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                     Stabbing Roils Neighborhood          

Oxburg, Md., Aug. 8, 2011. An apparent dispute over dog poo led to a violent confrontation in the 1800 block of Peanut Blvd. at approximately 11 a.m. on Monday. A homeowner approached a dog owner, demanding that the latter remove from the former’s front yard a substantial, although minor, amount of excrement newly evacuated by the dog owner’s pooch. When the dog owner suggested the homeowner clean up his property himself “since you are right here anyway,” the homeowner took offense. Brandishing a K-bar knife of Vietnam War vintage, the homeowner stabbed the dog owner several times, inflicting life-threatening injuries.

          The neighbors immediately called an ambulance. The victim is currently in stable condition at Suburban Hospital.

          Arrested by the police soon after the incident, the homeowner expressed remorse. “The guy kind of just flipped his lid,” according to Sheriff Emeritus Aloysius Horner.

           A witness described the sequence of events as “bizarre, unfathomable and horrific.”

           The identities of both perpetrator and victim remain at this time confidential, pending a fuller police investigation.

                                                            *

           The “witness,” standing like a jerk on the sidewalk, holding a yard sign in each hand, was me. Not the greatest way to start my day.

                                                            *

            It was a home masquerading as a warehouse. Two enormous white doors graced the front, exiting directly onto the street. There wasn’t even a sidewalk. Halfway down one side, I found the steps, door and doorbell. Jungle growth filled the yard, elephant grass and squat cacti sprouting quills. I cut myself on the enormous green leaves of a rubber plant, just trying to reach the door.

            Sweating in the suffocating humidity of another scorcher, I take time out to admire the incredible collection of gargoyles that litter the property. Beaked phoenixes rise from the bushes. Mexican death masks adorn the walls. Skeletal dolls nestle in the foliage, creeping me out. They seem to watch me, leering. Most unsettling, at the door, there is a life-size blue sculpture of a cat. I’ve never seen anything quite like this. A pharaonic feline, dating back to the Egyptian pharaohs, it is truly awful. Like no cat I’ve ever encountered, the back is surrealistically arched. The mouth is a vicious maw of pointed teeth. The paws sport five toes apiece, the nails sinuously long and razor sharp. The tail… the blue tail arches up over the back of the sculpture, impossibly long and thick, like the stinger on a scorpion.

            Scary sculpture.

            I hear yowling in the grass, but I’ve already pushed the doorbell. I hold aloft my Anna Bola For Attorney General yard sign in front of me.

            When she opens the door, I am struck by how tall she is. Whippet thin, gaunt, enormous brown eyes staring from a craggy face, she is dressed in a peasant blouse and denim jeans. We’re the same height.

            Then the smell overwhelms me.

            Incense, musk and dust, in equal measure.

            Raising her right hand, holding the door with her left, she announces, “You are very hot.”

            I AM DYING IN THIS HEAT.

            A serious little frown creases her forehead. Standing perfectly still, she tells me, “You are so tired.” The accent is thickly Chicano, but the words intelligible.

            I feel worn out. I am also gagging on the scent.

            “You are not well,” she says huskily.

            Immediately, I feel deathly ill. So ill, I drop the yard sign and have to hold on to the brass railing to keep from falling down the concrete steps. As it is, I feel myself swaying like a drunken sailor.

            “You need to lie down,” she says, all but gathering me in her surprisingly strong arms and virtually carrying me inside her house. Stumbling, with her help, I make it to a dusty sofa and collapse astride it. A minute or two pass amidst waves of nausea, my face inches from the floor. I sense her manhandling me onto my back. A cold, wet towel descends onto my forehead, the relief almost indescribable.

            “You’re tired,” she coos, hovering over me. “You need to sleep.”

            I pass out.

            I awaken on the same sofa. The front door is closed. My yard sign leans crazily against the wall. I no longer feel like death warmed over, but the same glut of incense, musk and dust leaves me thick-headed. How can anyone live this way? I wonder. Open some doors and windows, for God’s sake. Let some air into this room!

            “You’re awake,” she observes. A Selma Hayek beauty, I find her physically attractive. The surroundings, I find repulsive. “Drink this,” she says, handing me a coffee mug of steaming liquid.

            “What—“

            “It’s hot tea with cloves. Sit up or you’ll burn yourself.” Joining me on the sofa, pressed against me, she helps me to sit up straight. I can’t believe how weak I feel.

            “I can’t believe how weak I feel!”

            “It’s the heat,” she assures me, blowing her cool breath over my face through blood red lips. She smells of peppermint.

            “Your breath smells of peppermint.”

            “No, it’s the cloves,” she corrects me.

            I sip the scalding tea.

            “Breathe in, breathe in the cleansing steam,” she admonishes me. “It’ll clear your head.”

            So I sit there breathing scented steam from the coffee mug clutched in her hands. Her nails are long, slender, sharp and painted blood red.

            “You’re tired,” she says, putting the mug on the coffee table. “You need to sleep.”

            I pass out for the second time.

            “I am in deep shit here,” is my last, panicky thought. After that, I feel myself hanging, suspended, in a black void. No sound. No light. Nothingness.

            A wave of refreshing coolness quickens me into wakefulness. It is dark out. Night. I don’t see my hostess, but a fresh, cold, wet towel has been draped over my sweaty brow. Water droplets run down my cheeks, soaking the sofa fabric.

            I take a preliminary inventory. The brain seems to be working, but the body is totally immobile. I can’t lift a finger. I’ve never felt such lethargy.

            She comes back and feeds me cold tea with a spoon. “It’s herbal tea,” she explains. “It’s important you drink it all. Otherwise, it won’t be effective. What’s your telephone number?”

            “My telephone number?”

            “Do you live with someone? It would be courteous to tell your wife or fiancée that you are all right. Also, they might otherwise telephone the police. You’re not a missing person, after all. You are here!”

            “I live with my mother.”

            “Give me the number,” she suggests in her husky baritone.

            She dials the number and presses the cordless phone to my ear. “Tell your mother you are all right, but you will be spending the night with a friend.”

            I hear the signal, the phone is ringing. Brat, brat, brat.

            “Hello?” answers my mom.

            “Hi,” I sigh. “It’s Kevin. I’m still with the campaign. I’ll be sleeping over here tonight.”

            “What about dinner!?” my mom insists. “I’ve cooked pot roast. Where are you?”

            “You can’t talk more. You’ll call and explain everything tomorrow,” my strange companion suggests.

            “I can’t talk more,” I tell my mom. “I’ll call and explain everything tomorrow.”

            My hostess plops the phone on the coffee table, severing the connection. “You need to get up now,” she tells me, helping me to my feet. “There’s a bed in the back room.”

            I stumble into another room. Candles are burning everywhere, dozens of them, on metal trays, in candleholders, in table candelabra. An overpowering stench of wax sends me sprawling onto the floor.

            “Get up slowly,” she says.

            I feel as if I’m levitating. I feel myself floating over the bed. Flat on my back, she tucks the edges of a scratchy, gray, wool blanket under my shoulders and around my neck.

            “I’ll see you in the morning.”

            I see her long before that. I see her, through the open doorway, feeding her cats. I see her come into the room I am in and draw a pentagram on the floor. She throws white powder into the air. As it wafts over the lit candles, it disappears in a gentle poof!

            In the morning, I find, if I hold myself astride the bed, I can just barely stand. She finds me stuck that way, unable to stand up straight or even fall back onto the bed. She unhinges my cramped hands and lowers me onto the bed. Lying on my back, I gaze up at her.

            “What’s wrong with me?” I gasp.

            “It takes time to get used to a new environment,” she tells me. “But you’re much better today. You are making good progress.”

            That morning, she brings me a breakfast tray and actually helps me drink a glass of grapefruit juice, eat a piece of buttered toast and consume another cup of her herbal tea.

            With her all but carrying me, I cross the floor to the bathroom in a shambling walk. She sits me on the toilet and my cock burns like the fires of Hell as I urinate. “Jesus, that hurts!” I grunt, feeling sweat break out on my forehead.

            “You’ve been sick,” she explains in that same maddeningly reasonable tone of voice.

            I’VE BEEN SICK.

            “I have to accept the fact that I’ve been unwell,” I tell her as she helps me back to bed.

            “You need to stay here and recuperate,” she suggests evenly, tucking me in.

             I NEED TO STAY HERE AND RECUPERATE.

            “I need to stay here and recuperate,” I tell her.

            “Of course,” she agrees, shaking her head. I keep staring at her jet black hair and the wide band of mascara over each eyelid. “Soon you’ll be well and can resume a normal, productive life.”

           “Soon, I’ll be well and can resume a normal, productive life,” I assure her.

           She massages my shoulders, neck and arms.

           I feel a tiny spasm of arousal.

           “No. Not that,” she says, getting up quickly and leaving the room. She comes back with an old-fashion music box. Winding it up, she pushes the switch. Clinky, clanky, tinkle, tinkle music fills the room. She leaves the box on the night table. Whenever it runs down, she comes back in the room and winds it up again.

            The music irritates the shit out of me.

            “Your music box irritates the shit out of me,” I inform her.

            “Actually,” she says, “you like it.”

            Oh. Listening, I realize that I kind of like it.

            “You look tired and should sleep.”

             I pass the day in a haze of tinkling music, sweet herbal tea, strange and undefined dreams, and a fever headache. Every few hours, she leads me to the bathroom. I have yet to defecate, but I urinate profusely. Probably from the tea. The burning is still present, but less and less each time.

            In the afternoon, she perches herself on the edge of the bed and hands me the cordless phone.

            “Look at me! Look into my eyes.”

            “Th-They’re huge. They’re black.”

            “That’s the light,” she assures me. “They’re actually dark brown. I want you to call your mother and tell her you’ve fallen ill. You’re staying with a buddy from the political campaign. His name is Raymond Dix. Here’s his phone number. Say his name.”

            “Raymond Dix.”

            “Call your mother. Tell her you’re getting better and will be home in a day or two. Give her that phone number. Tell her not to worry.”

            “But when—“

            “Look at me… Look into my eyes… Now call your mother.”

            Well, I call my mom, tell her I’ve gotten food poisoning. I’m recovering at Raymond Dix’s place. I’m not sure of the address, but I give her the phone number. When she wants to talk to him, I tell her— quite truthfully— that he isn’t there!

           “Tell her not to worry,” my strangely detached wardress whispers in my ear.

          “Don’t worry, mom, I’ll be home before you know it,” I joke.

          “Hang up.”

           I push the OFF button on the cordless phone.

           More music therapy. Hard-boiled eggs and toast.

            Hurrah, I defecate, my viscera writhing like a cobra. Bent over, I can’t believe the pain.

            “You’re fine, you are pain-free,” she tells me, pressing her hands to my head.

            The pain stops.

            Instantly.

           My body continues to squirm, but it no longer hurts. “How long?” I gasp.

           “Not long. You’re growing accustomed to… a new set of circumstances,” she tells me. “Imagine you’re in a bookstore, buying books.”

          “Why?” I ask.

           “It helps to take your mind off… other things. Think of yourself at the beach, lying in the sun, the soft roar of the ocean ringing in your ears.”

           Returning to bed, I lay, basking in the sun, the soft roar of the ocean ringing in my ears. It’s great.

           That afternoon, she gives me pills. I don’t know what they’re for, but they make me groggy and then send me into a total void. Utter blackness, no thought, no sound, no nothing.

          When I awake, a number of things have changed.

           The doors and windows are wide open, admitting a cool breeze and tons of daylight. She sits in a wicker chair and stares at me from across the room, a curious, rueful smile playing around the corners of her mouth.

          “What’s your name?” I ask her.

           “You know my name. It’s on your list. The list you brought in your car when you came with the yard sign.”

           “I don’t remember.”

           “Christina Fabiola.”

           “Oh.” Really, it doesn’t mean anything to me.

           “You have a great friend in Anna Bola,” she tells me.

           “Yeah. Yes. Anna and I are great friends. She—“

           “She sends her regards! Come! Let’s walk in the garden.”

            As creaky as a caterpillar tractor, every joint cracking, I manage to stand, trundle to the bathroom, take a leak and join her outside on a tiny cement patio. Pussycats howl and hiss from among the foliage. 

            A high, brown palisade fence masks her backyard from the neighbors. A wraith in a white hospital gown stumbles amid monstrous blue wisteria, saw grass, ragweed, nightshade, chickweed, honeysuckle and wild cabbage. The victim of some terrible accident, one eyelid is sown shut and even from a distance, I can ascertain multiple scars about his body.

           “Raymond!” she calls. “Come here!”

           We descend into the yard. He drifts over to us, his one eye glassy, his glance seemingly unable to focus. He keeps craning his head to look at the sky.

           “What the hell happened to him?” I ask.

           “This is Raymond Dix,” she explains. “He’s one of my organ donors.”

          “Your organ donors?”

          “My dear,” she says, touching my arm playfully. Why does this gentle, languid touch send electric shock waves through my body? Where’s the 12-volt car battery, hidden under her billowy peasant skirt? “I am an organ harvester. It’s my profession. Raymond, say something to the nice man!”

          “Aaaaauuuugh,” Raymond moans.

          “Stop that!” Christina snaps. “You can still talk if you exert yourself!”

          “H-H-Hell-lo,” he declares in a voice that sounds fifty thousand miles away and beyond the clouds.

          “Hello,” I reply.

          “Y-Y-You… I-I-I… C-C-Christina!”

          “You, me and Christina, yeah, right.”

          “Y-Y-You… she help you!”

           I look at Christina.

           “I’ll let you two talk,” she suggests generously, walking away amidst the ragweed and honeysuckle.

          “What is with you, Raymond?” I ask sincerely. “How long have you been here?”

          “L-L-Long time. Awhile. C-C-Christina helps me. She’s my friend.”

          “Have you been in an accident?”

          “No. No accident,” he replies, looking confused. “Have you… accident?”

          “No. But you’ve got some scars,” I point out. “What happened to your eye?”

           “M-M-My eye?” he asks and starts feeling all over his face with his hands, moaning. He makes this low guttural sound, his body heaving in sobs, as he seems to search for his…other…eye under the stitches.

           “Raymond! Stop that! Come here!” Christina shouts angrily, marching up and pulling him to her. Caressing him as though he were a little kitten, she whispers soft endearments in his ear.

           Quickly, visibly, he begins to relax, an idiot smile suffusing his face.

           “Now, scoot!” Christina coaxes him, pushing him away. “Go walk in the garden. You like the garden, Raymond.” Turning to me, she says, “Come.”

           We return to the house.

           “He’ll do anything I tell him,” she explains evenly. “Just the same as you. Of course, I’ve harvested several organs from him. Really, I’m afraid he doesn’t have very much longer to live. There’s a liver transplant, his other lung, his remaining kidney, even heart tissue that needs to be salvaged. More corneal tissue. Muscle tissue. Skin, of course. Burn victims often need skin transplants.”

           “Whoa!… Wow! I mean, what are you saying?”

            “You were next, my little friend. My next victim, my next patient. That’s why I say Anna is such a good friend of yours. When you desapareció de la vista, she suspected what had happened. She had that man Eric check the list they had given you. That confirmed it. I don’t answer my phone, but she came here herself last night and asked my pardon. I’ve known her for years. We go way back. So I put you on an IV and got you hydrated and healthy enough to rise, this morning, from the living dead. Isn’t that nice of me?”

            “You’re some kind of bitch!”

            “No, I’m not,” she says in that maddeningly even voice of hers. “You’re grateful for everything I’ve done for you.”

             I AM. I’M VERY GRATEFUL. FOR EVERYTHING. SHE’S DONE FOR ME!

            “Really,” I explain, “I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done for me, Christina. What I don’t get… I mean, how do you do that? Christina? Make people…you know, receptive, to your… suggestions. Drugs?”

            “I thought you knew!” she actually laughs.

             I can’t take my eyes off her. I feel as if I am seeing the real Christina for the first time. An Antichrist? A relic of 1920’s style, she sports pencil-thin eyebrows, her hair pulled back in a widow’s peak, held in place with tortoise shell combs. Her skin is glossy and luminescent, her eyelids heavy with mascara. Tiny white teeth as sharp as knives. A round little chin and a bow mouth the color of blood. One spooky lady.

             Who is this woman? This China doll who defies understanding?

             Still chuckling, she waves a hand at me and says, “I’m a witch!”

             “Jesus! Why don’t you go back to Mexico?” I ask. “Do you have any kind of a life here?”

             “I have a very good life. I’m not afraid to work hard. I have my cats, my garden, men friends, women friends. We go rumba dancing, we make trips to South America. Life is good! In Mexico, they’d recognize me instantly. La bruja. They would hunt me down and kill me.”

             “Don’t you ever get… in trouble? Regarding your… profession? It sure seems odd to have this taking place in the middle… of Oxburg, Maryland.”

            “It’s true, no one would suspect!” she agrees. “But I put a hex on anyone who looks to get in my way. My friends, them I don’t touch with maldad.”

             “I wouldn’t ever tell anybody,” I mention. “At least, I don’t think I would—“

             She gives a husky laugh. “Get down on the floor and bark like a dog!”

              I get down on all fours, between the coffee table and her chair, and go “Arf! Arf! Woof! “

             “Get up! I need to show you something else.” She gets me a glossy plastic apron. “Put it on.” Rubber gloves. “Put them on!” She hands me a machete and leads me into the kitchen where there is an enormous chopping block— on legs. “It’s an actual butcher’s block,” she explains. Stepping outside, she brings in a cardboard shoebox punched with air holes. “Come here, my little sweetums,” she croons like an American woman, lifting a fat, chirping guinea pig from the shoebox. “Take the guinea pig in your left hand. Hold him by the body. Hard or he’ll squirm loose on you. Be very careful,” she says, spreading paper towels in abundance on the chopping block. “I want you to take the machete and chop off the guinea pig’s head. But carefully!”

                I hold the guinea pig with my left hand, and he’s not really fighting me. He kind of chirps worriedly as I lift the machete, but I bring it down so swiftly and forcefully, everything is over in a single second. The still squirming body spews blood everywhere, but Christina is all smiles.

                “See?” she asks. “¿Comprendes? You are just like Raymond Dix. You must always do anything and everything I tell you, my little one. It’s not something to discuss. You will always be this way. I have cast a spell on you. Duradero. You and I will always be as one.”

                “Jesus Christ,” I say. I’m still standing there, looking at the shiny red blood splattered all over the butcher’s block, my apron and the paper towels. Gently, I plop the lifeless torso of our little friend on top of the paper towels. “You’re as bad as Carrie Ann Winslow.”

                “Who is that?” Christina asks in the same level voice, but I see how her eyes narrow.

                 “Now take it easy,” I ask, no, I beg her. “She’s just some young girl who has her hooks into me. She’s been in Europa and she’s coming home and… Well, all I mean is, no offense, but she also makes me do absolutely anything she says. That’s all I meant. Please. No curses. No hexes. She’s a sweet kid,” I end, lamely.

                “Look at me… Look into my eyes… You are free of this woman. This Carrie Ann no longer holds any interest for you. You find her boring. Her voice annoys you, like a cat’s claw scraping on glass. Everything she says strikes you as stupid. ¿Comprendes? This is my gift to you because we are friends and we are linked by a psychic bond. Maybe some other young girl, that is your business. But this relationship is terminado. No more!”

             So, cleaning up the mess after the slaughter of an innocent guinea pig, I can now rejoice in my new-found freedom from Carrie Ann Winslow.

             Life is becoming perverse. 

                                                        *

            I come home. Mom is no longer concerned with where I’ve been. “Are you all right?” she asks, looking worriedly at my pale visage.

            “I feel weird,” I mumble. “I’m going to bed.”

            After a lifetime spent living with a hypochondriac for a husband, naturally she asks, “Do you want chicken soup?”

            “I couldn’t eat a thing.” Just making it upstairs is heavy weather. The house has wall to wall carpeting. I sleep on the floor. I throw down a blanket, spread a sheet on top, and roll myself up inside my cocoon. A pillow for my head is heavenly, but completely optional. I have slept on concrete floors in war zones with my face pressed to the pavement. That doesn’t bother me. I like achy cheekbones.

            At least usually I do. You have to understand, I am due back at the campaign at 10 a.m., but that hardly accounts for half my day. First, bathed in sweat, sitting on the toilet, bent over in cramps, I evacuate everything I’ve eaten in the last three days. My bowels churn, my ass burns. I take a quick shower. Then I have to roll our trash bins—the black plastic garbage bin and the blue recycling bin—across the street for morning pickup. I’ve already missed collection on our side of the street the day before.

            At 7:45 in the morning, I drive my mom’s car to the local garage for an oil change. With the recession, people are spending additional coin on their autos, rather than buying new. The appointment has been made way in advance. I leave the car and walk home, suffering a new bout of cramps, waves of nausea leaving black spots before my eyes. A 20-minute walk, once again I am drenched in sweat. I seriously ain’t sure I can make it. My feet won’t move.

            Breakfast isn’t even a possibility. I drink, gingerly, a cup of coffee with lots of scalded milk in it.    

            Ma voiture needs to be topped up with coolant, which I do.

            I take a second shower of the day and put on a decent pair of shorts and a plain white T-shirt. I pack a bagel with cheese and an apple in my brown paper lunch bag. I fill my briefcase with eyeglasses, sunglasses, instant coffee, my own personal coffee cup, cellphone, ballpoint pens, a map of Maryland, paper towels for wiping down yard signs and smoothing the rust off the metal legs. A collection of brochures, handbills, cards and mapquest printouts from previous excursions.

             Then I telephone and leave a message for Boopsie, my filmmaking collaborator, telling him I still live, but just barely. “Boy, will we ever get a screenplay out of this one!” I say. “So don’t be angry.”

            Now, finally, still a little tipsy, I drive to Anna’s house and arrive around 10:10 in the morning. Eric is on the phone, earbuds stuck in his ears, talking via computer. Judith and Anna are busy writing and signing checks. An intern with spiky black hair is typing on a laptop, his back to me. I take my water bottle into the kitchen and refill it. Draining it in the ten-minute drive over here does not bode well for the rest of the day. August, it’s already hot as blazes out there.

              Since Eric is busy, I boil up some water and have another cup of Joe with milk.

              “Montgomery County, rights of way,” he says, welcoming me back. As always, he simply gives me the assignment. He never micromanages in my case, although I’ve seen him ride herd hard on the interns. I get out my map, paper and pen and start noting major thoroughfares.

             I go upstairs to filch additional sheets of scrap paper from the cardboard recycling carton. With printing on only one side, everyone uses the backs for notations. That’s when I notice new brochures I’ve never seen before, four different 8½ by 11 inch sheets of cardboard printed in full-color offset. Stacks of 100 in four different cardboard boxes. They’re like nothing relating to Anna Bola that I’ve ever seen before.

              Firstly, they are very dark. Lots of black borders. Two of them extol Anna, but in very gritty terms: “Anna Bola has gone head to head with the Governor, demanding equal benefits under the law for gays and lesbians in same-sex marriages. She continues fighting to include sexual orientation in Maryland’s hate crimes law.

            “Anna champions a woman’s right to choose. She has called on the Governor and the Statehouse in Annapolis to require Maryland insurers to cover birth control expenses for women. If elected, Anna will sponsor legislation to make this a reality.

            “Anna leads the way in fighting organized crime. Crime bosses, Latino gangs, corrupt union officials all know their time has passed with Anna Bola as the new Attorney General!”

            With the accompanying photographs, this is very potent stuff. So strong, I am checking the printed return address in the upper left-hand corner to be sure they really are being handed out by OUR campaign.

            They are.

            The two cards attacking Hiram Whiplash are even harsher. “Atrocities at an Exhibition,” they specifically accuse Hiram of… Well, read for yourself: “Hiram Whiplash’s ‘main client’ is Yuri Orlov, the famed Merchant of Death, an arms dealer whose many wares have spread death and devastation to all parts of Africa.

            “Hiram Whiplash recently admitted he is funding his campaign with blood money made from the sale of illicit diamonds smuggled out of Sierra Leone.

            “Hiram Whiplash has loaned his campaign $180,000 of his own money, but even today, he refuses to release a list of his law clients and/or business partners.

            “A major player on the spot market for illicit plutonium, there is reason to believe Hiram Whiplash has supplied Iran with nuclear fuel for their reactor program.”

             These statements bristle with footnotes, referring to Greenpeace reports and international arms commission testimony. Dates abound. Page numbers. University case studies are named.

            The color-scheme again is somber, the photographs appalling.

            I take one of each, go downstairs and slip them into my briefcase. If we’re making these kind of claims, I need to stay in the loop!

            Busy writing up my route for the day, I get interrupted by Eric. “Do you have any mailers?” he asks me.

            Mailers? “I don’t know what you mean,” I tell him. “Anna gave me these to hand out.” I show him a stack of small green cards.

            “No, those are handcards. I mean mailers. Did you take any mailers from upstairs?”

             “Huh? You mean, today? Yeah. Sure. Here,” I say, fishing the four cards out of my briefcase.

             “Those aren’t really for public consumption,” he tells me.

             “Oh. You never sent them out.”

             “No, no. We sent them out. The ones upstairs we want to keep.”

             “An archive. Okay. I can Xerox these at Kinko’s and return the originals.”

            “But why do you need them?”

            “Are you kidding? I’m out there knee-deep in yard signs. I represent this campaign. If we’re saying stuff, I gotta know.”

            “I don’t want that stuff to leave the upstairs office.”

            “So I should take them upstairs and take notes?” I ask.

             “Well, uh, yes.”

             So now I have to spend an hour copying longhand, verbatim, from the brochures because Eric is unhappy. While I’m busy pencil-pushing, Judith comes into the room and starts bashing things. Clump, clump! Clunk, clunk! It’s not my business and I’m pretty browned off about this tedious chore I am saddled with. When I come up for air, behold! All four cardboard boxes with the brochures are missing! They gone.

            Then, a not-so-funny incident occurs. Eric and Judith come upstairs and sit themselves adjacent to me and begin, on the Mac, perusing websites. “Look at this one!” Eric snickers. Chortle, chortle! Guffaw!

             I continue my writing assignment. They are baiting me. They want to see if the New Inquisitive Kevin is sticking his nose in their business. I don’t play that game. Eventually, I finish my note-taking and turn to Eric to point out the most salient facts I have gleaned from this literature. Z-Z-Zap! He pushes a button on the keyboard and the screen on the Mac goes blank. By now, I want to punch the guy in the face.

            My world darkens.

             I go downstairs looking for Judith. I’m holding the four cards in my hands and everyone is looking daggers at me. Anna, her husband, the intern. I’m thinking of what snide, stinky remark I should make when I give Judith the cards. “Here are your poison pen letters! Have some turds, turd blossom! Fucked is as Fucked does.” But I reconsider. Not finding her, I go down in the basement, looking for the four cardboard cartons. I can’t find where she has hidden them. Coming back upstairs, I find Judith in the kitchen. “Here!” I say, handing her the radioactive brochures.

           “Um, what?” she asks, flummoxed.

           “Put them with the others.”

           “Oh… Oh. Okay.”

            When I’m ready to leave on my rounds, I find Eric and Judith in the upstairs office. “I need to talk to you for 120 seconds,” I tell Eric. Holding aloft two fingers, I clarify, “Two minutes!”

           “We can talk right now.”

           “Alone!”

           “Oh, I just need my cellphone,” Judith says, grabbing it and scuttling out of the room.

            “I told you four weeks ago, I’ll tell you again,” I say, looking him very levelly in the eye. “Volunteers need a lot of petting and stroking. We only come in a few days a week and we always feel we are outside the campaign and the last to know anything. If you want me to work, you have to bend over backwards to make me feel part of this campaign. Include me! Obama does clueless. I don’t do clueless.“

            “I have a no-nonsense policy among the interns that nothing in this upstairs office leaves this room,” he tells me.

            “Cute!”

            He frowns.

            Tough titty.

            “Here! Hand out these. They have the endorsement announcement by The National Herald,” he suggests, handing me a stack of green cards from a box by the door.

             Pap. Vanilla. Bland. A waste of my precious time.

             “We’re not Tiger Woods and his former caddy,” I point out. “We’re not super-star athletes. We’re ordinary adults who can use the English language to communicate. Talk to me, Eric! If you want me out of here, just ask for my badge and I’m out of Dodge.”

             “Oh, no, we need you,” he tells me. “You are an integral part of this campaign. You provide work I can’t get from anyone else.”

             “As long as you are sure. Because I can’t stand out there on those scorched rights of way, pounding yard signs into the earth in 98 degree heat, if I feel unappreciated. That I cannot do! “

             “I appreciate you! I appreciate you!” he insists, shaking my hand. We leave it at that.

              It’s a campaign. Nothing is more temporary. Everyone wants to get as close to the candidate as they can. Everyone wants to wield power. Everyone wants a full-time, high-paying job at the end of their Herculean effort. And, maneuvering like hawks, no one helps anyone else or gives even an inch of ground. Exclusion is the name of the game! Campaign work is the ultimate ego trip. It’s all about Me-Me-Me.

            Not only has this campaign gone way negative— which Eric promised we wouldn’t do— I don’t see a lot of smiling faces. In fact, things look kind of dour.

            Plopping yard signs in the back seat of my car, a woman I don’t know exits the house. “Hi!” she calls, waving.

           “Hi!” I reply, holding aloft some signs. “I’m Kevin. I volunteer.”

           “Hi! I’m Jeanie. I live two blocks over. I just brought by a check.”

           “That’s always welcome!” I tease.

           “I didn’t think the election would be this close.”

           “You mean three weeks away?”

           “No, the surge in poll numbers for your opponent.”

            “I don’t get it,” I tell her. “What is so attractive about Hiram Whiplash? All right, I can understand that he’s got the Jewish vote. That makes sense, he’s one of theirs. They should support their man. But, otherwise, politically, his résumé is paper thin.”

           “I sure don’t know,” Jeanie tells me. We wish each other a good week.

            Two hours and 20 minutes later, I’ve knocked nine yard signs into the rock-hard earth and driven a total of 11 miles. “Fuck it!” I rant, sweat pouring off my nose and trickling to the ground in ropes of snot and perspiration. “Let Eric find some other sucker to do this chicken-cacky!”

           “You’re home early,” says mom.

            I tell her about the new, negative literature. “So I touched something radioactive and they all howled like scalded cats.”

            “You weren’t here,” she explains. “You called home sick. They sent those cards out to the four corners of the state, a few thousand here, a few thousand there. When they arrived in the mail, it made the local news shows. People did not like it. Your coworkers at campaign headquarters were hoping the incident would die a quiet death. When they saw you had copies of the cards, they panicked.”

              I take a third shower of the day, go upstairs and crawl into my cocoon.

             Over the dinner table, I complain about the freaky, annoyed looks I am getting from Anna’s husband Frank. “He seems to think we campaign workers have invaded his house, and he don’t like it. Added to everyone else’s paranoia, it makes for a lousy campaign!”

            “Oh,” says my mom, “that one’s easy. How old is Frank Reynolds?”

            “My age. We’re contemporaries.”

            By now, mom is out and out laughing. “Look in the mirror, dum-dum! Frank Reynolds is jealous. Here’s this good-looking son-of-a-bitch hanging around his wife! He probably said something to Anna. From what you’ve told me, I’m pretty sure she replied, ‘Kevin’s the greatest thing since sliced bread and indispensable to this campaign!’ How do you think that makes Frank feel? So, he’s jealous.”

           I’m still on the campaign trail, but the honeymoon phase is definitely over.

 

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