Mark Costello - Big If

Jens and Peta walked along the street. Market Square was packed by then, late-comers arriving through the gates. The tabouli place was down by the stage, past the bagelry, the wine shop, and the specialty tobacconist’s. On the sidewalk, to the right, Jens saw a man in a postal worker’s uniform, the sky-blue shirt, the blue-gray pants, and the white pith helmet. Jens had to look twice before he recognized Vaughn Naubek.

Jens said, “Vaughn?”

Naubek looked at Jens, quickly, sharply, then stepped off the curb, disappearing in the crowd.

The senator from Eatontown, having urged the crowd to vote and urge their friends to vote, brought his introduction to a climax: “ And now, and now, and now I’d like to bring up a friend, a dear friend, a leader and a patriot, a man who needs no introduction, and will receive none further—”

Glancing at his notes, he introduced a congressman from Louisiana, who bounded up the stairs and launched into his speech, thanking Tommy Monahan, his lovely wife Irene, the mayor, the state rep, the state senator from Eatontown, God, and the good people of Louisiana and, of course, he added, veering from his blooper, other states as well.

“My friends ,” the congressman began, his voice dropping an octave, growing grave, bouncing as an echo off the buildings in the square.

The motorcade had docked behind the stage by then, and Gretchen had her agents in position. She was standing by van one with Bobbie, Vi, and Tashmo. They would be the wedge. They would take the VP through the crowd. Gretchen drew this duty because she was never very far from the VP in a crowd. Bobbie drew it because Gretchen didn’t trust her to run her own position, a choke point or the stairs. Vi and Tashmo drew it because they had seen the screamer at the Marriott on Sunday night and might know the face if they saw it here today. They were standing in a loose diamond formation, Vi in front, closest to the crowd, Bobbie at Vi’s shoulder, Tashmo on the other, Gretchen a few steps to the back. They looked in their dark suits like a singing group with moves, the Pips or the Four Tops, left arms hanging loose, right hands at their belt lines as if covering their buckles. Gretchen was rechecking the perimeter. Vi heard it in her ear.

The snipers in the steeple said, We’re good.

The comm techs were ready to start jamming.

Herc said, My side A-Okay.

Elias said, We’re standing by.

The balloon wranglers gave Gretchen the thumbs-up.

“My friends,” said the congressmen again. “Today, we — no, you — will send a message—”

A cheer went up, spontaneous, unplanned, rolling from the back.

“No — no — no ,” the congressman modestly refusing the acclaim.

The crowd was pressing to the front. Jens and Peta, moving through the tight-packed bodies toward the tabouli place, reached a point where further progress was impossible. They were near the volunteers, Jackie Kotteakis and the other Texas teachers, Tim the lawyer from Rhode Island, the tort reform zealots, the global warming Deadheads, the football kids from Maine, the stricken women from Mothers for the Truth — a Napoleonic square of volunteers, waiting, gripping signs, primed to give it up for the VP as soon as someone introduced him.

The congressman boomed through a list of the VP’s great achievements, his record of commitment, his deep belief in the binding causes of the day.

“He believes — as I believe — in the future.

“He believes — as you believe — in tomorrow.

“He believes — as you believe — in the family.

“He believes — as we believe — in the family and the future of the family in tomorrow — yes — and so I ask you, friends — I ask: what do we want?”

The phone-bank kids and volunteers whooped it up (they knew the chant). They shouted in two beats: “ Re-form!”

“I can’t HEAR you,” said the congressman. “ What do we want?”

The answer was disorganized — no answer, many answers, a buzzing in the square.

The congressman bore down: “What do we want?”

The volunteers were shouting — others picked it up: “ Re-form!”

The chant was slowly building, louder and more unified each time.

“WHAT DO WE WANT?”

One voice now: “RE-FORM.”

“AND WHEN DO WE WANT IT?”

Gretchen banged on the van door. Vi saw a shoe, a sock, a pant cuff riding up, a flash of white ankle, and then the man himself, the vice president of the United States.

The vice president looked out at the screaming crowd, firmed his jaw, and said, “Crazy weather, huh?”

“Yes sir,” Gretchen said.

“Right here is where you want me?”

“Yes sir,” Gretchen said.

“Which way do I face?”

“The same way we are facing, sir.”

“ —to join me in welcoming a hero of reform, a friend of education, a tireless battler for tort sanity — a great man and the NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITE-IT STATES—”

The signs were dancing. The crowd was pressing in. The cops were linking arms. Vi was chewing gum, squinting at the steeple, casually unbuttoning her jacket.

Gretchen said, “All righty, Vi.”

It was Vi who led them in. The others followed, moving in formation toward choke gold. O’Teen and the troopers were drawing back the barriers, steel across the asphalt, opening a gate.

Vi hit the crowd and cleared a path, parting bodies with her hands, bulling with her shoulders, freely throwing elbows. The agents tried to stay in touch; they were literally touching, the tips of Bobbie’s fingers on Vi’s left shoulder, Tashmo’s hand on Vi’s right haunch. The VP, sandwiched between Bobbie and Tashmo, reached past and over them to shake the outstretched hands, reeling off his greeting, “ Howyadoin, goodtaseeya, howyadoin.” Gretchen was behind him, forcing him toward the stairs up to the stage. The crowd surged around them and behind them, faces pressing in, hands reaching over arms to grab the VP’s hands. Some people couldn’t reach far enough and stuck their hands and wrists into the agents’ faces. Vi knocked these aside, scanning hands and faces, moving bodies.

She tried to stay in touch with the other agents, but the people shaking the VP’s hand were jostled from behind, and they lurched, pulling the VP a half step to the right or left, Tashmo’s side or Bobbie’s side, or pushing him back into Gretchen, and Vi, trying to plow a path, was also trying to hang back and stay in touch, but if she didn’t plow full force, two legs and both shoulders, she felt herself loose ground. She heard “Howyadoin, howyadoin, howyadoin,” and greetings from well-wishers all around them, yelled encouragement, applause, bluegrass music, grunts of shoving, Gretchen saying, “Move move move.” Just ahead, between the bodies, Vi saw a postal worker, who held some kind of helmet in his hand. Everyone was moving toward the VP or to the sides, or clapping, or yelling, or pumping a sign, except for this man, who wasn’t clapping or moving. This was all Vi noticed about the man until he opened his hand and let the helmet fall. It clattered in the street and someone kicked it into someone else’s feet and the helmet was kicked around at random until someone tripped on it, and nearly fell, and by then the postal worker had his hand inside his coat, and he brought it out with a magician’s flourish, like when the magician pulls a rabbit from the hat or shows you that the four of clubs has been in your ear the whole time. Vi tried to put the gun over the comm, but her hands were pinned below her shoulders by the force of bodies pressing in, and she couldn’t get her fist mike to her mouth, and the people were reaching and laughing and the VP was saying, “ Goodtaseeya howyadoin reallygoodtaseeya ,” and Vi went absolutely vacant — vacant even of her training — and she didn’t move. Tashmo shouted, “Gun gun!” and yanked the VP back toward choke gold, which felt to Vi like a great and sudden loss of weight at her back. Gretchen put in the comm, “ Gun gun gun!” and Vi heard the SWATs and snipers take it up, Gun gun , like an echo falling off, and saw Bobbie, curling across the VP’s chest to block him from the shots, getting tangled in his legs as he tried to move. People in the crowd were starting to react, turning, screaming. Vi heard the snipers on the comm, barking something, what? Did they have a shot? She thought she’d see the man’s head explode from a steeple round, but the balloons bumping upward through the air were blocking the steeple.