30: Wisconsin

This story is so incredible you want to cry.

It’s about a man named Jerry who everybody loves. One day he gets shot by robbers. The doctors think he’s going to die for sure. But he tells a joke to get them laughing, and says that he’s choosing to be alive. He survives.

“Wow!!” you type, “Can you believe it?!” You enter Andrew and Jessie’s addresses and press send. Hopefully your kids will get this one.

You close your email and try to read the AOL, but you get halfway through one article and then it changes for another. You don’t know how to make it stop.

Maybe if you had one of those Ipads it would be easier … then you could check your email while you were shopping, too. Steve might buy you one. You email him to ask.

Speaking of shopping, you should have gone an hour ago. Now it’s too late to make it to Pick n’ Save and back before he gets home.

There’s a little brick cheese in the fridge … frozen peas and carrots … a case or so of Schlitz … maybe you could throw a beer cheese soup together.

Still, it would have been nice to have made a real dinner … bratwurst and potatoes … sweet corn … cheddar bread and butter … apple kuchen … instead of wasting the day on the computer.

Oh, if only you were a better wife, a better mother to your kids. They never call you anymore, and barely ever reply to your emails. You don’t even know what Andrew’s job is. You only heard about Jessie’s new boyfriend through The Facebook.

“Honey,” Steve calls from the other room, “I’m home.” The front door closes with a click.

“Hi Snookums,” you call back to him, dabbing your eyes. “How was work?”

“Good.” His reflection appears in the computer screen, wearing his “Bob & Bob for Presidents” t-shirt and propping his dry-erase placard against the wall. “What did you do today?” he asks.

“Oh, nothing much.” You check your AOL again. “Did you get my email?”

“No, dear,” he says. “I’ve been on the picket lines.”

“Oh, you must be so tired!” You turn toward him and start to cry again. “Oh, Honey, I’m so sorry. I just got wrapped up in this story … and then I was surfing the web … and I didn’t remember dinner or where you were striking … No wonder the kids never tell me anything.”

“Aw, Angel Cakes,” he puts his hand on your shoulder, “don’t cry. Look,” he points at the screen. “There’s an email from Andrew now.”

You wipe your eyes and there it is, an email with the subject line: “Re: Fwd: Fwd: The power of positive thinking - AN AMAZING STOREY!!!”

“Dear Mom,” it begins, “I was thinking about killing myself today. Then I got your email and everything changed. It was like a light turned on in my mind. I knew I didn’t have to be sad any longer. That I could be as happy as I want to be.”

“So I called up my boss and told him that I quit. I called my girlfriend and asked her to marry me. I erased all of my depressing music. I deleted my angsty poetry. I’m going to dedicate my life to helping others like you helped me. I love you, Mom. And Dad. I love both of you.”

Your heart feels like it’s about to burst, it’s so full of relief and joy. “Thank you, Jesus,” you whisper. “Oh, thank you.”

That such a little thing could make such a difference … it’s like a miracle.

29: Iowa

 

She is on a mission to homogenize America.

She colors swing states on a map, plots politics on a graph, determines what drives candidates toward the center over time.

She thinks, as her plane descends – the cornfields of Iowa rising to meet her in perfect squares – how this is the land of standardized tests, respected writing centers, influential caucuses and mediocre presidents.

It is the perfect place to foment a quiet insurgency, to construct a newer and more moral majority, here in the heart of the country.


He wrote a story about a woman on a mission to homogenize America.

He assigned it to a student in the workshop, told her to revise it in the style of a reading comprehension question, to have the plot climax at a caucus.

He thought, as he drove east from the city – the white sun perfectly centered in his rearview mirror – how Iowa was where coastal writers came to be reborn, refined, and suburbanized.

It was the perfect place to solve the crisis of national identity, to heal a divided and subdivided society, here in the heart of the heart of the country.


She had written a show about a man who wrote a story about a woman on a mission to homogenize America.

She had set it in West Branch, cast a professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, recruited a new student, and let the plot transform from Iowa Exam narrative to Iowa Caucus conspiracy.

She had thought, as the unmarked car took her west along the Herbert Hoover Highway – the rectangular houses, square grass patches, and uniform rows of corn plodding past – how this was where fiction came to become reality, how it had been the perfect place.

28: Texas

“Hello,” the caller said. “Anthony?” It was an old man’s voice, ornery and a little confused.

“Sorry,” John replied. “I think you have the wrong number.”

“Is this Anthony?” the caller asked.

“Sorry,” John said again, and hung up.

He was in the kitchenette later, getting a beer, when he heard the phone vibrating against the surface of the desk again. He sprinted the four steps back into his bedroom and picked it up, hoping it would be Gabe this time.

“Hello?” he said.

“My name is Sal Esposito,” the man said. “I’m calling for my son Anthony.”

John closed his eyes. “Wrong number,” he said.

“Please,” the man said, choking up. “I just want to talk to my son.”

After he hung up this time, John flipped through his phone’s settings looking for a “block” feature. He couldn’t find one, so he saved the number to his contacts instead, under “Wrong Number.” When it came up on the caller ID five minutes later, he hit “Ignore” and put the phone back down.

Five beers and two voicemails later it was almost 2300 hours, and John’s shift was coming up. He’d listened to the first voicemail, which started with “Hello? Anthony? Hello?” and sort of trailed off. He deleted the second one without listening to it. Gabe had never called. He got into the shower, turned it on, and gasped as the first burst of cold water hit his skin, then closed his eyes and started jerking off.

Specialist Packard was waiting for him at the guardhouse. “Sergeant Davis is lookin’ for you,” he said in that retarded West Texas drawl.

“Shit,” John said as he signed into the log: 0012 hours. Late again.


John’s phone rang again the next afternoon while he was sleeping. “Motherfucker,” he said as he flipped it open. “Hello?” he mumbled.

“Late shift again, huh bro?” Hank laughed. “You got to get yourself a cushy government job like mine. Forget that Army shit.”

“One year,” John said, “four months, three weeks, two days, and a wake-up.”

“But who’s counting, right?” His brother laughed again. “Look, I gotta go. You should come over for dinner tonight. And bring a fucking girlfriend this time.”

Hank hung up. John put the phone down and went back to sleep.


He woke some time later to the phone buzzing again. He picked it up and stared groggily at the screen but couldn’t make the number out. “Who is this?” he asked.

“What, you don’t know my number by now?” Gabe asked.

“C’mon,” John said, “I told you I can’t put it in my phone.”

Gabe snorted. “Yeah, sure. You coming out tonight, or what?”

“Definitely.” John looked at his bedside clock. “I mean, I agreed to have dinner at my brother’s, but I can probably meet you after that.”

“Well, don’t go out of your fucking way.”

“Hey,” John started, but Gabe had already hung up. “What a bitch,” he muttered, and rolled out of bed, feeling his naked skin peeling off the sweat-soaked sheets.


It was around 1730 hours when John pulled into Homestead Meadows, a loose collection of prefab buildings in the middle of nowhere. His brother was in the driveway working on his red Camaro, leaning over the engine, fat ass sticking up into the air.

“Hey bro,” Hank said, as John started toward him. “Grab a beer and get in,” he gestured to a cooler next to the car. “I need you to pump the gas for a second.”

John took a bottle, popped it open, and took a long drink, then settled into the driver’s seat and turned the key. The engine sputtered to life just as his phone started vibrating in his pocket. He dug it out. “Wrong Number,” it read. The next thing he knew, Hank was shouting and trying to wave the clouds of smoke away from his face. John shook his head and put his phone away.


They ate in front of the TV, Hank and his wife Amber on their recliners; John next to their three boys on the couch. A UFC match was on. “Hank tells me you’re looking to get a job like his,” Amber said during a commercial break.

“I’d like to,” John said, “I just gotta get my discharge first.”

“Bro, you shoulda told me that was the problem,” Hank called from the kitchen. He walked back into the living room with a couple more bottles of beer in his hands. “I know plenty of girls could help with that.”

“Cut it out, Travis. Ricky.” Amber said, talking to the two older boys wresting on the floor.

“I was thinking that I should shoot for an assignment up in Vermont,” John said. “I read about this town there where the border runs right down the center of the street, cuts through a couple houses, even a library. It must be crazy there, a lot of international disputes over late fees, or people smuggling paperbacks from one side to the other.”

“Hell yeah,” said Hank. “That would be some Super Troopers shit.” He took a swig of beer. “But hey, come out on patrol with me tomorrow. I’ll show you how much fun Texas can be.”

“Yeah, sure.” John looked at his watch. 2115 hours. “Oh shit, I gotta go.”

“Not staying for dessert?” Amber asked. “I made Jello.”


Gabe was waiting across the bar, a white tank-top and faded cut-offs clinging to his body, the light melting on his amber skin. He was by the jukebox, dancing. It was just like the first time John saw him.

“Where you been, amigo?” Gabe asked when John walked over, not looking up. “I haven’t seen you in, like, forever.”

“Working,” John said. “You know.” He crossed his arms, then dropped them back to his sides.

“This is my favorite,” Gabe said as a new song started, “’Amor Prohibido,’ by Selena.” He paused, then added dramatically: “the slain Tejano superstar.” He looked at John at last. “So, you gonna dance with me, or what?” he asked.


They fucked in the men’s room like always, Gabe smiling and unbuckling John’s belt; John bending Gabe over and thrusting, sweating, gasping, swearing under his breath. He ran his hands up from Gabe’s hips, along his sides, his neck, into his deep black hair. Afterwards they sat at the bar, drinking. Gabe had one hand on John’s leg, stroking it absently.

“C’mon Gabe, watch it, will ya?” John muttered, without looking down.

“I thought you said nobody from your unit came here,” Gabe said, leaning in, “that it was strictly off-limits.” He smiled and dug his fingers into John’s front pocket, rubbing them slowly up and down. “Or maybe there’s somebody else you don’t want to see.”

He withdrew his hand quickly with John’s phone in it, and flipped it open before John could grab it away. “Ay, carajo,” he said. “’Wrong Number’? Who the fuck is that?”

John reached out for the phone again, but Gabe danced away. “Back off, maricón,” he said over his shoulder as he headed back to the jukebox. John sat back down and watched him feed the machine a dollar and select another Selena song.


John drove straight from the bar to Fort Bliss, and got to the gate just as his shift was starting. Sergeant Davis was waiting for him.

“The CO wants to see you in his office at 0800 tomorrow,” he said, and looked John up and down. “Now unfuck yourself and get your damn uniform on.”

The Captain chewed him out in the morning, John standing at attention in his office, trying not to fall asleep. He could barely pay attention to anything. “Yes sir,” he repeated, again and again.

Afterwards, he drove out to Homestead Meadows. The sun was high above the mountains, the light bending through the waves of heat coming off the car, the road, and the dirt. He squinted and rubbed his eyes. His brother was in the driveway waiting for him.

“I told my partner you’d fill in for him today,” Hank said. “I got you a spare uniform.”

John changed in the backseat on the way to the border, where they both got out and looked around. A long stretch of steel mesh and vertical bars, maybe 20 feet tall, stretched off into the desert for miles. “We find a coupla wetbacks out here every week,” Hank said, as they were climbing back into the car, “so let me know if you see anything brown that’s still alive.”


They spotted them just after noon, a huddle of bodies crouched down on the wrong side of the wall. Hank gunned it and three of them took off running. “Watch those two,” he said, and John jumped out. The SUV tore across the dusty ground.

John walked over to the two Mexicans, a teenager sitting against the fence, an older woman holding him in her arms. It looked like his leg was broken. Nobody moved or said anything. A couple minutes later they heard gunshots.

Hank returned in the SUV eventually, the three runners in the back. “Shit, Hank. You didn’t shoot ‘em, did you?” John asked.

“Nah, just at ‘em.” Hank laughed, and John shook his head. “What’s your problem, bro?” he asked.


The sun was almost setting by the time John got back to his apartment. He’d had to wait while his brother took the Mexicans in for processing, then again while he filled out his paperwork. It felt like there was a layer of sand building up behind his eyes that he couldn’t rub away.

He tried calling Gabe at the last number he called from, but the phone just rang and rang. When the machine finally picked up, it turned out to be a bar.

“Fuck,” John said, flopping down onto his bed. All he wanted to do was fuck someone or kill himself.


Ciudad Juarez was off-limits too, supposedly, but the Mexican guard just waved him through. He parked and started walking – down side streets, into back alleys – until he found the place.

The bartender had just slapped his change from the first shot down on the counter and John was already ordering another. He couldn’t tell if the music was actually familiar or just loud. He looked around.

A young guy was sitting in the corner, slick black hair, a tight button-down shirt open at the cuffs and collar. John slammed his tequila and ordered another.

They were in the bathroom when it happened. John had his pants around his ankles; the boy had John’s cock in his mouth. John half-saw, half-felt a blinding flash of light, then everything went dark.


John called his brother from the border in the morning, and waited in a holding area while he came to pick him up. All Hank said as they drove back into El Paso was that John was fucking lucky to be alive. John wasn’t sure about that.

He picked up a spare key to his apartment from the manager. He dug out his old cell phone from his desk and turned it on, then rummaged around for paperwork from his bank, his car insurance, and his credit cards.

The phone buzzed against the desktop – five missed calls; five new messages. The last four were what he expected: Specialist Packard a little after 0015, then two from Sergeant Davis, then one from the CO. The first message was from Gabe.

“John,” he started, “answer your phone, you fucking puta. I just want you to know…”

The phone beeped, cutting off Gabe’s voice for a second. John lowered it and looked at the screen. “Wrong Number,” it said.

He stared at the phone for a long time, Gabe’s voice buzzing from the speaker, the ringer beeping. He wanted to throw it out the window, to crush it in his hand. Finally, he flipped the phone open. “What the hell do you want?” he asked.

“Hi, I’m calling for Anthony,” a man said, “Anthony Esposito.” It was a young man’s voice, clipped and professional.

“Sorry,” John said. “You have the wrong number.”

“Do you know where I could reach him?” the man asked. “It’s about his father.”


John was lying in bed listening to the phone ring. He couldn’t bring himself to pick it up, to look at it, to think about it. He didn’t want to think about anything.

But he couldn’t help it.

If he never answered again, would it be a tragedy? If he never spoke, would it be a shame? He couldn’t decide whether it was worse that no one would ever ask him, or that there was no one he could tell who would understand.

27: Florida

“Tell me what I’m looking at.”

“It’s a graph, sir.”

“Who am I, Laurel and Hardy? I can see that.”

“Abbot and Costello, sir.”

“Which one?”

“One, sir?”

“The first or second?”

“Who was first?”

“Don’t start with me. Davis!”

Davis snaps his head up from his notepad, where he’s been doodling furiously, drawing either a giant flaccid penis or the State of Florida. “Yes, sir?” He asks.

“This looks like the chart of my last heart attack. What does it mean?”

“It’s the numbers from last week, sir.”

“Christ. Dora!” he yells in the direction of the door. “Get me BP on the line.”

“Yes sir,” comes a voice through the intercom.

Davis resumes doodling. The other three men in pastel polo shirts squirm slightly in their chairs. The man holding up the chart – Cooper – begins to put it down, then the phone on the desk rings, and he leaps back to attention. The director picks the receiver up. “You smarmy British son of a bitch!” he yells. “We need another twenty-five million.”

The voice coming through the receiver is muffled. The men pretend not to pay attention, looking out the plate glass windows onto downtown Tallahassee or rereading the motivational posters on the walls. The director makes an obscene gesture with his free hand. A tiny green lizard runs across the outside of the window. An orange flash of lightning lights up the horizon. The tinny voice is still talking, without pause.

“Look,” the director says, interrupting, “it’s embarrassing, emasculating. We have to put this little box up on our website with all this bullshit about black balls and deep whatevers. Look at that exclamation point! It’s pink, for Christ’s sake. And the charts!” He points at Cooper, who stands up stiffer. “They’re limper than Prince Charles’s prick. We’re getting fewer tourists than Kansas. You owe us big time.”

Lightning flashes again as the storm clouds swirl in. Thunder covers some more incomprehensible dialogue. The director shouts again: “Is that the best you can do, you lily-livered limey bastard? Well, I suggest you get that queen mother of yours over here and tell her to suck it.” He slams the phone back onto its cradle. Davis jumps up and looks around. The rain starts more or less on schedule.

“All right people,” the director gazes around the table, “rally caps. It’s the bottom of the ninth with two outs and the bases loaded. It’s first and goal with 5 seconds remaining. We’re at half-court and the shot clock is running down. It’s some sort of, um, last minute soccer situation. But we can turn this thing around.” He stands and pounds on the table with his fists. “This doesn’t have to be the Gulf Oil Crisis – it can be the Gulf Oil Opportunity!”

“Like in Chinese, sir?” The man seated next to Davis asks.

“Gomez, have you seen me out working in the rice paddies? Wearing one of those pointy hats? Building a giant wall to keep the Mongols out? Did my skin turn yellow while I wasn’t looking? Am I being inscrutable? Mysterious? Exotic? Oriental?”

“No, sir.”

The director pounds the table again. “You’re damn right I’m not! And if you say I am again I’ll have you and your family sent to the goddamn labor camps. We’ll see who’s a Maoist then, you pinko. Why, if this was thirty years ago I’d take you out back and shoot you myself.” He sits back down and looks around the table. Now, what the hell were we talking about?”

“The Gulf Oil Opportunity, sir,” the man seated next to Cooper by the window says.

“I like it!” The director snaps his fingers. “Good thinking, what’s-your-name. Give yourself a kiss on the ass.”

“A pat on the back, sir?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” The director looks at him more closely. “What is your name anyway?”

“Wang, sir.”

“Wang?” He stares incredulously. “What the hell kind of a name is that?”

“Chinese, sir.”

“Chinese? Well, I don’t like it.”

“Should I change it, sir?”

“Change it!” He snaps his fingers again. “That’s it! You’re on fire, what’s-your-name. Give yourself that pat on the ass after all. Dora!” He yells at the door, “get me someone in Design – tell him we need the biggest map he can find. Gomez, convene us a focus group.”

“Yes, sir.”

Gomez leaves. A designer arrives a few minutes later, dressed all in black, carrying a silver laptop under one tattooed arm. He sets it on the table facing the director, launches a web browser, and stands back as a map of Florida loads, pushing black frame glasses up his pierced nose. No one says anything, so he shrugs his shoulders at the room in general, and leaves. The director grabs a Sharpie from the table and scrawls “Gulf of Florida” on the screen, then steps back to admire his handiwork. The wind howls dully through the plate-glass windows. The rain rakes across the glass. Palm trees cartwheel down the streets like tumbleweeds. Gomez enters with the janitor. “Sorry, sir,” he says, “he was the only one I could find.”

“What about me?” comes the voice from the intercom.

The director looks around. “Did someone say something?”

Cooper and Wang both shake their heads. Davis is busy doodling. “It was just the wind, sir,” Gomez says.

“Dora!” the director yells, “close the damn door!” He turns the laptop toward the janitor. “Okay, José, what do you see?”

The janitor glances at it for a second, then back at the director. “The Golfo de México, señor.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” the director bellows. The janitor cringes and crosses himself. A swarm of cockroaches skitters up the wall. “Okay,” the director says, “I say we write the whole Panhandle off. Maybe lease it to Mexico until this all blows over. José, give your people a call. I’m prepared to make concessions: a chupacabra in every pot, all the pesos you can eat, and free siestas for everyone.” The janitor says nothing. “Not mañana, you lazy Mexican,” the director shouts. “Now! Make it happen!”

The janitor nods. “Si, señor.” Water spills across the carpet as he opens the door, soaking it, coating it in a thin glimmering film. His footsteps slosh down the hallway. A couple of small fish swim in.

“Sir, aren’t there a few other states in the way?” Wang asks, pointing at the screen.

“Fuck ‘em,” the director says. “Hell, maybe they’d even want in. I mean what the hell kind of tourist goes to Texas or Alabama? Gomez, get our focus group back here – we’ll ask him. Dora, get me Alabama on the line.”

The intercom is silent. The lights flicker and the air conditioning sputters off. Outside, José floats in a yellow bucket, using a mop to pole himself away. A family of five is huddled together atop an overturned mobile home. A couple of lifeguards paddle a surfboard past a half-submerged elderly woman wearing a clear plastic rain bonnet and holding a transparent umbrella aloft. Two men in suits prepare to dive from different windows of an office building. One jumps, and then – after flowcharting his potential best-practice action items going forward, leveraging the most up-to-date metrics of rational self-interest and goal-oriented excellence, and synergizing real-time big picture data analysis – the other operationalizes a proactive paradigm shift as well. Inside Visit Florida, the dark liquid rises above the ankles of the five men in the conference room. The director looks down, grabs Davis’s water glass, scoops some of the liquid up, and puts the glass back on the table. The liquid sloshes back and forth, and when it settles a thick, black-brown-red-orange layer forms across the top.

“Tell me what I’m looking at.”

“It’s oil, sir.”

“Oil!” He slams his hand down. Oily water flies everywhere. “It’s profit! Here’s the idea: We open the beaches and charge a flat fee for people to come and take as much as they want to carry away. ‘Winter’s coming in Minnesota,’ we tell them. ‘The next increase in gas prices is just around the corner. Heat your home, fuel your car, etc.’ If BP can turn a profit on this, why can’t we?”

“Is that legal, sir?” Wang asks.

“What do we care? It’s business! Hell, invite the foodies, too. They love oil!” He leans over, grabs one of the gasping fish that’s flopping in the shallow water on the floor, and smacks it on the tabletop until it dies. It lies there, glistening. “We’ll sell ‘em our seafood as pre-oiled. Pre-seasoned, even! Organic and all-natural, fresh from the Gulf of Mexico.”

“Florida, sir.”

“Shut up, Gomez. We can even get some celebrities on board. Rachel Ray, if she’s still cheap. Or that guy who says ‘bam’ all the time.”

“Bigelow, sir?”

“No, Bourdain. That asshole will eat anything.”

“What about FDA approval, sir?” Wang asks.

“Approval? What happened to the free market? What happened to life, liberty, and the pursuit of business? What the hell country is this?”

“America, sir.”

“America! Don’t talk to me about America, you namby-pamby East Coast Ivy League liberal puke. I spent 10 years eating gooks in Indo-China for breakfast and for what? America! Listen up: America is an obese toddler crying for his mama at the Fourth of July fireworks because his deep fried ice cream just fell into the dirt. America is a 40-year-old bleach-blond bimbo in daisy dukes draped across the hood of a red Camaro. America is Mr. John Doe working every day to buy a second home in a state so sunny that the Mexicans pay for the pleasure of cutting the goddamn grass. America is little Janey and Jimmy settling in the suburbs, where its designer chinos, appletinis, plastic picket fences, and a vacation home in Florida where the sand is always whiter than the population of Bumfuck, Wisconsin and the rain is as regular as me after a bran muffin. America is your goddamn balanced breakfast, made in China. Get me?”

“Yessir.”

Lightning flashes. Outside, the water is on fire. The lights inside go out. The room glows blue-green a moment longer, before the battery in the computer dies, and then everything is dim and orange.

The director leans back in his chair and looks around the table. Oily water pours from his shoe as he crosses one leg over the other. “All right. Let’s hear some slogans for next year.”

“This one is for the thrill-seekers,” Davis says, selecting a mock-up from his sodden portfolio. He flicks a few cockroaches off and holds it up. Gomez leans over and lights the glass of water on fire. “Florida,” the placard reads in a jaunty font, orange on green, “Rock you like a Hurricane.”

“Christ,” the director says, and looks out the window. The burning water is halfway up the spiderwebbing glass. A manatee drifts by forlornly. An alligator swims after it, glancing into the office and yawning like a bored tourist at SeaWorld. The director fans himself with a stack of brochures. “It’s too hot today,” he says.