Lee Fitts Read online

  “Yeah, so do you like your job, what do you actually do?”

  “Yes, I think I like it. I go to each house and give people campaign handouts about Dan Calvert and ask them to please vote for him. You have to be very polite and not answer questions that you do not know anything about. But most times, there was no one home, so after you ring the door bell and no one answers, you have to very carefully roll the handout and fit it into the door handle. There was one man home who was not very nice to Sanford Black, but then later when I was by myself I found the Aggarwals and they were nice to me. I definitely know how to leave the campaign handouts in the door if no one is home and I just have to see if I meet more people like the Aggarwals and not like the mean man that did not want anyone bothering him.”

  Reid looked at his friend in the folding chair with the paint stains on its legs. The job didn’t seem that hard, a little walking; a little talking. But the more he thought about the name Dan Calvert; it just seemed so familiar. He tried to think where he had heard the name before, but then was caught by the find of the roving camera as it panned the seats. “Damn, look at that chick; pretty hot. Those cameramen know who to look for. Hi baby! Go on Lee, wave back to her.” Lee’s face had no intention of even the slightest smile. “Hey you know who that chick reminds me of? Christie, Christie Veit. I saw her the other day at the gas station. Pretty hot man. Didn’t she used to like you in junior high? I know after the accident and with what happened to her brother, she was a wreck. I think she remembers me. I wave, she usually waves back.”

  “She does look like Christie,” Lee said as he caught the last glimpse of the girl in the stands before the pitcher reappeared on screen. Christie is a very beautiful girl. She works at Mrs. Plennington’s spa and is always very polite when I go in there.”

  “Hey, Lee, ever think maybe she still likes you? You should check it out. Talk to her a little more. Ask her out on a date.” Reid said, as his waving hands emphasized each point of his matchmaking plan.

  “Oh, I do not think I could. I have never been out on a real date.”

  “See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t know any other twenty-one year-old that hasn’t been out on a ‘real date.’ You should ask her out. But why do you go to the spa?”

  “Sometimes Mrs. Plennington wants me to come over to tell her how things are going.” He shook away the image from that afternoon again. “Mrs. Plennington was my Mom’s best friend; I guess she wants to keep an eye on me, make sure I’m doing okay.”

  “Hmm, I hear Audrey Plennington has been a very caring woman since her divorce. You’re a good-looking guy, Lee, you know there is caring and then there is caring.”

  The image shot through his mind again. Did Reid know about that afternoon? Had he seen something in Lee that spoke about that afternoon? He looked at the TV not knowing what to say. Mrs. Plennington wouldn’t say anything to anyone about that afternoon. Would she? But nothing had happened. He looked over at Reid whose eyes were now closed.

  “Reid, I have to go. I can walk home.”

  “What? What time is it?” Reid looked at his watch. “Don’t you want to watch the rest of the game?”

  “The game is over.”

  “Okay let me get you home. Damn, that cable’s something, isn’t it?”

  Lee was careful not to wake his father who was asleep in the reclining chair. Lee sometimes thought his father found his only moments of peace in that chair. Tonight, by the time Jim Fitts cranked the chair forward and started to shuffle his socks across the floor, Lee was in bed. He would be free from his father’s questions and jibes till morning.

  With the faint light of dawn came the blaring clock radio, the clump, clump of Jim Fitts’ feet as he rushed to shut off the news, and then, it would only be a short wait, Lee knew it was coming in the next breath or two – the smell of coffee. His father had not started at him yet, Lee’s eyes locked on to the man he loved so much, hoping for a smile.

  “Get fired yet?” his father asked without looking up from the bowl of flakes.

  “No, I did not get fired. I still have my job with the Dan Calvert for Council Campaign. I only got to work half-a-day because of the rain, but I think they are still happy to have me as part of the team.”

  “If those people are that stupid I should vote for the other guy.”

  Lee usually said nothing after his father’s first volley. He absorbed his father’s words as he did the smell of coffee that hung in the kitchen. The door closed as it did every morning and Jim Fitts was gone to the bus, to the mall, to the thoughts of what might have been.

  Lee said hello to Terri as he walked into the office. She scratched with the letter opener at her lopsided beehive.

  “New day ahead of us,” said Sanford as he shot in from the other room. “Each day, as we in the profession say, is critical as that big clock counts down to the Big E – E for election -- Day. Ready to go? You realize what’s at stake, don’t you? Can’t lose the smallest opportunity each day presents. We campaign strategists know how important each and every day is, isn’t that right Terri?” Sanford asked.

  Terri Herman rolled her eyes and looked up just as her brother entered from his office.Andy nodded at Lee. “Looks like a nice day out there. Maybe we can make up for some of the time we lost to the rain yesterday.”

  “I can make up for that time, Mr. Herman.”

  “You can call me Andy; that will be fine. See me when you get back,” the campaign manager said as he returned to his office. Lee gathered up his materials and new walk lists and headed for the stairs.

  “Lee,” Sanford called. “Come here a minute, pal. Look, now I know the boss said to try to make up for lost time, but don’t rush it too much. What I mean is don’t rush your delivery when you give your pitch to the people. As seasoned a veteran as I am, I find that if I rush too much, my delivery doesn’t come off as smoothly as it should. And whatever you do, don’t in haste get sloppy when you roll the handouts. And remember, get that tension just right when you put those babies in the door. Can you remember all this?”

  “Yes, I will remember your important pointers.”

  Sanford put his hand on Lee’s shoulder. “I think you’re going to do okay, kid.”

  Lee had gone through ten walk sheets by noon in a neighborhood not far from the office. They were working-class households like the day before, but some of the people that came to the door, well, Lee wondered if he had never met them before and saw them at the mall, well, he wondered if he could tell if they lived in a working-class house or a nice house like his sister Ellie. Mr. and Mrs. Levin were just getting out of their car when Lee walked up the driveway. They both had gray hair and their clothes were very neat. Mr. Levin was about to grab some dry cleaning from the car, then turned and stood next to Mrs. Levin while Lee told them all about Dan Calvert. Lee knew that if he saw the Levin’s in the mall and had never seen them before, he would certainly think they lived in a bigger house. They reminded him of Mr. and Mrs. Castle who lived next door to Ellie. The Levin’s were not only very neat, they were polite and made Lee feel like he was doing a good job. They even said they had heard of Dan Calvert and that they might vote for him.

  Lee thought if he saw Mr. Moreno at the mall that it would be easy to guess that Mr. Moreno lived in this neighborhood. Several stacks of newspapers in plastic grocery bags were heaped by a side door blotched with dirt and claw marks from some animal. He had a gray sweatshirt with Tweety Bird on the front and jeans that sagged in the seat. His hair was combed but it was not neatly trimmed as Mr. Levin’s. But if Mr. Moreno had a good haircut and wore different clothes Lee wasn’t so sure he would know where Mr. Moreno lived. Lee didn’t know if he should walk up the driveway when he came to Mr. Moreno’s house, but he did and although Mr. Moreno didn’t smile, he listened patiently to Lee. When Lee finished, Mr. Moreno said thank you, put another bag of newspapers by the side of the house, and closed the door.

  But aside from the Levin’s, Mr. Moreno
, a teenage girl who was watching her little brother, and the man with an oxygen tube in his nose who when he opened the door clearly was not happy, no one else on his ten walk sheets had been home. He was almost halfway through his supply of handouts. Just when Lee thought he was doing a good job he would have to run into the man hooked up to the oxygen tank. He asked Lee if he could read the sign. “No solicitors means no solicitors,” the man said before slamming the door. Lee wasn’t sure that he knew exactly what a solicitor was, but he didn’t think he was one. Sanford hadn’t said one thing about No Solicitors signs. Had Sanford forgotten, or did he think Lee could figure that out for himself, or was the man needing oxygen mistaken in thinking Lee was a solicitor? “Don’t worry about that,” Sanford said when Lee got back to the office. “Technically you’re not a solicitor. You’re always going to run into some old goat like that. Look pal, you’re doing a good job; I should know, I trained you myself.”

  In the days that followed, Lee found that he was getting better and better at handling old goats. He also found that he had developed a system of rolling handouts that he thought was even faster than Sanford’s and the voices of people as nice as the Aggarwal’s and Levin’s sounded in his ears long after he left their driveways. Sometimes those friendly voices stayed with Lee all the way home and even into the evening. When the voices were playing they could drown out his father’s “They haven’t let you go yet?” or “I’m telling you, remind me not to vote for that clown Calvert.” The chorus of nice people was louder than the old goats and his father. The chorus was getting larger each day and the chorus was telling Lee he was doing a good job.

  “I want you to start telling people about the rally,” Andy Herman said.

  “I do not know about the rally,” Lee replied.

  “The sheet on the rally has been on the bulletin board in the main room for about a week. Everybody’s supposed to read the bulletin board. I can’t be spoon-feeding you Lee.”

  “You are right. I will read the bulletin board in the morning before I go out and in the afternoon when I come back. I will read all about the rally and everything else on the bulletin board so I know everything the Dan Calvert for Council Campaign is doing.”

  “Look, Lee, I didn’t mean to jump on you, it’s just that, well, you know there are a lot of things going on and we’ve all got to be on our toes. We’ve got a new handout that has all the info about the rally –next Saturday at Veterans’ Park, two o’clock, ice cream, balloons, flags, the whole damn bit. Sanford is running this show and next week I just want you walking in the morning then coming back in the afternoons to help Sanford. In the meantime, you make sure you let people know about the rally.”

  “I will let everybody I see know about the rally,” Lee said as he walked into the main room to look at the bulletin board. It was all there, just as Andy Herman had said. Rally for Dan Calvert, Candidate for Council, two o’clock, Veterans’ Park, RAIN OR SHINE. At the top of the sheet was a list of Dan Calvert sponsors serving on the Host Committee. There in the middle of the list was the only name Lee recognized; Audrey Plennington. The bolt rushed through his head: Mrs. Plennington standing in the room across from him, smiling. He hadn’t seen Mrs. Plennington since that day; she hadn’t been at church for the last two Sundays. He was relieved she had not been there. But now it seemed certain he would see her on Saturday at the rally. He thought briefly about asking Andy Herman if sponsors always came to a rally they were sponsoring. But that might have been such a simple question that anyone would know. Lee didn’t want to get yelled at again. He didn’t want Andy thinking; what? First, you don’t read the bulletin board and now you’re asking a stupid question like does a sponsor come to a rally he’s sponsoring. Is this kid trying to lose the election of Dan Calvert to the council? But Lee couldn’t remember when a question was so important to him. Maybe he could ask Terri. Maybe he could ask the question in such a way that Terri wouldn’t think it was a big deal. Lee walked into the front office.

  “I was just reading about this very interesting rally that Dan Calvert is having in the park next week. Do you know if someone who is sponsoring a rally usually comes to the rally?”

  Terri looked up from her keyboard. She had so much work to do she thought, and now I have stupid questions. She glanced at Lee realizing the look on his face said that to him this question burned stronger than any feelings she might have about any of the paperwork on her desk. I told Andy this kid’s not one hundred-percent right. Her ankles were swollen badly that day. The Motrin did nothing to help her shoulder. She knew she had eaten too much already this morning. It was a simple question. He looked so hopeful that Terri could help him.

  “How the hell do I know? I’m not in charge of the damn rally. And you can bet your ass that’s the last place in the world I’ll ever be.” She saw the hope drain from his eyes. She recognized she had responded with non-proportionate force. She forgot her ankles, her shoulder, that she had eaten too much. “Look, I told you I don’t know, but I’ll ask Andy, or you can ask Andy.”

  “No, please don’t ask Andy,” Lee pleaded as terror like a palsy took control of his body.

  “Son-of-a bitch, all right I won’t ask Andy. Don’t come to me with any more of your stupid-ass questions; you hear me?” Terri knew for sure that he wasn’t one hundred- percent. Sanford, Lee – her brother had her working with a couple of nut jobs. She went back to her keyboard and let out a sigh. There was no peace in Lee’s walking that day. All he thought about was the rally. His steps up and down the driveways paced off his troubling thoughts. First, he now had another handout; that meant an extra step to putting the campaign materials on the door. But after the first ten houses, he had incorporated that step into his procedure as if he had had two handouts ever since he first started working for Dan Calvert. But his next two concerns seemed to get larger as the day progressed. The question of Mrs. Plennington, he knew she’d be at the rally; but what would she say to him? Would she treat him as if he had done something wrong? And then there was asking Terri Howard about if sponsors go to a rally. Lee knew she would tell her brother about the whole thing and even if Andy didn’t say anything, he would probably think he had made the wrong choice in hiring Lee if he could ask such a stupid question such as does a sponsor come to a rally.

  “Lee,” came Andy’s voice from the other room. “I need you to deliver something for me.”

  Lee looked at the envelope Andy handed him. It couldn’t be true, but there was the name scribbled in red ink: Audrey Plennington. “You want me to deliver this envelope?” Lee said, his words ending in a plaintive rush of breath.

  “Yeah, Audrey is one of our sponsors for the rally. She wanted some invitations that she could personally address. Just drop them off at her spa or fitness center or whatever she calls it. Is there some problem?” Andy asked as he adjusted the gold chain that had gotten tangled on the collar button of his golf shirt. The tight shirt made him look slighter than he was.

  “Well, Sanford gave me a walk list for a new neighborhood. He thinks it’s important that I get to as many houses as possible and well, if I walk all the way over to Mrs. Plennington’s spa, I know I cannot get all my walk sheets done. I will be backed up for tomorrow and maybe even backed up for the next day and the day after that.”

  “Lee, look at me. Sanford works for me. I don’t give a rat’s ass about your walk lists right now. You two are going to be working on the rally. Remember the rally? This is what is important until weekend after next. Dan has told me himself that this rally is his top priority right now. I mean I guess I could tell him that you have a different opinion?”

  Oh boy, Lee thought, now there’s another thing to worry about. Mrs. Plennington being a sponsor, Terri telling Andy that Lee wanted to know if sponsors come to rallies, and now, Andy telling Dan Calvert that Lee didn’t think the rally was a top priority right now.

  “No, please do not tell Dan Calvert that I do not think the rally is a top priority.” It was happening again,
just like all the other jobs Lee had. He was going to get fired, there was always some reason. He just wanted it to be over so he could find Reid and get the landscaping job. His father would probably be happy, because he had said Lee would be fired. Now his father could tell him, “I told you so, I just don’t know what took them so long.”

  Andy placed his hand on Lee’s shoulder. “Hey, Lee, look at me. I’m only kidding. You got to lighten up. I mean you and Sanford are always so serious. Got to roll with the punches in this campaign business, always something new. Flexibility is key. Can you understand that Lee? C’mon, you’re doing a good job. But flexibility; got to have it. Understand?”

  “Yes, flexibility, flexibility.”

  “Now here, I told your friend Mrs. Plennington you’d bring this over this morning. She said she’d be looking for you.”

  Lee was out of the building quickly but slowed his pace as he walked the ten blocks to Mrs. Plennington’s. He hadn’t been fired and nobody at his other jobs had ever told him he was doing a good job. His stride acquired more confidence; he was propelled by an engine never felt before. Doing a good job; his father had been wrong. What would his father have said if he had been standing in the office when Andy said that? Maybe the old look would change, the look that might as well have been a punch to Lee’s stomach. The look that said his father’s life as a security guard living in a run-down bungalow was somehow Lee’s fault. But Lee would be flexible, ready for anything if that’s what was important to Andy Herman and that made Andy continue to think that Lee was doing a good job. He was afraid he knew, however, what “She’ll be looking for you” meant.” Maybe he was wrong. But he couldn’t get Mrs. Plennnington mad at him. She was a sponsor of the rally. One word from her and it might be all over. “You’re doing a good job” would be like a tattered flag flying in an abandoned fort.