Like We Care (31 page)

Annie and Joel had already worked out their sexual issues. As soon as she got him alone, she expressed her belief that it was inappropriate for them to pursue any kind of relationship. Yes, she said sincerely, the night they spent together was special, but she was not comfortable with the age difference and with the blurring of the line between “documentarian” and subject.

Joel, while clearly still in the throes of lust, reluctantly agreed with her reasoning, adding his belief that if they fooled around again, Todd would “go mental,” and he wasn’t interested in causing that.

Annie smiled and said she thought that was sweet, which just made Joel go all swoony again.

“Swoony & Mental,” Annie grinned to herself. “My two pals.”

So, as she watched Joel dominate the practice, she tried to project a sisterly admiration. She tried to spend less time studying his physique, noting how his uniform strained a bit with the bulking up he’d apparently experienced just since last season, and watching instead how he held sway over his friends, all of whom were tripping over themselves trying to impress Annie and her camera.

“
Big dick!
” they’d shout every time somebody pulled off some-thing exceptional.

Jeff Regan made a great diving catch in left: “
Big dick!
”

Bobby Slopes just beat out a throw to first: “
Big dick!
”

“Guys,” Annie laughed. “I can’t use any of this if you keep saying that!”

“Gentlemen,” Wad Wendell said drolly from the pitcher’s mound. “The lady wants no dick.”

“
Big dyke!
”

Annie rolled her eyes, prepared to wait out these horny young bucks until they ran themselves to exhaustion and simply gave her the backdrop she needed.

Killing time, she looked to the bleachers behind home plate. There, a lone figure watched the practice intently. It did not take her long to figure out who it was. She wanted nothing to do with him, but she knew she’d have to.

“Excuse me,” she said, having approached warily, “are you Joel’s father?”

He was sizing her up before his eyes even fell upon her.

“Marty Kasten,” he smiled, as if the name alone should close the deal. He shook her hand as he drank her in.

“Annie McCullough,” she smiled back steadily. “I’m with R
²
Rev. I’m sure you know all about what we’ve been working on with your son.”

“Sure. You’re turning the kid into a star.”

“Well, I don’t know about that. He’s—

“Come on, Joel! Watch the ball!
”

The father’s tone was piercing as Joel stood at the plate, clearly unsettled at the sight of Annie and his dad together. He turned reluctantly back to Wad and proceeded to whiff pitch after pitch. He kept sneaking looks back to the bleachers.

Marty shook his head bitterly. “He knows better than that.”

“You know, I’m working on a new piece, about the Kolak campaign. Do you think I could interview you? It’d help us get to know Joel better.”

He looked over her shoulder to see the camera guy. He was already taping.

“Well, sure,” he grinned saucily. “You can turn me into a star, too.”

“I’ll do what I can.” She smiled, settling in beside him and allowing space for the camera to focus on Marty.

“So, have you been keeping up with Joel’s involvement with this Council race?”

“Well, I know he keeps getting his name in the paper. I know he’s got a lot of people intending to vote for this Kolak guy. Not sure what the point is, but if it keeps him out of trouble. . .”

“Do you know Frank Kolak? Maybe from a teacher’s conference or. . .”

He scoffed at the notion. “Joel’s mother handles all that. I work.”

“What is it you do?”

“Sales. Computers. High-end stuff.”

She acted impressed, then smiled. “So, have you snuck out for the afternoon?”

“I set my own hours.” He leaned back across the bleacher behind him. He was indeed a handsome man, although age and rot were eating at the edges. “I save my sneaking out for nighttime.”

“I see,” she smiled. The lech. “So, I find political involvement in someone Joel’s age to be really unusual. Did he get that from you?”

He clucked. “No. Maybe that’s his mother.”

“Do you vote?”

“Eh, I try. The presidential stuff.” He swept his hand through his full head of hair. “Otherwise, you know. . . I work.”

“The high-end stuff,” she teased. Annie wasn’t above spraying it around like TGI Friday’s at Happy Hour if it would get this guy to hang himself.

“My specialty,” he purred.

“So, tell me about Joel. Good kid?”

“You kidding? He’s the best. Grades could be better, but he’s only gonna need to be smart enough to know how to sign a contract.”

“He’s that good?”

“He can go all the way. ’Course, he’s been a little distracted lately with all this nonsense you’ve got him tied up in,” he said. “But then I got to thinking: If an athlete today is going to succeed on all levels, he’s got to know how to work the media and the fans. I figure with what you’ve got him doing, all this TV crap, you’re giving him a workout that most kids won’t get until college, if they’re lucky.”

He winked. “I’m thinking there oughta be some way I could thank you for all you’re doing for him.”

“That’s okay. I like the kid,” she smiled. “So, you and your wife must be really proud of him.”

“Well, sure, but. . .” He showed off his ringless finger, as if proof of his availability was a gift just for her. “We’re not together anymore. One of those things.”

“Hmm,” Annie said, pretending this was not already known. “Divorce can be tough on a kid. How do you think Joel’s handled it?”

He fussed with the crease of his Hilfiger slacks. “Aw, you know. I’m sure it was hard on him at first. But people have to be happy where they’re at, and his mom and
me
, we just weren’t happy. And that couldn’t have been good for him, either.

“Now, I’m doing my thing, his mother is doing her thing, and we’re both there when he needs us. If he’s got a problem with the arrangement, he hasn’t told
me
about it.”

“Kasten, you suck!!” Bobby Slopes shouted from the outfield. This was mock haranguing—Joel pretty much never sucked—although right now he was raising quite a stench with the bat.

He really didn’t want Annie talking to his father.

Marty looked to his son, who stared back nervously. He turned to Annie, then back to Joel. And he figured it out.

“Ahhhh,” he sighed, a blend of awe and spite. “It was you.”

The shift in attitude was queasy, unsettling. “Excuse me?”

“New York.” He was checking her out again. Joel saw him do it. “He came back with a spring in his step, I figured he had hooked up with
somebody
. But. . .” He whistled his admiration. “Mm-mm-mmmmm.”

Annie wanted out. She didn’t need to tell the cameraman; he had already turned away.

Marty’s grin turned icy, almost vengeful, as he returned to his boy.

“Get your head in the game, goddammit!” he barked, still smiling.

Then, under his breath, not entirely without affection:

“Little bastard.”

A
nnie’s other responsibility was just to hang around with her crew during the final week of the campaign, picking up footage that could be cut into Viceroy’s battle cry to young voters. In theory, this was a revolution she was covering. In actual fact, it was excruciating.

“I am very concerned about the young people who wait at the bus stop and use foul language and listen to their loud music and take up all of the benches so we can’t sit down. There are no manners anymore in these children, no manners at all.”

A low, arthritic rustle of approval stirred through the activity room. The Candidate’s Forum, held every election season at the Holy Angel Retirement Village, had drawn 30 or so residents who had managed to come down to air their complaints, along with another couple dozen concerned citizens from throughout the district. Rest homes are goldmines for small town races. The elderly vote with astonishing reliability, and they actually study the candidates and their positions. Common sense dictates that those on the ballot should gratefully accept the invitation to come and take part in a debate in front of some of the district’s most likely voters.

“Doesn’t anyone teach these kids anymore to give up their seat to an older person?”

Jerry Self cleared his throat, the feedback from the microphone lost on many of the hearing-deprived in the audience. He had wowed them last time around, and their support had been a big factor in his victory.

“As I promised you I would last time I ran, I have made numerous efforts to convince the county that residents here deserve a separate bus stop of their own, or at the very least some kind of patrol presence that would, during high traffic periods, ensure that the stop here is geared to your special needs. As I am sure you understand, getting county bureaucrats to even acknowledge a problem, let alone fix it, is an arduous process that can only be accomplished through persistence and dedication. The only way I can be allowed to see this project through to its completion is for you to re-elect me on April sixteenth. Thank you.”

“Kill me now,” Annie’s cameraman whispered painfully as the room applauded softly. She jabbed him in the side with her pen as Frank Kolak slid the microphone over and shored himself up for his first response.

“Um, you’re not going to get a separate bus stop out of the county,” he began, his bluntness causing a minor stir. “They’ve got the entire bus line timed out to the minute based on a rigid formula determined entirely by the precise spacing of stops and the average amount of time each stop requires. One new stop on just one line could knock the entire system off schedule if the stop is added to a major artery that feeds into a number of transfers, which is what you’ve got here.

“And while you’d never get them to admit it, you can also bet that they’re aware that a stop designated specifically for Holy Angel would really slow down their schedule, seeing as how none of us are moving as quickly as we used to.”

The crowd chuckled appreciatively.

“Maybe my opponent knows something I don’t, but I’d just as soon not make you any promises that four years from now I’d have to come back and make all over again.”

Jerry Self squirmed as Annie smiled behind her clipboard. She liked this Frank Kolak.

“Now,” Frank continued, “if you all have figured out how to legislate good manners into teenagers,
please
let me know.”

More laughs. Down front, Frank’s mother glowed with pride.

“I’m around them every day. I know many of them are severely lacking in proper behavior. And if I were to learn that any of these kids causing you inconvenience were
my
students, then that reflects poorly on me, and I apologize.”

He gestured to the room, where several of his young campaigners sat among the white heads.

“Maybe you’ve noticed the
youthful
quality of some of my supporters. Many of them are my former students, and I cannot tell you how proud I am of them,” he said. “They’re giving up their time, they’re giving up their rap music and all that other nonsense that drives us nuts, to get involved. To try and make their community a little better. They make me look good, just by being willing to lend a hand.”

Frank’s youth brigade blanched as the grandmas and grandpas in the room suddenly turned to smile at them and applaud dotingly.

What the hell, most shrugged. Like it’s so awful to be caught caring about something.

“But I must be getting good at this politician business, because I’m avoiding the issue,” Frank continued with a smile. “To be honest, I don’t know what the answer is to your bus stop problem. Once I’m in office, I’d take a good long look at it and do what I could. That I
can
promise you.

“But,” he added, pointing at his supporters dramatically, “win or lose, I am charging my young friends out there, if you know any kids who use that bus stop, tell them to knock it off and give these folks a break. Tell them that no matter how immortal they’re feeling right now, one day it’s going to be
them
looking for somewhere to take a load off. And it’s going to be sooner than they think.”

The room came alive with grateful applause. Frank smiled and shyly waved his acknowledgement as he handed the microphone back to Jerry Self for the next question. Self sagged visibly, his voter support draining out from under him.

Annie applauded too, then realized she was probably obligated to show some kind of impartiality. This even after Self had tried to ban Annie and the crew on the grounds that they were an entertainment entity and not a news organization. All Annie had to do was flash her permit and roll the camera—The Man caught trying to shut down R
²
Rev—and Self was forced to slink away impotently.

This was precisely the type of material Annie needed for the show. Quite obviously too civil, too sincere, for the average R
²
Rev viewer, but if Viceroy’s quixotic, not entirely cynical desire was to change some hearts, Kolak was the kind of politician who might do it: young (compared to the stereotypical politician), plain-spoken, and an outsider by virtue of his skin. Jerry Self, with his eight-dollar haircut and his badly chosen tie, was the archetype of a musty, passionless civic administrator. Frank Kolak bested him with humor and honesty, and in the same breath had the balls to scold the town’s young people—his voter base—for being such putzes when they were around old people.

Annie still didn’t know how this was going to cut together. No amount of flashy editing could make this more than a bunch of old farts kvetching about a bus stop. She suspected that R
²
Rev would ultimately decide that Viceroy’s stodgy get-out-the-vote drive had no business on the pridefully mindless network, freeing her to find a more appropriate outlet for the material. PBS, for example, did documentaries like this all the time— muted studies of some minor slice of Americana, where folks were acting up in ways unexpected.

How would
that
sound to Viceroy: A joint effort of R
²
Rev and PBS, television’s most profane and most cerebral linking up to shed light on one oddly compelling quirk in youth culture. He could still get his message out, but now with the dignified stamp of left-leaning Public Broadcasting. He might even get an award out of it, instead of the contempt and condemnation that most of his programming brought him.