Orson Card - Maps in a Mirror - The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card

“It’s the unions, driving up prices,” said a woman. And then, after a little thought, “If Nixon hadn’t screwed up we might have kept some control in this country.”

It wasn’t just that his name kept coming up. It was the way people said it. With loathing, with contempt, with fear. It was an emotional word. It sounded evil. They said Nixon the way they might say slime. Or spider.

Siggy sat one night staring at the results of his poll, unable to get out of his cab because of the thoughts that had taken over his head. I’m crazy, he thought to himself, but his thoughts ignored him and went right on, the fairy godmother giggling in the background. Richard Nixon, said the thoughts. If there could be one wish, it must be used to eliminate Richard Nixon.

But I voted for him, dammit, Siggy said silently. He thought it would be silent, but the words echoed inside the cab after all. “I voted for him. And I thought he did a damn good job sometimes.” He was almost embarrassed saying the words—they weren’t the kind of sentiment that made a cabby popular with his paying passengers. But thinking of Nixon made him remember the triumphant moment when Nixon said Up Yours to the North Vietnamese and bombed the hell out of them and got them to the negotiating table that one last time. And the wonderful landslide election that kept the crazy man from South Dakota out of the White House. And the trip to China, and the trip to Russia, and the feeling that America was maybe strong like it had been under Roosevelt when Hitler got his ass kicked up into his throat. Siggy remembered that, remembered that it felt good, remembered being angry as the press attacked and attacked and attacked and finally Nixon fell apart and turned out to be exactly as rotten a person as the papers said he was.

And the feeling of betrayal that he had felt all through 1973 came back, and Siggy said, “Nixon,” and inside the cab his voice sounded even more poisonous than the passengers’.

If there was something wrong with America, Siggy knew then, it was Richard Nixon. Whether a person had ever liked him or not. Because those who liked him had been betrayed, and those who hated him had not been appeased, and there he was out in California breeding the hatred that surpassed even the hatred for the phone company and the unions and the oil companies and the Congress.

I will wish him dead, Siggy thought. And inside his mind he could hear the fairy godmother cheering. “Make the wish,” she said.

“Not yet,” Siggy said. “I’ve got to be fair.”

“Fair, schmair. Make the wish, I’ve got work to do.”

“I’ve got to talk to him first,” Siggy said. “I can’t wish him dead without he has a chance to say his piece.”

Siggy had planned to travel alone. Who would understand his purpose, when he didn’t really understand it himself? He told no one he was going, just pulled five hundred dollars out of the bank and got in his cab and started driving. New Jersey, Pennsylvania; found himself on I-70 and decided what the hell, I-70 goes most of the way, that’s my highway. He stopped at Richmond, Indiana, to go to the bathroom and get something to eat, then decided to spend the night in a cheap motel.

It was his first night in unfamiliar surroundings in years. It bothered him; things were out of place, and the sheets were rough and harsh, and there weren’t a hundred reminders of Marie and happiness. He slept badly (but, thank heaven, without the fairy godmother), and when he left in the morning he realized that he was lonelier then he thought possible. He wasn’t used to driving without conversation. He wasn’t used to driving without a fare.

So he picked up a hitchhiker waiting by the on-ramp to the freeway. It was a boy—no, in his own eyes doubtless a man—in his early twenties. Hair fairly long, but cleaner than the usual scruffy roadside bum, and he’d be somebody to talk to, and if there was any trouble, well, Siggy had always carried a tire iron beside the seat, though he was not quite sure what he would ever do with it, or when. It made him feel safe. Safe enough to pull over and pick up the boy.

Siggy reached over and opened the car door as the boy ran up.

“Hey, uh,” the boy said, leaning into the car. “I don’t need a cab, I need a free ride.”

“Don’t we all,” Siggy said, smiling. “I’m from New York City. In Indiana, I give free rides. I’m on vacation.”

The boy nodded and got in beside him. Siggy moved out and was on the freeway in moments, going at a steady fifty-five. He put on the cruise control and glanced at the boy. He was looking out the front window, his face glum.

“Where are you going?” Siggy asked.

“West.”

“There’s lots of west in the world. Wherever you go, there’s still more west on ahead.”

“They put an ocean at the end, I stop before I get wet, OK?”

“I’m going to Los Angeles,” Siggy offered.

The boy said nothing. Obviously didn’t want to talk. That was all right. Lots of customers liked silence, and Siggy had no objection to giving it to them. Enough that there was someone breathing in the car. It gave Siggy a feeling of legitimacy. It was all right to drive as long as someone else was in the car.

But this couldn’t go on all the way, of course, Siggy realized. When he picked the boy up, he figured on St. Louis, maybe Kansas City, then the boy gets out and Siggy’s alone again. He’d have to stop for the night, Denver, maybe. Did the boy think a motel room went along with the ride?

“Where you from?”

The boy seemed to wake up, as if he had dozed off with his eyes wide open. Looking out on Indiana as it went by.

“What do you mean, from?” the boy asked.

“I mean from, the opposite of to. I mean, where were you born, where do you live?”

“I was born in Rochester. I don’t think I live anywhere.”

“Rochester. What’s it like in Rochester?”

“I lived in a Mafia neighborhood. Everybody kept their yards neat and nobody ever broke into the houses.”

“A lot of factories?”

“Eastman Kodak and Xerox Corporation. There’s a lot of shit in the world, and Rochester exists by making copies of it.” The boy said it bitterly, but Siggy laughed. It was funny, after all. The boy finally smiled, too.

“What are you going to do in California?” Siggy asked.

“Find a place to sleep and maybe a job.”

“Want to be an actor?”

The boy looked at Siggy with contempt. “An actor? Like Jane Fonda?” He said the name like poison. The tone of voice was familiar. Siggy decided to try him out on the Name.

“What do you think of Richard Nixon?” Siggy asked.

“I don’t,” said the boy.

And then, madly, knowing it could ruin everything, Siggy blurted, “I’m going to get him.”

“What?” the boy asked.

Siggy recovered his senses. Some of them, anyway. “I’m going to meet him. At San Clemente.”

The boy laughed. “What do you want to meet him for?”

Siggy shrugged.

“They won’t let you near him anyway. You think he wants to see people like us? Nixon.” And there it was. The tone of voice. The contempt. Siggy was reassured. He was doing the right thing.

The hours passed and so did the states. Illinois came and went, and they crossed the Mississippi at St. Louis. Not as big as Siggy had expected, but still a hell of a lot of water, when you thought about it. Then Missouri, which was too wide and too dull. And because it was dull, they kept talking. The boy had a bitter streak a mile wide—everything seemed to lead to it. Siggy found it more comfortable to do the talking himself, and since the boy kept listening and saying something now and then, it seemed OK. They were beginning to pass signs that promised Kansas City as if it were a prize when Siggy got on the subject of Marie. Remembered things about her. How she loved wine—a French vice that Siggy loved in her.