Total pages in book: 189
Estimated words: 174749 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 174749 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Jesus fucking Christ. John leans back in his chair, satisfied with himself for coming up with a brilliant approach.
“How long you been doing this, John?” I ask. He’s supposedly one of the best political operatives there are in the state. And I can see why. The man has the compassion of a snake.
“Fifteen years,” he beams at me proudly. “I’ve helped too many politicians through too many scandals. I can’t even remember what they are anymore.
John is the type of consultant and operative that people call when shit really starts hitting the fan hard. He’s the person they call when they need someone to fix up a giant and colossal fuckup that they may have committed.
He’s also probably right. Muddy up the waters. Confuse people. Give them a common enemy to get angry at. And they’ll devote less of their energies toward trying to crucify me. It’s a model that politicians on both sides of the aisle have used before. And they’ll use it again.
What’s even more fucking telling is that John doesn’t have any sort of allegiance to the fucking truth. The truth is to him whatever he fashions and other people believe. If all of a sudden people started believing in ghosts, John would probably accept it. But he’d have a plan ready to get people to start believing anything else as well.
There’s nothing fucking real about this man. It’s all 100% fake.
That’s not what I got into politics for. There’s nothing fake in how I grew up. Nothing fake in the misery of being poor.
“John?” I ask, walking towards the hallway as I head out the library.
“Yeah, Liam?” he answers, curious as to why I’m walking away.
“Get the fuck out of my house,” I say to him.
There’s a pause. I hear him sigh and shuffle some papers in the other room and slowly get up and walk down the hardwood floors till he comes to the hallway.
“You sure?” he asks with a pained expression. “It’s only going to get uglier.”
I shake my head. “I don’t care how ugly everyone else gets,” I tell him. “I didn’t get into politics to start throwing people under the bus.”
John nods. “You’re a good man, Liam,” he says to me as he walks out the door. He pauses and looks at me. “Maybe too good for this game.”
I close the door and take a sip of the scotch I’m still holding. I got home to take this meeting with John and decided midway through that I needed a drink. I just didn’t want to deal with the level of fucking bullshit that saving myself was going to entail.
And that’s the thing, isn’t it? I could maybe save myself. Throw some people under the bus. Owe a few favors.
But then what? Someone else would come knocking looking to get back at me for fucking over their friends. Like a fucking vendetta. And someone I owed favors to would collect. And I’d be building more fucking alliances and spend even more time protecting my fucking back.
This is what our politicians do all fucking day. No wonder shit is so fucked up.
But I mean, am I any different? Sure, I came into this job determined to help people. I didn’t want these people in New Kingston to keep going on with their lives without someone hearing their voices. Because it’s one thing to be poor in America; this country still gives you the chance if you want to pull your shit together and make a living somehow to give your kids a better life.
But it’s another thing to be powerless and voiceless in a fucking democracy. When no one can hear your voice calling out in pain, no one is going to stop doing it.
But once you’re heard, you’re 90% of the way there.
Maybe I could have done things differently is all I mean, you know? Maybe I was being just like the people I’m complaining about when I sat there and told the press that if Carter had a problem with the factories he could just fuck off.
Why the fuck did I do that? Because he stopped on the way to the city to tell a small town mayor what to do? Because he made me feel small— that he fucking owned me—and I wanted to show him?
And Tina Ling. Why couldn’t I just go and come out and let people know what was going on with her? How she was trying to fucking bribe me, and maybe even fuck me. Oh, right. Because I was worried what Vivian would think. But it all came out in the end anyways, didn’t it? Now everything is fucked up.
But it doesn’t have to stay like that, I think.
What? You think it can’t get any worse, right? I bet you’re even wondering how we could ever get to a HEA from here.