The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 2

by Donald Harington

  But there was nothing wrong with becoming the best of friends with Cast, and in the course of their travels they told each other quite a lot about themselves. Cast discussed what he knew of his unusual parentage: his mother a porn actress and his father one of her co-stars, neither of whom he’d ever seen much of as he grew up. Monica told about her family house burning down with her mother in it. They both talked about their names, how Monica meant advisor and she was full of not only political advice but was pretty good also at psychological advice and general health advice as well. He told her of the Greek legend of the beautiful Leda who the mighty Immortal Zeus had desired but had had to disguise himself in order to keep his seduction of Leda a secret from his jealous wife Hera. So he had turned himself into a swan. Naturally Leda had laid a pair of eggs. Monica thought that was hilarious. Out of one egg had hatched Helen, who would become Helen of Troy, and her twin brother Pollux. Contrary to popular belief, Pollux had not shared an egg with Castor. Castor had been in the same egg with Clytemnestra, destined to become Agamemnon’s queen, but he has spent all his time growing up with his half-brother Pollux. Castor was mortal, Pollux immortal, but when they died and Pollux went to Heaven (Olympus) while Castor had to go to Hell (Hades) Zeus took pity on them because they missed each other so much, and arranged to let Pollux give his brother half of his immortality, so they could stay together, half the time on Olympus, half the time in Hades.

  “Did you have a twin?” Monica asked him. “In real life, I mean?”

  “If I did, nobody ever told me,” Cast said, “but there might just be a Clytemnestra somewhere out there.”

  Monica and Cast both confided the embarrassment their names had caused them. Cast had been the victim of many puns based upon the fact that a cast may be something put on a broken limb, the group of actors in a play or movie, a throwing of a fishing line, the outward appearance of anything, even the circling of hounds to pick up a scent in hunting or a pair of hawks released by a falconer at one time, to name only a few of the forty-odd meanings. When he was a child other kids called him “Castor Oil.” Because at Harvard he’d read Robert Bly’s Iron John (as recreation, and did not particularly enjoy it), he picked up the nickname Cast Iron. Monica told him of a woman she’d met, who, upon learning her name, had stared at her and said, “My dear, you have something on the corner of your mouth,” causing Monica to wipe at it, to the laughter of the others, until she realized the woman’s joke. Then there was the woman in Louisiana at a Wal-Mart who had said loudly to Monica, “Oh tell me, is it true that Bill Clinton has distinguishing marks on his penis?” To which she’d been constrained to reply, “Examining Bill Clinton’s penis was not in my job description!”

  “He never even flirted with you?” Cast asked.

  “He flirted with everyone, but that was all: just talk. Down home in Louisiana, they all assume I must have slept with him, but I never did.”

  Cast and Monica took turns driving. The Nissan practically drove itself, as if it had autopilot. One time when she was driving, Cast reached into the back and uncovered from the stack of campaign materials his guitar case, opened it, took out an expensive guitar, tuned it, and then asked, “Any requests? Classical? Popular? Rock?”

  “Do you know any country western?” she asked.

  “Sure.” He began to play Willie Nelson’s “Stardust Memories,” and sang it in a remarkable imitation of Willie’s voice. She wanted to scream. It was one of her favorite songs, and it melted her heart and she decided she might be falling in love with Castor Sherrill. At her request he also sang “Georgia on My Mind,” “I’ve Seen Better Days,” and a lot of others. From then on, she would have preferred doing all the driving herself, just so he could play.

  They did Arkansas Tech, Hendrix College, University of Central Arkansas and her own UALR in the first two days, at each campus setting up a booth, finding volunteers from student organizations to maintain it, passing out the beautiful yellow-and-purple INGLE WHO? T-shirts along with the FAQ manual to the more enthusiastic students, passing out the paper sacks of goodies to anybody who wanted one, and, everywhere they went, getting and keeping lists of names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and dates and times available for such work as database entry, giving talks to their classes, phoning their friends, organizing rallies. The goal was to have each student contacted provided with a sheet to recruit a minimum of ten more fellow students.

  She never saw Cast sitting or standing still. He was a whirling dervish, which his campaign T-shirt accentuated, and he almost put her to shame, but she did more than her job, she gave those college kids a crash course in just who Vernon Ingledew was and why they would have better futures if they got out and campaigned for him. On some campuses it was tough sledding, and they lost valuable time just trying to find enough students to put together the simplest organization. On some campuses, their request to speak to political science classes was refused, or else the college didn’t even have courses in pol-sci. There was one college where they couldn’t find anybody to be a volunteer coordinator to manage the assignments and contact lists for the other volunteers, so they had to hire one. Everywhere they went they offered summer jobs to the more enthusiastic and personable of the campus leaders: they looked for kids who were as kind, considerate, and hardworking as themselves.

  They had no spare time. They stayed in the best motels (the idea of saving money by sharing a room never actually crossed their minds, or it certainly didn’t cross Monica’s), but every night before putting out the lights they were on the telephone or their computers making calls and emails to local students. If Monica had a free minute on any campus, she tried to visit the art department—the painty smell of art departments was in her blood and she could sniff them out without needing directions (she suffered homesickness not so much for Louisiana as for her own art studio she’d had to abandon to take this job)—where she would get into conversations with teachers and students about the connections of artists to politicians, whether kings, queens, Egyptian rulers, state or local governments, whatever. Winston S. Churchill was a painter, right? So was Eisenhower. Vernon Ingledew was an expert in art history and they could go over to their library and look up his article in Art Bulletin. At every art department she visited, she left behind the message that Vernon Ingledew was the first person in Arkansas politics to be passionate about art.

  They had their share of unpleasant experiences: the wise-ass punks who challenged their right to be alive, the hecklers, the rude creeps who eagerly gathered up the campaign literature and made a big show of dumping it into the trash can. On every campus there are always certain students who can only establish their identities by being arrogant, contentious, contemptuous, and generally vile. Monica had to restrain Cast from throttling one of the worst, and she had the notion that the kid, a twenty-year-old jock, might actually have been badly injured if she hadn’t held Cast back.

  He brooded for a couple of days afterward, and she couldn’t get him to play his guitar. She wasn’t sure how much he was troubled by that particular incident as he was by the plain fact that most college students simply didn’t care who Vernon Ingledew was, and weren’t at all interested in finding out. She tried to reassure Cast by pointing out that all they were really doing was establishing a base on each campus, and that once Vernon became better and better known throughout the state, those bases would be in place and could unfold.

  As if to compensate for the bad encounters (and Monica strongly believed that Destiny likes to keep things in balance), they had a wonderful experience at the last school on their schedule, little Lyon College in Batesville. They were met by a delegation of seven students who had already learned about Ingledew from reading the column in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and who were united in their opposition to their school’s political science teacher, an arch-conservative who, they said, would oppose anything that Vernon Ingledew might stand for, just on principle. More to flaunt him than in genuine support of Ingledew, this group
of students set up at once an Ingledew-for-Governor headquarters in the student union. Each of the seven began wearing the Ingledew T-shirt right away, and called themselves The Little Samurai and were bright, eager, polite and happy: the best kids Monica had found yet. They plastered Vernon’s picture all over the campus, and Monica and Cast were able to leave town early enough to start the long drive back to Fayetteville.

  Partly out of relief that their tour was over, the Nissan emptied of its campaign contents, and they both could look forward to a day or two of R&R, they really relaxed and became convivial on that return drive. Monica even told some of her favorite jokes, and Cast played some tunes on his guitar with hilarious showing off. They even stopped to treat themselves to a fancy supper at Otis Zark, a quirky restaurant way out in the sticks of Durham, along the Pig Trail home. Most of their meals throughout the tour had been quick, usually just fast food. Here they relaxed and did some fancy eating. Afterwards, on what little remained of the drive to Fayetteville, they were old friends, co-conspirators, and even a little bit sweethearts: Monica told Cast things she wouldn’t have told anyone. In reciprocation he confessed to her that while he had a few dates at Harvard and a few more in Cincinnati he had never gone to bed with any of them.

  Monica was both touched and incredulous. “Do you mean you’re a virgin?” she asked.

  “I guess that’s what you’d have to call me,” he said.

  Oh, she could have stopped the car right there and done something about that. But they still had some miles to go before they slept.

  Whiskey and Buster were so glad to see her you’d think she’d been gone a month. Bo Pharis debriefed Monica and Cast the next morning on their tour and was very pleased with their report and with the databases of student names they brought back with them. “I’ve been observing the local campus,” he said, “and if what you established there is any indication of your work, you’ve had a most fruitful trip.” Indeed, the flagship campus of University system had a full-blown Ingledew organization in place and was actively recruiting. The T-shirts had become prized and were proliferating all over the place. The Arkansas Traveler, a student newspaper, had run a feature story on Vernon, and there was a request that he personally visit a political science class.

  Monica was appointed to take Vernon to meet that class. It met at 8:30 in the morning, and when she phoned his hotel to inform him of the hour he suggested that they first have breakfast together at the student union. She was thrilled. Although she couldn’t imagine how he would be able to overcome his woman-shyness to the point of sitting across the table from her. Instead of wearing her customary black, she wore a campaign T-shirt. When Vernon appeared at the food court of the union, she was tickled to see that he was wearing the T-shirt too! It was really funny: there was this picture of his face on his chest, with his real face right above it! If the real face couldn’t look her in the eye, she’d just lock eye contact with the printed face! And of course they got lots of attention, and even a few people came up while they were eating breakfast and asked for Vernon’s autograph, or, trying to be funny, said, “Ingle who?” to which the candidate always laughed and said, “A couple more weeks and you won’t have to ask that.”

  While he looked not at her but at his plate, she told him of the tour she and Cast had made, and which colleges she thought would be strongest, the colleges where he ought to give speeches. Speaking of speeches, he managed to impart to her, without a glance in her direction, that he had just returned from a few days in Washington D.C., where he had gone to spend some time with a speech coach that Carlton Drew had recommended. He had taken with him a videotape of the disliked announcement speech; he had also been videotaped making a set speech, which was played back to him repeatedly with analysis of his weak phrasing, mannerisms, poor posture, lack of gesticulation, etc., etc. It had been an embarrassing experience but he had learned quite a lot, and it was well worth the expense. Jelena had gone with him, to see the sights of the capital.

  “And I’ve been working on my timidity toward the opposite sex,” he declared, but he still wasn’t looking at her when he said it.

  Now, this morning in the political science class, he was going to be delivering his first speech since having been taught a few things about his flaws as a speaker, and, he told Monica, he wanted her to monitor him closely and keep notes in her notebook. She told him she’d already arranged to have the session videotaped for possible use by the television stations, and she of course had her cassette tape recorder with her, and would sit in the front row.

  “Splendid,” Vernon said to his cup of coffee. “You’re being a great help to me, Monica, and I really appreciate it. I don’t know how I could get along without you. Besides that, you’re simply a very good person, and I like you very much, and if there was any woman I could feel unnervous toward it would probably be you.”

  Monica had to brush away a tear on her cheek, and hoped it hadn’t messed up her mascara. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “And I just want you to know this: I have worked for many politicians. Every last one of them was arrogant. But you’re not.”

  Vernon smiled broadly and straightened his shoulders and said to the tabletop, “Let’s go bulldoze those students.”

  They walked across the campus to Old Main, Vernon waving and smiling to students and stopping to shake hands or say hello. In between these greetings he told Monica he wanted her to do a little favor for him. He wanted her to record in her notebook any word he used that she’d never heard before. Also any expression. He laughed and said, “I’ll pay you a hundred dollars for every word you write down that you haven’t heard before, and I’ll pay you two hundred dollars for any expression I use you haven’t heard before.” She said she’d be glad to do it, but he didn’t have to pay her. It was just part of her job.

  As it turned out, she wouldn’t have made any money on that deal anyway. After the introduction by the professor, who simply read most of the details of the official bio Lydia had written about him, Vernon strode to the lectern so briskly he overshot it and had to back up. Then he looked out over the room—there were only about thirty students—and said, “My fellow Americans.” He said it movingly, clearly, with feeling. Then he said, “Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, in this day and age when all is said and done but good things come to those who wait for the best-laid plans of mice and men to rush in where angels fear to tread, it is indeed a glorious and undeserved privilege for me to address such a sea of bright and shining faces. It is my considered opinion that the state of the nation and the state of the state leave much to be desired, that this tide in the affairs of men, this heat in the kitchen that men cannot take and stay out of, this position between a rock and a hard place, this can of worms which has upset the apple cart—”

  The professor himself, Monica noticed, had begun cackling, and even his students were staring at their teacher as if wondering if he were being rude to the guest, but then they started chuckling, cackling, snickering, snorting and guffawing too. Monica was uneasy. Vernon was speaking beautifully, such a fantastic improvement on his announcement speech, but his words seemed to be provoking an inappropriate amount of amusement.

  “For want of a nail the shoe was lost and we are waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s on the other foot now. If it fits, wear it. My friends, I am here to tell you that there is simply no use flogging a dead horse of a different color that you led to water but couldn’t make drink and tried to put the cart before him. Where was I?”

  Monica suddenly realized, as the roar of laughter swelled, that Vernon was trying to be silly. He had offered her two hundred dollars for any expression she hadn’t heard before, but she had heard all of these expressions so often they were stupid.

  “The issues of this campaign are substantive and cannot be avoided. One of life’s little ironies, which I have on unimpeachable authority, is that the rich get richer and poor get poorer, and it is time to pay the piper! My opponents claim that what goes around comes a
round, but I beg to differ. That dog won’t hunt. He who hesitates is lost. The finger of destiny has pointed itself at me and said, ‘Take the bull by the horns!’ Life is what you make it. Am I right or am I right? Far be it from me to put all my eggs in one basket, because, my friends, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet! Thank you. I can’t even begin to tell you what a pleasure it’s been. It has been a pleasure.”

  They gave him a standing ovation, so Monica stood up and clapped and laughed too. She was a little worried, though. When the laughter died down, Vernon stopped being oratorical and said in a matter-of-fact voice, “I am establishing in this political science department a special award of merit for mental alertness, and the first winner of that award will be the student in this class who can tell me anything I said worth hearing. Anyone?”

  After another uproar of laughter, a student raised his hand and said, “Well, that part about paying the piper wasn’t so bad! But where do we find the piper?”

  That brought another swell of laughter. The professor stepped to the lectern. “I think Mr. Ingledew has made an admirable demonstration of the vacuity of most political rhetoric. But perhaps he would now be willing to answer our questions about his life and work and beliefs. Let’s hear those.”

  A girl said, “Mr. Ingledew, you never went to college yourself. Do you belief that college is useless, or did you just not get a chance to go?”

  “No,” Vernon said, avoiding her gaze. “College is a kind of Arcadian paradise where everyone—faculty and students alike—can retreat from the mundane realities of life long enough to explore the vast body of wisdom governing the smooth functioning of those realities. I was simply too far away from a college campus and too busy earning a living.”