Inappropriate Behavior: Stories (9 page)

There was a rally for the candidate and my brother told me to come, first to hold my sign and act like I was just some person who came to the rally. Then he said, No, I have a better idea—you should come and pass out literature. Then the day of the rally he calls back and says, Listen, I've got a better idea.

He says, At the rally, the candidate is going to take questions from the audience. Except they're not really questions from the audience. Actually, my brother says, the candidate is only going to call on people from the campaign who are pretending to be people who just showed up to the rally. Do you get it? he says. Do you think you can handle it?

I tell him, All my life needed was a sense of somewhere to go.

Yeah, he says.

That night at the rally at the VFW hall, there are about thirty people there, and at least half of them work for the campaign. I recognize them from the headquarters, where I go every morning to get more fliers and bumper stickers for my milk crate.

The candidate is short. Shorter than he appears on the sign, which is just a picture of his head. But he looks taller on the sign.

The candidate says—I love Lubbock. I'm practically
from
Lubbock. I think Lubbock is God's country. Are you tired, he says, of the government getting your tax dollars? Are you tired of the liberals in Washington, DC, telling you how to live your life, and giving your money to deadbeats and dropouts? Some people clap, mostly the people from the campaign.

The candidate says—Do you want a congressman who believes in God? Isn't it time we started listening to what God is saying to our hearts, instead of what those liberals are saying to our heads?

Now I'll take some questions, the candidate says. I raise my hand, but just as I do, I notice the Dry Lady in the crowd. The candidate points his finger at me and says, Yes sir, you there. Good to see the young people out tonight. You might could use a haircut, but still, good to see you. He chuckles. Go ahead, sir, you may ask your question.

The Dry Lady is looking at me. The candidate is looking at me. My brother, who has been following the candidate around the stage with the microphone cord in his hands, is looking at me. I suddenly can't remember the question I was told to ask. I suddenly panic.

I suddenly need to have a movement. I have gone to the clinic at the university and have gotten literature that says that people who have trouble with their bowels should never ignore the need to have a movement, and should never resist the urge to go. It was a pamphlet, which also listed a number of techniques.

The candidate and everyone else is still looking at me. The candidate is still smiling, but I can see the smile changing. His eyes are hardening, and his lower lip is coming up, flattening the smile into something else. It feels like the candidate is standing right on top of me, and now he doesn't seem short anymore. I have to go.

I turn and run, the crowd parts, I'm waving my arms and shouting. I don't know what to shout, so I shout, Lubbock! Lubbock! At the door of the VFW hall are three people who work for the campaign. I turn back toward the candidate and my brother. I want to say something, I'm sorry, something. But one of the people standing by the door grabs me and pushes me out into the night.

I'm off balance now, but still running. Energy policy. Oil drilling. That was what I was supposed to ask about. Clive says the police would be very interested in looking at over 175 songs about a fourteen-year-old girl, even if she is a world famous actress and my chances of actually meeting her are—and you
have to understand this, he says—absolutely zero. I'm running to my car, trying desperately to clench my rectum, the movement is coming on its own now, and there's nothing to be done.

I stop between two cars, a Malibu and the gold Valiant that I know at once is the Dry Lady's car. I hurry my pants down and squat there in the parking lot.

I wait.

Nothing happens.

Allison. A long time goes by.

I strain. I push so hard I start to fall, and then when I try to stop myself from falling, my feet catch in my pant legs and I
do
fall, and when I fall the movement comes, hot and wet and smelling of metal, and it's on my legs and I'm trying to kick myself free from it. I can hear other people in the parking lot now, coming from the rally. I can see the Dry Lady in the lead. I crawl underneath her car, then crawl again underneath several other cars, until I get to mine.

I have a gun at home.

Clive does not know about the gun.

Clive does not know about the gun because I have concealed it very cleverly.

At the door of my car, I finally pull up my soiled pants, and then I drive to the filling station, where I buy two gallons of gas.

When I get home, Clive says—Your brother called three times why haven't you paid the rent what's that smell?

We all want different lives. Clive, my father, my brother. The candidate wants a different life. Even Allison. Why can't we have them? Why can't I give them to us?

I am more than I appear to be. I am waiting for the sun to shine. A long continuous chain, then suddenly, there is a change.

Today on the corner the Dry Lady comes back again. She is wearing tan polyester pants of the same cut as before, and again the white shimmery ruffley shirt, and this time there is a red scarf around her hair.

I've opened my mind some to your candidate, she says. He's beginning to appeal to me. I saw him talk at the VFW hall the other night. He's young and dynamic. He says what he means and he means what he says. I believe in him. He's the kind of guy you'd like to have a beer with. I liked his answer about oil drilling, she says.

I say nothing.

I think your candidate has a bright future. I'd like one of those bumper stickers, please, she says.

I begin sweating again. It's late October and still eighty-five degrees in Lubbock.
Lubricious
is a word I'd like to use to describe it. Pistons churn. In Colorado, it's snowing.

I'll have one of those bumper stickers, please, the Dry Lady says now.

I've been standing here on this corner every day for eight, nine, ten, twelve hours a day for weeks. My studies are suffering. When people come by and ask me questions about the candidate, I give them fliers. Some people ask for bumper stickers and I give them to them. But the Dry Lady? No. I will not do it.

Here is a man who stood up.

On the day after the rally at the VFW hall, when I went to pick up more fliers and bumper stickers for my milk crate, my brother called me into his office.

The candidate was in my brother's office with another man I didn't know.

What was
that
all about? the candidate says to me. Your brother said you were reliable. He said, we can put him to work. I said, why not, help the guy out, get him a little spending money, college student and all. I trust your brother. Your brother says, John's smart, he works hard. He just needs direction. I say to myself, that is one thing I've never had a problem with. Direction. I've always known where I'm going. But I know how to take advice, too. I know how to listen to the opinions of others, how to use those opinions to shape a consistence. Your brother says, Stick to taxes. Taxes, taxes, taxes. I trust him, but I like to give 'em a little Jesus, too. What do you think?

He's asking me.

I'm sorry, I say. I messed up. I really am interested in your energy policy, too, I say. My roommate and I have been having an interesting debate on this exact topic. It was the perfect question for me to ask you. In twenty years we're going to run out of carbon dioxide.

Exactly, the candidate says. Your brother said you were smart. I think you're weird. What do you think, Karl? he says to the other man, who stares at me without answering. Weird John, the candidate says. From now on that's your name. Weird John. Or how 'bout, Johnny Weird?

He stops for a moment, thinking. I can see him thinking. He's thinking about what to do to me. All I want is to get my literature and stand on the corner with my sign. The other man is still staring at me also.

Nope, the candidate says, finally, decisively. Weird John it is.

He stands up, and he and the other man move past me toward the door. Don't fuck up again, the other man says, his back to me. Then they are gone. My brother, who still hasn't said a word, sits in his chair, staring into his desk lamp.