Big Guns

by Steve Israel

  “Let’s do this!” he barked to no one in particular.

  The air in the gymnasium was thick and asphyxiating from fresh coats of varnish applied the day before, thanks to a generous (and last-minute) grant from City Hall. The assembled media impatiently awaited Rodriguez’s arrival. Two dozen mayors from across the country fidgeted on a multilevel platform like a chorus about to begin its spring concert. Mayor Donnelly from Boston was there, plus Hackenrush of Denver, Kim of San Francisco, and Swati D’Antonio-Serrano-Goldberg of New York. Finally, Rodriguez entered the gym to a smattering of obligatory applause. He centered himself opposite the phalanx of television cameras. He heard the urgent shuffle of the mayors behind him, squeezing their bodies into the range of the cameras. Rodriguez knew that nothing terrified a politician more than the cold-hearted crop of a photo editor. He tried to erase a wry smile. This was serious business: his declaration of war against guns.

  This was his “Chicago Compact.”

  A standard political theory is “strength in numbers” (or, as Rodriguez thought, “Misery loves company”). Now Rodriguez would show his constituents that they weren’t the only bull’s-eyes on the block. Gun violence was a national crisis requiring a national response. And if the federal government refused to protect its citizens, a new alliance of local mayors would do it instead. Each signatory to the compact pledged to pass ordinances within their own jurisdictions to ban the sales of certain guns, bar the use of certain ammunition, and blackball any pension funds that invested in gun company stocks. They were aiming at the gun manufacturers’ profit margins, an ever-widening target.

  A parchment was spread on a blue-draped table next to Rodriguez. He swept a pen dramatically across the page. Then, one by one, the other mayors added their names, to the flashing of cameras inside the gym and the distant pop-pop-pop of gunfire outside.

  When the ink was dry, Rodriguez ended the press conference with an invitation to other local officials to join the Chicago Compact. His call was heard across America, in big cities and small towns; in counties, villages, and parishes; urban, suburban, exurban; by commissioners, council members, supervisors, and mayors. From the West Coast all the way to a lonely living room in eastern Long Island, lit only by the dim flicker of an old television.

  *

  Late that night, Sunny McCarthy sat in her bed, draped in an oversized Washington Redskins T-shirt, staring at a grainy photo of Mayor Michael Rodriguez on her laptop. She was propped against a mountain of pillows. Her head was drooping, and her eyelids felt heavy. Twice already she’d drifted to sleep, only to be jolted awake by the memory of Otis Cogsworth’s panicked voice over the phone earlier that evening. He’d been watching the channel-to-channel coverage of Rodriguez’s outrageous Chicago Compact and handling a torrent of calls from board members woozy from the afternoon’s roller-coaster ride of Cogsworth stocks. “This gun ban could kill us, Sunny,” he’d told her gravely, as if it hadn’t occurred to her. “When do we go on offense? Where’s our legislation? When will President Do-Nothing sign it?”

  “Otis—”

  “Why can’t we move any faster?”

  Sunny had sighed. She could have explained that this particular Congress operated at one of two speeds: glacial and gridlock. She could have described the almost interminable process for introducing a bill, attracting sponsors and cosponsors, holding committee hearings and markups, negotiating language, considering amendments, whipping votes, voting in the House, then the Senate, sending the bill to the president, overriding a potential veto. However, the yipping on the other end of the phone didn’t exactly suggest Otis had any patience for “Intro to the American Legislative Process.” So she let him continue until finally he ended the conversation with an exasperated “Good Lord!”

  Sunny had spent the rest of the evening plodding through her to-do list. Tomorrow—or was it already tomorrow?—she’d meet again with Congressman Roy Dirkey to discuss the official rollout of AFFFA. Meanwhile there was the matter of Mayor Michael Rodriguez. She’d already retained her favorite opposition research company, 3D Associates, part of the vast network of political operatives at her command. The Ds stood for Digging, Drilling, and Dredging. They’d use their mud-stained fingernails to pry open the scabs on Rodriguez’s life, probing for signs of infection: late taxes, debts, defaults, assignations, litigation, speeding, jay walking. They’d drop a FOIA bomb, filing Freedom of Information Act requests on every government agency with possible records on the mayor, back to and including his kindergarten report card.

  For now, Sunny’s delicate fingers simply clicked through the Internet as she tried to get a vague idea of what 3D might track down. The life and times of Michael Rodriguez appeared on her screen: three separate grand jury investigations, two acquittals, one indictment that was dropped when it worked its way to some judge who was some other judge’s brother-in-law. So what else is new, she thought. It’s Chicago.

  Sunny glanced at the cell phone on her nightstand, still flashing two unanswered calls from her mother. She yawned. Outside her bedroom window, a soft orange dawn slowly edged across the twinkling lights of DC. She moved her laptop aside, settled her head on the pillows, took a long, anxious breath, and closed her eyes.

  She found herself standing in the old house in Asabogue, when she was eighteen. A setting sun cast the kitchen in a faint orange glow. On the yellow Formica counter steam swirled from a pizza recently delivered from Gino’s Pizzeria, she and her brother Jeffrey’s favorite restaurant. The sound of a raucous television audience drifted in from the living room, where Jeffrey was watching a children’s game show. Directly in front of Sunny, the old kitchen table was buried under piles of her mother’s work: black binders containing the Asabogue Village Zoning Code, maps, blueprints, stacks of Village Board agendas, faded newspaper clippings, tattered manila folders. Mother was moving piles across the table like a shell game, her arms whirling frantically.

  Sunny quietly took a seat at the table and tried to sense an opening to capture her mother’s attention. She struggled to get her words past a giant lump stuck in her throat, a lump that had been there since her father left years before. That was when Mother had gone from paralyzing sadness to a frenetic anger aimed at the rich and powerful, at everyone from warlords in Africa to landlords in Asabogue, at the thieves and cheaters, like that woman from the Bluff who took her husband away. Sunny knew that the outrage helped her mother overpower her misery, but it seemed to plow through other parts of her life as well. Sometimes when her mother was particularly distracted, particularly overcome with aggressive, righteous energy, Sunny pictured an angry wave from the nearby beach crashing into their home, then withdrawing, taking everything in its wake.

  At the table Sunny twirled her hair. The nervous habit was acquired after her father left. Her nails were chipped and bitten. Mother didn’t have time to take her for a manicure. Mother barely had time to plop a take-out dinner on the counter.

  Finally Sunny said, “Mother, can we talk?”

  Mother continued her work. “About what?” she asked distractedly.

  “About Brad.”

  “Brad who?”

  “Brad,” Sunny said, trying to steady her voice. “My boyfriend, Brad. Brad McCarthy.”

  Mother paused. Her eyes met Sunny’s for just a moment, then darted back to the table. “The one from the Bluff?” she asked. “He’s just going to disappoint you, Sunshine. Believe me.”

  Now the lump in Sunny’s throat cleared and she felt a surge of anger. The words spilled out. “Brad wants to get married.”

  Lois stood still, staring at the piles on the table, avoiding eye contact, her arms suspended momentarily in midair, as if she were a conductor about to cue her orchestra to begin. “We’ll discuss it another time,” she said at last. “I’m late for my meeting. Another big hardware store wants to open in town. As if Kripsky’s isn’t good enough.” She resumed combing through piles, then said, “Stop playing with your hair, please.”

  Sunn
y’s eyes fluttered open in her dark bedroom. She lay breathing, willing her pounding heart to slow, assuring herself of her surroundings, of the life she’d built on the ruins of her past. The laptop had been pushed precariously close to the edge of her bed. Groggily, she sat up, pulled a robe from a chair near her night-stand, wrapped it around her, and took note of her perfectly manicured nails. She stepped onto the balcony, high above the early stirrings of Washington. A warm breeze washed over her. A few taxis slowly roamed the otherwise empty streets below. She could hear the distant thunder of the first planes of the day taking off from Reagan National Airport.

  She surveyed her domain, far from Asabogue.

  She turned and went inside. She had work to do.

  8

  Congressman, feel free to share your passion. In less than one hundred forty characters.”

  Roy Dirkey sat behind his lustrously polished desk and cocked his head at Sunny. The morning sun streamed through parted red drapes, falling ethereally on the congressman. The desk was cleared of everything but a dog-eared Bible and an untouched stack of legislative memos. A television suspended from the ceiling broadcast a live hearing of the temporary Select Investigative Panel on Planned Parenthood, its temporary mission now creeping into a second decade. Members spewed, scorned, pointed, and jabbed from a wide dais.

  Dirkey’s senior staff hovered nearby: the chief of staff, press secretary, deputy press secretary, and senior legislative assistant— all part of the large team that Dirkey assembled in his war for smaller government.

  On the subject of large, Sunny noticed something about Team Dirkey. With the exception of a rather slovenly chief of staff, the assembled personnel—Ashlee, Katie, and Tiffany—had certain attributes that might not have been fully described on their curriculum vitae. Evidently, for Representative Dirkey, hiring inside the Beltway was decided a short way below the belt. This could be the Federal Office of Blond & Buxom.

  “I still don’t get why I’m going to announce the American Freedom from Fear Act in a tweet,” Dirkey protested. “I was planning a major speech on the House floor.”

  “That’s so Henry Clay,” Sunny said. “Have you heard there’s a new way of communicating? It’s called the Internet.”

  “Real funny.”

  “It’s all arranged,” Sunny continued. “You’ll do a tweet. The NRA will retweet it to their hundreds of thousands of followers. Then it goes viral.”

  “Then a speech on the floor?”

  “Then a post on Facebook. We retained the best online consultants in politics: Daniel Webster Associates. They’re expensive but totally worth it. They’ll integrate digital platforms to build out a national audience. Drive search engine optimization, arrange list swaps, penetrate blogs, increase the number of followers and likes.”

  “But when do we do real press?” Dirkey asked. “The kind where I actually announce the bill and reporters actually report on it.” Sunny sipped from a bottle of water sourced in Dirkey’s district, a place she mentally renamed Tepid Springs, and said, “You’ll formally unveil AFFFA in an informal two-minute Web announcement. After we’ve built out our virtual community, you’ll give the speech of your life. Roy Dirkey’s Gettysburg Address!”

  Roy winced. “We gave some good speeches on our side of the war, you know.”

  His staff nodded earnestly.

  Sunny shrugged.

  “In any event, when do I speak in Congress?”

  “You don’t. We have a much better venue.”

  “Arkansas!”

  “Nope.”

  “Where, then?”

  “Chicago. City Hall.”

  Roy whistled. “That’s enemy territory. Will I have any air cover?”

  “We made a few calls,” Sunny said, smiling.

  *

  CNN anchor Beth Burroughs locked eyes with the camera. “A group calling itself Patriot Protectors is mobilizing on the border of Indiana and Illinois,” she told her viewers, “reportedly to, uh . . . defend Chicago! CNN’s Joe Cook is on the scene with an exclusive interview.”

  Joe Cook, dressed in a blue blazer and crisp khakis, stood in the parking lot of a dreary strip mall containing of a fast-food taco franchise, a Dollar Boots & Shoes, several vacant storefronts, and something called Big Bob’s GunArama, fronted by a giant neon M16. A couple hundred people scurried behind him, dressed in military garb, brandishing firearms of all shapes, sizes, and types and loading crates of provisions onto an idling convoy of flatbed trucks.

  “Joe,” Burroughs said, “the last time I saw a scene like this was at the border of Kuwait and Iraq.”

  “That’s right, Beth. Only it’s not Kuwait. It’s Stutsville, Indiana. And I’m with one town resident, Bob Stork of Big Bob’s Gun-Arama.”

  A very big Bob stood next to Joe. An NRA cap sat far back on Bob’s bald scalp, and a black polyester polo shirt barely covered the pale overhang of his corpulent belly. He stared vacantly into the camera, his hands folded awkwardly at his crotch.

  “Mr. Stork—”

  “Bob. Owner of Big Bob’s GunArama. Where our aim . . . is customer satisfaction.” He smiled nervously.

  Joe nodded briskly. “Okay, Bob. So tell us what’s happening here.”

  Stork leaned heavily into the microphone. “What’s happenin’, Joe, is we’re movin’ out to protect women and children in Chicago now that the mayor up there just surrendered.”

  Behind them, a small crowd waved exuberantly at the camera. The 1970s hit “The Night Chicago Died” blared from loudspeakers. “Surrendered?” asked Cook.

  “Absolutely, Joe. His people are gettin’ shot at and his answer is to take away their guns. What would you call it?”

  “You seem heavily armed.”

  “Better be, Joe. You can’t win a war with a peashooter. Need heavy artillery. Which we have at GunArama! Includin’ the Cogs-worth AR-15 Justifier, on sale this week.”

  Joe Cook was visibly annoyed at this brazen attempt at unpaid advertising. He put his hand on Big Bob’s spongy elbow. Bob took an alarmed step back.

  “Now,” said Cook, “some would argue that what’s happening in Chicago isn’t war. It’s crime. And that we should let trained police deal with that. How do you respond?”

  Big Bob gave Joe a look that said Can you get me someone from Fox News? “What’s happinin’ in Chicago is a war,” he replied. “And the crime is that innocent people are defenseless. If the government won’t protect ’em, we will.”

  The crowd behind him cheered “USA! USA! USA!”

  Joe Cook turned to the camera. “Brooke, you just heard it. Here in Stutsville, people seem to be taking matters . . . into their own hands.”

  The matters in their hands were handguns, shotguns, and rifles: single action, double action, semiautomatic; sporting and tactical; bolt, lever, and pump; five rounds, ten rounds, twenty and thirty. In walnut and maple, in black polymer and composite camo. They were made by Colt, Glock, Ruger, Remington, and Smith & Wesson. They were named “Protector,” “Defender,” and “Repulser.” And the Cogsworth AR-15 “Justifier.”

  Available at Big Bob’s GunArama.

  While supplies last.

  *

  Sam Gergala walked in long strides down Main Street, hands dug into his jeans pockets, eyes fixed low on the redbrick sidewalk. Looking left or right on his way to work made Sam uncomfortable. What used to be Kripsky’s Hardware was now the Wick & Whim. It sold scented candles and pricey signs made to look old and cheap proclaiming, LIFE’S A BEACH! and ASABOGUE USA! Tony’s Barber Shop was now a sleek real estate office, its windows plastered with glossy photos of East End “compounds” and “retreats” featuring “waterfront vistas,” “vineyard views,” and something called “sexy free-form pools.” Even Joan’s Main Street Bakery had changed. Sam used to be able to walk in and order coffee and a buttered roll. Now it sold coffee in endless syllables that tied Sam’s tongue. On Sunday mornings the rich descended from the Bluff to buy croissants and baguettes, then rushed
back with their New York Times cradled under an arm. They wore Panama hats and flip-flops, and parked their open-air Jeeps and Range Rovers under shade trees that seemed to slump in sad resignation.

  Sometimes, he’d duck into the stores just to stand on the original wood floors, stare at the tin ceilings, and sniff at the musty past. He’d recall how farmers used to plant their stained hands on the dusty glass counters and gab, how the starchy scent of potatoes would cling to their clothing. Today, Sam just kept walking. He wanted to get to Village Hall and organize things before Lois arrived.

  He unlocked the door to Village Hall. The Old Sitting Parlor was fusty and dark. The floorboards groaned under his mud-caked boots. He switched on the recently repaired air conditioner, which seemed to hiss in protest before commencing a shallow whine and some weak gurgling. Then he reached toward the television mounted above the counter. It flickered onto the scene in Stuts-ville, a place far away and of no interest to Sam, especially given the local urgencies he’d planned to discuss with Lois this morning. There was the defective streetlight on Asabogue Bluff Lane. Joan’s Main Street Bakery had submitted a special use permit for outside dining. The community fund was stalled at thirty-nine thousand dollars. Plus, Caitlyn Turner, the actress, was threatening a multimillion-dollar lawsuit if the village didn’t remove the stop sign that she claimed had been arbitrarily planted near her front gate. This was a particular concern to Sam. He assumed that Turner’s budget for Beverly Hills lawyers exceeded Asabogue’s budget for, well, everything. He positioned several piles of paperwork for the mayor to review.

  The front door opened. Sam realized his mistake.

  In the past few weeks he’d noticed Lois’s fixation on the news from Chicago. Her eyes would drift to the television and her thoughts would wander from Asabogue. Before long she’d pucker her lips, which, Sam knew, meant she was thinking about something unpleasant.