“All we have to do is get a bunch of the registration forms and register motherfuckers as they signing the petition. Many times as I been caught up in the system, I know how it works, they’ll never know.”
“That’s a good idea,” Spencer said, wrapping his arm around Winston’s shoulders, “You’re feeling it today, huh?”
Winston shrugged off Spencer’s hand. “You know, ever since I decided to run I’m thinking different. I can feel my brain working. Y’all remember those cards with the dots on them? You’d hold them up about six inches from your nose and stare at it, then real slowly a 3-D image appears. That’s what’s happening to me. My mind is slowly seeing the pattern. I hope it’s not a fad like them cards were. What were those things called?”
“Magic Eye, I think.”
“Then I got the Magic Eye. Woooo!”
Winston read the petition aloud. “We, the undersigned, do hereby state that as duly enrolled voters of the Eighth Council District and entitled to vote in the next blah, blah, blah to be held on blah, blah, blah, appoint Winston L. Foshay for City Council Eighth District. In witness whereof, we have hereto set our hands. Signed, Inez Nomura, Fariq Cole, and Yolanda Delpino-Foshay.” Winston thrust the piece of paper back into Inez’s hands. “Yolanda using her maiden name now? What the fuck is up with that? And my father — what, he don’t want to sign?”
“He said, ‘Why waste good ink on a lost cause?’ ”
“He’s probably right.”
Inez grabbed Winston by the wrist, saying, “Come with me,” and dragged him to the southeast corner of the observation deck. Spencer followed at a distance. Tourists excitedly taking photographs of the Statue of Liberty filled the corner, jostling for vantage points. Elbowing and cursing her and Winston’s way to the precipice, Inez was worried. There was an uneasiness in Winston she had never seen before. Why had she pushed him? Had she overreacted because he’d finally hinted he wanted to channel his natural leadership in a positive direction? Maybe she should have suggested he coach a Little League team instead. “Here’s fifteen thousand, run for City Council.” What was I thinking?
Inez watched the ferries shuttle people to and from Liberty Island, remembering the days when she knew exactly what was right and what was wrong. In 1977 it was right for her and the Puerto Rican National Activists to seize Lady Liberty in the name of libertad and political prisoner Andrés Cordero. Shoving Japanese tourists and schoolchildren aside, they slammed the door in the statue’s sandal and draped a Puerto Rican flag from the crown. Press releases fell to the ground like confetti. It was wrong of the men in the group to feel up the latticework under Lady Liberty’s dress and harass the women by asking one another, “Have you ever been inside of a woman? No, I mean really inside of a woman.” It was right for Nolan Lacosta to climb the stairway near Liberty’s vulva and insert his penis into a rusted-out orifice and say, “Hey, look, you guys, I’m fucking America!” It was wrong for her husband, embarrassed by the publicity, to leave her the next day to raise the children in Philadelphia, satisfying their filial curiosity by telling them their mother died in an explosion while making a pipe bomb.
Inez elbowed Winston in the ribs, then pointed out over the river. “I know I told you about the time we arrested the Statue of Liberty for false advertising.”
“You showed me the photos.”
“Winston, there was a time when I could make a call and evacuate any building in the city.”
“Mmm.”
Winston dug his hands deep into his pockets and leaned against the ledge next to Inez, his back to Lady Liberty. He studied her out of the corner of his eye. Inez looked tired but hopeful. She was developing bags not only under her eyes but over them. If nothing else, the Revolution was exhausting. She looked like an ex — prohibition-era pug: punch-drunk, permanently welted, stumbling from gin mill to gin mill rambling on about a promised shot at the title, a victory for the common laborer. All around, faces stared into the horizon. Fuck everybody look so optimistic about? That’s why she brought me up here. Catch some of that on-top-of-the-world fever.
Calling out to Inez and Spencer, Winston nodded toward the line waiting for the elevator. “Let’s go. I’ve got to meet Smush and them in Brooklyn.”
After a long wait the trio squeezed into the elevator. Winston tossed a piece of bubble gum into his mouth so his ears wouldn’t pop on the way down. The fortune read: “You are a responsible person. When something goes wrong, people always think you’re responsible.” With a loud pop he sucked a pink bubble back into his mouth.
“Ms. Nomura, you really going to give me fifteen K?”
“I’m cashing the check Monday morning.”
“Damn, a nigger goin’ to be liquid. I ain’t got to do nothing, right?”
“All I ask is that you make two appearances: the sumo exhibition in the park, and the debate a week before the election.”
“So should I be a Democrat or Republican?”
“You have a preference?”
“They all the same to me. I really don’t want to be neither.”
“Then don’t. But if you run as an independent, your party needs a name.”
“What, start my own party?”
“Why not? All you need is a name.”
“How about ‘The Party’?”
“Where did you get that?”
“I remember all them freaky-looking people rollin’ up in your crib talking about ‘The Party says to do this, and The Party says we should do that.’ ”
“Winston, ‘The Party’ has connotations that have nothing to do with you. Besides, it’s someone else’s thing. You need your own thing.”
“What about ‘A Party’? That shit sound kind of good. ‘A Party.’ Sounds like we having fun. Niggers will like that.”
A Party. Inez mulled the phrase over. A Party. She liked the way the name shifted between egalitarianism and hierarchy: A Party, one political party out of many; A Party, as opposed to B Party and C Party. “Niggers will feel that,” Winston insisted, “believe me.” Inez believed.
“Winston?”
“Yeah?”
“You know, your father was a beautiful man.”
“If you say so.”
“If you’d known him during the movement. Most men look stupid in a beret, but Clifford pulled it off. He used to stuff his natural into a black felt tam, tilt it so that one edge hung just above his earlobe. If you were to ask him what he did for a living, he could have said anything — revolutionary, concert pianist, poet, painter, professional Frenchman, dancer — and you would have believed him, and thought he was the best at whatever he said he did, even if you’d never seen him do it.”
“Ms. Nomura, you and my father have something going on back in the day?”
“You know, I think deep down Clifford is very proud of you, Winston.”
“You not answering my question.”
“On the grounds it may incriminate me.” The elevator doors opened. “Aren’t you supposed to go to Brooklyn?” Inez said, and then, feeling like Sisyphus, pushed Winston into the stream of tourists flowing toward the revolving doors. Inez waved and under her breath said, “Gambate, Winston.”
Winston refused Spencer’s offer of a ride to Brooklyn but walked him to his car. On the way Spencer asked if he had something to fall back on in case Inez failed to come up with the money. Winston had it covered. “That’s why I’m going to Brooklyn. I ain’t too sure Ms. Nomura going to be able to cash that check, that shit older than baseball. So I’m about to learn some card tricks.”
“You’re going to be a magician?”
“Something like that.”