EXCERPT

chapter one

Emil Lampost arched his generous eyebrows and grinned at the restless audience despite the repeated warnings issued by his father during rehearsal.

“When you smile you look like Steve Martin with gas,” Ralph Lampost had criticized. “A serious expression might convince a few people that your addled brain is producing a coherent thought and give you credibility.” After Emil had completed a serious of facial gyrations, Ralph chose his son’s pained grimace as his political face.

The unintentional grin that escaped in front of the live audience had been an impulsive reaction. Emil wouldn’t purposely defy his father even though the cameras were off and his father sat in his own living room across town, where he had opted to watch the debate on television instead of attending in person.

For years, Emil had patiently sat on the bench every summer so Ralph could brag that he sponsored his son’s little league team. He had obediently attended the state college after Ralph purchased his new ACT scores. He had even learned to love the wife that Ralph and Helena had chosen for him. His ability to complacently do what his father ordered was the only thing he had ever really done to please his father, so Emil wasn’t about to blow it on a misplaced grin.

He massaged the skin between his eyes, neither smiling nor squinting, while he reviewed the situation. He doubted that Ralph knew when Steve Martin had gas and when he didn’t. Besides, Emil’s friends liked Steve Martin and considered the resemblance an asset.

Emil thought most voters were bored with issues and the sobriety of the process, and the ones in this room were especially bored with the delay while Harland Fell, Emil’s opponent in the race for mayor of Terre Bluff, ran around town in search of a podium. However, as much as Emil believed they would appreciate a few jokes or his Steve Martin impersonation to fill the time, he knew his father was boss.

With his grin taken care of, Emil rejoined the group around him. “Who organized this circus?” He liked the feel of the question, so he kept asking it until someone finally gave him a straight answer.

“Your daddy organized this circus,” Fiona Caramy, program manager for television channel WROT, explained. “He bought your air time, dared Harland Fell to have a previous commitment, hired the public relations team that forgot your need for a crutch, and therefore failed to arrange for podiums.”

Emil’s eyebrows, which were the only hair on his body that hadn’t turned white when he was in his twenties, shot up again while he absorbed her words. He stared at her until she clarified. “They insist that you can’t debate without somewhere to put your notes. Believe me, Mr. Lampost, we aren’t any happier about the delay than you are.”

“Over no circumstances,” he started, and then stalled before shooting out the second phrase.

“Take your time,” his mother had suggested earlier. “People appreciate a well thought out response.”

“am I going to . . .,” he delivered the second installment as one slurred word.

“Going to what?” Fiona interrupted his next pause.

Her question threw him off guard so he started over, timing his words carefully so she wouldn’t interrupt him again but making sure there was still ample time to think between phrases. There was so much to remember about effective public speaking.

“Over no circumstances”—one thousand one, one thousand two—“am I going to”—one thousand one, one thousand two—“accept the blame for”—one thousand one, one thousand two—“this circus.”

Obviously eager for the excuse to get closer to her favorite cameraman, Fiona leaned closer and whispered. “That makes at least ten times he has used the word circus. Do you think people are lining up to buy cotton candy and peanuts yet?”

Clint H___, the stations newest addition to the news staff answered under his breath as he adjusted his camera. “I think they’ll have to see more than this one clown to be fooled.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Fiona warned. “If his father so much as hints that he might give them something in return, there are plenty of uninformed, too-lazy-to-question people around here who will at least pretend they believe anything he tells them. Clint, this bozo could end up winning the election on nothing more than hot air.”

“Nah,” he laughed. “That could never happen, Fiona. A person would have to be brain damaged to vote for this loser.”

“Are we on yet?” Emil addressed the man behind the camera.

“I think that was a whole question without a pause. Better jump on it fast,” Fiona teased.

“No, the cameras aren’t on," Clint explained. “They’ve moved you back thirty minutes while they run an old episode of ‘Gomer Pyle’. Why don’t you take a break until we’re ready?”

“Remind me to congratulate whoever plugged that show into this spot,” Fiona told her partner. “How appropriate.”

Television and hospital employees continued to double-check equipment and props that had been set up in the auditorium of the hospital where Emil’s father served on the board of directors. Emil felt unusually confident in this forum now that his father had explained the difference between board member and bored member, and that with the correct one he earned a certain amount of clout just for being his father’s son.

For once, he was prepared. The knot in his tie was perfect and at the collar where it belonged. Hairspray controlled every cowlick, and he had remembered to put his notes in his pocket. He felt smug about blaming Harland Fell for the delay. The hospital podium rightfully belonged to him because of his clout.

Emil wanted to stand in position until the debate started so everyone would remember that he had been prepared, but the bossy little woman with the clipboard listened to the cameraman and insisted he take a break.

Fiona and Clint sat on the edge of the stage to wait. “I can’t believe so many people are willing to hang around to hear this,” he confided.

“They aren’t willing,” she explained. “They’re hospital employees who were ordered to stay. You know the type - lower level management robots, chalking up brownie points in anticipation of jumping ahead of the other ten applicants for the next opening. Watch them. The biggest losers will kiss his sorry ass, thinking it will endear them to Daddy Lampost. Sad part is, Daddy didn’t come tonight and Emil doesn’t have the brain cells to remember their names and tell him. Daddy will recommend a personal friend for their desired position anyway.”

“But all is not lost. They’ll still get to do the work,” he guessed. “I can be just as cynical as you,” he added with a wink.

“No doubt,” she agreed. “It must be easier for us to see from the outside looking in.” She shook her head sympathetically.

“Fiona, even though they play these games in a business setting, I have faith that when they get into the voting booth they have more sense. Nobody follows them to see how the vote,” he explained.

“Don’t overestimate their integrity," Fiona warned. “Let me explain this town to you. If Old Man Lampost promises to fight for salary increases in return for his son’s election that’s enough for half of them. They won’t consider another issue or care that he also plans to decapitate everyone over the age of seventy and raise the cost of everything from donuts to utilities.”

“Does he have that much power?” Clint asked.

“The Lamposts own almost everything in this town. The old man’s old man owned nearly every house in the city at one time. Most of them have fallen down now, because they were rental properties that weren’t maintained. Ralph inherited the millions his father made off of poor people, and later the land upon which their homes once stood. Ralph invested in small businesses instead of slums, but he’s still no better than the slum lord his father was.”

Clint shook his head and sighed.

“Believe me,” Fiona continued, “when Ralph Lampost gives someone a raise he soaks it right back out of them by raising prices in one of his businesses and soaking it back out of them. But they don’t see it.”

“Why not?” Clint asked

She shrugged and ran a hand through her short, auburn hair, a gesture that her mother called butch and said was the reason she was still single at thirty. “Maybe they don’t want to. Maybe they get some sort of power trip just from seeing a higher number on their pay stubs whether it actually benefits them or not. And then there are others who believe him when he claims to have a direct line to God. You haven’t been in Terre Bluff long, have you?”

“Not long enough it seems. I didn’t see this level of ignorant.”

“I can’t decide if it’s ignorance or apathy,” she said. “Sometimes I think if ignorance is bliss, this is one happy town. Then, at other times, I believe they’re too lazy to fight him because they aren’t willing to admit they have let someone like him dupe them for so long.” She hesitated a second and added, “I hope you’re going to stick around to help me figure this all out.”

“Is Emil as bad as Ralph? He’s the one running for office,” Clint reminded her.

She snorted. “Emil isn’t smart enough to manipulate a six-year-old. That’s the most pathetic part. He may be innocent, but in my opinion that makes him more dangerous. If he’s elected, he’ll let Ralph run everything, without knowing the damage he’s causing.”

Clint pulled the elastic band from his hair and recollected his ponytail while they watched their subject. “You’re awful hard on the guy. You know that don’t you?”

“I’m sorry. I’d have sympathy if he had been born mentally challenged, or even if his father’s abuse was his biggest problem. But Emil Lampost fried his own brain with the best drugs money could buy. I can’t feel too sorry for him.”

Emil stood on the opposite side of the stage, waving at the few familiar faces he could recognize without his glasses. His wife Paula smiled and blew a kiss, just as his mother had instructed her to do. “Give him plenty of subtle displays of affection and support," she had advised her daughter-in-law before the debate. “A politician’s wife is under constant scrutiny. Family-oriented women watch to see how the wife feels about her husband and then they feel the same way about him.”

Emil thought Paula might have taken his mother’s advice a little too seriously. She often jumped between him and the cameras to answer for him when reporters asked questions. He had meant to talk to her about that but always forgot by the time they went home.

Paula wouldn’t be able to steal his spotlight during tonight’s debate though. If it ever got started, she and Harland’s wife would sit in chairs behind a curtain, out of camera and microphone range.

Harland rushed into the auditorium, dragging the podium he had borrowed from the library, which was currently housed in rented space in the basement of Ken’s Hardware.

“I still say we don’t need podiums,” Harland said. “Especially since the hospital podium is cherry wood and the only one I could find is metal and two shades of green. The aesthetic discord will distract the audience.”

“At least we have two,” Paula Lampost intervened. “That’s the important part.” She walked across the stage to arrange the podiums and the candidates where she wanted them.

Emil’s mind wandered as Fiona led his wife back to her reserved seat behind the curtain. Instead of focusing on the points his father had rehearsed with him—repairs to the government center and the need for additional police officers—he compared Paula with Marylynn Fell. Marylynn’s tits were larger he thought, or at least more visible in her tight sweater, but the rest of Marylynn was larger too. Paula’s body looked great for a woman who had given birth to two children, not that he could remember the last time he had seen it naked. Still, he knew if the voters judged solely on looks, he and Paula were sure winners. While Marylynn was simply dowdy, Harland was downright ugly. He wished his father were there to make one of his comments about Harland looking like he should have a corncob pipe between his lips.

“Mr. Lampost?” Emil recognized the tone of someone who had repeated his name several times and was losing patience. Emil still had trouble thinking of himself as Mr. Lampost. That was his father’s name.

He shook his head to clear Paula and Marylynn’s tits out of his mind and tried to refocus on the debate, remembering too late that his father had warned him not to shake his head. There were too many things to remember but he tried to recall as many of his father’s rules as he could. What he said wouldn’t be nearly as important as how he looked. Try to look professional and intelligent. The public doesn’t know anything about the issues so they’ll vote for the man who looks good on TV or the one who offers them something personal, and his father expected him to do both.

He had already screwed up, grinning and shaking his head, and needed to do something big to make up for it. He smiled and pointed at the camera. “And if you select me for Mayor of Terre Bluff, I’ll reduce your taxes and propose to start the work day an hour later,” he said. That ought to be personal enough.

“Mr. Lampost,” Fiona said, holding the clipboard over her smile, “We don’t need a sound check. Now, what about your shoes? Do you want to change? We have three minutes before show time.”

Emil looked down at his basketball shoes and shook his head.

“He is a dead ringer for Steve Martin,” Clint told Fiona. “In more ways than one.”

“Don’t mention it, please. He’ll go into his Wild and Crazy Guy routine, and you don’t want to see it, believe me.”

“You can either change your shoes, or we can switch podiums,” she advised. “The metal one has a thicker base. One minute left.”

Two men rushed to the stage to swap podiums, and Emil’s squint came naturally when the lights went on.

“Make my word!” Emil shook his left fist in the air for emphasis. “If you select me,”—one thousand one—“I’ll make the finest, ummm.” He turned frantically to face Paula. She mouthed the word he needed. “Mayor.”

“The finest Mayor”—one thousand one—“this town has ever had,” he continued. “Take no mistakes about it, my Daddy’ll draw up plans for a, ummm, watcha call it.” He touched his forehead, chest, and each shoulder.

Fiona held the clipboard over her face for the rest of the debate.

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