for the public service position,” then, “They’re voting on it right now,” then, “On live TV,” then, “The ratings will be higher than the final episode of The Candidate,” then, “We’d point out the irony,” then, “But we don’t believe in irony.”
I can’t honestly say this was part of the plan. Chicken 2.0 and I are still slogging through Orchard. I’m ready to jump out of this tram and find a poison apple.
They say, “The vote will be done within the hour,” then, “We expect it to be unanimous.”
I take off my bloody tie, still tied in its Windsor knot, and hang it on a low-lying branch. A noose without a neck.
They say, “The City Supreme Court judges are also hard at work,” then, “Overturning Solomon’s pardon,” then, “We expect your original charges to be reinstated.”
I put my hand over the phone and yell to Chicken 2.0, “How much longer?”
Chicken 2.0 says, “Ten minutes, tops.”
They say, “We are sorry things turned out this way,” then, “We hope you appreciate our candour,” then, “You deserved it,” then, “It was an honour representing you, Mr. Mayor,” then, “If there is anything we can do for you,” then, “Anything to make your eventual arrest,” then, “Or deportation,” then, “More comfortable,” then, “Don’t hesitate to ask,” then, “At least you’ll be famous,” then, “Historic,” then, “The only Mayor to have his administration measured in hours,” then, “Instead of years.”
We’re close to leaving Orchard. The produce-packing buildings are up ahead. Chicken 2.0 veers right to avoid a large mud-puddle and some low-lying branches are only inches above my head. The branches are thick with apples; shiny, red, new, marketable, pre-processed. I take one off the branch, a big one. It is easy.
I say, “You two can do something for me.” I slip the apple into an inner suit-coat pocket. Slip is a bad choice of words, just one bad choice in a long, long line of bad choices, but I’m okay with that. I have to be. So I don’t slip the apple into my pocket. I force it in. The apple is a foreign, penetrating invader to the suit. There is damage. One end of the pocket tears, threads popping and material splitting. I close the jacket and there’s an obvious apple-bulge just under my left breast. This has turned into a nice pregnant pause to build up the drama. If Melissa’s camera were still on me, the audience would be fascinated with my apple stuffing, waiting to see what I will do or say next, breathless, at the edge of their seat, insert any other lame-TV-cliché here. They’d know that I was ready to spew forth the perfect response, layered with meaning and dare I say dignity, something they’d remember for the rest of their lives, or at least until the next SUV or beer commercial.
I say, “You two can go fuck yourselves.”
The audience would not have been disappointed.
66
A MOTHER AND SON REUNION
IS ONLY A MOTION AWAY
After hanging up with the Ass-May, I take advantage of my waning minutes as Mayor and call Farm’s main offices and set up my appointment with Mom. No one argues with me or tries to stop me. Chicken 2.0 brings me all the way to the door of the conference room like I’m a delivery, a package, a parcel.
The parcel says, “Thank you.”
Chicken 2.0 stands next to the door. I’d like to say he’s looking expectant, but I’m talking about a dumbass in a chicken suit, so I have no idea what look he’s giving me. Maybe he’s a narcoleptic and he fell asleep inside the suit or maybe he’s playing with himself, a Chicken choking his chicken, or maybe he’s doing something more ADD like trying to touch his nose with his tongue.
“That’ll be all, Chicken.” I say Chicken like it’s a swear. “You can go, but leave me the tram, please. I’ll be fine on my own, now.”
He says, “Good luck, Mr. Mayor,” and steps aside with a buck-buck and wing flaps. I think that was supposed to be funny or cute. It makes me want to break off his beak.
I watch Chicken 2.0 leave. Then I stare at the conference room door. I have an apple in my pocket and the former Book of Empty under my right arm. I’m not quite sure what to think at this point. I feel like I did all those years ago while standing in front of our apartment door. Why does my coming back here feel like I’m leaving? And here we go, through another door.
The conference room. Same as it was when I was here with the lawyers and then with the Arbitrator. There’s the long mahogany table with a small group of plush-backed chairs as satellites. The opposite wall is a giant mirror. My wing-tipped shoes sink into tan carpeting. There isn’t anyone in the room. I didn’t expect there to be anyone in here.
I walk in, put the book on the table, then I go around to the front so there’s nothing between me and the mirror, nothing between me and myself. I see the apple-lump in my jacket; it could be a swollen heart, or a monster-sized tumour.
I say, “I brought the real deal with me this time.”
“The real what?” Speakers in the ceiling, subwoofers in the floors. The voice is modulated. Deep, digital, metallic pitched. Same as it ever was.
“An apple.” I open my jacket and pry it out, tearing away the rest of the pocket. “This time it’s new, not rotten, or fallen. This time no one seems to care that I’ve picked it. I haven’t bitten it yet, either.”
I hold it up. Its red is the brightest thing in the room. Under the florescent ceiling lights, it’s almost too red, like someone painted it and tried too hard for red.
The Arbitrator says, “I don’t understand.”
I say, “Neither do I. I don’t know what this apple is supposed to
mean. Just like I don’t know why you didn’t tell me you were you the last time I was in here talking about apples, Mom.”
There’s no weighty or dramatic silence. She kicks in with an instantaneous response, as if she studied and prepared for this. “You lied to me when you were here last time, too.”
“What? I thought you were just the Arbitrator.”
“Why does that matter? You shouldn’t have been lying, regardless. I thought I brought you up better. I thought I made it obvious it was me, your Mom, as the Arbitrator.”
“How the hell was I supposed to know you were the Arbitrator?”
“I gave you some pretty obvious clues.”
“Clues?”
“I told you I was a woman and then asked you about Christianity.”
“Some clues. Gee, I must be a moron to have missed those. Plain as the nose on my face, as clear as day, right as rain . . . .” I can’t stop. I’m angry, real angry, and I want to bury her, stone her to death under a rain of clichés.
She interrupts, and that digital-metallic-deep voice is so very, maddeningly calm. “I know, you’re right, but I had planned more clues and I was mad that you were lying to me. Besides, it was my first case. I had to try and not be obvious. Farm was testing me by having to deliberate my son’s capital case.”
“You achieved not-obvious. And thanks for not killing me, Mom.”
There’s silence, but there isn’t. The buzz of florescent lights, the hum of air pushing through the vents. We’re arguing like any other parent and now-adult child. It’s almost comforting how we’re able to pick back up so naturally. It’s also so fucked up that I want to run screaming from the room because there is nothing natural about this.
Voice still modulated, proof of the unnaturalness of everything, she says, “I know you’re angry. I am sorry. I didn’t mean for you to find me this way.”
“Can you shut that fucking thing off and come out here?” I’m yelling at the mirror. My arm wants to throw the apple through the mirror and into anything else the apple deems appropriate to destroy. Death by apple, for real this time.
“I can’t come out there. Not even for the Mayor. I’ll lose my job,” she says with her real voice. At least, I think it’s real. It could be a copy of a copy of a copy like Farm’s animals. What hope do I have when that makes sense to me?
“I have a million things to say at once, but I’ll start by saying I’m glad you’re not dead or homeless,” I say, stopping short of telling her I care about her. Instead, I add, “That would’ve sucked.”
She says, “Thank you, and I know you were worried.” She sounds older and weak, trapped in the speakers and behind the walls. “I watched your show. You were so sweet when you asked the camera if anyone had seen me.”
I sit on the table and stare at my well-shoed feet; it feels like something a son should be doing while having a confrontational and uncomfortable conversation with his mother. “How did you get here?” I hold out my arms as a visual aid. The mirror-guy does the same.
“It’s a long story.”
“Make it short.”
There’s no pause on her end. She launches into her short story. “For six months before you left, I was taking night classes: law. I don’t think you ever knew that.”
“Nope.”
“I tried to tell you.”
“I don’t remember that either.”
There’s a tongue cluck, or it could be interference in the radio relay, who the fuck knows. She says, “When you left I kept up with the classes, the money you sent home helped, of course, and I was ready to take the bar exam a couple of months ago. I was going to surprise you with that.”
“Well, the timing’s off, but I am surprised.”
“Not sure why, but the Dean of Continuing Education took in interest in my situation and set me up with an interview for the Arbitrator position without me knowing. I showed up for the final review class for the bar exam and there were Farm representatives waiting for me. I didn’t know what to think, initially. They ended up making me the proverbial offer I couldn’t refuse. They hired me. They hired me because I was willing to leave City, willing to become anonymous, willing to disappear for six years. Just like you.”
That hurt. So I fire back. “And Farm would be able to control you and your decisions, right?”
She says, “Again, just like you.”
“This isn’t just like me. When I left I at least told you where I was going.”
“I couldn’t tell you where I was going. The Arbitrator’s anonymous identity is contractually obligated and legally binding.”
“You didn’t have to tell me that you were an Arbitrator. A call or a note to tell me you moved and you were okay. That would’ve been enough. Instead, I get rumours, terminated bank accounts, and an abandoned apartment.”
“I know. I was trying to work out a way to get that information to you. I tried relaying a cryptic message through a tour leader, she was a Duck I think, but I know that didn’t work out, it didn’t seem like she understood what I was trying to tell her, and then you figured out I was gone too quickly. I wasn’t expecting you to check your financial records because we missed a phone-call night.”
“I checked my records because that woman, the Duck said she knew you and told me that you were living with a drug dealer and about to be evicted from your apartment.” I describe the Duck a. k. a. piss-girl to my mother. I leave nothing out.
She says, “Why would she say that? There was no drug dealer and I wasn’t evicted, not even close. I simply left for Farm. That’s what I told her.”
My head is a messy kid’s bedroom. Piles of dirty laundry, broken and forgotten toys erupting from a splintering toy box, torn posters dripping off the walls, sheets twisted and mattress tags exposed on the unmade bed, mostly empty cups and a film of dust on the dresser. How am I supposed to clean all this?
She says, “Sounds like she was just messing around with you.”
I want to change the subject. I want to change everything. I say, “Right. Anyway, did you know I spent the last two weeks with my father?”
Mom says, “I know. I told you I watched your TV show, remember? Which means I don’t have to ask how your father is doing, because I know.”
I say, “I don’t think you do. I spent all that time with him and I certainly don’t know the how of his doing.”
“Be that as it may . . . Hey, something just occurred to me. Maybe Farm saw that I’d tried talking to her at lunch once, and they had that Duck say those things about me to you to lead you down the false path, to ensure they kept me and my whereabouts anonymous.” Even though Mom is nothing but a voice through speakers, and me without the benefit of the near infinite-in-number visual communication signals we receive when talking to someone face-to-face, I know that Mom is proud of herself for solving the piss-girl problem, although the implications about her employer are darker than burnt toast.
I say, “I don’t doubt it. And to say she led me down the false path is the understatement of a lifetime.” I don’t know what to say next. I wish she’d come out from behind the mirror. I’m sick of talking to the great and powerful Oz-people of the world.
She says, “This wasn’t and isn’t easy, you know, but when my six years are up, I’ll never have to worry about money again.”
“You didn’t have to worry about money before. I came here to take care of you financially. I left to help you.” I know I’m lying to her. Does that make the lie worse or better?
“You left for yourself, and that’s okay.”
There’s another silence. I flip through the former Book of Empty. Pages whiz by. I see a cartoon of dancing letters and random images that coalesce for an instant before breaking up into chaos again.
She says, “I don’t blame you for leaving. I never did. I understood. I was happy for you.”
Would asking her who’s lying now be too cynical?
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She says, “Can’t you just be happy for me? I have a career now. A place of my own. That apartment was always his. Now, I don’t need anyone else’s money or charity or help. I’m not dependent upon anyone.”
“Other than Farm, you mean.”
She says, “I was happy you won the election. I voted for you via absentee ballot.”
I laugh. So does she. I get up from the desktop and walk to the mirror. I’m very close.
I say, “I don’t think I’m going to be Mayor for very long.” I don’t say it very loud. A confession, layered with poisonous shame.
She says, “That’s nonsense. You’ll be a fine Mayor.” I smile at the Mom-as-cheerleader praise. Hollow praise, insofar as it comes with the parental territory, but still effective. “You’ll get used to it. You can get used to anything.” That last sentence is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard come out of my mother. And because of it and how she said it, I’m not angry anymore. I’ll never be angry with her again, but I want to kill the brain cells that will store her words and how she said it. I don’t want to be here anymore. I shouldn’t have come here. I should’ve let her be.
I say, “I don’t think there’s anyone living in our apartment building anymore. There wasn’t anyone in our apartment, anyway.”
She says, “I don’t miss City at all. I have a nice place now. It’s a yellow bungalow in the southwest quadrant of Farm, near a brook and a grove of pine trees. Very bright and cheery. I can see the stars at night. I probably shouldn’t have told you where I lived.”
“Are you happy, Mom?”
“They let me keep my own garden, grow my own food.”
“Mom?”
“I have tomatoes, cucumbers, and summer squash. The squash came out the best.”
“Are.”
“I was thinking about getting a puppy.”
“You.”
“Then I’d have to pay for a fence to be put up. I still might do it. I haven’t decided.”
“Happy?”
There’s silence, and both my hands are on the mirror. I’m staring into myself. Do I like what I see?
Swallowing a Donkey's Eye Page 20
