"The Mayor's Peacocks", a story by Harvey Sutlive

James Bone was waiting for friends at the Fast Bar. He had a table and a pitcher of beer. The pitcher was almost empty. He was feeling pretty great. He thought he would order another pitcher. He would start showing his ass pretty soon.

The Fast Bar had the ground floor of a beat-up brick building on Sacket Street opposite Harris College. The kitchen and the actual bar were towards the back of the space. Tables and chairs filled the middle, and wooden booths lined the windows.

James had square shoulders, wide-spaced brown eyes, and nervous energy. He could have used more impulse control. He was holding a table, between the bar and the booths It was almost lunchtime and the other tables were filling up. The booths by the windows were taken.

James was in real estate in Marais and the surrounding area – it was a light workday for him. He did have an appointment, later that afternoon. He was watching for an opening at a booth by the windows.

A pretty, slutty, intelligent girl, in lots of makeup, from the suburbs in Charlotte, sat with her parents at a booth by the windows. Both her elbows were on the booth tabletop. She was propping her head in her hands. She was looking out her part of the window.

Her parents were well-off rednecks in resort-wear. They had grim, hard-ass looks on their faces. Their girl was a junior at Harris College, but she was flunking out. They were taking her back to Charlotte.

This scene played out all the time in Marais. You could find great deals on Facebook Marketplace, from Harris kids dumping everything, because their parents were yanking them out of school. Harris College parents were mainly rednecks with money, with unmotivated kids. Harris was a ‘good’ school, supposedly, but if you had money, your kid got in.

Leaving Harris was a good thing for the slutty girl with the makeup. For a long, shitty year she would work at a Target. And then get back in school, at UNC Charlotte, a nicer place in every way than Harris. She would wear less makeup, she would quit sleeping with every guy in the phone book. She would graduate and do something interesting with her life.  

Her parents got up. They were ready to leave. They were only there for coffee. They were too pissed to eat lunch. James’s friend Charlie walked through the Fast Bar front door. He had a messenger bag on his shoulder. The girl stood, both hands on the booth table – she was pushing off, sliding out of the booth – James saw this and signaled to Charlie, who scooted over and grabbed their spot. James waved to a waiter for another pitcher and a mug for Charlie.

Charlie slid in the booth on the girl’s side. He rested his hands on the table and sat. His palms smeared through sweat and makeup.

“Ha ha,” said James after they scored the booth. “This makes me less suicidal,” he gloated. There was something about booths that he really loved. He rubbed his shoulder blades against the booth's backrest.

“A lot less,” gloated Charlie. He liked booths too.

The Fast Bar was getting more crowded. Charlie wiped his hands on a fistful of napkins, scrubbed part of the table with extra napkins, and slid a book out of his messenger bag. He was an animated guy but ragged-out, with a nice face, dark eyes and dark eyebrows – like a stuffed animal that lands in a thrift store. He laid his book on the table by his mug.

He taught tenth-graders in the Boue County system – it was a Reading Day – he was deeply thankful for this. He was an OK teacher, for what that’s worth, but the job was driving him insane from boredom. He was still functioning, but he was running on fumes. A waiter dropped a mug and a beer pitcher on the table by his book.

Charley and James wallowed in their booth. They drank beer. They looked out their window. Harris College across Sackett was not very visible – a metal fence along the road, and after that grass – ungainly brick buildings in the far distance. Inside the fence, a maintenance crew trimmed a long line of dogwoods. It was springtime and they were blooming. Cut branches laid in the grass white and flat like a streak of pondwater.

Charley flipped his book open. “What’s that,” James asked, not that he cared. He read listings in real estate handouts, that was about it. He scanned the listings back to front, without getting hung up on details.

A skinny red-haired kid with bad skin came out the kitchen and cleared their table. “Go ahead and bring another pitcher,” remarked James politely, “also two more mugs.”

Charlie patted his book – it was a thick trade paperback. “The little motherfuckers are doing Huckleberry Finn,” he said. He called his students – the little motherfuckers. His book was a collection of essays on the Victorian Age. He was putting together a study guide for the little mf’s. He thought it was better if they had some background. He thought that context was as big as the story. He was happy about Huckleberry Finn. In his school system, it was the one good book tenth-graders read.

Mr. White from Highland Electric was on a stool at the bar. He came to the Fast Bar twice a week for beers and a hamburger. He was pretty fit, for an insanely old person. He was wearing work pants and a checkered sports shirt.

Mr. White lied about his age in the spring of ’44 and enlisted in the army. After he got out, he and his older brother started Highland Electric. His older brother was a closet gay guy who never married or had children, so when he died, Mr. White got the whole business. He handed over to his son in 1990. Pretty soon his granddaughter and her husband would take charge. He still worked a few hours each week, parked in an armchair, snoozing, or bullshitting with customers. The Fast Bar was four doors down from Highland Electric.

He usually got a buzz off a draft beer by itself before he ordered a burger. There was a giant deep skylight above the bar - the building belonged to cotton brokers when Mr. White was a kid. There was a worktable under the giant skylight in those days. The brokers stood round the table and graded cotton. The skylight was boxed through the upstairs floor into a big dormer window in the steep tin roof. The dormer faced north, so no matter the sun angle, or the time of day, steady light arrived for accurate cotton grading. Mr. White would explain that to anybody who gave him half a chance.

The dormer in the roof was built on hinges. It swung open to a platform for an old-fashioned air conditioner, surrounded by wood slats, where water cascades over the cooling pipes. From the dormer was a far-ranging view over Jupiter Paper to miles of the Boue River valley. The Blue Ridge, rounded mountains, jammed together and overlaying, like rumpled bed clothes – ran to the far horizon. A broken piece of gutter pipe on the roof of Jupiter Paper stuck out two feet from the building. During a hard rain, water pulsed from that pipe, like the longest ejaculation in the history of sex. Mr. White would explain that too, if anybody gave him half a chance.

The red-headed kid came out of the kitchen and put a burger and new beer on the counter. Dr. Zena from biology at Harris College grabbed a stool next to Mr. White. Dr. Zena wasn’t from Marais, but he loved living there. He was a short guy with a potbelly and an edgy haircut. He ran for City Council three times, but he lost every time.

He showed Mr. White a Hubble image of a flux nebula that he put on his cell phone for wallpaper. He compared it to paintings of heaven from the Middle Ages. Dr. Zeno was a gung-ho atheist, but nobody in his department gave a shit about religion, so he never got to frame an argument. But Mr. White went to church every Sunday, his daughter-in-law made him, and Dr. Zena was always glad to find him at the Fast Bar.

Mr. White looked at Dr. Zena’s phone and pretended to be interested. He was a believer, without thinking about it, the way aquarium fish seldom  ponder water. He knew his way around the Bible though, his mother read from it when he and his brother were kids.

“I believe in science,” he told Dr. Zena. “The earth is round. I agree with that.”

“Oh we’ve understood…” said Dr. Zena happily.

 “Now the floor of heaven, is on a curve. What matches the Earth,” said Mr. White. He pointed to the ceiling.

“Traditionally…” said Dr. Zena.

“Angels go back and forth from earth to heaven,” said Mr. White. He patted Dr. Zena’s arm.

“Traditionally…” said Dr. Zena.

“That’s on the vertical of course,” said Mr. White. “But they go horizontal, when they help us out. Angels are hard workers.” He drank some beer. “They’re muscular,” he said. He thought of a whole roomful of angels, working out. His granddaughter gave him a gym membership, the year he turned ninety. The exercise machines made a racket though. He only went once.

“In any case, the floor…” said Dr. Zena.

“You’ll find out, soon enough,” said Mr. White. His mouth was full of hamburger. The preacher at his church gave a riveting talk just the previous Sunday on End Times and the Birth Pangs beginnings.

“Traditionally…” said Dr. Zeno.

“’Many shall run, to and fro. And knowledge shall increase,’” said Mr. White. “That's Daniel. No need to read the Bible though. Not if you don’t want to. Just look at a newspaper, or watch TV.”

His preacher quoted that verse the previous Sunday. But Mr. White was familiar with it already. He remembered a lot of Bible verses. His parents struggled to make a living on their farm when he was a kid. More than once, he and his brother went to bed hungry. To help them sleep, their mother read the Bible. It was hard to sleep on an empty stomach. No one beat Mr. White quoting Bible verses.

“And knowledge shall increase,” he said grimly. “You think about it that. Cell phones. I-pods. Going to the moon.” He drank some beer. 

“Honestly the moon landing was…” said Dr. Zena.

“I got a computer, don’t get me wrong,” said Mr. White. “A Lap-Top.”

“The landing…” said Dr. Zena.

“My granddaughter give-it me, ten years ago. It still works good. I’ll use it up before I get another one. Get all the blood out of it.”

James’s uncle out the Midden Road was good friends with Mr. White. James and Mr. White talked at the Fast Bar sometimes. James even knew one of Mr. White’s verses: “Surely in that day, there shall be a great shaking, in the land of Israel.” He recited it back to the old man sometimes, to show he was paying attention.  

He kept the verse in his head by imagining a lady named Shirley that was on a tour of Israel. One day she had an orgasm and it made her shake. Shirley, in that day, there shall be a great shaking, in the land of Israel.

She slept with the bus driver. It always impressed Mr. White when James gave the quote. He recommended James to his granddaughter, after she got married, when she was looking for a house to buy.

Polly Hunt came through the door of the Fast Bar. She was James’s long-term girlfriend – they were practically married – but she was thinking about dumping him. She spotted James and Charlie at their booth.

“Boys,” she said as she sat down. Polly was from Marais but she practiced law over in Asheville. She had erect posture and a long nose and confident body language. She had blonde hair which she dyed brown for work. A waitress came with a new pitcher and more mugs. The waitress was limping. She strained her knee grappling, and it was still healing. 

Charlie pushed a mug at Polly. He flashed his paperback. “Victorian studies,” he said. “They were so fucked up. There’s one essay about…” Polly and James stopped listening right away.

To build writing skills, Charlie shoehorned a program into his class every fall. He made the mf’s write essays about: what they would do, ‘when they grew up.’ After that they wrote a second essay, on how they would get there, from the tenth grade. He made a list of the kids’ various strategies, and ran down adult role models in the community. The adults came to class and critiqued the kid’s strategies. The assistant principal in charge of discipline hated the program and tried to make him stop. But it didn’t cost the school money, and parents thought it was a good idea.

Charlie wished for his students to enjoy school. If they were enjoying school, he was enjoying school. It was something like Shirley, in Israel, when she was happy, her driver was happy.

Polly lived in Asheville but she kept close ties with her hometown. She did legal work sometimes for Boue Valley Heritage, which had its own Center in a big frame house on Pigeon Avenue. The mayor of Marais, Helene Chaux, lived next to the Center in a brick-veneer ranch house – the old house on her lot burned in the 1960’s. Helene Chaux was a first-rate mayor. She was hard-working and sensible. She was a stand-out middle-school teacher, before she ran for mayor. She mentored Charlie when he started in the classroom

The core of the Heritage Center was six or seven crusty alpha females. They were very active in historic preservation. If you went against them, they would fuck you over. They worked well with Mayor Chaux, sometimes, and at other times they fucked her over. So she fucked them over.

The Center had an issue currently with the mayor, outside historic preservation – the mayor kept peacocks in a chicken wire pen big as a three-car garage, with fifteen-foot walls, in part of her back yard. Two peacocks got over the wire sometimes and they shit in the Center’s front yard. It was causing bad blood.

That morning Polly was on the phone with Mayor Chaux, who was working hard on a grant package for the old glove factory on the river opposite downtown. The mayor hoped to develop the glove factory as affordable housing. The Center thought that might attract Latinos from the packing plant by the interstate.

Polly secretly sided with Mayor Chaux. She was trying to dial back from work with the Center anyway. But for the past few years in Marais, she’d been buying cheap houses, little by little, and renting rooms to Harris College students. She didn’t want the Heritage bitches coming after her and her houses. So she was in a balancing act.

“I’m sorry about the peacocks Polly,” said Mayor Chaux on the phone. “It’s mostly Arcelle. He’s a flyer. But Valerie follows him sometimes. The other two stay on the ground.” 

“Helene, the Center is only…” said Polly.

“Tell them to give me what I want for the glove factory,” said the mayor. “Nobody from the packing plant wants to move there anyway.” That was factual. The packing plant workers had their own community, near the plant, a shitty trailer park, but with little yards and places for gardens.

Polly drank half her beer. She was wondering how to weasel though the Heritage situation. It was stressful. She looked out the window from her side of the booth. Charlie and James were both ogling her, Charlie more discretely than James. That made her feel better. James poured more beer in her mug, and she sucked down half again. Charley wagged his Victorian essays. “There’s a thing in here about two women in the 1870’s. They lived as a married couple,” he said.

“Mm,” she said. That day she had a closing in Asheville, but one of her partners was covering for her. The closing was postponed from three days earlier. Now it was going forward. Ownership on the tax map hadn’t matched ownership on the plat. Tax maps were inaccurate sometimes. The title guy said he could fix it.

“…these women, the Victorian Era,” Charlie was saying. “In the Midwest in a shitty village in a log house. After you build a log house you put mud in the cracks.

“They mixed lime with the mud,” said James. Under the table he was wagging his feet to loosen his ankles.

“Probably,” said Charley. He wasn’t sure what lime was. “Somebody found pages from a diary between the logs. That’s how we know. They loved each other, they were living together, but the wife never realized her husband was female.”

“Why not?” said James.

Polly shifted in her seat. She drank more beer. Work she felt, was the price you pay, to get better at anything. She was OK with work. But boredom was not a price. Boredom was getting ripped off.

“They always made love in the dark,” said Charlie. “Under covers.”

On the closing, she would split the fee, with her partner. That was only fair. She almost drove back to Asheville herself, but with the tax thing and delay, she was glad she didn’t. 

“How did she fuck her pal then,” said James.

“Prosthetic device,” said Charley.

“What?” said James.

“Dildo,” said Polly. The buyer talked a lot, at the closing he would waste time, she warned her partner.

“Hey don’t call me shitty names,” said James rapidly, “You’d fucking freak out if I…”

“No they use it,” said Charlie. “The two gals. The wife never realized it. The husband wrote the diary and they…”

Charlie’s wife Saida showed up at the front door. It was lunchtime full blast. All the tables were full and so was the bar and the booths by the windows. Saida spotted Charley and James and Polly. Charley waved.

Saida was walking over. She grew up in Minnesota, her mom was from there, and her dad was from Iran. But her dad never liked America, and he returned to Iran when Saida was five. She looked like a Swede farm girl, but darker and more interesting. She did college at UNC Asheville, on a music scholarship, and she and Charlie met there. They took a travel year together after college. They married while they were on the road.

When they came back, they got on with their lives, more or less. Saida went to medical school. Charlie got a master’s in education.

“Hey gorgeous,” said James. Beer was soaking his brain pretty thoroughly. He liked Saida, and he respected her, even if he didn’t understand her. Obscurely he felt Saida guarded Charlie… from Polly’s affection… he thought of Saida as important safety equipment, like the bumper on a car.

“I can’t stay long, I have to get back to the office,” she said. She had a solo practice in Marais. She kissed James and Polly. She slid in the booth on Charlie’s side and leaned into him and kissed him on the cheek. He hugged her. 

“Can't you sleep this afternoon?” said Charlie. She’d been at the hospital with some critically ill kid for most of the night. Charlie had a flash, an appreciation, of what a good person she was – he put his book back in his bag – then he took it out again.

“I’m fine,” said Saida. The kid at the hospital was a Medicaid case. Medicaid didn’t pay like Medicare, or private insurance. She was considering refusing Medicaid.

 “Your practice is wearing you out,” said Charlie.

“My practice – is a dream come true,” said Saida. Without thinking about it, she counted on Charley loving her.

“Yeah but after that,” said Charley. Often they got close, but it didn’t last. Saida needed stress, to be in equilibrium, and Charlie was lazy and restless. “The wake-up period, after the dream, how is that…”

“What do you know Charlie?” said Polly.

“You should work at a doc in the box Saida,” said James. For a second he was looking at the ceiling, because he was stretching his neck.

“With Urgent Care you don’t follow up. You don’t do physicals. You don’t know your patients,” said Saida.

 “Sticking your face up people’s buttholes,” said James. He drank some more beer. “I’d rather be a vet.”

“It’s similar,” said Saida. She liked James.

“Animals are consistent,” said James.

Charlie flipped though his book of essays. He couldn’t put the log house couple in his guide. They were too interesting. The little mf’s would tell their parents. The parents would shit themselves. “Kids are great,” he said out of nowhere. He sucked down some beer.

Saida was telling James about malpractice insurance, veterinarians versus medical doctors – vets got off so easy on that. Methodically her insurance company raised her premiums every year.

“They want to bleed me white,” she was saying.

“They don’t care if you’re not white,” said James.

“It’s an expression fuckhead,” said Saida. James turned red.

“How is it with the mayor’s peacocks?” Charlie said to Polly, to help James out.

“Those bitches at the Heritage Center,” said Polly. She had four rental houses, she didn’t want them jumping on her. She poured herself more beer. She had chocolate chip cookies in her bag and she was eating a couple. Nobody else wanted any. When she drank her beer she smeared chocolate on her mug rim.

Saida thought about her office. She glanced around the room. Mr. White waved at her from the bar. Dr. Zena was trying to talk about heaven some more, but Mr. White changed the subject, to his daughter-in-law’s trip last year to Venice Italy.

Polly was watching James. He’s loyal, he’s an honest person... also he helped, with her rental houses… she stuffed a cookie in her mouth.

James pulled out his phone and got on Craigslist, to check for vintage car ads. After a certain number of beers, he liked to see pictures of old cars.

Mr. White was telling Dr. Zena about his daughter-in-law. The Venice trip was set up by her bingo group. "... and saw stuff, in them canals - what wadn’t broke up yet.” At that point he noticed Saida and he waved and nodded. He thought a lot of Saida.

Saida grinned and waved back at Mr. White. He had half a dozen things wrong with him. It was amazing he got out of bed in the morning. Medicare paid so much better than Medicaid.

Mr. White raised his beer mug to Saida. Dr. Zena mentioned a new study on praying humans, their breathing and blood pressure – Mr. White ignored this. Saida signaled the waitress and ordered coffee. She’s pretty, Mr. White was thinking. She’s smart. And she’s a nice girl. He was glad she was his doctor. If he was younger, he wouldn’t mind… the devil, he interrupted himself. The last erection he ever noticed was ’93 or 4… in the morning, before the toilet… hardly anything to brag about…

“I have to get back to the office,” said Saida.

“God your office,” said Charlie.

“Yeah my office,” said Saida.

“You’ve got to come unglued from all that,” said James.

“You should know about unglued,” said Saida. She pivoted to Charlie and pointed to his paperback. “Anyway you do this stuff,” she said.

“I have space for it,” he said.

“If you have space why use it on that?” said Saida.

Charlie thought of a reason, not some easy excuse either… he had a regular cathedral of excuses in his head… but in that moment he was honest. “I’m breathing when I do projects. My life – matches up. Inside and outside.” Polly glanced at him.

“How is that possible?” said Saida.

“You don’t think it’s possible?” said Charlie.  

“Of course I do,” she said rapidly. For her, Charlie was a wall of support. Money was a wall too. She took care to have money, and she took care to maintain her relationship with Charlie. She wondered if he was happy – she blocked that out.

“Let’s order food,” he said.

 “You and Saida should buy a convertible,” said James. On Craigslist he searched cars from 1960 and working forward. He wasn’t interested in the post-war bulgy look, he liked angular flashy ’60’s cars.

“We have two cars,” said Saida.

“A convertible would be interesting,” Charlie said eagerly. “Like an old MG or even a Miata. We could ride around together.” The waitress limped up with menus and a coffee.

"Miata's are cheap," said James.

"Riding around's not my idea of recreation,” said Saida. She tried her coffee. It wasn’t hot. She put down the cup. “I have to go.” She slid out their booth.

Charlie didn’t care if she left or stayed… he almost realized it, but he blocked it out – she leaned over and kissed his neck.

James picked up a menu.

 “I should see Helene about her fucking peacocks,” said Polly. She stood up. She didn’t know why she was leaving.

“Good luck,” said Charlie. “Tell Helene I said hi.”

“OK,” she said. They were avoiding eye contact almost.

“Love you,” said James. He did look up from his menu. He was thinking about a sandwich, like a grilled cheese on rye. A light meal, he calculated. He was showing a building lot, that afternoon later.

“See you tonight. I guess,” said Polly. In Marais she stayed with James. But sometimes she stayed with her mother.

“Looking forward to it,” said James. He was wiggling his toes. He was happy.

"OK," said Polly.

James blew her a kiss.

"Bye," she told him.