Read Vote for Larry Online

Authors: Janet Tashjian

Vote for Larry (3 page)

I called Janine that afternoon from a truck stop in Kansas and told her I'd gotten an emergency phone call from home that my grandmother was dying and I'd be in touch when I could. I asked her to call the bakery and video store and apologize for my lack of notice. She volunteered to fly out and meet me. She was so concerned, I felt bad about lying.
But not that bad.
Being with Beth again was like a shot of epinephrine plunged straight into the heart. The
Whoa!
I felt at her proximity was physical and exhilarating. Behind her blue eyes you could still see the wheels of her sharp mind clicking like tumblers in a safe. She threw away more ideas in an hour than most people got in a week.
If only she wasn't spending every spare minute making out with Simon.
This is what you get, I thought. You left without saying goodbye, you hurt her, she grieved for you, then moved on. Yet another voice emerged inside me, a more forceful one.
You're here now. So is she. Go for it.
As the two of them continued to call each other pet
names, however, the possibility of hooking up with Beth grew more and more unlikely.
24
But you know me; I love a long shot.
“We're going back to Boston.” Beth drove as Simon sat beside her reading.
“I can't go home,” I said.
“What are you talking about? Look at the state of the world. We need you.”
“You can count me out of public life,” I answered. “Been there, done that.”
“There's a little more at stake now, don't you think?” Beth said. “We've had a war! The economy is in shambles! Besides, if I didn't think we needed you, I would have left you in Boulder contemplating the differences between relaxed and loose-fit jeans.”
“That's not fair. I was at every peace rally in Boulder this year. I helped a congresswoman get elected. I got nine thousand names on a petition for better workers' rights.” I thought I heard a snicker coming from Simon in the front seat.
“No, you're right—we just need to turn up the volume, that's all.” Beth adjusted the rearview mirror and shot me what I hoped was an encouraging look.
How could Simon and his James Bond charm possibly compete with all the years of history Beth and I shared?
25
I leaned across the seat toward her.
“I hope you're not thinking I'm going to come out and say it was all a hoax, that I never really died. If I did it for anyone, Beth, I'd do it for you. But I can't.”
“Josh, give it a rest. You're being totally melodramatic.”
“You give it a rest,” I said. “You weren't the one being followed into the bathroom by paparazzi. You weren't the subject of a million tabloid stories.”
“That's still no excuse for faking your own death,” she said. “You were a coward, plain and simple.”
She wasn't telling me anything I hadn't thought a thousand times already. But coming from her, the words felt like flaming cannonballs.
“Then let me out now.” I was suddenly overcome by an avalanche of mistakes and missed opportunities. “I don't need to be kidnapped by someone who just wants to give me grief.”
She sounded surprised. “Is that what you think? We're bringing you back because we need you.”
“To do what?”
The way Simon coughed, I knew he was setting up for a sales pitch. “There's a state representative seat open in your district back home. We thought Larry might be a good candidate to run.”
“Larry's dead.” I turned to Beth. “That's your district too. Why don't
you
run?”
“If you say no, I will. But let's face it, Josh—we could never get as much press as we could with Larry. People all over the country are trying to break into politics on a grassroots level. You could really help.”
“You have to be eighteen to run for state rep,” I said. “My birthday's not till next September.”
“Exactly. You'd be eighteen before the election. You should think about it, Josh.”
“Absolutely not. Forget it.”
“I'll run then. It's no big deal.” She slipped her arm across the car to play with Simon's hair. If she was trying to torture me, she was succeeding.
After we stopped at a rest area to refuel, I lassoed Beth into the backseat with me. I imagined we were in a limousine where I could push the button that raised the dark glass between the front and back seats, eliminating Simon from our periphery. Instead, I mentally blocked him out and focused on Beth. I spotted her tattoo peeking out from the bottom of her pants—a dollar sign with a slash through it. She caught me looking at her.
“It's faded in the past few years.” She seemed tired and restless. “I've been working non-stop forever. I feel like I've faded a little too.”
I put my arm around her, ignoring Simon in the front seat.
“The changing-the-world business is tough,” Beth said. “But I thought you might want to jump back in.”
Those were the magic words, and Beth knew it. How many times had I uttered that phrase to Ms. Phillips in guidance, the standard answer for what I wanted to do with my life?
Change the world.
Did I still have the strength and determination to get it together and try to make a difference?
Was it my destiny, my vocation?
Or was I just trying to impress a girl?
As I looked at Beth, I wondered if the reason why even mattered.
 
 
We spent the night in a youth hostel; Beth settled into the women's wing while Simon and I shared a bunk at the other end of the hall. Considering I hadn't really packed, he was nice enough to let me borrow his toothpaste.
I tried not to focus on his habit of stroking his beard when he spoke; the thought of those fingers also touching Beth was disconcerting to say the least.
“Beth was hell-bent on finding you,” Simon said. “She spent all her tuition money for this semester. Too bad she couldn't get course credit for all the time and effort she put in.”
I told him I wasn't sure I was worth the trouble.
“Every activist we've spoken to has had a rough few years,” he said. “So Beth got it in her head that if you were around, you'd come up with some new ideas.” He looked me up and down. “Can't say I see what all the fuss was about.”
I didn't disagree. Besides my work at PIRG, most of my energy had gone into studying flight or fight response in mammals.
26
“I hate to let her down, but I don't know how much help I'd be.” I sat next to him on the bunk. “There are so many problems in the world, I wouldn't know where to start.”
“Well, you could start by making a difference in your home state.”
Home. After being on the road for so long, it was more a concept than anything else.
Simon shut off his light and fell asleep quickly.
27
I sorted through what Beth had thrown in the box: laptop, textbook, notes. I had already planned on getting back to seventy-five possessions as my New Year's resolution; now it would be easy.
I skimmed my Word Search until I found a quote, this one from Martin Luther King Jr. “
Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step
.” The time I'd spent as a political spectator lately made the thought of contributing seem overwhelming. Was it possible to take just
one
step, without walking off a ledge like last time? I shoved the papers back into my notebook and climbed to the top bunk.
I clicked on the light and took out my ethology textbook, envious of how simple and intuitive decisions could be in the animal world.
No matter where you turned on the radio, Christmas carols filled the air. Simon had the irritating habit of misinterpreting the lyrics and singing along with his own version of every song we heard. I let “Deck the Halls with Buddy Holly” slide, but when he sang “He's making a list, chicken and rice,” I felt I had to step in.
“Simon, the mondegreens are killing me.”
28
“I know,” Beth said. “Isn't it cute?”
“I was thinking more like lame.”
“Simon, tell him about the first time you heard the Pledge of Allegiance.”
He blushed, she laughed, they looked at each other adoringly. Why aren't cars equipped with barf bags?
Beth couldn't control her laughter. “He thought it said ‘I led the pigeons toward the flag'!”
“I can see why you're so in love.” Somebody kill me now.
Thankfully, Simon shut off the radio and we went back to discussing public policy. Tax rebates for the wealthy, continued
strife in the Middle East, the increasing gap between poor and rich—there were plenty of topics to discuss.
What rankled us most was the way the average citizen viewed the political system. People felt used and manipulated by the whole process. I mean, did anyone believe in the “one person, one vote” theory anymore? On top of that, hardly anyone voted FOR a candidate; most voted for the lesser of two evils. Our democracy had been turned into a spectator sport while we sat around watching TV.
29
We lamented the fact that the fastest growing political party was the group of people who didn't vote at all.
Combined, the three of us had traveled thousands of miles around the world and had seen firsthand many of the issues that concerned us. But after the last Larry fiasco, I knew we needed more than words to make a difference.
When we reached the familiar exit of the Mass Pike, a more practical question concerned me: How could I possibly knock on the door of my old house and stand face-to-face with my stepfather? Would Peter hug me, glad I was still alive, then send me crashing through the wall? Would he do his famous pace-the-living-room-and-yell routine? Or maybe these worst-case scenarios were in my mind; maybe no one in the world cared one iota if I returned, including Peter.
“I can't do it,” I told Beth. “I've hurt him too much. He doesn't deserve for this to re-surface again.”
She talked to me like a mother soothing a child. “Maybe things can be different now.”
I'd read in some Larry-follow-up story a while ago that my stepfather had married Katherine, his Humpty-Dumpty-crazed girlfriend who had driven me out of my mind in the years since my mother's death. I couldn't deal with the thought of her answering the front door.
“Why don't we go to the woods for a while and just sit?” I suggested. “I'm not sure this is a good idea.”
“Look,” Beth said. “We'll drop you off. If you want to go in, fine. If you don't, we'll hook up with you later.”
Simon threw in his unsolicited two cents. “Beth, you forgot to tell me Josh was such a baby.”
She swatted his headrest hard enough to make him flinch. “This is serious stuff, Simon. Let it go.”
The thing was—I felt like a baby. Felt like a boy who had just lobbed a baseball through the window of his neighbor's house and was walking up the front steps to apologize.
30
Like the imaginary boy who hit the ball, I deserved whatever punishment I got. Bring it on, Peter. I'm sorry.
“We'll be at my parents',” Beth said as they dropped me off. “Call me later, okay?”
I stood in front of my old house like a petrified tree. My hopes of Peter being out of town were shattered by the lights shining from the living room and kitchen. Was I ready to be
Josh again? To take the heat for my actions? After several minutes, I took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.
The man who answered the door seemed like he was related to Peter—the same dark eyes, the same build—but with longish, graying hair and a twinkling smile. He was tan and wore a T-shirt and jeans. He let out a scream when he saw me. A delighted scream.
Only when he threw his arms around me did I realize it was Peter.
“I'm so sorry,” I stammered. “I never should have left like that … .”
He wouldn't let go of me, just held me close. “God, Josh, it's good to see you.”
I was embarrassed by his newfound enthusiasm. He finally let go, then held me at arm's length and looked me over. “I missed you, son.”
The word detonated years of emotions inside me—hurt, loneliness, shame. I leaned against him and began to cry.
 
 
When we sat at the kitchen table to talk, I couldn't reconcile this open, smiling man with the one I'd lived with for years. I mean, the guy wore an
earring.
“You're so different,” I said. “What happened?”
“I did a lot of soul-searching after you left, saw a lot of things I didn't like. I paint houses now—love it!”
I asked him where Katherine was.
“Didn't work out, lasted just three months.” He told me
she'd moved to Boca Raton and opened a gift shop. “We still keep in touch. The shop's perfect for her, just perfect.”
It seemed like Peter held no animosity toward anyone.
I felt it was my responsibility to tell him about that morning on the Sagamore Bridge, but when I started to speak, he held up his hand to stop me.
“I don't want to hear it. I read that book when it came out—couldn't tell if it was true or not. Decided if you were alive, my door would always be open.” He motioned at the space between us. “Now is all that matters.”
Since I'd left, Peter had gone from a capitalist robot to a Zen painter, and Beth had become a globe-trotting activist with an international boyfriend. What else had I missed?
“Are you staying for a while?” Peter asked. “I'd love to hang out with you.”
I'd love to hang out with you.
This from a guy who spent most of my high school years scheduling business trips during my school vacations so he wouldn't have to deal with me being home. I told him I was still undecided about being Josh again.
“Whatever you decide, I'm behind you 100 percent.”
All this positive support began to give me a headache. I retreated to my old room.
The room was now set up as a kind of den, but my bed was still beside the window as if I'd never gone. In the closet, I found several boxes of the things I'd left behind. I picked up the statue of Ganesh and ran my fingers across the clay of the elephant's trunk. It suddenly seemed impossible to be in this house without my mother. A wave of grief almost knocked
me into Peter's desk. Mom. I thought about her every day, of course, but being here now made me feel as if I could never get past the loss. I tore at the collar of my shirt. I ran outside for some air, hopped the backyard fence, and walked the well-worn path between my yard and Beth's. The Larsons' hedges were trimmed with snow and Christmas lights; I felt as if I were ten years old again.
She opened the sliding glass door with a smile. “Peter's a totally different guy, right?”
“Did they add something to the water here? If so, open the floodgates.”
She threw on her jacket and sat on the cement steps with me.
“Where are your parents?” I asked.
“They're in Florida with Gram.”
“And Sir Simon?”
“Doing an extra-credit paper for his political theory class.”
“Of course he is.” I exhaled and watched my breath escape in clouds of New England air. “I feel like everyone is moving forward except me.”
She pulled me toward her. “It's your turn now.”
I told her I wasn't sure where to begin. But as soon as the words left my mouth, I knew the statement was wrong. There were two places I needed to go before I could deal with the reality of being back in Boston, of being Josh again.
But for now, I decided to take Peter's advice and enjoy the moment.
This
moment of sitting on Beth's steps, gazing at the stars, and basking in the joy of finally coming home.

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