Some people groan.
“Tonight we’ll do favorite superhero and why. Alex, Elena, you go first, of course, since you’ve just joined the family,” Charles says.
“Don’t make them go first, honey,” Amber says. “They should go last.”
“Ok, you’re right. Abe, you first,” Charles says.
“Uh, Spiderman,” Abe says, “because he’s an ordinary guy, lives in Queens, I visited his house, it’s a real address in Forest Hills, ’course Peter Parker doesn’t live there.”
“Ok, thank you, Abe. Favorite superhero, Michael,” Charles asks a tubby kid in sandals and brown T-shirt.
“Does the Bionic Man count?” Michael asks.
“Yes, of course, and why do you like him?” Charles asks.
“I don’t know, because he did cool stuff,” Michael says.
Charles goes around the van, getting everyone talking. By the time they get to me, the only superhero left is Batman. I give them my theory about the Batman TV show and U.S. presidents:
“The Penguin is obviously a caricature of FDR, there’s the accent, the cigarette holder, et cetera. The Riddler is Richard Nixon, the energy, all humped over. The Joker is Jack Kennedy, the big grin, weird accent—”
“Who’s Catwoman?” Mrs. Mulholland asks, suddenly interested.
“Jackie, sexy, dark-haired,” I say.
“She wasn’t sexy,” one of the kids says.
“She was back then,” Charles says, and gives me a grin. I can see that he’s thinking we made the right decision hiring this kid.
We finish the superheroes and Charles tells us that we have to remember the rap and be always closing the loop.
He makes us chant “Always be closing the loop,” and no one seems to think this is particularly embarrassing. Charles continues: “Remember, everyone, always be closing the loop, even if someone is arguing with you, always be closing the loop. Bring it back to the issue of how they can help and how they help is by joining the Campaign for the American Wilderness at fifty dollars a shot. If it’s too expensive, point out that that’s only a dollar a week and if they still don’t budge tell them we’ve a special reduced membership for thirty-five dollars a person, so they could join on their own, not at the family level, and still be doing their bit. Also, if it’s a flashy house, maybe a Mercedes in the drive, you can ask for a hundred-dollar membership or a life membership for five hundred dollars. You get one person to become a life member and you’ve made yourself a hundred and fifty dollars in one evening.”
In the front, Mrs. Mulholland is reading a novel with a deerstalker on the cover, Sherlock Holmes, presumably. How can she read without getting carsick?
It would be nice if they paired me with Charles tonight, Robert tomorrow night. Get a handle on both of them. I smile and shake my head. Eejit. Here I am, still trying to solve the bloody case. After all that’s happened.
“Bumps,” Charles says from the front, and we go over a couple of ramps. The van jolts. At a traffic halt a man wipes the van window with a squeegee, Charles smiles, winds his window down, says thank you and gives him a dollar.
Finally, as we start to get really moving, Abe turns to us and says we’re getting closer and gets us to repeat the rap. We all have a go and I manage to get through mine without too much trouble. Next, Abe gets us to pretend that we’re in actual “door situations,” some difficult doors, some easy. People who don’t speak good English, older people. I practice my rap a couple more times and he tells Charles that we’re well prepared.
Charles finally pulls the car off the expressway and we’re in a small mountain town with houses instead of apartment buildings. I thought we were only doing the city and suburbs, but this is clearly no longer Denver.
Darker now and all the streetlights come on with a pale yellow color. We stop outside a police station and Charles runs in. Abe explains to me that this is because we have to let the cops know we’re out collecting, in case there’s any kind of trouble. We’re allowed to knock on any door we want according to the law, though if we’re asked to leave someone’s property we have to do so.
Charles comes back to the car. It’s spitting down now and rain is streaking along the windows, blurring the town and everything else. He puts the car into gear and we go off. If I had killed someone a few weeks ago, would I be able to run into a police station? Yeah, I probably would, again, it means sweet fuck all.
Charles finally stops, distributes maps, sends everyone out, tells Abe to take care of Elena, tells me to wait in the back, kisses Amber, sends her with Abe. He pulls on a tan jacket and gives me an umbrella. It’s hardly raining now, and I say it’s ok.
“Take it, this isn’t like Ireland, it might really start pouring later, we need it, a good downpour,” he says.
I take the umbrella, but the rain has already gotten under the plastic cover on my clipboard, dampening the fact sheets — nothing I can do about it. Charles grins at me and we walk over to the first house. He seems younger now. He likes doing this.
I look around. It’s a fairly affluent area. New cars, and the houses have big gardens and fences. The difference from Ireland is that the houses are made of wood, not brick.
“Ok, Alexander, this is how it goes down. Each person is to get one zone to cover in an evening. Usually it’s about a hundred and fifty houses. Average you can get is about seven members an evening. Seven out of a hundred and fifty, but at the others you can leave leaflets, so it’s still doing a bit for the cause.”
“What town is this?” I ask him as we walk toward the first big house in the street.
“It’s called Colorado Springs. Nice place, the Air Force Academy’s here. Good hunting ground for us. Ah, there they are.”
Three men come out of a dark green Range Rover. Two are in hooded raincoats carrying a camera and a boom mike, the third is wearing a baseball cap that says Broncos on it. They are all in their thirties. Charles does not introduce me and this pisses me off a bit. He shakes the Broncos guy’s hand.
“Bill, I thought you wouldn’t show up because of the rain,” he says.
“Typical, first rain we’ve had in months, but it’s good for us, shows your dedication. Main problem’s the light, we’re losing light fast, Charles, I think we should get started.”
“Ok, what do I do?” Charles asks.
“You do your normal thing, and don’t worry about us,” Bill says.
“Ok, come on, Alex,” Charles says to me, “just ignore them if you can.”
We walk up to the first house.
“Now, Alex,” Charles says, “I’ll do the talking and you just watch. Later I’ll let you do a couple of houses on your own. But for now just let me show you how it’s done. We’re in a pretty affluent area as you can see. Volvos and BMWs, so I’m gonna ask for hundred-dollar memberships and, if it goes well, maybe try for a couple of life memberships. That’s five hundred dollars. We’ll see. Are you ready? Are you psyched?”
“Yeah,” I lie.
“I said, are you ready?” he says more loudly.
“Yeah,” I say with more enthusiasm.
We go through the gate and walk up the driveway, crunching our shoes in the gravel. The camera crew follows us and starts filming. Next door a dog starts barking and in the living room a TV comes on. It’s cold and I suppress a shiver. Charles pushes the doorbell and pats me on the back.
“It’s gonna be great,” he says, grinning from ear to ear and for some reason giving me the Spock “Live long and prosper” sign from Star Trek.
“Great,” I say, giving him Churchill’s V for victory sign as a response. Charles beams, unaware that the V sign means something totally different back in my neck of the woods.
Man in his late thirties comes to the door. Charles gives him the rap. The man resists, looks at the camera crew, baffled, Charles keeps at him for a painful amount of time and finally the man agrees to join the CAW at the thirty-five-dollar rate.