Broken Piano for President

by Patrick Wensink

  The clock clangs ten and Winters strolls into the office on cue, slipping a pipe into a pocket. Henry and Tony don’t need introductions. You don’t grow up in this country without knowing three faces by heart: George Washington, Babe Ruth, and Christopher Winters.

  Winters is flimsy now, not the robust governor Hamler remembers. The man’s skin is stained with liver spots and his entire body gives the impression it was scotch-taped together. That trademark red suit is as faded as grandma’s drapes. In its prime, the three-piece was stunning like crushed tomatoes. For decades, Winters hasn’t been seen in public without it.

  Winters looks so small in this huge room. Henry thinks. So helpless.

  The old man rattles around hollow and drags his body behind a desk, settling into a soft chair.

  “Mister Winters, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Henry says, jellybean cheeks glowing. The inexperienced interviewer tenses his stomach and smoothes coarse hair. Styling gel makes everything itchy.

  “Hello, hello, good morning, hello,” the wrinkled star says. Voice-over men make careers mimicking that folksy growl. “My, you’re a big one.”

  “Sir?” Henry’s confidence curls into a ball, sucks its thumb.

  “Nothing. Nothing.”

  Tony dusts a little makeup on the millionaire’s face before being swatted off. Henry scans the long mahogany hallway for witnesses and locks the door—the three are alone.

  Fingers knot up and flex, knot up and flex. If my life were a tasty Winters Hamburger, Henry quizzes himself.

  Hamler doesn’t want this job. If we’re being honest, he’s scared to do this job. But before this opportunity fell into his lap, doing important company work was all he ever dreamed about.

  “Enough of this bologna, son, let’s get down to the ground beef. What makes you think…” Winters says as Tony clips a tiny microphone to the washed-out red lapel. The old man’s signature mustard yellow dress shirt is wrinkled and the matching tie knotted crudely like a shoelace. “There needs to be another documentary made about me?” The old man lifts a half-empty bottle of bourbon from under the desk.

  If my life were a tasty Winters Hamburger.

  Dressed in the only suit he owns, Henry gulps just off camera. “Well sir, you’re the most important American in the last…” Henry fiddles with a cufflink he’s never worn and his beer keg stomach goes violent.

  “Goodyear,” the old man’s throat chugs. “Ask yourself, if your life was a tasty Winters Hamburger, would you be the bun or the beef?”

  “Goodyear?”

  “It’s a blimp. Maybe an uncle of yours.” Winters takes a long sip, tired eyes locked on Henry’s midsection. “Now, if your life was a hamburger…”

  Hamler sputters: “That’s a good question.” He’s always felt more like a bun. More like the bland foundation and less of the main attraction. Nothing like the guy people count on in these situations.

  Henry scolds: Get the guts to do a good job.

  “Hello? Hello? Earth-to-interviewer.” Winters speaks up: “Son, I’m going to be dead soon. Wouldn’t you feel bad…” His gummy throat clears. “If you wasted the last precious seconds of my life on something redundant?”

  “I would never do that.” Hamler tells himself this is a mistake. Once a bun, always a bun. He considers running down the hall, out the door and straight onto a beef patty.

  Henry shuffles note cards for the right question, but it’s all an act. A heat finds his chest and shoulders. Forget it, he thinks. You need this job, you are locked in. You aren’t going anywhere. Just ignore how ugly this is going to get.

  Tony fiddles with the camera. “Okay,” he says. “We’re ready to roll in five, four, three, two…”

  Henry really doesn’t have to ask any questions. The old man has done thousands of these interviews and yawns through his life story.

  The Life Story of a Burger Baron

  Winters nearly captured Hitler in the final days of World War Two.

  His patriotic celebrity parlayed into a small fortune after inventing the electric toothbrush.

  He loved to barbecue for his friends and used that financial freedom to open a chain of hamburger stands.

  Winters peppers his speech with slogans like, “A burger a day keeps the Nazis away,” and constantly refers to something called the Axis of Edible.

  In America, it’s impossible to visit an airport, mall or interstate exit without a gray Victorian mansion outlined in green neon staring down your stomach. It’s the unmistakable sign you’ve stumbled onto a Winters Olde-Tyme Hamburgers. Each restaurant is modeled after the founder’s home, but with slightly more neon.

  “Which,” Winters says, running tongue over pale lips. “Led to my interest in politics. And as you probably know…” The man’s deflated sigh fills the room.

  “Please continue, sir,” Henry does his best journalist imitation, sensing boredom. His legs fidget as blood tingles for more sugar.

  “I was the governor.” Winters waves a lazy hand, lets out a mile-long breath and stares dull into Henry’s face. Babies are born, have families and die in that uncomfortable silence. It reminds Henry of when the band finishes playing a song—the audience never claps or cheers. Without fail, that familiar deep, dumb silence fills the room. It fills Henry, too. “And then I wasn’t the governor.”

  This has to work out, Henry thinks as the old man slugs bourbon. The honey liquid glimmers against the morning sun. Through the enormous picture window, sculpted shrubbery waves on the lawn. This is my last chance. I’m fired if I don’t go through with this. God, I’m an unlucky bastard.

  “A few years ago, I retired and my son, Roland, took charge of the restaurants. He’s a good boy and I love what he’s done with the company. I’m told he’s really given my Victorian mansions a modern image.” Winters unloads a verbatim press release but stops after he empties the whiskey glass. “We’re taking a break. I remember more as I run through things.”

  Winters takes actual minutes to stand, forcing the camera crew to look away and fidget. Eventually, he wanders off.

  During the downtime Tony assures Hamler things are going well, but he needs to start swinging for the fences. Henry needs to ask the question they came to ask. The same question that makes Henry’s insides moldy with disgust.

  “It’s time to rise to the occasion, you know?” Tony says, giving his reporter a confident shoulder punch. The cameraman’s voice echoes in the canyon of Winters’ oak office.

  Henry breathes deep and wraps two arms around his ballooning body. The last time Hamler felt this uncomfortable, a crowded rock club threw full beer cans at Lothario Speedwagon. That wasn’t all so bad, he smirks. Someone also hit me with a Baby Ruth.

  Winters returns slow and achy. His creased head wobbles from ear to ear. For the first time Henry realizes the American legend is a little drunk.

  “My life,” the burger baron grumbles, shaking the lone ice cube in the glass, pling-pling-pling. “Has been a complete and utter lie.”

  The old man looks pissed. His liver spots grow dark red and brown.

  Scared to move this interview forward, Henry stammers. Hamler seriously doubts anyone will save the day and throw a Baby Ruth at his head this time.

  Winters’ voice stumbles. “Honestly, it starts before I was a toothbrush-whatever-you-call-it,” he says, breath rushing through his nose like a bubbling teapot. The old man’s voice is now wonderfully vibrant. “I did nearly capture Hitler. I was able to arrest many of his staff, people not mentioned in history books. Good God, I did things that made concentration camps look like summer camps. And,” he says, looking daydreamy, “instead of being court-martialed, as I should have been, the Army tells me they appreciate my service. And they would like to help my bank account.”

  “My, that’s quite a story.” Henry keeps it skeptical, remembering his training. “Can you prove any of this?” Hamler tugs on that cufflink. He twists it. He runs fingers over every groove and dimple. It’s silver with a black pe
arl inlay and on loan.

  “Quite.” Winters snuffs. “My men all took photos. There are documents, though I assume they are still classified.”

  The interviewer gathers a breath and wipes his forehead with a sleeve.

  The old man’s eyes shrink to oil stains. “I wish that was all,” he says, vigor fading fast. That once-famous face soaks with tears.

  Henry slowly digs a finger into his jacket pocket and pulls out the last M&M. He lets the sugar melt under his tongue until Winters’ drunken vowels ooze and his voice-over purr crashes into a blubber. Winters claims the government reward for his World War Two service was a patent for the electric toothbrush.

  “I was also given the recipe for the Winters Burger after a certain politician took a bullet in the sixties. I hired the gunman. I trained him myself. I didn’t pull the trigger.” He stops for nearly a minute to let bourbon touch those shaky lips. “But I may as well have. The CIA was very grateful. Don’t make that face, that’s how they pay under the table. Listen, son, the American people need to know. I’m a horrible person and they must learn.” Winters’ face begs for attention.

  “Why are you telling us?” Henry asks.

  “So it won’t die with me. Everyone else who knows is gone now.”

  Winters claims his world famous hamburger concoction is little more than Grade-F beef and nicotine. A secret, Henry realizes, that will destroy Winters Olde-Tyme Hamburgers. Christopher Winters is no longer a harmless grandfather.

  “I’m just an old man with a guilty conscience.” His hands shake, jiggling a few ounces of bourbon into a glass.

  “Uhm, we have to be on our way soon.” Henry knows his moment to transition from bun to beef has arrived. His chest aches with the decision. “Is there anything else we should know, sir?”

  “You don’t believe me do you, Orca? Here I am, handing God’s largest mammal history on a platter. I’m giving him a Pulitzer like I was given the governorship. And, instead, he just wags his tongue, hoping for another bucket of fish.”

  “Are…are you getting all this, Tony?” Hamler nervously chatters, hands moving wild.

  Tony nods.

  “Afraid of that.” Henry drags his feet to the enormous window behind Mister Winters. The interviewer rests a palm on the cold glass. Lonely manicured shrubs are the only thing moving. Nobody is on the estate grounds to see what comes next.

  “You don’t care.” Winters’ lips are sloppy with whiskey. “Nobody listens to old men anymore.”

  Henry stands behind the aging governor. The nervous journalist tugs out a silver cufflink and reads Tony’s eyes. The cufflink is the signal to end the interview. “You’d be surprised, Mister Winters,” Henry says, fiddling with its black pearl as his guts drop down a roller coaster. “Your son, Roland, listens to everyone.”

  Standing over the corporate icon, Henry watches the old man’s smooth scalp wrinkle in a shock of recognition. “Roland sent you?”

  Hamler’s round stomach brushes against Winters’ spine. The skin under Henry’s beard scorches, arm folds wobble.

  He freezes.

  “Oh dear,” whispers the most famous man in America.

  Tony takes a few steps toward them with a father’s disappointed eyes. “Cut, cut. Just a second, sir, let me adjust the…lights.”

  With shaking fingers, Henry slips off the cufflink’s casing, revealing a tiny syringe. “Wait, no, I’ve got it,” Henry says, groaning deep and sad before slamming a needle into Winters’ neck.

  Dean watches the green-eyed blonde dab her forehead and squint. His breath unravels through the cold air. He’s holding the screwdriver, but doesn’t remember fetching it.

  In the shadow of Bust-A-Gut’s dome, nearby traffic evaporates into silence. Luckily, it’s early and the restaurant parking lot is still empty. Sun lifts above the blue and yellow hump, barely warming Dean’s cheeks. He and the bloody woman are alone as she clicks open the door, never lifting her eyes off that whittled-down Phillips head.

  The hangover king is having a tough time deciding whether his troubles are over or just getting started. He realizes it doesn’t matter much—they both suck.

  Dean’s heart rate kicks gunpowder fast watching this ghost. Just a minute ago, she was dead. He is certain. His tongue gropes for just the right words to say: “I’m ninety-nine percent sure I didn’t kill you.” But they don’t arrive, watching her rise on wobbly black heels.

  This woman is tall. She could easily rest her chin on Deshler’s skull if they were slow-dancing. But instead of the waltz, she leans against the car’s frame, holding fingers to the deep wound. The pieces of blonde hair not globbed together with blood erupt off her head in fireworks. Her expensive clothes are bunched awkward. A floaty black top nudges the curves around shoulders. A black skirt ratchets tight to her hips. But all in a wrecked imitation of how everything probably looked the night before.

  As usual, in times of panic, Dean’s mind drifts toward music. This gory scene again reminds him of that long ago concert with his brother and a flask of schnapps. Blood can be art, he thinks, trying to settle down. Guts and bile and violence can be art. What if this whole mess was a performance piece?

  Remember Gibby?

  The night they took Deshler’s father away, after Mom cried herself to sleep, Dean and his brother snuck out. They arrived just in time to hear the Butthole Surfers crush through a handful of heavy, druggy tunes with dangerous amounts of feedback. Dizzying layers of echo.

  The concert was a punch in the face. A bloody nose of volcanic proportions. Everyone in the room had to listen. There was no choice. Nowhere to hide. Teenage Dean quickly realized that music was the only way anyone would listen to guys like him and Gibby.

  The Butthole Surfers’ lead singer, Gibby Haynes, stole the show. The image is still barbecued into Dean’s memory: the lanky frontman crawling around the stage, half-naked, smearing fake blood across his body and face while the band pounded out an acid-soaked psychedelic mess. Strobe lights force-fed seizures. A cheap smoke machine burped white until the band was draped in fog.

  Dean, like the rest of the crowd, couldn’t stop watching. His heart jumped when Haynes pulled the microphone to his lips. The man was all stringy black hair and wide, serial killer eyes. Young Deshler listened to every twisted gurgle of words, hypnotized. Haynes spat fire and flung gooey red corn syrup all over the audience.

  That blood.

  After the show, Dean couldn’t stop thinking about the red ooze. He couldn’t stop thinking how a thousand people stood lobotomized, listening the way Dad never did. He couldn’t stop thinking about the power a stage demands.

  Later that night, when the flask was nothing but tin and fumes, Dean’s older brother explained, between hiccups, that the concert was about expression. It all had meaning. It’s all art.

  Dean has been chasing that vision of art ever since. Looking to smear blood and breathe fire until they listen. The rumble it makes in his guts is enough to put up with parking all those cars, dealing with unenthusiastic bandmates, and the booing. God, all those boos. All that booze. It’s enough to make a man optimistic after potentially stabbing a stranger.

  The woman inspects her sticky red hand and flashes it to Deshler in disbelief. Blood streaks down the wrist as her eyes squeeze tight. “You know the odds of someone murdering you are something like three hundred twenty five-to-one.”

  “I think you have the wrong idea.” Performance art fantasies blow into hazy smoke rings.

  Less than a block away, morning traffic thickens with honks and raging stereo sounds. A naturally confused look plants itself on Deshler’s face—mouth hanging down.

  One of her green eyes pops open—a marble in the light. “But your odds of suicide are more like a hundred twenty one-to-one.” Her lips and cheeks offer a vague outline of makeup. A face that took an hour to put on, flooded by a thin layer of mummified blood.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Basically, we’re a way bigger danger to ourselv
es than others are.”

  “I…I don’t think I did.” He points to the bloody hair tangle and his belly shrinks. “That.” Dean cringes, waiting for her scream.

  That waiting kills.

  She giggles and sighs. “I think I’m still a little drunk, Dean.” Smiling wide, the girl shifts her weight forward and trips. She digs a bare knee into naked soil. “Owee,” she laughs, “gimme the keys, please.”

  “I don’t have any—” Deshler quickly checks pockets and stops, waiting for more words to come. “Keys.”

  “Shut up. Seriously, I don’t feel very good. I think I hit my head on something.” She stretches and yawns until cavity fillings shine amongst the blooming light. The woman steps close and gives Dean a faint, flirty look. Dean’s muscles loosen. Fears of prison now completely vanished.

  In the time it takes to stab a pretty girl in the head, this turns into one of the Cliff Drinker’s finer hangover mornings.

  Dozens of Times Waking up in his own bed, alone.

  It happens much less than he’d like, but Deshler pushes out a boozy breath of relief when he sees the Listerine yellow walls of his apartment. He’s never done the math, but its likelihood is somewhere around thirty-five percent.

  Eleven Months Ago His Roommate Henry’s Trunk.

  Neither he nor Henry knows how Deshler ended up in the locked trunk. However, Dean considers it a success, since after kicking the metal shell for twenty minutes to grab Henry’s attention, Deshler found thirty dollars in his pocket that wasn’t there before.

  Countless Times Any booth, barstool or bathroom floor, as long as it’s attached to the bar he started drinking in.

  “I don’t want to be rude,” Deshler says, slipping the screwdriver into his jacket pocket. “But we’ve never met before, have we?” He instantly regrets not playing cool, coaxing more faint, flirty looks.