"Damn," Bode said, "his butt's hard as a rock. My butt used to be that hard."
"Thanks for sharing."
"You know, a lion's head up on the wall of my office, that'd look pretty damn nice."
"Real nice."
"But if it's illegal, I can't put it up in the office."
"Sure you can. We'll just say you killed it in Africa a few years back, just now got it mounted and shipped over."
"Will the press buy that?"
"They bought that lame-ass story about you killing a wolf while jogging the greenbelt-who carries a gun while jogging… even in Texas?" He snorted. "Local press ain't exactly 60 Minutes."
Jogging with a high-powered handgun had earned Governor Bode Bonner an A-plus rating from the NRA, the only A-plus he had ever gotten in his life. He turned to his strategist.
"Let's kill that lion."
"I'll call John Ed, set something up, early next month. April in the Davis Mountains, that'd be nice."
Professor James Robert Burnet, Ph. D., stepped away from the football field and pulled out his iPhone to call John Ed Johnson, billionaire and generous Republican donor, but he shook his head. Excitement. Challenge. Adventure. The thrill of victory. The agony of defeat. He often felt more like the activities director at a fucking summer camp for kids than the chief political advisor to the governor of the great State of Texas.
He hit the speed dial and waited for the call to ring through. He turned back to his political benefactor whooping and hollering at the play on the field. They were like brothers and had been since fifth grade. Jim Bob was the smart brother; Bode was the handsome, popular, athletic brother who always got the girl. Girls. Voted most likely to succeed, homecoming king, and class president (Jim Bob ran his campaign), he was the big brother who saved his little brother from bullies. Without Bode Bonner, Jim Bob wouldn't have survived middle school; he couldn't have afforded college at UT without Bode getting him a job tutoring football players; he wouldn't now be the resident political genius in Texas, he wouldn't be making $500,000 a year, he wouldn't be getting calls from millionaires and billionaires and lobbyists and legislators seeking favors from the governor, he wouldn't be working in the Governor's Mansion…
But still.
No man wanted to be co-dependent on another man. It wasn't Manly.
But Bode Bonner had cornered the market on manly in the State of Texas.
A gruff voice came over the phone, and Jim Bob said, "John Ed, you still got that lion?"
SIX
"Boys like him," the doctor said, "they die by the dozens each day in Nuevo Laredo, in cartel gunfights with the federales or with each other. This boy, he is very lucky. He will not die this day."
The boy's chest wall and ribs on his right side were held open by a retractor, exposing the thoracic cavity. The doctor was now searching for the bullet with a small flashlight. He inserted a pair of forceps into the boy's chest, then retracted the forceps to reveal a small piece of lead.
"AK-47. What the soldados call the cuerno de chivo… the goat's horn, because that is what the weapon resembles. But it has only a single purpose: to kill human beings."
Across the rotunda, a tall, lean man with a shaved head shook hands with Jim Bob; his coat opened enough to reveal a pistol in a belt holster. He didn't look like a cop, but anyone with a concealed-carry permit could pack a gun into the Texas State Capitol, no questions asked. Bode waited by the white marble statue of Sam Houston for the Professor to finish his conversation. He glanced up at old Sam and wondered how he had looked back on his life at Bode's age-and what a life that man had lived. Living with the Cherokees, fighting the War of 1812, being elected a member of Congress and governor of Tennessee, leading the Texas revolution against Mexico, capturing Santa Anna at San Jacinto, and being elected the first president of the Republic of Texas-all before his forty-third birthday. And he went on to be elected the first U.S. senator from Texas after statehood and then governor of the State of Texas. Every day of that man's life had been an adventure.
Men today don't get to live such lives.
The State Capitol sat quiet that day, the silence broken only by the subdued voices of a middle-school field trip gathered in the rotunda, their fresh faces turned up to gaze at the star on the dome two hundred eighteen feet above them. The legislature came into session every other year, in odd-numbered years, and this was not such a year. During even-numbered years, the Capitol hosted field trips. But during the sessions, lobbyists took over the place and students stayed at school. No parent wanted their children watching the state legislature in action.
Jim Bob shook hands again with the tall man then dodged the field trip and came over to Bode. His heels clacked on the terrazzo floor embedded with the seals of the six nations whose flags had flown over Texas: Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Confederate States of America, and the United States of America.
When he arrived, Bode said, "Who's that?"
"Eddie Jones. He works for you."
"He does?"
"He does now."
"What does he do?"
"Odd jobs." Jim Bob shrugged. "Glorified gopher."
"A gopher with a gun?"
"Shit, Bode, my newspaper boy carries a gun. This is Texas."
They had stopped off at the Capitol for the governor's weekly press conference. Standing in the rotunda lined with portraits of the governors of Texas from Sam Houston to William Bode Bonner now brought all the burdens of office back into his thoughts. He gestured at the portraits.
"Jim Bob, Texas prospered under every one of those governors. I don't want this state to fail on my watch. What are we going to do about this budget deficit?"
"What budget deficit?"
"The twenty-seven-billion-dollar deficit."
"There's no deficit."
"What are you talking about? The comptroller's revenue projections show we're going to be twenty-seven billion short over the next two years."
"Bode, read my lips: there-is-no-deficit."
Bode exhaled heavily. "Jim Bob, that's not gonna fly. Everyone knows we're looking at a big deficit. There's no denying it. That'd be like you denying you're bald."
"I'm not bald. I have a beautiful head of thick, curly brown hair just like when I was a kid-"
"Wearing those thick glasses." Bode laughed. "You're a fuckin' nut
… or a goddamn genius, I'm not sure which."
"I'm an optimist. And you'd better be one, too. That's what voters want to hear. And that's what you're going to tell them right up to election day: there is no deficit. We'll deal with reality come January when the legislature convenes. Nothing we can do till then anyway." He shrugged again. "Denial ain't a river in Egypt-it's our campaign theme."
Bode turned and stared at his own image. How many times had he stood there and imagined his portrait on the wall of the majestic rotunda of the Texas State Capitol? How proud had he felt standing there when his portrait was hung? Life had been exciting eight years ago when he had first been elected governor. The adventure was upon him, the economy was booming, and his wife loved him. Now "I'm hiding a twenty-seven-year-old mistress from my wife and a twenty-seven-billion-dollar deficit from the voters."
He glanced up again at Sam and felt the sharp stab of shame; would they erect a statue of William Bode Bonner in the Capitol one day?
"What kind of man am I?"
"You're not a man," the Professor said. "You're a politician."
Mandy arrived to retrieve the governor. They walked across the hall and into the press room. Bode stopped at the door and regarded the nearly empty space.
"That's it? Two print reporters? And one's from the UT student paper? That's all the coverage for my weekly press conference? Where's the Austin paper? The TV reporters?"