by Rich Garon
“I just get nervous out there. You know how sometimes your arms and legs feel all wiggly,” Lee said with a grimace.
“Not worth thinking about. Look at that spot, I can’t even see it any more. Your father won’t even know what happened. Maybe I should become an upholstery cleaner. I bet I could make some good money.”
Lee stared at the chair. “I am okay now. I am glad you know how to clean a chair. You are real good at it, Reid.”
Ellie and D.H. Wilson lived about a half-mile from the home that Lee and his father shared. It was a demarcation that Ellie never thought would separate her from her father. She and her husband backed out of their driveway on to newly-paved streets lined with little trees held by wire to wooden stakes. Heather Hills was a nice starter community. And the way D.H. hustled at work, well, Ellie knew it wouldn’t be long before she’d be able to quit her job, be a mom, and move to one of those houses in a nearby subdivision with the expansive rock gardens that you could light up at night.
Her dad didn’t visit often even though the bus he took to and from work stopped at the community park a block away from her house. The first time was bad, but the second time was worse. She saw him as she looked out her window early one evening just as the street lamps came on. He was carrying his security guard jacket and hat, with his black tie open on his royal blue shirt. A flicker of the light bounced off the badge on his breast pocket. Ellie stood silent as he staggered closer. He was only fifty yards from the house. He was starting to stagger more. If she went out to steady him, someone might see her and realize that she knew this man who it was clear didn’t live in Heather Hills. If she remained at the window, she would be no help to him if he started to fall. He started to cross the street and she began to head for the door. She looked left and right as she opened the door. She saw no one other than her father who was now beginning up the driveway.
“Ellie,” he yelled. “How the hell is my only daughter?”
“Dad!” she called in a whisper tone.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as he stopped in the middle of the driveway. “Aren’t you glad to see your dear old father? I mean you keep telling me I should come over to visit. So right there on the bus, I said to myself I’m going to stop and see my daughter out at that fancy new house of hers and maybe have a couple of beers with D.H. So here I am. Hey, where’s D.H.? D.H., want to have a few beers?”
“I’ll get him,” D.H. said, just as he had told her the first time. Her husband was able to shsssh and guide Jim into the house and help him onto one of the two large chairs in front of the TV. Ellie moved an array of ornamental pillows and lowered herself on to the couch. She looked down at the untied black half-boots Jim wore. She remembered buying them for him several years ago after he complained that his feet hurt from standing all day at the mall. “I don’t need anyone buying anything for me,” he had scolded. “Think I can’t provide for myself? Just who the hell do you think you are young lady?” But he kept the boots, even though they stayed in his closet until several weeks later when it must have become just unbearable for him to wear the black loafers so worn-out that little of the stitching remained to hold the tops to the bottoms.
On both occasions, it didn’t take her father long to start in on “the woman” who abandoned him and their son during their time of need. Ellie tried to talk to him through the alcoholic fog between them. She couldn’t reach him. D.H. couldn’t reach him either. She knew that her mother had tried for many years after the accident to keep the family together. Her mother knew nothing could be done to help Lee, but she had, through many conversations with God, accepted that. She loved her son and she loved Jim Fitts, but it was clear that the accident had cut into her husband far deeper than into her. She recognized that after he kept losing jobs, and continued to scream out at Speakes and at God for ruining their son’s life. She recognized too that her husband’s life had been so tied to their son’s that Jim Fitts couldn’t help himself from falling into a rapid spiral. Lee was okay with where he was, if only his Dad could see that. I might have made it too, Marian Fitts had told her daughter, but I couldn’t hold your father from falling, worse, he was pulling me down with him. Ellie didn’t know what or whom to be mad at, yet it was her mother who had left them. Either way she knew her family now centered around her husband. Her mother would never come back, her father angrily walked in circles, and her brother – her brother – was she responsible for rescuing him? Did he think he needed to be rescued?
“Hello,” she said after picking up the receiver.
“Ellie, I do not know if Dad told you about my new job. Did he?”
“No Lee, he didn’t,” Ellie smiled. It was her little brother’s voice from when they were small, before so many people were talking about his gift and how all the colleges would be after him. So many memories rushed into her head as she listened to her brother describe his new job with the “this is the most important thing in the world” tone he used to describe his Lego creations or his acorn collection. She wished she could go back in time. But her eyes now open, she knew it was all behind them.
“So, you start tomorrow?”
“Yes,” he said. “I have got my clothes all ready, shoes, everything. Nine o’clock tomorrow Andy Herman and his sister are going to tell me everything I need to know. I am going to bring my own pencils, though, and a pen also. I am sure they have those things, but I do not want to take a chance. I found a canvas bag to carry things in because I think I am giving people things when I visit them. I heard the weather report; tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful day, sunny and in the low 80s. I know just the right pace for walking on a beautiful sunny day in the low 80s. I am bringing a sandwich, an apple, Vienna Fingers, and water, but I am not going to spend a lot of time on lunch. Maybe I will just work through lunch and eat when I am done with my new job.”
“Lee, I know you want to do a good job, but you have to stop and have lunch. Promise me you’ll do that.”
“Ellie, you do not understand, I might not have time to stop for lunch. You want me to do a good job, right?”
“Yes, I do and you will, but you have to stop and have a break.”
“Well, okay, but it might just be a short break.”
“Please call me when you’re done tomorrow.”
“Okay. I have to heat up Dad’s Hungry Man now. He should be home soon. I am making him the all-white meat turkey dinner.”
“That’s his favorite, isn’t it?”
“I do not know; he will not tell me anymore. He just tells me to mix it up when I go to the store, so I get different types, but not the ham, he told me never buy him ham.”
Lee’s father dug into his Hungry Man, responding in a lifeless tone to his son’s talk about the next day. Jim Fitts took his guard’s shirt and tie off and headed for the recliner. Lee took in a deep breath, all thoughts about the next day chased away by panic as his father sat down and reached for the lever on the side of the chair. His father’s hand missed the spot where the cleaned-up stain was probably still drying. Jim Fitts put his hands in his lap. Ten minutes later he was asleep. The beers on his father’s way home were doing their work.
Two wrinkled twenty-dollar bills lay on the table; the signal that Jim Fitts had decided it was time for his son to buy groceries. Lee would always leave the receipt on the table after he shopped. He wasn’t sure his father checked the receipts anymore. He grabbed the money and stuffed it into his pocket. He left the house at 6:59; one minute before the clock radio his father had set would go off at an ungodly volume and blast out the morning’s news. His father hated hearing the news so much that he was up quickly to press the off button. He had never overslept.
Lee walked at a pace just short of a trot and arrived at the Calvert for Council office at 7:20. The hallway was dark and he waited outside the door. His green-collared shirt had several spots of sweat and he walked up and down the hallway hoping they would dry. He had taken such good care of that shirt. He didn’t know if Terri and An
dy Herman would think he looked sloppy. And if that were the case, he might be unacceptable as a representative of Mr. Calvert. He looked at his khakis; they too had spots of sweat below the knees. He wondered why he had walked so fast. He had had plenty of time to get to work. He stood fanning his clothes as the outside door two flights below opened.
“Son-of-a bitch, that damn elevator hasn’t worked right since we got here,” said Terri, the twang in her high voice ricocheting in the hall like marbles as she opened the door to the stairway. “These damn stairs are going to kill me. You should have known better than to put us in this rat hole of a building. I mean I don’t know what you were thinking.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just this rent was hard to beat and that damn Calvert is such a cheapskate. I guess I just didn’t think it would be that bad for a little while,” Andy Herman told his sister. He grabbed the large woman’s arm and helped her up the stairs.
“Didn’t think it would be so bad? Look at me. I’m sweating like a pig on a spit and I’m not even up to the first floor yet.” Lee looked down through the banisters and saw Terri, her pistachio shift stained in sweat below her arms as she struggled with a canvas bag much like the one he had carried to work. Her reddish ringlets struggled to stay upright much like a maharajah atop an elephant ascending a hill. A man with horn-rimmed glasses, a blue blazer, and black hair combed like Superman’s followed behind Lee and Terri. Lee wondered if he should run up the stairs to the next floor so that Terri wouldn’t know he was there and had heard her use bad language when she yelled at Andy. He started to but realized they were about to turn the corner. He moved quickly to stand by the door, but forgot to pick up his canvas bag.
“Son-of-a bitch, what kind of idiot would leave a bag there?” Terri shouted at the top of the stairs, regaining her balance as the two men reached to steady her. Lee’s jaw dropped and he stared at the trio who were staring back at him.
“That is my bag, Mrs. Herman. It was very wrong of me to leave it there. I will never leave my bag there again where someone can trip on it as you just did,” Lee said still unable to move.
“Listen here,” the man with the Superman hair said. “Mrs. Herman could have been seriously injured, tripping on that stupid bag. She could have fallen down the stairs.”
“Oh, I know, and that is why I feel so badly. She could have fallen backwards and taken the two of you with her.”
“Little shit,” Terri mumbled.
“That’s the guy you’ll be breaking in today Sanford,” Andy said. “Good luck. I’m sure you’ve had many interesting challenges in your, long distinguished career as a political operative.”
Andy flipped on the light switch and tossed his jacket on to a small chair that like the other furniture in his office looked as if it were picked up at either a garage sale or a thrift shop. Andy’s office décor was typical campaign make-shift. His desk was a mess of papers and on his wall hung charts and news clips with yellow highlighting.
Two elderly men walked in and said good morning to Terri as Andy gave them a quick military salute. “Morning boys, got a lot of ground to cover. Get your supplies then go spread the gospel. Lee, you’ll be doing the same thing: getting the word out about Dan Calvert. Remember, ‘Dan Calvert –Let’s Start Today.’ Damn, Sanford, I like that slogan. Every candidate I’ve given that slogan to likes it a lot too. Not all of them won; as a matter of fact, my track record’s been slipping a little bit of late, but hell, I still like that slogan.”
“It’s a good slogan, Andy, it’s a good slogan,” Sanford nodded as if he were pondering the origins of the universe. “With the ‘Let’s’ contraction you subliminally inject an inclusiveness that makes a potential voter feel as if he has an investment in the candidate. ‘Start,’ well it’s a word with feeling that gives a primitive image of a horse beginning to pull a wagon as well as the awakening starter of a present-day race car. And of course, ‘today,’ well it means get going now, a candidate who won’t waste time getting things accomplished.”
“I never quite thought of it that way,” Andy interrupted. “Lee, let me introduce you to Sanford Black. Sanford used to be a college professor. Guess he still thinks he’s in the classroom sometimes. Anyway, he’s helping me get this campaign into gear and after he goes over a few things with you this morning, he’s going to go out with you as you start knocking on doors. Sanford, why don’t you take Lee into the war room and get him oriented.”
“My pleasure, let’s get this pup up to speed on the art of campaigning,” Sanford said as he picked up his brief case, which matched his spit-polished tie shoes draped by the double-break length cuff of perfectly-pressed gray trousers.
The other men had already left when Sanford and Lee walked into the war room. Three long folding tables contained boxes of envelopes, campaign brochures, empty coffee cups, and scraps of office debris. The wall had photos of Dan Calvert, and newspaper articles. Charts listing people and the streets where they lived and maps of different neighborhoods were either thumbtacked or stapled to the wall. An ink smell wafted from “Vote Calvert for Council” signs stacked in a corner with boxes of campaign literature. Two computers were propped on phone directories.
“Okay Lee, let’s get down to business. Shouldn’t take us more than an hour or so. I’ve got this down to a science by now,” Sanford said as he sat down and motioned toward a chair across the table. Lee sat down.
“Lee, I like to have my people have a sense of what they’re doing. I don’t like just sending them out into the field without having a sense of what they’re doing. Now, what does politics and more specifically the political campaign mean to you?”
“Well, Mr. Black, I think it means one person trying to get the most votes so he wins,” Lee said into the serious eyes behind the sloping glasses.
“Ho, Ho, wait one second; hold it right there, pal. Now I see why I have these talks with my people before I send them into the field. Politics is a lot more complicated than that. Lee, I’m going to tell you one thing and I want you to promise you won’t forget it. Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Don’t ever forget to look at the big picture. Do you know what the big picture is?”
“I know what a picture is, but I don’t know if I know what the big picture is.”
“That’s okay pal. I didn’t know what the big picture was right away, but I’ll tell you one thing, I found out quickly and that’s how I survived all the political wars I’ve been in. Look around this room, the brochures, envelopes, stamps, bumper stickers, maps, computers. Smell the ink from those signs. Think about Andy in the next room doing what he does, and Terri outside doing what she does.And then think about Dan Calvert and his wife and their children doing what they do. And then the voters and the media doing what they do. And that’s where I like to say I come in when I meet a neophyte such as yourself. Because everything I just described, you put it all together and that’s what I call the big picture. And that’s my gift to you, letting you know what the big picture is. And do you know why we need to know about the big picture?” he asked as he took off his glasses.
Lee smiled but was too nervous to answer.
“I’ll tell you why,” Sanford said eyes looking upward as if some sign from above would acknowledge this moment of truth. “Because one person tries to get the most votes to win.”
“I think that was what I said,” Lee offered in a low voice.
“Lee, you have to forget about what you said and remember what I said. Didn’t you hear what Andy said about my distinguished career?”
“Yes, now I remember what Mr. Herman said. And I will make sure I remember what you said.”
“Good, now we’re getting somewhere. Just work with me. I have a premonition that you’ll be rounding that learning curve with a velocity you never anticipated. I’m good at what I do Lee and I’m willing to bring you along.”
“And while we’re at it little brother, you still never stop amazing me. I mean I thought we said we had
had enough of Sanford Black; that we weren’t going to work with him anymore. I don’t care how smart he tries to act and to fool people into thinking he’s some kind of mastermind, he is, and you know he is, one dumb son-of-a-bitch. The only reason he works for us so dirt-cheap is because no one else will hire him. Yesterday he made a big deal of handing me a magazine with a ‘good article he knew I’d be interested in.’ Dr. Sanford Black was on the mailing label. You said yourself he doesn’t have no damn Ph.D.” Terri said, winded after getting her whole statement out under one breath. She scratched at the subdued volcano of ringlets atop her head with a letter opener and looked down at her paperwork.
Her brother sighed. “C’mon Terri, he’s not that bad. I told you the budget’s tight right now and I don’t have time to break these new people in. Besides, I don’t think a lot of people know him around here, and having a doctor on our staff, well, lends our operation a little class.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. Your good Dr. Black has had that new kid in there now for almost an hour, who the hell knows what Sanford’s telling him about a simple job where you only have to ring the damn door bell and give somebody a piece of damn campaign literature. And you know it’s not really fair, that kid’s not right and he’s just the type who’ll get sucked into all Sanford’s phony baloney.”
The door opened and a pleased Sanford presented his newest acolyte with the distinct privilege of graduating from the Sanford Black Campaign College; at least the abbreviated course. “Put it there, pal,” Sanford said as he thrust his palm towards an unsuspecting but smiling Lee. “Andy, you’ve done it again; you’ve supplied me with a lad who my instincts tell me will be an integral cog in the cadre of canvassers that will carry our Calvert team to victory.”