Mark Costello - Big If

Tashmo lit a cigarette, sitting on a picnic bench. He knew that he had screwed up when he banged his best friend’s wife, and he had done his level best through the intervening years to cover up all traces of the indiscretion. He was following the model of his hero, Ronald Reagan. Tashmo as a bodyguard had watched Reagan in the last years, ’87, ’88, beat off scandal upon scandal, Ollie North, the Contras, missile shipments to Iran, the great man diminished by a web of shredded paper. There were some who even said that Tashmo in those years began to become Ronald Reagan, to walk like him (the jaunty rancher’s strut) and cock a six-gun smile in the Reagan way, and now it seemed that Tashmo was doomed to end his tenure as the Dutchman had, dodging allegations, shrewdly feigning cluelessness. It was a subtle danger of bodyguarding greatness. Exposure to that wattage of charisma seemed to hollow out the everyday. You came to see yourself not as a man with the duties of suburbia, but rather as the president of the country called your life.

The bench was cold on Tashmo’s ass. He took a walk around the yard.

Spring would be coming in a month or so, and he would start his spring routine, rising early when he was home, drinking coffee in his boxing gloves, doing sixty seconds on the speed bag in the basement, wearing nasty old swim trunks. In the summer, he would go outside, still shirtless, showing off his Buster Crabbe physique. He’d pull the hose like a mule from the bushes to the flowerbed, and water slowly, making the dirt dark, cigarette on his lips, the scene slowly building toward a climactic coffee piss, Tashmo in the garden, his back to the house, the trunks tucked under his nuts. If he saw Bo Gould going off to the black budget, Tashmo would wave with the hose, thumbing off a high Good morning! spray, pissing with the other hand as he waved to Bo. That would be a shining time — him going, hose going, Bo going; everything is good.

Jeanette moped through the kitchen, coming from the den, going to the john, carrying a melted icepack in her right hand, the TV remote in her left. Tashmo was sitting at the table, drinking his iced tea.

She said, “I need a ride to school tomorrow morning, Daddy.”

Tashmo said, “That’s nice.”

Jeanette went to the bathroom.

Shirl came in, fixed herself a plate of sloppy joe, and sat down to eat. She said, “Loudon called — I almost forgot. Loudon in L.A., he said. Is that old Loudon Rhodes?”

Tashmo said, “Of course it is. How many Loudons could a person know?”

“Well I asked him and he wouldn’t say. I kept saying, ‘Is this Loudon Rhodes?’”

“He was probably on a cell phone. He’s secrecy-obsessed.”

Loudon Rhodes, the ex-Reagan bodyguard, was living in L.A., running a private security firm, making millions in retirement. His agents guarded stars and hot directors, fending off stalker fans, paparazzi, aspiring screenwriters, and divorce attorneys. He called Tashmo from his hot tub or his boat, from Aspen, Sundance, and Cannes, just to chew the fat and talk about old times. He was always telling Tashmo that he ought to hang it up, retire, join the real world.

Shirl ate the sloppy joe. “He kept saying, ‘The crow is flying.’ He said you’d understand. He said it twice, the crow. I said, ‘Loudon, is that you?’”

Shirl had the local callback number on a scrap of paper. She gave it to her husband. She asked, “How is Sue-Bee?”

Tashmo said, “They’re pretty much divorced. Loudon moved to Malibu. He’s dating Malibu Barbie.”

Shirl said, “I never liked that man, even when I did. What happened to Kobe?”

“Cokehead,” Tashmo said. “He was working for his dad, hanging out with stars, and they got him into the cocaine. Poor Loudon had to shell out for two rehabs.”

Tashmo poured another tea and sat across from Shirl, trying to come up with a way to say that he wasn’t going north to bang other women, without admitting that he ever had.

He said, “Can I get you something while I’m gone?”

“Like what?” she said, still eating.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Something special, something nice, something you’ve been wanting for a long time, something they only have in New Hampshire.”

“Just don’t bring back the flu.”

“I don’t control that, Shirl. I work the crowds, people sneeze. It goes with the territory.”

“Remember how sick I was the last time? I was stuffed up for a month. I missed two book club meetings. They were good books too.”

Jeanette emerged from the bathroom, changed her icepack ice from the freezer trays. Jeanette was a sophomore at Martha Custis College in the Shenandoah. Her sweatshirt said CUSTIS . She closed the fridge and headed for the den, holding the icepack to the right side of her face.

Tashmo stopped her with his arm. “Let’s see.”

Jeanette paused, slouching. He looked up at her eye, which was puffy and purple-yellow.

He whistled. “It’s a beaut.”

She said, “Daddy,” and went into the den.

Jeanette had rushed a southern belle sorority called Rho Rho Rho, and had come back from pledge weekend (or Hell Fest as they called it at Custis) with a fat black eye and minor kidney damage.

“God I’m proud,” said Tashmo after Jeanette had left.

Shirl rinsed her plate and scraped the skillet, and slowly they returned to the business of the cars.

“ If it starts,” she said, “and if it doesn’t crash from having no brakes, how am I supposed to get home from Generoso’s? Any bright ideas?”

“I never said it had no brakes. I only said there was an aaagh .”

“I can’t walk home.”

“I’d never let you drive a truck that had no brakes.”

“You’re a sweetie.”

Was she always this sarcastic? He said, “It’s simple, Shirl. You drive my truck, Jeanette follows in your car, and the two of you come home together.”

Shirl said that Jeanette had class on Monday morning, and wasn’t that what they were paying Custis for, class?

Tashmo said, “Call Mandy then. She can meet you at Generoso’s.”

“Who’ll watch the twins?”

“There’s always Nigel,” Tashmo said.

Nigel was Mandy’s husband. He taught comp lit at UMaryland. They were going through a trial separation.

Shirl said, “You’d trust the twins with Nigel?”

“He’s their father,” Tashmo said.

“He’d probably abduct them off to London and then we’d have to extradite them back. That could take years and hefty legal bills.”

“The twins can ride with Mandy. They love the car. It reminds them of the womb.”

“But Nigel has their car.”

“You can drive my truck. Mandy can drive your car with the twins in back.”

“What about the car seats?”

“What about the car seats?”

“The seats are in the car and Nigel has the car.”

“I’ll call Nigel and tell him to drop the car seats off at Mandy’s. You can drive over to Mandy’s tomorrow, early, put the car seats in your car, then you, Mandy, and the twins can drive back here, pick up the truck, and Mandy and the twins can follow you to Generoso’s.”

Shirl said, “It upsets the twins to see Nigel.”

“He can come when they’re asleep.”

“They’re never both asleep unless they’re in the car.”

“He can drop the car seats here.”

“I don’t want him here.”

“You could pick them up at his place.”

“What are we, his servants?”

Tashmo went into the bedroom. He started undressing.

Shirl cornered him. “And what about Jeanette?”

Tashmo sat on the bed and took his pants off, leg by leg. “I’m not worried about Jeanette. She’s a winner — the way she took that whipping from those fancy southern belles, and told the dean of hazing compliance to stick it up his pity pot. The girl’s got moxie — she’ll never be a failure or a cokehead. I worry about Mandy, not Jeannette. Jeanette’s a winner. She’ll do just fine in life.”