by Steve Israel
*
Lois arrived at Village Hall. She rested her bike against the stand she’d installed with funds from the modest Asabogue capital budget, without locking it. This was a matter of immense pride to Lois. Her village was so safe you didn’t need bike locks. She dropped the bottles into a blue plastic bin with ASABOGUE RECYCLES stenciled on it in white, and pushed through the building’s squeaking front door.
The wooden floors, original to 1750, groaned as she entered. Portraits of past mayors, old and white and heavily bearded, peered suspiciously from their perches high on the wall, as if to ask, “How did she become one of us?”
The historic Old Sitting Parlor had been converted to a reception area and was now dominated by a long wooden counter cluttered with tourist brochures for nearby attractions: wineries, museums, art galleries, and the famous Montauk Lighthouse, which had glowed at the tip of Long Island since George Washington was president. Sunlight streamed through a bay window, heating the room despite the wheezing of a wall-mounted air conditioner.
“Good morning, Sam!” Lois said cheerfully.
Sam Gergala, the part-time village clerk, leaned against the counter. He was tall and lanky and tanned from a lifetime as a local potato farmer. A few years before, his farm had succumbed to a development of mini mansions. Domus erectus, he continued to tell anyone who’d listen: a highly invasive species. Developers were like weevils, Sam explained. They chewed through acreage, leveling the land, turning rich soil into infinity pools for the rich. Lois had stood at Sam’s side during the battle that took his farm, and Sam had stood with Lois ever since, although both had to crane their necks to make eye contact.
“Good ride this morning, Mayor?” Sam asked, as he did every morning.
“Oh, Sam,” Lois said. “The knees are creaking. The ankles hurt. The back is going. But I keep pedaling. When will DPW fix the light on Asabogue Bluff Lane? Are they waiting for a major accident?”
Sam shuffled through a stack of papers. “They’re getting to it, Mayor.”
“They’ve been getting to it since last winter. Just get me a ladder.”
Sam smiled.
“What else is on the agenda today?”
“You’ve got that charity function at Jack Steele’s.”
“I can’t believe he’s letting me in his house. I thought liberals were banned.”
“It’s for the East End Animal Welfare Alliance. I doubt they even told him you’re invited. I wish I could see his face when you show up.” Sam smiled mischievously.
“What other fun have you planned for me?”
“Councilman Kellogg called, demanding to talk to you about malfeasance and corruption in the Planning Department.”
Lois suppressed a shudder. “That man gives me the creeps, Sam. Did you know he carries around a pad listing all his enemies?”
“Pretty sure we’re on every page.”
“What else?”
“That actress, Caitlyn Turner, is coming in. Again.”
“Now what?”
“She wants us to remove the new stop sign near the front of her house on Asabogue Bluff Lane.”
“Why?”
Sam shrugged. “Says if traffic slows, it’ll give people time to gawk at her front gates. Her exact words were, ‘Slowing down is one thing, but coming to a full stop should be completely out of the question.’ ”
Lois wondered whether Caitlyn Turner had given as much thought to stopping versus slowing as she had. For Lois, slowing for even one moment was anathema. If she didn’t pedal as quickly as possible to work, if she didn’t respond to complaints as soon as she could, if she didn’t attend every single civic meeting held in the village, no matter how inconsequential or unproductive, Lois knew she’d lose. She’d lose valuable ground. She’d lose sight of the future, and if that happened, she would then, inevitably, slip backward into the sad memories of her past, back to that night long ago when her husband, Larry, casually informed her that he was having an affair with a movie star who lived on the Bluff, as if letting her know he’d decided to switch breakfast cereals. Slowing down would cause Lois to think, endlessly, about the struggle of raising two children in a modest house near Main Street, in the scruffy neighborhood where the “year-rounders” lived, far from the Bluff where celebrities stole the natives’ husbands. Slowing gave her time to remind herself of the mistakes she’d made, now buried by the passage of time and lost in the wake of Lois’s perpetual motion.
One paralyzing year after her divorce had been final, she had shed a final tear and plowed into her new life, volunteering for various civic causes including the Asabogue Historic Preservation Society and the Village Improvement Association. She’d landed a job as office manager at Asabogue Realty and represented the company at meetings of the Asabogue Chamber of Commerce. Those commitments had kept her out most nights of the week, sometimes with her two sullen children in tow, and Lois considered this busyness a blessing compared to the slow, lonely year she’d just endured. Before long, she’d propelled herself to what she’d thought at the time was the very zenith of local civic power: chairwoman of the Beautification Committee of the Asabogue Civic Association. Every Tuesday night she was required to attend sessions of the Village Board, facing a technicolor dais of plaid sports jackets, pink ties, green slacks, and what she privately thought of as Civil War hair: blue and gray. She fought overdevelopment, opposed pesticides, combatted sprawl. She became a permanent presence at Village Board meetings. When one ancient councilman publicly referred to her as “that annoying little Jewish woman,” some had gasped, but Lois loved it. It broadened her smile. It added pep to her step. It propelled her forward, away from all the pain in her past.
Then came that one hot summer, which locals called, only half jokingly, the Battle of Billionaires Bluff.
An octogenarian multibillionaire by the name of Sidney Schwartzman had purchased three contiguous properties on the Bluff. He’d intended to build a home for himself and his new wife, an actress best known for her artistry in various soft-core porn series on cable television. Schwartzman had told his architects he wanted his home to “rival the Taj Mahal!” and it quickly became clear that he meant “rival” in the literal sense. His plan was to build an exact replica named “Taj Too,” right there on the pristine shores of eastern Long Island, blocking the oceanfront views of his neighbors.
It turned out, however, that billionaires, who could afford to fly their private planes to India to view the original Taj Mahal, didn’t appreciate the convenience of being able to stare at it from their homes on Long Island, and therefore, overnight, the oft-forgotten and mostly ignored Asabogue Village Zoning Code became the most important document in those billionaires’ lives. The code, in addition to making it virtually impossible to expand sheds or erect neon storefront signs, was blessedly clear in prohibiting full-size replicas of the Taj Mahal within village boundaries.
Schwartzman was undeterred. All over the world his hotels, shopping malls, and office buildings provided multistory steel-and-glass testaments to his victories over the “not in my backyard” crowd. Though, in this case, the crowd bobbed near the top of the Forbes Richest People in America list and their backyard was the Atlantic Ocean.
The battle commenced. And when the residents of Billionaires Bluff had needed a commander in chief, they found one in Lois Liebowitz.
Schwartzman had met his match. Lois knew every word of the Asabogue Village Zoning Code. She could recite chapter, verse, and even legislative intent. She wasn’t cowed by Schwartzman’s threats to sue her for everything she had, because, as she told him, she had nothing. When he switched tacks and offered to make her a highly paid consultant to Schwartzman Global Properties, she counteroffered a spot as office assistant at Asabogue Realty Associates. Starting salary: minimum wage.
That summer the war cries of “Stop Schwartzman!” had permeated the hot ocean air of Asabogue. He threatened. He bullied. He litigated. He retreated. And the following year, the seasonal residents of
Billionaires Bluff and the year-rounders in their small cottages downtown showed their appreciation by electing Lois Lie-bowitz mayor of Asabogue, replacing a longtime incumbent who many believed had first run during the Hoover administration, and breaking the village’s 130 string of consecutive Protestant, Republican mayors.
Lois Liebowitz, that “annoying little Jewish woman,” had been mayor, undisputed and unopposed, for the four terms since.
But that was about to change.
Now, in Village Hall, with Sam staring at her, Lois returned to the crisis of rubbernecking at Caitlyn Turner’s. “Stop sign or not, people can’t see past her hedgerows.”
“Well, she’s pretty steamed.”
“Maybe she’s just nervous about whether she’ll be nominated for an Oscar next year. Imagine having the best actress living right here in Asabogue.”
Sam nodded absently, not all that impressed at the prospect. Best actress. Best billionaire. Best hedge fund executive. Best fugitive Russian tycoon. That was the Asabogue yellow pages.
Sam glanced at a television mounted on a wall behind the counter. “Look what’s happening in Chicago. Makes a stop sign here seem pretty silly.”
Lois glanced at the screen. Images of violence in Chicago had dominated the news all summer. Now she watched footage of yet another shooting, interspersed with shots of flashing police lights, angry residents, and the indignant mayor. The corporate logo of the gun manufacturer Cogsworth International flashed onto the screen, and the words “Justice Dept Investigation Rumored” crawled beneath it.
Lois suppressed another shudder.
*
On the fringes of Asabogue, Councilman Ralph Kellogg was convening a meeting.
Twice a week, Ralph met with his small cadre of supporters in the unfinished basement of his modest Cape Cod on a lonely back road leading out of Asabogue. The floor and walls were concrete; the room was heavy with the odors of mold, age, and the occasional flood. The only decoration was a faded 1980s movie poster of action hero and now Asabogue resident Jack Steele, across the top of which was scrawled in red Sharpie, “To Ralph, My Partner in Crime!!!” An entire wall of shelving displayed an arsenal of firearms, including Stinger surface-to-air missiles, man-portable, shoulder-fired grenade launchers, flamethrowers, and an assortment of military assault rifles and submachine guns. Tucked in a corner, under a tangle of copper pipes and a lightbulb that hung from a chord, were Mrs. Kellogg’s washer and dryer, which, evidently, were the most heavily guarded laundry appliances on the planet. A basket overflowing with Mrs. Kellogg’s underwear— beige and white and large enough to be confused with burlap sacks—sat nearby.
In the center of the basement, Ralph had arranged some circa 1960s living room furniture acquired on a clandestine excursion to the Asabogue Village dump, pieces in garish orange and lime green with stains blooming on their various surfaces like algae. For his guests’ reading pleasure there were tattered back issues of Modern Militia fanned out across red plastic TV-dinner stands with wobbly legs. There was also an old RCA television in a faux mahogany console, usually tuned to military history documentaries on Ralph’s favorite channel.
Ralph called this group the Organization, but it wasn’t so much an organization as a small alliance of semi-dependable half-wits willing to help Ralph with special “projects”: distributing smear literature, intimidating political opponents, extorting, and bundling illegal and semilegal campaign contributions.
If the Asabogue High School Class of ’78 had had an award for Most Likely to Secede, Ralph Kellogg would have won convincingly. During his senior year he’d run, unsuccessfully, for senior class president on a platform of withdrawing from the Model UN and arming the marching band. The campaign was marred by allegations of dirty tricks and became the subject of the first lunch money for votes scandal to be formally investigated by a state Board of Elections.
At seventeen, Ralph Kellogg retired from politics and began a long period of embittered simmering. At twenty-five he joined Kellogg & Kellogg, the family insurance business, and began to dabble in various hobbies: fishing, hunting, right-wing militias, and paramilitary groups. Fortified by 9/11, he developed a particular dislike for Muslims, and although Asabogue had no Muslims, Ralph stood guard.
Behind every act of political mischief in Asabogue were Ralph’s heavy hands. When anonymous fliers circulated, everyone knew they were authored by “Crazy Ralph.” When candidate signs were swiped in the dead of night by a figure serpentining from lawn to lawn in military fatigues and night-vision goggles, people shook their heads and said simply, “Ralph.” When ballot boxes were stuffed, everyone knew Ralph was to blame.
For most of his life, Ralph’s reputation had prevented him from seeking political office. Generally, voters who cluck their tongues when they see you coming don’t want to put you in charge of things. Then, one fateful year, a dozen separate candidates had run for the Village Board, the normal candidates had split the normal vote, and the remaining crazy vote had elected Ralph Kellogg with a plurality of twelve percent. It was a campaign upset that upset most of Asabogue.
Since that election, Ralph Kellogg had taken it upon himself to keep an eye on things in Village Hall. This was, of course, the suspicious eye of a conspiracy theorist who saw plots in every zoning variance and deck expansion supported by the Liebowitz administration. This eye darted constantly in search of cover-ups, corruption, and Muslims. And slowly, enough of Ralph’s fellow conspiracists had come out of the woodwork to form the paranoid coalition that had come to be named the Organization.
Ralph had deputized two of his followers.
There was Louie Delmarco, Parks Maintenance Assistant III in the Asabogue Parks Department, whose job description might as well have been “looking busy while idly leaning on a rake.” Louie’s body was short and round and seemed built to conserve all the energy it took not to rake. Louie put the “no show” in “noshow job.”
And there was Bobby Reilly, recently fired from Southampton Hardware, which he’d managed to burn down when he accidentally overturned a can of turpentine, and, in annoyance at his own clumsiness, flung his cigarette butt at the spilled contents. Bobby wasn’t much in the common sense department, but he was everything Ralph needed in the willing to take extreme risks department.
For this morning’s meeting Mrs. Kellogg had put out plastic bowls of Cool Ranch Doritos, and Ralph provided the beer. Louie munched and slurped, and Bobby chain-smoked from a carton of Camels. The Battle of Stalingrad was being waged on the RCA. Ralph had just finished reading a New York Post article about the banning of guns in Chicago. Now he paced urgently in front of the laundry appliances, arms crossed against his barrel chest, eyes burning with anger. “Guy’s name is Rodriguez. Need I say more?”
The Organization nodded collectively, signifying the need for Ralph to, indeed, say more. And since Ralph Kellogg fancied himself a motivational speaker, inspired by a VCR collection of great war movies that were rubber-banded in an upstairs closet, he continued.
“It’s that Islamex conspiracy I’ve been telling you about. The Mexicans infiltrate our country. Open up our border to the Muslims. Next thing you know we’re bowing to Mecca instead of saying the Pledge of Allegiance.” Overcome with agitation, Ralph turned off the television, which signaled that the day’s meeting of the Organization was thereby in session.
That morning’s agenda was a rumor in Village Hall that Mayor Liebowitz would soon be proposing a law that would expand commercial recycling to every household. “She’s turning us into the People’s Republic of Asabogue! When will it end?” The thick veins in his neck pulsated and his hands clenched into fists. Ralph conceded that recycling was, he supposed, good for the environment, but what he was unhappy about, and what he couldn’t abide by, was the prospect of serving in some slave labor camp separating newspapers and glass.
“Fuck Liebowitz,” Louie said through a mouthful of Doritos, crumbs spraying from his mouth like a cluster bomb.
“
Little blue bins in front of every house,” Ralph continued. “Next thing, she’ll put our women in headscarves.”
Louie popped open another beer. “What do you want us to do about it?”
Cigarette clamped at the side of his lips, Bobby said, “We could take out the recycling center? Lotsa flammables there.” For effect, he exhaled a long plume of smoke.
Ralph sighed as the meeting arrived at this familiar roadblock. He had the Organization but no plan. They swilled beer and devoured junk food and aired their grievances against Liebowitz, liberals, Muslims, Jews, blacks, Mexicans, gays, Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, the media, you name it—but it always came down to the same thing. Bobby wanted to blow things up. Louie wanted more Doritos and, apparently, to learn about something called the War of the Austrian Succession on the TV.
Ralph looked at his watch: ten thirty. He had to be at Jack Steele’s for a party by eleven and felt a soft twinge of anxiety in his stomach. He and Jack were kindred spirits, bonded by love of country and a variety of right-wing conspiracy theories, but Jack’s parties troubled Ralph. Usually they amounted to nothing more than a bunch of snooty billionaires who looked down their nose jobs at him, judging him, mocking him silently, thinking “Crazy Ralph” whenever he spoke.
Soon, Ralph promised himself, as he always did when he felt himself becoming discouraged, they’ll all be on their knees, begging me. When the Muslims cross the Mexican border and take over the country, and USA stands for United States of Allah, and the Constitution is replaced with Sharia law—then they’ll know! How the whole thing was planned. An inside job. How the government took our guns away so we couldn’t defend ourselves from the invasion. How the Federal Reserve manipulated our currency to enrich the petrodollar states and bankroll the caliphate. How corrupt judges and the ACL-Jew let mosques get built right under our noses! Then they’ll all say, “Maybe Ralph wasn’t so crazy after all. Maybe we were the crazy ones.”And they’ll all want to come to Asabogue. Because I protected my town.