The Zero Game

I stop right there and spin around. It takes every muscle in my face to hide my grin.

“It’s this sewer project in Marblehead, Mass,” Trish begins. “Senator Schreck’s hometown.”

“Oh, crap,” I shoot back. “That reminds me – I almost forgot about this land sale I was supposed to ask you about for Grayson.”

Trish cocks her head like she believes me. I do the same for her. Professional courtesy.

“How much is the sewer?” I ask, trying hard not to push.

“Hundred and twenty thousand. What about the land sale?”

“Doesn’t cost a thing – they’re trying to buy it from us. But the request is coming from Grayson.”

She barely moves as I say Grayson’s name. If memory serves, she had a run-in with him a few years back. It wasn’t pretty. Rumors said he made a pass. But if she wants revenge, she’s not showing it.

“What’s on the land now?” she asks.

“Dust… rabbit turds… all the good stuff. What they want is the gold mine underneath.”

“They taking cleanup responsibility?”

“Absolutely. And since they’re buying the land, we’ll actually be getting money on this one. I’m telling you, it’s a good deal.”

She knows I’m right. Under current mining law, if a company wants to dig for gold or silver on public land, all they have to do is stake a claim and fill out some paperwork. After that, the company can take whatever they want for free. Thanks to the mining lobby – who’ve managed to keep the same law on the books since 1872 – even if a company pulls millions in gold from government property, they don’t have to give Uncle Sam a single nugget in royalties. And if they buy the land at old mining rates, they get to keep the land when they’re done. Like Trish said, let freedom ring.

“And what’s BLM say?” she asks, referring to the Bureau of Land Management.

“They already approved it. The sale’s just caught up in red tape – that’s why they want the language to give it a push.”

Standing behind the oval table, Trish shifts her jaw off center, trying to put a dollar value on my ask. Feeling like spectators, Ezra and Georgia do the same.

“Let me call my office,” Trish finally says.

“There’s a telephone in the meeting room,” I say, pointing her and Georgia next door.

As the side door slams behind them, Ezra packs up his own notebooks. “Think they’ll go for it?” he asks.

“Depends how bad she wants her sewer, right?”

Ezra nods, and I turn back to the black-and-white Yosemite photo on the wall. Following my eyes, Ezra does the same. We stare silently at it for at least thirty seconds.

“I don’t get it,” Ezra finally blurts.

“Get what?”

“Ansel Adams – the whole über-photographer thing. I mean, all the guy did was take some black-and-white photos of the outdoors. Why the big fuss?”

“It’s not just the photo,” I explain. “It’s the idea.” With my open palm facing the photo, I circle the entire snowcapped peak. “Just the mere image of a completely wide-open space… There’s only one place that could’ve been taken. It’s America. And the idea of protecting huge swaths of land from development just so people could stare and enjoy it – that’s an American ideal. We invented it. France, England… all of Europe – they took their open spaces and built castles and cities on them. Over here, although we certainly do our share of development, we also set aside huge chunks and called them national parks. I mean, Europeans say the only American art form is jazz. They’re wrong. That purple mountain’s majesty – that’s the John Coltrane of the outdoors.”

Ezra cocks his head slightly to take a better look. “I still don’t see it.”

Turning my head, I wait for the side door to open. It stays shut. I already feel the drips of sweat trickling from my armpits down my rib cage. Trish has been gone too long.

“You doing okay?” Ezra asks, reading my complexion.

“Yeah… just hot,” I say, unbuttoning the top of my shirt. If Trish is playing the game, we’re in severe…

Before I can finish, the doorknob clicks and the side door swings open. As Trish reenters the room, I try to read the look on her face. I might as well be trying to read Harris. Cradling her three-ring binder like a girl in junior high, she shifts her weight from one leg to another. I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to ignore the numbers floating through my brain. Twelve thousand dollars. Every nickel I’ve saved for the past few years. And the twenty-five-grand reward. It all comes down to this.

“I’ll trade you the sewer for the gold mine,” Trish blurts.

“Done,” I shoot back.

We both nod to consummate the deal. Trish marches off to lunch. I march back to my office.

And just like that, we’re standing in the winner’s circle.

“That’s it?” Harris asks, his voice squawking through my receiver.

“That’s it,” I repeat from my almost empty office. Everyone’s at lunch but Dinah, who, like the phone beast she is, is on a call with someone else. I still watch what I say. “When the Members vote for the bill – which they always do since it’s filled with goodies for themselves – we’re all done.”