Election (13 page)

After everything that had happened, I didn't have the heart for this sort of conversation. Walt must have seen me cringe. He let go of my wrist and swiped wearily at the air.

“I'm sixty-one years old,” he told me. “I have to take my thrills where I find them.”

I GAVE HOWIE
a lift home at five o'clock. He was groggy, still only half sober, and didn't say a word until we pulled up in front of his house.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Won't happen again.”

“I hope not. You're not much use to me drunk.”

“I mean it, Joe.” The car filled up with the sour reek of his breath. “I'll make it up to you.”

“I know, Howie. See you tomorrow.”

I watched him climb the front steps, hitch up his pants, and disappear into his house. What did he tell his mother on these nights when he came home earless, stinking of schnapps and peanuts? Did he hang his head and apologize? Or did he storm into his room, slamming the door behind him? All I knew was that he would be back at work the next day, clean-shaven and repentant, and the kids would snicker behind his back, and the whole cycle would begin all over again.

That's what I thought about on my way home. The ballots didn't even cross my mind until I pulled into the driveway and saw Tracy sitting on the front porch steps with Larry DiBono. I was glad to see her hanging out with kids her own age.

I parked the car, locked the garage door, and wandered back around front. The two of them looked so gloomy you might have thought they were boyfriend
and girlfriend on the verge of a nasty breakup. They moved apart to clear a path for me, but I paused at the base of the steps.

“What's up, princess?”

Tracy had changed out of her dress, into jeans and a T-shirt. She sniffled and tried to give me a smile.

“I lost.” There was a small catch in her voice, like she might start crying again. “I lost by one stupid vote.”

Larry studied me for a second or two, trying to size me up.

“Two votes were missing,” he said bitterly. “I counted them and then they disappeared.”

“Two votes for Tracy?”

I knew the answer before he nodded. I used to be a cop, and the cop part of me was already hearing sirens. I reached into my pocket and showed them what I found.

I WENT HOME
that night. There was nowhere else to go.

Diane met me at the door like the perfect wife in a fifties sitcom, wearing an apron over her prettiest dress. The house smelled of perfume and roasted chicken.

“I'm glad you came back,” she told me.

Her smile was tense, but undeniably real. It still hurt me to think of Sherry, but the ache had receded to a distant throb. My need for her was like a fever that had broken.

“Diane—” I began.

“Not tonight.” She touched a finger lightly to my lips. “Tonight we're calling a truce. We're not going to talk about it.”

We ate by candlelight in the dining room, using cloth napkins and our good china. Diane poured the wine and kept the conversation doggedly afloat, asking where I wanted to go on vacation, what I thought about Paul Tsongas, and would I please explain again what was so funny about
Seinfeld.
Her performance was somehow transparent and convincing at the same time, like she wanted me to see how easy it was to cram the pieces of our lives back into their battered old boxes.

“So,” she said, “how was your day at school?”

“We had the election.”

“The election?” She laughed out loud, as though the election were a private joke we'd been sharing for months. “How could I have forgotten?”

“I forgot, too.”

This was the closest either of us had come to acknowledging the previous day's events, but she chose to ignore the opening.

“Well? Aren't you going to tell me who won?”

I stared down at the bones on my plate and considered telling her what I'd done. But even then, barely five hours later, the act no longer seemed real to me. In my heart of hearts, I did not believe that I was the kind of man who would stoop so low as to fix a high school election, and I didn't want anyone else to think I was that kind of man, either.

“Jim?” she said.

“Tracy,” I told her.

I DROVE TO SCHOOL
the next morning and parked in my usual space. I had considered taking the day off, but decided instead to reimmerse myself in the daily routine. The new morning seemed to hold out a promise, if not of absolution, then at least of a second chance.

Walt's secretary buttonholed me just inside the main entrance. Hilda was a nasty, bitter woman on the best of days, so I didn't know what to make of her friendly smile, the light touch of her hand on my arm.

“You're wanted in the office,” she told me.

“Okay. I'll be there in a minute.”

“No,” she said. “He wants to see you now.”

So that was how it ended for me—quickly, before I even had a chance to start over. Tracy and Barbara Flick, Joe Delvecchio, and Larry DiBono were
all crowded into Walt's office, waiting for my arrival. Tracy burst into tears the moment I walked in. Barbara Flick wrapped both arms around her daughter, but kept her tired, haunted eyes on me.

“Shame,” she whispered, and I thought for a second she was saying my name. “Shame.”

Larry DiBono measured me with a teenager's pure-hearted hatred, while beside him, Joe Delvecchio conducted a thorough examination of his cuticles. Walt sat behind his desk with a coffee cup in one hand and a pair of wrinkled ballots in the other. Any hope I had of receiving the benefit of the doubt from my new drinking buddy vanished with his first words.

“Mr. McAllister,” he said, “I think you've got some explaining to do.”

Before I could begin, Larry stood up and headed for the door. I stepped aside to make room for his exit, but he turned on his way out and spit in my face from a distance of about six inches. His saliva struck me in the forehead and dribbled down my eyelid and the side of my nose. It felt like hot oil splattered across my skin, but I couldn't seem to bring myself to reach up and wipe it off.

I GOT TO BE
President for a Night. I guess that's like Queen for a Day or something.

When Mr. Hendricks called me out of homeroom, I figured he wanted to extend his congratulations and fill me in on my new responsibilities. It didn't even occur to me that something might be wrong until I opened his office door and walked into a dense cloud of gloom.

M. and Hendricks were there; so were Tracy and her mother. One of them looked more upset than the next, and I couldn't help thinking that something awful must have happened, that there'd been an accident somewhere involving a member of my family. Mr. Hendricks pointed to an empty chair.

“Take a seat, son. The excrement just had a head-on collision with the cooling unit.”

I nodded to Mr. M. as I sat down, but he didn't acknowledge my presence. The Flicks also ignored me, staring intently at Mr. Hendricks, who was muttering under his breath as he wrestled with a container of Tylenol. He finally managed to line up the arrows, and the cap flew off with a champagne pop, spinning end over end like a flipped coin until it bounced off the wall above Mr. M.'s head and landed on the floor with a soft
click.
Nobody moved to pick it up. Mr. Hendricks shook a couple of pills into his hand and
swallowed them with a nasty grimace and a mouthful of coffee.

“Jesus,” he said. “It didn't used to be such a project to take a couple of aspirin.”

Hendricks turned to M.; M. sighed heavily and turned to me. I glanced at the Flicks, thinking how embarrassing it must be for Tracy, having to sit there holding hands with her mother in front of three people she hardly knew.

“Paul,” said Mr. M., “you didn't really win the election.”

He paused for my reaction, but I didn't protest or ask him to repeat himself. For some reason, this revelation didn't shock me nearly as much as it should have. Winning the election had seemed unreal to me. Having it taken away felt almost normal.

“I'm sorry,” he said, and his voice cracked with emotion. “I can't tell you how sorry.”

He kept talking, trying to explain what he'd done, but I had a hard time following the details. All I could think about was Lisa, and how badly she was going to take the news.

MR. HENDRICKS CALLED
a special first-period assembly to clear up the whole stupid mess. It was basically just a repeat of the day before, except that this time Larry was going to announce the winner, which was the way it was supposed to have been in the first place.

Paul was really good about it. If I'd been in his position, you can bet I wouldn't have agreed to sit on stage in front of the entire student body and have a major honor ripped right out of my hands.

I didn't feel as happy or as vindicated as I expected to. I was relieved, of course, and eager to take possession of what was rightfully mine, but a lot of the joy had been sucked out of my victory. It's just so creepy to discover that you have a blood enemy, someone who's willing to do just about anything to destroy you.

There was something else, too, something I wished I hadn't been forced to admit to myself. On some deep, mysterious level, despite the actual outcome of the election, I still felt like a loser. Nothing was ever going to erase the memory of yesterday's defeat, the moment when I stood up by mistake and was laughed at by hundreds of people. There was something true in that laughter, a truth I felt would taint every good thing in my life for years to come.

Paul laughed softly to himself as the last few stragglers
wandered into the auditorium and found their seats.

“You want to know something funny?” he asked.

“What?”

“I didn't vote for myself.”

“What?” I was stunned. “You voted for me?”

He shook his head.

“For ‘None of the Above.’ I can't really explain it. I guess I just lost my nerve.”

The last puff of air leaked out of my deflated balloon.

“So it was a tie,” I said.

“It was what it was. You won by a vote, fair and square.”

Just then Larry came bounding up the steps like a comedian, flashing me a jubilant grin as he took his place behind the podium. In an excited voice, he began to explain about the recount and yesterday's erroneous result. He somehow managed to go into great detail without once mentioning Mr. M. and the unbelievably sleazy thing he'd done. I must have spaced out while he blathered on, because I just sat there for a few seconds after he announced the winner, not even realizing that he'd already called my name.

WHEN YOU HAVE
tenure it's not that easy to lose your job. There's a union, and they go to bat for people in all sorts of hot water. Given that the only evidence against me was circumstantial, there's a pretty decent chance I could have denied everything and gotten away with it.

In retrospect, maybe that's what I should have done. Maybe I shouldn't have let one impulsive decision destroy my vocation, the work to which I'd devoted my entire adult life. Maybe I should have stood firm and denied whatever charges the Administration tried to bring against me.

That morning, though, from the moment I entered Walt's office, nothing was clearer to me than the fact that I'd forfeited my right to call myself a teacher. I had been caught violating the closest thing I knew to a sacred trust. My days at Winwood were over.

I didn't bother to clean my desk or take one last tour of the halls. I just walked out to my car in a slow daze of grief and drove home at a crawl of about fifteen miles an hour, as though I'd suddenly become elderly, distrustful of my reflexes.

The rest of the morning was given over to my letter of resignation. It wasn't long, but I must have written it a dozen different ways. The final version went like this:

“P.S.,” I concluded. “My replacement will find lesson plans for the remainder of the year in my top right-hand drawer.”

I sealed the letter in a plain white envelope and started out for the mailbox. It was close to noon, and my timing was unfortunate. The elementary school at the corner had just recessed for lunch, and I had to wade through a sea of hungry kids surging toward home. Exhilarated by their hour of freedom, they ran and shoved their way past me as though I were invisible, laughing and yelling with delight.

Like them, I carried the rhythm of the school day in my blood. I dropped the letter down the slot and knew for certain I was lost.

BY THE TIME
I got back to school, Mr. M. was gone and the furor over the election was already starting to feel like old news. I must say, though, that my return caused something of a stir.

There wasn't an actual dress code at Winwood. For the most part, people wore jeans, the baggier the better. Boys favored rugby shirts and hooded sweatshirts, while the girls went for tight jerseys and oversized pullovers. There were quite a few preppies, a fair number of grungeheads, a crew of heavy-metal death rockers, a squadron of hopeless nerds, some suburban homeboys, and a smattering of die-hard punks. In all of Winwood High School, though, I was the only student in a Catholic school uniform, and it made me kind of exotic.