Broken Piano for President (38 page)

Also of note: these little shards are usually smoked through a pipe. Although, people with a taste for a stiffer cocktail prefer it snorted or injected—much the same way cocaine and heroin slide into home plate.

So, right, you had some questions.

Is it bad for you?
Well, I’m not here to tell you how to live. What’s bad for you may be my idea of a honeymoon. Besides a vampire-like lust for tiny white rocks, some side effects include severe tooth decay and intense skin welts caused by constant scratching. Also, staying awake for weeks on end has been known to twist biological clocks into a blackberry thicket. But hey, chances are, nature being the way it is, stuff like that was bound to happen anyway. Right?

Where can I get some?
Good question. Unlike hard street drugs of the past, there is no need to adventure downtown through dark alleyways and rat-nest crack houses. Meth has taken on a rural flavor in America. Don’t get me wrong, inner-city folks love this stuff, too—it just seems that you can’t drive down a dirt road or date your cousin without tripping over a meth lab. I’ve heard pseudoephedrine practically pours out of the faucets in the sticks. My suggestion would be to find the nearest trailer park or high school and ask around. I’d question the first person who looks like Pandemic.

Which reminds me, we should get back and see how Juan’s pal Deshler Dean is making out.

Waking up drunk is a totally different problem than waking up hungover. Deshler Dean will talk your ear raw regarding the finer points of both.

The Cliff Drinker has been quoted saying: “Basically, one’s like waking up with your car dangling over a cliff—that’s coming-to still drunk as shit. But a hangover is more like waking up crushed in the passenger seat at the bottom of the ravine.”

Deshler wakes up with the brain tingling. Still a tiny bit drunk, the Cliff Drinker’s front tires dangle over a Grand Canyon-size hole.

Never in his alcohol ingesting career has Dean worried about dying. He’s never considered waking up staked out on a fluffy cloud and plucking a harp as a possibility. However, peeling his face off a leather couch in the corner of a boardroom, he’s seriously considering the reality of purgatory.

“Johansson,” a man’s cheery, Sunday school voice says. “Whaddya have for us on your end?”

The room is trimmed in candy cane white and red. There’s a mural of a cartoon moose and some jitterbugging vegetables on the opposite wall. The space is long and hollow. Deshler is ninety-seven percent positive he’s never been here before.

Someone stumbles through a PowerPoint presentation. The lights are dim and nobody notices Deshler’s heap rise. His first thought is:
I’m a ghost. Maybe I’m haunting this boardroom
. He barks out a phlegmy cough to check. No one at the packed table flinches.

The graphics on the wall have the heading:
Healthy Wally’s Market Share
. There’s a three-color pie chart—the remainder being yellow and green.

The ghost is forty-five percent sure he’s a ghost…possibly a poltergeist.

The ghost rolls its head from shoulder to shoulder. Its vision is dishwater clear at best. Here’s the kicker: no headache. No nausea. No bloodstains, even though the ghost vaguely remembers burning through several glasses of Rusty Knife.

Deshler considers lifting these phantom limbs off the couch, sprouting angel wings and flapping away. He briefly wonders what the difference between a phantom and a ghost is.
Not now,
he thinks.

“That’s great, Johansson, that sounds very solid. Tell your people keep fighting, we’ve got our big bullets in the gun,” the happy voice says. The tail end of each sentence bounces around the room. It’s Dexter Toledo. But Dean wouldn’t know that, not being an avid
Nightbeat
watcher.

Deshler sits up and discovers he’s surfing last night’s booze wave. His mouth tastes the way used floss smells.

“So, let’s review some numbers quickly. Bust-A-Gut is steady, the Logistics Department says the dome’s popularity is growing with the Mozza-Burger. Winters, oh boy, folks,” the man’s voice dissolves like sugar in water. “This Flu Burger whaddya-callit is shooting through the roof. I mean, the numbers are huge. They are kicking tail feathers. This makes the Monte Cristo look like a bologna sandwich. Everything else is history. Long story short, people are gaga for those hamburgers. What a surprise and what a gift. These new findings make the heart attack angle we were using look doggone silly.”

The group grumbles, upbeat and pleased. Deshler hears one guy grunt, “Yesssss.”

“I know, I know, we’re all excited about the Flu Burger, but you all must keep a lid on Healthy Wally’s plan to fight it. We’re almost there. That being said,
Nightbeat
is on tonight. I trust everyone will watch. This episode should be interesting to say the least.”

A squirrelly bald guy lifts his voice above the rest: “The Flu Burger is really taking off in rural areas, too.
Big time
. The Northwest, Oregon, of course. The Midwest is picking up steam. It’s going better than planned.”

“That’s fantastic. I know it was a bear, switching the campaign focus at the last minute. But we couldn’t have asked for such a gift. I’ll pass this information on to Miss Dayton when I speak with her.”

“Dexter, sir, where is Wally? Not to sound skeptical, but we’re all sort of worried. I haven’t seen her in weeks.”

“That’s understandable. The boss is traveling. Don’t forget, there are dozens of new stores opening around the country. She’s personally inspecting them all. Bottom line, Wally Dayton would love to be here, and she will be soon, but we’ll have to soldier on alone for a while.”

The crowd mumbles to each other.

“Ron, can you get the lights, please,” Toledo calls. “Ah, what a treat, folks. The Man of the Hour is up and at ’em! Welcome, Mister Dean.”

Golf course whispers flood around the boardroom table. “Welcome back,” one woman says.

Deshler is only twenty-five percent sure he’s never been inside this room and zero percent sure he’s a ghost. He stands and his legs sway off balance.

A short black guy rises at the other end of the room and locks eyes. “Well, Deano, you think you’re still up to giving us a few words? Or do you need to freshen up a bit?” This guy owns the happy voice. Toledo wears the same straw golf hat he sported during the
Nightbeat
interview.

Dean wants to run fast. His voice is a rusty tuba, low and out of tune. “Well, now, I…eh, perhaps I could tidy up?” He notices pink speckles of vomit on the left pant leg. His fingers buzz electric, cycling through his memory bank, trying to figure out what
few words
this man is referring to.

Toledo chuckles, the room follows quietly. The guy actually holds his sides.

“Oh, come on, Mister Dean. You’re working double shifts for Winters and Bust-A-Gut, but you can’t find time for us?” This cracks the boardroom up.

Dean jumbles across the floor. He wants water. He wants aspirin. He’s heard Pedialyte is great for this type of sickness. He wants that, too.

“I really need to find a restroom, excuse me, please, uh…Mister…” he rumbles the words slow. “M-mister?”

Dean takes a haunted house leap when he spots Malinta. Her towering blonde head sits at the end of the table to the right hand of the happy guy. Dean smiles. Malinta makes eye contact, then drops focus to a stack of paper, then back up to Dean. “Mister Toledo,” she says. “Gee, I think I can fill in while our…while Mister Dean powders his nose. I have a report about my interview
.
”

“That’d be great, Ms. Redding,” Toledo says. “Take as much time as you need, Dean. We’re bunkered down here for the rest of the day, as you know.”

Dean’s vision jiggles a little. If drunkenness were measured like a keg of beer, he’d be sputtering foam. Hangover city is just around the corner. And that city is a collapsing son of a bitch.

Deshler’s one hundred percent positive he’s been to this boardroom now. He’s just not sure why. But, he is reminded,
I’ve imagined things before. What did the doctor call them? Alcohol Induced Hallucinations.

• Ernie the Keebler Elf discussed his vote for Governor.
  
• He and Abraham Lincoln played a game of RISK. Abe won.
  
• His band signed a $500,000 record contract. (Still possibly not a hallucination)
  
• Pepsi beat Coke in a blind taste test.
  

A poster of a goo-goo eyed moose with a red sweater greets Deshler as he avalanches into the hallway. The antlered beast snacks on Healthy Wally’s Carrot Stick Poppers. The hall lighting is blunt white. Tall, palmy plants line the wall.

“Nope, nope, nope,” says his bullfrog throat. “This is not the real thing. Hallucinations.”

Deshler swears under his breath, doing his best not to act like a fresh escapee from the padded cells. Just like in the boardroom, everyone in the office stares as if he is their embarrassing child. He waits for the elevator. Two other women inspect the Cliff Drinker up and down, smile and bite their lips.

The elevator is wrapped in mirrors. Deshler checks his hair and notices he isn’t wearing a shirt or shoes. His creamy skin is sleep-creased from the couch. He decides the best bet is to go home and pass out. Whoever this boardroom is, they can wait.

On the street, Dean is relieved to find a wallet, keys and cell phone in his pants. The frosted pavement pin-pricks his bare feet as winter air jacks up the hangover’s intensity. His muscles are cold and glassy. He’s ready to shatter apart any second.

“Mister Dean, Mister Dean,” a young guy says, jogging down the street. “Dexter says to call him later. He wishes you could have stayed longer. He apologizes for Ms. Dayton’s absence, she’s traveling.”

The guy’s smooth face has intern written all over it. The young man drops his jaw and takes in the full shirtless package of Dean. “Whoa, dude. Can I call you a cab?”

“No, I’m perfectly fine. I love frostbite,” Deshler rumbles.

“Sir, Mister Dean. Here, take this,” the intern says, slipping off a puffy green ski parka. “You need it.”

“No, man, no, please,” he tries to shrug off the coat.

“You can just return it to me tomorrow, you know?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Oh God, your feet. Here, borrow my shoes, too. Sir, wow, is there anything else? Wow.”

“I really don’t think you want to be doing this…” He waits for the name.

“Mikey, I’m Mikey Medved.”

“Just go back in and stay warm. I’m okay, Mikey.”

“It’s my honor.” Mikey shrinks back, looks embarrassed. “You’re…you’re
the man
.”

Gibby would wear the coat
, Dean thinks. “Great point, I’ll take it.”

The intern scoots off to the office. The jacket is a size too large and drafty. The shoes flap on and off. He hums the first few lines to
Broken Piano for President
to take his mind from this tangled place.

When the atomic bomb detonated in Hiroshima, it ignited with a tiny trigger. A device no bigger than a fist. In an instant, this small switch erupted into a ball of hell. There is a similar switch in Dean’s skull. It just clicked on, ushering a Hall of Fame headache.