Read Online Political Timber by Chris Lynch - Free Book Online Page A

components.
    “So what does all this mean, Mosi, that because you found out I’m behind in the poll you’re not going to help me?”
    “I didn’t say that.”
    “No? So what did you say?”
    Mosi opened his mouth, stopped strumming, pointed at me with his pick, then giggled some more. “I don’t know, Gord. What did I say?”
    I snapped at him. “You are the most useless—”
    “Can we go to Burger King?”
    “What?”
    “I’m starving.”
    “Jesus, Mosi. Are you listening to me? This isn’t funny anymore. I, like, have all this pressure on me all of a sudden, and I have to produce. It’s as if nobody gives a shit that this is my senior year at all.”
    He stared at me with St. Bernard eyes. Hopeless.
    “You buying?” I sighed.
    He shook his head.
    “Jesus Christ, Mosi. What good—”
    “Don’t you have an expense account?”
    “As a matter of fact, I do,” I said. Fins had given me one of his gold cards, which I never used, but would let slip out of my wallet when delicious chickens were around to see it. He also had been feeding me cash through Bucky. “But my expense account is only to be spent on volunteers and campaign-related incidentals.”
    “Ah,” he probed, “am I in there somewhere?”
    I pulled out my questionnaire. “Can you show me how to do some of that big-ass lying you do?”
    He smiled, put the guitar back on its stand, and led me out by the arm. “I have never told more than an innocent white lie, and even then it was only to help out a desperate friend.”
    “Ya,” I said, “that’s it. Just like that.”
    At Burger King, Mosi ordered three cheeseburgers, onion rings, curly fries, and a chicken-tenders kids’ meal. In the kids’ meal he received a little Disney Pocahontas figurine.
    “First off, have I ever done drugs?”
    Both of his cheeks were puffed with food. He held up one finger for me to wait while he masticated. I hate waiting when a guy does that.
    He swallowed, held the figurine up high. “I think Pocahontas is maybe the finest Disney babe yet.”
    “Stop it, Mos, we got work here.”
    “Mmmm,” he said, staring and thinking some more. “No maybe. She is the finest. Look at those eyes.”
    “You’re just trying to provoke me. Cut it out.”
    “No, man. I’m in love.”
    I slammed down my pen. This had to stop right here.
    “You have no taste, Mosi, you know that? Pocahontas is maybe half —and I’m being generous—maybe half the woman Jasmine is.”
    “Forget about it. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Forget the eyes, okay. Let’s talk about the buckskin, and the Wonderbra she’s gotta have on under it.”
    “Oh, time out. You can’t count attire. That’s not part of the scoring. If it was, how about Ariel? All right, seashells. The girl wears nothing but a pair of seashells. If that isn’t fineness—”
    “I forgot about the shells. And don’t forget, Gordie, she loses her voice partway through the movie. A girl who wears seashells and can’t talk... I change my vote. It’s Ariel.”
    He had me pondering. As usual, I was pondering all the wrong things.
    “Drugs, Mosi! The question was, have I ever tried drugs?”
    “Oh,” he said, like he’d just walked in. “Is that all? Well, the answer is yes.”
    “No, no, no, the answer is not yes.”
    “It’s not?”
    “No, it’s not. I am a candidate for public office, don’t you see? I’ve got to approach this carefully. See, if they drug-test me, I’m clean, that’s not an issue. But if they go digging around asking questions...”
    “Gotcha. So the answer is no.”
    Poor Mosi. He sounded so proud, too.
    “Wrong. They’ll think I’m lying because I’m a teenager and they figure we’re all stoned. So I have to come up with just the answer, which makes me look a little bit hip, but not hip enough to be threatening, and honest. Honest is good. Is there such an answer?”
    As I spoke, I had gotten so involved in the dilemma that I was rubbing my hands together