The Unfolding, page 13
Tony laughs. “You never fail to entertain me.”
“A little mental exercise. I want to see where our heads are in color and where we think the blue and the red states are.”
Bo raises his hand. “Do you mind if I take a leak?”
“You don’t have to ask; it’s down the hall on the left.”
“Well, you’re running the room like it’s third grade so I wasn’t sure.”
The men take the crayons. Tony, Kissick, Eisner, and the Big Guy diligently color in the maps. Tony sits cross-legged on the floor. He would look like an eight-year-old except that he’s six foot three and his legs are a mile long.
Bo comes out of the bathroom, takes his map and his crayons over to the dining-room table. He does his thing, then folds his map into a paper airplane and sails it back toward the Big Guy. Then he goes back to the lunch food and starts picking at things. “My favorite meals are eaten standing up,” he says. “Tastes better that way. These are very good olives. What are they?”
“No idea,” the Big Guy says. “The bottle is in the fridge.”
“Dirty olives, marinated in vermouth,” Bo says. “No wonder they’re so good. I just ate about a dozen of them.” He blows a raspberry to the room.
“When you’re done, let’s come back to center and we’re going to talk about the maps,” the Big Guy says.
“I’m gonna drop a fact ball here,” Tony says. “Barack Obama’s total vote will turn out to be the highest vote won by a presidential candidate. More than 130 million votes were cast; that’s more than 43 percent of the population. Historically speaking, 1964 was blue, 1968 red, 1972 more red, then in 1976 it was very divided; 1980 and 1984 were red, 1988 turned blue again, then 1992 was split, 1996 more red, 2000 nice red.”
“Is he like an idiot savant with the numbers or a rapper?” Bo says.
The Big Guy unfolds the paper plane, on which Bo has scrawled, “Fuck This.”
Bo shrugs.
“My point is, we’re divided and we can’t afford to be. When you look at these maps, you’ll see that part of the Midwest is blue and it shouldn’t be like that.”
“What’s the takeaway from our coloring project?” the Big Guy says. “We all have different ideas about where the power lies but agree that there are centers on the East and West coasts.”
“It’s not fucking nursery school, gentlemen,” Bo says. “And by the way, you’re out of olives. I could eat a gallon of them.”
“If this shitstorm shows us anything, it’s that we’re increasingly in the minority,” Kissick says.
“Now that you know what’s on our minds, the question is, what are you going to do about it?” Bo asks the Big Guy.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Palm Springs, California
4:00 p.m.
The Big Guy takes the men for a ride in his golf cart. Bo rides up front; Tony, Kissick, and Eisner are sandwiched on the bench seat in the back. He tells them stories of who else owns houses on the golf course, the history of the place, buried treasure, poisonous snakes. Over hill, over dale, and then off the trail until they arrive at an empty lot where a man and a couple of helpers are inflating an enormous hot-air balloon.
“Getting the lay of the land is all about perspective,” the Big Guy says. “And keeping in mind that we don’t know everything. We can’t know everything.”
“Are you shitting me?” Kissick says. It’s not clear if he’s thrilled or upset.
“I’ve always wanted to do this but never have; it’s one of the few things still on my list,” Bo says.
“Pretty great,” Tony says, laughing. “You got me, I’m impressed.”
“Tony, when you said ‘vision,’ I thought, Just you wait and see. It’s spectacular. Especially this time of year. The other night when I cooked this up, I thought we should float over America from on high and have a moment of contemplation.”
Kissick climbs into the basket. “My wife would kill me if she knew I was taking off in a helium balloon. I’m supposed to stay alive and support the family. They need me.”
“I’m sure you have more than enough life insurance,” Bo says.
Kissick shrugs. “That might be true.”
“Didn’t one of these catch fire and crash a few months ago in Pennsylvania?”
“We’ve been flying for more than thirty years,” the balloon man says. “And have never caught fire.”
“I don’t think we’re all going to fit,” Bo says.
“Not a problem,” Kissick says, moving to climb out of the basket.
The Big Guy tosses his car keys to Eisner. “You be the chase car. Follow the leader in the 4x4.”
“Why does he get to be the chaser?” Kissick asks.
“Because he’s our witness, the one who will live to tell the tale,” the Big Guy says.
The burner ignites with a loud whoosh and the balloon rises in the late-afternoon sky.
Kissick sinks to the floor of the basket, sitting on the Big Guy’s feet.
“You okay, buckaroo?” Bo asks.
“Fine,” he says. “Just fine, perfect, right where I want to be—in a picnic basket going into the woods with Little Red Riding Hood.”
“It’s safer than driving at night in Florida,” Bo says.
“Amazing,” Tony says, as they float over palm groves and wind farms. “Beautiful.”
“Stand up. Take a look,” the Big Guy tells Kissick, “the scale of the land, the glory of it all.”
Kissick gets up on his hands and knees, and peers out over the edge. “Oh Jesus, how high are we?”
“About nine hundred feet,” the balloon man says.
“Look at the landscape,” the Big Guy says. “The enormous untapped potential.”
“All I see is barren desert,” Kissick says.
“I think it’s a national park,” Tony says.
“It’s an example of the parts of this country we have yet to tame,” the Big Guy says.
“Reminds you why people fight for their country,” Bo says.
“Did he say tame or claim?” Kissick asks.
“It kind of puts it all in perspective,” Tony says. “We are flying over America in a vehicle that is lighter than air, riding in a gondola of the past through the present and talking about the future.”
“Profound,” the Big Guy says.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Palm Springs, California
8:00 p.m.
Back at the house, it’s like a eulogy for an America that perhaps never was. The air is awash with the scent of unsmoked cigars chewed on, gone wet—damp with the drool of men still dreaming.
They pause, pour themselves drinks. They swim, they drink, and they eat.
The only thing missing is fucking. “You’re not bringing any girls in?” Bo asks. He is sitting shirtless at the dining-room table with a thick incision down the middle of his chest. He notices the other men staring. “That’s the way they used to do it at the Cleveland Clinic; they cut you in half like a chicken and go in with a Roto-Rooter. I look like shit but I’m alive.”
The other men nod.
“So no girls?”
“Not this time,” the Big Guy says. “Short notice.”
“Bad form,” Tony says.
“Okay,” the Big Guy says. “We all agree—we’re going to make change, because if we don’t, the American way will be forever lost. We want a new government.”
“Anyone going to mention the T-word?”
“Tits?” Bo asks.
“Tricks? Dirty tricks?”
“The crime of betraying one’s country?” Tony asks.
“Is trying to get back to our roots, to what made us strong, is that treason?” the Big Guy wants to know.
“Not everyone sees it the same way,” Tony says.
“What are we actually asking people to do? Write a check? Get four friends to write checks? Assassinate someone?” Bo asks, looking at Eisner.
“Are you looking at me?” Eisner asks.
“Yes,” Bo says. “I see you as either a bagman or an assassin.”
“We’re asking them to do their jobs,” the Big Guy says. “We’re asking them to do what they were hired or elected to do. We are the legacy generation, the living link to a time when wars were fought for reasons, when it wasn’t a giant pissing contest. We’re not doing this for ourselves; we have what we need, what we want, but it’s terrifying out there. We’re doing it for our children, for whoever comes next; we’re doing it for history, to protect and preserve the America of our founding fathers—the real America.”
“Enough already, how are we doing it?” Bo wants to know.
“This is serious stuff, the kind of thing that costs people their lives. We are respectable men, and until the tide turns, until we get a majority on our side, we are going against the current,” Kissick says.
“We talk to people, we find out who’s capable, we enlist the help of those with the skills,” the Big Guy says.
“Please, let’s not be all talk; let’s goddamned do something,” Bo says.
“The distance between political action and treason is large,” Tony adds.
“You don’t think we’ll be marching in there and saying, ‘Excuse me, we’ve come to take back the government, so if you don’t mind, clear out your desks and don’t forget the photos of your wife and kids’?” Kissick asks.
“I don’t see an appetite for revolution,” Tony says.
“Perhaps that kind of appetite can be created over time,” Bo says.
“I’m gonna be frank with you. This election proves that the Republican Party isn’t what it used to be; there is no respect, no consensus, and what ten years ago would have been a strong voice has turned into hysterics who are turning politics into political end time. A less inflammatory word for revolution is change. And change doesn’t evoke the T-word,” Tony says.
“Change is a great word,” Eisner says.
“What are you, like the Scrabble police?” Bo asks.
“So what would this change look like?” the scribe presses. “Would we actually see it? Would we know it was happening?”
“Right there, you hit on something. We don’t all see the same thing; we see what we want to see. That’s a big shift. We don’t all watch the same TV shows, read the same papers; we see what speaks to us. We look for confirmation of what we already know rather than having to deal with ideas and information we might not agree with,” Tony says.
“I have no idea why, but I’m thinking about Lou Gerstner,” the Big Guy says.
“Gerstner, the guy who turned around IBM?”
“I was thinking out of the box. We are all in a box. We are trapped and we don’t even see the box. You’re right about that, Toes.” Toes is the Big Guy’s old nickname for Tony. “We’re being fed specific information, whatever it is that ‘they’ want us to know. And we don’t even know who ‘they’ are.”
“Is this going to get all weird and paranoid? We’re not like geese being turned into foie gras; we are men with minds of our own,” Kissick says.
“We are who they are,” Tony says.
“We have to reach outside of our box into the playgrounds of others,” the Big Guy says.
“I am game for action. I haven’t had dirt under my nails since I was a Boy Scout. I like the idea of a mission. I’d happily go into training,” Bo offers.
“How many revolutions happened in the first four hundred years of England or France?” Tony asks.
No one has the answer.
“What would it look like if your plan were to succeed?”
“We would know we were in control.”
“How big does it go? How far does it get?” Tony asks. “I’m not saying this to scare anyone but as a reminder that our loyalty to the project must be unquestionable.”
“It’s fine if some of you don’t have the stomach for it and want to excuse yourselves. Once things get rolling, it could get bumpy,” the Big Guy says.
“We’re talking about creating a plan that disrupts,” Tony says.
“As far as I’m concerned, what happened on Tuesday night was a disruption in the worst way,” the Big Guy says.
“Fucking fine with me,” Bo says. “I’m not going to spend the next however many years sitting around whining and chopping pieces off my dick to see how small I can live with; I want to get something done.”
“If we can’t win control, we need to assume control,” the Big Guy says.
“Speaking of which, where is your wife?” Kissick asks.
“When we returned from Phoenix, she said she needed to take a break; she’d eaten too many cheese cubes. It happens to all of us at some point in the course of our lives—we all have eaten too much cheese and need to step back, turn inward, collect one’s marbles, whatever that might be.”
“That’s what I always liked about Charlotte, she is no bullshit. She’s comfortable flippin’ the bird to what is and what is not,” Kissick says.
“The vodka has been watered down,” Eisner says.
“Jesus, really?” the Big Guy asks.
“It’s like spring water with essence of alcohol.”
“Vodka is not expensive,” Kissick says, baffled.
“Try the scotch or the bourbon, she doesn’t touch those,” the Big Guy says, looking down at his index cards. “Whatever this is; this moment in time, it should be a long dark night of the soul; if it’s anything less, it’s a joke.” The Big Guy puts down the cards with an audible snap on the coffee table.
Eisner is slouched on the sofa, sipping scotch on the rocks, pumping his khaki-covered legs back and forth like he’s fanning his balls. He’s either anxious or overexcited by the energy in the room.
“Imagine,” the Big Guy says. “On January twentieth, a Black man will be setting up shop in the White House.”
“I do believe one can be a Republican and not be a racist,” Tony says. “You talk about missing the boat and the wake-up call. You guys are out of your minds.”
A long silence follows.
“I’m sorry,” the Big Guy says.
Another long silence, like a hefty pregnant pause.
“Really, I’m sorry.”
“That could mean so many things,” Tony says.
“It means I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Eisner sits up, pulling himself together. “A Black man is going to be the president. No matter how you slice it, it’s hugely important.”
They all nod.
“Some events change the course of history, shape the evolution of a country, the pathos and ethos of a society. What happened in Phoenix on Tuesday was without a doubt one of those events,” Eisner says.
“And to all a good night,” Bo says, leaving the room.
“I’m not following you; I’m taking myself to bed,” Kissick says, following Bo down the hall.
Tony and Eisner linger in the living room, picking up the debris of the day and bringing it to the kitchen. The Big Guy puts on an apron and does the dishes. “I am beneath or above no man,” he says.
“Whose line is that?” Eisner asks.
“Deepak Chopra.”
In the middle of the night, the Big Guy can’t sleep. He goes into Tony’s room—Meghan’s room—and pulls out the trundle.
“Can’t sleep?” Tony asks.
“Would you be surprised if I said she has a drinking problem?”
“Meghan?”
“God no, Charlotte.”
“Based on what?”
“She drinks. She drinks every day. Alone. A lot. She has little bottles in her bag; she’s never without. She’s basically catatonic.”
“Have you spoken with her about it?”
“Not so easy to do. It’s not like we argue, but on Wednesday after we got back, I was in such a crappy state of mind that I was unpleasant. I mentioned it then and not in the best of ways.”
“Did you apologize?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sure she has disappointments of her own that she keeps to herself,” Tony says.
“We all do.” A beat passes. “The whole thing with Meghan scared the shit out of me. I had taken Charlotte out to dinner to be nice, and all of a sudden both of our phones rang. I thought the worst. I nearly vomited.” Another beat. “Do you think there’s something going on with Meghan?”
“No,” Tony says. “What happened in Phoenix rattled her and she went for a ride to clear her head. She’s a good kid, but it’s a big deal, realizing that life isn’t a Disney film. The real world is darker and stranger than she knew. If Tuesday was a wake-up call for you, it was a panic attack for her.”
“I’m having a four-alarm fire myself.”
“No doubt that’s part of it,” Tony says. “She’s very connected to you and your expectations of her.”
“What does that mean?”
“She wants to do well, to impress you.”
“That’s nice, right?”
“Do you ever talk about any of this with her?”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin. That said, she seems to tell you things . . .”
“I’m a good listener,” Tony says. “And I’m not her parent. What did your father do when you were a kid; did he answer your questions?”
“What are you now, a shrink? You knew my parents. If I learned anything, it was by accident. I’m surprised they ever had children; I can’t imagine them in a room alone together, much less procreating.” A moment of silence passes. “Do you remember when we were in college and I’d be up at night sweating a test? You’d tell me to take my mind off the subject so my brain could refresh itself.”
“How could I forget? You used to recite everything aloud all night, from math equations to Roman history.”
