He didn’t usually drink. It wasn’t a good idea, with all the pills. And tonight he’d had a lot.
“You wan’ the lasso, Mary? I’ll sthrow a moon aroun’ it! Hooowwwweeeeeeee!”
He was slurring his words, he knew. But maybe he liked slurring his words. Maybe he meant to do it. It was FUN. It was liberating. HA! LIBER-ating? Is this how the Liberals felt all the time? Was Jean Chretien off somewhere, wheeling around, doing whatever the hell he felt like doing? Probably. That made him depressed again. He took another swig of the schnapps and dropped back on the wet grass. He howled at the moon.
It had been a wild night, starting at two-thirty am, his security detail first chasing him out of the hotel in the pouring rain as he ran across the parking lot to Jason Kenney’s rented SUV, bottles from the mini-bar spilling out of his suit jacket pockets. He’d gotten in the car, starting it with the keys he’d swiped when Kenney had passed out drunk on his bed.
Steve had looked down at his snoring immigration minister, lying there all smug and pink, triumphant with his overwhelming victory in Calgary Southeast that night, hogging the entire hotel bedspread. Yeah, I won my riding too, big frickin’ whoop, that’s not the point.
“Forget you, Kenney”, muttered Steve. “You aren’t even listening to me. I tried to tell yooou, I tried to tell you how I feel. And look at you. Screwww you.” A lump came to his throat. He didn’t like it. Jason was sleeping on his back with his mouth agape, and for a moment Steve thought of sticking something in it. “Let you choke, you jerk, ‘d serve you right.” And then he saw the keys.
Screeching out of the hotel parking lot, round corners, howling down the quiet wet suburban streets of Calgary Southwest, the two bodyguards on his tail in one of the Cadillacs. When he’d skidded up onto a curb and then fallen out of the car, subsequently running from lawn to lawn, pulling up campaign signs, they’d tried to talk sense to him. But he wouldn’t have it. For one thing, he wouldn’t stop singing.
“I GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY—”
“Shuddup!” yelled a man behind a screen door.
Dogs were barking behind every fence.
The guards had watched, helpless, unsure what to do, as he’d surrounded himself with the signs, knocking each into the wet ground with the post of the next and barricading himself, eventually, inside a circle of them on someone’s front lawn. He held onto one of the signs for balance and stared at it. The big C for conservative, glowing in the dark. His name, coming in and out of focus, the blurry blue and white. “Go Leafs!” he shouted. “Losers! Just like meeeee!”
The bigger of the guards reached for his tazer. “That’s it, he said,”I’m takin’ him down.” The other stopped him: “No, Jim, wait. Is that strictly necessary?” “ ‘Strictly necessary’? Oh man! When AM I gonna get to use this thing? First no eleven year old kids, now this? Besides, this is getting embarrassing – the press could show up any minute. We gotta get him outta here.”
“Just let me talk to him.”
“HE’S A REEEEEAL NOWHERE MAN, SITTING IN HIS NOWHERE LAND, MAKING ALL HIS NOWHERE PLANS FOR NOBODEEeeeee…”
Another neighbour: “Keep it down, we’re trying to sleep!”
“I WILL NOT,” he shouted, reeling back, face pointed at the drizzling dark sky. “You can’t tell me what to do NO MORE! No more Mister Cares-what-you-say! I’m on the right track baby, I was born thi-is wa-a-ay!” He lost his balance and fell back on the lawn. His head knocked against one of the sign posts. “Aww, jeez,” he said. “Now my azz is wet.” He started to giggle. Then cry. He curled up in a ball, shaking with sobs, shivering, tears and snot running sideways down his face and pooling in his ear.
He was so alone. So lonely. No one understood. “Laureeeeeeeeen!,” he shouted. Then, “Stellaaaaaaa!”
The squeak of a window. “I’m calling the police!” One of the security guys – was it Barry or Jim, Steven suddenly realized he’d never known which one was which - on his hands and knees, reaching through the signposts. A hand on his shoulder, gentle. “Mister Harper. Sir. It’s time to go.”
“Iz Steeeve! Why duzzin anybody call me Steeeve? It’s been so lonnng!”
“Okay, Steve. Let’s get you back to the hotel.”
“I wanna play the Playstation witchu guys!”
“Okay, Steve, we’ll do that. We’ll have some beers.”
“How come you never invited me?! I’s in the next room! ALL ALOOONE!”
“We didn’t think you’d want to, Steve. We…uhh…figured you were busy.”
“I wanna play Digimon! Like you guys!”
“Okay, Steve. Hey, you know what we’ve got now? Wii bowling. You’d like that one.”
“Tha’ sounds fun. Can I wear your hat?”
“Of course you can, Steve. Here you go.”
“Hey! Whuzz yer name anyway? Which one are you? You wan’ some Bailey’s?” He cracked another mini bottle.
“My name is Bar—”
“I think I’m gonna throw up.”
“Hold on, Steve. Hold on. Just breathe. Focus on something.”
They started to pull out the signs, the burly men, as the flashing cop car lights approached. They helped him up from where he sat trembling, snot-nosed, staring at his hand. They walked him towards their car, his arms around their enormous shoulders. “I’m focuzzing, Jim, look I’m focuzzing.” “That’s real good, Steve.”
“Ah poop. I zink I lozzzt my glasses.
“We’ll find them, sir.”
They slid on the wet grass and wiped out in a heap.
The Global and CTV vans screeched up at the same time as the cruiser. Reporters leapt out of the doors, cameras and microphones in hands. “Mister Harper, is that you?” “Call me Steve,” he bellowed. “Is is true that you’ve been drinking?” “FUCK YEAH,” yelled Steve, into their shocked faces, giving one cameraman the finger.
Ha HAW! – he could swear now. “Fuck fuck fuck! Titty shit McFucker!” Oh sweet Jesus, that felt good. It had been years. He’d submitted himself to that rigorous Reform Party leadership program in 92, been hooked up to electrodes and shocked whenever he thought an impure thought or uttered a bad word.
Now, Steven realized, he really could do anything he wanted, just like Jean Chretien. What was there to stop him? He could wear a t-shirt! Go a day – two, even - without shaving. Have sex with men if he felt like it. Would he feel like it? He had no idea! It had been years since he’d even allowed himself to wonder such a thing. He could get an abortion! Okay, technically he couldn’t, but well, whatever the male equivalent was; he’d do that!
He grabbed a cute CTV blond and kissed her on the mouth. “Hey baby! You wan’ some tequila? I got these li’l bottles. See?” She stared in shock.
Jim-or-was-it-Barry pried him away, tried to block the reporters’ view, hustling him into the back seat, and firmly closed the door, while Barry-or-was-it-Jim talked to the Calgary cops.
He could still see the press in the windows, eager faces, microphones. He could hear fragments of their muffled, frantic questions, shouted through the glass. “—disturbing the peace”…“—you and Mrs Harper?”… “What now, Sir? What’s your next move?”
Steven popped out of the sunroof as the car sped away. “I’m going to Disney Land!” he called out behind him. “And I just farted!!!”
