The Means Read online

  Tom is two steps from the pavement. “Jesus, Brand, would you get a load of that?”

  “Wow. What’s happening there?”

  “Ugly as a man. Outrageous as a woman.”

  Tom steps to the ground and starts shaking the hands that are thrust toward him. Young, eager faces with big smiles that say they are big supporters and have been following the campaign. Several volunteer their services and Tom makes sure his aides follow up. He has a burst of energy in response to this and is enjoying himself though without looking he can feel the transvestite’s presence closing the distance from the right. He keeps his gaze away but like the shark music in Jaws, knowing and not seeing is scarier. He keeps pushing left, hoping he can outrun her. He has a bad feeling.

  He’s no longer responding to people with words but only shaking hands and moving to the next hand to the left so he can take a step with each one. He wonders if Brand is sensing anything at all, but doesn’t stop to look for him.

  He takes another hand from the left and another step but it’s no use. He looks into the broad chest covered in a pink dress that looks like it was sewn at home. “Hello,” says Tom with a smile and he extends his hand, seeing now that the transvestite has not put a hand out to him.

  Their eyes meet, then in a flash her hand comes around from behind her back. Tom sees but can’t react. She’s holding a plastic cup and the contents shower Tom. It’s glitter. The densest part of it hits Tom in the chest and creates a powdery cloudburst around him. Glitter is in his hair, his ears, his mouth. It has a static cling quality and his suit is decorated.

  Tom tries to spit the glitter from his tongue and looks up at his assailant. “What the hell was that for? I’m pro gay marriage, you moron.”

  “Is that right, honey? Good for you. Taste the rainbow!” The voice is deep and terrifying.

  Peter Brand gets between them and with a hand on Tom’s shoulder pushes him up to the sidewalk toward Cameron, away from the crowd and the television cameras which have caught the whole thing.

  As they step into the Cameron lobby, Peter points to an aide. “Get Mr. Pauley a new suit off the bus.” He turns to Tom. “I’m sorry, Tom. Damn.”

  “Jesus Christ. Is that just because I’m Republican? Doesn’t anybody read anything about my positions?”

  Peter helps Tom off with the jacket which is raining glitter on the floor. “Tom, try not to say words like moron when you could be on camera.”

  “Well, what the fuck!”

  “Try not to say that either.”

  “Jesus Christ, Peter, I’m not going to say fuck on camera.”

  “Good. Right. Look, politicians get glittered all the time. It’s some sort of weird movement. It doesn’t even mean they don’t like you, they just do it to get on TV. Let’s just get you in a new suit and put this behind us. No more close-up stuff today. Just the podium.”

  Tom looks up to see a life-sized cardboard cutout of Christian ­Laettner and a Duke National Championship trophy. “This fucking campaign.”

  7

  The glitter incident puts Tom’s campaign in the national news for the second time in three weeks. Every cable outlet has the video teed up for their prime-time audience. As is the way when things are rolling in a person’s direction, the pundits, left and right, take Tom’s side. They’re fed up with the disrespect of glittering, but more than that, they love that Tom got a little pissed off. They love how human that is. The following day, Chris Stirewalt writes in an op-ed:

  Yes, folks are all a little tired of the glittering of the good people who make the personal sacrifices to run for public office and serve our country. It’s immature, disrespectful and distracting. But yesterday showed that it may be a small part of our political vetting process along with debates and campaign speeches.

  Glittering strips a candidate of his produced and rehearsed behavior. For a brief moment we see instinct, not automation.

  Rick Santorum met glitter with a plastic smile. His instinct was to cover up, not to reveal. To say, “You can’t get to me,” even though we all know that horse has left the barn. He’s pissed off! Everyone watching wants to tell him to show that a little. Don’t show a temper, but show something real! Nobody actually thinks he found it amusing and something to smile about. He’s not fooling any of us watching, he’s just making himself look more ridiculed in our eyes. And it makes us wonder, what else does he cover up on instinct, and possibly do a better job of covering up?

  But Tom Pauley showed us something different. He showed us a little fire. Not only did he get angry, but he defended his position to his assailant. He called her a moron.

  That’s human! The folks applaud him, and more than that, they find him to be someone they can believe in.

  8

  Tom’s Democratic opponent is Terry Mills, who stepped down as state attorney general to get into the race. Attorney general is an appointed position and Mills has never run for elected office either. His campaign managed to raise only four million dollars, which is bare bones for a gubernatorial or Senate race in a state the size of North Carolina. Mills is outspent four to one through mid-October.

  They have two debates, which are notable only for extreme boredom. Both candidates are intelligent and well prepared as good lawyers are, but they both get deep in technical aspects of issues that viewers don’t understand and so don’t care about. Neither lands a kill shot and both carry themselves well. By October twentieth, Tom is up two points in the polls.

  Tom’s staff has finished the briefing on fund-raising and polling data so he adjourns the meeting. He leans into his chair and closes his eyes. He never naps but he needs thirty minutes a day to think in quiet and to let his mind wander.

  With closed lids Tom visits his childhood as though he’s an adult come back, peering through a window at the boy he was. But even as a boy he felt outside himself, watching the scenes in his family happen to them.

  The young Tom blows out all ten candles on his birthday cake with enough air left over to shout “I got ’em.” He looks up at his mother who has her palms pressed together under her chin and tears in her eyes. Tom knows these are not tears of happiness but of sadness and that they are not for him but for his uncle, her brother in a jail cell.

  Tom’s mouth stays in the shape of a smile but the vibrations it had been sending through his face stop. The room sees Tom’s face go plastic and the birthday party goes lifeless. No one can find the enthusiasm to fool the rest into being happy.

  Tom doesn’t feel wronged or cheated of this moment by his family. He stands with his family against this outrage and he feels more of a grown-up to be also sober about it with them. He is angry, and more than that, he is scared.

  It is one thing to know as a child that there are ogres and trolls and bad guys but that good guys help us and that our parents, our heroes, are always there and unafraid. It is another to learn the good guys can’t be trusted, that the biggest danger on the streets is from those whose job it is to protect and who have the authority to do whatever they want. The cops and the lawyers speak a language we don’t understand and we watch our parents, our first heroes, cower powerless and afraid.

  Two days after the party is visiting day at the prison and Tom goes to sit in front of soundproof glass with his mother and across from his uncle. He’s come many times the last two years to say hello.

  His mother holds the kind of heavy black phone that is in public phone booths and she gives a factual update of the appeals process and conversations with lawyers. There isn’t much to report. Then they sit for a while with no noise, touch the glass a few times, look at each other then look away, look at Tom. The phone drifts down from her ear to rest on her shoulder like a cradle and her fingers rest on top.

  Uncle Neil motions to speak with Tom. Tom’s mother hands over the phone and Tom presses it hard against his ear.

  “Jeez, buddy, you’re getting
big.”

  “Hi, Uncle Neil.” His uncle’s eyes are always wet and he wonders whether or not he just has wet eyes.

  “You’re filling out too. I see the muscles popping out from under your shirt.”

  “I’m playing football. We’re working out pretty hard now.” Tom feels neither brave nor afraid. He is too confused to know how to feel and that insulates him from acute emotion at the time. He just wants his family to be happy and his uncle to be free.

  “Good for you, Tom.”

  “How are you?”

  Neil takes a long breath. “I’m doing okay.” He nods and looks pensive as though this is a real and thoughtful conclusion.

  Tom is unconvinced but knows it’s just conversation.

  Neil says, “You know, Tom. When each of us is born we’re all given a big shit pie. And every once in a while we have to cut off a slice and eat it.”

  A tear falls from Neil’s left eye and he pretends to scratch an itch on the side of his nose. Tom sees his uncle trying to be brave which makes Tom less confused and so less protected and Tom starts to cry too.

  “I’m just having a slice now, buddy. That’s all.” Neil’s voice breaks up over the words. He lowers his phone, presses a palm to the glass then stands and walks away and Tom watches the drab green smock disappear behind a prison guard.

  “Time to go, honey.” His mother’s face is a disaster.

  They stand from metal folding chairs that scrape the cement floor when the backs of their knees push against the seat.

  They walk along the visitor’s bay to a heavy metal door where a uniformed guard is standing with thumbs in his belt.

  To Tom’s ten-year-old body the prison is huge and cold. The walls are cinder blocks covered pale yellow and haven’t been painted in years. The floor is cement with throw rugs and the lighting is the hanging fluorescent kind that is in school cafeterias.

  The guard is unmoved by Tom’s mother’s face, like a numb Manhattan pedestrian passing the innumerable homeless.

  The admissions room is just as cold. More metal chairs and people behind thick glass, though these people are showered and uniformed, armed and with combed hair.

  They walk faster now, both in a silent cry, knowing that sunshine and an end to claustrophobia are one set of doors away.

  The doors open out. Tom puts his back into it and leads the way for his mother. In the sunshine Tom stops crying. The sidewalks are all at right angles so Tom and his mother zigzag the beige walkways to the blacktop of the parking lot.

  “Goddamn lawyer.” It’s rare for his mother to swear but she does it again. “Hasn’t moved things a damn bit.”

  She’s still crying but Tom is done and not close to tears anymore. He’s thinking about something else. Something hopeful. “Mom, I’m going to be a lawyer.”

  She pats his shoulder and smiles a real smile.

  “I’ll start some reading up on it today. I’ll help Uncle Neil.”

  “That would be nice, honey.”

  9

  Benson Hill rents out Crook’s Corner for a private dinner with Tom, Peter Brand, and the top twenty RNC donors in North Carolina who are all looking forward to an evening with the man they expect to be their next governor.

  Benson picked Crook’s Corner so Tom would feel more comfortable on his home turf of Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. As a student Tom would take his dates here when he had enough money for more than pizza and Schaefer.

  The restaurant and bar has hubcaps on the outside and a pig theme decorating the inside, also a pink pig on a platform and red post high above the roof. It has charm that seems accidental and the cooking is real Southern.

  The tables have the hard, reflective tops of diner tables and the chairs are metal and plastic. The restaurant reconfigures the tables to accommodate the party and at Benson’s insistence Tom is at the head of the table, though Tom has already become comfortable with taking the lead in a room of big shots without any assistance.

  Peter Brand sits at the far end of the table to spread out the campaign insiders with the paying guests. Benson is on Tom’s right and the other donors sit next to Tom in descending order of amount contributed.

  “How’s your wife holding up?” asks Benson.

  “She’s holding us both up. Alison’s amazing.”

  “It’s vey potent, have a guh woman,” says Bubba Greenhouse, seated to Tom’s left in the number-one-donor chair. “Vey.”

  Most North Carolina accents in the major cities and university towns are mild. A twang and a few y’alls here and there. Bubba sounds almost Cajun. “Where you from, Bubba?” asks Tom.

  “Nawlens.” He smiles. “Rigley. Now ah live in Duck Beach. Been theyah twunny yeeahs.”

  “Bubba has substantial farming and hunting properties. He was very happy to learn that some of that property is home to enormous natural gas deposits. Isn’t that right, Bubba?”

  “Bettah lucky dan guh.”

  “As you know, Tom, Bubba’s one of our biggest supporters, both for you and nationally. Of course, now that Mason is running away with the White House, you’re our only bright spot for the season.”

  “We still have a couple weeks’ work ahead of us.”

  “We gone git out da vote,” assures Bubba. “Den you gone git in theyah and do da rahyt tings.”

  “Tom’s a fiscal conservative, Bubba. You know that. Balanced budgets, debt reduction, lower corporate tax rates. This’ll be the most business-friendly state in the Union. Hell, that Boeing plant in South Carolina may relocate all those jobs up here when Tom’s through!” Benson smiles and slaps the table. He’s a crony who knows how to round up other cronies.

  Tom’s happy to discuss policy. He knows it’s his obligation to his donors, but he wants to make clear they don’t own a piece of his platform. “That’s right. When elected, I intend to reduce the corporate tax rate from six-point-nine to five percent. On the expense side, there are some small pickups in waste management, water, but the main thing to address is education reform. Education is almost a third of the total budget.”

  “Thass rahyt, Tom.”

  “Bubba, the catfish amandine here is the best thing on any menu anywhere,” says Tom. He knows he has an entire dinner of policy talk ahead but would like a short break to talk about food.

  “Awrahyt.” Bubba puts down the menu and picks up his glass of bourbon on ice. “Dem unions, Tom. Dey killin dis state.”

  “The teachers union has a sweetheart deal. No question.”

  “Kaynt go on. Dat dealz no guh.”

  “We’re going to look at it. I won’t have a full legal review until I’m in office. If and when. But we’ll try to get the teachers union to the table and do the sensible thing for the state.”

  “Trah? You gone haf do moh dan trah, boy. Ah know doz union pricks. Crooks don’t pahrt wit dey money.”

  “It’s all a negotiation.” Tom smiles. “Life is a negotiation.” Tom doesn’t like being called boy and he hopes this sounds dismissive in return.

  “No, suh. Noo bahginin. You say how gone be. Das dat. Dee end. No uddah way wit dem.”

  “There’s another way. We’ll get around a table.”

  “Tom, Tom. Dis has to be yo job wun. Firs ting. Dat stupid deal. An git it dun from yo desk in yo mansion. Not round sum tabah.”

  Tom glances at Benson to give him a few seconds to intercede. When he doesn’t, Tom looks back at Bubba and says, “Bubba, I didn’t like being told what to do before I ran for governor and I don’t like it now. You know very well the platform I’ve run on. I’ll have a lot of jobs to do, if elected. If you have some suggestions, I appreciate that.”

  “Tom’s going to move this state in the right direction, Bubba. No worries there,” says Benson. He picks up his own glass of bourbon and drinks, hoping to punctuate the conversation.

  Benson realize
s he’s been a step behind in the conversation and should have stepped in earlier but now it’s too late. Tom’s back is up and Bubba’s pissed and Bubba ignores Benson. “Lookie heyah, Tom. You heyah by the guh graces oh my wallet.”

  “I’m also here by the good graces of an endorsement from Donnie Whiskers.” Tom lets the name sink in like a slap across the face. “Should I also be taking policy direction from Don?”

  The obvious answer is no but Bubba isn’t going to verbalize the concession.

  “I didn’t think so.” Tom’s taught himself a trick during the campaign. Whenever he feels he isn’t calm, he forces himself to think of what a calm person would say. “Look, Bubba. You and I want very similar things. We may not agree exactly on the path, and I admit my path may be a bit longer. We can debate all night whether that’s a good or a bad thing. But in the end, you and I are aligned.”

  “Amen,” says Benson when what he really wants to say is Holy fuck what a disaster.

  Bubba’s still pissed but Tom is feeling very good about being his own man.

  10

  “The Herald Sun says ‘Pauley in a Squeaker.’ The News & Observer has ‘2 a.m. Concession Gives Pauley the Win.’” Alison holds up a newspaper in each hand under the frame of the open front door. Tom sees her from his chair at the kitchen table and wishes he had a photo image of her at that moment to keep with him. He smiles and commits to remembering.

  The election was so close that Mills refused to concede until most of the state was asleep in bed. He had made the call to Tom just in time for the papers to get the headlines correct in the morning.

  “Get over here and kiss your governor.”

  “Yes, sir. Is it sir? Your Excellency?”

  “For Bubba and Benson, I think Your Excellency will do. The First Lady of North Carolina can call me whatever she pleases.”