so they'll vote for him. Salesman like my father, only he's selling himself.
'He doesn't say he's doing that when he starts to talk to you. That would make you back away, think: 'This guy's got something wrong with him. Don't wanna get too close.' No, what he says is that if he gets elected he can do something for you you'll have a better life. If he's good, he convinces you. You and a whole bunch of other people vote for him because he's made you think he can improve your life. All he needs to know is what you need, so he can then make the noises you will think mean that if you vote for him he'll get it for you.
'Of course by the time he gets through he's gonna have to promise a hell of a lot. Which means he's gonna have to be pretty nimble later on, it comes time explain to people in the next campaign how come they didn't get exactly what he said they would when they first elected him.
But that's only if they remember. Most of them don't unless the guy running against you reminds them. But even then, by the time they get to the polls they' ll probably forgotten the reminder. People don't forgive, matter what they say. But they do forget. Their attention span is short.
'That snowy day I figured if I heckled Danny enough I could get a few laughs out of him. My own dear mother, those nights we spent talking: she was always telling me I was a fresh kid; saying if I didn't watch it, some day somebody was gonna get sore, haul off and pop me one. All my friends'd too, same thing. You got a talent, you use it. So I shoved the stick in his cage and started pokin' him around, makin' trouble.'
Hilliard shrugged. 'It's still awful early,' he said. 'The only people thinkin' about elections this time of year 're the people runnin' in them. No one else's interested. They wont be 'til a month before. Then they'll all start lookin' at the candidates, decide what they're gonna do.'
'Think when they do that, they'll be lookin' at you?' Merrion said.
Hilliard grimaced. 'Ahh,' he said, 'you saw Dillinger's column. Boy has that guy ever got the right name, fuckin' assassin he is. FBI shot the wrong man, they plugged John too bad they didn't get Fred.'
'Yeah, but is he right?' Merrion said. '1 know a lotta people don't like Freddie. My father couldn't stand him. Neither can Casey. My father used to come home nights and tell us something Casey said that day, something in Fred's column. Dad'd be roaring about it. But neither one of them could say it to anybody else; it might get back to Fred. Hadda keep their mouth shut. People read what Freddie writes and pay attention to it. He could wreck your business. And Freddie buys his cars here, too; don't want to lose his trade. People think he knows the stuff he writes about — it's inna paper, right? It must be true. And when he really nails somebody, pretty often he is right.
'So, if he is, today's column, and you're goin' down the toilet, why the hell wear out your car? Wear yourself out, too. What is it, you get your cookies this way? Gettin' your ass whipped in public?'
'Jesus,' Hilliard said, 'I need shit from you, too? You're as bad's your old man was. He gave me a ration every time I saw him; now he's dead, so I get it from you? You better not take too much for granted.
Everyone loved Pat Merrion. They knew that's just how he was, always stirrin' everyone up. So they took stuff from him. You haven't got that record goin' for you. Your father was a good guy.'
'That's what everyone tells me,' Merrion said. 'But if he was such a good guy and all, then how come he named me 'Ambrose'? That's a mean thing to do to a kid.'
'How do I know? Hilliard said. 'Maybe he was havin' a bad day. You may've been the cause of it, givin' him a lotta shit for no good reason. Decided he'd give you some back.'
'You still didn't answer my question,' Merrion said.
'I know I didn't,' Hilliard said. 'And you know why that is, you fresh prick? I don't know the answer myself, why I work my ass off and get nowhere. I did I'd give it to you. Why the hell not?
Dillinger's right, I've sure got nothing to lose. According to him, my second campaign isn't stirring up any more excitement than my first one, when I lost. That'll help me a lot. Even though this time I'm more mature, so people don't see me anymore as an upstart college kid trying to replace Roy Carnes, I'm still not getting anywhere. What if he's right? What the hell can I do?'
'You left out the part about how even though almost everybody now seems to think the guy who beat you the last time's turned out to be a real asshole,' Merrion said.
'Thank you very much,' Hilliard said. 'I'm really glad I decided to bring my car in today, so when I came to get it you'd be here to cheer me up. Instead of on some other day when you're up in Amherst there, taking Sandbox Two and Finger-painting One-oh-one, and old AL. would've been here. No imagination, AL. Never reads the papers.'
Merrion was laughing.
'Sure, go ahead, laugh your ass off,' Hilliard said. 'I now see I was wrong, I said you're as bad as your father, but your father had compassion. Now I not only get the pleasure of reading Dillinger's abuse myself; I get to enjoy it again when you quote it back to me. Not bad enough Fred says I'm already a loser; now I'm a pathetic loser; you're asking me how I like it.'
'You aren't yet, are you?' Merrion said. 'We haven't had this election. Nobody's beaten you yet.'
Hilliard stared at him. 'Yeah,' he said, 'that's right, they haven't.
I'm just being groomed to lose. You got some idea, I might win?'
'I dunno,' Merrion said. 'I got this problem. My mind sometimes wanders. I don't always think about things that concern me. I think about whole bunches of other things, none of my business at all. Today I'm reading Dillinger and since I know you and I also know you're comm' in, don't have much on my mind…
'Well: two things. You're obviously getting' nowhere kickin' the shit out of Gilson. As you've mainly been doin'.'
'It's like beatin' a pillow,' Hilliard said. 'You don't hurt your hands but you don't accomplish anything either. People don't even listen to me. It doesn't bother them that he's a dummy.
They're resigned to it. Maybe what this really is is a matter of equal representation: Gilson's the dummies' alderman.'
'So what I would do then,' Merrion said, 'is quit alienatin' the jerks.
Stop even tryin' to talk to them. He's theirs and they're satisfied with him. Tell 'em you hope they'll be very happy. Leave them have him and go somewhere else.'
'Like where, maybe Hadley?' Hilliard said. 'This's where I live.
Gilson's got the at-large seat that I'm running for.'
'But why is that?' Merrion said. 'Why does he have what you want?
He's got that seat because two years ago young Roy Carnes decided he didn't want to be an alderman any more. He wanted to be a state rep, like his uncle Arthur used to be, before he moved up. There wasn't any new Carnes ready to step into his place. Open field. So you stood up and said you want the job, and the voters said: 'No, you're too young.'
They voted for Gilson instead.
'We now know why they did it. It was not because he's smart. Anyone who voted for him thinking that now has to know he's not. He's proven that he's stupid. So Dillinger's got that part right. They thought you were too young, and he was the alternative and he was older.'
'Okay, but how does that help me?' Hilliard said. 'He still is, he's still older than I am, and now he's the incumbent.'
'He's still older'n you are,' Merrion said. 'But you are no longer so young. What are you now, twenty-six? Four years out of the Cross, 'stead of only two? You're an experienced teacher. You're familiar with the problems that face our public schools, 'stead of what you were back then: still feeling your way along, only your second year on the job. Not exactly elderly, but still more mature. Dillinger also said that.
'What you don't like's what he put with it, that you're not impressing the voters with it. Not convincing them you're not too young for the job anymore, so they don't need Gilson anymore to keep the seat warm.
Now you're ready. Kick him out.'
'I start saying that,' Hilliard said, 'how do I avoid pissing off every voter over thirty? That'll make 'em elect him again.'
'Well, if I were you,' Merrion said, 'the first thing I'd do would be call up old Roy Carnes or Arthur and ask if you could come up to their office and discuss the next city election. Tell 'em young Roy can sit in too.'
'Why would the Carneses talk to me?' Hilliard said. 'I haven't got anything they want. They're through with the alderman seat, gone on to bigger and better things. I've got nothing to offer them.'
'My father started selling Fords here after World War Two because his boss down at the Armory was a nice
