I laughed so hard the shrimp trembled off the tines of my fork and splashed into a puddle of yogurt.
“Fred! You’re not serious.”
“I might be.”
At the mention of his name, a familiar set of clashing emotions descended: the revulsion at his politics, the fear of his future candidacy since early polls had him well ahead in the Republican primary, and of course the secret I kept of our encounter, one which I now planned to take to my grave. It had grown difficult to see his face and not become flush with guilt and an uneasy revulsion. Years earlier I’d spent a weekend reading everything I could about him on the internet, trying to decide if his new shtick was all a ruse because that would have made him so much less frightening. Now I clicked, scrolled, or swiped away from the page if I saw his name in a headline.
“Fred. The guy is telling crowds that his blood can cure cancer.”
“Hey, maybe it can. We have some positions with biotech companies that are looking into it.”
“Seriously.”
“I’m just saying, you can’t overlook what he’s got in his favor, which is a commitment to deregulation, lower tax burdens, and aggressive energy policy.”
“So does Vic Love!”
“Yeah, and he gunned down hundreds of people in public. Then he turns around and pardons Pietrus and Kate Morris and all the rest.”
“Love did not pardon them,” I corrected. “The courts threw out the case against Pietrus.”
“But everyone knows he cut a deal to neuter the Senate investigation by dropping charges against Morris and all the occupiers—are you still defending her?”
We’d flown to London to escape the heat and close on our new place a few weeks before the government finally stormed the Mall. Everyone had known some kind of police action was coming, but when I saw the images of the rampage, I sat on the bed and began crying. When I heard the numbers of dead, I wept again, and vowed I would do something, but what do you do in that situation? Call your senator? Donate money to the ACLU? There wasn’t a meaningful outlet for my outrage or grief, so I did nothing while the media screamed back and forth at itself. A few months later we were at dinner with Peter O’Connell, his wife, Haniya, and two other couples, Tara clients. When the conversation turned to politics, one of the wives casually declared that what happened was “a shame, but Love did what he had to do to restore order.”
This woman did not know that Haniya’s brother had lost his husband there, and I didn’t blame her for losing her temper. “There’s an interview where you can watch the families of the people killed, and I suggest you take the time, you ignorant Nazi bitch.” She stood and left the restaurant. Peter went after her. Later, I was ashamed that I’d said nothing and remained for the rest of the meal so Fred could smooth things over.
When Fred and I spoke of it that night, he sounded as appalled and sorrowful as I felt. How did the country get to this place? He told me he would never vote or send a dollar in support of Love or any Democrat who stood by him ever again, but he was also furious at Kate Morris. “She led those people into that,” he said. “She used them. Sacrificed their lives for her lost cause.” A minority of Democrats screamed for impeachment but a deal was made. In exchange for concluding the investigation into the massacre, the government dropped all charges and released its prisoners, including most of those rounded up in the prior two years under PRIRA. The slaughter of over seven hundred American citizens in the capital was quickly scoured from the news by skyrocketing food prices, refugee flows from South America and the Caribbean, the Mars mission finally being declared lost, and The Pastor returning to the scene with more bombastic displays. The common refrain became “The country has to move forward.” Most of the Democrats we talked to repeated that almost as an incantation. A sign of the times that this seemingly history-making event could be swapped out in the news cycle in a matter of days.
“I’m not defending anyone,” I told Fred now. “They should’ve impeached Love by August 2. But that does not mean we should elect a guy who wants to continue burning oil because he thinks it’s going to bring about the Rapture faster.”
“I’m curious who you’ll vote for then? No one is beating Love in the primary, he’s got the party infrastructure by the throat. I know you’re a bleeding heart, but not enough to vote third-party socialist, I assume?”
The cruelty in his voice surprised me. Fred never got mean-spirited. Even when he argued he was apologetic, calm, and always reasonable.
“I’m not sure what we’re fighting about? An election that’s more than a year away?”
“You’re the one who’s fighting. All I said was The Pastor is going to be a serious candidate and donors are paying attention—then you jumped down my damn throat.”
“Is CLK involved this time around?”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s conspiracy theory stuff, Jack.”
“I’m just asking, is The Pastor going to get the benefit of a sophisticated disinformation and persuasion campaign the way Love got?”
He gave me a look like I was his bratty sister.
“You’re being annoying,” he said.
“You’re being annoying,” I said.
Then we sat there for a while silently. I asked the waiter to box the rest of my meal. He asked the same of Fred, but Fred pushed his plate away.
“No, I’m done.”
Outside, Fred’s car was waiting amid a host of Escalades and armored luxury cars idling while their passengers dined. The wind was eye-watering, but nevertheless I looked down the street to where I’d seen the man earlier. When we’d walked into Jean-George’s for lunch he’d been squatting against the building, hands on his knees, a lachrymose young Black man, rail-thin, his skin stretched gruesomely over his exposed collarbones. He wore only a tank top, filthy sweatpants, and flip-flops. He had nothing with him except a piece of cardboard that read HUNGRY. PLEASE. It wasn’t like he was the first person I’d seen with such a sign that day. I walked down the block while Fred called after me. Maybe he thought I was trying to walk home.
“Do you want this?” I held out the box. “It’s some shrimp.”
The man’s eyes rolled lazily up to me. He had sores on his arms, and he was painfully skinny. Just standing that close to him made me feel like I was inside a hot, dark tunnel.
“Got sum’in eat,” he muttered.
“Yes,” I said. “Shrimp.”
He still didn’t look like he trusted the box. I felt stupid holding it. This dumb white lady trying to clear her conscience to an unreceptive audience.
“Aight,” he finally said, taking the box. “Gah bless.”
Then he opened it and began scooping the shrimp, squash, and yogurt into his mouth with one filthy hand, licking his fingers ravenously. By the time I got to the car and looked back, he’d finished the whole thing and again sat staring into space, one hand resting on his belly.
In the car, Fred said, “Was that to prove a point?”
“No point, Fred.” I regretted how sharp I said it. “He needed something to eat.”
Fred slipped his hand over mine, as the driverless pulled into traffic.
“I’m sorry I called you a bleeding heart. I meant you have a good heart. Best one I’ve ever known.”
Linda Holiday looked fifteen years younger. She’d had excellent work done somewhere. Crow’s-feet gone, turkey neck vanquished, the skin of her face bright and tight, but not in a way that demanded one think of the scalpel cutting through her forehead. Her hair was the color of yellow grain waving in a field.
“You look unbelievable,” I told her as we sat down to dinner at the Harpo Club in Soho.
“Please,” she said. “You can’t go into a pitch meeting now actually looking fifty-five.”
“Clients, right?”
“Worse than ever. You were right to get out when you did. It’s like the more women that come into the workplace—you know, because we can actually finish college—the more the men in the room become sub-simian retarded. And yes, I’m with the kids, un-PC words are back in! Men. Are. Retarded.” She flipped a hand, and a collection of turquoise-studded gold bracelets slid down to her thumb and clattered back.