Far From True

Sixty-four

David Harwood caught up with Randall Finley at his water-bottling plant.

“What the hell was that?” Finley shouted as David entered his office. “That was the fucking 9/11 of press conferences! A disaster! You’re an idiot! That’s what you are! An idiot! Why did I ever think you could do this?”

David walked right up to the man’s desk, leaned over it, and pointed his finger angrily.

“I’ll tell you who the fucking idiot is,” he fired back. “It’s a guy who won’t listen. I tried to tell you that this needed to be better planned. It needed to be thought out. We needed to work out a strategy. But no, you wake up this morning, and you go, ‘This is the day! Today we do it! I want a press conference in three hours! Make it happen!’ Well, that’s the way a fucking idiot does it.”

Finley kicked his chair across the room. “They didn’t even care! About the stuff I had on the chief! They didn’t give a shit!”

“They might,” Harwood said. “They probably will. But come on, you really thought they weren’t going to bring up the very thing that made you leave politics? And you honestly had no idea that this underage hooker was dead?”

“I might have,” Finley said. “It slipped my mind.”

“You used to be mayor of this town. There were, I’m sure, some people who actually liked you. They voted you in. But somewhere along the line, you lost all your political smarts. Because you’ve had your head up your ass, that’s why. You think I’m an idiot? Fine. I quit. Find someone else. But here’s a tip. Do the job interviews at the zoo. Find yourself a trained monkey. That’s what you need. Someone who’ll just do what you want, who’ll never tell you when you’re making a mistake, someone who hasn’t got an original thought in his head. Someone who’ll tell you you’re doing a great job when you’re actually making a horse’s ass of yourself.”

David turned and walked out the door.

“Good-bye and good riddance!” the former mayor said, looking for something else to kick or throw. He went over, grabbed the chair he’d already tossed to one side of the room, and threw it to the other.

He stood there, steaming, breathing in and out through his nose, sweat bubbling up on his forehead. He did that for the better part of twenty seconds.

Then said, “Shit!”

Finley came around the desk, ran out of the office, heading for the parking lot. He found David getting into his Mazda.

“Hey!” Finley shouted. “Hold up!”

David, one hand on the top of the door, said, “You can’t fire me, you dumb shit. I quit. Weren’t you paying attention?”

“I don’t want to fire you,” he said, catching his breath. “And I don’t want you to quit.”

“What?”

“I said I don’t want you to quit. That’s what I’m saying.”

“Forget it,” David said, dropping into the seat. He started to pull the door shut, but Finley gripped the top of it with both hands.

“No, listen,” he said. “Just listen to me for a second.”

David waited.

“Okay, you’re right.” He grinned. “I shot my wad too soon.”

David didn’t laugh.

“Jesus, what do you want from me? I’m telling you, you were right. I should have taken your advice. I should have known what was coming, that they’d bring up the stuff about the hooker. I was dumb to think they wouldn’t. I’ll listen to you from now on. I will.”

David slowly shook his head.

“I’ll give you another two hundred a week,” Finley said. “Truth is, I don’t know who the hell else I could find. I mean, who’s as smart as you? Who’d work with me.”

David turned his head away, looked at the dashboard.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

That was when Finley knew he had him. “You want me to say I’m sorry? I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not listening to you, and I’m sorry for calling you a fucking idiot.”

David looked at him. “I should have had some supporters there.”

“Hm?”

“I should have rounded up some people, put some Finley for Mayor signs in their hands. Something for the cameras. Even if it was just friends and family. Half a dozen people. Even that would have helped. But I didn’t think of it. You didn’t give me enough time.”

“Yeah, I get that. Totally.”

“We have to sit down and figure everything out. Stake out your position on all sorts of issues. Work out your responses to the embarrassing questions. Because they’re always going to come out. You know that stuff is coming, so you have to get in front of it, turn it into a positive instead of a negative. You admit it: You’re a man with flaws — you’ve done things you’re not proud of — but that doesn’t mean you don’t care about this town, that you don’t want to do right by the people who live here.”

“I like that,” Finley said. “Will you remember this, or should you be writing this down?”

“You should be able to remember it yourself. You’re a fucking politician. You know everything there is to know about the art of persuasion. You just have to remember to use it.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

David sighed. “Four hundred,” he said.

“What?”

“I’ll stay on, but on two conditions. You take my advice, and you give me another four hundred a week. What’s that, a couple hundred flats of spring water?”

Finley made a hissing noise through his teeth. “I don’t know about four. I was thinking—”

David turned the ignition.

“Okay, four hundred. That’s fine. I can live with that.”

David turned off the ignition.

“There’s one other thing,” David said. “What we talked about just before the press conference.”

“That stuff about your kid,” Finley said, nodding.

“Don’t ever try to blackmail me again.”

Finley raised his hands defensively. “Never.” He smiled. “So you’re back?”

It took David Harwood several seconds to admit it. “Yeah, I’m back.”

“That’s good, that’s good, because I’ve been thinking.”

David closed his eyes wearily.

“No, listen, I’m just spitballin’ here, but what I was thinking was, to make up for the disaster that was today, we need to do something big. Something that will show this town how invaluable I am to them. That even though I can be a bit of an asshole—”

“Oh, stop,” David said.

“Even though I can be a bit of an asshole, I love this town, that I’m there for the people of Promise Falls when they need me.”

“You mean, like when you went up to the drive-in to have your picture taken helping people? Because that did not play well. It was opportunistic. It was insincere. It’s a good thing Duckworth booted us out of there before you made a total fool of yourself.”

Finley looked hurt. “I did care. I felt terrible for those people. Those little girls, who were so scared when that screen came down? You may not believe it, but my heart went out to them.”

“Sure, it did.”

“But what I’m saying is, something like that, if it was to happen again, I need to get in there, roll my sleeves up, get my hands dirty, show the people I’m right there with them.”

“What are you saying? We keep our fingers crossed for a flood, or a tornado?”

“Well, of course not,” Finley said. “But if something like that does happen, I wanna be in there like a dirty shirt.”