About Poets and Priests (From: The Bestseller)

Post 1520:

 The Bestseller: A Novel

Entry One: Mr. Speech—Beliefs—Buses

            First thing, none of this was by design. I was reading my old fingerprint-stained copy of Samuel Thatcher’s Orders from the Mountain, trying in vain to shut out the muted but unflagging clamor of the distant crowd outside. Karl Connell charged the tent left and right, cumbersome, hands full with Nelson Andrews’ rumpled suit. Nelson was an okay sort. Sort of. I probably wouldn’t say that naturally, if he hadn’t gotten me the job and been a member of the moderately tolerant set back in grad school. I thought to engage the unfolding situation on some level, the bustle occurring just feet away, but it was complicated. A security team was on the other side of the flap, poking their swollen heads in every second or two, cheeks turgid from steroids and wet from the sticky southern night, ever watchful of their charge, ever vigilant of anyone threatening to challenge one of his threats.

            I was on my back, feet hanging over the arm of an old couch. The air in the tent smelled like failing deodorant. The couch smelled something between a damp New Orleans tomb and my Mimi’s house. Oh, to sink through the cushions to the other side of the world. Sadly, the couch wasn’t magic. Probably a donation to the campaign. Matriarchs Against This. Grandma’s for That. He tested well with old ladies for reasons I hoped and planned to never understand.

            Stay out of it. My lips tightened to prevent any fugitive comments. It seemed an unreasonable time to abandon a lifelong philosophy.

             I drew the old novel closer to my clenched face. Attempts at blending into the scenery were of course ridiculous, but I felt frozen, a child caught out in a game of hide and seek but unwilling to fully admit it. Samuel Thatcher and his wonderful prose couldn’t begin to save me; I thought I’d perfected the art of shutting out my surroundings, hunched over a wobbling desk for a year in a sad flat in a section of Paris that never slept or took breaks. Obviously not. The tent was steaming, full of anger and noise and the pushing and pulling of waning testosterone and waxing frustration. The nerves started to pile on; my toes curled tight inside my 80s-style Adidas as they hung over the end of the couch.

            “You’re fired,” he said, allowing Nelson his inevitable collapse to the floor. His voice caught every rough edge that decades of smoking had carved out. “It’s not good enough by any measure. People want passion. Inspiration. Your approach, whatever you call it, doesn’t make me feel anything. If I don’t feel anything, how can they?”

            A reasonable enough question. Sort of. Having the candidate worry about the feelings of others was double-edged. It meant he cared. That was good. It also meant he was thinking. Probably not so good.

            Little things I was picking up along the way. The man currently getting the sack taught me that one.

            Nelson pulled at his yellow tie, droopy cheeks flushed as he tried to gather one full breath. Another peek away from Mr. Thatcher told me the poor guy was on the verge of tears. I felt bad. He had a reputation to think about.

            I tried not to think about it.

That I was quitting at the end of the week gave me some comfort. This was no place for a person like me. Me and the couch made sense together. Made for another time. I liked to read Mr. Thatcher and write novels with ideas buried deep down to impossible depths. Soundbites and sociopaths weren’t my scene. This whole thing was simply a paycheck.

            Out of touch narcissists were more my speed; people with too many degrees and love for the world but no one in particular.

            As Nelson’s shaggy head fell at the candidate’s wingtips, I closed my eyes. He was crying now. A lot. It was horrible. Male fragility. A fine thing, but better in theory.  

            “You,” he said, snapping his giant thumb and giant middle finger. I swung my feet around and stood up with a straight back, trying my best not to be Nelson.   

            “Yes, sir.”

            “What’s your name again?”

            “Harold.”

            “Is that your last name?”

            “No. Sorry, sir. Harold Abbot.”

            “Do you want the job?”

            I’d been around enough for the last few months to know that Karl Connell wasn’t one to patiently wait on rejoinders. I took one more look at sad, snotty Nelson, and gave the great man lording over him as firm an answer as I could. His eyes were bulging and wild when I met them, trying my best not to blink. “Eh. No thank you. I’m actually finishing up at the end of the week. So…”

            He didn’t seem surprised, which I found rather surprising. He smiled mischievously and asked, “I’ve seen you around, looking like you’re someplace else. Where is it you’re going?”

            “Back to England, I think. My first novel did okay. Trying to finish another so my publishers stay—anyway, going back to writing and teaching, sir. I live and work in Oxford now.”

            “England. Writing. Teaching. It sounds small and I don’t like it. Small potatoes, while there’s giants to be slain.” He looked up and took in an inhumanly large breath, like he was contemplating the heavens and becoming one with all existence. “You realize that makes you ridiculous?”

“No,” I laughed modestly. “Well, yes, sir. I suppose it might sound that way to some people.”

            “We’re all stupid in youth,” he said. “But you’re our message guy. We need you. Nelson’s only good idea was bringing you on. Right, Nelson?”

Nelson made noises but nothing like words.

“It’s time to matter,” he continued. “Belgium and novels don’t matter.”

            I should’ve been horrified. Nothing mattered more to me than novels, and though I’d never mentioned Belgium and suspected he was using it to drive home that Oxford was forgettable, that anywhere else was insignificant. It made me a little mad. And I rather liked Belgium. Lots of slender streets. Quaintness. Real romance. Imagined romance.

            And yet.

            Loaded with all that, I still acquiesced. My resolve had flown for the first available exit. As Nelson continued to blubber at our feet, I tentatively accepted his job, shaking Connell’s bulky, hairy hand. The bones felt thick, like they’d been broken and healed without proper setting.

            I thought about Mr. Thatcher as a fresh batch of shame asserted itself.  

            “Let’s go get a beer.”

            I didn’t answer. Though my hands were big and fairly strong from a few impetuous years in the ring, his grip was herculean.

            “What were you reading?” he asked, manhandling me through the trucks and tents, people I’d tried to ignore and who’d tried to ignore me for the last few months. They were all leering, thinking as a hive: What’s the random guy doing at Connell’s side?

            “Orders From the Mountain,” I said, trying not to succumb to the strength that had just crumbled my predecessor. “By Sam Thatcher.”

            “Always liked that one,” he said, loosening his grip on my shoulder as we walked up and into a trailer. Inside was the head of the campaign, Bridget Waterton. She had one of the most beautiful faces I’d ever seen. It was impossibly symmetrical and without blemish. She was well into her forties and somehow looked brand new. Her dark eyes made it hard not stare. Her delicate olive cheekbones made it a fool’s errand.

            I buried my chin against my chest, looking down to my Adidas and their fraying shoelaces. A fitting compliment to sweaty khakis and rolled-up sleeves. My only salvation was a white dress shirt. It was days from a wash, but at least the color hid pools starting to collect underneath each arm. Though the campaign entourage was sitting in the shadow of a massive stadium, my skin was just about cooked from our hurried walk from the tent. “I’m sorry, sir?” I asked, having forgotten his last comment.

“I said I always liked Orders From the Mountain. A rich commentary on the dissemination of belief.”

            I looked at the candidate and tried my best for a poker face.

            “Or is that wrong?” he prodded. A glance over at Beautiful Bridget told me she was interested in my response.

            I smiled tightly and said he was right.

            “Then what’s so funny?”

            “If I’m being candid, most people know at least that much about the book. It doesn’t mean you’ve actually read it.”

            Beautiful Bridget’s beautiful eyes were as open as hangar doors. She was aghast at my nerve, but it wasn’t insolence for its own sake. I’d been bullied into taking the job and had every intention of asserting my final decision to walk away that week. Letting it get to this point was a problem of inertia. As I said, nothing that happened on the campaign was paced for me.

            I tried to start my retreat but the candidate held out a hand as a stern signal to take a seat. I buckled at the nonverbal request and gave Beautiful Bridget a look like please tell my people where they buried my body.

            Shit. I was screwed. I didn’t have any elder relatives, but if I did they’d be screwed. They’d be destined for sad retirement years, hoping through labored breaths, waiting for my return.

            “Ms. Waterton. This is Mr. Abbot. He doesn’t want to work for me. I liked that about him when he said it, but it needs to stop.”

            “Sir,” she answered. I guess it meant yes or that’s great, though you could’ve said it meant this guy’s a complete joke and it wouldn’t have surprised me.

            He sat next to me. Close. I scooted over. It was one of those L-shaped cushions that half-surrounded a small table. There was very little room. Besides having no upper lip and tiny ears, he was a large man all over. Not fat. Large. The trailer didn’t seem appropriately sized, thought I’d never been in one. I thought of cruel, tiny cages at zoos where they keep magnificent beasts. I imagined them, to be more accurate. Like most people, I didn’t know much about things. Things like zoos and airplanes and political campaigns and talking to one of the most talked-about men in America. I’d just turned thirty. I was a great, obscure artist, and my greatness had just begun. Nascent. A sap. No. A sapling.

            Whatever.

The candidate crossed his legs and looked away from my perspiring face, staring at the little laminated tabletop. His gray eyes went soft and his posture slackened. He was suddenly professorial—maybe even protective. It was as weird as everything else that was happening. “I love the way Sam Thatcher ended up using Davis’ wife as the agent of his end. You could feel the irony coming all the way, but it didn’t make it any less horrifying.”

            “I agree.” I did agree. His assessment of the novel wasn’t bad. Maybe the wily bastard had read a synopsis on his phone. Part of prep for selling me on the job. Connell was a political figure now, so it seemed a safe assumption that every word he uttered was contrived. My radar was to be trusted. As a writer, I lived contrivance.

            “‘And with the flood that was their faith, it mattered little. He smiled and wept during his last breaths. The voice that had inspired a few and then millions was forever silenced. If he’d mattered more to a few, it might’ve been better. He slipped off, regarded by those millions, regarding himself no more. She hung over him half-proud, half-remorseful, as he’d been during those last years.’”

            “Not bad, sir.”

            “I’ve read it.”

            I nodded. “The quote aids my credulity.” It did. Still. I was most likely just one more dupe in a long cue.

            There was a tickle in my throat. Catching it was loud enough to change my own thought direction.

            Karl Connell was still looking at the table. His superhero jaw was disengaged. The candidate was holding to his avuncular settings. Beautiful Bridget was still impossible and unknowable with her beauty. I was twitchy and needing a haircut. “What’s going to happen to Nelson Andrews?” I asked, not fully understanding why it was first on my docket.

            “Andrews will be fine,” said the candidate, issuing a dismissive wave of his giant hand. He was five moves down the line from a moment that felt five seconds ago.

            Huh was all I could manage for a rebuttal.   

            “We’ll make sure he lands upright,” said Beautiful Bridget, snapping closed her laptop with an air of accomplishment. I imagined she’d just sent the most important email in the history of the world. “Punitive isn’t our style.”

            “Really? Because the guy looked stooped. For life. That was like watching a time lapse video of a person succumbing to arthritis.”

            “We’re giving him a lot of money to go away quietly. You have no idea.” Bridget Waterton came over and sat down on the bench. It was ridiculous. There were other places to sit. Now I was crumpled between them, feeling like a guy in a Scorsese movie right before he gets whacked, breathed upon by two overly familiar strangers. “We want you crafting the message. We want someone that doesn’t care about the game and doesn’t write the usual political garbage.”

“But I don’t know anything. That should be a concern. This will never work.”

            “How do you know that if you don’t know anything?” Bridget asked, smiling witchy and applying a hand to my nervous bouncing knee. I looked down and prayed she wouldn’t plunge her blood-red fingernails through my pants. “You’re here for a paycheck, right. You’re smart. We like that. It’s why we hired Nelson in the first place. You were who we wanted.”

            “I don’t understand.”

            “We get it,” she returned. “But Harold, smarts and understanding aren’t the same thing. It’ll start making sense. The world is too strange for the same old tired sentiments. We need someone to do the job new. Someone creative, ready to innovate, and completely dispassionate about politics.”

            “Isn’t that your job?” I asked, wrinkling my eyebrows at Beautiful Bridget. She smelled too good. It was the first time I’d ever been terrified of respiration.

            “It’s all our jobs. But someone needs to put the words together. Do it, and we’ll pay you enough to write novels for the rest of your life. Not yet, but eventually. The money, if you do the job we think you can. Then your little books. People will actually read them. Reputation. Status. It’s a great deal.”

            I had no idea what to say, but I didn’t feel like they were going to let me call timeout. “I’ll do it. Pay me double what you were paying Nelson, and I never get mentioned as the speechwriter. Not until I want. Or if I want. That’s the deal. It’s important. Needs to be in writing. One of those disclosure things.”

            Whatever a lawyer feels like, I felt the opposite.

            “Good enough,” said the candidate, thumping the table with a closed fist. The bus’s hydraulics bellowed and the engine immediately started. It was like a magic trick. A very creepy magic trick. Was the bus driver listening in? Was it wise to have drivers listening in on important strategic decisions?

I was thinking too much.

My eyes were dilating in disbelief as I mentioned that all my stuff was back in the tent.

“We’ll get you new stuff. New. And no more laying on couches. Actually, check that. Do whatever it is you have to do. I understand process.”

            Karl Connell must’ve said process ten or fifteen more times before it was over. It was like sitting before a more robust Howard Hughes. Suddenly he went quiet and leaned back, falling asleep.

            Part of his process, I assumed.

            A thin man came out from behind a partition wearing a suit and looked at me unflinchingly. I asked if he was on the protection detail and he continued staring until he gave me the courtesy of a microscopic nod. Beautiful Bridget went back to her little table and started whacking her laptop. I could breathe now, but thinking wasn’t coming so easy. Was this how the universe worked? Maybe so. It hadn’t worked according to any of my previous theories. Maybe there’s life and then there’s a bus and you get on.

            Maybe. I found my own nook and went back to reading Orders From the Mountain. It was hard. Suddenly Samuel Thatcher didn’t understand me at all. Joey Bottoms, the main protagonist, had nothing to say about my situation. He was a soldier from the Appalachians who killed his brother after the Civil War. Joey Bottoms was an idiot. Whatever the reasons, they’d made it through a conflict famous for pitting brother against brother. Joey couldn’t just let it go. What an asshole. Samuel Thatcher was a silly man. He didn’t understand being whisked away on a magic bus with a guy running for president. Sam Thatcher was dead. And they didn’t even have buses when he was alive.

            “I’m going insane,” I said, quite loud.

            Beautiful Bridget stopped key pounding and turned to me. “Just do your best to manage it. Try going through a divorce at the same time.”

            It was a normal thing to hear, oddly. Domestic. A thing that happens to normal people. I sat up from my stupor and said, “Sorry to hear about that.”

            “It’s fine. The whole thing with Nelson’s going to make the break a lot cleaner.”

            “How’s that?”

            “I’m married to his brother.”

            “Jesus. You people.” 

            Bridget shrugged her shoulders and put on a giant pair of white headphones, recommencing the destruction of her keyboard.  

            I grabbed for my book and immediately started apologizing to its wrinkled pages. Joey Bottoms wasn’t an asshole. Buses or no buses, he was more real than the surreal storm of shit swirling around me.  

Chapter Two: Mattering—Red Hair—Slugger

            It was almost two in the morning. A few weeks into my job as the campaign’s head speechwriter. I was hunched over at the bar of the Hotel America Dryden. It was almost completely dark, making it challenging to work up my notes for the following day’s event. A rally in Milwaukee. I squinted and let out a rudely audible sigh. The sound caused the bartender, an attractive redhead about my age, to pause and pop up from a leaning posture cleaning glasses. “Everything okay over there?” She added an oblique look, unique to service industry folks at the end of a long shift. I’d thrown similar shade at many a customer over the years, pouring drinks to pay for the completion of my PhD. My holy education. A trinity of degrees in little frames, hanging on a wall in a lonely apartment I never saw. They represented honest toil, no doubt, but I couldn’t help thinking they were utterly meaningless. Still in a bar. Late at night. Harboring a sense that something had gone wrong. It didn’t seem possible. I’d been so careful, after all.

“Can I ask you something?” The worst of all questions, but my wits were too fatigued for clever openers.

“You can ask.”

            “Do you give a crap about politics?”

            “Sort of an odd thing to ask.” She looked up into a glass, checking it for smudges. “Well I guess it’s not too odd, considering the circus.” She leaned on the bar and her face caught more of the low light. She was prettier than my initial assessment; a little thin in the face, but there was kindness to her expression. As if a slight smile and head tilted in interest were part of her factory settings. Her hazel eyes were open and interested. I blinked away a wave of fatigue and tried recapturing my manners.

            “Sorry. It’s been a little one track lately. Not much chance for normal conversation.” I deliberately set down my pen and looked over her head, catching an unflattering reflection of my face over bottles of high-end liquor. “Can’t remember having an actual conversation, actually.”

            “Sounds weird.”

            “Weird for sure. Again. Apologies.”

            “You work for Karl Connell? The guy running for president? That’s the big time, I guess.”

            I hesitated. My attachment to the campaign remained unofficial and had to stay that way. I was a literary man. One couldn’t be known to jump from political hack to purveyor of prose. The two worlds didn’t mix, both full of the most judgmental and exclusionary lunatics anyone would ever have the good sense to flee. “What’s your name?”

“Gail Frasier.”

            “Can I buy you a drink, Gail Frasier?”

            “Scotch like yours?”

            “Anything you want. Figure it’s fair play after my sitting over here sulking.”

            “You are a kind of a brooder,” she smiled, refilling my glass and pouring herself a double.

            “Ouch.”

            “A handsome brooder.” A small smile formed on her lips before the glass met her mouth. I drank mine dry and did what I could to keep from coughing from the burn.  

            “Kind of you.” The low light saved me. I was blushing like a schoolgirl.

            “Answer to your question, though, I do care. About politics. Concretely. Tonight, it’s sorta ruining my life. That doesn’t make sense. But you know what I mean.”

            “You mean business here is slow.” My eyes were a little fuzzy and my insides fought the sting of the fifteen-year-old whisky.

            “Exactly. Big shot comes to town and completely has the run of the place. We fight for shifts here. Nicest place in town. Friday night. But I’m out a half month’s rent because his people aren’t allowed to drink.”

            “And as a corollary, the press guys find a cheaper spot.”

            “You get it. The Commodore Room. Shithole down on the corner. My girlfriends are cleaning up down there.” Gail Frasier set down her glass and put a hand to her forehead. “Geez. That wasn’t cool.”

            “Don’t worry about it. Seriously. I worked bars for years. Tended. Played music. The door. A pendulous trade.”

            “A pendulous trade. That’s a way of saying it.”

            “Stupid to talk like that. Bad habit.” I knew I shouldn’t, but I held out my glass for another. It was cloudy from my ink-stained fingers. She switched it for a fresh one.

            “Not if it’s the way you normally talk. If that’s the way you are, then screw the rest of us for not speaking the same language.”

            I hid a smirk. It was one of two things. The lovely Gail Frasier was buttering me up, making a final play for a big tip before closing, or, she was interested in taking it upstairs.

            Or maybe she just wanted a few free belts.

            The two or three customers sitting at little tables in the back began closing out. “I’m going to—”

            “Don’t.”

            I stood up and slipped a stack of yellow notepapers into my journal, smiling what I hoped was a disarming smile. It didn’t work. She seemed mad, which meant maybe she did like me. Did like me.

            “There’s three hundred dollars.”

            Gail Frasier nodded with an air of quiet satisfaction. She’d expected more. That I could afford more. I couldn’t, not yet, and the fact that I couldn’t somehow found a sweet spot with her. Women in bars at night, drinks going back and forth. Not exactly rules carved in stone.

“You headed to your room?” she asked.

            “I am. Long day tomorrow. Can I ask you one more question?”

            “Suppose the three hundred buys you a little leeway.”

            “You ever read Claire Lauren Sees Through?”

            “In high school. Don’t remember much of it. Think it was boring, the way anything you have to do is boring when you’re that age. Why?”

            “You remind me of the main character. Rosaline. Red hair and pretty. Independent but sweet. No suffering fools.”

            “Wasn’t she the one that refused what’s his name? Some rich guy or something?”

            “Yeah. Rosaline found exactly the thing she wanted. Society told her one thing and her own morality told her another. It’s a good story. Classic and good.”

            “Sort of a weird guy. Aren’t you?”

            “Probably… definitely a bit of a brooder.”

            “Never got your name. What do you for the Connell campaign?”

            There was a half finger of scotch calling from the base of my new glass. I breathed it in and set it gently down on the smooth dark wood, close enough to Gail’s hand to just about feel her skin touch mine. “I never said I did. Goodnight, Miss Frasier.”

            A bit abrupt. The thought occurred to me, just walking away like that. Maybe a little bit smooth, but mostly just rude. Still, it seemed the wisest course. I was tipsy and might reveal my position to a girl I knew nothing about. I considered lying. Lying was always a viable option, though it wasn’t the sharpest tool on my belt. A short story, perhaps, though I’d used up the literature angle. Giving out a fake name, regaling her with tales of my burgeoning fake real estate empire on the way up to my limp queen mattress for a roll that would probably be a little bit great and brief and a little more awkward and long.

            I was choosing sleep. Being an adult. It was time to get it together. If she was objecting to my quick exit, I couldn’t hear it. With my journal and notes clutched against my stomach, I just about gained the door to the lobby when Oliver Page Andrews lumbered to a sweaty stop, completely blocking my path. He was holding a porcelain vase meant to look like something from the Ming Dynasty by his side.

Moving was hampered by sheer surprise. Ollie Andrews was the brother of Nelson Andrews and soon to be ex-husband of Bridget Waterton. He wasn’t a particularly intimidating guy, but there was a chilling sort of desperation written on his jowly face. “Are you screwing her, too?”

            The question didn’t make sense. I hiked up my shoulders and made a noise to signal disbelief. He then hit me in the head. With a vase.

            When I woke, Gail Frasier was holding a rag full of ice against the bridge of my nose. I seethed and bit down and asked where I was. “On the floor,” she told me, face bent and unimpressed. “Pretty much where you fell.”

            “What happened?”

            “Well, like I said, you dropped like a rock. He hit you two or three more times, but it looked like the first one had done the trick.”

            “Noted,” I groaned. There were jagged little pieces of the vase all around. My neck and shirt were wet. “Then what?”

            “I told him I was calling the cops and he bolted. They usually don’t. But he didn’t seem drunk. He was like… something else. That guy was really pissed at you. Seemed like he was crying.”

            The bartender continued to apply the ice as the pain lingered, strangely serving to aid my comprehension. “I probably deserved it.”

            “So you and his woman?”

            “No. But I took his brother’s job. Not sure about the woman thing.” I climbed slowly to my feet. “Sounds like drama and he got the wrong guy.” My tongue was loosening, but I was beyond caring. Deception felt silly. She was looking at my notes. The pages had spilled on the floor, and even a cursory glance would tell her it was a political speech. The papers were populated with nothing but banalities and empty expressions of hope, tailored for a Midwestern audience. Words like better and tomorrow ran rampant. I was still getting the hang of things. “I’m helping Connell. Kind of an outside consultant. It’d be big if you didn’t say anything. Really big.”

“Outside,” she said, handing over the notes. “Is that why you get to drink in here? Special privileges?”

            I was on a roll with the honesty thing. Figured might as try it with both feet. “Yeah, I feel bad about that. The drinking ban was my suggestion. Thought it might look good. Put a wholesome face to our, his merry band. The press being someplace else didn’t seem so horrible, either. Far as ancillary benefits go.”

            Gail shook her head. I readied for a chiding. “What’s your name, slugger?” she asked. The inquiry was mercifully sparse, considering the circumstances.

            I slipped the notebook back under my arm and held out a hand. “Harold. Abbot.”

            “What you say I close up shop and we take the bottle to your room, Harold Abbot?”

            She was beautiful, of course, and sure, I’d just received a beating. But that’s not why I said yes. It was what we talked about before. How we talked. That we talked. A mostly real conversation. I didn’t realize how isolating this journey had left me. If keeping her company meant a few other things, I guess I’d just have to bear it.

Entry Three: Jackie—Gail—Love

            One thing most people don’t know about Karl Connell—he’s a bit strange in the mornings. There was a guy on the campaign that handled him from six to ten. Everybody felt bad for that guy. His name was Jackie, but most people knew him as Worthless or Disgusting or Infuriating, as these were the most common appellations employed by Candidate Connell. Jackie was around my age, but it was more complicated than that. He was descended from a form of Irish that aged particularly fast and stopped growing particularly early; he was just a whisker over five feet tall. Jackie had the strangest hair; it was balding in one distinct spot on the top, but he did nothing to cover it. The rest was dark brown and thick as a crow’s nest. Surely someone had told him it was an easy fix. Surely Karl Connell had observed it from above during one of his diatribes.

            Yes, Jackie was a nervous little guy and made a mistake here and there, but it wasn’t as if he was inept. One couldn’t last around the candidate if they were incompetent. Just ask the guy whose job I now had.

            Anyway.

            I woke up the next morning to the sound of Jackie rapping his little knuckles on my heavy room door. The Hotel America Dryden was a high-class place and spared no change on things like doors, light fixtures and nonsensical modern art prints. Doors, light fixtures and nonsensical modern art prints keep rich assholes coming back to the Hotel America Drydens of the world. It’s the little things, turns out, even with the wealthy.

So, Jackie was rapping and starting to shout. It was just after six when I noticed it. Correction. Gail Frasier noticed it. “Someone’s knocking,” she mumbled. The mumble went straight into my ear. We were waking in a position I wasn’t all that familiar with. It was nice. I didn’t want to slip away. My arm was under her body and somehow not uncomfortable. The part of me where my shoulder and chest and arm came together served as her pillow as she breathed gently into my face. A little bit of morning breath, but nothing that would stop me trying my luck again. I sunk my nose into her soft red hair and remembered everything in an instant. It was almost dark, except for a little light sneaking out from the bathroom. “Your job,” she said, adjusting to set her chin on my chest. “It’s calling you.”

            I moaned and snuck another glance at the clock. Something had to be wrong. They’d been pretty good about leaving me alone early. Mornings weren’t my thing. If Karl Connell was a supernova at sunrise, I was a black hole. “Maybe they’ll go away,” I groaned into Gail’s hair. Her shampoo and my boozy tongue combined strange and started making moves on my baser instincts.

            The knocking continued. The struggling voice was getting louder to the point of an unbearable squawk. She ran a finger down the middle of my torso and kept going. Despite the unsuitable hour, all was becoming right with the world. Except for Jackie. “Go find out what it is.”

            “I don’t care. I’ve never cared. Did I mention that last night?”

            “Many times. Go. I’ll be here when you get back.”

            A kiss on the lips and an ardent push confirmed she meant business. And she’s right, I thought. Deal with it. Back in a flash. “I’ll make this quick.”

            “Better.”

            In fewer than ten seconds I was at the door in last night’s pants and nothing else. A herd of wild horses wouldn’t deter me from immersing myself back in that messy, smelly, wonderful bed.

I looked through the hole and saw nothing but the vacancy atop Jackie’s head. I raised my toes for a stopper and opened the door short and quick. “Little early, isn’t it?”

            He smiled and I closed my eyes long enough to be inadvertently rude. The lines in his face grew deeper as he said, “These are the big leagues, Mr. Abbot.”

            “Don’t do that.”

            “I’m sorry?” Jackie asked. He wasn’t annoyed or flexing. He was truly surprised.

            I opened my eyes as wide as I could to the bracing hallway light and said, “Don’t be like that. I have a… thing.”

            “Not sure I understand.” Jackie was rapping his scrawny knuckles on a thick white binder. He was nervous. Overwrought. Overwhelmed. I didn’t need to make him understand. That would mean explaining how phrases like big leagues and playing for keeps made me sick to my stomach. The self-evidential manner in which everyone involved in politics bandied around those words annoyed me to an illogical degree. I couldn’t tamp down the feeling; it was like we the anointed were in the big leagues and nothing and nobody mattered except our heightened importance. We were the only ones facing stakes. People fleeing machete wars in Africa, homeless veterans dying in the streets—they couldn’t possibly conceive of the mountains we had to scale.  

            I said it was illogical.

            “Don’t worry about it, Jackie. How can I help?”

            “That looks pretty bad,” he grimaced, taking full stock of my face. “I can’t believe he really hit you.”

            “Several times. Once with a piece of décor. The rest, I can’t say.”

            A door slammed down the hall and the singular sound of the candidate rumbling toward us grew loud until he was standing in Jackie’s previous spot. “Let me in,” he said, motioning me back with his massive hand. There was fire in his eyes. Crazy alertness. It was like he’d been awake for hours and was hitting his stride. The oil in his hair had already dried. “This woman thing isn’t going to work, Hemingway.”

            Connell had taken to calling me Hemingway. It was because one night he’d seen me wearing a sweater. I was still trying to figure out the exact connection, though obviously he only pictured the great writer in sweaters. It was annoying, because now I could only picture him in a sweater. A really gray, really comfortable one.  

“Let me in,” he repeated, adjusting the thick, gleaming knot of his red necktie. “And go away, Worthless,” he barked, waving at poor little Jackie.

            It was a tight spot. “I can’t let you in, sir. Whatever you have to say, it’s going to have to wait.”

            “To hell with that.” He growled about something being his. He might’ve been referring to the campaign, the staff, the strategy, the rules. I honestly couldn’t hear him. My brain had gone ten seconds into the future, where I was being read the riot act for my unchecked libido.

            My foot and shoulder were no match for the candidate’s heft. He was by me, searching for the light switch. I leaned my bare back against the wall and closed my eyes. Gail would be under the covers or caught in the open, naked. There were certain activities frowned upon on the road. One was shacking up with the local help. It was our duty to be as unsexed and wired as little Jackie at all times and in all places. It made sense. The scrutiny was hard to get your head around.

            The lights came on. Connell sat down on the end of the bed. There was no sign of Gail. There was a clear line of sight to the bathroom. Empty. With this new data, I thought it best to defend myself.

            “You need to know what’s going on,” said Connell. He didn’t look very dignified. His pant legs were almost halfway up his calf. For such a thick man, he had slender legs. I hated seeing them.  

            Sir, if I could,” I started. I had a case to make. Lies to tell. Wonderful Gail had been too good to be true. She was a vision that had apparently evaporated.

            “No, let me,” he continued, hunched over and rubbing his forehead. His perfect suit went wrinkly from the lack of posture. “The girl.”

            My eyes jammed closed.

            “I’m really sorry about all this,” he said.

            My eyes shot open. “Excuse me, sir?”

            “That face of yours. Ollie Andrews couldn’t attack me, so he went after you. It’s inexcusable.”

            “I’m not sure I understand.”

            Connell stood up brusquely and shoved his hands into his pockets, frittering with what sounded like a hundred dollars worth of loose change. “Andrews left five drunken voicemails last night. He knows about me and Bridget. He obviously came here last night and hit the first thing he saw.”

            “You and Bridget?”

            “Completely not a thing. And, even if it was, to come and do something like that…”

            Connell charged close and put his hands on the wall next to my head. The openings in his flat nose were dilated. He was expelling sulfur on my scrunched, battered face. He relaxed like defeat and dropped his head. “I’ll quit the race. And don’t worry about writing up the speech. It’ll look more dignified if I speak from the heart, tell the people straight.”

            “This is a lot to process.”

            “I’m very sorry, Hemingway. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

            I was thinking a lot. Clearly, Connell and Beautiful Bridget were a thing. I wasn’t hit out of Ollie’s fraternal duty to his brother’s usurpation. My assault was the result of Ollie’s jealousy toward the candidate. The girl wasn’t Gail. This had nothing to do with me. Except for getting knocked unconscious.

            It was a warm blanket of relief, and yet, I found myself saying the following: “Maybe you should take a minute before you do anything drastic.”

            “It’s no use. My wife will find out. My kids.”

            “Is this a first time thing?”

            “Not really. And my wife bounces between at least three men at any given time.”

            “Wow.”

            “You’ve seen my kids. They’re grown. The only thing they care about is my money and the businesses I’ve had to abandon for this fool’s errand. I’m sure they’ll revel in my failure.”

            “This is a lot to process.”

            “You said that already.”

            “Take it as an indication that I’m being truthful. Sir?”

            “Ask.”

            “Would you mind stepping back a bit?”

            “Sorry, kid.”

            “That’s okay. I’ve seen you in the mornings.” With room to breathe, I let the thousand thoughts swirling in my head collect into manageable pockets. “Do you want to resign?”

            “It’s really not about what I want at this point.”

            “Small.”

            “Speak plain, Hemingway.”

            “This may be small. Something you can work around. Does Oliver have any tangible proof?”

            “He didn’t mention anything concrete. But he suspects. And whatever the case, it’s true. I was lying a minute ago.”

            “So he may not have anything at all. I’m not saying it’s possible to kill this in the crib, but at least find out. If so, it’s small. You move by it, go back to slaying your giants. All that stuff you said to me when we met.”

            Karl Connell turned sideways and started sifting the change in his pockets once more, lost in contemplation. I considered putting on a shirt, but instead leaned back against the wall. What was I doing? I had a clear way out. Torpedoing my clean escape from the world of politics unscathed had been a constant desire since the day Nelson Andrews knocked on my door:

            I’m working on my next novel, I told him. Fifty-thousand words so far. Thereabouts.

            He inquired as to how to when it might be finished.  

            I’m actually going through a bit of a lull, I said.

            He looked at the state of my flat and wondered how I was fixed for money. A question he and most of the people I went to school with never had to ask once in their lives.

            I’m a little lean. The last one didn’t exactly break any records.

            Nelson walked his casual blueblood walk, interacting with my living room with an elevated nose and one arm pulled behind his back, as if he were rounding a pond like a priggish Henry James character. He began to describe my own history to me as if I hadn’t been there for it. The degrees from Texas, Yale, and Oxford. How I should at the very least be teaching full-time at a distinguished institution. Wondering if I recalled outshining him and most everyone in most every class. That writing novels in the twenty-first century made as much sense as enlisting a horse and buggy for a trip down the  expressway. He wounded my pride and sense of direction, but he killed me with money. It’s a paying gig, he added, and all you ever talked about at Yale was the magic of making the rent with words.

            I’ll try it, but no promises.     

            He assented. To him, I was worth the risk.

            I’m serious. No commitments. Nothing I can’t get out of the second it feels unmanageable.

            Two days later I was an anonymous part of the retinue, slumping wherever I walked, finding dark corners, passing Nelson notes; we became schoolgirls in the hallway between classes. Now he was gone. His brother had thrown me a beating. And I was inexplicably talking myself and Connell into keeping the train rolling.

            Light was beginning to poke through the thick curtains. “I have people that can look into these things.”

            “Yes you do. There’s people everywhere around here. They’re all yours.”

            The candidate slapped his time-worn cheeks and reengaged his standard bombast. “If we make it through the day, you’re going to have a check for fifty-thousand dollars waiting at the next stop. A bonus.”

            “Sir, I’m not even sure that’s legal.”

            “Are you the legal guy? I thought you were the word guy?”

            “I’m the word guy.”

            “Don’t worry about the law. This is America, son. Nobody ever got to the top worrying about the law.”

He shook my hand and offered an expression of gratitude and resolve. “I’m sorry about your face. And do I need to say it?”

            “I can’t talk about this. Ever.”

            “This can’t leave the room. I’ll make you sign something. Something legally binding.”

            Considering what he’d just said, I thought he was joking. He wasn’t.

            “I wouldn’t even entertain it. But the fact that it’s you. That’s why I may go on.”

            “Sir?”

            “Sycophants. That’s all there are. All except you, Hemingway. You don’t give a damn. This is beneath you, and yet you care. There’s something to that. Maybe I’m worth saving. Just maybe. And Harold…”

            “Sir.”

            “Really am sorry about your face. No matter what happens with everything else, I’ll make it up to you. That’s my word.” It was a few seconds of true tenderness, and then once again he was a heaving mass of energy, out the door to sift the fallout of his dalliance with Beautiful Bridget.

            I looked down at my bare feet. The motion of this life was so rapid. It didn’t allow for much more than flash reaction.

            “That was kind of hilarious. And kind of strange.”

            Gail poked her head from the curtains. Not a magician or a figment, after all. I smiled immediately and then went immediately cold.

            Hopping back into the bed she said, “Don’t worry. I can see that you’re worrying. Don’t.”

            Of course I was worrying. The man who might still be the front runner for president had just unwittingly spilled his guts to my one-night-stand. 

            “Come back to bed. I don’t have class for two more hours, and you may not have a job at all.”

            There wasn’t much in the way of an objection. We made some of the sleepiest, coziest love two strangers had ever made. That’s how it felt, anyway.

            I rolled over and looked at the clock. Eight. No news. No rapping on the door from Jackie. I could infer nothing. In less than two hours I’d made the journey back to caring very little about my job, but I did care for the woman next to me. Though I might never see her again, I couldn’t betray the small time we’d spent together by avoiding what needed addressing.

“Dammit,” I sighed, staring at the ceiling while she played with the hair over my ear.

            “Tell me.”

            “How are you so relaxed? You sound really relaxed.”

            “Buddy, if that didn’t relax you, nothing will.”

            “I need to say some things.”

            “Okay.”

            “All that stuff you heard. It’s up to you. I mean, you’re a person. Rights and protection and a woman and everything.”

            “A woman and everything,” Gail repeated, barely opening her lips. She was mocking me, but too calm to sting. Half of her face was planted on the bed where the pillows once were. “Are your speeches this eloquent?”

            “It could be serious. I’m not telling you what to do. I’m really not.”

            “I think I believe you. But seriously. Why did you tell him to stick it out?”

            In one night this woman had me figured out perfectly. She was already asking the same questions I was asking myself. It was either a testament to my transparent nature or my shallowness or both. “Not sure. It was like for a minute he was just another guy and I was trying to say it’s not the end of the world. You say things like that to people. Only, he’s not people.”

            “Seemed human to me. As crazy as the next one. Crazier, maybe, but that’s partially because we think he shouldn’t be. Us thinking he’s above being a little crazy because he’s running for office makes us crazier, could be.”

            I was in love. I might not be in an hour, but I was right then. Gail Frasier could make sweet love and talk elegant sense back-to-back. “Can we stay here for a few weeks?” I asked.

            “Don’t trust me,” Gail said, still motionless.

            “Hey.”

            “Seriously. It’s not logical. You can’t trust people. I promise I don’t want any involvement, but the stakes are too high for you to just go take my word for it.”

            She went on to explain that if Connell’s affair was still a secret, it might be wise to remind the guy that hit me that there was a witness. “Say I’ll testify. No way he won’t cut a deal. Or whatever these people do. I think that could work. Everyone’s happy.”

            I was more in love. It scared me that Gail Frasier was so clever and calculating, but not enough to make a mark.

“Wow,” I said. “That’s really good.”

            “I want to nap.”

            “Thought you had class?”

            “Who cares. Read to me. That book over there.” She closed her eyes and drew closer, waiting for a story. I turned on the bedside lamp and started from where I’d last left off.

            “What is it?” she asked.

            “It’s called Notes on Weather and Roads. By Davidson G. Wright.”

            “Sounds horrible.”

            “Yeah, but it’s not. It’s about a group of people that find all these crazy deep messages in the mundane everyday happenings of existence. Like finding the meaning of life just by living. It’s heartening.”

            Gail’s voice was growing softer. “You’re the opposite. In a cute way.”

            “What?”

            “You’re at the center of everything, and you roll your eyes.”

            She was asleep before I could start reading. And I was still in love.

Entry Four: Magical Places—Grady—Son of a Bitch

            Ten days later, and somehow we’d managed to come through. The situation appeared as if it was healing faster than my face. Campaign staffers buzzed all around as we went from small town to small town. The middle of the country was nothing like I’d been told. While Bridget directed the fold, I snuck away to explore magical places like feed stores and family diners where magical people looked you in the eye and told you what they were thinking. It helped my work. A little bit of Americana was seeping into my speechwriting, a quality sorely lacking in Connell’s perceived persona. He’d always been amiable to crowds, even electric, but the man needed some grounding. Life as a venture capitalist didn’t make him the most relatable figure in America, but most folks didn’t expect a friend. The people inside the magical places weren’t naïve in the ways I was told. They figured on being lied to and realized that was the way things were; they’d vote, if at all, for the man or woman they could trust the most or distrust the least. As I began to lose track of the towns, it became clear that the magical people were far wiser than the people with three degrees and a view of the ocean. They could see us on TV and hear us on the radio, after all. To us, they were mere imaginings to be used for power or political gain.

In the end, they still were. I was talking to a man named Grady at a barber shop as he swept up my hair when it occurred to me it wasn’t just conversation; I was mining him for information on the plight of the common man. “I just wonder about my grandson. There ain’t much work around here,” he said, shaking his head with a kind of practiced reservation. “Ain’t much work at all.”

            I snuck a glance in the mirror and glanced at my new style. Tight on the sides, with just enough left on top to do something stylish. Grady was pretty good. In New York the same job would’ve cost me a hundred bucks. The back of my neck felt tingly and new; it had been years since I’d gotten a straight-razor shave. “Not bad,” I said, turning back toward Grady.

            “You’re a good-looking kid,” he said, finishing up with clippings. “Need to remember to keep your left up, though.” My hand shot toward the wounds healing around my eyes and nose. “Guess politics is as tough as they say.” He laughed a little, but not enough to be intrusive or rude. I realized that Grady wasn’t just a barber. He actually listened to people as he cut their hair, and he knew how to respond. An occasional jest. A little free advice. A few measures of silence. It was instinct. I realized that I could probably learn a lot from Grady. For a moment I thought about taking him with me. That would really get the worker bees in the campaign talking. What makes Harry Abbot so important? And what’s with the old pocked-faced man that keeps following him around wearing a barber’s apron?

            “How long you been at this gig, Grady?”

            “Forty years, thereabouts.”

            “Same place?”

            “Opened up right here on main street.”

            “You think things have gotten better or worse?”

            Grady leaned his hair mop against the wall and straightened his back. He was a sturdy man with big forearms and head full of gray hair. His appearance was suffering a bit, though it hinted at a time when the young ladies in town might’ve secretly wished for his advances. “Better or worse. Hard answering questions like that. You need a poet or a priest to handle that one.”

            “Poet or a priest?”