The Coyotes of Carthage

by Steven Wright

  She points toward a big plush armchair and a platter of food. Boiled eggs and sweet cheeses and olives and anchovies. She takes the matching armchair, fills two crystal goblets with wine, presses polite conversation: the weather, a novella she’s read, I trust Mr. Fitzpatrick is well. A refill of her goblet, another pour into his, though he has yet to take his first sip. She pauses to perform a party trick, forefinger run around her goblet’s moist brim to produce a peal of music that swishes and swoons around the curved wall, gaining speed, growing louder and stronger, an amplification that turns the goblet into a symphony. Andre can’t keep a straight face. He is as delighted and as impressed as a newborn playing his first game of peekaboo.

  “Hon.” Duke interrupts her performance. “Didn’t we agree to host in my den? The TV’s bigger there.”

  “We’re watching a council meeting, not a Hollywood blockbuster.” She finds the remote control, presses a button, and a section of curved wall slides away. Reveals a television, stereo system, shelves stacked with albums and cassettes and compact discs. “We’re comfortable here.”

  She presses another button, and the council chamber appears on TV. The live-stream splits the screen, one camera capturing the five empty council seats, the other capturing both the podium and the audience’s first two rows. A sudden panic takes Andre—where is Chalene?—and he fears his straw man has decided to stay home. He reaches for his phone, starts to type a text, Where the fuck are you? when he notices that each person in those first two rows bears a yellow bracelet. Constitution and Christ.

  “Andre,” Duke says. “Where would you like to watch?”

  “We’re comfortable here,” Victoria says. “Aren’t we, Mr. Ross?”

  Andre refuses to be drawn into this passive-aggressive pissing match. Is this how they raised their kids? Andre predicts a short-lived standoff, predicts that Victoria will prevail. She has a steeliness about her, and these past seventeen years, he’s learned to never underestimate white women in their sixties. They are, as a demographic, unusually resolute. Andre takes his first sip of wine, a smooth twenty-year-old blend that is, indeed, phenomenal. Which is another thing he’s learned about white women in their sixties: they know their wines.

  “Andre, you’re doing fantastic work.” Duke finds a chair. “I’m really impressed. I’m thinking about running for governor. If I do, I might let you advise my campaign.”

  “Sweetie. You can’t afford your payroll taxes,” Victoria says. “I doubt you can afford the fees of a professional campaigner.”

  “Come now. Andre here and I are friends.” He pats Andre’s knee. “I’m sure we’ll work something out. How much is PISA paying for these initiatives?”

  Andre takes another sip. The terms of the PISA contract are confidential. Andre doesn’t know the precise sum. The client and the senior partners negotiate the price. For sure, PISA fronted the $350,000 campaign budget, and, of course, they pay expenses—airfare, rental car, the shithole in which he now lives—but he doesn’t know the variable rate that the firm charges for his and Brendan’s time, nor does he know the firm’s baseline profit margin.

  Onscreen the countdown clock vanishes, and the councilmembers take their seats. A prayer, the pledge, a call to order. The chairman, a jug-eared octogenarian, conducts the roll call. All five members say present, white men wearing polo shirts and khakis. The chairman notes, for the record, that also present is Paula Carrothers. She takes notes at a desk within arm’s reach of the council. She looks as though she’s recently cried, and Andre wonders whether she’s playing the victim for the crowd.

  The chairman announces that tonight’s agenda includes but one topic, for which the council will now hear public comment. A rush to line up behind the podium, each person wearing yellow bracelets.

  “What’s the point to this?” Victoria says. “We know we’re going to lose the council vote.”

  “It’s the law.” Duke drinks from her goblet. “The council’s gotta reject the initiatives first. Isn’t that right, Andre?”

  Andre says, “Title five of the state code . . .”

  “Title five says . . .” Duke raises his finger, drains Victoria’s goblet. “Once the council rejects the initiatives, the initiatives must appear on the next ballot. That’s six weeks away. Go ahead. Ask him. He’ll tell you I’m right.”

  Victoria turns her body toward Andre but keeps her stare on Duke. “Did we try to persuade the council?”

  “Pssh. Don’t bother.” Duke refills her goblet, drinks. “I tried for six months.”

  “Did a professional try?” she says. “Someone who knows what he’s doing?”

  “Baby, you’re not listening. That’s what I’m saying.” Duke helps himself to the platter, scoops olives and eggs and anchovies into one cupped hand and funnels the mix into his mouth like a pelican gobbles a shoal of fish. He says, mouth full, “I tried to talk to them. Stubborn know-nothings. They don’t understand the economy. Don’t understand how to create a friendly business environment. Especially your friend Paula Carrothers.”

  The first African American reaches the podium, an attractive, plump-faced bohemian wearing bell-bottoms and a crocheted hat. She announces that she’s a local poet, shares her latest verse, a series of sonnets that place a stress on syllables where stress doesn’t belong. She calls herself an educaTOR, claims her childhood was spent in AppalaCHIa, says she has never fallen for the false promises of AmeriKA. The liberty initiatives, she says, are propaganDA, the product of Southern bigotry and international corporaTIONs. That dark money and capitalism are an abominaTION.

  Duke clears his throat, warming up for what, Andre predicts, will be a racist rant. Instead, Duke says, “Isn’t that Lloyd Merriweather’s little girl?”

  Victoria blanches. “No.”

  “Sure it is. I’d know her anywhere. What’s-her-face? That’s what’s-her-name. Ashley.” Duke’s confident. “That’s Ashley.”

  “Ashlyn Merriweather died last year. Ovarian cancer. Left behind a husband and two sweet little boys. I went to her funeral, sent the family a check.”

  “Sweetheart, look at her.” Duke folds both big hairy feet atop the coffee table beside the food. “Tell me that’s not Ashlyn Merriweather.”

  “Duke, sweetheart, you’re getting your black people confused. Again.”

  Andre feels a pang of pity for Duke. The guy didn’t mean any harm. He can’t help that he’s an asshole, a disability for which Andre has growing sympathy, though even Andre realizes that Duke really should stop drinking Victoria’s wine and put his callused feet on the floor. If Duke Boshears were a smart man, then he’d get his own goblet and change the subject. But Duke Boshears is not a smart man, and thus he says, “This check to her family, first I’ve heard of any check. How much did it cost me?”

  “Not much. A trifle. I drew the check from your life savings, and I didn’t want the check to bounce.”

  The poet’s time expires midstanza, rigged elecTION, and the chair, banging his gavel, forces her to abandon the podium. A few folks boo her. Two senior citizens heckle, but Andre considers the poem a gift. Tonight, he’ll overlay audio of the poem atop old footage of Paula Carrothers nodding her head in agreement, movie magic that will take an hour to create. He could blast a link via e-mail to supporters, with a subject that reads, Paula Carrothers invites her socialist friends to speak. The perfect slash-and-burn clip.

  Three more commenters, white men wearing yellow bracelets, before Chalene, wearing a dress she’s made herself, appears.

  “Her hair,” Duke says. “Andre, you should have done something about that. She looks like a lady who likes ladies. And that dress. Did she make that from a motel curtain? Was that deliberate? Part of a strategy? To make her look like trash? Are we losing the trash vote?”

  Andre expects Victoria to mount a defense, but she says, “Oh, bless her little heart.”

  Chalene starts her statement, stuttering, fidgeting, and Victoria worries aloud whether Chalene is sick. Andre doesn�
�t know. These past three weeks, Chalene’s delivered electrifying stump speeches, bringing followers to their feet, and she’s never appeared this shaken.

  “I find it interesting,” the chairman interrupts. “We rejected a bid from a company for the land sold in this initiative. Didn’t make much news. We get lots of requests to build on that land, and we always say no. But now, all of a sudden, here you are, askin’ us to auction off that same land.”

  Chalene allows the chair to finish his thought, and only after she’s assured that he has does she resume her statement. But she’s lost her place, starting at the wrong spot, jumping midsentence between paragraphs, as though the text has unraveled in her mind.

  “What are you babbling on about?” the chairman continues. “Tell me: I see these events you throw. See ’em on your slick web page. And I see all that food and rental space. I gotta ask: where’s the money coming from? Look at you; no offense, darlin’, but you can’t even afford a decent dress.”

  The chairman pauses, provides the audience an opportunity to laugh.

  “I hear you’ve been running around with a fella. A black fella, I hear, though I don’t mean that in any bad way. I don’t know whether it’s personal or professional, don’t know whether he makes his money dealin’ or pimpin’. But I would caution you to remember your First Corinthians. ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’”

  Chalene says, “The rules say you’re not supposed to ask questions.”

  “Sweetheart, I make the rules, and I say your time is up.” His tone’s sharp as shattered glass. “Now sit down.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “You don’t get to decide what’s fair.”

  “I didn’t get to finish.”

  “Sit down and shut up.”

  Tyler Lee storms into the camera’s view, and a sheriff’s deputy rises, hand on sidearm, occupies the space between Tyler and the chairman. A photographer snaps photos. Folks murmur. The chairman, surprised, bangs his gavel.

  “You’re a big man, yelling at a pregnant woman.” Tyler’s face purples. “You’re all incompetent buffoons. You talk, and you talk, and you talk, and you never get nothing done. You think you’re better than us, think you’re elite, think you’re slicker than owl shit, but you ain’t nothing but whores for sale.”

  A gasp. A few laughs. A thin smattering of applause. The chairman bangs his gavel. “We will restore order in the chamber. Sergeant at arms—”

  “You weak, ’fraid-of-your-own-shadow capons. Milksops. Thinking about yourselves at the expense of us. Our forefathers are spinning in their graves. What have you done for Carthage? Nothing. You sit by and people lose their jobs. Our country is getting poorer and sicker ’cause of people like you. That’s treason.”

  “—remove him.”

  Two sergeants at arms, in tight blue blazers, assume a position on either side of Tyler. The two strike quickly, like vipers, their tight, bruising grips like fangs sunk deep into Tyler’s biceps. Tyler does not go easily—not when his wife’s honor is on the line; he yanks free, yelling, “Get off me, you servile puppy dogs.” The gauntlet is thrown, and the sergeants have the clear advantage. They are two, taller, quicker, thicker, fitter, fifteen years younger and each carrying a baton. One, two, three, they count aloud before resuming their assault, lifting Tyler off his feet, throwing him to the ground, pinning him against the carpet, his arms twisted behind his back, their knees pressed against his jaw and spine—treatment that, by God, Andre has always assumed law enforcement reserved exclusively for young black men. Tyler resists, kicking, screaming, flailing, a fight that Andre respects but knows, from experience, is a complete waste of strength. And in the blink of an eye, the sergeants at arms prevail, handcuffing Tyler, dragging him offscreen, the sheriff’s deputy following closely behind, stun gun in hand. Offscreen Tyler releases a staccato burst of screams, not once, not twice, but three times—even Andre, no novice in the ways of excessive force, is horrified—and all the while the chairman sits back, smirking, amused by Chalene’s tears.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Andre is a pupil scolded before his entire class. His teacher’s reprimand is sharp, blistering like lashes against his back, scarring his thin skin, an aggressive and unsparing assault. Mrs. Fitz unfurls her fist, finger by finger, cataloging each of his campaign’s faults: failure to build a coalition, failure to seek consultation, failure to adequately prep his straw man for the council’s inevitable resistance. Failure after failure. She chronicles each from a list that she knows by heart.

  “You know how I spent this morning?” she asks. He knows the answer. She’s told him twice, once in an e-mail and again ten minutes ago, at the start of this real-time long-distance thrashing. “On the phone with PISA. The CFO, the CEO, COO, every smug overpriced attorney in Manhattan. We’ll be lucky if they simply fire us. Lucky if they don’t file suit alleging breach of contract or, more fittingly, complete and utter incompetence.”

  She’s clearly been awake for hours—he can see it in her face, in the plum-colored bags beneath her eyes—and yet, at seventy-something years old, she roars like a lion.

  “How many years of experience? A generous budget. How many IQ points between the two of you?” She stabs her finger at Andre, then at Brendan, who sits by his side. “And you can’t put this local initiative to bed. Even before this disaster at the council—and let’s be clear, that performance yesterday was a complete disaster—you were barely neck-and-neck. How, Andre? How? How, when you have a war chest and the advantage of experience? This should have been fish in a barrel.”

  He thinks—but does not say—her critique is unfair. The campaign has been smart, his message superb. A resonating theme. A charismatic straw man. Powerful rhetoric. No one can say he hasn’t properly framed the issues. No one can say that he hasn’t built a solid base. He’s run a textbook dark-money grassroots campaign. A case study in street-corner democracy. And yet he must concede that, despite his best efforts, she’s right: the campaign is not a runaway success.

  “You had two objectives: Win the election. And do it quietly. And what have you done? Neither.” She shivers. “You’ve made a fine mess of things. That’s what you’ve done.”

  “But, ma’am.” He sees, for the first time since this scolding began, an opportunity to present his defense. “I think we can—”

  “I am not finished.” She’s five hundred miles away, speaking via videoconference, and he flinches as though she’s raised her hand to strike. “You must listen.”

  “Ma’am. I apologize.”

  “Apologize? A lot of good that does me.” She opens a tin, pops a mint into her mouth. “I thought you were on an unlucky streak. Thought if I gave you one more chance, gave you one simple referendum, then perhaps, perhaps, you could turn it all around. I should have known better. Should’ve known it was—”

  Someone in Washington clears their throat offscreen, and Mrs. Fitz takes a pause. Andre wonders who’s on the other end, standing in the shadows, listening, and he hopes that it’s her personal assistant, who is his friend and ally. If that cleared throat belongs to someone else—a founding partner, or, God forbid, a rival associate—then Mrs. Fitz has decided to abandon her protégé. He’s desperate to ask, Ma’am, is someone else there? but knows that such a question will invite more scorn.

  “How much cash do you have left in your coffers?”

  “About two hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Mercy mercy me.” She waves around a stack of his weekly reports. “Any amateur could’ve caused the same mess for a quarter of the price.”

  He keeps his face forward, away from the kid, who sits quietly, in his pajamas, just out of Andre’s eyeline.

  “Nana. Can I say one thing?”

  “No,” she says. “Your hands aren’t clean either. I only have myself to blame. The two of you together.”

  Andre’s phone rings, sends a bolt of panic through him. He thought he’d turned it to silent. His face flushed, he fumbles inside hi
s pocket. It’s Chalene, who’s called twice this morning but has yet to leave a message.

  “This campaign needs a fix,” Mrs. Fitz says. “A complete relaunch. You’ve got what? Around six weeks?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He’s eager to share his plan. An aggressive campaign. Push polls. Whispers. Faux endorsements and robocalls. Tried-and-true tactics. Right now, people may dislike Tyler and Chalene, but he guarantees, by the time he’s done, they’ll dislike Paula Carrothers even more. “I recommend—”

  “No. No. No. Andre, stop. Stop. Son, you must stop,” she says. “We are way past your recommendations. We are—”

  “But—” He sees her eyes set aflame. “I apologize.”

  “I spoke with the others. We agree. Someone new must bring order to your chaos.” She foreshadows what he knows is next. Her expression softens, her voice turns tender, the executioner’s calm before the fall of the axe. She says, “I’m assigning a new team leader.”

  He imagines all the people whom this decision will make happy. The people invested in his failure. Rivals at the firm, for sure, but, for reasons he can’t explain, he resents the inevitable I-told-you-so of Duke Boshears.

  “Dre. Don’t think this brings me joy, because I don’t feel joy. But you have six weeks left, and your numbers are . . . this is a business. I don’t take joy in this.”

  “I would never think that of you, ma’am. Never.”

  “Your straw men. George and Gracie? You’ll need to get rid of them. They’re damaged goods. Make sure they keep their mouths shut. Maybe send them on a cruise. Make them disappear until the campaign ends.”

  “I’ll see to it.”

  “And, for God’s sake, both of you, clean yourselves up. You look like . . . merciful heavens.” She closes her eyes, shakes her head. “Even the longest day must end.”