T. Parker - Full Measure

“Glass of wine?” asked the bodyguard.

“Oh, please, yes.”

“You look like a red wine woman.”

“You’ve read my mind twice in ten seconds.”

She pulled her tablet from her purse and brought up her speech notes. She read through them, half tuned to the interview, half aware of the flashes of Natalie’s camera. “When I heard about Georgie Hernandez half my heart broke and the other half just got pissed off,” said Cruzela. Evelyn heard the crowd outside burst into applause but had no idea why. She couldn’t believe there were protesters out there. Now, she told herself, when you get up there, just let them know the basics, then get off stage. The basics were: welcome, sold out, will raise more than fifty grand, which will pay for Fallbrook’s share of lighted crosswalks and then some. Also, remember to thank bigger sponsors: the Village View , Major Market, Pro-Tire, Martial Arts Concepts, Rotary, American Legion Post 365, Democratic Club, Soroptimists, Kiwanis, Fallbrook Wood Carvers, Gem and Mineral Society, AAUW, the synagogue, the many churches, and the many charitable groups. She knew that the people she didn’t thank by name tonight would complain to her, but that is public service now, isn’t it?

She took a drink of the wine and listened to Cruzela talking about growing up in Barrio Logan. She watched Natalie shooting her pictures, trying to be unintrusive. She studied Cruzela Storm and wondered what it would be like to have a talent. As she spoke to Iris, Cruzela’s emotions seemed to crash right through the heavy makeup and on to her face. She doesn’t have only talent, but heart, too, thought Evelyn. For a moment she felt good, knowing that she had helped her people help themselves, and that everyone had come together here to do a good thing that needed doing. Well done, Mayor Anders, she thought, and drank a toast to herself and thought a brief prayer for Georgie.

By the time she climbed the backstage stairs and began her journey toward the ferocious lights before her, Evelyn’s stomach was in knots and her legs had gone heavy and cold.

“They’re gonna love you, Mayor!” Cruzela called from behind her.

She had no idea of what walking into a stadium of applause would be like. She’d never bothered to imagine it. But it hit her with the force of a blow and she stopped for one moment before continuing. By the time she reached her mark, her citizens were clapping and yelling her name and some stood, then more rose, until all were on their feet. Their voices hit her as one voice, and their clapping as two thousand votes of confidence. Maybe all that approval would last until the election! She waved her tablet at them with one hand, and brought the mic to her mouth with the other.

Fans had left their seats and clustered up close to the stage right below her, mostly young girls with bouquets for Cruzela, but there were some boys and adults, too, and the sheriff deputies on either side of them watched, unconcerned.

“God bless you, Fallbrook!” she called out and the volume rose as if someone had turned a knob. “I’m your biggest fan!”

Smiling and still waving her tablet, Evelyn opened her mouth to speak again. At the same moment she recognized Ted Norris, wrapped in a heavy winter coat, working his way toward her.

Ted plodded through the rowdy crowd. Evelyn Anders stood up there in the lights with the gleaming musical instruments, her tablet held high. Her ten thousand commandments, he thought, what I shalt and shalt not do. She wore a black dress and a short white jacket. She recognized him, and he heard the falter of her voice as she began her speech. She cleared her throat and started again. He’d smoked the last of his crystal in the parking lot, drank half the pint of bourbon and slid the flat dark bottle into a coat pocket. The stadium and stage lights sent bright fissures across his mind’s eye, like lightning crackling down on a city. My world, he thought, my moment.

He glanced at the deputies standing with their backs to the stage, surveilling the crowd. He noted that they were very young and unarmed — not deputies at all, in fact — but so-called Explorers, earning their credits for academy. The Glock waited beneath his shirt and coat, firm against his belly.

He turned and looked at his brother and Iris, seated maybe a third of the way back. Even with the mayor up there chirping away, they were talking intently. Patrick had an earnest, optimistic posture. From this distance Iris looked stern. And they seemed separate from what was going on around them, like they were the only two people at the show, thought Ted, or on the whole planet.

Evelyn blathered, “Georgie... tragedy... lighted crosswalks... fifty thousand dollars...”

He shuffled around a group of teenaged girls, their scents finding him. He stopped just short of another gaggle of girls. They looked at him with an incomprehension he understood because to him they seemed no more knowable than penguins or aliens. The stage was ten feet away, and maybe waist-high. Evelyn reigned above them all, bathed in light. “And Joe’s Hardware, and all of the churches and Beth Israel have been so generous, also...” Surrounded by the giddy children, Ted ran his hand up under his coat and shirttail to the handle of the Glock — so solid, so unchanging, so there. Evelyn yapped on. She was beautiful. He remembered her voice on the other side of the bathroom door the night she’d babysat him, just making sure you’re okay in there, Teddy, and it was the same voice he heard now. Now, seventeen years later, that same woman looked down on him, trying to hide her fear. What a gift that fear was. “Fallbrook, you’ve done a wonderful thing... give yourselves a round of applause before Cruzela comes on...” Evelyn loomed there, searching his face with a frozen smile. He looked up the long rifled tunnel of his vision at her, drawing breath deeply, trying to get enough in so he could exhale slowly, like Kerry had told him.

He tightened his grip on the gun. It was warm and heavy and encouraging. The time was now. The crowd burst into applause for itself, and in the roar he commanded his hand to withdraw the weapon and shoot Evelyn Anders. This is for all of you, he thought, for you who hated and betrayed me. His command was clear and his heart was undivided. But the gun did not move. He commanded again. Nothing. He squeezed the grip tighter, finger outside the trigger guard as he’d been taught. Evelyn lowered the mic and tablet and bowed. As she leaned over she held the mic to her chest but the beginnings of her breasts were still visible, like in the cartoon he’d drawn of her. When she straightened she was looking right at him. He summoned all his will and courage. Her. Now . She turned and strode away and the crowd began chanting for Cruzela.

Ted watched her go. Her white coat was a good target, clean and bright in the lights. With every step she took, a voice inside said: You are nothing. He took his hand off the gun and jammed his fist into his coat pocket. As the applause and chanting grew louder he felt smaller and smaller. He listened to the sound of the world.

Invisible now, he turned and patiently worked his way through the cheering crowd. He took slow steps so as not to look in a hurry, though it was evident that not one soul in this stadium was aware of him. Well, his brother maybe. Maybe. Even the cops and Explorers barely looked at him as he walked down the wide aisle along the stands, toward the bathrooms and the exit. When he got to his truck in the parking lot he closed his eyes and crossed his hands over his chest and tried to unscrew himself from it all. Of course it didn’t work. But he understood that he could use some friends right now, friends like the Rogue Wolves, and maybe a cold beer and a little jolt of crystal and a game of pool. They’d have him back, wouldn’t they? At least for a while? At least so he could explain what he’d... not done?