“Where’s the girl? Where’s Melissa?”
“Melissa went back to City and took the girl with her. She’s going to adopt her.”
I rest my forehead on the door. Good for Melissa. Helping the person in front of her and all that. My moment of warm-fuzzies is ruined by this behind-the-door proclamation:
“I didn’t tell Melissa that the girl will not survive the year, though. You probably think I should’ve told her that. I’d rather Melissa live with a little hope even if it’s only for a year. I’d rather that girl spend her last days in City than down here.”
This feels typical and appropriate for us, a meaningful conversation through a door. “You don’t know what I think or thought and you never did. Now, open the goddamn door!”
He says, “Fuck off. I’m praying.”
That’s it. Backpedaling until my body is flush against the opposite wall, I throw myself across the hall and shoulder-first into the door. The wood isn’t strong and cracks and splinters in the jam. The door flies open but rebounds, bouncing back into me as it hits something.
“All right, come in.”
Books. There are books everywhere. Thick bookcases line all the walls. Thick books fill those bookcases. There are stacks and piles of books on the floor and on my father’s desk and under his cot. Hardcover books with cloth covers. The covers only have solid colours; there’s blue, black, brown, yellow, red. There is nothing written on the covers and nothing written on the spines.
He says, “I knew you were going to do that. I already ordered a replacement door.”
I shut the splintered door behind me and find the stack of books the door rammed when I pushed it open. I pick a book up and flip through it. The pages are white, and empty.
“Are all these books blank?”
My father is a hunched figure behind a solid oak desk. He has a pen in his hand. Fingers stained with ink. He uses a kerosene lantern for light and it smells a little funny, unnatural even.
He says, “No. The books on the shelves have their stories inside.”
I wade over to a bookshelf and pick out the book tome at random. There are indeed words and stories inside. Handwritten.
“You wrote all this?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Read one of the stories to me.”
56
EVE’S STORY
SHE FENDS FOR HERSELF
Eve is quiet and introverted. Not beautiful in the classic sense of physical beauty but beautiful in how she carries herself; confident in her own abilities yet sheepish of where she fits in. Her parents both work long factory hours and Eve is the youngest (two other children out of the house already) and is left to fend for herself at night, something that grows and feeds her independent light. Eve is intelligent and does well in school although she hates the social aspects, the institutionalized competition and usurpation of her independence and identity. She works hard more for the pride of her parents than her own, and manages to earn a scholarship to City University. She lasts two years but drops out. Then two more years of searching, of activism (though she grows cynical of the intentions and motivations of her fellow activists), of confusion over sexual identity. Eve emerges from her tumultuous youth as a social worker. She’s very good at her job. She buys a house on the outskirts of City with Jenn, her partner. They would marry if they could. She revels in her sibling’s children but does not desire any of her own. Her father has a stroke and lingers too long. Her mother dies of breast cancer, and Eve loses a breast to a mastectomy a decade later, but survives. She survives long enough to outlive Jenn by five years although she’ll spend most of those five years—years that she’d describe as happy and productive, but lonely—idly wishing she hadn’t.
57
TOE-MAY-TOE, TOE-MAH-TOE,
LET’S CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF
He says, “I don’t remember who the original Eve was anymore. Maybe two years ago she was a freckle-faced teen and a heroine-addicted prostitute with AIDS when she died here. Maybe for a week all she said to me was ‘don’t touch me’ or ‘fuck off’ but in the weakest of voices. I choose not to remember that. What I’ll remember about her is what you just read to me.”
I skim more stories in the book, but don’t read them out loud. There’s one about a guy who is a three-times-married bank teller. There’s another about a truck driver who dies after he falls asleep at the wheel. There’s another about a part-time nurse who has two miscarriages but has a healthy child on the third try. There’s another about a woman who has two autistic children and one healthy one. There’s another about a writer who euthanizes her terminally ill husband and is unable to write another word for the rest of her distressingly long life. There’s another about a factory worker who doesn’t lose his job until after twenty-five years of service, but manages to eke out a small and pride-swallowing existence thanks to the kindness of friends and family. There’s another about a landlord who has a tenant stealing his credit cards and identity, but he rebounds financially and buys more low-income apartment buildings. There’s another about a girl who could never escape the ghetto and spent too much of her life taking care of her morbidly obese mother. There’s more and more and more. Each story is written as one long paragraph with a title. Some stories have more happiness and triumphs than others. Some stories have more sadness and tragedy.
I know what this is, but I want to hear it from him. “What is all this about?”
He still sits in his chair, behind his desk, holding his pen, surrounded by stories. “Everyone who’s ever been at Home deserves a better ending. Even if it’s a sad ending, it’s better than what they got.”
“You’re the only one who will read these alternate endings.”
“These people are forgotten by everyone else. But they’ll live on, at least for a little while longer, through these stories, through these memories that I make as real as I can. In reality, it’s all any of us can hope for.”
Fictional stories, new memories as reality. I can’t argue. Reality is only as real as memories. I put the book back and grab another one. I read more stories.
I say, “You knew I was going to meet Feroz and then see those kids, didn’t you?”
“I cannot tell a lie.”
“This whole room is full of lies.”
“You say lies, I say lives. Toe-may-toe, Toe-mah-toe, let’s call the whole thing off.”
This room is too much. I’m splintered into parts. Part of me loves my father for what he’s doing down here. Another part of me hates him and thinks he’s pathetic.
I say, “All this was your idea, wasn’t it? Making me a Mayoral candidate, the TV show, bringing me down here, even breaking into your room and reading your stories. Why?”
“You’re not going to believe me. I am sorry you had to go through all that with Feroz, and then the little boy and girl. I couldn’t stop it. I never could. I never can.”
“Where’s my story? Or my mother’s? Are they here?”
“I don’t have to write those stories.”
“That’s right. Because you already authored those stories, Dad. Everything that has happened to us, to me and Mom, would not have happened if you hadn’t left us.” And I’m thinking about the night Mr. Lopez died when I say this. That night happened to us.
“You don’t know that,” he says.
I say, “Neither do you.”
He laughs. “Okay, okay. You really think I’m withholding where she is, don’t you? You haven’t once believed me when I’ve said that she’s okay but I don’t know where she is.”
“I know you know where she is.”
He says, “You’re right. I do know where she is. I’m not going to tell you. You’ll find out on your own.”
I take a book, an empty one, and tear off its cover.
He shrugs. Again, his damn know-its-all-coming shrug. Then he tosses me a smart phone; it
was Melissa’s. He says, “You’re going to get a call from the CM in an hour. They’re going to tell you that you are the new Mayor. You are going to use your newly elected position to, finally, find your mother.” He watches me. In his eyes am I a snake ready to strike or a slug that he’s going to sprinkle with salt? “So, do you believe me now, kiddo? Do you believe in anything?”
I don’t answer him. It’s my turn to read the future. I’m going to leave him sitting in this room with his ink and empty pages, his chosen reality, and I’m going to disappear into mine.
He says, “Would you like to write something for Feroz or the little boy before you storm off into the sunset?” He offers me a pen.
It would be so easy. Giving them their lives back. I take the pen out of his hand, pick up the book I tore the cover off, and on the first blank page I write:
He believes his parents love him even when they do bad stuff. He works in a land of mute animals to escape one of them. He learns about suffering and dignity when he tries to find one of them. He eventually understands and forgives the actions of one of them.
Do you know or care who the one of them is at the end?
I say, “Sorry, I cheated and wrote into a second paragraph. It’s something to remember me by. You pick a title.”
Father-my-father takes the book and reads it. He says, “You’ll be back. I guarantee it. You can believe that. Who else am I going to get to read all these stories?”
I take a blank book and tuck it under my arm. A souvenir. The cell phone rings in my pocket.
He says, “Whoops. Looks like they’re calling earlier than I thought they would. Can’t be right all the time. Right?”
I walk away with the ringing phone in my pocket, empty book cradled to my chest.
He yells behind me, “Hey, Mr. Mayor, don’t fuck with Home’s funding. And shut the goddamn door on your way out.”
58
CINDERELLA WANTS THE PUMPKIN BACK
9:30 PM.
I emerge from Pier in the North End and the CM scoop me up into a limousine. I want to wash and change my smelly, dirty clothes but they won’t let me. I want to tell them where they can stuff this election but I don’t say anything, which makes me think I don’t really want to tell them where they could stuff the election. I want to win. I confuse myself.
10:17 PM.
All three major City networks declare me Mayor although only two percent of the precincts have reported. Faster than a McDonald’s burger, I become Mayor. The CM pour champagne for us. I drink it too fast and the bubbles go into my sinuses.
10:43 PM.
Solomon delivers a concession speech, still all smiles, still declaring a great day for Democracy, still with his Napoleon hand in his vest. While leaving the podium, he tosses his pocket watch into a throng of supporters. I start into a second champagne bottle.
10:51 PM.
CityNews reports that Solomon is granting me a full pardon from all terrorist charges related to my Farm escape and chooses to vacate the Mayoral position immediately, forgoing his optional one-month, lame-duck period. I am full on drunk.
10:52 PM.
Television pundits agree the pardon and waiving his right to be a lame-duck is a wonderful, graceful gesture that will go far to ensuring his legacy as one of City’s most beloved and important Mayors.
11:11 PM.
City Counsel announces plans for a Solomon Statue and dedication.
11:17 PM.
City Counsel announces plans for a minted Solomon coin.
11:23 PM.
McDonald’s unveils the Solomon Burger.
11:27 PM.
City Press announces Solomon has signed a book deal for a record-breaking ten million dollar advance.
11:33 PM.
City Hall and the financial district are cordoned off and the sidewalks barricaded for the inauguration and parade. All sidewalk garbage cans are cleared and roadside metal detectors set up.
12:01 AM.
I’m standing in the giant marble foyer of City Hall. It’s dark, with only the emergency lights on. The room is full of closed office doors, empty staircases, and marble columns, Pier-like columns. The CM talk on two cell phones at the same time. I’m not listening, and only thinking about standing up. I wait to be sworn in as Mayor. To be inaugurated. I really fucking hate it when my father is right.
I stand behind the grand oak doors of City Hall. Twenty feet tall, thirty feet wide. Thick doors, but not thick enough to muzzle the roar from the streets, from City. I’m to be their Mayor. Who am I really? I’ve graduated from being the dog to being Cinderella, a Cinderella who wants her pumpkin back at midnight but doesn’t get it.
Those thick doors open and there is a great, unending roar, and spotlights, cameras, flashing bulbs, and a thousand and one questions shouted at me and I don’t think I can answer one of them. The CM usher me, Mayor in-ten-and-counting-seconds, Mayor still-wearing-his-homeless-chic-threads, through the sea of press and toward a judge. I repeat his words. I am Mayor. It’s as easy as that.
12:11 AM.
My midnight inaugural parade of City. Behind the sidewalk barricades and endless line of armed soldiers and police is City. As many people as I have ever hoped to see at once. They are here. They cheer. They scream. They dance to the upbeat electronic music my cavalcade pumps out. They point, laugh, cry, love, hate, eat, shit, love, steal, fuck, lie, kill, and die. And I wave at them. My waving image is on all of the City holo-boards and ad streamers, my face swallowing up entire City blocks. There are clips and stills of me holding the little girl in the blue dress. Pier is right under my feet. Pier is a galaxy away and I let myself believe I’m a made-up story in my father’s book.
Helicopters and their spotlights fly overhead. I have bodyguards. They hold a finger to their ears and listen to someone else. Government-trained snipers lean out of windows and walk the roofs of the buildings we pass. Everyone is here. The CM tell me they all love me. The CM think I’m dumb enough to believe them. But out here, in front of all these people, it is almost believable. Almost. People stand on mailboxes and they fill the side streets and hang out the windows next to the snipers. Parents hold up their children, their children hold up sparklers and flags. There are veterans in full garb, dangling their shiny metals. There are balloons and pretzels and cotton candy and fireworks. I’m handed a microphone. Say something, anything. I say, “Thanks for coming out,” like I’m some old has-been rock star thanking his fans for shelling out good coin for my third Final Tour Ever Tour. The crowd responds: an explosion of sound that I didn’t think could get any louder. We roll into the well-lit financial district and people wear The Candidate tee shirts and hats and people hold out pens looking for autographs, looking for something. Live bands play music and there are other sound stages set up for all the late-night talk shows. I allow myself to look for my mother, to see if she is standing on any of those sound stages, waiting to reunite with the new Mayor. We keep on rolling. Me standing in the Mayor-mobile, ankle deep in confetti and I say, “Thank you,” again into the mic and this time there’s a rush against one of the barricades and there’s no way there aren’t people being injured or crushed to death, but we drive past, slow, at our predetermined Mayoral speed. Then there are other explosions besides the fireworks. From the sidewalk and from one of the side streets I hear that animal growl and then there is smoke and bodies and parts flying through the air, my human-flesh ticker-tape victory parade. Donkey explosions on every block. I try to yell, “Go home, please. So no one else gets hurt!” into the microphone but it’s been shut off. I throw up a belly-full of still bubbly champagne over the side of the car. The parade continues at the same speed. The crowd still stays and screams and crushes and explodes. Someone says in my ear we’ll be home soon, Mr. Mayor. I still try to yell to the crowd but I know no one can hear me. And I know the pumpkinless-Cinderella has become Nero with a dead microphone.
59
IT MEANS SOME ASSHOLE WAS JUST THERE
It’s my first official day on the job. My first official day in a suit. My first official day alone in the Mayor’s office.
I stare at my closed office door. It’s hard not to imagine Pier and all those people living and dying right outside that door and I wonder what my father is writing into his books now and whose turn is it to be forgotten and then replaced with fiction. I suppose I should focus on being Mayor.
Here is my office: There’s a refrigerator next to my file cabinet. It’s the elephant in the room. I hear it humming but I’m not ready to take a peek behind it to see if it’s plugged in or not. Some things are better left as mysteries. That pig of a man Solomon left the place a mess. Twinkie and Ding-Dong wrappers and empty soda cans everywhere. All kinds of kitschy stuff clutters his desk: one of those plastic long-necked birds drinking out of a cup of water, those clacking metal balls on strings, slogan-filled coffee mugs, pens and over-sized pencils branded with company names and logos. It’s almost hard to believe people somewhere worked and sweated and slaved to manufacture utter pieces of crap like this stuff. People working to make crap, this I do believe. I push all that junk off the desk and into a trashcan to make room for my empty book. On the walls there are pictures of Solomon shaking hands with celebrities and dignitaries and cutting ceremonial tapes and throwing out ceremonial first balls. In the middle, in the spot of honour on the wall is this plaque:
The pictures have to go, but I think I’ll keep the plaque.
The CM share an office next to me. They’ll need a name change because, as stipulated in our contractual agreement, they’re now the Assistants to the Mayor. At least, that’s what they told me in the morning briefing. How about I call them the Ass-May? Works for me. I’ll make it official with my Mayoral signature later.
In the briefing the Ass-May told me I’m supposed to do a brunch with Shriners and then make live appearances on a slew of radio stations. Then coffee with public transportation union leaders, then cock-tails with Young Republicans and a five-hundred-dollar-a-plate dinner with Young Democrats, then a late-night talk show stop. Sounds like a full day of Mayoring.
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