Angry Buddhist (9781609458867) (14 page)

 

I
don't know what you're crying about,” Randall says. “He's just some blogger. No one gives a flip what he says.”
“He said I had an affair!”

“The guy wrote that Mary Swain might have an illegitimate black kid hidden somewhere.”

“I don't care what he wrote about Mary Swain. I care what he wrote about me!” At this she dissolves into tears.

They are in the bedroom of their home and he is getting dressed for the Purity Ball. It's early evening but Kendra is under the covers, fully dressed in slacks, a blouse, and a sweater. She is able to do this because the air conditioning has cooled the house to the level of a meat locker.

“How do you even know it's a man? Can a man even be that bitchy?”

“I know a few,” Randall says, adjusting his cummerbund. “Look, Kendy, politics are bloody. They're going to say all kinds of things about you. If you can't take the heat . . . ”

“I know, I know, get out of the kitchen.” She completes the cliché and reaches for the bedside tissues. After loudly blowing her nose, she asks, “Could you possibly say something that I haven't heard a thousand times?”

“You should stop reading the Internet.”

“I wasn't. Maxon called to warn me. I still haven't looked at it.” She reaches for another tissue, blows her nose again. “What happened with that other problem?” Kendra does not want to assign a proper name to it, for fear of making it more real.

“We're letting it ride right now.”

“You seem awful calm about it.”

Randall coolly regards his wife. The hours he spent training to defuse live ordnance when he was on the bomb squad in the Army are a deep well from which to draw in civilian life. When faced with problems that occur in a campaign, even ones as spiky as Nadine, nothing compares with the possibility that one crossed wire might result in an explosion that could literally separate your torso from your legs.

“I'm not that worried.”

Randall takes a last glance in the mirror. In a tuxedo, he is a picture of elegant authority. Evaluating himself, he decides his mane is not quite rigid enough. Through the cloud of hairspray, he can hear Kendra sniffle on the bed behind him.

“I don't know what to do,” she whines. “What should I do?” When Randall, who assumes the question is rhetorical, does not respond, she says, “I want you to ask Maxon to find out who this Machiavelli is, okay? Will you promise me?”

“You need to toughen up, soldier,” Randall says. Then he leans over, kisses her on the head and retreats.

 

America is a God drunk nation and any politician who ignores this reality does so with the knowledge that it could cause his career to evaporate. The true believers don't have to worry about this since they are already in some kind of dialogue with the deity of their choice, but those with a more nuanced view of the universe and its sundry mysteries must navigate these shoals with precision. Although Randall Duke's father was a Pentecostal preacher, religion ceased to play an important role in his life once he left home. But with every election campaign, he has to pretend. For this reason, Randall is pleased to find himself surrounded by a news crew that has staked out the entrance to the Parker Palm Springs Hotel where the First Annual Riverside County Purity Ball is taking place.

The desert dowager has been smartly reinvented and is now a model of Palm Springs fabulous. A golf and tennis resort would have been the natural venue for this affair, but Maxon made the case that the contemporary quality of the Parker would provide a pleasing contrast to the traditional nature of the event. Near the giant bright orange front doors of the hotel, Randall holds forth for the camera with his daughter/prop Brittany standing at his side looking embarrassed. She is prettily attired in a powder blue satin gown with a bow on the back that Kendra had insisted on. Brittany's nod toward teenaged rebellion the absence of panties.

According to Maxon there was going to be more than one news crew at the event—are the others somewhere shooting footage of Mary Swain?—but Randall doesn't let disappointment dampen his enthusiasm.

“We need a new morality in America,” Randall proclaims as several fathers and daughters who have gathered to listen nod in approval. Randall believes he looks particularly authoritative in a tuxedo. The trousers fit more snugly than he had recollected but he's generally pleased with his presentation. He needs to compliment Maxon for insisting the Ball be formal. “We've seen where having no values has led us. To Sodom and Gomorrah, and I don't mean that in a judgmental way, but I think we must teach positive values to our children and a good place to start is with our daughters since they will be the mothers of the next generation.”
The mothers of the next generation
? The bloviating stops him in his cognitive tracks. Is that a phrase he can recycle, or does it make him sound like an idiot? Such a thin line. He'll ask Maxon. “We're going inside now. Don't forget to vote!”

Randall looks around for Jimmy, doesn't see him. Where the heck is he? Along with the fathers and daughters who witnessed this peroration, Brittany dutifully follows Congressman Randall Duke into the hotel.

The ballroom is in a free standing building at one side of the elaborate hotel gardens and tonight it looks as if John the Baptist was the design consultant. There are no extraneous decorations save for the large wooden cross at one end. Standing like a sentinel, it is a silent rebuke to any thoughts of frivolity. Randall's taste is livelier but he understands the metaphorical purpose of the decoration scheme. The last group to have held an event in the opulent room was the Trans­gendered Entertainers Associa­tion and other than the preponderance of tiaras on the girls, there is no hint of their many-splendored presence this evening. Again, he looks for Jimmy but there is no sign.

 

The marble walls imbedded with large rectangular mirrors make the tiny bar off the two story lobby of the hotel look like the inside of a jewel box. The legs of the six bar stools appear to be inspired by the horns of a delicately boned mammal found on the African veldt. In one sits a man dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and red patterned tie. He puts another peanut in his mouth and chases it with the last of his third non-alcoholic beer. Jimmy Duke: the respectable version. It's just after seven and the resort doesn't do a big bar business so the place is nearly empty. A blond surf kid in a black shirt and black pants stands behind the bar. The only other customers a couple in their forties. They're not talking so Jimmy makes them for married. It is moments like this, alone in a bar, that he regrets having quit drinking. The consumption of three non-alcoholic beers is an act that has no point. It's like going to a strip club to watch the cashier. Yet habit draws him toward the bar, the ambience, the bottle. He doesn't even like the taste, which is to say the lack of discernible taste, the weak-kneed imitation that non-alcoholic beer represents. He resents having received the call from Maxon requesting his presence here tonight. Resents that he didn't receive the call from Randall himself and resents that he was asked in the first place. But he knows he owes Randall and his brother is not shy about collecting. Randall trades favors like currency and generally Jimmy has a policy about staying out of his way. But this one was unavoidable so here is, a brooding barfly.

“Another near beer?” Surfer Joe says. Knows the kid doesn't mean it, but he feels like he's being mocked. Jimmy waves him off.

And what is he supposed to say to this roomful of virgins and their fathers? That Randall is a great guy? A terrific husband? A committed parent? Is he supposed to lie about a brother he doesn't particularly like? Sure, why the hell not? Jimmy doesn't mind prevaricating to an audience of strangers about something as unimportant as a Congressional election. What he knows about Mary Swain isn't particularly attractive—although he would definitely like to have sex with her—so if he is asked to perform a tiny part in the pageant of Randall's re-election campaign then he must.

“Jimmy!” He looks over and sees Maxon walking toward him, dressed in a tuxedo. Worry sears his bland features. “Where's the uniform?”

“In my truck. I was gonna change when I got here but I decided I'm not wearing it.”

“The point of you doing this is that you're in a uniform.”

“Yeah, well, like I said, forget it.”

Jimmy turns back toward the bar and takes another sip of his drink. Maxon moves a little closer, leans in. With his voice lowered to just above a whisper, he says, “Randall got you the job with the D.A. after you stole that dog from the police department, didn't he?”

“I didn't steal that dog, Maxon. I pardoned him.”

“Didn't he personally intervene so there were no charges? If I recall, this was after you had to resign because you threatened your boss.”

“Randall's gonna take my job away if I don't wear a uniform?” Jimmy shakes his head, trying to tamp down the bitterness he feels at finding himself in this situation. The pink bubble appears and Jimmy places Maxon inside. It lifts off and carries the pasty operative up toward the ceiling, through the roof and into the night sky.

Breathe in one, two. Breathe out three, four.

“I'll introduce him,” Jimmy says. “But forget the uniform.”

Maxon pulls out his cell phone. Jimmy asks whom he is calling.

“Your brother.” Maxon hesitates, waiting to see if this ploy has the desired effect. Jimmy turns his attention back to his drink. “Why are you making me bother him with this when you said you'd do it? It's one thing to take this kind of shit from Dale.”

“Get Dale to introduce him.”

Then, into the phone: “I need you to talk to Jimmy. He's having an issue.” Maxon hands the phone over to Jimmy who reluctantly takes it and briefly explains how he feels. He listens for a moment, his expression darkening.

“That may be true, but . . . Randall, I know. Yeah, I said I know
.
And I appreciate it. Far as I'm concerned I'm here and now we're even.”

Jimmy hands the phone to Maxon.

“Are you wearing the uniform?”

“Are you gonna blow me?”

Maxon pauses and appears to think about saying something. But if Randall is not able to persuade Jimmy to violate the law, it is beyond his powers as well.

“Here's your speech,” Maxon says, shoving a typewritten page at him.

“I was gonna wing it.”

“Not tonight.” Jimmy looks at Maxon. Some men resemble James Bond when they put on a tuxedo. Maxon looks like a headwaiter. “Just read what's there.”

Jimmy has always had a problem with authority and Maxon has strayed too far into the territory. It's not so much the words on the page that trouble him. What he does not respond to is the highhandedness of Maxon's manner, the implication that Jimmy is here to do his bidding. Never mind that this is exactly why Jimmy is here. He can't ascribe his words to drunkenness, as the three bottles of near beer bear witness, but to some deep contrarian strain that animates him, when he says, “I'm not a trained seal.”

“You said you'd wear the uniform and you're not wearing it, which is duly noted. At least read the goddamn speech.”

“Can't I . . . ”

Cutting him off: “Read what's there.”

“I don't appreciate the frontal assault, Maxon. You don't trust me or something?”

“Your brother would like you to read this paragraph. Put it in your own words if you want, but get the meaning across, that he's a family values kind of guy. That's all he wants you to say. Can you at least do that?”

Maxon's back makes an inviting target. Jimmy fights an urge to fling a bottle and crack the skull beneath the sparse blond hair, but restrains himself. The only thing he can think of that's even more pitiable than drinking non-alcoholic beer is braining someone with one of the bottles. He needs to settle down. Focus on the breath. Two counts in, four counts out. Jimmy knows this moment here in the precious little bar of the Parker Palm Springs Hotel with a ballroom full of family people waiting for him to introduce Randall is an excellent opportunity to practice the dharma: Maxon in a pink bubble. Jimmy lighting the pink bubble with a blowtorch. Maxon floating away, the pink bubble engulfed in flames.

No, that's not right.

He tries again. Breathes in. Breathes out. It's not working.

What he's thinking about: After he and Darleen had their last fight, right before leaving the desert, she paid a visit to Randall. They had always gotten along well and no attractive woman ever escaped his eternally peeled eye. Darleen was from a modest background and having married the sibling of a United States Congressman was something of which she was unusually proud. Kendra was out of town at a tennis clinic with Brittany and Randall was home from Washington for the weekend. They had a couple of drinks and it was a warm evening so Randall asked if she wanted to go for a swim in the pool. She and Jimmy didn't have a pool and the proximity of her semi-famous, handsome brother-in-law, and the effects of the liquor made her keen to feel the cool water on her skin. Randall had lent her one of Kendra's bathing suits and it didn't stay on long.

Jimmy would never have discovered that his brother had “got nasty” with his wife if Darleen hadn't used that exact phrase in an email a few days later after he had warned her in a heated phone conversation not to think about touching him for alimony. Although this information did not come as a huge surprise it was nonetheless disappointing. Darleen and he may have no longer been together but Jimmy believed there were certain protocols siblings held to, a primary one being not to have sex with each other's spouses, ex or otherwise. In the year since this occurred he has chosen to never mention it for one simple reason: Jimmy is afraid he might kill his brother. Words devolve into emotions running red and then he's spending the rest of his life in prison. So why bring it up?