Election

by Tom Perrotta

  That's a major part of my job, putting out these employee brushfires. Eddie won't work with Dinger' cause he farts too much. Ellis refuses to tuck in his shirt. Lou Fillipo gets into a shoving match with a football player who steps on his mop. Steve Piasecki gets caught stealing a carton of erasers, don't ask me why. Stupid, petty shit like that, pointless rebellions.

  So anyway, that's why I'm on trash patrol that afternoon. Because it's Howie's job and Howie's fast asleep in my office, recuperating from lunch and his mother who won't get off his back. And the truth is, I don't mind cleaning toilets and emptying wastebaskets every now and then. It's a welcome break from the paperwork that seems to take up more and more of my time. Not to mention that you shouldn't ask someone else to do shitwork if you're not willing to do it yourself.

  I can tell you one thing: Howie was a lot more on my mind than Tracy when I walked into McAllister's classroom. I knew she'd lost the election, but I figured it might do her some good in the long run. If you asked me, winning meant too much to her, like she herself was worthless without all her awards and prizes.

  This attitude came straight from her mother. They're my tenants and they're both good people, but my own personal feeling was that Barbara pushed her daughter too goddam hard. The girl didn't have any friends, and she didn't have any fun. I thought it might loosen her up a little to find out that losing wasn't the end of the world.

  What happened is this: I grabbed the basket, flipped it over, and shook the contents into a heavy-duty plastic bag I was dragging from room to room. A couple of balled-up papers missed the opening and landed on the floor. I'm not really sure what possessed me to pick them up and see what they were. Some combination of boredom and curiosity, I guess. I like to know what people are up to.

  One of the papers was a memo about a teacher's meeting. The other was actually two papers, both of them election ballots with an X next to Tracy's name. It didn't seem like a big deal at first. The election was over, so maybe the ballots get tossed. But that didn't seem right once I thought about it. It would take more than one little trash can to hold all the ballots from a schoolwide election. Just to be on the safe side, I smoothed them out and tucked them into my shirt pocket.

  MR. M.

  THE BLUE LANTERN was dark and restful, the same as the day before. Walt and the elderly lady traded kisses through the air; the expressionless bartender poured without speaking, as though administering a sacrament. Walt and I touched glasses.

  “Careful,” he told me. “You'll be a regular before you know it.”

  There was a hopeful note in his warning, and the image it conjured made me laugh in appreciation.

  “We'll be like Cliff and Norm.”

  He didn't get the allusion, so I tried to explain.

  “You know, the guys on Cheers. The fat one and the postal worker.”

  This time he managed a wan smile as he swirled the bourbon in his glass, holding it at eye level for a better look.

  “I wonder what got into DiBono,” he said. “He's not usually such a prick.”

  “Beats me. Maybe he was embarrassed to make a mistake.”

  Walt's shrug could have meant anything.

  “Personally,” he said, “I'd have preferred Flick.”

  “Really?”

  He put down his glass and transferred his hand to my wrist. His eyes were bright, his voice confidential.

  “Jesus, Jim, you ever see the ass on that girl?” He shook his head in silent tribute. “It would almost be worth losing your job for a caboose like that.”

  After everything that had happened, I didn't have the heart for this sort of conversation. Walt must have seen me cringe. He let go of my wrist and swiped wearily at the air.

  “I'm sixty-one years old,” he told me. “I have to take my thrills where I find them.”

  JOE DELVECCHIO

  I GAVE HOWIE a lift home at five o'clock. He was groggy, still only half sober, and didn't say a word until we pulled up in front of his house.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Won't happen again.”

  “I hope not. You're not much use to me drunk.”

  “I mean it, Joe.” The car filled up with the sour reek of his breath. “I'll make it up to you.”

  “I know, Howie. See you tomorrow.”

  I watched him climb the front steps, hitch up his pants, and disappear into his house. What did he tell his mother on these nights when he came home earless, stinking of schnapps and peanuts? Did he hang his head and apologize? Or did he storm into his room, slamming the door behind him? All I knew was that he would be back at work the next day, clean-shaven and repentant, and the kids would snicker behind his back, and the whole cycle would begin all over again.

  That's what I thought about on my way home. The ballots didn't even cross my mind until I pulled into the driveway and saw Tracy sitting on the front porch steps with Larry DiBono. I was glad to see her hanging out with kids her own age.

  I parked the car, locked the garage door, and wandered back around front. The two of them looked so gloomy you might have thought they were boyfriend and girlfriend on the verge of a nasty breakup. They moved apart to clear a path for me, but I paused at the base of the steps.

  “What's up, princess?”

  Tracy had changed out of her dress, into jeans and a T-shirt. She sniffled and tried to give me a smile.

  “I lost.” There was a small catch in her voice, like she might start crying again. “I lost by one stupid vote.”

  Larry studied me for a second or two, trying to size me up.

  “Two votes were missing,” he said bitterly. “I counted them and then they disappeared.”

  “Two votes for Tracy?”

  I knew the answer before he nodded. I used to be a cop, and the cop part of me was already hearing sirens. I reached into my pocket and showed them what I found.

  MR. M.

  I WENT HOME that night. There was nowhere else to go.

  Diane met me at the door like the perfect wife in a fifties sitcom, wearing an apron over her prettiest dress. The house smelled of perfume and roasted chicken.

  “I'm glad you came back,” she told me.

  Her smile was tense, but undeniably real. It still hurt me to think of Sherry, but the ache had receded to a distant throb. My need for her was like a fever that had broken.

  “Diane—” I began.

  “Not tonight.” She touched a finger lightly to my lips. “Tonight we're calling a truce. We're not going to talk about it.”

  We ate by candlelight in the dining room, using cloth napkins and our good china. Diane poured the wine and kept the conversation doggedly afloat, asking where I wanted to go on vacation, what I thought about Paul Tsongas, and would I please explain again what was so funny about Seinfeld. Her performance was somehow transparent and convincing at the same time, like she wanted me to see how easy it was to cram the pieces of our lives back into their battered old boxes.

  “So,” she said, “how was your day at school?”

  “We had the election.”

  “The election?” She laughed out loud, as though the election were a private joke we'd been sharing for months. “How could I have forgotten?”

  “I forgot, too.”

  This was the closest either of us had come to acknowledging the previous day's events, but she chose to ignore the opening.

  “Well? Aren't you going to tell me who won?”

  I stared down at the bones on my plate and considered telling her what I'd done. But even then, barely five hours later, the act no longer seemed real to me. In my heart of hearts, I did not believe that I was the kind of man who would stoop so low as to fix a high school election, and I didn't want anyone else to think I was that kind of man, either.

  “Jim?” she said.

  “Tracy,” I told her.

  13

  MR. M.

  I DROVE TO SCHOOL the next morning and parked in my usual space. I had considered taking the day off, but decided instead to reimme
rse myself in the daily routine. The new morning seemed to hold out a promise, if not of absolution, then at least of a second chance.

  Walt's secretary buttonholed me just inside the main entrance. Hilda was a nasty, bitter woman on the best of days, so I didn't know what to make of her friendly smile, the light touch of her hand on my arm.

  “You're wanted in the office,” she told me.

  “Okay. I'll be there in a minute.”

  “No,” she said. “He wants to see you now.”

  So that was how it ended for me—quickly, before I even had a chance to start over. Tracy and Barbara Flick, Joe Delvecchio, and Larry DiBono were all crowded into Walt's office, waiting for my arrival. Tracy burst into tears the moment I walked in. Barbara Flick wrapped both arms around her daughter, but kept her tired, haunted eyes on me.

  “Shame,” she whispered, and I thought for a second she was saying my name. “Shame.”

  Larry DiBono measured me with a teenager's pure-hearted hatred, while beside him, Joe Delvecchio conducted a thorough examination of his cuticles. Walt sat behind his desk with a coffee cup in one hand and a pair of wrinkled ballots in the other. Any hope I had of receiving the benefit of the doubt from my new drinking buddy vanished with his first words.

  “Mr. McAllister,” he said, “I think you've got some explaining to do.”

  Before I could begin, Larry stood up and headed for the door. I stepped aside to make room for his exit, but he turned on his way out and spit in my face from a distance of about six inches. His saliva struck me in the forehead and dribbled down my eyelid and the side of my nose. It felt like hot oil splattered across my skin, but I couldn't seem to bring myself to reach up and wipe it off.

  PAUL WARREN

  I GOT TO BE President for a Night. I guess that's like Queen for a Day or something.

  When Mr. Hendricks called me out of homeroom, I figured he wanted to extend his congratulations and fill me in on my new responsibilities. It didn't even occur to me that something might be wrong until I opened his office door and walked into a dense cloud of gloom.

  M. and Hendricks were there; so were Tracy and her mother. One of them looked more upset than the next, and I couldn't help thinking that something awful must have happened, that there'd been an accident somewhere involving a member of my family. Mr. Hendricks pointed to an empty chair.

  “Take a seat, son. The excrement just had a head-on collision with the cooling unit.”

  I nodded to Mr. M. as I sat down, but he didn't acknowledge my presence. The Flicks also ignored me, staring intently at Mr. Hendricks, who was muttering under his breath as he wrestled with a container of Tylenol. He finally managed to line up the arrows, and the cap flew off with a champagne pop, spinning end over end like a flipped coin until it bounced off the wall above Mr. M.'s head and landed on the floor with a soft click. Nobody moved to pick it up. Mr. Hendricks shook a couple of pills into his hand and swallowed them with a nasty grimace and a mouthful of coffee.

  “Jesus,” he said. “It didn't used to be such a project to take a couple of aspirin.”

  Hendricks turned to M.; M. sighed heavily and turned to me. I glanced at the Flicks, thinking how embarrassing it must be for Tracy, having to sit there holding hands with her mother in front of three people she hardly knew.

  “Paul,” said Mr. M., “you didn't really win the election.”

  He paused for my reaction, but I didn't protest or ask him to repeat himself. For some reason, this revelation didn't shock me nearly as much as it should have. Winning the election had seemed unreal to me. Having it taken away felt almost normal.

  “I'm sorry,” he said, and his voice cracked with emotion. “I can't tell you how sorry.”

  He kept talking, trying to explain what he'd done, but I had a hard time following the details. All I could think about was Lisa, and how badly she was going to take the news.

  TRACY FUCK

  MR. HENDRICKS CALLED a special first-period assembly to clear up the whole stupid mess. It was basically just a repeat of the day before, except that this time Larry was going to announce the winner, which was the way it was supposed to have been in the first place.

  Paul was really good about it. If I'd been in his position, you can bet I wouldn't have agreed to sit on stage in front of the entire student body and have a major honor ripped right out of my hands.

  I didn't feel as happy or as vindicated as I expected to. I was relieved, of course, and eager to take possession of what was rightfully mine, but a lot of the joy had been sucked out of my victory. It's just so creepy to discover that you have a blood enemy, someone who's willing to do just about anything to destroy you.

  There was something else, too, something I wished I hadn't been forced to admit to myself. On some deep, mysterious level, despite the actual outcome of the election, I still felt like a loser. Nothing was ever going to erase the memory of yesterday's defeat, the moment when I stood up by mistake and was laughed at by hundreds of people. There was something true in that laughter, a truth I felt would taint every good thing in my life for years to come.

  Paul laughed softly to himself as the last few stragglers wandered into the auditorium and found their seats.

  “You want to know something funny?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “I didn't vote for myself.”

  “What?” I was stunned. “You voted for me?”

  He shook his head.

  “For ‘None of the Above.’ I can't really explain it. I guess I just lost my nerve.”

  The last puff of air leaked out of my deflated balloon.

  “So it was a tie,” I said.

  “It was what it was. You won by a vote, fair and square.”

  Just then Larry came bounding up the steps like a comedian, flashing me a jubilant grin as he took his place behind the podium. In an excited voice, he began to explain about the recount and yesterday's erroneous result. He somehow managed to go into great detail without once mentioning Mr. M. and the unbelievably sleazy thing he'd done. I must have spaced out while he blathered on, because I just sat there for a few seconds after he announced the winner, not even realizing that he'd already called my name.

  MR. M.

  WHEN YOU HAVE tenure it's not that easy to lose your job. There's a union, and they go to bat for people in all sorts of hot water. Given that the only evidence against me was circumstantial, there's a pretty decent chance I could have denied everything and gotten away with it.

  In retrospect, maybe that's what I should have done. Maybe I shouldn't have let one impulsive decision destroy my vocation, the work to which I'd devoted my entire adult life. Maybe I should have stood firm and denied whatever charges the Administration tried to bring against me.

  That morning, though, from the moment I entered Walt's office, nothing was clearer to me than the fact that I'd forfeited my right to call myself a teacher. I had been caught violating the closest thing I knew to a sacred trust. My days at Winwood were over.

  I didn't bother to clean my desk or take one last tour of the halls. I just walked out to my car in a slow daze of grief and drove home at a crawl of about fifteen miles an hour, as though I'd suddenly become elderly, distrustful of my reflexes.

  The rest of the morning was given over to my letter of resignation. It wasn't long, but I must have written it a dozen different ways. The final version went like this:

  Effective immediately, I am resigning my position as teacher of History and Social Studies at Winwood High School. I take this action with a deep sadness in my heart.

  The nine years I've spent at Winwood have been among the happiest and most productive of my life. I only hope the modest good I've done in these years will not be permanently obscured by the shame I've brought upon myself with my recent actions.

  Regretfully, James T. McAllister

  “P.S.,” I concluded. “My replacement will find lesson plans for the remainder of the year in my top right-hand drawer.”

  I sealed t
he letter in a plain white envelope and started out for the mailbox. It was close to noon, and my timing was unfortunate. The elementary school at the corner had just recessed for lunch, and I had to wade through a sea of hungry kids surging toward home. Exhilarated by their hour of freedom, they ran and shoved their way past me as though I were invisible, laughing and yelling with delight.

  Like them, I carried the rhythm of the school day in my blood. I dropped the letter down the slot and knew for certain I was lost.

  TAMMY WARREN

  BY THE TIME I got back to school, Mr. M. was gone and the furor over the election was already starting to feel like old news. I must say, though, that my return caused something of a stir.

  There wasn't an actual dress code at Winwood. For the most part, people wore jeans, the baggier the better. Boys favored rugby shirts and hooded sweatshirts, while the girls went for tight jerseys and oversized pullovers. There were quite a few preppies, a fair number of grungeheads, a crew of heavy-metal death rockers, a squadron of hopeless nerds, some suburban homeboys, and a smattering of die-hard punks. In all of Winwood High School, though, I was the only student in a Catholic school uniform, and it made me kind of exotic.

  As part of my ongoing campaign to convince my mother to let me transfer to Immaculate Mary, I wore my uniform every day for a whole month. She hassled me about it for the first week or so, but finally just threw up her hands.