My father was polite, soft-spoken and quoted Emerson, about a gentleman not making any noise. But he was from the Planet 1960s and you couldn’t silence him.
“I said cut off his mike!” O’Malley yelled again, panic rising in his voice.
“You cannot silence the voice of an informed electorate, no matter how many lies you tell,” my father continued calmly—at the top of his lungs.
He sat quite still, the color rising in his round face. His voice was so loud it was picked up by O’Malley’s microphone. The host looked like this had never happened before. It must have been the practice my dad got from all those anti-Vietnam War demonstrations. O’Malley was going berserk. He called for security.
“Only in gun-crazy, money-mad America could activist judges label cash as free speech and certify that a corporation is a human being—but with more rights than a person. Americans have lost their voice, just as I have on this show— because a millionaire shut me up. Wake up! There is no free speech on this show or in the country—unless you’re rich!”
“Shut the BEEP up!” O’Malley screeched, his obscenity bleeped out. “Cut off my mike, too. Go to BEEP-ing commercial.”
Uniformed security guards dragged my smiling dad off-screen. O’Malley threw one of my father’s books at him, just before the image froze.
“That was the wild scene last night on FAX TV’s Bob O’Malley’s Free Speech Zone. O’Malley didn’t like what his liberal guest was saying, so he cut off his mike and then had him dragged off camera,” a gorgeous blonde CNN host said. “CNN has learned that the TV host with the famously short temper had political science professor and author James Shepherd ejected from the studio—and also from the luxury hotel where he had been put up by the show. I guess O’Malley forgot that he named his show the Free Speech Zone,” the anchor chuckled.
It cut to a catchy musical commercial: a montage of car crashes, ambulances and a blizzard of green cash and dollar signs. A bandaged guy on crutches danced and belted out a happy tune:
“Klaus and Fins, injury attorneys—let us sue to score cash for you!”
I switched to FAX News channel. As usual, former Alaska governor and former vice presidential candidate Miranda Dodge, a right-wing glamor girl, was slamming the president who had defeated her in the last election. Beneath her image, her identification was FORMER AK GOV., AUTHOR OF WHITE SLAVES UNITE.
“Well, shoot,” Dodge said in her fake folksy tone. “If the election had not been rigged and stolen with voter fraud by all those illegal aliens, I would be in office now—not that mongrel Moslem foreigner. The enemies of our great nation are helped by traitors, who would tear down our precious freedoms, such as the right to bear arms, the right to self-govern and freedom from taxes.”
“Are you referring to Speaker of the House, Percy Chesterfield?” the moderator asked her.
“He is one of many but his treason is more painful because he pretends to be one of us,” said Dodge. “Well, shoot! First he is with us, then he is against us.”
“That’s right!” piped up another voice.
The camera turned to a husky bearded guy with long scraggly hair, wearing full camouflage shirt, vest and jacket. It did not help him blend into the TV studio. The banner below his long beard said TEA PARTY BLOGGER CLAYTON LITTLETON. Who the hell was this guy?
“The pretender president is in league with Chesterfield and the other RINOs and false patriots who are unwilling to do what is necessary to bring down this godless, foreign occupation of sacred Christian America,” Littleton said. “It is past time we resorted to Second Amendment measures to take back our country and restore it to one nation under God, so that real Americans can rule once more.” Dodge nodded her agreement.
This was interesting. Two people on a major TV network like FAX—run by owner of the New York Mail Trevor Todd, openly calling an elected official a traitor and suggesting he be shot because of his political views.
In America.
Iraq and Afghanistan are very different from the US in a lot of ways. But the weird thing about coming home after so long was how similar they had become. It was beginning to look like I couldn’t escape the Cult of the Sacred Gun; ruthless, dedicated madmen who worshipped weapons and ached to kill with a sexual fervor stoked by their mullahs and their own movies and TV shows.
I guzzled the rest of my too-sweet near-beer and poured a glass of arak. My father, and probably my mother, were in New York and had not even called me. Typical. I tried other news channels. My father’s fight with the conservative talk show host was all over the tube but was quickly replaced by BREAKING NEWS segments about the senator.
“To recap, for those of you just tuning in,” one anchor intoned. “The New York Daily Press website is reporting exclusively that Senator Richard Hard—uh… Hardstein, is dead of an apparent heart attack inside his Manhattan home. We have been unable to confirm that so far but a large number of police and emergency workers have arrived at Hardstein’s home, as you can see from this live shot.”
The scene was chaotic, with a crowd held back by cops and TV cameras and press and, in the middle, one really pissed-off redhead.
11
Two araks later, my cellphone rang.
I answered without looking for the caller ID—always a mistake.
“Yeah?”
“Francis?”
“Mom?”
My mother was the only one who ever called me that.
“Hi.”
The last time I spoke to my parents was a few weeks earlier, after national stories ran about how I was involved in a massacre of civilians in Afghanistan. They weren’t true. Before that, they hadn’t spoken to me for most of the past decade—ever since I enlisted after the 9-11 attacks. They never called me or responded to my calls. Three could play at that game.
“Nice to hear from you, Mom,” I said casually. “How are you and Dad doing? Enjoying the summer? Any vacation plans?”
“Well, yes, actually, we’re here in New York.”
“Really? You should have called in advance so I could have taken some time off and shown you the town.”
“We would never put you to that trouble, Francis. Um… How are you?”
“You mean other than being a baby-killer and a tool of the corporate-fascist war machine?”
“Your father was upset. When the later stories made it clear that those charges were not true, he regretted saying that.”
“Great. I guess he forgot to call and tell me. Not to mention the TV station.”
After an awkward silence, she mentioned the new TV appearance. I feigned ignorance.
“It was very amusing,” she giggled. “This O’Malley person is quite a tiresome egomaniac.”
You didn’t have to be a clinical psychologist, like my mother, to figure that out.
“Immature genital fixation. His belief system seems wholly animist.”
“That’s what I’ve always said,” I told her.
“Are you mocking me, Francis?”
“Never, Mom. You need a place to stay, don’t you?”
After a long silence, she responded.
“You saw the show.”
“No, but I saw a clip—they kicked you out of your hotel.”
She didn’t deny it.
My parents are not wealthy. They do not believe in stocks or bonds, although they believe in savings accounts, for some reason. Of course, that was when interest was actually paid by banks. Now the interest rate for the suckers was almost zero—at the vapor-lock point. My parents also do not believe in inflation-causing credit cards. They didn’t owe anybody anything but they didn’t have much, considering that they had been professors for decades. They had been all over the world but always stayed with friends for nothing. That would mean they had a finite amount of cash with them and no credit cards and were having trouble getting an un-booked hotel room in the tourist season.
“Let me guess, Mom. You want to stay with me?”
“Well, no… actually
, we thought perhaps some friends of yours might…”
“Let me get this straight, Mom. You hate my guts but you want me to find you a place to stay, so your low-budget vacation won’t be ruined.”
“You know I hate ugly phrases like that,” she said, coolly.
“But you like cold phrases like ‘psychopathy’ and ‘passive-aggressive,’ right?”
“Francis, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… You’re right. This was ill-advised.”
“No, Mom. I know someone who moved into his girlfriend’s place recently. I have the keys. It’s down in TriBeCa. You’re welcome to stay there for the week.”
“Well, thank you, Francis, that’s very considerate of you. Maybe we can get together one night for dinner?”
“That would be nice, Mom.”
As if. Maybe Congress would pass a gun-control law. Or any law.
“Yes, I’ll… check with your father.”
“Great. Get back to me. I’ll send the address and the keys over by messenger. Where are you? Hold on. Let me get a pen.”
I got the Yellow Pages and found a messenger service. I called and a guy on a motorbike arrived ten minutes later. I gave him money, my house keys and a note in an envelope and sent him off to my parents. I sat back down, downed my drink and laughed. Only way to deal with it.
12
By the time Jane got home, it was dark and I was drunk. She seemed upset and I asked her what was wrong. She blew her nose, sat with me and said it was nothing. But I had already figured out that she thought there was something wrong with people who drank alone, especially if they got blasted. She kissed me and gave me a hug, which I returned. Jane thought because I could always tell when she was upset that I was a sensitive person, which was true, and a good listener, which was also accurate. She had also told me she felt I was not a judgmental person. She thought those things meant I was a warm, fuzzy guy and a caring boyfriend. I wasn’t so sure that my hyper-vigilance meant I was such a good guy. I had no idea. We were a new couple and I didn’t want to dispense advice. Especially advice I would not take myself.
If you didn’t care about killing, even as a mercy, you were a killer. I was a killer and I didn’t like it. As my calming Lao Tzu Daily Thought app said: “Caring is an invincible shield from heaven against being dead.” If it was a shield, why did it hurt so much? I said none of this to Jane.
“Why are you drunk?” she asked pleasantly, but with a little edge.
I pointed at the screen and let her watch. I got her a glass and she had a shot of arak with me, even though she hated the stuff. That way, I wouldn’t be drinking alone. We held each other on the couch for a while and watched the news, while Skippy snoozed on the floor, his giant head warming my feet.
“So, when you went out with Skippy this afternoon, you covered that?” Jane asked, pointing at the Daily Press website HARDSTEIN HEART ATTACK DEATH headline, displayed on CNN.
“Not really. I saw the girls sneak in and I told Sparky and this other reporter. I tipped them off and they nailed it and ran with it. I left.”
“What girls?”
“They haven’t used that part yet. Hardstein was having sex with two young ladies when he died.”
“Oh, my God! Why isn’t your paper going berserk with that juicy morsel?”
“They’re trying to get more, trying to talk to the women, saving it for a big splash in the morning paper.”
“Oh. Of course.”
I told Jane what else had happened.
“Was it the Viagra?” she asked. “Did it cause his heart attack?”
“Maybe. I’m not on the story.”
“Okay. So, tomorrow is your first day as a private eye?” Jane asked.
“Looks that way. Sounds more like a security guard job.”
“If you don’t like it, you can quit.”
When a commercial came on, we got up and made dinner together. Jane carefully sautéed a small fish while I made a salad and drizzled on some virgin olive oil with herbs and Trader Joe’s Balsamic Glaze. I served Skippy some of his favorite canned wet food, Straw Dogs.
“Something else is bothering you,” Jane said when we were done.
“I just sublet my apartment,” I explained. “Actually I sub-sublet it. For free. I’m celebrating.”
“For free? To who?”
“Total strangers.”
She waited.
“Total strangers who are related to me.”
I told her about the TV show and my mother’s call, while pouring myself another glass of arak. When I told her my parents were staying for only a week, I detected relief. I tried not to take it personally. We had only been dating a month.
“Your parents make mine seem wonderful,” Jane said. “Yours sound somewhat abusive.”
“Sort of.”
I served with guys, some real psycho killers, whose parents had beat the shit out of them. My parents never used anything except words.
“Did they…”
“Never laid a hand on me,” I said, truthfully. “Always remembered my birthday. But they… told me terrible things… dangerous lies.”
“Like what?”
“That if I was a good person and worked hard, I would be rewarded,” I told her. “That people were the most important thing in this world—not money. That I was personally responsible for Justice for everyone, everywhere, every day of my life.”
“The bastards,” Jane laughed.
“Exactly.”
13
The folded front page of the Daily Press was lying in wait for me on the front porch at seven the next morning, a brisk, sunny day. I was showered, dressed, clean and feeling good. The last thing I wanted to do was read the paper. I unfolded it cautiously, as Skippy sniffed the fresh air. He was getting his information and I was getting mine. The entire front page was one of Sparky’s drone shots of Senator Hardstein, naked and dead on his bed, a lopsided smile on his handsome face. For modesty, a black rectangle had been placed over his aroused crotch, akimbo at a forty-five degree angle—hiding, yet highlighting the spot. The paper had gone for the gusto—the headline in huge bold type, in fire-engine red ink:
HARD-OFF!
Oh, man. I was horrified to see my boldface byline as the first of three names on the EXCLUSIVE! story below, even though I had not filed anything. There was even a postage-stamp-sized photo of me. I cursed under my breath as I scanned the sub-headline and read on.
FATAL ERECTION?
Sex-scandal Senator Richard “Hard-On” Hardstein suffered an apparent heart attack and died yesterday— during kinky three-way sex with two naked women inside his $8 million Fifth Avenue penthouse, the possible result of a popular erection-inducing medication, law enforcement sources said. Exclusive Daily Press photos and video show that the married Hardstein, a father of three and grandfather of two, died after engaging in extra-marital hijinks with his young playmates just minutes after he refused to comment to a crowd of media outside his home—uttering his last public words: “Sorry, I have a pressing appointment.”
© Copyright, N.Y. DAILY PRESS.
I was still new to newspaper work and had no clue what the word “hijinks” meant. Inside, page after page of huge photographs of the senator and his teen partners, with more black tape over certain body parts to reduce the exposure from X-rated to PG-17. There was also black tape over the ladies’ eyes, hiding their identity but not much else.
Wow. And my name was on it. How did that happen? I couldn’t put it down.
“PRESSING APPOINTMENT? The Senator Presses the Flesh in His Last Campaign, as one of his admirers sucks on an odd cigarette.” The video frame-grabs were numbered in series, like a comic strip, of the action and death and the flight of the ladies, then the arrival of the cops. There was a website listed—a pay-per-view site to view the copyrighted video for $9.99. Further in, two pages were dedicated to exclusive interviews with the two girls.
HARD-ON HARLOTS
“He was, like, really old but he was a
lways cool before. This time, he just friggin’ fell over. Maybe he took too much Viagra,” said one escort—who asked to be called “Caprice.” Her partner, “Swag,” said they preferred to be identified as “sex industry workers.” They both agreed that if they ever voted they would cast their ballots for Hardstein. Just before the fun turned fatal, they said, the liberal Hardstein asked them to sing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President.” Yesterday was not the senator’s birthday. “Dickie loved that song,” said one of the sex industry workers. “He was totally bonus. I’m, like, totally sad.”
The girls revealed their prices and menu for sex, all detailed in a chart on page seven, next to a spread of real estate photos of the penthouse—presumably for sale soon—and speculation on who might buy it and whether Hardstein’s widow might get more or less money because of the infamy of his ignominious end there. There was even a shot at Ginny Mac, under a small photo of her pressing her chest against Hardstein. They had air-brushed her cleavage to make it look more revealing and her expression more slutty.
MAIL BOOB JOB FAILS
An unnamed New York Mail reporter, left, unethically presses her chest against the doomed senator in a failed bid for an interview. But her shame went largely unnoticed in New York—because no one is reading the Mail today. Everyone is getting the whole story, exclusively—only in the Daily Press! Don’t forget to view the shocking video online. Adults only!
Oh, man. I picked up the warring tabloid from the porch. Ginny had a story on the front page with another big headline:
HARD-ON DEAD
Ginny’s piece was very similar—but totally without the girls or the sex or the Viagra. They never saw the pastel ladies, never launched a drone. They were caught flat-footed on the ground, G-rated. Compared to the Daily Press, the Mail was like a bun without the hotdog. Ginny would be breathing fire. Scooped. I called the paper. Mel picked up right away.
Shoot Page 5