The Candidate

by Paul Harris

  One figure loomed out of the dark and put out a hand to stop the car. A flashlight lit up his face. Mike slowed the car and leant out of the window, making sure they could see his white skin and red hair.

  “Pardon me, buddy. I’m late for work,” Mike said, slowing but not stopping. The figure waved him onwards.

  Mike did not dare speed up until he was out of sight. He could not give the impression he was about to warn anyone in the trailer park ahead. He drove slowly around a bend in the road and only then floored the gas, sending the car skidding off at speed and through the gates of the trailer park. Feverishly he looked at the address and wondered how he could find the right trailer in this mess. He got out, the cold blast of night air chilled him, but he was too panicked to feel it. He raced from trailer to trailer, checking the number, like trying to solve a puzzle. He prayed with each second that he would find it before the raid began. Finally, he got lucky. It was a tiny little trailer, tucked up against a thick line of trees and bushes at the edge of the park. He ran up to the thin, plastic-covered door and furiously knocked on it. There was no response. He rapped again, hissing Ernesto Benitez’ name.

  “Ernesto! Ernesto Benitez!”

  He thought he heard movement inside. But it quickly stopped. He imagined the man, crouching low on the other side of the door, suddenly afraid at this intrusion into his already scary world. Mike knew there were only a few seconds left. He spoke in rapid Spanish.

  “Amigo, la migra is coming. Soon. You have to get out. I can help you.”

  Silence.

  “Amigo. I just want to talk. I promise. You can come with me now, or la migra will have you in a minute.”

  The door opened.

  Ernesto Benitez was a slight figure, perhaps in his early 30s. His face was a golden brown and his eyes wide and dark. He looked terrified. The door opened just enough for him to peer out. Suddenly, his eyes widened and a flash of light, bright as the sun, illuminated the scene. With a roar of revved engines vehicles poured into the trailer park. The raid began.

  “Fuck!” cried Mike.

  He rammed his shoulder against the door and sent Benitez flying across the room. Mike grabbed him by the collar of the sweatshirt he was wearing and hauled him to his feet. He looked straight into his face.

  “We have to get out of here,” he said.

  Benitez nodded and gestured to the rear of the trailer. There was another door there. They both ran and Benitez flung it open. It led straight into a thick patch of trees and bushes. It was so dark that they could barely see. But the flashlights shining from behind them, swinging low and high, like a crazed menagerie of lighthouses, spurred them onwards. Mike ploughed ahead first and plunged into the bushes. Twigs and branches, bare of leaves, clawed and ripped at his arms and legs and he put up a hand to protect his face. Behind him he could hear the grunting and footsteps of Benitez. But Mike did not dare to stop and look behind. He knew they had to put as much distance between themselves and the raid as possible.

  “Keep close to me!” Mike said. Finally the lights and the sounds of shouting and crashing doors faded behind them, replaced by the stumbling of their own feet on the frosty earth. Eventually they stopped on the banks of a meandering stream that crossed their path. They both doubled-over in an effort to catch their breath. With his hands on his knees Benitez looked over at Mike.

  “Who are you?” Benitez asked. They were the first words he had spoken. His Spanish was unusual, with an accent that Mike could not place. Almost as if it were a second language, too.

  “A friend,” Mike said and he stood up and plunged into the stream. His feet sank into the icy water and mud up to his knees. He gasped in sheer pain, but he hauled one foot in front of the other, like wading through thick, half-frozen treacle. The splashing behind him told him that Benitez was following, and as they finally reached the other side, Mike saw the glow of neon and the distant roar of traffic through another stretch of trees on the other side of the stream. Five minutes later they stumbled out into the forecourt of a truck stop. He saw a 24-hour diner. It looked dingy and dire, yet it was the most welcoming thing Mike could imagine. Mike stared at it, at last confident they had escaped.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let me buy you breakfast.”

  * * *

  MIKE HAD never seen someone eat so fast as he watched Benitez wolf down a huge stack of pancakes, eggs and bacon. The immigrant’s coffee cup went untouched as he ate and, after a while, Mike pushed him his own plate of food too. He never felt hungry this early in the morning and the hurried run through the night left his innards gurgling with nerves, not desiring greasy food. Benitez accepted Mike’s plate eagerly and scraped off the food onto his own.

  When the man finished eating, Mike explained he worked for Senator Hodges. Instantly Benitez froze. He glanced left to right, and back again, as if considering making a run for it.

  “Tranquillo,” Mike said. “You are not in trouble. But at the motel, the Havana in Des Moines, you cleaned the room of the woman who tried to shoot him. You know that right? That’s why you left?”

  Benitez bent forward and lowered his voice. “I knew she was evil. The moment I heard her speaking our language. I knew it from the look of her. She has the bad spirit in her.”

  Mike was puzzled.

  “She was speaking Spanish?”

  Benitez shook his head. Then he lifted his chin a little higher and seemed to grow in stature.

  “No. Not Spanish. I am Mayan,” he said. “From Guatemala. She is too. When I came into her room, she was praying on the floor, saying a prayer I remember from childhood, and she was speaking in my language, Kaqchikel.”

  Mayans? Mike was stunned. He knew next to nothing about them, apart from half-remembered history lessons and the images of lost cities in a jungle. Then suddenly Benitez spoke again and this time the words coming out of his mouth were like nothing Mike had ever heard before. They were low and guttural and transported them to a different world, far away from their surroundings in the Kansas diner.

  “Tek riyix niben orar

  tibana’jun oracion achi’el re’”

  “What?” Mike said.

  Benitez laughed.

  “How do you call it? The Lord’s Prayer, I think,” he said. “That was what she prayed. She asked for help and guidance. I thought I was dreaming when I heard her. But she finished her prayer as I watched. She was on her knees and I saw it in her face. She had dead eyes. Empty. I have seen that look before, from people who fought or suffered too much in the war.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  Benitez shook his head. “I left her to her prayer. I never wanted to see her again. But then the next day I see what happened with your Senator. I see a picture of her. I ran for it.”

  Benitez looked at Mike with pleading in his eyes.

  “You have to understand. My coming here is my family’s last chance. I am illegal. I cannot afford to get in trouble. I cannot talk to police. I just want to work and earn some money to send home. Then maybe my cousins, maybe one day my own children, will go to school. That’s all I want.”

  He paused again.

  “These are not my problems.”

  He looked down at his empty plate and then stood up. “Thank you for the breakfast. But that is all I know. I have to get to work.”

  “What about la migra? The raid?’

  Benitez shrugged.

  “They will have gone by now. They only raid the trailer parks, never the factories. If I go to work I am safe. It is just a game show that you play in this country. Like those ones you have on TV. Today I survived to play another round. So I go to the factory. Goodbye, Mike.”

  With that he left and trudged out of the truck stop and headed for the freeway, looking to hitch a ride into town, his shoulders hunched, his head tucked into his chest against the cold wind, revealing nothing of the man inside.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE PLANE FROM Kansas City to New Hampshire flew right over Iowa. Mike look
ed down at the flat checkerboard landscape of fields and towns. It was hard to believe the intensity of the campaign down there could be switched off in an instant. It was a brutal process. But the moment after the last caucus vote was tallied, the various campaigns across Iowa calculated their chances and made their choice. Most folded. A few struggled on. Hodges and Stanton both declared victory and headed straight to New Hampshire. Not an extra hour was spent in Iowa. The state served its purpose and was now cast aside. Hodges and his top staffers touched down in New England before the clocks struck midnight.

  “It’s the best flight in the world. The one that leaves Des Moines on caucus night,” Dee told him as he reported his findings in Kansas to her. “There are only two real tickets out of Iowa; first class and coach. Hodges is in coach at the moment and Stanton’s still flying in style. But we’ve got our mind set on an upgrade.”

  Now Mike joined them.

  The plane touched down in Manchester airport and he looked out over a landscape covered in ivory white snow. It lay in drifts up to four feet deep, with the runway carved out as a black scar, safe for the plane to land on. Different state, different territory, but the same awful, freezing cold. The same headlines too. Stanton may have won in Iowa, but Hodges’ breakthrough was the main news. In the space of a few short weeks his campaign propelled him from nowhere to right on Stanton’s heels. Columnist after columnist praised Hodges as a new sort of politician and smacked their lips at the coming battle against Stanton, the ultimate machine politician in the party. The official field of candidates still in the race stood at five. But everyone knew it was down to just two. Hodges versus Stanton. The Revolutionary versus the Old Guard. Mike drank in every word he read.

  A beep on his phone indicated a message and he held the device to his ear as he trooped through Manchester Airport, looking for the campaign volunteer Dee said would be picking him up. But his purposeful march was dulled by the tinny voicemail and he slowed to a halt. It was a message from Sean.

  “Hi Mike,” Sean said. “I guess you’re busy, but I thought I’d let you know about Jaynie. I went around to her old place and she’s not living there anymore. Apparently she’s up in some trailer in the Heights.”

  There was a pause, as Sean gathered his spirits to say more.

  “It don’t look good, Mike. People who’ve seen her think she’s pretty messed up. Maybe you can get some time to come home for a spell? I know she’s not your wife anymore, but it might do her some good to see you.”

  Mike could not listen. He stood there and his mind raced with a mix of guilt and pain. He felt Jaynie’s hands reaching out to him, half in supplication, half trying to drag him down. Then he jumped as a hand tugged at his sleeve. It was a young man, wearing a Hodges campaign T-shirt.

  “Mr. Sweeney, sir?” he said in a way that made Mike suddenly feel old. “I’m your ride up to Berlin. Are you all right?”

  Mike smiled and pulled himself together.

  “Come on, let’s get going.”

  * * *

  MIKE WAS eager to hit the ground running. This was new territory. Iowa was behind them and the battle of New Hampshire lay ahead. The car sped north out of Manchester and headed for the city of Berlin in the upper reaches of the state. It was an old logging town fallen on hard times; very different from the richer suburbs in the south of the state. That made it the perfect place for Hodges to kick off his campaign. He spoke for the voiceless and the ignored. He took the road less traveled. The student chattered excitedly as he drove and the icy, mountainous, forested landscape slipped by.

  “Hardly any candidate ever comes up to Berlin,” he was saying. “I can’t believe the Senator is going to spend time up there. It’s amazing.”

  Mike allowed the student to talk on and grunted every so often to keep him going. Outside he watched as the countryside slipped by. It was so different from Iowa’s vast horizons and broad fields and tiny towns. Here the landscape was more crowded, dominated by thick, dark forests out of which reared mountains. The tidy New England towns they sped through seemed packed together tightly. It was more cramped, more intense and everywhere there were election placards. New Hampshire craved for Iowa to get out of the way. It wanted its turn in the limelight.

  The drive lasted three hours and eventually they cruised into downtown Berlin, nestled in a wooded valley with a fast flowing river carving through the heart of it. The hulks of shuttered sawmills loomed over the city and reminded Mike of the landscapes where he grew up. The sun set but even in the twilight it was immediately obvious where Hodges’ rally was being held. Crowds of people trudged through the streets towards the town hall. They parked the car and walked along with the crowd. Mike enjoyed feeling part of the throng of people; he was just one person being carried along. The cold air melted away in the face of the human warmth of the gathering, but it was a relief all the same to finally get inside the town hall.

  Mike immediately saw the familiar faces of the staffers from Iowa who made the jump to New Hampshire. The same media too, now permanently trailing Hodges from event to event. Lauren was among them as she set up her computer at a crowded desk at the back of the room. She saw Mike and waved. He nodded in return and wondered if she noticed his election night absence — and whether she linked it to his investigating the shooter. But her smile seemed nothing but genuine and it felt good to be on the receiving end of it.

  The crowd suddenly roared as Hodges entered the room and Mike felt the familiar rush of energy and anticipation. The candidate walked on stage like a man who knew he could win the state, exuding confidence. But his speech was humble and human. Each person in the room felt he asked them alone for his or her help, as he persuaded each individual that he or she really could make a difference. He took questions too, long into the night, for more than an hour and a half, as nervous aides twitched and fidgeted in the background. But Hodges never once looked at them. His focus was on the crowd, listening and debating, absorbing their concerns. At one point an old man, a logger long ago laid off who struggled against illness, stood up and spoke about a lifetime of poverty and a fight to get by that got worse with age, not better.

  “I can’t afford any more hope,” he said at last with grim humor. “My heart can’t take it.”

  There were a few laughs in the crowd but Hodges quieted them and walked to where the old man stood. He put the microphone down and grasped the man by the shoulder, clasping him in a hug, and whispered in his ear. Most could not hear what Hodges said. It was not a moment designed for the cameras. But the image of the two men was picked up and played back on TV. It was not a piece of political theatre. It was genuine. But what Mike saw Hodges’ mouthing to the old man was a simple vow.

  “I won’t let you down,” Hodges had said, and the old man started to weep.

  * * *

  THE SMOKY little dive bar in Berlin looked exactly like the sort of place where a fight could break out at any moment. As such, Dee was perfectly at home. It was dark and a few groups of drinkers hung back in the corners while a couple of solitary men perched at the bar, nursing bottles of beer and chasers. That was Dee’s drink of choice too as she chalked up another win at the pool table and sent a confused local back to the bar for another drink to comfort him in his latest loss.

  “Come on, you rack them up this time, Mike,” Dee said. “Local boys here can’t shoot pool for shit.”

  Dee did not mind that her voice, with its Southern inflection, carried into the furthest depths of the bar. But, Mike guessed, the crowd in the bar had probably never seen anyone quite like Dee. This mannish-looking stocky middle-aged woman in blue jeans with a loud mouth and an even louder attitude. The bar crowd were the sort of guys who preferred to steer clear of such new and unusual things. Mike set up the balls.

  “She’s Guatemalan, huh? Mayan?” Dee said, whistling through her teeth. “You know, I have seen a lot of strange things in this business. Thirty years or more of strange things, truth be told. But this is up there with the weirdes
t of them. What do you think it means?”

  Mike shrugged.

  “You know Hodges’ biography just like I do. We’ve always focused on his military career in the Gulf, in Iraq and then in Afghanistan. We never paid much attention to the things that happened in the 1980s. I mean he was all over Central America for some of that time, including Guatemala. He was a trainer at the School for the Americas, but it was all just routine stuff. He ran a few courses, he helped train a few colonels. I always thought it was a kind of a dull story.”

  Dee broke the triangle of pool balls with a mighty crack from her cue. Two of the balls sailed into the pockets and she swiftly lined up a third.

  “Shit, I don’t even know if he speaks Spanish.”

  She missed the shot and then paused for a moment.

  “Though it would be useful. If he’s fluent in Spanish that’s going to be a big vote winner with the Hispanics in California and Texas.”

  “Are you really thinking that far ahead?”

  Dee nodded.

  “Hell, yes,” she said. Her voice was firm, angry even at the suggestion. “This is no game, Mike. Look around you. Look at this sorry ass bar; look at this sorry ass town. Christ, look at this sorry ass goddamn country. Hodges can change that.”

  She softened slightly and put up her pool cue.

  “Look, I don’t mean to be hard. But I know the kind of people in this town. They are good people. Hard-working folks who just haven’t caught a break in a long time. I grew up in a town like this, except with hurricanes, not snow. We didn’t have enough jobs to go around and life was just one long attempt to make do.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “I’m sick of seeing people just get by, Mike. Believe it or not, these folks here are my people and I know Hodges will be good for them. He makes folks believe in him and then they believe in themselves. We harness that and we’ve got another Teddy Roosevelt on our hands. Or another FDR.”