by Mark Gimenez
Bode turned and stared at his own image. How many times had he stood there and imagined his portrait on the wall of the majestic rotunda of the Texas State Capitol? How proud had he felt standing there when his portrait was hung? Life had been exciting eight years ago when he had first been elected governor. The adventure was upon him, the economy was booming, and his wife loved him. Now "I'm hiding a twenty-seven-year-old mistress from my wife and a twenty-seven-billion-dollar deficit from the voters."
He glanced up again at Sam and felt the sharp stab of shame; would they erect a statue of William Bode Bonner in the Capitol one day?
"What kind of man am I?"
"You're not a man," the Professor said. "You're a politician."
Mandy arrived to retrieve the governor. They walked across the hall and into the press room. Bode stopped at the door and regarded the nearly empty space.
"That's it? Two print reporters? And one's from the UT student paper? That's all the coverage for my weekly press conference? Where's the Austin paper? The TV reporters?"
Mandy gave him a lame shrug. Jim Bob checked his iPhone.
"Oh, there's a big wreck out on the interstate. They sent the camera crews to cover that instead."
"Figures."
Mandy whispered: "The girl is Kim, the guy is Carl."
"Kim and Carl. Got it."
Bode stepped to the podium and again became the governor seeking reelection. He put on his politician's face.
"Kim, Carl, good to see y'all today. What'd you think about the primary?"
"What primary?" Carl said.
He was being a smart-ass because he was a Democrat.
"Oh, you mean the Republican general election?"
"Well, Carl, when you get tired of losing, let me know, and I'll put in a good word for you with the state Republican Party chairman, maybe he'll let you join up."
Bode chuckled; Carl did not. He had a liberal's sense of humor, the kind that worked only when they won.
"I'm announcing today that after numerous requests by me, the federal government has finally deployed a Predator drone to the border to assist in drug and immigrant interdiction."
Kim, the UT student reporter, stood.
"Governor, is it true that the drone will be armed with missiles to shoot Mexicans?"
Bode could tell from the tone of her voice that she was being sarcastic. She was a Democrat, too.
"Don't tease me, Kim."
She rolled her eyes and sat.
"I'm also deploying the Ranger Recon unit to the border. Ranger Recon is an elite unit of the Texas Rangers. They will engage in covert operations to secure our border since the president refuses to do so."
Kim stood again.
"What kind of operations, Governor?"
"I can't tell you."
"Why not?"
"Because they're covert operations. Covert means secret. If I told you, it wouldn't be a secret anymore."
"A secret?"
"You know, something you don't want everyone to know."
"I know what a secret is, Governor, but why are the Ranger Recon operations secret?"
Bode turned his palms up.
"Because they're covert operations."
That shut her up. She sat down, and Carl stood. He reported for the alternative newspaper in Austin. His column ran between ads for sex partners and sex toys.
"Governor, you're campaigning on a 'faith, family and schools' theme."
"That's correct."
"So where do you go to church?"
He didn't. But he couldn't say that in public in Texas.
"A church."
"Which church?"
"I can't tell you."
"Why not?"
"Security."
" Security? Who the heck would want to shoot the governor of Texas? Maybe someone important like the speaker of the House, but-"
"Funny."
Carl thought he was.
"Governor, projections are that we're facing a twenty-seven-billion-dollar deficit in the next biennial budget."
"Who told you that?"
"The comptroller."
"Well, that's not true, Carl."
"We're not looking at a big deficit?"
"Nope."
"But the comptroller is-"
"Wrong. We're fine. No deficit."
"No deficit?"
"No deficit."
Carl frowned. Bode cut a glance at Jim Bob, who nodded as if to a student who had correctly answered his question. The reporter retreated from the budget.
"Governor, you're the tea party's favorite son here in Texas. Have you thought about testing the national waters for a presidential run?"
"You trying to get rid of me, Carl?"
"Well…"
"Heck, if I moved to Washington, I wouldn't get to see you every week."
"We could text."
"I've got the best job in the country."
"Well, Governor, your Democratic opponent says you're not doing your job, says you're a part-time governor, says that you work less than ten hours each week."
"But I sing better than him."
"Perhaps, but we've obtained your bodyguard's official log for the last month under the Open Records Act and found that you worked out at the downtown YMCA and jogged around the lake twenty-nine times, played golf thirteen times, had lunch with your daughter four times, and-"
"You don't want me to have lunch with my daughter?"
"I think your opponent wants you to work a little more."
"My opponent wants my job. Look, when you're the governor of Texas, everything you do is for the people of Texas."
"Playing golf?"
"Talking state business."
"With lobbyists?"
"Don't they have a right to be heard?"
Bode had been around Carl long enough to know that he was building up to his big question of the day-"Carl Crawford's scandal of the week."
"Governor, the Board of Pardons and Paroles has opened an investigation to determine if the State of Texas executed an innocent man on your watch."
"Who?"
"Billy Joe Dickson."
"Dickson? That the ol' boy convicted of burning his house down with his kids in it?"
"No, that's the ol' boy convicted of murdering his mother with an ax."
"Down in Houston?"
"Up in Dalhart."
"Oh, yeah, I remember now. He was guilty."
"You're sure?"
"Yep."
"So why is the Board conducting an investigation?"
"Politics."
"They're all Republican. You appointed them."
"I did?" He grunted. "Oh, then they're just mad."
"About what?"
"We're gonna cut their budget."
"Why? If there's no deficit?"
"There's no deficit because we cut spending before there is a deficit."
"But-"
Bode sighed. Democrats. He answered four more questions then called it a day. He walked out the door followed by Jim Bob.
"We'll replace the entire Board of Pardons and Paroles," the Professor said. "That'll derail the investigation."
"Can we do that?"
"It's one of the few things the governor can do."
Bode threw a thumb back at the press room.
"Won't the press bitch?"
The Professor shrugged it off.
"So? Voters won't hold it against us if we execute the wrong guy every now and then. No one's perfect."
SEVEN
The boy's heart stopped.
"Doctor, he coded!"
The boy named Jesus had come through surgery fine-until now. Cardiac arrest. The doctor sat on the stool suturing the boy's chest wall. He dropped the sutures then took the stethoscope and listened to the boy's heart. He grabbed a portable defibrillator. He applied the electrodes to the boy's chest but didn't yell "Clear!" as the doctors had in the ER. He just looked at her. She held up her hands to show that she was clear of the p
atient. She didn't need a seven-hundred-fifty-volt shock. The boy's body twitched with the electric shock. She put the stethoscope to his chest.
Nothing.
Lindsay recalled the big man's words: Do not let him die, Doctor. It would not be good for any of us. She felt sweat beads on her forehead. She said a quick prayer. The doctor shocked him again. The boy's body twitched harder this time, then he coughed. She checked his heart.
"He's back!"
Lindsay let out the breath she had been holding. The doctor resumed his suturing, as calmly as if he had been interrupted only by a phone call from a pharmaceutical rep.
"Where's Mom?"
"Laredo. Probably having a margarita with lunch right about now."
"What's she doing in Laredo?"
"Trying to get Mexicans counted for the census."
Bode gave Becca, his eighteen-year-old daughter, a big bear hug. He had wanted a boy-William Bode Bonner, Jr.-but he had gotten a girl-Rebecca Bodelia Bonner. She couldn't play football, but she was tall and athletic like her old man, she was tough and fiercely competitive like her old man, and she liked girls like her old man. His daughter was a lesbian.
"You feeling okay, honey? You look a bit peaked."
In fact, she looked like hell.
"Oh, we're just hung over. We went to the music festival last night, over on Sixth Street. It was wild."
Every March the South by Southwest Film and Music Festival took over downtown. Thousands of young folks from across the country descended upon Austin hoping their band or film might get discovered by a record or movie studio. Best Bode could tell, they spent most of the nine days getting drunk and stoned and raising hell on Sixth Street. No event did a better job than SXSW of promoting the city's official slogan: "Keep Austin Weird."
"You're not supposed to tell your old man you're hung over."
"Oh." She giggled. "Then we stayed in our dorm and studied."
"You're also not supposed to act like your old man's a moron who didn't go to the same college."
"You're a hard man to please."
"That's what I hear." He gave her a little kiss on her forehead. "You might be in college now, but you're still my little gal."
She kissed him on the cheek. Then Darcy kissed him on the other cheek.
"And I'm your gal's pal."
Becca had brought Darcy Daniels over to the Mansion for Thanksgiving dinner and announced during dessert that she was a lesbian and Darcy was her lover. Bode damn near spit out his pumpkin pie. He hoped the lesbian thing was just a college fad, like voting Democrat, and she would grow out of it, so he hadn't made a big deal about it, especially after the Professor said it would help with the Independent voters. She made a face.
"Daddy, you gotta lose the hair spray. Go natural, like me and Darcy."
"You don't use hair spray?"
"Or shave."
"Your legs?"
"Our girl parts."
"Your girl parts?"
"All the sorority girls, they get Brazilian wax jobs. Not us. We go natural."
"And I needed to know that because…?"
She giggled again, which Bode liked, and they sat. They'd always had more of a father-son relationship where they could talk about anything, but Brazilian wax jobs were a bit much even for this father. The waitress came, and Bode ordered the peanut butter pancakes.
"Oh, Daddy, congratulations."
"For what?"
" Duh… Winning the primary."
"Oh. Yeah. Thanks."
"You don't seem happy about it."
Bode shrugged. "Uncontested."
"And you like a contest."
"So do you."
"Like father like daughter."
They fist-bumped.
"So what've you been doing this morning?" she asked.
"Reading to kindergartners."
Becca laughed. "Why?"
" 'Cause your mother bailed for margaritas on the border."
They were having lunch at Kerbey Lane Cafe on the Drag right across from the University of Texas campus. It was noisy and busy and colorful with college kids and body art. Kerbey's was an institution in Austin, known for the tattooed wait staff and great pancakes. They had lunch together every week-same day, same time, same place-a standing reservation for the governor of Texas at the same table on the raised section fronting the plate glass window and Guadalupe Street just an arm's length beyond. The sidewalk ran right outside the window, so students walking by could see him and wave at him, although most waved with only one finger. Democrats-at least until they graduate, get a job, and start paying taxes. Becca sniffed the air and made a stinky face then leaned in and whispered.
"Hank's wearing that yukky aftershave again."
"At least he showered this morning-and shaved."
Hank Williams, Bode's Texas Ranger bodyguard, stood at attention behind them. His daddy had named him after the country-western singer. Senior, not Junior. Hank was even bigger than Bode and wore the khaki western-style Texas Ranger uniform complete with a cowboy hat and boots and a wide tan leather holster packing a nine-millimeter handgun, cuffs, Mace, and a fifty-thousand-volt Taser-and his sunglasses so he could check out the coeds without appearing obvious. Not much else for the governor's bodyguard to do. It wasn't as if a UT sophomore was suddenly going to jump up from her booth, pull an AK-47 from under her Spandex short-shorts, and shoot the governor of Texas dead. A loud crash of plates and glasses and silverware caused Hank to slap leather. Bode chuckled.
"Easy there, Hank. No need to draw your weapon. Waiter just dropped a tray."
Jim Bob sat at the next table. His head was down, and his fingers were fiddling with that fucking phone again. Mandy never came to Bode's lunches with Becca. Call him old-fashioned, but it just didn't seem right to bring his mistress to lunch with his daughter, particularly since his daughter was the spitting image of his wife. Becca had inherited her mother's looks and red hair and Bode's height and athletic ability and penchant for rebellious acts in college, like turning lesbian her first semester.
Which reminded him.
"Jim Bob, give me that photo."
Without looking up from the phone, the Professor reached inside his coat and pulled out a newspaper clipping then held it out to Bode. He took it and unfolded it on the table and gave his daughter a look that said, "Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" She glanced at the photo and giggled.
"Daddy, they're just boobs. And it's legal."
The photo was of Becca and Darcy sunning topless at Barton Springs Pool, which was in fact legal in Austin. They were not named in the caption: "An Austin tradition."
"No. They're the governor's daughter's boobs."
"And the governor's daughter's partner's boobs," Darcy said. "They're nice, don't you think, Governor?"
Darcy was being a smart-ass, but Bode had to admit it, her boobs were nice. In the photo and in person. Both girls were wearing biker shorts and tube tops with no bras. Bode pulled his eyes off Darcy's boobs and regained his derailed train of thought.
"Becca, I'm trying to get reelected. If someone recognized you, I might've lost the evangelical vote."
"Oh, so it's not about me going nekkid in public, it's just about politics."
" Just? Honey, when you're the governor of Texas, everything's about politics."
She abruptly jumped up with a big grin, as if she had a straight-A report card to show her dad.
"Look what we did."
Having a lesbian daughter wasn't nearly as traumatic as Bode thought it would be when she had first broken the news. At least he didn't have to worry about her getting knocked up by some dope-smoking hippie. Sitting across the table from these two girls, both young and beautiful, tall and lean, you'd figure them for athletes, not lesbians. But they were both. Athletes and lesbians. They played on the UT girls' volleyball team. They were now pulling up the legs of their shorts to display their muscular buttocks and matching heart tattoos-which didn't elicit even a raised eyebro
w in Kerbey's, except perhaps from Ranger Hank.
"You're not supposed to show your butt tattoo to your old man."
But he smiled. She was a chip off the old block. She had been hell on a horse, and she would've been hell on a football field, if she'd been a boy. Bode Bonner had wanted a boy but had gotten a daughter. And he loved her with all his heart, even if she was a lesbian.
EIGHT
"Boys marrying boys and girls marrying girls and both having babies and joining the PTA. They think that's just fine and dandy because that's their lifestyle-but what about the kids? Aren't they entitled to a choice in the matter? Would you have wanted two daddies or two mommies growing up? Heck, growing up with acne is tough enough without also being a social experiment. Vote for the children. Vote for the sanctity of marriage. Vote Republican. Vote for Bode Bonner."
"Cut!"
The director flashed a thumbs-up to Bode. They had stopped off at the studio to shoot a few campaign commercials hitting the hot-button topics: gay marriage, abortion, immigration, and gun control. "In times of economic despair," the Professor always said, as if lecturing a class on politics, "divert the voters' attention to the emotional social issues."
Hard to argue with success. Still, Bode wondered if he would rather have a grandson with Becca and Darcy or no grandson at all.
"We're ready, Governor!"
Bode faced the camera and read his lines on the teleprompter: "Since Roe v. Wade was deemed the law of the land, fifty million abortions have been performed in the United States. Fifty million children didn't get their chance at life. Because six Supreme Court justices-six lawyers — decided that their lives didn't count. Because those six lawyers think they're entitled to dictate the law to three hundred million Americans. That's not a democracy-that's a dictatorship. Choose democracy. Choose life. Vote Republican. Vote for Bode Bonner."
"Cut!"
Bode was standing in front of a green screen. The young director came over wearing a fluffy hairdo and a big smile. He looked like a college kid.
"We'll fill in the background later, put you in front of an abortion clinic."
