by Nell Zink
FLORA SAW BULL FOR AN OVERNIGHT MOST SATURDAYS. THEY BOTH LIKED COOKING AND hiking. Once he took her along on a Democratic golf retreat at the Homestead, where she explored, swam, got massages, and had sex with him four times in one day. He had a favorite B&B near Harpers Ferry, and soon she grew to love it as well. Other evenings were reserved for his business engagements. If he got invited to a party that wasn’t sit-down, with enough guests for her to be anonymous, he told her where to go. It was sexy to dress up and dance in big dark houses full of strangers, pretending not to know him. They met several times a week at his house on her lunch hour. He always slept after daytime sex, usually for at least twice as long as the sex had lasted. A couple in love can fit a lot of intercourse into ten minutes. She had to travel ten minutes each way by bus to get there. It didn’t leave them much time to talk, but they made up for it on weekends.
She called him every night before she went to bed. No matter how late it was, he was always up and working. If he was home alone, they would talk about their unique feelings and the joy they felt at the prospect of seeing each other the next day or the day after that for ten minutes of sex and a nap.
One Sunday morning when he had a conflicting engagement, she saw him quoted in the Washington Post as saying he slept only six hours a night. She had to laugh. She was reading at the breakfast table, so Ginger demanded to know what was so funny. “It’s this political strategist who says he sleeps six hours a night,” Flora said. “I bet he takes naps.”
“That’s interesting,” Ginger said.
When she talked to him that night, she made fun of him, saying, “I bet that’s the real reason you have girlfriends—so you can take naps in good conscience!”
“I have girlfriends because I met you,” Bull said. “I don’t usually have a girlfriend. I’m trying to shovel my way clear so we can have a relationship, but it’s not easy at this point in an election cycle. I wish I’d met you two years ago.”
“So you’re saying we can go to Antigua for two weeks, but only after the election is over?”
“That’s the idea. I’m paying as much attention to you as I possibly can.”
THE HABIT OF DISCRETION KEPT HER FROM TELLING FRIENDS. THE INSTINCT FOR SIMPLICITY kept her from telling her grandmother. But neither could save her from Pam. She and her mother weren’t close, the way she was close to Ginger. Ginger assumed she was mixed up in another one-sided but harmless romance and would confess all in good time. Pam felt that she had a right, as a mother, to be nosy.
She was used to getting regular visits, at least once every six weeks. When eleven weeks passed, she guessed—jumping to an accurate conclusion, as was her wont—that a boyfriend was involved. A single woman can always find reasons to spend weekends in New York.
She wasn’t eager to return to the old regimen in which she did all the traveling. Flora was a loyal BoltBus customer, despite the regular collisions and engine fires, but Pam had lived too long, in her own opinion, ever to get back on a bus. She could have flown to National Airport (she refused to say “Reagan”), but not to visit a doctrinaire Green. So she bought a seat on the fast Acela train and shoehorned herself into Penn Station on a Friday afternoon at four o’clock. It had been a while since she last went down to D.C. She remarked the wildness of the Jersey swamps. Philadelphia would have fit into a corner of Brooklyn. Then it was back to the swamps. Baltimore looked as if Brighton Beach touched the South Bronx along a seam that had been given a name, vectoring her megalopolitan journey parallel to highways, shipping lanes, and exhaust pouring from smokestacks. Then came more swamps, until the train slid like a knife into the key lime pie of the capital, its green lawns topped with a white froth of marble. The town had never looked more southern to her. The evening sky was imperial purple touched with ocher. The flowers in the ubiquitous flower beds glowed ultraviolet in the onset of night. She rode the Metro up to Cleveland Park and jammed her finger cheerfully into the Baileys’ doorbell. “Hey, hey, hey!” she said to Flora, who opened the door. Hugging her tight, she added, “What’s his name?”
“Oh, Mom,” Flora said. “You’re too fucking smart.”
“I know. I don’t want to meet him, don’t worry. I just want to know everything. Is he a Green?” She dumped her coat and backpack on a chair. She lowered her voice. “Are they still up?” she asked, referring to Ginger and Edgar.
“They’re watching The Sopranos in the family room,” Flora said. “Come on in the kitchen. You want some Cabernet? There’s an open bottle. Oh, wait,” she added, surveying the kitchen counters. “I guess we finished it. What about—what about—” She opened the refrigerator and peered inside. “Do you like mango strawberry?” Without waiting for an answer, she poured two glasses of juice, brought them to the table, and sat down opposite her mother.
“So, this boy,” Pam said. “Is he cute?”
“He’s more of a man.”
Pam cocked her head. “A ‘man.’ Does that mean he’s thirty? Or forty?” She watched Flora closely. “Fifty?”
“Oh, Mom,” Flora said. “He’s forty-seven.”
“That’s fine,” Pam said. “I was afraid you were going to say thirty or forty. A forty-seven-year-old isn’t about to get you pregnant. I mean, if it can’t be a boy your own age—and I can totally see that—you might as well go with the guy who’s gotten the family stuff out of his system. Does he have any kids?”
“Nope.”
“At least he doesn’t have kids older than you are. You know he’s older than I am, right?”
“I can do basic arithmetic.”
“What’s he do for a living?”
“It’s something with super-low social status, where he doesn’t make any money. That’s what makes it okay that he’s so old.”
Pam laughed. “Okay, let me guess. Gas station attendant is out of date—I’m showing my age here—let me see . . . barista?” Flora shook her head. “Uber driver? No. Bouncer? That’s it. He’s a bouncer at a club. Big strong guy, recovering alcoholic, no-nonsense, no lines on his face because he only goes out at night. Cynical about women. He’s seen it all and feasts on your innocence. One of those vampires, like in that Jim Jarmusch movie, Only Lovers Left Alive.”
“You’re warmer than you think.”
“This is the fear talking. I’m afraid he’s a fifth grade science teacher.”
“He’s a media consultant on major political campaigns. Democrats only. He has a big house in Georgetown. Basically he came to a Green event to spy on us, and we hit it off.”
“Hit on you, is what you mean. But I’ll grant you this power broker if you can tell me where he is right now.”
“Home alone.”
“Prove it.”
“How?”
“I’m serious. Prove it to me.”
Flora asked her grandfather if she could borrow the car to go out with her mom, assuring him they wouldn’t go farther than Georgetown.
“Sure, darling,” Edgar said. “Pam, sweetie! Give us a hug!” He got up to embrace his daughter, and so did Ginger. “I’m addicted to this show, sorry.”
“It’s like ten years old,” Flora said.
“These days you can catch anything in reruns,” Ginger said.
Flora and Pam rolled down the driveway, up Porter Street, and down Wisconsin Avenue. They parked near Dumbarton Oaks and walked to Bull’s house.
“He might be asleep,” Flora whispered. But the lights were on. Her sense of gleeful mischievousness vanished. She transitioned straight into panicked fear. Should Bull discover he was being spied upon, he might never speak to her again. She whispered the address and walked away quickly.
Pam strolled past his porch, glancing around at random like a neighbor taking an evening constitutional, and saw what Flora had told her she would see: a handsome man in a dress shirt, pacing the floor of his living room, talking on the phone. His tie was loosened as if he’d just gotten home. As she passed he looked out the window, but she could tell he was seeing nothing bu
t his reflection, by the way he ran his hand over his head before continuing to pace.
She rounded the block and found Flora sitting in the driver’s seat, waiting for her. “I feel like I owe you a drink,” she said.
“Let’s do it,” Flora said. “I’m seeing him tomorrow night, so we should go out now. But you knew that.”
“What’s his name?”
“I already looked him up. He’s not a sex offender. Where do you want to get a drink?”
Pam sighed. “Someplace with bands,” she said. “I feel kind of hyper.”
“There’s no live music in bars anymore,” Flora said. “There’s no live music after, like, ten P.M.”
Pam suggested Kramerbooks. “We can hit the bar,” she said, “and scope us out some nerds.”
AS BULL HAD OBSERVED, FLORA WAS NOT DEPRESSED. SHE WAS—AT LEAST SINCE meeting him—having quite a good time. He succumbed to the temptation to lecture her about how she was wasting her life circa once a month, for around a minute, before his good manners got the better of him. When at last he led off with “If you were a Democrat—” she finished the sentence for him: “I could sleep my way to the top!”
In his view, helping her wouldn’t have been tantamount to owning her. It would merely have been a karmic point in his favor, especially if he did it behind her back, which would be easier for him in an organization where he had access to discreet private channels.
“Are you sticking with the Sierra Club and the Greens just to keep your distance from me?” he asked. “The Democratic Party is a three-ring circus. There’s not going to be an odor of nepotism unless you go around dropping my name.”
“You don’t get it,” Flora said. “I’m a true believer. I love living things more than I love jobs. Nobody loves jobs. They just pretend to. Automation is going to put us all out of work anyway, even the loggers. What we need is distributive justice and more nature.”
“I personally love my job.”
“Self-employment doesn’t count.”
“Like I said, it’s a big tent. All the party activists under thirty are communists now. You’ll fit right in.”
“How stupid is that?” she said. “Everybody knows Democrats are neoliberal globalizers.”
“Then what are Republicans?” he said. “It’s a two-party system, not a rock and a hard place.”
“But that’s exactly it. The parties are Scylla and Charybdis, and we’re sailing our boat of nature on capitalism like we think it’s water. We need to turn it around and get back to dry land. God, that was the metaphor of the century. I should get a prize.”
Consequently, when someone from the national Green organization—someone he hadn’t seen in years, a quick-witted, sixtyish former Black Power radical named Elaine—casually asked him during a chance encounter at a reception whether he knew any organizers who were free to travel, he said, “There’s Flora Svoboda. Very committed Green. Already working for you. Heavily underutilized.” He felt no compunctions about handing her dubious talents and energies off to a competing organization. He assumed she would do the Greens more harm than good.
When Elaine searched Facebook, she quickly determined that Flora was working for the party’s D.C. chapter in a part-time volunteer role that surely failed to exploit her skills, whatever they might be. She trusted Bull’s judgment. If the girl weren’t exceptional, he wouldn’t be fucking her.
XXI.
It had become apparent that Donald Trump might soon clinch a majority of delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention. Bull had expected to gloat. Instead he was worried. There was a certain frightening logic to an unelectable candidate in a nation that was half nonvoters.
After intensive lobbying—several calls, many happy hours, and much proffering of gossip—he wangled an invitation from the Clinton campaign to pitch a TV advertisement. He was ordered to an office on K Street early in the morning, told to bring his own laptop and projector. They wouldn’t trust an outside USB stick or even give him their wireless password. He had wanted to bring his two best-dressed interns, male and female, but they told him to come alone.
He was first on the agenda, at seven o’clock sharp, since they had internal matters to get to after he left. He showed them a TV campaign spot. Over images of a foraging grizzly, an avuncular voice intoned, “There is a bear in the woods.” He paused the video to give everyone time to laugh. It was a famous ad for Ronald Reagan from 1984.
“Some people say the bear is tame,” the voice continued. “Others say it’s vicious and dangerous. Since no one can really be sure who’s right, isn’t it smart to be as strong as the bear, if there is a bear?”
The spot concluded with the bear facing a hunter in a classic shoot-out situation. The bear was unarmed. It was clear who would win.
Everyone present knew the ad already, so the assistant issues director said, “I take it you’re alerting us to Russian collusion.”
“Nope,” Bull said. “Vladimir Putin’s a Republican, and bears shit in the woods. Anybody surprised? I can’t remember the last time I met an American who was scared of Russia. I brought this ad along for the express benefit of the people in this room. Like I always say, define your candidate. Define your opponent. Define the stakes. We’re the mighty hunter, our opponent’s the dangerous predator, and the question is whether we will commit the firepower to bring him down.”
“We’re running against poverty and inequality,” the assistant issues director pointed out. “There’s no question they exist, but doesn’t mean we need to show them in our ads.”
“Can we wrap this up?” the digital director said. “We have a lot of agenda items.”
“There is a bear in the woods, and his name is Beelzebub,” Bull said. “The lord of the flies. The foul fiend.” The group looked blank. The deputy campaign manager looked worried. “I’m talking about the presumptive Republican nominee, Mr. Donald J. Trump. Electing him is not a calculable risk. It’s the end of the world as we know it.”
“We’re here to talk about Hillary,” the deputy issues director said.
“I know what you’re thinking. You don’t want to go negative out of the gate. But we need to hit this guy with a two-by-four, and we need to hit him fast. Brushing him back is not going to do it. We need to get the double-barreled shotgun.”
“But why focus on one person?” the campaign spokesperson asked. “He could implode at any moment. He might get bored and pull out of the race.”
“Because he’s the bear. That’s because he’s the only candidate where you have to ask yourself whether there’s a bear. Are we preparing to debate issues with an opposing candidate, or are we noticing the animal in the room? Hillary can beat a Republican, but she can’t beat a totemic forest spirit. The bear is the id—the part of us that just wants to eat and fuck—and guess what? It’s running for president. Hillary is not going to stop it by being the finest stateswoman in the world, which I’m sure she is.”
“Ted Cruz is the bear,” the social media czar called out. “He’s heavier and hairier than Trump.”
“He’s a virgin. Nobody’s going to put a sincere religious believer in the White House. Hypocrisy has its limits. Well, if it weren’t for Trump, I’d be standing here spouting pleasantries about refining our polling and reaching out to young and minority voters. But he’s the weasel in the tube jammed up our asses. We need to kill the weasel first.”
The deputy campaign manager appeared discomfited. She said, “So, Bull. What’s your plan?”
“I don’t have one.”
“After all that?” She was angry, because she had invited him.
“I don’t believe we have the facts we need to craft a strategy to bring him down. I’m asking you to rededicate your spending, not to advertising, but to research. I’m saying don’t think ad strategy. Just go after him.”
“Give us what you’ve got. We don’t have all day.”
“I do have an ad to show you—just hang on—but what you really need is cyber-hacke
rs. You need to name an ambassador to Wikileaks. You need to be sucking up to Edward Snowden to see if he has anything. Offer Julian Assange a job in the administration, right now. That’s my best advice. I’m begging you. The future of mankind depends on it.”
“Uh-huh,” she said.
The room filled with skeptical whispers. The social media czar quipped that he wanted the Wikileaks ambassadorship. He sounded like a heckler in a comedy club.
Bull ignored him. “Your typical negative ad,” he went on, “is as negative as it needs to be to stop the opponent’s positive ads from getting traction. It’s like mosquito repellent, keeping the opponent off your candidate. You don’t overdo it, because it’s nerve poison, weakening the entire organism, and you end up paying the price in turnout. But no amount of mosquito repellent is going to help us with this weasel. We need to break its spine.” His audience was looking more and more perturbed. “What am I talking about here? Democrats already hate Trump. He needs to get caught doing things no Republican would tolerate. Are you with me?” There were hesitant nods. “What might those things be? We know from the primaries that Republicans condone the things he’s been doing. Extramarital affairs. Tax evasion. Racism. Lying. Groping.”
“Illiteracy and incoherence,” the communications director called out.
Bull shook his head. “That’s not a flaw! And the things he plans to do. Coal. Nukes. The workhouse. Incarceration of the poor. Who cares? Nobody. So we need to be asking ourselves what won’t they tolerate that he doesn’t do? We need to go deep. He’s Teflon; he’s Kevlar. But he’s not asbestos.”
The campaign spokesperson said, “Wait a second. Are we still ‘with you’? Are we even in this room?”
“No,” Bull said. “I’m not saying that any of you had anything to do with the spot I’m about to show you, much less that you paid for it. This ad was paid for by Citizens United.” He meant the Supreme Court decision that abolished limits on anonymous campaign spending. “I am not Hillary Clinton, and I did not approve this advertisement. I give you: fifteen seconds of pedophilia.” He leaned down to his laptop and clicked “play.”