Broken Piano for President

by Patrick Wensink

  Electric blanket warmth wraps around Dean. He feels safe now. This is, at the very least, a Get Out of Jail Free card.

  “A wise man once said, enough of this bologna, let’s get down to the fried chicken. Did you see the Flu Burger prototype? Delicious, huh?” Winters chuckles.

  “We have it in fifteen test markets right now. It’s fast-tracked. I’ve got our people wining and dining the FDA. Those assholes’ll approve everything, no problem,” says Harry. “We know that Bust-A-Gut launched its new mozzarella sandwich this week, too. We shouldn’t have much lag time. If there’s one thing we learned from the Christopher Winters commercial mess it’s that we have to strike while the iron’s hot. We’re shooting the ads right now. Rush job.”

  The background music pulls in the reins and whispers over our hero’s voice.

  “It’s blue,” Deshler says. The room is staring, watching, listening. Everyone wants to know what he has to say.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “It’s blue.”

  “Great, huh? That came from a hundred hours of focus groups. People believe blue represents purity and royalty. Makes us the king, I guess. We tried red, green, and even gray. But no dice.”

  “We also learned.” Winters adjusts his seat and tightens his back. “This Healthy Wally’s place is the real deal, too. They’re partnering with those assholes at Health Watch. Nobody has any confirmations, but we’re thinking they might have a lot to do with our other publicity snafus. Those guys have a hard-on for hamburgers.”

  The room and soundtrack both drop to morgue silent. The ice in someone’s glass grows warm and cracks—tink.

  “Speaking of bad publicity.” Winters bangs his hand solid on the desk. “Let’s get down to big business. Obviously, the Space Burger campaign is a cold duck. God…” His top lip sucks in and his knuckles pop. “If you would have told me three weeks ago, when those pinkos landed, that this would happen. Heh…I would have retired.”

  Deshler hasn’t had time to watch the news. He sips a thimbleful of scotch and waits for people to stop eyeballing him.

  The montage band is apparently back from a smoke break or something. They’re getting rowdy and loud. Cymbals and snares and saxes rev engines.

  “Our chief intelligence officer, Tony Archibold, is personally heading a team that will,” Winters clears his throat, “eliminate this publicity. Until that point, we deny everything.” Ordering the death of his son brings back a familiar tumor in Winters’ throat.

  The band leader starts swinging his baton a little harder and the Salvation Army brass section sways again.

  A no-name exec from the back of the room pipes in her two cents: “We can deny, sir. But is this true and how much did we really know?”

  “That’s a good question, Tammy,” Winters says, shuffling through the papers at his desk. “We,” the CEO snorts and clears his throat once more and adjusts the flower in a ketchup-red lapel. “We don’t know anything, right Harry? This is a shock to the company…and we’ll be taking the high road on it, as well.”

  “There’s nothing we can do now, what’s happened has happened,” Double Harry assures. “Let’s just focus on a successful public relations recovery.” With that, the meeting adjourns.

  Dean, with his neck safely out of another noose, starts to hustle. Not only did he keep his job, he gets to play the victim. Our hero seems to be even more important than before. People want his thoughts. It’s nice to be wanted. Once again, being an artist fades further from his brain until it’s a speck on the horizon.

  Now that all the talking is over, the Salvation Army band really rips into it. They’re out of tune and full of horn honking. It’s the perfect soundtrack for a Cliff Drinker.

  Dean sucks at the business end of a red wine bottle while hurling himself into data from the test markets.

  He slowly dips his finger in the cough medicine ketchup with a sour face.

  He drinks more.

  Malinta comes in and out with smiles and kissing and shared meals. They hold hands, they whisper.

  Here, he tastes the blue jelly again with less horrible results.

  There’s a scene with Deshler and a man talking over Indian food. Some would say he looks like a science geek troll. The man holds up the Broken Piano for President cassette and kisses it. They shake hands.

  The sloshing band stomps into New Orleans funeral march. A hazy calendar flaps through our vision. About seven days flutter across the air.

  There is a fuzzy shot: bottle after bottle of cheap red wine emptying. A shot of Deshler sleeping at his desk fades into a quick upper-body shot of him dipping a long finger into the goo and licking his lips.

  At this point in the montage the band peters out, the drum kicks randomly, the trombone slides as far as it can and the trumpets clear their spit valves.

  The last shot has Deshler opening the mail. There’s a letter with no return address. Postmarked from his zip code, as usual. It’s a card congratulating him on the birth of his new daughter:

  Roses are red, Violets are blue, I know where Clifford Findlay is, but do you?

  Okay, right, I know, that last montage wasn’t very montagey. The ending, yes, but before that? Not so much. Agreed. Here’s another attempt. It’ll be better, I promise.

  The next montage opens with primal electro-spy music thumping in the background. It’s cold as science.

  “Dude,” Pandemic says, stabbing out a cigarette in a forest of crumpled butts. The highway melts across the window. “Tell her, tell Sonja that…that I’ll kill for them. I’m a soldier. I’ll do whatever needs to be done. Remind them who my dad is again and shit. That’s gold.”

  “I am not,” Hamler looks over his shoulder and starts whispering, like the cosmonauts understand. “I am not telling them. You’re out of your mind. You’re not yourself. I’m sorry I got us in this mess. I’m really sorry. But we’re just going to have to sit tight.”

  The drummer scoots closer with a face of breaking bad news. “Henry, I don’t think I need a bodyguard anymore.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not in danger.”

  “Fine. At the rate I’m going that’s not a bad idea.” Henry’s head drops.

  Juan Pandemic scratches his puffy pink mustache mark and digs under his eyes. “I’m sorry I’ve been an asshole. I…haven’t, you know…had a taste in a long while. It’s getting to me. Withdrawals, I think. But this shit’s serious, I’m not freaking here. I really want to help these space dudes. My old man ruined their lives, he ruined mine. If you think about it, he ruined yours, too. You know?”

  Bleep-ba-bleeep-beep-beep-deedledeedledee the soundtrack goes. Somewhere, a German lords over a turntable, nodding sad to the beat.

  “But what about Deshler?”

  “I don’t buy that shit. Stumpy pulled that name out of a hat.”

  “Pandem…Timothy?” Hamler lifts a shaking head. “That’s not a name you make up at random. That’s impossible. Don’t you see what’s happening?”

  “Dude, so she heard us mention him, whatever. Or well, okay, what if Dean does have this secret life? We’re not any better.” Pandemic waves a finger around the bus and points at the Russians. Sonja is asleep in the passenger seat. Keith cleans the handgun—it’s dislocated into a dozen little chunks. “Look at what we’re into here, man.”

  “Dean always said you’re not yourself until you’re someone else.”

  “That’s the first thing to come from your mouth that sounds right.”

  “So…?”

  “So, forget Dean.” The drummer is standing, near shouting, a geyser of energy. “We can’t even talk to him like a human lately. When’s the last time he wasn’t an asshole to you or me? We quit the stupid band. And you can quit being his roommate if that’s what’s bugging you. You can move into my place.”

  Nodding, soaking up Juan’s words: “Maybe when all this junk is over, we can start a new band.”

  “A pop band.”

  Henry’s he
art gets a spicy zing. The same electric charge it leapt with from love and candy, or rare applause, zips around the body. “A really catchy band. Like, lots of hooks and harmonies.”

  “With a piano.”

  “A guitar.”

  “Tambourines.”

  “Xylophone.”

  “The Juan Pandemic band!”

  Henry’s face goes crooked and Juan even shakes his head, laughing.

  “The Hamler-Pandemic Experience.”

  “How about Ham-demic?”

  “When this is all over, dude, Hamdemic is on.” With this pleasant thought, the ghost of Henry’s misery and failure whisks away. Amusement has been in short supply since Los Angeles. Just as Hamler realizes he’s actually a little happy, his crushing depression sinks deeper.

  Slinky disco beats and digital pulses fill the unusual silence between their conversation. It doesn’t fit the scene at first, but, then, oddly, it does.

  “Just forget it, man. What are we going to do? This is all my fault. I’m a total failure.”

  “Easy, Henry.”

  “No, it’s true. I know that. Plus, I think it’s my job to, you know, stop them.” The bouncing bus ripples Henry’s flesh. “But, I don’t think that’s a good idea, do you? I’ll just get someone else killed. Probably me. Not that that’s a bad thing.”

  “Let’s…” Pandemic pauses while highway rumble fills the space between them. “Let’s just be patient and see what happens. I like our odds.”

  “Juan, no. We need to do something. I need to take action.”

  “Just relax.”

  “No.”

  The soundtrack speeds up, but still sounds mysterious. The music bloops forward as Lothario Speedwagon’s former rhythm section blazes down the highway.

  Montage Highlights

  Pandemic checks his phone, which reads: 30 New Messages. He presses a button and listens. It’s Dean rambling, something about “possibly signing a record contract,” something about “not sure what’s going on,” something about “I know you probably don’t care, but I’d love to talk to you about it.”

  Hamler and Pandemic argue so hard the cosmonauts pull them apart.

  There’s a tender scene of Pandemic trying to communicate with Keith. It’s not clear whether young Mister Winters’ hand-signals translate into: “I want to help decapitate my dad.”

  The backside of a sniper takes center stage of this montage. He glares into the scope, sitting atop a billboard overlooking the highway. A silver flicker appears on the horizon. The sniper lifts his head and talks into a radio. It’s Hamler’s boss, Tony. He peeks through the scope again and yanks the trigger.

  Inside the bus, the chunky red-headed driver jerks the wheel and falls to the floor. Sonja leaps over the spurting corpse and grabs the controls.

  Finally, the bus pulls back onto the highway with a bloody lump wrapped in a blanket and an angry one-armed woman by the side of the road. Delia shakes a fist as dust clouds above her.

  See, better, right?

  Oh, not by much, huh?

  Okay. Here’s a tight montage. You’re the boss. Stop getting grumpy, I said I knew you were busy.

  The corporate montage is hardest to pull off. Best to simply plug your nose and dive right into the clichés, starting with the 1960s Motown classic, Money (That’s What I Want).

  The first scene shows a young guy, decked out in blue and yellow, in Bust-A-Gut’s kitchen working his ass off to deep fry enough buns for the Mozza-Burger. Orders stack up like dollar bills at the US Mint. People can’t stuff enough deep-fried cheese in their stomachs.

  There is a bridge between scenes—a montage within a montage: bar charts and paper money exchanging hands, newspaper clippings tear like a tornado through a trailer park. “Burger Wars Heat Up,” one reads. “Food Fight,” another says. “Burger Giants Unfazed by Bad Publicity, Sales Up 23%,” another reads.

  There’s a long line of puffy-eyed zombies inside a neon Winters mansion. One man a-choos into a ten-dollar bill and hands it over in exchange for three Flu-Burgers. This guy’s miserable and no amount of chicken soup cures his pale, sweaty face. In flashing shots, we see he can’t focus at work, can’t play with his kids…doesn’t even want to make love to his wife. Greasy blue cold syrup soaks through wax paper and leaks out in a halo before he severs off a hearty bite. The man is instantly cured. This renewed gent plays with the kids, knocks ’em dead in the boardroom and in the bedroom. He drives past a Winters billboard, it reads: “Don’t starve your cold or flu. Feed them both with Winters’ new Flu Burger.” The man gives the billboard a thumbs up.

  The cosmonauts are a hot topic on talk radio and news-centric cable stations. People nowhere near associated with Winters Olde-Tyme Hamburgers end up in huge screaming matches—always a ratings grabber. One faction says that since Yuri and Pavel were essentially lying to the American people, we should forget them and not give this matter any more attention. Otherwise we’re just supporting murderers. The opposite faction says not to forget the fallen actors. Yes, they were lying, or so Dimitri claims (Winters Olde-Tyme Public Relations has denied comment, saying the allegations are “fictional.”) This faction wants people to remember that two innocent men died and there are crazed murderers with a bus out there. They call for a boycott of the burger giant and anything Russian, which basically comes down to top-shelf vodka and furry winter hats.

  The final scene in the collage is a kaleidoscope of sunshine, vegetables and tofu burgers. The pristine white and red awning over a local Healthy Wally’s opens to the inside of the restaurant. There are a few dreadlocked customers ordering Flaxseed Soy Shakes and Broiled Spinach Tots. An older man holds the door for a young, professionally-dressed woman. The restaurant is nearly empty. Business isn’t as good as the restaurant hoped. The skinny teller yawns. The finely dressed lady walks up, she is tall and looks like a giraffe. She mouths the words, “Salad Burger,” over our money-themed music.

  She turns and we see Malinta Redding.

  Deshler punches digits into a phone halfway through another Beef Club night. After a few Rusty Knives there’s a familiar magnetic tug in his pelvis. “Bon soir!”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “That’s no way for a lady to talk.”

  “This is the call I get?” Malinta says. Her voice is dense and Antarctic.

  “Hey, c’mon, what are you doing tonight?”

  “I’m going to drink some tea, watch Nightbeat, put on my pajamas and go to bed…alone. There is a very important meeting tomorrow.”

  Deshler clamps both eyes shut until the right words emerge, the ones that will change her mind. “Well that’s too bad. Nightbeat is really boring.”

  “Is this all you have for me, Dean?”

  “Malinta, hey,” the rest of his plea thrashes against voices at the Club. Yes, okay, she sees right through his call. It’s about sex. Big surprise. But a tender side of Dean—a side Gibby Haynes would have used as a urinal cake—knows what else sex means and he craves it. With sex comes that closeness, that calm. Malinta, by just being herself, pushes out all the unwanted anxiety from Dean’s life.

  He’s come to depend on it more heavily than he realizes.

  Malinta’s voice is knife-edged: “Sounds like things are picking up there. You’d better let me go now.”

  “Hey, whoa, hey. Are you mad? We’ve been getting along so great.”

  “Deshler…there’s too much going on to keep catching you up.”

  “I just wanted to see if you and I could hang out…you know.”

  There is no patience in her voice: “How much longer do you think I can do this? In case you haven’t noticed, alcohol is starting to destroy certain plans—”

  “Catch me up? Baby, I’m winning this biathlon. I’m on top of my shit. I’m busting my balls doing—” He turns to the corner out of earshot. “Doing two jobs right now. Don’t you think I deserve a little slack? I sure as hell think so.”

  Dean is balanced against a corner, press
ed as far as possible from the joyous Beef Club sounds. An inside urge tells him to continue, to wear her down. The silent treatment will work, this urge says.

  That quiet holds and holds and holds.

  “Today’s six months.”

  That quiet holds and holds and holds, and it scratches at Dean—it draws blood.

  “Six months until what?” Deshler’s throat braids tight during the silent hum. He whispers, “Six months until what?”

  She sighs.

  “...’till what?”

  The dead air opens raw: “I’m saying it’s our six month anniversary. I’m saying we’ve been dating, me and you, boyfriend and girlfriend, for six months now. And it feels like one random hookup after another. Does that sound like a healthy relationship to you?”

  Six months? The Cliff Drinker is shocked. He’d have guessed a month at most.

  He answers truthfully. “I don’t think so.” Dean’s never minded the blackouts, mystery bruises and brutal hangovers. He can live with drunkenly landing a job and signing a record contract. But he finds it disappointing the Cliff Drinking style blocks out regular love and affection from a beautiful woman. Not to mention the bedroom stuff.

  “No, you don’t. Well, I’m not going to sit around while you forget another half year. I’m a good person. You might not think so, but I am. And I don’t deserve to be treated like this. What if I got pregnant? What kind of world would we be bringing a kid into?”