The Coyotes of Carthage

by Steven Wright

  “Get out of my shop.” The cashier gasps for breath. “And don’t ever come back, you black monkey piece of shit.”

  Black monkey piece of shit. Andre supposes, on the spectrum of racial slurs, he’s heard worse. Andre has what he needs, leaves the store to find Paula’s eyes fixed on the door. He checks his watch; ninety seconds on the mark.

  “Well?” she says. “Did he let you call?”

  “He told me to fuck off,” Andre says. “Told me I wasn’t welcome back. Called me a black monkey piece of shit.”

  “Oh.” She deflates. “I’m sorry. He shouldn’t’ve. Thank you. Really. You’re kind to try.”

  “You sure you don’t want that ride?” He considers offering to wait with her, or maybe he could call from Geraldine’s. But he’s tired, irritated, realizes he’s hanging around a crime scene. He’s already more involved than he wants to be. He says, “Geraldine’s is a mile up the road?”

  This time, she considers his offer, thinking harder than before, and, for a moment, he believes she might accept. He wonders about her decision-making mechanism, the arithmetic passing through her mind. On the one hand this stranger might harm her, but she’s got to weigh that against the probability of alternatives: walk the mile, drive on rims, stay here and live, stay here and die, the unconscious calculus that women make every day. Paula Carrothers politely declines, repeats that someone will come along, but, in her voice, Andre senses that she’s not quite sure.

  “You be safe,” he says. “Sorry those boys slashed your tires.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she says. “You tried your best.”

  He wishes either statement was true.

  In his Jeep, he realizes he’s kept her cash. Good thing the kid isn’t here. The kid would never have left her stranded, but, then again, if Brendan were here, Paula would’ve accepted a ride. He’s steering through the parking lot, hoping that she’ll remain safe, when he hears a sudden crash. At first, he thinks Paula’s fired her gun. But another explosion, and the night sky, for an instant, brightens like a summer day. Last night of the fair. A fireworks bonanza. A star. A heart. A smiley face and four-leaf clover. A spectacular celebration of Carthage in red, white, and blue.

  Part VI

  Election Day

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Four thirty A.M.

  The clock radio comes alive, plays a forecast that threatens thunderstorms. He grabs the radio, pitches it across the room, where pieces break against the wall, but the clock radio remains intact, at least enough to broadcast static as loud as a police siren. He buries his head beneath two pillows, tries to block out the noise, but the clock radio is relentless. He rises, cursing the clock; in this moment, he hates everyone and everything: hates Carthage and Election Day and American democracy, but, above all else, right now, he hates that he’s allowed his life to come to this. In twenty-four hours, these people . . . these fucking people . . . will decide whether he will keep a job that, if he’s being honest, he may no longer want.

  He rips the nine-volt from the clock with a short, satisfying jerk, drops the damn thing and kicks it to the corner. He’s exhausted, a little drowsy, needs ten more minutes’ sleep. But he worries now, since he’s awake, that he may not fall back asleep, and worries that if he does fall asleep, then he doesn’t have an alarm to tell him to wake. A conundrum that, to him, feels like a metaphor for his entire life.

  * * *

  On the attic landline, sitting in his boxer briefs, Andre starts a conference call. Everyone goes around, says their name. Mr. DeVille. Two PISA vice presidents and their team of in-house counsel. PISA’s CEO is also on the line, but he is not in the same room as his staff. He’s off somewhere, he says, maybe Monterrey or Montreal; his connection’s poor. No one can quite make out what he says. His staff urges moving the microphone closer or maybe speaking louder—Sir, can you hang up and call from a landline? The meeting begins ten minutes later, and now his connection’s worse, his voice booming in and out, skipping sentences, with an echo like he’s whispering into a vast, cavernous void. One PISA staffer says in frustration: “Why does he always do this?” Mr. DeVille loses patience, pitches an easy question that signals for Andre to begin.

  The trick to a successful Election Day briefing, Mrs. Fitz always said, is to be optimistically noncommittal. The briefing should manage expectations, should ensure that no one takes Election Day for granted, should prepare the client for the possibility of a win or a loss. Ask any veteran consultant who will prevail on Election Day, and if she’s any good, she’ll answer that the election will be close. Andre’s delivered this assessment to scores of clients, but this time the line is true. The latest poll, now three days old, has the initiatives ahead by two, within the poll’s three-point margin of error. The poll also confirms a trend: the undecideds have made up their minds.

  Andre explains all that could go wrong. Better-educated voters could show up in droves. The chronically unemployed could stay at home. Young white men, God bless ’em, remain reliably loyal to the campaign, but middle-aged white women? Well, Carthage brims with middle-aged white women, and they remain, what’s the word? Unreliable, unpredictable, fickle? They know for which side they will vote, but these past three weeks, as the campaign turned nasty, the uncivil tone may have deterred white women from visiting the polls.

  Turnout is key. Has Andre already said this? He’s still a little stoned, fears he’s repeating himself. But this fact is essential. He runs down the hard numbers. Corporate clients love hard numbers, which affirm their faith that elections are more science than art. Carthage has a total population of about 28,500. A voting-age population of roughly 20,200. The liberty campaign launched an aggressive voter-registration effort, which increased the total number of registered voters to about 17,900. Historically, turnout during a municipal spring election, well, it’s embarrassingly low. An average of between 8 and 12 percent.

  “In order to win, what turnout do we need?” someone asks, to which Andre says, “I’ll feel more confident if turnout tops eighteen percent. Anything less than fifteen, and we’re in trouble.”

  “And a turnout between fifteen and eighteen?”

  “That’s anyone’s guess.” Mr. DeVille is upbeat. “Dre, you’ve done a fine job. All my years in politics, I’ve never seen a race this close.”

  Mr. DeVille’s praise worries Andre. Say what one will about Ricardo DeVille, but the old man’s chaired brutal campaigns that involved recounts and lawsuits and hanging chads. Andre guesses that Mr. DeVille wears a brave face for the client, that his boss believes that, after spending $350,000, this triflin’ race in a triflin’ town shouldn’t be this close. Truth is, the old man’s right.

  Andre offers more concrete numbers. Encouraging signs. Thus far, the county has received forty-five overseas military ballots, which the campaign expects to trend their way. The campaign has also completed its senior-citizen outreach, nine hundred older residents shuttled to the polls. In total, about one thousand people have voted early, a Carthaginian record.

  Turnout is key.

  The PISA chief asks a question, which someone, perhaps a lawyer, translates. The boss wants to know how much cash remains. The campaign coffers are empty, Andre explains, a bank account with less than fifty dollars, the final cashier’s check cut to produce Sunday-morning ads on Christian talk radio.

  The campaign, however, has six thousand in petty cash, though Andre reports that the campaign has three. This three grand, he explains, is walking-around cash: Lunch for supporters. Rental cars. Change for parking meters.

  “I once set up a daycare for campaign volunteers,” Mr. DeVille says. “Keeping feet on the streets is expensive.”

  As for the unreported three grand, Andre plans to keep it for himself. The past few weeks, he’s fixed the books. Created small expenses that no one will question. He doesn’t take pride in his theft, but he’d feel different if he were stealing from Mrs. Fitz. Instead he’s stealing from Mr. DeVille, the firm, and PIS
A. Andre doesn’t rationalize the theft. He knows what he is, and he knows what he’s done. But he might be unemployed in twelve hours, and a safety net seems like good common sense.

  The conference call is nearing its end when, to his surprise, Duke Boshears weighs in. Did Duke say his name at the beginning, during the participant roll call? No, of course the asshole did not.

  Duke Boshears compares the campaign to the Battle of Waterloo, compares Andre to Jefferson Davis, a pair of twisted historical analogies that confuses everyone. Duke complains that he asked for regular updates and that Andre refused. Complains that he recommended the campaign launch robocalls and that Andre refused. Complains that he recommended Andre spread darker dirt about Paula Carrothers and that Andre refused. He complains about the lack of campaign signs, the lack of transparency, the lack of good straw men.

  “I like Chalene and Tyler. God bless ’em. They are good Christian people. But they were wrong for this campaign,” he says. “If Andre would’ve asked, I would have told him. Run a campaign with class. Don’t pin your hopes on folks like the Lees. But no one asked me.”

  Andre thinks of the fickle middle-aged white women, wonders how Victoria Boshears will vote. She, perhaps more than any other voter, is a bellwether for the campaign’s success. He doesn’t regret her unauthorized endorsement, but he acknowledges the endorsement may have been an overreaction to the slap.

  “I’ve lived in Carthage my whole life,” Duke yells. “I’ve run for office multiple times. Andre and that Scottish boy, we had one short superficial meeting.”

  Andre misses the kid, wishes he were here.

  “I’m sorry,” the CEO says. “My line went silent there. Couldn’t hear a thing. Last thing I heard, we were keeping feet on the street. Did I miss anything important?”

  A choir of PISA lawyers says, “No.”

  Mr. DeVille wraps up the call, promises that Andre will e-mail updates throughout the day. Duke interrupts. “I hope, for once, that Mr. Ross will include me on these e-mails.”

  “Certainly,” Andre says, but knows he won’t. The call ends, and Andre leans deep into his chair. If there’s one upside to losing, it’s that a defeat will ruin Duke Boshears. The attic light flickers, then goes out. At first, he assumes the lightbulb has burned out, but he realizes that all the machines have fallen silent. Through a window, the light of the stars and the moon casts his shadow across the conference table. The silhouette makes him wonder whether this is an omen: a presentiment of trouble to come.

  He finds the burner he bought online, sends a text to Brendan: Miss you, my friend, on Judgment Day!

  * * *

  A bronzed cannon guards the front of the Old Confederate Armory, and behind the one-story stone structure, just beyond a grove of plum trees, is a field of tall grass, a wooden cross standing in its center. Andre holds no illusions about this site. The Old Confederate Armory was once the clubhouse of secret societies and fraternities of terror. Folks around Carthage admit as much, claim that the armory’s rich cultural history is a part of the building’s charm. The Anabaptists now own the armory, rent out the space for cotillions and deb balls, and, before he knew what he knows now, Andre agreed to let the armory serve as Election Day headquarters.

  The irony is not lost upon him. Here a black man ends his leadership of a secret dark-money grassroots campaign, an act of demagoguery cloaked in patriotism, rebellion, and Southern pride. He never intended to run this kind of campaign, but the past three days, even by his own standards, this campaign has turned ugly. Last night, a robocall went out to every home in Carthage, the caller claiming to be Esther Silverstein from Brooklyn, New York. Esther claimed that Paula Carrothers was a friend. Paula is a strong progressive feminist, with strong progressive views. Esther praised Paula as the champion of gun control and abortion-on-demand. Educated secular thinkers support Paula Carrothers. Andre recognized the meddling of Duke Boshears, who twice proposed such a call, and who, two years ago, authorized a similar robocall from Señor Jose Iglesias of Brownsville, Texas, which featured Iglesias praising Boshears’s opponent.

  Inside the armory is a large open space with brick walls and Wi-Fi. A junior pastor, a fourteen-year-old prodigy, leads the campaign in prayer. The boy has slicked-back hair and a chalk-striped suit, a wardrobe less like a preacher’s and more like an investment banker’s. The boy prays with a light, smoky tone, infused with passion and sincerity, quotes the scripture from memory with the confidence of a man who’s heard the Word directly from God. If he grew up in a different part of the country, perhaps New York or L.A., his parents would’ve enrolled him in an after-school drama program. Instead of skipping school to preach the gospel in a former Klan clubhouse, he’d probably play the stage manager in a community center production of Our Town.

  Amen.

  The prayer ends, and everyone turns toward the dais, onto which two flag-toting teens march in unison. The national anthem blasts from a portable CD player, and everyone brings their hand to their heart. Andre doesn’t remember approving all this pageantry, suspects that Chalene and Tyler didn’t either. The past few days, the robocalls, the misogynist graffiti, the whisper campaign that Paula Carrothers had a secret, illegitimate Negro child with her lesbian lover—he wonders at what point he lost control. He thinks of a months-old conversation about Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate general and Southern folk hero who later founded the Klan. Tyler swears that Forrest, for whom the local high school is named, wasn’t all that bad. That Forrest was a military genius, the best strategist of the war, who, yes, also happened to found the Klan. But Forrest, Tyler argued, renounced the organization once members pursued violence. He can’t be blamed for the radical acts of others. Brendan thought the argument bullshit. So it’s okay to pursue an agenda of white supremacy, but God forbid someone gets hurt? Andre agreed that Tyler’s argument was bullshit. But this morning, Andre finds himself gaining sympathy for the Klan’s first grand wizard.

  The national anthem ends, and the teens plant the flags into brass stands.

  Tyler Lee, climbing the dais, looks tired, almost seasick.

  “My Chalene wrote a few lines.” He unfolds a sheet of sweat-soaked paper. “But I can’t read her writing.”

  He gets a supportive laugh.

  “But I think—” He clears his throat. “She wants y’all to know how much she loves ya. And she wishes she were here. She asks for your prayers.”

  His face goes blank, and the crowd shouts encouragements.

  “Okay, y’all,” he says. “The band’s already playing. All we have to do is dance.”

  The room explodes in activity. Most volunteers are Election Day veterans, have worked past presidential or statewide campaigns. They understand the logistics of mobilizing supporters. A team to work the phones, a team to knock on doors, a team to drive voters to the polls. Six homeschooled teens and the teenage pastor open their laptops, send reminders to supporters to vote.

  First these volunteers, some twenty strong, must cast their own ballots. They will travel together the four blocks to the county hall. An act of solidarity. An affirmation of community. A show of strength.

  “Brother.” Tyler takes Andre aside, waits for everyone to leave. “Brother, I’m sorry. I should’ve done better. I should’ve—”

  “You did fine.” What good is the truth now? “Everyone understands.”

  In the parking lot, supporters cram into trucks and passenger vans. Tyler’s phone buzzes, and he wanders toward a semiprivate space, abandoning Andre near six middle-aged white men wearing paramilitary attire. One guy, face smeared with paint, wears a bulletproof vest. These men are not observers permitted inside the polling places—Andre has trusted that task to others—these six are, as Tyler has explained, insurance. There just in case something goes wrong.

  These assholes clearly don’t know that Andre is on their side. If they did, they probably wouldn’t concentrate, upon Andre, their most lethal stares. He’s pretty used to the hostile glower of white
men. All black men, he supposes, are. On the bus. At work. In line at the post office. Black men experience this stare every day. But this lifetime of experience doesn’t make him feel any less hunted, any less like a hare that’s fallen beneath a coyote’s glare. Tyler waves to the men. “Dre. Let’s roll.”

  The trucks and vans leave the lot slowly, as if on parade, a procession that ignores stop signs, in which drivers honk their horns and flag-toting teens surf inside truck beds. A hundred years ago, Andre thinks, a lynch mob probably left the armory with equal enthusiasm. And, as quick as it began, the parade ends. Four blocks, over and done.

  In the county hall parking lot, Tyler drives past VOTE HERE signs and an empty spot reserved for Paula Carrothers. Andre hasn’t heard any rumors about someone slashing her tires, has no idea how she got home. But he’s impressed that she’s managed to keep that night secret, and he wonders what fresh indignities she’s quietly suffered since.

  “Mind if we just sit here?” Tyler puts the truck in park, watches their supporters spill out of the vans, some standing in line, some setting up camp on the sidewalk forty-five feet from the hall’s front door. “Just for a second while we catch our breath.”

  Paula Carrothers unlocks the county hall doors, and folks in line jeer. Someone calls her a Nazi. But Paula’s a pro, ignores the heckles to declare the polls open.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Andre explains that Election Days are inherently dull.

  Spent in hotel conference rooms or candidate garages or strip-mall storefronts that serve as campaign headquarters, Election Days are all about numbers, mostly accounting and scheduling: keeping tallies of turnout, keeping track of turn-aways, keeping field teams focused and on schedule. Most campaign consultants could spend their entire day on their cell, probably surrounded by cheap-ass snacks, the same empty-calorie, self-loathing-inducing junk food that the high school intern picked up at a corner gas station.