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            As a candidate for Attorney General of Maryland, Anna is composing position statements. “There is no such thing as a free lunch” begins her paper on “Using Laws to Regulate Industry Behavior.”

            She writes: “As we continue to curtail smoking in public areas and tax the tobacco industry into oblivion, both tobacco farmers and employees in the production, distribution and administration sectors of this industry are forced to retrench under increasing economic pressure in a shrinking corporate environment.

            “The push for solar power increases competition for raw materials in the production of power cells.

            “While the manufacture of PC’s, laptops, notebooks, tablets, gaming consoles, cameras, televisions, cell phones and smart phones creates jobs and drives a major sector of the economy— in hardware, software, networking and broadband— recycling is a constant issue. The alternative is a planet buried in e-waste, literally tons and tons of outdated and burned out electronic equipment full of mercury, metal and corrosives.

            “The desire for electric cars creates stresses in the lithium industry and possible trade imbalances vis-à-vis the few countries in the world rich in this mineral.

            “The proponents of ethanol production claimed they would be using the by-products of the corn industry—the husks, the cobs, the silk—to produce a fuel additive for gasoline. In reality, they are using the corn itself as their basic raw material. This has pitted human consumption of corn against the need to wean the public off petroleum. Drive and starve or eat and walk. A classic example of industry’s ‘bait and switch’ tactics, ‘the market’ has no corrective for this typically larcenous human behavior. It’s called greed. The ethanol people are greedy for quick profits.

            “Only through continued legislation can industry remain profitable, productive and non-destructive. Left to its own devices, ‘the market’ will trash the environment to the point of self-destruction.

            “Regulating and policing the fishing industry to prevent over-fishing some species to extinction creates short-term economic hardship in the communities dependent on fishing for their livelihood.

            “While gambling may seem an incurable human condition and, thus, a guaranteed source of revenue, gambling does not produce consumer goods or services in a particularly large proportion to the money accrued through this vice. Gambling havens have thriving hotel industries, restaurants and amenities, which create jobs and stimulate the local economy, but at what price to the households afflicted by this addiction? Is it in the public interest to skew the redistribution of wealth through horseracing, slot machines and state lotteries? Does the success of a gambling mecca have a punishing effect on surrounding states?

            “In regulating industrial development through the judicial process, the consequences of our actions must always be taken into account.”

            Wow! Heavy stuff. Apparently, the A.G. does more than grandstand on liquor sales, fight crime, hound illegal immigrants and position oneself to run for president.  Some intellectual thought, some actual work, is involved!

            “We have a population of 14,000 in Oxburg,” Anna laments when next we meet. “I don’t think Bogotá, Columbia will agree to become our Sister City.” 

                                                    *

             “Oxburg has sidewalks everywhere,” I report. “The same cannot be said about surrounding communities. Some have sidewalks in some areas, but not in others.

             “You told me to go look, so I drove around and looked. I’ve also telephoned to friends around the state. Some new suburbs are decidedly lacking in sidewalks.

             “State legislation may—“

             “What does the state sidewalk legislation say?” demands Eric.

              “I don’t know! I haven’t had time to look it up.”

              “Look it up!” he orders. “Sidewalks are a campaign issue!”

                                                      *

        The Proliferation of Yard Signs in Suburban Neighborhoods

                                              A Monograph

                 … many of those interviewed spoke of having experienced a sky blue colored, late model Honda Accord with license plate ZOT-2011 in the vicinity of their visitation.

            Surveillance cameras, newly installed, confirm this phenomenon.

            Upon contacting the candidate, however, her office claimed to lack all knowledge in the matter. “Is there a problem?” the alleged campaign manager responded when queried by phone.

            Laboratory analysis of the objects verified them to contain chemical elements associated with life on this planet, seemingly ruling out extra-terrestrial involvement at this time.

            MK Ultra influence may be prompting citizens to place these fetishistic totems on their lawns in preparation for an alien invasion from outer space. In a worst case scenario, only the households displaying the appropriate sign will be spared!

           Alternatively, the Rapture presupposes “a Sign upon the door posts of their houses.” This could be that sign!

           Further investigation is called for…

                                                       *

            “And this is, what?” I ask the interns, as I approach Anna’s house. It’s hot enough to melt lead and they’re out front playing some kind of game. If they were throwing a Frisbee, I could understand, but this is… what?

            “It’s Quidditch. You know, from Harry Potter?” one of the young men answers. “It’s really not hard to learn…”

            What New Age pharmaceutical concoction could motivate them, in this heat, to ride around on brooms like toddlers on hobby horses? 

            “I’m good!” I laugh, proceeding into the house. I call myself the campaign handyman: “I do the jobs that would drive everyone else crazy!”  But these youngsters always surprise me. I don’t know any of their names, but since we march in parades together and attended the debate and spend time at HQ, everyone knows Kevin, “the Dude Who Does.”

            These are the goals for every canvasser per shift: Knock on 80 doors. Have 60 conversations. Get 2 orders for yard signs. Find one volunteer.

            Every tenth shift, find a householder who wishes to invite Anna to their home to meet their friends in a personal event.  

            I don’t know whether these proportions are realistic, but the interns aren’t complaining or threatening to quit, the gas comp doesn’t seem to be sinking the campaign, and I have enough requests for y.s.’s to fill my days. Eric seems fulfilled, if not downright happy.

            Nothing beats success.

            “… Kevin has something to say,” Eric tells them, carried along on sheer motivational momentum. I mean, I never stick my nose in their business. Suddenly Kevin has something to say? A pro, Eric doesn’t let this strange occurrence faze him.

            “It’s hot out there, guys!” I tell them, joining their circle. “Stay hydrated!”

            Holding up their water bottles, they cheer, “ ‘Ray, Kevin!”

            I go back into the kitchen to finish preparing my coffee. Soon, I hear them let out a roar: “Let’s do this thing!”

            Within minutes, they have jumped in their cars and taken off.

                                                      *

            This kid comes to the house, lets himself in, then moons around, looking through all the paperwork. It’s not like we keep the front door locked. I’m there, eating my lunch in the kitchen. Eric, Anna and Judith are all upstairs together, having a video conference on the Mac with liaison from the current Attorney General’s office. “Can I help you?” I ask him.

             He’s plucking together papers from various folders. “I’m… mumble… mumble…mumble…” he replies.

            “Sorry, ace, try again. Mumbling won’t do it,” I tell him a little more sharply. A spy? Anything’s possible.

           “I need to get my packet together,” he half-whines.

           “Your… canvassing… materials?” I guess. Everyone else has left a half-hour ago.

          “Yeah!”

           “Look, why don’t you just go up and tell Eric you’re here? What’s your name?”

           “Paulie.”

           “Well, go up and knock on the bedroom door and put in an appearance.”

           “Ah, I can’t do that, man!” he moans.

           “Paulie, right?” I ask, taking the stairs two at a time. I quietly open the door and catch Eric’s eye. He gets up from his chair and comes over. “Paulie’s downstairs,” I whisper in his ear.

            “Ah, shit!” he murmurs, rolling his eyes. “Late as usual. Tell him I’ll be down shortly,” he sighs.

            “Why don’t you sit down and relax,” I tell Paulie. “You’ve got a couple of minutes.”

                                                      *

             Le jour arrive, the day comes when I arrive at Anna’s house and find Eric dressed in a dark blue knit T-shirt with the logo “Hard Rock Café, Stockholm.”

            “You’re kidding!”

             “I’ve traveled! Good grief…You’re Swedish. I’ve been waiting to spring this on you.”

            “When were you in Stockholm?”

            “Between junior and senior year at college. My ‘summer trip to Europe.’ Fight the crowds and admire the graffiti on the statues outside St. Mark’s Cathedral. Get food poisoning in Spain.”

           “Everybody gets diarrhea in Spain. It takes a few days for your body to adapt to their bacteria.”

          “Whatever!”

          “Cool!”

           “This tee dates me,” he remarks wistfully. “This has 1990 written all over it. Travel the big cities of the world collecting Hard Rock Café T-shirts. Today, the youngsters want busty Señor Frog tees, so girls can show off their breasts.”

           “Ah,” I laugh, “the 1990’s. Those were the days! If only we knew how well off we were. I brought back a glass head from Amsterdam—“

           “A glass head?”

           “A wig holder. A chunk of glass shaped like a head, hollow inside, so ladies could hang their wigs overnight. A surreal representation of a face. Very futuristically retro, like the face on the robot in the movie Metropolis. It was neat.”

         “Far out.”

          “Mucho chic.”

          “Still got it?”

           “Of course not. Taken to Goodwill. Recycled. Gone.”

           “Yeah,” Eric agrees. It is interesting to see a softer side to this campaign’s own Bobby Fisher.

                                                     *

             He has me drive to Hagerstown to deliver one yard sign. One! With stops on the way, of course, but still… The next day he has me drive to the ‘burbs west of Balto. This area I know, we have friends there. One Saturday in May, I attended a Bar Mitzvah outside Ellicott City. If there’s a city there, no one’s been able to find it.

             The parkways are majestic. Ribbons of concrete unwind before your car’s radiator grill, mile after mile of shrubbery-lined lanes, constantly interrupted by brown concrete walls lining the road to baffle the sound and keep it from bothering people in the neighborhoods. “Carbon Monoxide +30% – 60%, Carbon Dioxide + 20% -26%” for a simple speed hump, God only knows what people are breathing along the parkways.

            A glacial plain, scraped flat in the last Ice Age, the sun always seems to be shining, winter or summer. Erosion has produced those rolling hills.

            So I leave the parkway and make a left onto Wedding Cake Lane. I have a Google map: Turn left off the highway onto Wedding. A helicopter is chattering overhead. Careful not to run over any errant children, I keep my eye on the chopper. I do love helicopters. And this one is coming lower and lower, though it’s anybody’s guess where they’ll find room to land amidst the lawns and houses.

            I reach the bottom of the hill and… it’s a cul-de-sac! Where’s Baker Street? I’m sitting at the edge of a pebble redoubt that wends its way into a woods filled with fir trees. Also present, a big, brown police cruiser. Empty. State Police.

            I check the map again. I turned too soon. I want Wedding Road, not Wedding Cake Lane. As I start my car, a policeman and policewoman come out of the woods. My car’s already in gear. Coasting forward, I wave to them.

            They wave back.

            As I drive up the hill, I see them running in my rear view mirror.

            What to do? Stop? Don’t stop? I mean, this has nothing to do with me. “I took a wrong turn, officer.” They’re busy. I leave.

            With the heli still clattering away, I drive to the junction with Wedding Road. Many, many brown police cruisers, their roof racks blinking red, white and blue in the yellow sunlight. The way they’re arrayed along embankments and atop knolls, it looks like a Rambo-style manhunt is in progress, chasing a fugitive who has taken to the woods on foot.

            I find my address at the end of a street whose backyards taper into a woodland cascade, thick with mixed growth of every description. Brambles. Pine trees. Holly. Fir. Weeds.

            No one home, I choose the spot I hope the homeowner herself would like and shove in the yard sign. It sinks one inch and stops dead. Stones! The bane of my existence. I have to try four times before I get both spokes of the sign sufficiently deep in the soil, so the sign won’t flop over with the first puff of wind.

            It looks good.

            Pleased, I continue northeast to deliver a sign in Towson.

            “Is this all right?” I ask Judith, handing in my comp sheet. “Eric’s had me driving to Hagerstown and Balto. I’ve racked up a lot of miles this week.”

            “Are the odometer readings accurate?” she asks.

            “Well… yes!”

            “Fine! Listen, whatever you put down, we’re going to compensate you.”

            Which is to say, they are not “Fluffens,” the campaign treasurer. They aren’t going to demand I follow them out to my car to check the odometer. They trust me, which is nice considering how much water I carry for the campaign.

            I get home 6:30 in the evening and my mom gives me a wild look. “What have you been doing?” she demands, sounding like Ray’s mother in Everybody Loves Raymond. “The police called. Twice! They want you to call them back. Where were you?”

            “Delivering yard signs. That’s what I do on Thursdays.”

            “You were speeding? You hit someone? You totaled your car?” she asks, envisioning the worst.

            “No. No, no and no. I think I know what happened. But let me talk to the cops before I tell you.”

            I call the number and get a police detective who participated that very afternoon in the manhunt.

            “You’re the owner of the sky-blue 1999 Honda Accord with license plate ZOT-2011?”

            “Officially, my mom owns the car. It’s a 1998 Honda Accord. It’s her car. I live with her. She lets me drive it.”

            “Not that it has a bearing on this case, but does your insurance company know that?”

            “Of course! Yes. We have listed me as the driver of that vehicle.”

            “We’re curious to speak with you… Mister… Feingold… about your friendship with Charles Pike.”

            “Who?”

            “Charles William Pike. You had a rendezvous today to pick up Charles Pike at the edge of Bear Paw Woods.”

            “I’m sorry,” I snort, feeling like an idiot. “You mean at the bottom of Wedding Cake Lane?”

            “That’s right! So you admit it! You drove down there to pick up Mr. Pike. Are you aware, he’s a known fugitive?!”

            “Um, no. I… took the wrong road. I needed Wedding Road. I turned too soon and ended up on Wedding Cake Lane.”

            “Oh… people do that. My partner and I have done that! What about your friendship with Charles Pike?”

            “I don’t know who that is. I don’t… know the man. At all.”

            “Ah! Well, all right. You do understand that aiding and abetting a known criminal is punishable under the law? If things really go south, you can be charged as an accomplice, should he commit a crime during your involvement.”

            “I don’t know the man.”

            “But you do understand what I’m saying?”

            Aha! “We informed the alleged accomplice of his rights.”

            “Yes, officer, I understand. Aiding and abetting. An accomplice.”

            “Good! We’ll get back to you if we have anything further.”

            “Fine!”

            “Good night!”

            Sheesh! “Good night!”

           “What did you do, now?” grouses my mom.

                                                   *

              Eric: “What do we do about Sharpée? She pulls off her sticker, hands me her clipboard and announces ‘This isn’t working for me.’”

             Judith: “You can’t really fire her.”

             Kevin: “These kids don’t have a lot of years of experience in the workforce.”

             Judith: “She clears tables at a burger joint. Not a lot of people skills.”

            Susan: “She seems to have personality issues. She definitely does not get along with the group.”

           Kevin: “You have to let her go!”

           Judith: “You can’t really fire her.”

           Kevin: “On the outside, it seems hard-nosed, but the campaign can’t afford to be a training center in personal development. We don’t have the resources. Some of these kids need to mature before they’ll fit into a group project.”

            Eric: “She says her personal space is invaded by the people we canvas. That strikes me as kind of flaky. I can’t have a nut job out there representing Anna and the campaign.”

            Kevin: “You have to let her go! It benefits her and us.”

            Judith: “How does that benefit Sharpée?”

            We’re interrupted by the arrival on the front porch of… Sharpée!

                                                  *

             Hola, Anna!

            Antonio Rodriguez here, sending you a $25 contribución for your campaign (250 pesos in Mexican currency). Since U.S. law prohibit you take money from Family Rodriguez in Mexico, say it come from my cousin Manuel Vasquez who live in U.S. legally, but in State of Flux. ¿Comprendes?

            We need more Latinas in American law enforcement!

            Aj caramba, the recession hit even the drug trade, Anna, no one is free of these monster. Profits for first quarter not so good as last year, but we talking million $$$ ganancia. ¡Pujar para adentro! I don’t complain. Cocaine sales dip, marijuana shares go up. ¿Comprendes?

            You no contact me, I call on cell phone twice a day to you campaign, find out what you need. ¡We help!

            For Family Rodriguez,

                                                                        Antonio Rodriguez 

                                                      *