Once Silas finished up at the tanning bed—something that, in my opinion, had the strange effect of making him look orange, I met with him to discuss what we were going to do about Mary Lou. Apparently, she’d sort of been making deals with people—people that didn’t use tanning beds, for example—saying that if they ignored Silas and helped her get elected she would think of them fondly. I think it might’ve been illegal for her to take money in exchange for policy, so basically she was working for tips. I think the main thing she wanted to do was stop people like Darius, our local trillionaire, from getting into outer space. It set a bad precedent, she said. I thought she was right, and I tried to get real with Silas.
“Haven’t you ever watched Star Trek?” I asked. “I don’t mean the ancient one or all the spinoffs—I mean the one that really made them great—The Next Generation?”
To my surprise Silas watched it all the time—and he admitted to it! He said that he was addicted to it, and that it was bad for him because it prevented him from working on his book—the one that was going to get him on Oprah. He said he’d seen the episodes so many times he could say the words along with the characters—I don’t know if that was really true, but I got the picture. So I asked him, “Darius is the beginnings of the borg—do you want to be responsible for putting the bad guys into space—where they can destroy other ecosystems?”
“I know what he’s doing,” I continued. “Darius wants to mine Mars for gold—forget all about the fact that there could be traces of an earlier civilization there.”
“So what if he does?” Silas asked. “It would be good for the economy!”
But I didn’t see it that way—and Silas didn’t think that Darius was going to try and assimilate anybody. I knew, of course, that we were a long way from interacting with—and ruining relationships with—alien life, but Darius was a giant leap in that direction—especially if he discovered gold on Mars. I was thinking about saying something about Darius’s haircut—it looked a little nazi-ish to me, but I suppose everybody in the first half of the 20th century cut the sides super short and kept the top long. I don’t know—I decided against it because I didn’t want to give up my advantage. If I started calling Silas and Darius nazis, I’d lose what meager power I held over them—that being, of course, access to Mary Lou, the real Mary Lou, not the one that did her best—according to Silas—not to smile when he flirted with her.
I don’t know why people need to flirt so much—they do it especially when they want to keep their sex life alive; but there’s more to life than sex—and innuendo to remind us that we could be on our own—that our partner could find somebody else easily and probably would if we didn’t feel like being used.
“She’s free to do what she wants,” Silas said—referring to Mary Lou. “But I’ll find a way to get rid of her if she keeps on doing it.”
“Doing what, exactly?” I asked. “You have all the money—the democrats certainly don’t have it!”
“But all that little stuff adds up,” Silas said, “and I won’t stand for it.”
“I’ll get her fired,” he continued.
“You can’t do that,” I said. “You don’t have anything on her—there’s nothing on her; she’s not accepting money from anybody but me!”
“I’ll find something.”
“You’re just acting this way because she doesn’t flirt with you—she’s not a flirt, Silas!”
“I don’t flirt with her—I never flirt with anybody—and, furthermore, I don’t choose women; they choose me!”
“Then you’re just mad that Mary Lou didn’t choose you.”
“She doesn’t know what she’s missing.”
“But what about your wife, Silas?”
But Silas didn’t want to talk about his wife—in fact, he got angry and said that his wife was free to do what she wants—knowing full well that he’d make her life miserable if she tried to divorce him.
But what about Mary Lou? Silas was trying to do some crazy stuff: he pardoned the people that were responsible for killing police officers at the capitol riots—and then he turned on his heels—trying a scheme to get the police on side, by saying that you’d get the death penalty if you killed a police officer. I thought—okay, it’s obvious what he’s trying to do—but, apparently, others didn’t think so, because many police were siding with Silas no matter what—and especially if they believed that black and brown people were the source of crime—as opposed to the poverty that made it so.
I don’t know how many pastries a day—in addition to his meals, that Silas was eating, but I considered that he was eating about three. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to fit through the door—and overweight people could start commenting on how “even I don’t weigh that much!” On this occasion Silas might’ve been reading my mind—or reporting supernaturally, on my thoughts, because he said he’d lost his appetite, and he stormed off. He was just trying to play games like you do in relationships when you want somebody to like you for ignoring them. That, after all, is how relationships, for people like Silas, worked. A lot of people played games like that—doing their best not to scare someone off by revealing their feelings—and their fantasies. I was a little miffed, I admit; I’m not used to people walking out on me—but Silas would be back. He couldn’t stay angry with a blond he hadn’t slept with. It wasn’t in his nature. When he did come back, I’d be ready—and I’d do my best to convince him to run for a third term; he’d be so old by then he was bound to embarrass himself. It would become evident, to all the losers out there, that life is short.