1995

The Campaign:
Drinking with the Fishes

MAX IS WATCHING large goldfish swimming against a
current below his forearms. He is drinking beer, sitting up at a bar that features a clear, four-inch, water-filled pipe that runs its full perimeter and disappears into an aquarium somewhere in the back. The club regulars include journalists and politicians.

In the history of the place, countless arguments have faded away as the drunken belligerents became engrossed in the fishy activity beneath their elbows. The bartender, a shadowy, mischievous fellow, has been known to stir things up by changing the direction of the current without notice. This prompts the fish to change direction. Eventually someone notices, which provokes loud debate about the direction the fish normally swim and why it might have changed if, in fact, it has.

At other times, the morose can look at the fish and contemplate the futility of their lives, which is what Max is doing. For him, it’s a moment of quiet contemplation and self-loathing. For the fish, a circuit around the bar is likely the equivalent of space travel. On balance, a good arrangement for all, Max thinks.

Since the provincial election campaign began Max has been “drinking with the fishes” a little too often and too far into the evening. He is resolving to stop it when a youngish guy in a nice suit takes a seat next to him and stares into the tube.

“Fuck,” the guy says to the fish.

“What?” Max says.

“The fucking campaign. I feel like those fish.”

“Everybody feels like the fish,” Max says.

The bartender evidently hears the conversation and feels the need for downbeat music. Wordlessly, he starts a cassette player and the room fills with the lugubrious lyrics of Ruby Don’t Take Your Love to Town. Kenny Rogers is singing. It seems his lover has painted her lips and curled her hair. The sun’s going down and Kenny’s worried she’s headed to town and takin’ nothin’ but her love with her. Kenny’s on his own. “Roooo-beee . . ..”

Max looks the guy over. It’s the Premier’s executive assistant, his fixer.

“I know you,” he says. “You’re that prick who works for the Premier.”

With some effort, the guy brings his gaze to bear on Max: “You’re that asshole editor. Fuck. I’ll buy you a beer.”

“Sure.”

Their mugs land heavily on the bar without another word being spoken. They clink their beers together, temporarily united in their distaste for political campaigns.

“The only good thing about this campaign is the pussy,” the Fixer says. “It’s everywhere this year. It’s a bumper crop out there.”

“We don’t have that in my business,” Max says.

“I know. You guys wear hair shirts and self-flagellate. Saintly hypocrites.”

Max figures that’s fair ball, but thinks the guy should know why he’s drinking with the fishes tonight.

“Fine. But why can’t you guys just let me do my job?”

“We are letting you do your job. Truth is, for my two cents, we should have you killed,” the Fixer says. “Humanely, of course. We’re not animals.”

“You call what you’re doing to me ‘leaving me alone’?”

The guy orders two more beers. When they thump down before them, he begins his explanation in slow, measured tones.

“There . . . is . . . no . . . conspiracy . . . against . . . you.”

“Really?”

“Swear to God. I mean, according to your editorial page, we’re just a bunch of half-wit buffoons who haven’t even bothered to scrape the cow dung off our boots.”

“Strictly speaking, I said horse manure.”

The Fixer executes an exaggerated bow that would have toppled him from his stool but for Max’s intervention.

“My apologies, your greatness,” the Fixer says upon regaining his seat. “But if that’s your opinion, what makes you think we can organize a conspiracy?”

A large goldfish is stationed between Max’s forearms, calmly working against the current: “See, Max,” it says, “that’s what we’ve been telling you all along.”

Max sighs. “Okay, if not the Premier, then who?”

“Nobody. You have to think of the Party as an independent, living organism.”

“Like a low-grade virus, or foot fungus?”

“Oh, man, you are a fuckhead. On the contrary, it’s a very complex organism. Its members join, participate and die off, like cells in your body, but the Party continues. It even has its own immune system. Right now, it’s having a big immune response to you and your ratbag paper.”

Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town segues into You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille. Kenny Rogers is clearly having a bad night. First Ruby takes off on him, and now Lucille is cruising the bars, leaving him to bring in the crop and feed the four kids by himself. The bartender shakes his head in apparent disbelief at the fecklessness of Kenny’s womenfolk.

“Just ignore him,” says the Fixer, motioning toward the bartender “It’s his way of telling us to go home. Next, he’ll hit a switch on the pump to get the fish swimming in the other direction.”

“Can you prove he does that?”

“No. Many have tried, but none have succeeded.”

Max looks around and sees there is exactly one other customer in the establishment, passed out on his table. He brings the conversation back to the non-conspiracy.

“But somebody has to organize the immune response,” Max says.

“No. That’s the POINT!” The Fixer is strident. “It’s organic, self-organizing. When you get a cold — or maybe chlamydia in your case — do you command your immune system to mount an attack?”

Max’s thoughts turn for a moment to his stomach problems, which the Wife says is stress. But he’s wondering if it’s cancer.

The Fixer drones on with his metaphor.

“No. Your immune system is self-activating. It’s the same with the Party. One member — an immune cell — detects an asshole like you and decides he’s a problem. So he files, in your case, a defamation suit. Now, that’s like a flag for other immune cells, and they just pile on. No one has to tell them to do anything. Same thing happens to Party leaders who fuck up. Even sitting premiers.”

Max can feel his hangover starting already. The Fixer keeps going.

“The Party is saying to you: ‘Stop pissing into our tent; c’mon in and piss out like the rest of us’. Make no mistake, we could use you. You could really make a difference.”

Max looks at the fish. He is sure they were swimming in the opposite direction just a moment ago.

“I hear you,” he sighs, “but why now?”

“Because you’re pissing on the third rail of Nova Scotia politics. Everybody knows you’re trying to get a story on that so-called runway.”

“Jesus, you know how to mix a metaphor,” Max says. “Now I’m pissing into the tent and onto an electrified rail?”

The Fixer offers to buy Max another beer. Max declines. The Fixer orders himself a Martini.

“My point is, the project is in rural Nova Scotia,” the Fixer says. “Nobody cares what your crappy little paper does in Halifax. But the outback, that’s another matter. That’s offside.”

“So you want me to kill the story.”

“You do what ya gotta do. I’m just sayin’.”

The Fixer’s head is unsteady on his shoulders. He squints at Max: “You don’t even know where it is, do you?”

“OK,” Max says, ignoring the jibe. “You didn’t start the immune response, but you can stop it, right?”

“We can, but why?”

Max can tell the guy’s dying to say something else, something juicy. He decides ego is the right bait.

“I guess I’m in over my head,” Max says.

The Fixer nods in agreement: “You don’t know the half of it.”

“What are you talking about?” he asks.

“Always ask yourself who’s got something to gain, Max.”

You pedant, Max thinks. Come on, spill it. You know you can’t help yourself.

“Let’s just say your publisher is a friend of the Party.”

“He’s a friend of whoever’s in power,” Max says.

This earns a smug grin from the Fixer.

“Well, the Party is in power. And therefore your publisher would love to see you on permanent stress leave. Or dead. That wouldn’t break his heart. It’s no big deal, Max. It’s just friends looking after friends. And remember, the Party will look after you, too — if you ask it to.”