But fuck it, you only live once. I can deal with the consequences of my actions. I’ll mitigate the losses. But there’s one thing I don’t intend to lose.
Jack.
17
Jack’s come home and I’ll do anything for him to take me back, to make him feel he’s wanted and loved, that we’re meant to be together.
I cook him a meal and while we’re eating I search his face for any indication that the ice has melted, because the conversation between us is stilted and awkward. And I realize that just the fact that he’s here, eating something I’ve prepared, is a good sign.
We’re still feeling our way around each other after our time apart. A week that feels like a month. But I’m so happy to have him here.
After dinner, Jack turns on the TV and catches the end of a campaign ad for Bob DeVille. He’s sitting on the couch like he’s watching the last thirty seconds of a football game that’s too close to call; perched forward with his elbows resting on his knee, his hands clasped below his crotch. His whole body tensed and poised. I have my legs curled up under me like a cat and my arm stretched over the back of the couch, exactly where Jack’s body would be if he was leaning back.
This is the closest we get to intimacy. And I’d do anything for that not to be the case. I don’t know if this means we’re back together or not. Jack’s sending out mixed messages and it’s so confusing.
We’re looking at a two-shot of Bob in some sort of factory, listening intently to a young man in a work shirt and a weathered face whose short life has clearly aged him way beyond his years. He looks like he could be Bob’s dad, when he’s probably young enough to be his son.
Bob is looking earnest and nodding sagely. And just in case we don’t get the message, he’s giving that impression in the voiceover too. He says, ‘People are looking for a change. They’re looking for someone who will listen, really listen, to their concerns and their problems and their fears. Someone who will listen, respond and react.’
He says it like he’s reciting Hamlet’s final soliloquy, or reading Moby Dick. It’s epic and intoxicating and you really want to believe him, because he sounds so damn convincing.
He’s talking in soundbites that convey a message so bland it’s inoffensive; so familiar, it’s comforting; something that really speaks to people, goes right to the core of their being, seems to mirror their values; even as it’s saying absolutely nothing – all of those things at the same time.
Soundbites are all well and good but they’re just words on a page that sound real phony without somebody who can deliver them. And Bob’s a natural at that.
He was born to be a politician, the way we think people are born to be artists, writers or sportsmen. But actually that’s a fallacy because people who are creative or who might excel in some particular field, although they might be born with the seeds of genius inside them, are only what they are because they’ve honed a talent over many years, focused in on it completely and made it the very core of their being.
It doesn’t take any particular talent to be a politician, just a particular psychopathology. So it’s absolutely correct to say someone was born to be a politician. They are part of a select breed of individual who thrive on using the quirks of their personality, their cunning and wiles, rather than a specific set of skills. Who’ve worked out the shortcut to achieving the same goal others reach solely through hard work and discipline. Playing the game and cheating the odds to make sure they go beyond.
And I don’t mean to do Bob down, because he’s very good at what he does. He’s one of the best and I totally get why Jack’s so in awe of him.
Bob manages to pull off the trick of seeming city slick and country at the same time – without alienating either one, the city dwellers or the country folk. He speaks from both the head and the gut at the same time. I reckon Bob could sell toothpaste to people with no teeth, shoes and gloves to amputees, and life insurance to inmates on death row. He’s that good.
And he looks the part as well. Bob has what I call ‘politician hair’. So perfectly set and wet and shiny that it looks like it was made in a Jell-o mould. A strand may get loose every now and then but, other than that, it never ever loses shape. Just quivers.
The ad cuts to a close-up and it seems like I can see every pore of Bob’s smooth, tanned, clean-cut face. He looks a little like Cary Grant, who I figure must be the model for the way all politicians see themselves – suave, intelligent, sexy and vulnerable. The kind of person that men want to be, or be friends with, and women just want to fuck.