Too Close to Home

The supporters were waving signs in the air. There was Finley for Congress and Finally, a Man Like Finley and Finley First! Music was pulsing through the speakers, the kind of stuff you hear at sporting events to get the crowd going. It wasn’t all that big an event, and wisely, Maxine had not booked that big a room. Rule number one in politics: Always book a room that’s too small.

Maxine was approaching the microphone, holding up her hands to get everyone to settle down. She blew into the mike and a raspy blast shook the room. “Is this on? Can you hear me?”

A number of people shouted yes. “Well,” she said, “it is my extreme pleasure to be able to introduce to you this evening a man who has served you so proudly for many years now as your mayor, a man who’s always put the constituent first, a man who knows what the people need and is willing to fight for them to get it, our man of the hour, Randall Finley!”

The crowd applauded. The mayor mounted the three steps to the raised platform on which the podium stood, gave Maxine a hug, and positioned himself by the mike. He looked down at the first row, saw his wife, Jane, sitting there, and gave her a wave. He must have decided that wasn’t enough, because he walked back off the stage, down to where his wife was seated, leaned over and embraced her. He put his arms around her, pressed his cheek to hers and kissed her. He also took a moment to whisper something in her ear. Maybe something along the lines of “Get ready.”

Then he was back on the stage, something close to a spring in his step, and looking at him, you’d never have had an inkling.

I stood off to the side of the small stage, no more than ten feet away, my phone out. I’d bought this gadget to take video of customers’ yards when they wanted landscaping done, but never got much more out of it than two-minute snatches. I’d have to make that work.

“Good evening, good evening!” Randy said. “Thank you for that wonderful welcome. It’s really terrific to be here. It’s truly an honor. We are on the threshold of exciting times!”

“Exciting” wasn’t the word I would have chosen.

“As you know,” he continued, “I’ve always tried to do my best for you as mayor of Promise Falls, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, and the skills I’ve brought to bear on a local level, I would like to apply on a national level.”

There was some murmuring in the crowd, some applause, then people whispering “shh” so Randy could continue.

“This nation is in a terrible mess,” he said. “It’s in an economic tailspin, it’s being eaten away by a pervasive moral decay.”

He had that right.

I hadn’t hit the record button on my phone yet. Nothing Randy had said so far stood a chance of rescuing my family. Or saving his ass, either.

“This nation needs to be put back on the right path, and I believe that if you send me to Congress, I can help put it back on that path. I am the person for that job.” He paused, giving the room a chance to cheer and applaud. Everyone obliged.

“And there are a number of reasons why I may be,” he said, “the perfect person for this assignment. I know what it means to be on the right path, and I know what it means to have strayed from it.”

I held up the phone, got ready.

“As you know, I speak my mind, I’ve gained a bit of a reputation for doing things to excess occasionally. I’ve had to pay to clean a few rugs in my time.”

That brought laughter.

“I think a real leader needs to have done a few things wrong in his life to know how to get things right,” he said. “My father, God rest his soul, was a wise, decent man, and he used to say to me, ‘Randy, you show me a man who’s made no mistakes along the way and I’ll show you a man who hasn’t gotten anywhere.’ He was the kind of man who knew that to embrace life, to accept its challenges, meant making mistakes, because without mistakes there are no accomplishments. If it weren’t for mistakes, and failures, how would we be able to measure our successes?”

He was taking the long way there, but he seemed to be going in the right direction. Maxine Woodrow whispered in my ear, “He’s gone off text. What’s he doing?”

I held up my hand to shush her. Randy glanced over, locked eyes with me, and I felt him sending me a message. Something along the lines of If this is what you want, you’re going to get it, and then some.

I started recording.

Randy looked back at the crowd and continued, “There are many different kinds of mistakes. You design a bridge, you make a mistake in the engineering, that can result in catastrophe. You overthrow a dictator with the best of intentions, to eradicate his weapons of mass destruction, and they turn out not to be there, well, there are consequences to those kinds of mistakes in judgment.

“But I want to talk to you about a different kind of mistake today. A mistake of the heart. A mistake of the soul.”