What a difference a year makes.
It was the fall of 2001, exactly twelve months before the
debate at East Tallahassee High. Marlon Conrad not only
wasn't governor, he wasn't even planning on running for
governor. At least not yet. Marlon was going to throw his
hat in the ring in 2006, but that was a whole term away.
In the meantime, he was perfectly content frittering away
his days in a do-nothing political sinecure, tending to
his hobbies.
It was a calm October afternoon, and a magnificent tarpon
broke the surface of the water. It twisted in midair,
trying to throw the hook, and landed back in the ocean
with a grand crash. Then up again, tail-walking for its
life.
Marlon worked fast with the joystick. He clicked the
trigger, easing drag, finessing the tarpon on his computer
screen in Silver King Xtreme Fishing.
There was a knock at the door, distracting Marlon, and the
fish broke the line. It poked its head from the water and
stuck out its tongue before disintegrating off the screen.
"Damn!" He swiveled in his chair. "Come in!"
The door to the office opened. There was gold lettering on
the outside: MARLON CONRAD, LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR. In walked
a buxom southern belle with poofy blond hair, Babs
Belvedere, Marlon's fiancée in an arranged marriage
between two of the state's most powerful families.
She wore a transparent pout and held out an index
finger. "I have a splinter."
"Another one!" said Marlon, turning back to the computer
and hitting the "cast" button on the joystick.
"You don't love me anymore."
"Foolishness!"
It wasn't exactly a lie. He never had loved her.
The fish took the bait and jumped on the screen. Marlon
zigged and zagged with the joystick.
Babs set a large box on the corner of his desk. She held
her injured finger in Marlon's face. He pushed her hand
out of the way and tried to recover with the joystick, but
the damage was done. The fish stuck its tongue out again.
"Damn!"
He turned to Babs, her finger still outstretched.
"Kiss it and make it better," she demanded. Now the pout
was real.
"Oh, all right." He gave it a quick peck, and her mood
boomeranged to glee. "Guess what?" she said, pulling up a
chair, plopping down and slapping both her knees in
excitement. "I bought a new puppet!"
She took the case off his desk and placed it in her lap
and opened it. Inside was a big frog, the newest in a long
line of wooden marionettes that filled the shelves in
Babs's bedroom. The source of all the splinters.
"Just what you need -- another puppet."
"You don't respect my art," said Babs, expertly
manipulating the frog's strings with both hands. Barely
moving her lips: "Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit."
"You possess genius," said Marlon, hitting the "cast"
button again.
She actually did have some ability, and could now throw
her voice short distances at will. The daughter of
Periwinkle Belvedere, she was Miss Tallahassee 2001 and
runner-up for Miss Florida. Babs easily could have been
Miss Florida, too. She had become a finalist based on the
strength of her ventriloquist act in the talent portion of
the pageant, but she blew her final question, becoming
flustered and saying she wanted to end world peace and
promote illiteracy in the Third World.
The scheduled marriage was considered a deal-maker by the
capital's movers and shakers. It would consolidate power
and grease the skids for all kinds of ecopolitical
alliances. Marlon thought she was an airhead.
He still hadn't found the proper way of telling anybody he
didn't want to marry her. In the meantime, of course, he
had taken the sex. Who wouldn't? What a cheesecake! But
now, even that had stopped. Both knew why, and they didn't
want to talk about it. Marlon had become sexually
traumatized. On a recent evening, he had been going down
on Babs when her vagina greeted him with the voice of
Howdy Doody.
Babs made the frog hop across Marlon's desk. "Ribbit,
ribbit..."
There was another knock at the door.
"Interruptions!" said Marlon, flinging the joystick aside.
Standing in the doorway with a leather organizer was
Marlon's chief of staff, Gottfried Escrow. "Sorry, but
your appointments are waiting. We really have to get the
schedule moving."
Escrow pointed out the door into the lobby. In a row of
chairs against the wall, under a giant oil painting
of "Two-Fisted" Thaddeus Conrad, sat a conga line of older
men in tailored suits. At the head of the line was a local
construction magnate facing multiple investigations for
shoddy workmanship and fraud. He arose, handed the chief
of staff an unmarked envelope, and went inside.
The man took a seat across the desk from the lieutenant
governor and placed his hands humbly in his lap. "I told
my wife: For justice we must go see Marlon Conrad!"
"Two of your new roofs collapsed after light rain. A girl
was hospitalized."
"I am but a simple businessman..."
Behind him, the chief of staff was giving Marlon the high
sign to speed things up.
"I'll see what I can do," said Marlon, standing.
The man clasped Marlon's right hand in both of his and
shook it earnestly. "Thank you! Thank you!" -- bowing
repeatedly as he backed out of the room.
Three appointments later, Escrow came in the office
holding a large laminated map mounted on foam board.
"What's that?"
"It's the new voting district we've been working on. I
need you to okay it. You're chairman of the party's
redistricting committee."
"Work, work, work," said Marlon, squinting at the
prop. "Details?"
"We cut a deal with the Black Caucus and cobbled together
a gerrymandered district that would be ninety-six percent
African-American. Surprisingly, the five surrounding
districts...