Short fiction: "Don't Think About Pink Elephants"

This elevator is my worst nightmare. I'm squished in tight with a large group of Young Republicans. They are talking excitedly about the upcoming Presidential election, and weighing the merits of Gingrich vs. Romney. Holding court is Phyllis Carr, Queen Bitch of the right-wing punditocracy.

"If it’s a choice between four more years of Obama or sudden renal failure," she begins as her followers hang on every word, "then one of you will have to lend me a coin to flip." The sardines erupt in laughter even though she is merely paraphrasing a line from her syndicated biweekly column, which wasn’t that funny to begin with. Her courtesans, though, are paying her due respect by pretending it's the first time they've heard it. I roll my eyes and shake my head. She notices, and then starts in.

"Mao Tse Tung here is upset because I don't like socialism, and therefore that makes me a counter-revolutionary."

"Uh, hi Phyllis," I say as a snappy comeback.

"Ouch! Watch out for this man, kids. He stings like a scorpion."

One minute and three decades later, the elevator finally stops at their floor and the lid peels back to let them out. The youngest-looking sardine, a high school girl with braces, turns to me and forms an "L" with her thumb and index finger, places it over her forehead and mouths the word "loser" before stepping out into the throng of young white neocons who have taken over the entire floor as a hospitality megasuite. The woman of the hour is this aging, larger-than-life Barbie doll who I myself once referred to on Bill Maher’s show as “Ann Coulter minus the tenderheartedness”. As the elevator door closes, I catch another glimpse of the fawning expressions on the faces of these kids.

As for me, there'll be no gaggle of followers when I step off the elevator - just a six pack of Old Mil (purchased earlier at a corner store rather than the overpriced minibar in my suite) and a deadline for today's dispatch. In order of priority: file story, get drunk, watch hotel porn, feel sorry for myself.

And think about my raging crush on Phyllis.

Welcome to the 2012 primaries.

*

Several months later, I'm in an airport in the Midwest. I spot her sitting at the same departure gate. Alone. I look around, seeing no other media types. Then someone announces over the PA that our flight will be delayed one hour, so I decide to extend the proverbial olive branch.

"Uh, hi Phyllis," I say, standing in front of her.

"Just when I think your putdown repository can't get any deeper," she replies.

"Oh for crying out loud. Why don't you hit the off button and join me for a drink?"

She looks around tentatively. "After the things we've said about each other in print? You really want to sit with the enemy?"

"Public trash-talking aside, I don’t think of us as enemies."

She let's out a mildly-sarcastic sigh of relief, as if a burden has lifted as she mulls her options.

"C'mon," I say. "The way you castrated me in that elevator, in front of the popular kids, the least you owe me is the chance to buy you a drink.

*

We’re two or three drinks in, talking shop. I’m amazed at how likable she is when she drops her act. There is a warmth and a depth of reason that takes me by surprise, as well as a dry, self-deprecating sense of humor. I'd been so accustomed to her loudmouth conbot edition that the possibility of a more human version had never occurred to me.

She concedes that people, including her most loyal readers, take her public persona at face value, not realizing it is only the outer layer of what she does. “They don’t get that a lot of the time I’m just pushing their buttons. They don’t hear me snickering maniacally at my keyboard when I’m feigning outrage. Really, I’m a paid performer. On some level this is all just theater.”

I am riveted. It’s like I’m hearing her speak for the first time. It’s like the Media Literacy 101 class they didn’t (but should have) taught in college. Who is this woman, and where has she been hiding?

From there the topic segues into perception in general, and how easily people read into situations before they know the facts. "Can you imagine," I venture, "if a picture of us here together were published?"

She lets out a loud series of guffaws. "My editor would have a seizure!" she cries out in a piercing chirp, causing sideways looks of resentment from nearby tables of spent travelers.

"And what about the public? The consensus would be we were having an affair, and our denial would only seem like a backhanded confirmation."

"Good God," she says, dabbing her eyes and then blowing her nose with a napkin. "We wouldn't need to leak a sex tape. All the sick puppies would already have one playing in their heads."

Now, before we go any further - have you ever heard of the dilemma in which you're asked to not think about pink elephants, and then of course all you can do is think about pink elephants? Well, the same paradigm – known in psychology as “ironic processing” - applies here. The mere suggestion of her and I in a sex tape results in my own grubby copy playing in the rickety old top-loading VHS machine that is my imagination. And because it’s in my head, there’s no way to take my eyes off the screen.

Meanwhile, my conscience and sense of integrity are ineffectually screaming at me to cease and desist.

My mouth goes dry and then I can’t help myself.

"Wouldn't it be fun to fake an affair just to screw with people's heads?" I ask.

"Don’t get carried away, Lefty."

Suddenly a voice over the PA system announces that our flight has been canceled due to weather, and that all passengers should report to Gate 7 for further information.

The further information is that the airline will cover a night's accommodation at a nearby hotel as well as a free flight to anywhere in the continental United States. Meanwhile, the next available flight out of this 'burg is 6 am tomorrow. We are given vouchers for the hotel and told to have a nice evening.

I look at Phyllis and say "Why don't we share the cab to the hotel?"

"Sure. I've already gotten tipsy with you while on full public display. The risk of reputational ruin is kinda fun."

*

In the cab on the way to the hotel, the driver glances at Phyllis in the rearview. "I feel like I know you from somewhere," he says. "You someone famous?"

"No," she says, turning to face my way and winking. "I'm someone infamous."

"I see. And what about you, sir?"

"Me, I'm just her loyal back scrubber."

With that the driver asks no further questions.

*

We are next-in-line at the front desk, luggage in hand. (It almost escapes me that we're standing side-by-side, rather than one-after-the-other. Almost, but not quite. I reach the voucher out of my coat pocket. Suddenly, she whispers: "If this girl recognizes either one of us, we might as well just call TMZ ourselves."

I nod, wondering silently if TMZ would even give enough of a shit. She herself is notorious enough, especially after her declaration last year that “Obamacare supporters should be shot on site by roving bands of well-armed Boy Scouts reeling from near-toxic doses of high-fructose corn syrup”, so maybe there would be a glimmer of traction on the more political gossip sites. As for me, however, my own mother only pretends to read my stuff.

"Look, we're being watched and recorded," she says, gesturing to the security camera hanging from a corner of the ceiling behind the check-in desk. "Surely this will be used against me by HUAC."

"Is there still such a thing?"

"Shush," she says, taking my hand in hers.

It is amazing what a simple gesture like that can do. My mind is now a swirling superstorm of fireworks, dancing bears and our presumptive sex tape playing at full volume. I start to blush, as if worried that somehow my thoughts are audible outside of my head. Phyllis looks at me with a satisfied smile on her face, knowing she has successfully fried my eggs. I don't hear the clerk ask us to step forward. "Sir,” she says in a louder, more assertive tone. “Can I help you?”

"Oh...um, yeah..."

We go through the usual sign-in rigmarole. When the clerk asks me how many will be staying in the room, Phyllis interjects with "That'll be two."

*

I awake from dreamless sleep in the blinding sunlight saturating the room. I look around but I don’t see her. I get up, glance around the room, and peek in the bathroom, but she is gone. Her bags, her shoes, her purse - none of it anywhere to be found.

I put on my boxers and close the curtains. Why did she fly the coop without at least saying goodbye? If she wanted to let me sleep, why couldn’t she have at least left a note?

But just as that thought is crossing my mind I see a sheet from my steno book with my empty flask holding it down as a paper weight:

You passed out, I couldn't wake you.
Missed your flight.

P.

*

Time goes by, and with each passing day I increasingly feel the need to let her know the depth of my feelings for her, as unlikely or all-too-suddenly they must seem.

Unacknowledged emails. Unanswered phone calls. I don’t press the issue, however, as she may have an assistant answering emails and phone calls. Given her profile, it’s a rather delicate thing, and so I resolve to meet with her again somewhere on the campaign trail, where we can debrief like adults.

*

A young woman applies a touch of powder to my chin, forehead and the tip of my nose. “That takes care of the shiny spots,” she says, closing up her makeup kit. I thank her and then she leaves.

I look at my reflection in the mirror. Not quite ready for primetime, but it will have to do. (Thankfully, I work in print.) I go over my sound bites, trying to anticipate the potential twists and turns the debate will take. I believe I have my facts straight, and feel adequately prepped.

My opponent, Howard Zantz, will be an easy target. He’s an off-the-rack paleocon wingnut. If nothing else, all I need to do is stay focused, stick to the facts, and speak in the soft, progressive-friendly language that drives him to apoplexy each and every morning on the radio. Let him get angry, let him get as belligerent as he likes. After all, anger, not reason, is his stock-in-trade. The payoff for his listeners is always the inevitable pipe-bursting rage. In his world, anger isn’t the problem – it is the point of the whole exercise. In his cult, such as it is, outrage is the blessed sacrament.

So in the grand scheme of things tonight, I’m just the guy bringing the rope. Zantz will take it from there.

Another mark in my plus column today is Zantz’s very recent embarrassment – an admission from a former assistant that he broadcasts from a makeshift studio at his home in Plano, Texas. This, of course, is at odds with his on-air shtick about “coming to you live from an underground bunker in the middle of the desert”, or some such nonsense. He denied this at first, until said former assistant leaked home video footage of him while on air, clearly in his house and not some concrete bomb shelter 5,000 feet below ground level. His core audience – paranoid gun nuts, and the zanier fringe of the Tea Party, were nonplussed, and have been flooding the blogosphere with calls for liberals to stop using “gotcha journalism” for their own political ends.

In any case, I’m overflowing with confidence. This twerp is beneath me. I will let him dig his hole and then leisurely toss shovelfuls of earth on him. This will be no big-

“Hey,” says the producer, intruding on my thoughts. “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“Okay.”

“Which do you want first?”

“The bad,” I say from my perch of self-satisfaction. “Lay it on me, brutha.”

“Zantz bailed. Says he has a previous engagement. It’s bullshit, I know. I think he’s just wanting to lay low, possibly in his ‘bunker’. Chicken.”

“And the good news?” I ask as I casually take a sip from a fresh water bottle.

He smiles like a Cheshire cat. “We have a veritable stand-in.”

“Oh?”

“Phyllis Carr.”

Oh.

“That’s right. She had a speech in town this afternoon, and said she’d be delighted to square off with you.”

Oh, shit.

*

So there we are on the set under bright studio lights. I’m holding my own (so far), and so is she. (Obama got a second term, so I have recent history on my side. As for Phyllis – well, she’s always ridden the zeitgeist of white anger, which these days isn’t exactly in short supply.) As for all that, everything is going fine.

On a more personal level, not so much.

When she arrived on set earlier, she breezed right by me without even a hello. And once the broadcast began, she wouldn’t look at me save for the occasional stony glance.

During a commercial break I try to make small talk as the hair and makeup people do some lightning-quick touch-ups. “Phyllis, how are-”

“Don’t talk to me!” she snaps, holding up her index finger.

“What the hell’s your-”

“I said don’t talk to me!” She now has everyone’s undivided attention. I look at her with dismay.

“Get this straight,” she sneers, leaning forward, “we’re not friends, we’re not colleagues, we’re nothing to each other. We’re here to debate each other. Full stop. Anything further from you will be considered harassment.”

She lets that last sentence hang in the air for a moment before tacking on caveat emptor. “My lawyer’s here right now if you need any clarification.”

“Save it for the ring,” says the host happily as he returns from the washroom. He is an old network stalwart on the verge of retirement. And he has no idea what is beneath the surface of this tension between us. He gets a quick touch-up as the floor director’s voice bellows out from somewhere beyond the glare of the lights.

“Back from commercial in five, four, three, two, one…”

On a nearby monitor I can see that we are momentarily obscured by a red, white and blue graphic that says “America Divided”. I look at Phyllis and briefly mouth the words “what the hell?”. I look back at the monitor just in time to see the graphic split down the middle and break apart to reveal Phyllis and I sitting on either side of the host. I am a little embarrassed at how heavy-on-the-cheese this must come across to the viewers at home.

For this segment of the show, the discussion has shifted from the campaign itself to the aftermath. The host asks Phyllis about the need for bipartisan cooperation now that our nation is driving headlong towards the much-ballyhooed fiscal cliff. “Isn’t it time,” he asks, “that politicians of all stripes work together to solve our problems?”

I can detect her face turning red under the makeup. “Absolutely not.”

“Oh? Please explain.”

“The Republicans in the House and the Senate were sent there by people who voted against this president. Why? Because they don’t agree with the direction he’s taking this country. These people – we the people – deserve to be represented according to our wishes.”

The host seems amused by her indignation. “But let’s step back a moment,” he says in his deep, reassuring television voice. “Your candidate said he’d ‘reach across the aisle’ to find bipartisan solutions. What happened to that spirit of cooperation??”

“I don’t need to explain myself. I’m a true patriot. My America doesn’t include traitors that vote for her destruction.”

I decide it’s high time I waded back into pool. “How can you call yourself a true patriot when you continually show hatred for most of your fellow countrymen? You’re always blithering on about the so-called ‘Hate America Left’. What about the ‘Hate America Right’?”

“You’re not my countryman, pinko. Back off.”

“Well, now,” says the host. “Looks like all the logs are burning nicely.” He turns to me. “Let me put the question to you. How do you feel about the prospect of America being even more divided? How will you feel if there is four more years of constant political gridlock in Washington?”

“That’s a very good question,” I say, letting my eyes do a slow burn into Phyllis’ skull. “During the campaign the GOP rhetoric was all about bipartisanship, about healing political rifts, about moving forward together, about-”

“Read my columns,” she interrupts. “I’ve never advocated bipartisanship. I’ve always advocated taking a principled stand based on conservative values.”

The host pretends he didn’t hear the interruption, and focuses on me. “And if bipartisanship doesn’t rule the day?”

I look at the host and then back at Phyllis, who is looking off into the studio light glare. If she were a cat, her tail would be whipping back and forth angrily. I am lost in that image before the host repeats the question.

I gather my thoughts back together. “If either side of the aisle puts their own politics before their constituents, then we all will have missed an opportunity.” I see Phyllis glance at me, so I lock gazes with her as intensely as I can. “A very beautiful opportunity.”

*

Airport, again.

Drunk as a skunk, as it were. This Phyllis thing has me feeling turned inside out. I left the studio feeling knotted up with anxiety, and when I got back to the hotel room all I could do was think about our night together. That’s the problem with hotels – the rooms are all slight variations on each other. If someone ever decided to shoot a made-for-TV movie based on our one-night stand, the room I just checked out of would have done just fine as a stand-in for the other, right down to the shitty, forgettable artwork above the bed, and the same smelled-one-smelled-‘em-all aroma. In any case, I made sure to finish my cans of Old Mil and then relieve the minibar of all its alcoholic contents.

And now the airport bar has no trouble giving me more booze in exchange for money. (What’s good for the economy is good America. Isn’t that what you always say, Phyllis?)

I decide I need to straighten myself out if I want to get on the plane. I ask the bartender for a glass of water, as if that’ll do any good at this point.

God, there she is. She has just walked by with her plump lawyer friend. Why is my heart swelling up at the sight of her? Because we have something. We’re meant to be together, to share our common greatness with the world.

I throw some cash at the bartender and stumble as I make my way out. I’m gonna go out there and lay it all on the line.

“Phyllis,” I mumble to myself as I stagger in her direction as she and her lawyer friend head towards the departure zone food court. I say her name louder as I pick up the pace. I plow into an old woman with a walker, knocking her to the ground. “Sorry,” I say as I continue on my quest.

“Sir!” a voice yells from somewhere behind me, accompanied by the sound of an old woman's wails echoing through the terminal. “Stop! Stop right now!”

This gets her attention. Good! She looks past me with furrowed eyebrows, trying to ascertain what is happening, and then her expression turns to fear and disgust as she sees me awkwardly ambling towards her. I gotta get that feeling back, for both of us.

“Phyllis!” I yell. “Phyllis, I'm in love with you!”

I hear murmurs and gasps all around, and voices over two-way radios. “Phyllis!” I scream as I start running full tilt, only vaguely aware of the sound of clomping boots behind me picking up their pace. I see Phyllis hiding behind her lawyer as if he were a shield, looking terror-stricken over his shoulder, obviously concerned for my safety. I see the lawyer sporting a shit-eating grin. And I see some more airport personnel running towards me from all directions.

I gotta get through to her, whatever the cost. This is love, after all. I’m sure these nice people will understand.