XIII

Big M OK Cars

Betty Smith changed her name to Ellspeth Smythe and swore it made all the difference in her life, her future, and her fate.

Perhaps. But events led to another name change a young woman could not have anticipated, marking the greatest difference a wayward girl could achieve. Becoming Mrs. Alfred N. Whitehead Burnham of the Highborough Burnhams, she woke up daily to her wildest dreams, as she would continue to do for the next fifty years.

But even billions get tedious in time. What can a girl do, spend it? Not ever—not even going at it two-fisted 24/7. Not double time or triple. Never, ever is how soon she could spend it.

But harking back on the unwed teen seven months gone with nowhere to turn, she gained perspective on money and its management—and appreciation thereof. She realized that the nature of tedium in the wealth/poverty continuum is far more easily remedied with money than it is with none. Wealth is better, and the good thing about fifty years is the total removal of doubt that time and massive, whimsical spending can allow.

A few odd events took place a long time ago. Most of the principals are gone. The details are fuzzy. A female child may be out there somewhere in a random universe. Time had reduced the filial connection to an accident of birth resulting from capricious sexual contact, resulting in a baby person of parallel DNA but with no more social connection than a ship passing in the night—or on the sidewalk in broad daylight.

But please, Ellspeth Burnham was not the first female to incur experience of a dire, personal nature and move on, and she would not be the last. Life is for the living, for those who can find joy in adaptation, and so she did. Her actions were not cold but practical. She achieved optimal potential for all parties concerned—and she did so with the best interests of all parties in mind.

She wondered from time to time, after coming into wealth so vast that money had no meaning, how a devil-may-care life could be, if cash-on-hand got down to a few million. She could downsize down to teensy-weensy with less than anybody and live simply in blue jeans and a used car, in a modest ridge-top bungalow with her pets, her knitting, and her garden. But what could she do in the meantime, give the billions away? That would free her from the constant demands of management and defense, but it seemed so … foolish.

Alfred died at ninety-two, young by the claim of those mourners lamenting the loudest; he had so many good years left. Such a pity, they cried and carried on. It was those same people who’d raised the wry eyebrow when, at fifty, he married a girl of fifteen. Detractors called it statutory, but Alfred called it technical, inconsequential with mutual consent, and legally defensible, as rendered by the in-house legal staff. After all, fifty and fifteen don’t seem so far apart, staring down from ninety-two and fifty-seven. Besides, she knew enough to manage a house and grounds and kitchen staff. Nearly fifty years of it was proof.

The widow Burnham moved from mourning her dear departed husband to the southland of her idle fantasy—her idea of living a little closer to the earth. She longed for a change of scenery and a lifestyle that might recapture the old vitality. Who needs twelve thousand square feet and servants when the pesky laws of physics allow a person to be only in one room at a time? She could entertain in several rooms at once, but then the guests seemed so similar to the guests at the last entertainment, or the same entertainment, with the same questions and chitchat on who did what to whom and the degree to which it should be deemed faux pas or de rigueur, no matter what room you turn to. Worse yet was the endless speculation on money, its gain, loss or movement sideways. The guests seemed to agree in principle that it was a rough and tumble world out there. They found comfort in like company, oddly blind to the hazards of the overly insulated.

The media could be amusing at times, sniffing the Smythe/Burnham trail for bombastic effusions on nothing. It’s what they do. Who doesn’t make a mess, sooner or later?

She lived that life and had more life yet to live, so she went south, where less could be more of everything.

Feeling free and light again, she took up where she’d left off—suddenly, with a few billion smackeroos instead of being a single mother with a baby busting her chops and coming up goose eggs every time. Once again mobile and nearly anonymous on the ridge overlooking Monterey Bay, she felt snug, far from the society page but not from the world she craved. She couldn’t have a boyfriend in Highborough, though normal urges arose.

Was she done with that sort of thing? She didn’t think so.

She felt equivocal but optimistic, self-counseling that the correct man had yet to come along. A girl could have a fling or a regular man friend. What could it hurt? Her prospects? Ha! The odd man up the road might do, briefly. He looks hungry and feels vulgar. That seems refreshing.

Alfred N.W. Burnham’s stroke had rendered him a man of few words for years prior to passing. His morose condition suited those around him, who agreed that the stoic mood likely suited him too. Nobody called him taciturn and cold, but he was. The shriveled old man in a vegetative state remained in the news, a moneyed celebrity and dry goods icon kept alive by the God-fearing insistence of the United States Congress, which stellar assemblage threatened federal intervention if the old man was unplugged. Alfred N.W. was still a pillar of capitalism who could return on God’s will to glory in a grateful society, representing humanity, goodwill, convenience to church, schools and shopping and those values we hold dear.

A nation could pray.

Military incursion, earthquake, tsunami, flooding banks, and congressional scandal deferred to the Burnham context. Alfred N.W. and the hope of millions gave meaning to motivation and movement. The camera scanned for a blink, a sigh, a nod, a twitch. Was that a wink? What could he be thinking? Ratings remained solid, as the Burnham billions expanded and contracted with the Burnham respirator … until the Burnham saga went to breaking news: Death Just In.

The airwaves buzzed with bio, follow-up bio of associates, friends, fans, and family in their grief and devastation at the loss of the iconic giant. He’d been vegetative for years, and the naysayers had called it good-as-dead. It became official with death. Gone was the husband, the father, the son, the grandson—the great grandson! A hospital statement put the cause of death as complications. Two congresspersons demanded autopsy, so the media stayed on it. Heirs, assigns, beneficiaries, fiduciaries, and spouses declined to comment, even those with apparent claim to the bulk of the billions. The story moved when offspring older than herself promised litigation if bequeathals went in any direction other than the appropriate line. Cameras followed the body and went to split-screen to show the incredible man in his final days, when he breathed, kind of.

Why would she smoke a ninety-two-year-old vegetable? Then again, why wait? With Alfred dead the money got frozen in place. Viewers called for action now—for justice! Speculation swung like a pendulum. Alfred would have needed only hydration to generate a beep on the life machine; he could have made it to a hundred five if only someone had cared or had a heart. Or a hundred ten—vegetables can sit on a shelf for years and still be alive, with a pulse and social security number. So yeah, maybe she did it!

But that theory was cynical, and the grieving widow was the picture of innocence, a self-made woman living on a hilltop over a bay, all alone. Down from Olympus and into the suburbs, she’d downsized her lifestyle to the basics: a view, a used car, and a garden. She loved it. She loved the quiet, easy neighborhood, the convenient grocery store, the people saying hello and suggesting that she have a nice day.

“Twelve thousand square feet? Nobody needs more than three.”

The tale of her climb down and march south lulls Mulroney, who nods and catches himself. Her cleavage is powdered. Does she sweat there?

She says her family history is deep and rich and a very important thing to share, so it’s not lost, ever, and she appreciates his willingness to hear it, and …

He cuts her off: “You know…”

She leans forward. “No, I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

She’s coy, possibly receptive, but to what? To ovations of … not romance, but what? A romp? But two people at the age of better sense, beyond hormonal vicissitudes, can be so easily embarrassed and equally prone to gaffe. For example, what if she’s not receptive? What if Mulroney presents something uncouth—something illegal? This flirtatious manner may be a ruse—or a misperception. Did she not recently migrate from the land of the socially misbegotten?

Then again, why would a man of a certain age and indelicate situation stroll up the street with a gift to call on a woman of even greater years, if not to achieve an objective? She appears to be a nice woman, and the plan is conceived, and it germinates. And a man has to do what he doesn’t want to do.

She lingers furtively, but how can a man be sure? Of course, he can’t be any surer than any man has ever been, except maybe for those who were sure. Mulroney was always certain, when it came to money and business, and he may as well see this as that. But what is he supposed to do, ask for a loan? But she’s flirting. Should he whisper sweet nothings on a ninety-day note? Or maybe call it a grant to help a less fortunate used car salesperson? She murmurs over the past and the filthy rich people she’s known. Oh, she used to hate that phrase, but then she came to hate more that crowd’s obsession with spending and one-upping, her friends and neighbors watching each other and elbowing as they clambered up the rungs …

He glazes again, grateful for her renewed oration on one thing and another. He hesitates cutting her off again for fear of where things might go, though she does seem to be working up to something. He decides to stand up as if to leave—or maybe he should just plainly share his need, however humbling it may be. In either event, a true salesperson must ask for the money because a deal was never closed without asking for the money, and failure to ask dooms a salesperson to wonder what might have been.

She drones on that the latest phenom for richies is the good-works social circle. That is, persons of wealth let their magnitude be known, in order to make the A-lists of the nonprofit organizations working diligently to feed the children, clothe the needy, inoculate the poor—oh! Save the whales! “That one is ripe. My God! But you see everyone who’s anyone showing up at these things, and the food and liquor are over-the-top, and the entertainment could not possibly be paid for because it’s actually the guest list! The catch is, these people must contribute once a year somewhere, or fall off the lists. Well, there aren’t nearly so many wealthy people anymore—I mean, of course there are, but not so many who let on. I mean, most of the magnitude people don’t utter a syllable, and those who hint at magnitude don’t exist. Not really. They think value on paper is the same as mountains of moolah. Ha! Paupers! Presenting as patricians. It’s … deplorable, don’t you think?”

“Hmm. Well…”

“Well, yes. I do believe that imposters to wealth are an odious bunch and, quite frankly, our cross to bear. It’s not right, and it gets worse: the truly wealthy have so many burdens in maintaining social order. Really, it’s why I’m so glad to be here. Everyone seems so … real. You know?” Yes, Mulroney knows. So she drones over cronies and confidants and the stressful life of the upper class, who must tirelessly defend the ramparts from the ever-clawing upper middle—and from the lower too, if you can believe it. The nerve of some people! “Animal rights my behind. I snap their necks! They serve society, and so do I!”

She made a deal with the devil a long time ago, and she honest to goodness has shared that little secret with nobody—no body—until this very moment. “I mean right now this moment, with you, Mister Bicycle Man.”

He rolls his eyes over a half nod to indicate something—maybe she’ll take it as an avowal of trust, or the trust between them, or the beauty of meeting someone new and feeling like old friends—of his own love for the little fuzzy ones. He wants to say something but holds back.

She waits. “What? What were you going to say?”

What’s to risk? What’s to lose? She’s human. She’s been around the block. She knows about wealthy people and the merely rich who aspire to true greatness yet fall behind and hang on by the hair of their chinny chin chins; oh, she knows. He needs to state his case, which is nothing more nor less than an honest step forward, which is not a lunge into the precipice. Her hand has slid as if incidentally over to within touching distance of his, so he sets a fingertip on her wrist. She smiles. Is that a purr? Or is her stomach grumbling. “Betty. I have this … I have this … This…”

That feels like a swing and a miss with the bases loaded, bottom of the ninth. It’s late in the game, but a guy has two more swings. Maybe better to save the last two for a new inning …

Loser! Life is not baseball, and sports analogy means you’re out of your league, so forget the squeeze play and swing away for a stand-up double. At least. All men and women arrive at the age of realization, that in the end is solitude, and until then we must find true friends and help each other as we can. She knows this. She said as much. Moreover, underscoring the game- and series-winning potential of the situation, she removes her hand from under his fingertip and rests it on the back of the sofa, and fondles his ear lobe. It’s a setup, to be sure, a warranted advance and much, much more, indicating that intimate contact may consummate approval of the loan application. Well, it could.

So they sit and ponder life and the world. The stage is set for success, the nature of which may well be symbiotic, in a way. A homespun billionairess in denim wouldn’t dally frivolously, unless she would, but the potential reverberates in Mulroney’s head like Tom the cat’s head inside the garbage can lid when it got banged with a sledgehammer. DONNNNGGGG!!! All he has to do is ask, or perhaps fondle or diddle in kind to best fill the communication gap. The only thing for certain is that the move is up to him and pronto, lest the game be called.

Yet he hesitates. She’s not too far from seventy, but he has liquor and the shadows are pleasant. She has a decent rack, though it looks firmly harnessed. But what if … What if he can’t … Well, let her come and get it, if it’s the getting she wants. Big M Mulroney could fuck a snake when the chips are down, especially if it’ll get the chips back up. So he eases back to let her fondle his ear. She does, chattering anew over friendship and its amazing changes in form over the years. He listens, paying attention as an act of giving that feels selfless and grateful, nodding but not nodding off. The scene feels reasonable and civilized. And safe, which never led to a payout, but the game is still on, with no errors.

This is not romance. This is friendship. He’s married, after all, and a woman should respect that. Besides, in the more reasonable light of rational thinking, he realizes that she won’t want to take her pants off till dark, two hours out, call it modesty or another excuse in a series.

She giggles at the very idea of a neighbor being snooty—to her!

He giggles back, “I can’t imagine anyone being snooty to you. You’re too friendly.” Mulroney recalls the salad days, when he would show a date what she’d caused to happen, and she would scream bloody murder or respond more cordially. It was just the same as asking for the money and seemed like a real savings in time, but that was long ago, when Mighty Joe Young was an upstanding youth, a figure to admire, an endearing character to those who got to know him.

This was not that. Betty B would hardly make a stink, and the Mulroneys are headed out of town anyway. Still, he’s not a stalker or a flasher; Michael Mulroney is simply an aging man in a jam seeking help from a friend and willing to return service, which he senses she is seeking and he can provide if he closes his eyes on some co-ed ass from the salad days. Betty is good company, and he gives her a whirl in the mind movies, not exactly honking his horn but maybe … getting to know you, getting to know all about you … And he says into the lull, “What a crazy world it would be if everybody was, you know, making love to everybody else.”

“Yes, it would,” she coos. “And that’s what’s wrong with the world, people don’t even know each other and they’re willing to get intimate. But … What’s this?” She sets a hand on his crotch.

What’s this? She’s discussing his dingdong in the third person as she rolls on about the difficult people she’s had to deal with and their presumptuous behaviors regarding intimacy, when they obviously knew nothing of friendship or trust. He realizes her social skill; she’s been talking away to make time for the move. Mulroney! You loser! Never mind. But wait: she’s retrieving it, toying with it … talking to it … calling it Peter. His name isn’t Peter. Where did she get Peter?

“Such a bold little Peter. Can you say please?”

“He has several names, actually, besides Peter. I used to call him Mighty Joe Young. Or Lord Jim. Or The Little Colonel. Gargantua. Jack in the Box—but Peter is fine.”

Mulroney is rarely speechless but is rendered a man of fewer words. She’s in control and knows it and seems to savor it, seeking his comfort level at the same time. He wishes he’d known it would go this way. How nice it would have been to relax with confidence rather than anticipate disaster, worrying over the mess and fuss of a terrible misunderstanding. Beyond his wildest dreams, he ups the ante on the loan app—make that the grant application that will not require a few hundred grand to get the job done, but a simpler, cleaner, more precise and truly regal one point five. Between friends? Chump change!

But it has been decades since Mulroney romped on a sofa with a date, and the exchange seems off. Maybe it’s the yard work that makes her hands rough. At any rate, she’s apparently convinced that a piston enjoys a dry cylinder. He seeks to change the scene by mumbling, “Fungo. I mean sometimes I would call him—it—Fungo. Like a fungo bat. You know?”

“I think Fungo wants to finagle a tonsil exam. Don’t you?”

“Betty, I … uh…”

The sofa looks like high-end chintz. Why wouldn’t it be? It’s a leaf and twigs print, and surely she wouldn’t want to disturb the lovely pattern with a load o’ tapioca. Wait a minute—what are those yellow clouds?

Okay, it’s her sofa and this does not appear to be the first time she’s risked a few stains, but they’ll never get the goo to go away under these conditions. But he can’t very well ask that she get on with the tonsil exam, or if she knows how a Jewish princess eats a banana. Perhaps sensing his dilemma, she stops anyway in the worst way of stopping, to ask the most disappointing question in the world of Michael Mulroney: “Would you buy a used car from this man?”

Is Mulroney supposed to laugh? How does she know about the used cars? He never told her. Okay, so Miss Moneypants knows what he does. He has signs all over town. Still, he hates it when they ask the old, tired question about used cars and this man and would you buy one from him, like they thought of it first, like it’s funny, like a little intermission here to laugh at a lame joke at his expense might be a good idea instead of an insult. Now look what you’ve done. The Little Colonel is standing down, taking it personal and getting depressed while somebody insensitive takes her leisurely time. And for what? An answer? Is that what they call hospitality in Highborough?

Actually, a little break might relieve the chafing. “Many people do. Um … buy cars from me. But tell me something. Why do you drive a Pontiac Fireball?”

She’s thinking, not a good sign, but the interlude might work out—she can stare at it and get excited over finishing what she started. Maybe she can go freshen her Poligrip to keep things in place. Man. Did Michael Mulroney ever think it would come to this? Did he ever in life apply for a menial job because he simply had to have the money and feel so degraded?

“Don’t you just love it?” She sits up. “It was my son’s—my stepson, actually. But he can’t use it anymore with four kids and all that stuff he’s always carrying around, so I got him one of those, you know, really big ones he could actually use in combat.” She giggles at the imagery. “I think of it as an urban assault vehicle. Perfect for him. But I like the little red car, the Fireball, so I kept it. It’s all I need, and so much fun …” She drifts whimsically, perhaps on a vision of step-grandchildren in Hummers. And she sighs, knowing those little ingrates will never give her the time or respect she deserves—unless it’s a birthday or Christmas or another needy occasion, and she mumbles about how much she loves the self-centered little mutts just the same. Mulroney waits in thin air, such as it is, and soon she turns, suddenly struck. “Isn’t it strange, what we’re doing?”

“Strange and full of grace.”

“You know, I love the way you talk. I think I love the way you see things.”

“You do? Betty, I need to…” Oh, she knows and pumps the jam in deference to his need. Mulroney smiles with no bliss, hoping for another discourse to spare the chafing that could kill the star of the show, just like the poor dead husband suffered.

“My mother, God rest her soul, couldn’t come out and actually talk about, you know, this sort of thing.” Now she wants to talk about her mother and this sort of thing? “But she warned me that it’s unnatural, disgusting, a perversion. I think it’s a shame, really; but she and I were so different. And I blame her for—no. I shouldn’t say blame. I thank her when I realize the life I would have had if I’d listened.”

“You think what is a shame?”

“That some people can’t …” She stares away, nearly tearful, mercifully slowing.

“Do you mean that your mother …”

She turns back. “I’ve often wondered if my late husband would have been so good as to help me up and out of my predicament without my special skill. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

Well, he thinks he knows what she’s talking about, and he may well be better off asking for it, but he won’t ask for anything, lest he blow the one chance to ask for the money. She doesn’t seem in the least shaky in the bridgework, and he wants to assure her that there’s no shame in dentures, and removing them for a minute or two might be a perfectly acceptable idea. But no—best reserve initiative for she who will take it or not, in order to keep this pond placid, which is not the same as flaccid but could be soon. “Well, I can …”

“Shh …” She admonishes like a nurse, pressing his chest with one hand till he eases back onto the couch in surrender. How could such gentle ministrations indicate anything less than charity? Yes? So? Is anybody there?

But his eyes open on something less than Topo Gigio, as she grasps his personal self by the neck and leans in to give it a good scolding. She stares, as if waiting for a verbal response? People process personal issues in personal ways, and while Betty Burnham’s gyrations seem strange, they should come as no surprise. Why not? Because. So Mulroney’s lids lower again on a downsizing that seems inevitable.

Boy oh boy. A nutter, but he opens the eye internal on insight, causing yet another round of self-castigation, with silent yet caustic questions on the why and wherefore and how he could be such a dolt, stuck once again in the macho matrix. How could you be so blind? Are not friendship and trust herein secured, by which a grant may still be funded! Who cares if old Betty B is off her rocker? She said it herself: she’s a natural. Always was—it’s her natural skill that delivered her salvation from poverty. And here he is, her friend.

Mulroney peeks—she’s playing patty cakes with a tube steak, mumbling a childish rhyme. He looks up when she asks, “What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t know, Betty. You may have to eat me?”

“I may have to eat you? Oh, dear!” They share a crimson flush at the mere mention of the deed, till yes, she says yes, again yes, “but not now. Oh, not now. We must wait. We must wait for …”

“Yes?”

“Oh, so delicious.” She moans. She stares.

Mulroney glances at peripheral movement, a stirring in the ether and the bushes. A passing sparkle could be eyes just out the window, beady under a wrinkled forehead, glimmering with intensity. Mulroney recognizes Phillip, the old guy from across the freeway who rides with Steffen. Phillip is self-inflated with bicycle glory from long ago, when he rode professionally in Italy. He never got over it and harks repeatedly about his glory days, when he’s not bemoaning his Catholic struggle and his frigid wife. Phillip is lonely and horny. Steffen admires Phillip.

Mulroney wishes he was nineteen and glimpsing the future—seeing himself in his seventh decade and poised to pump the skull of a notable socialite while a man of pedantically parochial tastes peeps through the bay window.

He could have avoided this, even as many in the neighborhood would call it the good life, after all.

Betty Burnham sits up to ask what is making him so pleased with himself. Mulroney is at a loss. “Look, I would never impose on a neighbor’s hospitality. I agree. Let’s wait.”

Fully apprised of the male character, she says, “Okay. Wait here,” as she’s up and down the hall, giggling like a girl.

The eyes duck below the windowsill.

A Louis XIV grandfather chops the heads off seconds as a draft chills the Majordomo. She returns wearing mink gloves and says she’s like that man with scissors for hands in that movie—or maybe it’s that other movie where the man has knives for fingers, and a woman dies but comes back as an angel to check out her husband’s sexual adventures or …

Scissors? Knives? Goliath ducks for cover.

The mink gloves have fingernails—except that they’re not fingernails but teeth in tiny heads, one head on each fingertip, each face showing stoic surprise. Mulroney doubts these gloves will help the situation, even as the left-hand litter surrounds the Little Colonel, who now feels dazed and confused. She seems encouraged, but he wants the silly gloves to go away, and he mutters, “You’re chafing me.”

“Oh! I forgot!” She has lotion and douses down like a kid with a squeeze bottle of mustard on a hotdog.

“You’ll ruin your gloves.”

“I can clean them! I’ve been waiting for this. I’ve been waiting for you! I knew you would come through!”

He will not beg the question: Come through what? Yet alas, sadly, she may wait longer because this cannot be. The star of the show cannot work under these conditions. She grasps harder in delusional defiance. He deflates.

“Don’t worry!” She plants a wet, furry hand on his stomach, the other on his nuts, speaking of which, she appears to be bona fide, but assessment is set aside to get this one into the record books. And so, finally, at long last, hallelujah and hosanna, she sets to granting that most personal of favors with gourmet savoring and, since love will conquer all, deliberation and purpose.

Mulroney likes to watch, but this is over the top, just like the eyes rising again over the sill. A man must exhale sooner or later, and so he does.

A playful spirit could count the afternoon a great amusement, yet he surges into the most difficult questions, challenging his fundamental objective. The scene is unique, to say the least, strange and awful at most. Betty Burnham of the Highborough billions appears to have set one identity aside in search of another, or to make room for the other that’s always been around, because she was always this way, which seems a certainty, because everyone is, or was. What that other self may be is conjectural every time—but this is no time for analysis. It’s a time to move onward.

She gasps and hoarsely whispers, “My God, I haven’t done that in a long time.” She rubs stray effluvia into Mulroney’s chest hair. “I read that this stuff is the best healing agent for your skin.” Her smile is cherubic, heightened like a clown’s with lotion smeared around it.

Yes, nuts.

The forehead above the windowsill bunches tightly in witness of neighbor relations on this segment of the ridge. Mulroney stares at the ceiling.

He anticipated remorse, but this is worse: covered in Nivea, spit and pecker snot, and she’s whacko and nothing feels right, and now he’ll ask for the money—no. Not now. Give it a breather. Definitely not now. Maybe tomorrow, or later in the week …

“You’re so cute, all sleepy. I love that. Do you think I’m good?”

“Good at what?”

“You silly. You know. Making that little fellow go kablooey.”

Kablooey? “I’d say … yes. Frankly, if you don’t mind, I’d say … I’d say you’re the best.”

She loves affirmation of womanly skills. “If I don’t mind? My husband says I’m the best. Used to say. He died. Some people think it’s why he married me. They don’t know. Do you realize the amino acid content?”

“You’re a health nut. But your husband was ninety-two.”

“Yes, and he loved me till the end.”

Mulroney wonders how often she’ll need a protein smoothie. “Well, we’re none of us as young as we used to be. That’s okay, if we go slow enough.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t like my gloves,” she says.

“It’s something I’m not used to.”

“Look. I had to work each one, so small and just the right size. See? I slit their tiny bodies and scooped out the stuff and stitched them up with their fuzzy little faces at the fingertips.”

“You’re amazing all right.”

She stares sweetly as a fairy godmother. He lies back and closes his eyes, drifting from life’s strange need and payout, or potential payout that may be no payout, because a blowjob from the neighbor seems heavily weighted to the downside of dark potential, including embarrassment and hurtful disclosure to family members and no grant or loan … But that’s negative, and once again he has only to muster the positive view on friendship and trust in order to count his little minks gamboling light and fluffy o’er the …

Waking up, he checks coordinates—after dark, but where and when, and what? Oh, Betty Burnham’s sofa after a mink-fisted wank and a … Oh, man. Mulroney groans, up from the love seat. She’s waiting patiently, understanding the needs of a man in late prime. She hints that a nice screw would be lovely, but she won’t press the issue. They’ll be friends and maybe have some fun again soon.

How perfect. This is the kind of generosity and understanding that bind a woman to a neighborhood and could well pave the way to understanding. Mulroney affirms the negative: no, a screw will not occur this evening. But next time! Of this a man doth pledge. Maybe, no matter what. “Betty. I’m curious. Are you a Republican?”

“Of course, silly. What else would I be? A druid? Gee, whiz. You are a kick, Michael.” She touches him. “It’s good to have a man around with some life left in him.”

“Yes. It’s good to be here.” He moves for the door. Why press politics at this juncture? Though it is an election cycle, and donations may be a good topic. Moving like senior citizens down the hallway, she says, “That was lovely, Michael.”

Lovely?

“Well, it wasn’t tea and crumpets but it can be a great way to pass the time.” She murmurs, slipping her hand into his, like making woo. Oh, brother. Taking her hand will mean another go, and another, in a vicious circle of remorse and restraint, until he can muster the mustard to toe the line, as he’s shouted down to thousands of salesmen over the years, and ask for the money. He stops near another door and turns to her. But a tiny racket of whirring, chirping, clicking, and rustling preempts his speech.

“Come.” She pulls him in. “Meet my pets.”

The room is low lit in soft pastels. A bank of cages goes silent, as dozens of tiny eyes watch the intruders.

“Rodents,” he says.

“These are my minks. Don’t you love them?”

“Not like you do, I’m sure.”

“It’s my little hobby, for fun, for Christmas and special occasions. You have your bicycle. I have my babies.”

“Your pets? Your babies? You skin them.”

“Not exactly. It’s not like tanning hides. They make furs, not skins. It’s different, you know. Furs are lovely.”

“Not so lovely for them.”

“Oh, they don’t mind! It lets them last forever in a way.”

“You mean like you could be eternal as a lampshade?”

“Oh, you,” she swats playfully. “I don’t do big things. Certainly no coats. Not even a stole in the last few years. I did a muffler last year. But I’ll stick to collars and trim now. I do gloves for very special people. Look at them. How could you not love them?”

“Yeah, that would be a hell of a thing, not loving them.”

Some of her babies have babies of their own, who romp and frolic, carefree with needs met and none of the anxiety of the elderly babies. “Aren’t they adorable?” She awaits affirmation, confident as a proud mother.

Mulroney mumbles, “Yes. Adorable.”

She plucks a juvenile from a cage and cuddles it to her cheek. “And sooo soft. It’s softness to die for?” She hands the baby mink to Mulroney, in whose hand it curls and stares up.

“Yes, well, they die for it, don’t they?”

“Oh, you.” This playful swat is more forceful, since a nerve has been touched, suggesting that her babies are actually dead rather than immortalized in—gloves. Can you imagine?

With an imagination more supple than most, Mulroney strains. “Why gloves?”

“It came to me. You could fit your finger in there, couldn’t you? So soft and warm. The forefinger and little-finger babies are nearly ready. The pinky and pointer come before the others, and the thumb comes last. But they grow to the next size in a day or two.”

“So we’re looking at three more weeks for a pecker cozy?”

“Oh, you!” My, but she does love the earthy humor. “Guess who this pair is for?”

Mulroney senses bile on the rise. Who in the neighborhood could imagine what’s happening here? He fears that his name is on the next pair.

She beams.

He shrugs, “Not a clue.”

“Hold your hand up.”

“Betty. No, no. Really.”

“But I want to.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“But I want to.”

“Please. Betty. I don’t want you to.”

“You wanted me to a little while ago.”

“That was different. Nobody had to die.”

“It wasn’t so different. A little bit of me dies when I have to do that. I mean, not that, that, but the other, what you wanted me to do, what you made me promise to do. You men are all alike. I want to do it for you. And I want to do something else for you. But oh, no.”

“Honestly, the one thing was enough.”

“But what if I want to do more?”

Perfect! It’s a closing question no less than asking for color options.

“I can’t wear mink gloves. But I have an idea.”

“Why not? They’re soft, warm, water repellant. You’ll love them!”

“I can’t. I mean I already love them.”

“So? Minks breed like crazy, and it doesn’t hurt them. Watch.” She plucks the little beast from his hand with a practiced grasp around the chest, her thumb on its head, and …

“No!” bellows Mulroney, grabbing her wrist.

“Michael! You’re hurting me!” She whimpers, dropping the little mink into Mulroney’s hand. He sets it back in the cage.

“Sorry. Look: what you do is your own business, obviously. I just can’t …”

“Psh … And here I thought you were different. You’re … You’re not … You’re a tree hugger!”

“I’m not. I hate trees. I am unique in some ways, but I just can’t stand animal torture.”

“It’s not torture. Michael, I don’t want us to have our first tiff over this. You asked me to eat you. Then you asked if I was a Republican. What’s a girl to think?” She waits, batting lashes, an opening for romantic truce.

Our first tiff? Oh, brother. “You leave the legs and feet on. You put the heads on the ends. It’s … grotesque.”

“The legs and feet are stitched very nicely, if I do say so, along the length of the finger, and the head is over the fingernail. It’s animate. It speaks to me. You prefer bleeding heart morality? You try sticking a big fat penis in your mouth sometime. Now that’s grotesque.”

“You said you … had natural skill. It was mutual consent—wait! You’re right. Let’s not squabble. Dead animal faces on fingertips are … difficult for me. Okay? But we can do something together.”

“Oh, God!” She laughs at his tactful caution and loves him after all. She can’t help it. They will survive this silly impasse. She takes his arm to resume their dreamy drift to a sweet fare thee well in the sumptuous bye and bye, till we meet again, mon ami.

She said ami, friend, and not amour, love, and that seems good, what fleshy friction so potentially complex should come to, not beyond the realm of friendship and playfulness, but firmly within that realm. On pace with the playful aspect, she says, “By the way, I know your real estate agent, that Judith Elizabeth Cranston Layne woman. I don’t know how you picked her. Or why. She drives a white BMW sedan, and when I asked her why, she said they loaned her a white one when her silver BMW was in for a service. She said all these years she’s thought white was stark and chalky. She got it right. But then a friend called out, ‘Nice car!’ So she traded her silver one on a white one. Her silver car was six months old, but she didn’t want it anymore, because BMW makes a statement, and nobody called out for silver, and white is perfect for what it doesn’t say. She said that. She says, ‘if you get my meaning.’ I haven’t the foggiest what she’s talking about, but I do get her gall.”

“I don’t follow her too well either. And I agree there isn’t much there, under the accessories. Except the teeth—for the quick close. But I didn’t choose her, and she’s not there for small talk. She’s there to sell.”

They come to the door. He steps out. “I hope we can …”

“You mean you didn’t choose her for the same reason you chose me?”

Mulroney stares at the two answers available in the brisk night air. The first: that he didn’t choose anybody—never has. He merely deferred to need, and she came along, perchance, with needs of her own. He wonders briefly if the moment is nigh, but alas, it is not.

He chooses the second potential answer: “Yes, choosing you was different than choosing her.”

She waits for elaboration and finally says, “It’s late. We came a long way in a short time. I didn’t want to wake you. You looked so restful. You could stay here, but …”

Mulroney steps off. “Thanks. You are a great hostess.”

“I should hope to say so.” She moves in for the cuddle and a throaty moan. “That was easy. I know you men—you real men.”

“Come. Hugs.”

She nuzzles in the commingled scent of sperm and flowers. Mulroney imagines it at the fragrance counter at Burnham’s: Honey Suckle Mayo. He laughs, amazed at his wit, wondering if he might have done better at merchandizing.

She joins his soft chortle, satisfied that a cuddle sums them up.

For his part, Mulroney is sensitive to her needs and feels the urgency of closing the deal prior to other necessities. He must keep hope alive, because a woman is still a woman at any age. “Maybe we can …”

“Maybe we can. Go now. Your wife must be worried sick.”

“No. She’s into cocktails by now.”

“Now, now. Give a woman her due.”

“Fair enough.”

So it’s farewell, so long, au revoire, auf viedersehen—till next time, with a peck on the cheek, since they only just met.

Mulroney strolls two blocks home, not feeling good or relieved but rather anxious, hoping the exchange will prove productive. If he’s truly honest with his inner satyr, he must ask himself the ever-present question on every man’s mind regarding the quality/satisfaction merit of the blowjob. So he asks, and he thinks, Yeah, that was terrific. Next time would be even better with the warm and fuzzies. Make that warm and cuddlies. The fuzzy thing could be a deal killer. Snapping the necks of baby animals? It’s not the best of images to keep old Betty looking good, so he hopes she has the sense to close the torture room door.

Entering quietly, Mulroney listens. Allison is sleeping on the sofa in front of the news—this just in. She calls it keeping up to date, her habit of fading away with the news on. A TV woman is reporting on the anguish etched so clearly in the face of another woman, an extraordinary woman who travels with a small harp, playing to random listeners on a busy city street, bringing joy to their otherwise hectic lives. Then comes a brief history of harps and some well-known harpists.

The story is wrapping up when it breaks for Breaking News and another woman telling the world that a car just ran into a fruit stand in India or Indiana and killed a man.

Mulroney checks his machine. Marylyn Moutard barks that she will not say no to the offer on the table without a good faith counter. Mulroney regrets her use of mood to compensate limited perspective.

Allison sits up, groggy. “You don’t even know who the harpies were! Do you?”

“Let me see … Weren’t they the original cunts?”

“That’s so negative!”

“Yes. I’m trying to change, but it takes time, along with the help of a patient community.”

She plops back and surfs the news line up, complaining of the sameness in all the news and the giant corporations with corporate family values that own the news channels, which is so fucked. Allison won’t use that language unless she’s loosened up with sauce.

“Don’t watch.”

“I really shouldn’t. It’s sick. It’s like that old guy in a coma like a cauliflower all those years, and they kept him plugged in because he was a billionaire. They spent millions keeping a pulse in the guy. Who in their right mind would want that? Then that bitch killed him. Oh, she killed him and everybody knows it. And she’s a slut too, an old one. And the news people pumped it up like a sporting event. Like that was good news, and they were in these people’s faces every time they smiled or cried. It got ratings. The guy died. So they made this TV movie about this family with all this money who kept the old guy alive. They should be shot.” The liquor also reveals her hostility. “She lives up the street, you know. Probably up there fucking a hobo right now. Fucking Republicans.”

“You never were so anti-news. Or political.”

“I’m not!”

“Maybe I misunderstood you.”

“You usually do.”

Mulroney rummages the fridge and finds potato salad on the far side of shelf life. He sprinkles it liberally with salt and pepper, shags a beer, and sits at his wife’s feet.

She asks, “Want to see if a movie’s on?”

“Sure.” So they settle in to two hours of thought deferment on a painless amusement they’ll forget by tomorrow. They turn in. Mulroney could use a shower, but that’s a chore and would wake him up again. Besides, Allison is snoring. Fuck it. Plenty of time in the morning. But he’s got all this scented lotion and spit on his dingdong, so he gets in and gets stuck, thinking into not thinking, then getting out and quickly toweling and turning in before things revert, as they usually do.

Maybe he feels a loss of traction in his tentative connection to polite society. He’s a salesperson, a used-car salesperson at that, a proven producer in a most competitive arena, where jugular instincts prevail. The years brought him a customer or two who walked in, pointed to the car of choice, and plunked down the dough, but the massive hoards needed to be sold—wanted to be sold—demanded that Mulroney convince them that purchasing a particular car would be the wisest decision of the day. Mulroney was the best. He could never actually train a staff to be so good, but they came close. So what happened? Did he squander margins on creeping overhead? Did sales slump? Did some lots shift inventory to steal profitability from other lots? Did Californians begin to think that pre-owned sounds better than used, and new sounds best of all? Or was it the lenders, hell-bent on ruining a used-car magnate with reduced value factors on anything not fresh from the factory? Fuckers. You can’t devalue a car on a whim. A used-car guy only makes a go of it because a car cost thirty grand new but then devalues to fifteen in no time, even with low mileage. There’s your value, your bang for the buck, no matter how much happy horseshit is loose in the ether. It’s the year of manufacture that determines value. Yes, it’s skewed and wrong, and nobody wants a nearly new car with high miles. But low miles in cream puff condition, nobody gives a flat flying fuck what the little digits on the title say. So why do they bust his balls on the greatest OK deals around, on what they call market fluctuation?

It’s Mulroney’s cross to bear, and so is the solution, which is actually no solution at all. What would he do with a measly hundred grand? He’d buy time, and if time ran out, he’d worry about getting more. Or not, if he moves to Hawaii and opens a used surfboard lot. Or a used golf cart lot.

Hey, has time ever not run out?

What if they had a drug to make a man more romantic—or crave foreplay? That would make this easier. They do, kind of, but a boner pill that drives a man into the nearest hole is not exactly a joy to anticipate. He can’t feel good about wooing Betty Burnham. She’s so odd—make that bizarre, with her Republican values and animal cruelty. Still, the solution to what ails Mulroney’s World appears to be as easy as low-hanging fruit. That would be him, Mulroney, the original low hanger. And to think, a guy had only to walk up the road to get a hummer and a loan—make that a grant, most likely.

Mulroney drifts. One day he’ll be stooped, old, and unable to mount, much less ride, much less uphill. Then what?

In the morning Casa Mulroney wakens to birdsong and garden titter, with Allison urging everyone to breathe the morning air and eat birdseed and be happy—that would be her friends, the birds, including Victoria, the chicken who showed up last month, out of the blue. Allison calls her a harbinger of things to come and tells her to be nice and share with the other birdies. She doesn’t drink in the morning and, as usual, is free of the sundown demons and their day-after consequence. With childish innocence she feeds and waters, encouraging the birds and flowers to express themselves in song, color, and scent. “Or why be?” And if they have other concerns, they can speak, in their way. She asks that the birds, please, drop no dukey on the flowers. She assures them she’s not mad at them—but it would be best if they dropped it, you know, near the flowers and not on them. Okay?

•

What a woman. She’s nuts like the old bag up the road, but it’s different. Mulroney could embrace her right then on sheer affection—make that love, most of the time, and a familiarity of years and so many things between them that he values, especially her thin body, but she’s in the garden. He rolls to one side and feels his age and determines the morning might be good for massage. Hey—how can you tell if you’re getting old? You get stiff in the back more often than the front. Ha! Mulroney just made that up. But that’s another great thing about bicycling: anyone can get a massage, but after a thirty-five miler, a massage means so much more.

Mulroney moans, imagining the ration of grief Suzette will give him for getting so tight. That’s okay. It’ll be a tune-up, with Mulroney coming back together to run smooth for a few more miles. So he dials the number he knows by heart. Suzette is six one and a hundred pounds and reads books on correct eating, stretching, cleansing, sleeping, meditating, chakra adjusting, aura alignment and so on. She’s too thin, at times painfully, like when her chest looks bony. Her bookshelves read like Fellini’s library: Integrative Karma, The Tao of Gallbladders, Your Spleen & You.

Her hands are magic—the first time he thought her amazingly in tune, as she lifted his nutsack casual as squeezing his ear lobe and pressed underneath to relieve tension in the lower back. “You’re making tension in my lower front.”

“Yes, it’s all connected,” she explained.

Mulroney didn’t think Suzette so old as himself, maybe because she doesn’t drink, smoke or use negative language. She’s three months younger actually, with a mystique. That would make her a few years younger than Betty Burnham. Suzette tolerated his humor too, laughing him off, which was different than jacking him off, which he thought at the time she was bound for. He didn’t mind. What the hell. Suzette has great hands and might need a few bucks extra, and there he was on the table, all lathered up.

But she only wanted to ease the tension in his back, in her odd way. Besides that, she laughed at some of his jokes and ignored his reaction to treatment—roustabouts never got the tent up quicker on fewer moves. Then she was on to thighs and calves in her magical, soothing way.

“Hello, there. It’s me, Suzette. I’ll be gone till the twenty-eighth. Please leave me a message, and have a most wonderful day.”

Gone. He could check the Happy Daze listings for massage therapy. But on his last try he waited twenty minutes past his scheduled time. The Big M—twenty minutes. Then she came out eating parrot shit on a rice cracker—spirulina, actually, smeared all over her face as if to look disgusting by design—her design. That’s how the kids taunt and make a point.

They call it political, but it has no point, as in pointless. Mulroney asked if that was parrot shit on that cracker. She laughed, no; it was, in fact, the richest source of riboflavin in the known universe, which is bigger than the whole wide world. Uppity kids want to one-up on everything they do. Her girlfriend came out for the public display of affection, with a big wet kiss, right in the spirulina. And he’d only wanted a massage.

Let’s see: Dr. Feelgood. Lotus Unfolding. Soothing Outcall—Wait! Rosa Massage. Outcall OK. Great hands. That’s Rosa in Watsonville! Bingo!

So he punches the number and Rosa picks up. “Hello.”

“Hi, Rosa. It’s Michael, on the bicycle. Remember me?”

“I do. How can I help you?”

“I saw your ad in the Happy Daze.”

“Yes. I have an opening at three. What’s your address?”

“Oh. Well, I’ll come to your place.”

She hesitates. “You’ll be more comfortable at your place.”

“Nah. We have a showing this afternoon. I gotta be scarce.”

“Well … I suppose …”

“If it’s a problem I can …”

“No. Not a problem. I’d like to see your house sometime.”

Does she want to case it for artwork? “Yes, well, I’d love to show you sometime. Three?”

“Sure.”

“Luego.”

“By-ee.”

Why do they do that? Must they jump on every chance to sound stupid? What are the odds that she makes tiny hearts above every i and at the ends of sentences? At least the gold digging is transparent and up front, unlike the more civilized social segments, who have the couth and forbearance to get acquainted. So the day reveals its plan, with a ride and a rub foremost but beginning with a few unsavory tasks. Because an ugly fact of life and business is that anxiety desperation still requires paper pushing and phone calls. So he heads down to it, ready to plow the drift on his desk.

Which seems like a curse on a man with better things to do. Then again, how much more can he do? Not much is the short answer. He needs money in the short term in order to enable reasonable cash flow to float the show for the long term. And the question persists on each call and sheet of paper, whether this snippet or that blurb will affect meaningful change on the … er … uh … situation. The answer persists as well: Nah. Not likely. He could sell three cars from each lot daily and still need to weather a six-month low-pressure system.

Mulroney doesn’t mind the tedium or the pressure. He hasn’t minded for many years, when mechanical effort led to leverage in all things, and a man on paper could be a king in the marketplace, where the greatest stuff can be had. Now the mechanical effort is reduced to mechanics and maintenance, a chore, but he’s done it for so long and knows the moves so well, he just knocks it out. Takes what, an hour?

Johnny Lunchbox might grit his teeth when the alarm goes off an hour before sunrise for another goddamn shift with the two-hour commute and job politics—but there’s none of that where Michael Mulroney lives. Business independents and self-starters understand retirement; it’s not the end of work. It’s the end of mandatory tasks. Take Allison: she works the garden and loves it. Mulroney works his way up hills on a bicycle and loves it. That’s the true definition of retirement: not having to do what you don’t want to do. Sure, the bullshit and melodrama never completely go away; they’re part and parcel with sunrise. And the rant and rave to close a deal takes a bigger toll as the years stack up. But all told the world is good, and it promises more of the same, if only—

The critical attitude at this juncture is to perceive potential as a swing in the right direction—for the bleachers—on any one of several variable pitches. What are the odds of a strike out? Infinitesimally remote is the correct answer, which bodes well for a player who knows how to read the eyes. Scientific fact: Michael Mulroney is as good as it gets and still loves the game, so there’s nothing else for it but to love the game and let it show. Attitude is everything, and winning begins in the heart and head, just before it goes up on the scoreboard and in the wallet. Mulroney remembers busting his hump for a dollar an hour and feeling great because he’d started out at sixty cents. Now he can squeeze the turnip just right, and what does he get? Oh, Count Dracula would envy that move. How many people can make a hundred grand by squeezing a cash and volume discount and pumping margins on a phone call? Count them on one finger is your short answer. Not that he can just grab a hundred large on one easy call at any time. But he’s done it many times in the past, which will repeat itself if you can just buy the time, or finesse the time at any rate—and that’s the critical component: at any rate. Debt doesn’t matter—Dick Cheney had it dicked—and neither does the interest if you have faith in the roll. You still got to say yeah, fuck it, I’ll take the fucking lot, meaning an entire lot of cars at the auction—at eighty-two cents on the dollar, no, make it seventy-two. Do you know what that means in real money? It’s a different world than a dollar an hour—or three hundred dollars an hour, or a grand an hour—and Michael Mulroney is one of its card-carrying action figures.

Mulroney had this tax lawyer once on a state audit—Mulroney was clean, but the state bastards took him for the ride. The bureaucrats saw him making more dough than the entire State Tax Division payroll. That gets a bunch of GS-7s pissed off. Mulroney met his lawyer once because that’s all it took. The lawyer got high marks for keeping the ride short and going toe-to-toe with the nimrod tax bullies. He was big money, but at his level what can you do, quibble? Three calls to check the guy out came up cherries: this lawyer was the go-to guy on state audits. So Mulroney went. The guy was with one of those six-name law firms, and he wasn’t one of the names. The firm had the entire nineteenth floor in a prime location, all paneled in endangered hardwoods for the spendiest show in town, chrome and steel outside, plush, cushy and heart-grain inside. Mulroney opened with the key question: why wouldn’t an outfit like this want the go-to tax guy on the letterhead? The guy laughed—said the firm did want him there, but he declined. They insisted, and he threatened to leave. Sure, he was a bullshitter, but that was later. For openers, he said, “Twenty-six partners and associates in this firm all submit personal financials annually, and only one is solvent.”

The lawyer was short on cash—said as much by way of concession to fun and extravagance as a lifestyle, including several wives and cars and a steady flow of top-drawer liquor. It happens, but the lawyer wasn’t broke like the rest of the firm. He was only strapped for cash, on the edge of the abyss instead of down in it, clawing out. Eight bills an hour and coming up short? But that’s kicking the horse. At the time Mulroney was way flush, and he chuckled at the calamities of some people.

Big M Mulroney never wanted wood paneling or a nineteenth floor, but some days he made eight bills an hour times ten. Or twenty. How can you not love days like that? You can’t. How can you not know those days will come again? Just sitting back, rolling a controlled substance, inhaling deeply, and feeling the dough come at you in waves is lovely, lovely, lovely, a day of bliss and harmony. Some guys added the toot, and that was okay but not so much for Mulroney. It made him anxious. He made way too many phone calls on the toot, and a stoned reverie tended to mute him up and make him look much smarter. Like now, with things tidied up and responses in place, the M will be out-of-pocket, away from the office, in a meeting, attending to important business, which bolsters attitude no less than another latte and maybe one little inhale of the magical herb. What could make for greater success on a beautiful day than a full schedule with a great ride and a massage? Of course, a bridge to the financial future would enhance success with greater greatness, but not to worry, because that bridge appears to be, as they say, under construction.

With big-picture perspective, the path seems productive and perfectly suited to the skill set at hand.

Mulroney knows the way

to carry the sleigh

through the white and drifted snow …

So he ponders life and business, leaning back into the lumbar support only an executive office chair can provide, taming the dragons as only a Big M can do. With work dispatched and consciousness mildly altered, he moves out, via the bathroom for an executive dump of semi-massive magnitude that alters consciousness more significantly still, with consideration of yet another million dollar idea in the process: a toilet seat with lumbar support, a one-up on those Japanese units that squirt the anus free of fecal debris and then blow dry the tender membrane. Besides lumbar relief, The Mulroney Throne could also include a delicate applicator for the ChapStick. But surely they already thought of that.

Lightly stoned and a few pounds lighter, an executive could well justify a lie-down for a minute or two for equilibrium adjustment, but no. The massage will be restful soon enough, and besides, a quick shower will rejuvenate and remove the odd scent and/or dingleberry, because cleanliness is pivotal to first impressions on a masseuse. Which is no more nor less than brushing and flossing before a dental exam. It’s merely polite.

Then it’s the kitchen for the latte boost on the way to the beach for a mile or so walk to stretch things out and for perspective. Could the sky be bluer? Could blessings be greater? The house could slide into escrow easy as downhill on a mudslide, but again, all things in time.

A half-mile or so down the beach, a crowd gathers at the waterline to watch a big man reeling something in, his rod bent double, his muscles bulging. An eagle ray breaks the surface thirty yards out, a thick, sixty-pounder with a four-foot wingspan, flapping into the shallows and onto the sand. It breathes heavily, critically fatigued and hooked a few inches into the mouth.

Mulroney is saddened by the struggle that seems so unnatural, so void of benefit to anyone. He’s had days like that.

The big fish and fisherman gasp in unison, the man apparently dumbfounded and fearful of the other—the eagle ray confused on what behavior could possibly alter the unfortunate situation, till Mulroney parts the crowd and asserts, “Cut the line. He’ll slough the hook in a few days.” The fisherman shrugs—he has no knife. Someone offers a fingernail clipper, and Mulroney cuts the line. The crowd watches the big ray flop weakly in the sand.

A woman mutters, “Stingray. Look out.”

“Come on,” Mulroney says to the big fisherman. “We’ll ease him back in. You get one side; I’ll get the other.”

“He’ll get you with his stinger,” the fisherman says.

“No he won’t. He’s tired. He needs a break. You ever need a break? Besides, he’s not a stingray. He’s an eagle ray.”

“He has a stinger. I can see it,” states a woman in the crowd. The crowd murmurs warnings, reaching consensus on the ray’s nasty intentions.

“That stinger can shoot out at you,” says the big fisherman.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard all day,” Mulroney says. “It won’t happen.” He turns to the woman. “Did you see somebody get hurt by a ray on TV? Or dream it? Or make it up?” He stoops to liberate a fish out of water, to help a natural player return to his element, perhaps wiser, perhaps recognizing the true M as few fish have a chance to do. Or maybe Michael Mulroney feels a bond.

The fisherman follows Mulroney’s lead with trepidation. They lift the wings into the next wave and move out, giving the ray some depth until it’s underwater.

“Okay, and out to sea,” Mulroney advises, as the ray swims gracefully out. The crowd applauds. In his moment of heroism and happy interface, he accepts group approval on a noncommercial behavior. In the limelight of a righteous act, Mulroney bows, smiling sadly inside, wishing for a helping hand that might ease him back to his depths as well. He bows to the crowd to keep it light, humorous, and subtle, achieving the imagery of a man on the beach, doing good in the world. The small but engaged audience chuckles. A few applaud. Someone gasps, “That’s Mike Mulroney!” Those with cameras make the scene immortal.

Mulroney corrects, “Michael, if you will. Big M OK Cars, at your service.” It sounds corny. But it can’t hurt. Because when you get down to it, it’s a nonstop campaign, running for office or selling cars. You work the stump where you find it. You don’t shy from responsibility. You don’t grandstand or blow your own horn, but you step up to do the right thing and take the credit when it’s due. And let’s face it: every candidate these days is striving for more than meets the eye, sooner or later.

Mulroney is further affirmed in his decision to forego the lie-down, lest he and the fish would have missed an excellent opportunity. Isn’t it grand, the way things work out for the best in the most stimulating weather in the world?

The route to Rosa’s is mostly negative grade, which gets really negative on the way back. But a massage in seventeen miles will be sweet. Maybe Juan Valdez will throw Mulroney’s bicycle in the back of the truck and offer a lift home. Maybe they’ll bond and be asshole buddies.