Too Close to Home

I took a look at myself in the mirror. I had some sunburn on my whiskered face. I’d been trying to remember to use sunscreen, wear a hat with a visor, but the day before, it got so hot I threw the hat in the truck at one point, and must have sweated the sunscreen clean off. I still didn’t look too bad for forty-two, and as tired as I felt, I was probably in better shape than two years ago, when I spent most of my day sitting in an air-conditioned Grand Marquis, driving around Promise Falls, opening doors for an asshole, being a glorified gofer without an ounce of self-respect. Since then, I’d lost thirty pounds, I was gaining back upper-body strength I’d lost over the last decade, and I’d never slept better in my entire life. Coming home every night dead tired had a lot to do with that. Getting up in the morning, though, that could be a challenge. Like today.

By the time I came downstairs to the kitchen, the smell of bacon was wafting through the house and Ellen was pouring two cups of coffee. The Saturday edition of the Promise Falls Standard was on the kitchen table, rubber band already removed, so I could see the main headline.

“Your old friend’s at it again,” Ellen said, cracking some eggs into a bowl.

The headline read, “Mayor Rants at Single Moms’ Home.” And a drop headline, “Vows next time to ‘bring cookies, not toss them.’”

“Oh Jesus,” I said. “The guy never stops.” I picked up the paper, read the first few paragraphs. Promise Falls’s mayor, Randall Finley, had burst in unannounced Thursday night at a city-funded home where unwed moms can find support as they adjust to lives with newborns but no husbands. It was something the previous mayor fought for and got, and which Finley had always seen as a waste of taxpayer money. Although to be fair, Finley viewed almost everything as a waste of taxpayer money, except for his car and driver. And that was pretty much a necessity, given his talent for drinking to excess, and a DUI conviction a few years back.

Finley, the story suggested, had been touring around the city, dropping into a couple of bars after a city council meeting, and while passing the home ordered his driver-I was guessing that would be Lance Garrick, but the story didn’t actually say-to stop. Finley walked up to the door and kept banging on it until the home supervisor, Gillian Metcalfe, opened up. She attempted to keep him out but the mayor forced his way in and started shouting, “Maybe if you girls had exercised a little restraint, you wouldn’t be in the mess you are now!”

And then, according to reports from the young women living at the home, he threw up in the front hall.

“Even for Finley,” I said to Ellen, “that’s pretty impressive.”

“You’re feeling nostalgic,” Ellen said. “You think he’d take you back?”

I was too tired to fire something back at her. I took a sip of my coffee and read further into the story. When reports began to circulate Friday morning about the mayor’s behavior, he at first denied everything. It wasn’t clear whether he was lying, or simply didn’t remember. But by the afternoon, when presented with all the evidence against him, including the vomit-splattered front hall carpet runner that Gillian Metcalfe had taken down to city hall and left on the front steps, the mayor decided to revise his statement.

“I deeply regret,” he said in a written release, not eager to face any media representatives in person, “my behavior last night at the Swanson House.” It was named in honor of Helen Swanson, a late city councillor who had championed feminist causes. “I had had a particularly stressful session of council and may have had more refreshments afterwards than was prudent. I remain a strong supporter of Swanson House and offer my sincerest apologies. Next time I would hope to bring cookies rather than toss them.”

“Pure Randy,” I said. “Close with a joke. At least he didn’t stick with trying to pretend it didn’t happen. Must have been too many witnesses.”

Ellen had three plates out, put three bacon strips and two fried eggs and a couple slices of toast on two of them, and brought them over to the kitchen table. I sat down and shoved some bacon into my mouth. It was salty and greasy and wonderfully delicious. “Mmmm,” I said.

“This is why you keep me, isn’t it?” she said. “For the breakfasts.”

“Dinners are good, too,” I said.

She reached over the paper, pulled out the lifestyles section. I took a sip of coffee, forkful of egg, bite of bacon, bite of toast. I had a good system going.

“You going to have to do a full day?” Ellen asked.

“I think we can be done a little after noon. The rain delayed everybody a day, but by the end of yesterday we were starting to catch up.” We usually did seven to eight properties between eight in the morning and five in the afternoon and squeezed in the odd landscaping job when one came along. Ellen made more than I did with her job at the college, but we wouldn’t have gotten by without my business. “Why?” I asked. “You got something in mind?”