Hope Rides Again

by Andrew Shaffer

  I didn’t like him suggesting that I didn’t know what was going on in my own backyard. I’d seen corruption; I’d flushed it out. And I’d keep fighting it until all the fight in me was gone.

  Barack could see that I was seething below the surface. He stepped between Pastor Brown and me to create some space for us to simmer. Steve, drawing on years of Secret Service training and experience, pulled Barack back. He wasn’t going to let an errant punch land on his protectee. I hadn’t thought it was possible to move Barack like that, but Steve was, pound for pound, a tough little hombre.

  So was I.

  Pastor Brown outweighed me by a hundred pounds. Easily. I’d taken on bullies his size back when I was a scrawny middle schooler and won. Ma Biden had a rule: if you lose a fight, don’t come home and expect dinner. Dinner is for winners.

  “You know what I think?” I said. “I think you know a lot more about this shooting than you’re letting on.”

  “President Obama, Barry, take your boy here home. He’s drunk.”

  “I’ve never had a drink in my life,” I said, pointing an indignant finger at him.

  “Joe,” Barack said.

  “What?” I growled back, not taking my eyes off Pastor Brown.

  “It’s time to go. It’s been a long day for all of us. And to be fair to Pastor Brown, you and I don’t know Chicago like he does. I’ve been gone a long time. Neighborhoods change; people change. Some things, however, remain the same. This is a dangerous town. It’s gotten better, but it’s no Mayberry. Even if we solve this case, it won’t stem the flow of guns into the city. It’ll ease our minds, but not a damn thing more.” There was straight fire behind the president’s speech this time. “You can’t fix things in a day, or a month, or a year. We can’t take our frustrations out on this man or his church. Don’t take it out on the people who are fighting for the same thing we’re fighting for.”

  I shook my head. “You think he’s fighting for the same thing? He’s got you fooled. He’s got everyone fooled. But I see what’s really going on.”

  “You’re not making sense,” Barack said.

  “I’ll show you. See those?” I gestured toward the boxes stacked three shelves high. There had to be forty or fifty boxes, all with the Patriot shipping logo. That stupid flipping bird. “Why don’t you ask the pastor what’s in those boxes, huh? Go ahead. I’ll wait.”

  Barack sighed. He pressed his long fingers to his graying temples. “I don’t see what—”

  “Ask him.”

  Barack turned to Pastor Brown. “I apologize for this. But I’ve known Joe a long time, and if he’s sure of something, well, he’s a pit bull. He sinks his teeth in and won’t let go.” He looked at me. “And he’s always correct. Isn’t that right, Joe?”

  I nodded.

  “By that same token, I’ve known you a long time, Pastor,” he said. “And I’ve never had a reason to distrust you, either. You have to understand the situation this puts me in.”

  Pastor Brown nodded solemnly. “Not everyone approves of the way I do business. I’m making do with what I have to work with. It’s a miracle that we’re able to keep our lights on. It’s only through the grace of God—”

  “Aw, hell with it,” I said, making a dash for the closest stack of boxes. The pastor tried to lay a hand on me, but he was no match for Joe Biden’s fleet feet. I slipped out of range, feeling his fingers brush within an inch of my jacket. In record time, I was ripping at packing tape, pulling up flaps in a flurry. I was vaguely aware of voices—yelling, shouting my name—but I was a man possessed.

  I tore into the cardboard like a kid trying to get at the prize inside a box of Cracker Jacks. It was time to rip the mask off this Scooby-Doo villain and expose him to the world. Unfortunately, what I found inside the box was even more disappointing than a Cracker Jack temporary tattoo of that sailor kid and his dog.

  37

  “Beans.”

  I pulled a can from the box and examined the label. Bush’s Baked Beans. Original flavor.

  “Beans?” Barack said. “I’m not sure I understand, Joe.”

  I didn’t understand either. I set the can down and hauled out another two, three more. I peeled up the cardboard separating them from…more beans. Beans, beans, beans, all the way to the bottom. Bush’s happened to be my go-to for family picnics, but that didn’t help with my confusion. I’d been so sure. Or had I? Had I let Barack and the pastor back me into a corner, and then come up with this show as a last-ditch bid to make some sort of difference? My mind was clouded with doubt and second-guessing.

  It wasn’t the Biden way.

  Wait. They hit three different shipping containers at the freight yard. Wasn’t that what the Record Store guy had said? They were amateurs. They weren’t expecting to find the guns…

  I tore into another box like it was a Christmas present. Except there weren’t baked beans in this box. There were peas. Canned peas, in all their foul, salty, gray-green glory.

  This was the worst Christmas ever.

  “Mr. Biden?” Steve said. “Maybe you should—”

  “Shut it, Well Baby,” I said, and kept tearing into boxes in such a frenzy that nobody could stop me for fear of getting torn up themselves. The shouting stopped, and, after ripping up half a dozen boxes and finding nothing but canned food, I realized a chilling silence had fallen over the room.

  All eyes were on me.

  “They…there were three containers, you see? Two had…I don’t know what they had…could have been canned food…could have…”

  I fell flat on my ass. My shoulders slumped.

  “I’m not sure what you thought you were going to find,” Barack said, picking up one of the cans. He read the label with a mixture of amusement and sadness.

  “I have an idea,” Pastor Brown said.

  We all looked at him. I shook my head. Don’t say it, don’t say it…

  “He thought I’d jacked those guns. All we got here is a good ol’-fashioned food drive. My guys pick up donations from grocery stores all over the city—some of the food is expired, some of the cans are dented, but that don’t matter to the people we distribute to. We’re feeding more families in this community than any welfare program, believe that.”

  “You’re saying Joe thought you were mixed up with this gun business?” Barack turned to me. “Tell me he’s wrong, Joe.”

  I didn’t say anything. Barack understood. In that moment, he understood. The look of disappointment on his face was one I’d seen a time or two before. It wasn’t one I’d ever wanted to see again.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” I said. I wouldn’t have bought my line, but it was true. I bumbled through a long, rambling excuse that may or may not have hit the following bullet points: My thoughts were all jumbled up. I’d been on the road too long. I was exhausted. I was half certain, at one point during the day, that an actual leprechaun was following me. I hadn’t had my afternoon nap, or my early evening nap. I didn’t remember the last thing I had to eat. Was I suffering the effects of low blood sugar? The pastor was angry when he left the forum, he’d said it was because he wanted to find a real breakfast, not bagels but chicken and waffles, and it sounded like a phony story because who doesn’t like bagels, and—

  “Stop, Joe.” Barack shook his head. “We can talk about this tomorrow, after you’ve had a good, long sleep.” He took Pastor Brown off to the side to have a few words in private. They spoke in hushed tones, throwing a glance my way every so often.

  Steve kneeled beside me. “Can I get you something? A glass of water? A Xanax?”

  “A cab,” I said, and left it at that. When my ride showed up, I slipped away without saying another word to anyone. Barack was still busy trying to appease Pastor Brown and wasn’t paying attention to me anyway. Besides, the more I talked, the deeper the hole I would dig. The time had come, at long last, to shut my big mouth.

  38

  The cab dropped me off at the other end of the terminal from Delta. A sl
ow rain had begun to fall. I hoofed it the two hundred yards in the elements. I could have gotten out of the rain inside, but it didn’t feel right. A little rain to wash away the sins felt like a small penance, but a penance nonetheless.

  As I was about to enter the terminal, a man with a heavy Chicago accent shouted my name.

  I fixed a phony smile on my face and turned. I wasn’t in the mood for taking a selfie, but I’d sign the guy’s ticket. Or whatever else he wanted. As long as he had a Sharpie. I didn’t have one, and I wasn’t going to wait around forever to find one.

  I wasn’t expecting to recognize him.

  A man in a Bears jacket—the all-meat-and-no-potatoes cabbie who’d picked me up that morning at arrivals—skidded to a stop in his Air Jordans just inches from colliding with me. He must have been parked in the long line of taxis and seen me walking by. It was dark out now, but apparently not dark enough.

  “I thought it was you,” he said. He sniffled, then spit a huge loogie into the street. “Sorry about that. Getting over a cold. You know how it is.”

  I didn’t have the luxury of getting sick these days, but I didn’t say that. Instead, I thanked him for the ride earlier in the day and said, “Got a plane to catch, though, so if you’ll excuse me…”

  “Just a minute.” He reached inside his jacket, sending a shiver up my spine. What if he was a wacko? You couldn’t tell these days—there seemed to be more and more of them around, emboldened by the current political climate to let their abhorrent freak flags fly. The stuff people did and said in public anymore blew my mind. Sooner or later, somebody was going to take the partisan rhetoric too far. Sooner or later, somebody was going to get hurt.

  I watched his hand as it emerged. We were close enough that if he pulled a weapon, I could lower my shoulder and lean into him—take him to the ground and then wrestle his gun or knife away.

  “You left this in my cab,” he said.

  Murder on the Amtrak Express.

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  I’d forgotten all about the damned book.

  “Keep it,” I said.

  His face fell. “Ya don’t want it?”

  “I’ve read it. What’s it going to do, sit there on my bookshelf? Books are meant to be passed around, like a girly mag in middle school.”

  “Gee, I never thought of it that way, Mr. Biden.”

  Anticipating his next question—and in the interest of expediting our entire awkward interaction—I asked if he wanted me to sign the book for him.

  He puckered his lips in an odd way, which I realized must have been him trying to shake off the raindrops that had accumulated on his thick mustache. “You didn’t write it, though.”

  I laughed. “I didn’t, but I thought you might like a souvenir. You never know if the guy you’re talking to could be, say, the next president of the United States.”

  Now he was intrigued. “Wait a minute. Are you suggesting…”

  I gave him a wink.

  “When you put it that way, all right,” he said, handing me the book. It was getting pelted by the rain, which was falling harder and harder by the minute. Though the sky was black as midnight, I imagined great Midwestern storm clouds overhead. Perhaps the storm would cool things off a bit, wash the blood from the streets.

  I tucked the paperback under my arm to keep it dry while Ditka searched his pockets for a pen. My phone rang. I ignored it at first but, sensing my new friend wasn’t going to find a writing implement anytime soon, answered the call on the third ring. It was Steve.

  “Talk to me,” I said.

  “We found him. The shooter.”

  “That was fast.”

  “No kidding,” he said. “We had that APB out for the stolen BMW coupe that almost ran you and Renegade down, right? The cops spotted it on the Dan Ryan, heading out of town. There was a chase. Nobody was hurt—well, nobody but the driver.”

  “They think he was the shooter?” I couldn’t believe it. The second I stepped away from the case, they solved it.

  “The driver was an eighteen-year-old kid. Kendrick Jackson. A Crook. They found the stolen gun in the glove box. My guess is his prints will be all over it.”

  Ditka held up a finger and ran back to his cab. Going for a pen.

  “You have a motive?” I asked. “What about the president’s BlackBerry?”

  Negative on the BlackBerry, Steve said. The motive, meanwhile, could have been an argument about sports scores, for all anyone knew. The crash had killed him on impact. Young gang members were full of testosterone, with too much free time. The detectives would be interviewing the suspect’s friends, who were mostly gang members as well. The gang leadership wanted this over and done with. The kid had been a loose cannon. They promised to cooperate with the police. It struck me as funny—not funny “ha-ha” but funny “weird.” Gangs, police, churches. All on the same side.

  Whether it was the side of good or evil was still up in the air.

  I sighed, having had enough of all this talk. “Is President Obama there?”

  There was a short silence on the other end. “You’re going to need to give him some time.”

  This wasn’t my first stint in the doghouse. Back when I was veep I’d come out for gay marriage before him, which ticked him off since he’d been planning to do it first. I’d jumped the gun, bungling the rollout of our administration’s support of a key issue, but I’d been in the right. Barack eventually saw that I’d meant well.

  This time was different. Even if I’d meant well, this wasn’t a case of me saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. This wasn’t a classic “Biden-ism.” It was a cock-up, plain and simple.

  “Thanks, Steve. I understand.”

  “Goodbye, Mr. Biden.”

  “Before you go, I’m sorry I called you Well Baby. And Snowflake.”

  “It’s OK,” he said. “I’ve been called worse.”

  “About the birch massage…”

  “I’m still not ready to talk about that.”

  Ditka and I took shelter under an outcropping. He handed me his pen. It was shaped like a baseball bat, complete with a Cubs logo. Nice rubber grip. Total crap for writing.

  “Got it at a Cubs game for filling out my scorecard,” he said as I scrawled my name in the book. “Usually you do that with pencils, but it was three bucks and…Why do we fill out scorecards anyways? They got all the stats on the internets now. Da computers. I don’t know why I do it, must be cuz my dad used to take me to Wrigley when I was a kid. But oh, back then, you could sit in the bleachers for five bucks. It was no place for children, though—I seen some stuff there that you wouldn’t believe. Or maybe you would…”

  His voice faded into the background as a thunderclap struck. He paid it no mind—just kept jawing away like he’d been sent from the heavens with the express purpose of making me miss my flight. But nothing was going to make me do that. Not Ditka here, and not a little rain. I was getting on that plane and we were taking off, even if I had to fly it myself.

  39

  The flight attendant welcomed me aboard with a smile as forced as my own. He was a young man, right out of high school or college, with a frosted sheath of hair that sat atop his head like a glacier. He asked if I had any bags.

  “Only the ones under my eyes,” I said. The Chicago detour was just a day trip, so my luggage had been sent home. with my tour manager. My clothes were waiting for me back in Wilmington right now.

  So was my family.

  I took my seat in first class. Plane fares were coming out of my own pocket these days, not the taxpayers’. Nobody was going to tell me I hadn’t earned it.

  “Looks like it’s just us,” the attendant said. I was the only first-class passenger onboard. “What would you like to drink?”

  “Diet Coke,” I said. “And peanuts.”

  “Would you like a wineglass for your Coke?”

  I stared at him for a beat.

  “Kidding,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

/>   I could have done a little finger-gun in his direction to let him know I wasn’t pissed, but I was pissed. Not at him. Not at anyone besides myself. I should have been in a better mood. Barack and I had done everything we’d set out to do: we’d helped track down Shaun Denton’s shooter. What bothered me was everything else that had transpired between us. Not only the part in the last couple of hours. It was everything, going back a week, to when he first phoned me.

  Barack thought he was doing me a favor by inviting me to meet his pal Caruso. I appreciated it, but it had felt forced from the beginning. A blind date. If only I’d been upfront with Barack about the elephant in the room—or in this case, the donkey. Despite all the time I’d spent teasing a third run for president, I was still only ninety-five percent there. (This was up from ninety percent a few months back.) I hadn’t discussed my plans—or lack thereof—with Barack recently. I didn’t have to. He knew, perhaps better than anyone, what the internal debate in my head sounded like. The never-ending book tour had been a success, but it paled in comparison to the road ahead. Even as the frontrunner, I would have to fight my own party; if I passed that test, I would graduate to the general election. No matter how much money I raised or endorsements I bagged, it was going to be a long uphill slog.

  To paraphrase Barack, hard things were hard.

  The plane started backing up. A female flight attendant who sounded like Lindsey Graham (and, poor girl, looked like Lindsey Graham) was leading the passengers through instructions for buckling their seatbelts.

  The first-class attendant handed me my drink in a plastic cup. There was a lot of ice in it. It was more like ice with a splash of Diet Coke.

  Just the way I liked it.

  We waited in line on the taxiway. I wondered what it would be like to fly a plane. Flying planes was one activity I had never gotten into. It wasn’t a hobby. There was no place for amateurs.

  One could say the same for detective work.