To be a free man like Higgs, except George didn’t know what was going on with the old man.
“Oh by the way, George what do you think of Charlie’s luck?” George gritted his teeth and ignored the DA’s taunt. “Yes, that’s to say that it’s someone else’s misfortune. Tell me George, is Angela the kind of woman that would interest me? I think not. I hear she’s rather sluttish.”
George wondered whether being married to Anna would spoil his life and wondered whether being totally devoted to her would wear him out. But he was doing just fine. He just needed to escape the Cesars and the Bill Fishers of the world. His quickest escape at that moment seemed to be a virtual tour of his own adolescence.
Growing pains. Serious mistakes but nothing fatal. Spanish Fly and the Flamingo. Imaginary people and all of their vices. The old agony. There was no safeguard against the wickedness and the snares. Up and down…morning, noon, and night, up and down the elevator. Running wild. Running the hell out of mother’s MG. By then he’d crossed the great divide.
“So you really know Cesar?”
“Excuse me,” laughed Bill. “Do I really know him? Why he was like a brother to me. I was the idiot who ended up on the right side of the law. So Rev, where’s the fairness?”
“Don’t ask me. I refer to God.”
George felt shaky, almost giddy.
“Oh dear me!” cried George in confusion. “I’m sure, good or bad, we all have our impressions of Cesar.” His mind jumped from place to place. One minute he was brimming with optimism, the next feeling hopeless. He remembered the warts, the bunions and the pimples. He remembered where the idea about him becoming mayor first came from.
Anna joined George, when remarkably he felt the need for her support.
“You’re right there, we should all look to God,” declared the minister without a smile. “And Cesar is a human being worthy of respect. And….”
“And you’re obviously drunk,” added George.
“And a work in progress,” continued the minister.
“And you wouldn’t believe how ridiculous you sound!” cried George.
“We never get the credit that we deserve…our people…there I go again. We’ve all sinned. Including you. I’ve had my share of close calls.”
“I hear your congregation is growing,” put in Bill Fisher. “You must be doing something right.”
“Jesus deserves all the credit,” the minister replied, obviously pleased. He turned to George, who was dumbfounded. “You seem agnostic to me. You ought to read what Paul says about agnosticism.” The minister obviously wanted to know more about George. “Enough said.”
“I know nothing about theology, yet I feel that it has everything to do with my running for mayor. Figure that one. Equate my running for mayor with the war here. Win or lose, it’s a war.”
“You’re not exaggerating when you call it a war,” said Anna.
“As it is said, by their works ye shall know them. Prepare yourself. Be a good Boy Scout.” Hearing this George glared at a drunken DA. “It seems to me,” continued Bill Fisher, “that you’ve got yourself too worked up and are too emotional. If you had more distance, more objectivity, and less passion… Besides in my opinion people get pretty much what they deserve.”
“Exactly,” cried George. “People get pretty much what they deserve. That pretty much says it. And I damn well don’t want to be mayor!”
“Got it!”
“George, who said you wanted to be mayor?” asked Mrs. Martinez. “Let’s all applaud him for wanting to be a public servant.”
Anna’s reaction was the most extreme. Ready to drag George out of the room, she grabbed his wrist; and George, jerking his arm away, hit Mrs. Martinez in the nose. Maria Martinez swayed and squeezed her nose to stop it from bleeding. The reaction from everyone was one of horror. It’s difficult to describe how George felt. It was just the sort incident that he thought might happen and was dreading. Now he felt humiliated as he stood there feeling naked. Then everything turned around, and in place of horror there was laughter. Thank God Mrs. Martinez wasn’t that upset.
For what felt like forever George was disoriented, and he stood apart from everything. To him it was the same as watching strangers interact with each other. With Mrs. Martinez’s bloody nose, words were thrown back and forth and Angela turned pale. There was no love for George on her face, no compassion, only contempt for him.
Maria Martinez spoke laughingly and said something very kind while she held her bleeding nose with a handkerchief. Anna also couldn’t contain herself and laughed.
George asked at last, “Will you forgive me, Mrs. Martinez?”
“All this fuss over a bloody nose. Why there’s nothing to forgive.”
George started to leave, but Anna wouldn’t let him go.
“Don’t go,” Anna whispered.
“Forgiven?”
“Forgiven.”
“You have no idea how happy that makes me.”
“Calm yourself, my friend,” said Bill Fisher, as he reached out for George. “Go on. Say it!”
“Haven’t you gone after some pretty big fish?”
“Yes I have in my day.”
“And just how many have gotten away?”
The DA squirmed and muttered, “I’d hope not many.
“And wasn’t it you who made a reputation by sending a couple of sixteen-year-olds to the gas chamber?”
This time, however, George didn’t know what he was talking about. The fact was that he knew very little about the DA.
“And you mother,” he suddenly asked Mrs. Martinez, “didn’t you rent me a room in hopes that I’d marry one of your daughters?”
“What’s gotten into you?” asked Maria Martinez.
“George is in rare form tonight,” Angela murmured.
“So he is Angela.” George wasn’t sure who said that.
Angela managed a brave smile. Anna winked.
“By now I know George. He’s….he’s….what can I say?” was all Maria Martinez could muster.
“I came here not sure of the reception I’d get,” George went on. “Then someone suggested that I could become mayor. For those of you who expected an acceptance speech I say thanks but no thanks.”
“Look he’s trembling,” Bill Fisher observed.
“And we’re surprised that there’s another killing,” declared George. “Someone should step up. Who is that someone? Ask the DA here. That’s how someone could make a name for himself, but I’m not your man.”
The DA was talking to the minister. While the minister listened he kept looking in George’s direction.
“So we live in Gomorrah.” George.
“Some days it feels like it,” agreed the minister.
“But out of the darkness we must emerge.”
“Yes George.”
“Where Old courthouse cronies grease each other’s palms. Where there are tales of corruption and malfeasance by well-meaning men and women. What are we going to do?”
“The sins of us all are inherited by our children.”
“I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I’ve had my kudos…but mayor?” George didn’t know why he kept bringing up the idea of running for mayor. For some time he’d been trying to leave. The minister was still trying to stop him. To leave George tried to push his way free.
Randy Ford
