Table of contents | Previous chapter Introduction | Cast of characters   Playing with Fire A novel by Scott Lazenby   Chapter 24 e had pulled four tables together in the lounge of the Plow and Harrow. All the council members were there, except Rob Titus, and so were most of my department heads. I hadn’t seen most of them for six weeks, and the situation at first felt awkward. But Seth had insisted I join them, and I figured it was as good a time as any to come out of exile, even if it might be only for one night.       Normally the big-screen TV was used for sporting events, but Jake Wildavsky had talked the owner into switching to the feed from our local cable TV operator. There weren’t many other people there on a Tuesday evening, anyway.       It was an off-election year, so there were no state primaries. The only issues on the ballot were local ones — mostly money measures.       “So Jake, you think the county road levy has a chance?” Diane McTavish asked, looking for a way to make small talk.       “Nope. The potholes are still small enough that you can drive around them. They’ve got to let them get big enough to swallow a small car before folks will spend money on roads.”       “I don’t know,” Simon Garrett said. “The way everyone’s buying these four-wheel-drive pickups and sport utilities, they probably figure they don’t need roads anymore. Let’s just go back to dirt.”       “Are you suggesting I actually take my truck off-road? But I might get it dusty,” Jake said.       “Well, that’s true.” Simon popped a greasy French fry into his mouth. “We do spend a lot of time pulling Eddie Bauer Explorers out of ditches because the owners don’t know how to deal with ice — or even rain.”       Seth Rosenberg had disappeared a few minutes ago, and then came back with two more pitchers of beer.       “That’ll get you a good tip,” McTavish said.       “Well, it got me through college.”       I filled my glass and sat back. Will Smith and Bess Wilson were deep in conversation, leaning over a paper napkin that Bess was drawing on. I suspected they were cooking up some scheme to get a community park out of one of the developments Bess was working on. Max Oakley sat erect at a corner of the table, watching the TV screen. It wasn’t eight yet, and not much was happening. A political science professor from the community college was summarizing the local ballot measures, and making his predictions. We were probably his only viewers.       Betty Sue had been glancing at the door. Suddenly her eyes brightened. Lavar Washington pulled up a chair between Betty Sue and Ken Longstreet.       “So this is the political hot spot,” he said. “Where’s the cigar smoke? I thought these meetings always took place in smoke-filled rooms.”       “No, only in the movies,” Betty Sue said. “Now we would get thrown out for violating the clean indoor air act.”       “Aw, what’s the world coming to?”       Hank Arnold squinted at the TV screen. “I know that guy,” he said.       “How?” I asked, seeing a safe place to enter into the conversation.       “I was on the faculty of the college, did you know that? Yes, I was.”       “That right? So what did you teach?”       “Aeronautics. Okay, it was a course on building experimental aircraft. No big deal, but it paid for a new set of tires for my truck.”       I nodded toward the talking head on the screen. “That was probably a lot more useful than what Wallace there teaches. What do you suppose someone does with an A.A. in political science?”       “That’s more qualification than you need to run for county sheriff,” Jake broke in. “Or county treasurer, or judge — ”       “Or governor, for that matter,” McTavish said.       “Or city councilor,” Seth said quietly. “But hey, if we’re all out of jobs tonight, maybe we can run for county commissioner or something. The pay would be better, at least.”       The others laughed. I felt better about being there — I realized that I had missed them all over the past weeks.       The room suddenly got quiet. The early election returns were flashing on the screen. It had been a mail-in ballot, so the results would be counted quickly.       The county road measure came up. Jake was right, of course. It was failing, 13,555 to 2,989. A neighboring town had an anti-growth measure that would sharply restrict the number of building permits issued. It was passing by a two-to-one margin, but it would probably be pre-empted by the state the next time the legislature was in session.       Finally, our measures appeared on the screen. With a third of the ballots counted, the City/County contract measure was failing, but with forty percent voting in favor. Seth shook his head.       We waited. In a minute, the Willamette Valley Fire annexation results popped up. It was passing, with seventy-five percent voting in favor.       There was silence as the implications soaked in. Seth stroked his beard. “Notice anything odd about these results?”       I thought a second. “Yeah, some people are voting for both measures.”       “How do you figure that?” Maggie Henderson asked.       “The percentages add up to more than a hundred,” Seth said. The only way that can happen is if at least fifteen percent of the people are voting for both measures. But they are so different, I can’t imagine why they would.”       McTavish had a cold look in her eye. She was waiting for the recall election results. But instead of the rest of the Trillium results, the program went back to the commentary from the political science professor.       “Hey, where are the council results?” Maggie asked.       Seth shrugged. “Maybe they haven’t counted them yet.”       The screen switched to a public service announcement on the county’s solid-waste-recycling program. Our eyes stayed glued to the set.       “You know, I just don’t get it,” McTavish said. “Going to the private sector for our emergency medical just makes so much sense. How can that measure be failing, and the fire district annexation measure be passing? Are people that stupid? It’ll just cost them a lot more money, for a service that hardly any of them will ever need.” She shook her head.       “I don’t know,” Seth said. “But I don’t think it’s an accident — people really want it that way. And you know, they have the right to choose things that don’t make any sense. It happens more often than we realize. The folks in Seattle voted to extend the monorail, when even the public-transit zealots said it didn’t make financial sense. We still follow an agricultural calendar for schools, even though it’s a hardship for working parents, but people just want it that way. Voters approve huge subsidies for sports stadiums, even though their teams have absolutely no loyalty to their host cities. County governments and county boundaries are a throwback to the days when you rode a horse to the county seat, and picked the best gunslinger as your sheriff, but the people insist on keeping them that way even when they’re given alternatives that are much more efficient. The list is endless.”       “So, don’t confuse me with the facts, just give me what I want, huh?” McTavish snorted in disgust.       “Maybe. But on the other hand, some of the best achievements of civilization are things that don’t make much financial sense. Like Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, or the Sydney Opera House, or Toronto’s public-transit system, or landing on the moon, or sailing singlehanded around the world, or beating the four-minute mile.”       “What does that have to do with voting for an over-staffed, over-priced empire-building fire district?”       Seth laughed. “Not much. But I guess people have to have the right to make choices that may seem frivolous or whimsical or even irresponsible — the world would be a much duller place without them.”       “Sometimes I would like it to be duller, you know,” Hank Arnold said. “Speaking of which, what happened to Todd Pritchard’s campaign? I haven’t seen much from that guy in the last couple of weeks.”       Simon looked around the table. “It’s been pretty quiet,” he said, “but the word is that he and the missus split up. She kicked him out of the house. The old man took back the business and Pritchard skipped town to avoid alimony.”       “You’re kidding,” McTavish said. She smiled. “Maybe there’s some justice after all.”       “We’ll see,” Hank said. “We haven’t seen the results yet. He could still get elected as a government in exile.” He laughed at his own joke.       “Well, there will only be an election if some of the recall measures pass. When the word gets out, I doubt anyone would vote for him.”       “Don’t be so sure,” McTavish said. “When Bunny Copper got indicted for income-tax evasion, she withdrew her name from the county treasurer ballot and got elected anyway.”       “Yes, there is that,” Hank said.       “More beer?” Bess asked. “Or how about a pitcher of margaritas?”       “Works for me,” Jake said.       A woman in skin-tight jeans and a tank top was feeding quarters into a video poker machine. Betty Sue and Lavar had wandered over and put a few coins in the machine next to hers. They came back to the table. “We can’t keep up with her,” Betty Sue said quietly. “She must have dropped eighty bucks in the last half-hour.”       “Well, it’s keeping our state government solvent.” I looked at Betty Sue, to see how she was taking this. All her work, and all her carefully thought-out analysis, were getting flushed down the toilet. On the outside, she would be philosophical about it, but it had to hurt. At the same time, she was probably relieved just to be done with it. She caught my eye and must have read my thoughts. She gave me small smile and shrugged.       Mary came in and sat next to me. She had been at a PTA meeting. I hugged her shoulder and she rubbed my knee. I noticed that she avoided eye contact with the council members.       “So what’s happening?” she said.       “Too early to tell,” I said. “The Willamette Valley deal is passing, the City/County contract is failing, but they’ve only counted a third of the ballots.”       She raised her eyebrows. Those weren’t the issues she was worried about.       “No results on the recall measures yet,” I said. “Don’t know why, though. Want some of Bess’s margaritas?”       I got up to get her a glass. Will Smith was leaning at the bar, drinking a Coke and talking to the waitress.       Finally, another set of results started appearing on the screen. The room got quiet as the group waited for the Trillium results.       “Oh, well,” McTavish said when the fire issues came up. With two-thirds counted, the results hadn’t changed much.       Suddenly the recall measures came up. “Recall — Mayor D. McTavish. Yes 2,455. No 15,888. Recall — Councilor S. Rosenberg. Yes 3,066. No 14,750. Recall — Councilor H. Arnold. Yes 1,905. No 16,250.”       McTavish let out a hoot. Seth raised his glass in a toast. They were beaming. My staff was supposed to be immune from politics, but the relief was apparent in their faces.       “Go figure,” McTavish said. “They don’t like our ideas but they keep us in government anyway.”       “No, I think the voters expect us to make decisions, even if they don’t always agree with them,” Hank said. “They don’t blame us for putting choices on the ballot. We’re just doing our job.”       Bess laughed. “No offense, but the voters don’t know shit. That’s fine with me, though — I’d just as soon keep working for y’all.”       Mary reached under the table and squeezed my hand. I caught her eye and winked. Bess and her colleagues were interested enough in the results of the recall election, but for Mary and me, it meant that I had my job back — at least for the time being. Next chapter: surprise in D.C. Copyright © 2001, Scott D. Lazenby. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the author is prohibited. Illustration: Paul Salmon