Political Timber by Chris Lynch

Author:Chris Lynch [Lynch, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-0455-7
Publisher: Open Road
Published: 2013-01-16T21:08:00+00:00

HARDBALL

IN LIEU OF AN entourage, or boosters, or hangers-on, or friends, like most political mucks haul around, I had Mosi. And with Sweaty Betty still awaiting her public apology, I had taken to picking Mosi up for school in the morning for the company, and because, if I couldn’t at least show off the Tourismo for somebody, then what was it all for? However, this pretty well erased my last quiet, crisis-free portion of the day.

“You remember I told you I had a friend working on The School Newspaper?” he asked, offering me half of a savagely beaten banana. He looked like he was afraid I was going to do him likewise.

“Yup,” I sighed, pulling away from his house. I heard the familiar opening chords of “Oh Jesus” in his voice.

“You want me to read it to you, or should we just wait till they tip the car over in the school lot?”

“Sing,” I said.

“‘Responding to the results of last week’s published poll, alleged candidate Gordon “Four Percent” Foley compared front-runner Robert O’Dowd to the transvestite played by Jaye Davidson in the film The Crying Game.’”

“Oh my god! No, Mosi, no. Please, tell me this is a joke. It doesn’t say that.”

Mosi paused. “Is that one of those things where you say ‘Mosi, tell me blah blah blah,’ because that’s really what you want me to tell you, or because you wish it was the truth?”

“Oh my god!” I swerved the Tourismo through a red light, around stunned pedestrians, across the lane divider, before regaining control.

They could say what they wanted about my being out of touch, but I certainly understood the impact on one’s lifespan of insulting a very popular member of the football team whose parents went away frequently and who threw reputedly excellent parties in their absence. Even if the team and the player actually sucked.

“There is more, if you’re interested,” Mosi added.

“What the hell. Once you’re dead, you’re dead, right? It’s not like they can dig me up and kill me again.”

“I don’t know. I heard about these voodoo guys in New Orleans who—”

“Read, Mosi.”

“‘Furthermore, Four Percent Foley had no idea that Marsha Brady, the fortyish former Brady Bunch character, was not, in fact, an Amber High student.’”

“God, what crap. If they called her Marsha Brady... of course I would have known. Who the hell knows who, ah...”

“Maureen McCormick.”

“Right. Who the hell knows who she is, anyway? I guess now I know, huh, what the yellow frigging press does with the facts? Poor O.J.—you know, I almost believed he did it.”

“Hey, Gordie, I was fooled too. But let me finish. Put both hands on the wheel now, okay?”

I did, carving small fingernail gouges into the wooden wheel. I leaned forward until my brow almost touched the windshield.

“‘In response to his dismal showing in the hearts of his fellow Amber High students, Four Percent Foley had this to say: “The question is, do I give a rat’s ass? ... Who, other than a complete putzball, would want

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