phantoguy-blog

[phantoguy-blog]

Lakeland

alright guys, it’s time for my first post ever. basically i wrote this story because i live in a town with needlessly strict parking laws and i wondered, “why?” 

4772 words and some are good. enjoy. 

***

“Hey, Smitt. Come look at this.”

Mr. Walter Smitt did not want to see whatever his campaign manager, Councilman Daniel Armstrong, was talking about. It was a hot day, and there was a rally that afternoon, and Smitt wanted nothing more than to return to his thirsty viewing of the local news. But nothing seemed to be newsworthy that day except for a local accounting firm burning down, which would have no effect on the mayoral race apart from warranting the obligatory sympathetic tweet. Smitt, therefore, decided to go see Armstrong in the break room, but he elected to shamble through the door so as to convey to Armstrong that he was burdened by this demand.

“Oh, Smitt. Look at this.”

Armstrong, a man of about 5 feet 11 inches, was looking at the dining table, on which sat a piece of bread and a tub of butter. He wore an expression of brooding that rearranged his facial features into a configuration Smitt rarely saw.

“You want me to look at the table?” “No, the butter.” With this, Armstrong emphatically picked up the tub of butter and thrust it at Smitt. “See?”

“What?” But Smitt did not receive an answer: Armstrong simply smiled like a dog who suspected his owner had treats. Smitt laboriously raised his right eyebrow.

“Look at the brand,” said Armstrong as though watching Smitt unwrap a Christmas present “The brand name.”

Smitt squinted as dramatically as humanly possible and read the dish. “Land ‘O Lakes?”

“Yeah! Like the town! Lakeland!”

“Oh!” The town was, in fact, called Lakeland. Smitt, the mayoral front-runner, felt slightly ashamed for not noticing this buttery coincidence until now. “Oh. Very funny, Armstrong. I was in the middle of analyzing important data when you interrupted me.” “Analyzing important data” meant watching the news.

“Sorry,” Armstrong said. He clutched the butter tub in his hand for a moment, then got up from his seat and held it poignantly as though he was Hamlet and Smitt was Horatio. “You know, Lakeland is a lot like butter.”

Smitt’s face fell, because he realized he would now have to ask why Lakeland was like butter. He clenched his fist and asked, “Why is Lakeland like butter?”

Elated, Armstrong began to wax what to him was poetry. “Because it’s all, like, flat and the same, and it tastes kinda salty.” He paused, for dramatic effect. “But it looks tasty.” Sated, he punctuated his soliloquy by setting the butter dish down. It made a loud clack.

This is why I’m the candidate and you’re the manager, Smitt thought. As he walked back to his office, he continued to ponder his friend’s intellectual capacity. But he knew, despite his scorn for Armstrong’s less-than-ideal conversational ability, that Armstrong was not wrong. Lakeland was absolutely, like, flat and the same. Its biggest and only hill was in its cultural epicenter, Turmeric Park, which had a great stage atop a large mound of grassy land. The houses of Lakeland looked almost as though someone had copy-and-pasted them in great lines with some magical computer. There was a lot of grass, and where there was not grass, there was sidewalk, and where there was neither, there was road or dirt. It was not a town that any up-and-coming young professional would choose to migrate to (Smitt placed remarks like this in his “Things to say in the company of only private donors” vernacular).  

But the winds of change were coming to Lakeland and its population of 10,000. Signs were sprouting up in yards just like the flowers of Spring, and the signs sent many different messages at first, but now they were down to just two. Occupying the South and West sides of town were blue signs adorned with graphics of buildings and the message “VOTE November 6th Walter E. Smitt For A Better Lakeland!” On the North side of town, you would be more likely to see plain maroon signs with one white star at the top, with text saying “RE-ELECT Mayor Elliott Madison!” There was one such sign in a large flower-pot outside the accounting firm that Smitt was currently watching burn down on TV. He tried to catch a glimpse of the sign past the reporter who was currently blocking it, and saw one red corner, which suggested, much to his chagrin, that the blaze had not taken the sign.

The door opened. Smitt instinctively turned off the TV, hoping that the visitor would not discover his newfound schadenfreude for Richter and Sons’ Accounting firm. He was relieved to see that Armstrong, a man well-trained in the political art of not morally analyzing one’s boss, was standing in the doorway.

“Smitt, your rally’s in, like, an hour. Do you want to get going?” asked Armstrong.

“Yes. Yeah. Whose turn is it to drive?”

“I think it’s yours. I drove to the breakfast.” Smitt stared blankly. “With the union leaders.”

“Oh. Right. Ugh. It’s too hot. The van’s probably an oven right now and it’s too hot to drive.” Smitt’s official campaign vehicle did not have an air conditioning unit.

“Well, I guess I can drive to the rally and you can drive back,” Armstrong offered.

“Ok. But make sure you pick me up at Cedar & Chapel instead of the park. The voters don’t need to see the van.”

Armstrong looked solemnly in the direction of the parking lot. “Right.”

---

“We’re expecting a crowd of about 150 people today,” said Armstrong, nonchalantly reading emails from his phone as he drove.

Smitt smiled. “That’s one of the highest turnouts all year! I’d like to see old Madison compete with that. ...By the way, what’s Madison up to today?” “Dunno. I don’t think he’s, like, holding any rallies. Guy’s been mayor for so long, he probably thinks he’s got this in the bag already.” “If it weren’t for his army of churchgoing, wine-guzzling, high-horsing ‘community activists,’ he’d have been defeated a long time ago.” This remark, Smitt knew, squarely occupied his “campaign-ending gaffe” vernacular and should never be repeated in public under any circumstances. He scanned the van for recording devices just in case, but found none.

The two men took side streets to avoid being spotted, and pulled up behind the stage area in Turmeric Park. Armstrong looked at Smitt and nodded. “Go out there and give ‘em hell, Smitt. Remember to mention the parking situation. And give Madison a few knocks for me.”

“Right,” said Smitt. Armstrong gave him a firm pat on the arm, and with that, Smitt exited the van and made his way to the stage.

---

There was already a sizable crowd gathered. Some of them were holding signs that said things like “SMITT FOR LAKELAND” and “MADISON IS MAD, SON!” The latter slogan was one of Armstrong’s design.

Smitt could hear the crowd murmuring what he imagined were very complimentary things. The murmurs grew louder as he approached the steps to the stage, and then suddenly fell silent as he scaled them. Finally, when Smitt took the stage, the crowd’s voices grew to a mighty roar of pure zeal. Smitt beamed from ear to ear, raised his right hand, and gave an unassuming wave-- and with that one little movement, he immediately asserted his dominance over the crowd and guaranteed their consent, all while appearing as relatable as a 49-year-old businessman-turned-politician possibly could. “Thank you!” he said. It was like flamboyantly tuning an instrument before a concert. “Thank you!” This was the best part of Smitt’s job.

Smitt was not a natural-born politician. Though he would scarcely admit it to anyone whose last name was not Armstrong, he could not understand the people of Lakeland in the way that they understood each other. Lakelanders, as they were known, were a simple and quite homogenous people. They said a lot of words, but most of their communication was nonverbal and carried itself through ritual rather than rhetoric. They attended church every Sunday at one of Lakeland’s many churches, after which they would stop at one of Lakeland’s many restaurants for one of Lakeland’s many sandwiches. They travelled in packs of 3-8, depending on how many kids and/or friends they had, and fancied themselves quite intellectual and cultured but not to the extent that they ever mentioned this.

Smitt was not a religious person. He did believe that there was an omnipotent force that was currently guiding him, and only him, to become mayor of Lakeland, but this belief, if he ever expressed it out loud, was nothing short of a “campaign-ending gaffe.” He fancied himself an entrepreneur, who had recently moved back to his hometown of Lakeland after completing his MBA in order to found an advertising firm. When he travelled, it was in packs of 1-2, as he did not have a family and preferred to keep his friends far away. He never truly considered himself a Lakelander, though he had grown up there. And when he looked out at the adoring crowd before them, it was with a sharp twinge of sympathy, a sharper twinge of disdain, and a twinge of appreciation that was not particularly sharp.

But Smitt had a trick up his sleeve. He knew how to play his audience like the church organs they heard weekly. He understood, as much as any Lakelander, one of the fundamental problems with the town, and was ready to convince 150 average joes that he alone could fix it.

“Hey, Lakeland!” he said, which was as much a greeting as it was a statement. “Who’s ready for a change?!”

The crowd applauded sufficiently to indicate that it was, in fact, ready for a change.

“Yeah. Yeah! That’s what I like to hear!” Smitt liked to use crowd-pleasers he remembered from Monday Night Wrestling. “A year ago, when I first launched this campaign in Turmeric Park, I never thought we’d get this far. Now look at us!” More applause. “We’re still in Turmeric Park, but there’s more people!”

One more emotional appeal, Smitt thought. Then the big segue.

“This town is the greatest town in Upper West Perry County, Indiana, and we’re going to reclaim its former greatness together!”

A few seconds more of applause. The bait was now on the rod. Now to cast.

“You know…” The applause died down. “You know, I was just being driven here by my, uh, chauffeur, in our campaignmobile, when I ran into a bit of an issue.”

Smitt was dangling the rod now, almost taunting his crowd. He could feel the pressure build up, and it was exhilarating. He could barely move his hand, but ran it through his hair just to prove to himself that he could.

“Yeah? You all know what I’m talking about?” A quiet, low roar began to build up. “That’s right. That’s right. We couldn’t find a damn place to park!”

It was like someone had just set off a bomb. The crowd was sent into hysterics. I bet the guys at Richter and Sons’ Accounting Firm can hear us now, Smitt thought. And rightfully so. Smitt had just touched upon the single greatest grievance one could have with Lakeland: The parking.

“The streets were wide open, sure. Tons of places to park. Tons of places! But guess what the sign says? Guess. Guess.” Smitt knew, of course, that his constituents were physically too far away from him to hear their guesses, but he enjoyed riling them up all the same.

“‘No parking between 12AM-8PM. That’s right, 12AM-8PM! I guess you have to pay a fine or get your car towed or something if you dare to commit the grave offense of parking there.”

Smitt paused for a round of applause from the crowd of revolutionaries, then continued.

“And it’s not just limited to the street behind the park. We can’t park in front of our houses. We can’t park in front of our houses! I have to move my car two streets down-- and even then, you can’t keep it there for more than 8 hours or guess what, it gets towed and you’re paying for it!

“Now, my good friend Elliott Madison seems to think he can take advantage of our money, our cars, even our schedules. He’s been in the mayor’s office longer than some of us have been alive. But today, we’re telling him that he’s wrong. He does not own us. He does not own our houses, our cars, our families, or our lives, and on the 15th, we’re going to show him what we’re all about.  

“We are not about taxes. We are not about inconvenience. We are about freedom-- especially when it comes to parking.”

Smitt beamed from ear to ear and took a few steps back, watching the movement he had created. Not all Lakelanders were the same bible-thumping populace. Some were too young to know what church was, some were too old to know what church was, and some did not go. But all Lakelanders were united in their hatred for the town’s parking policies, which were simply nonsensical. For instance, on some streets you could only park from 8-10 AM, while on others, there was no parking from 2-6:30 PM and  7-11 PM but anytime else was fair game, and these were just scratching the surface. Not only were the laws ridiculous, but the punishments were even worse. At best, you’d get a ticket; at worst, your car would be towed and you would get a ticket on top of that. If there was one good thing you could say about Mayor Madison, Armstrong always mused, it was that he enforced the law like no one else. One could get away with a little shoplifting here and there, and the police would almost certainly let you off for going a couple miles over the speed limit. But failure to comply with parking rules for more than a few minutes at the time would result in certain punishment. Madison had created a special task force charged with patrolling the streets for illegal parking, and punishing the offenders to the fullest extent of the law. Almost any Lakelander has had the experience of watching a siren-equipped tow truck go barreling down the street in search of the next unfortunate victim’s car, and merely shaking their head with a solemn sort of empathy. The townspeople wanted the quintessential essence of life in small-town Middle America: To do whatever the hell you want without the government in your way. Yet they re-elected Madison so many times that some say he was actually born in office, and lived out his entire life as mayor. And well before Smitt came on the scene, it was customary in Lakeland to, whenever running over a pothole, seeing litter in the parks, or receiving one of the aforementioned parking tickets, turn to the person most immediately close to you, sigh, and say “Madison.” They re-elected him not because they liked him as a person (most had never seen him), or because they agreed with his policy stances (which were mostly unknown).

Madison was simply the status quo, and his status as a punching bag had become something of a cornerstone for the community. It had been generations since they had truly felt outrage or anything more than mere annoyance at Madison’s governing, and since no one had ever come along to oppose him, he never faced the serious possibility of not winning re-election. Smitt, however, was not afraid to stir the pot, to remind the Lakelanders, for motives selfish or not, that just because it is the status quo does not mean it is good, or that it cannot change. And he continued to remind them of this, through several more rallies and a televised debate, until it was finally election night in Lakeland.

Smitt had moved the TV from his office to the break room, where he was now pacing back and forth in front of Armstrong, who was calmly watching the results come in.

“Smitt.”

“Mm,”  said Smitt, who was squeezing the leg of his pants.

“You nervous?”

“No.” Smitt opened and closed the refrigerator door a few times. He was not hungry.

“Good. ‘Cause we’re gonna win. You know that.”

“Yeah. Yeah we are.”

Suddenly, the office buzzer rang loudly. Startled, Smitt jumped, banged his head on the ceiling, and shouted in pain. Armstrong looked at him quizzically as he stumbled around the room and rubbed his head.

“Smitt, I think someone’s here.”

“You think?” Smitt growled. “Go open the door. Tell whoever’s there that they can go screw themselves. I don’t want visitors right now.”

“What’s the magic word?” “Now.”

Armstrong left the room, feeling slightly emasculated. Smitt sighed, closed his eyes, and listened as Armstrong’s footsteps made their way across the office space and towards the door. He heard the door creak open, and a quiet yet urgent voice on the other end.

“Hello, sir. I need to speak to Walter Smitt.”

“Sorry. He gave me specific orders to tell anyone who comes here to go--”

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.” Smitt sprung into action and ran to the door. “There’s no need to finish that sentence.” He found Armstrong towering over a short, portly man with tan skin and a tuft of white hair on his head.

“Sorry, Smitt. This guy just seemed a little troublesome, so--”

“Armstrong, that guy is the mayor.”

“Oh.” Armstrong sized the man up and took a step back. “Crap. Sorry.”

There was a moment of tension between the three men. Armstrong refused to meet Madison’s eyes, Madison was looking straight into Armstrong’s eyes, and Smitt was trying to listen to the TV in the break room. Finally, Smitt decided to break the ice. “Hello, Mr. Mayor,” he offered, and extended his hand.

“Good evening, Mr. Smitt,” replied Madison. The two shook hands, each man crushing the other’s hand so much that they could not feel their own hands. This practice was customary between Smitt and Madison; Smitt had won 7 out of the approximately 13 of these exchanges they had gotten into over the course of the race.

Madison brushed his jacket impatiently and adjusted his tie. “I’ll keep this brief, Mr. Smitt, as I imagine you’re something of a busy man yourself. You are aware that the election is tonight, yes?”

“Oh, yeah. That. I forgot that was tonight.”

“Even though your TV is quite loudly playing live coverage of the election right now?”

“With all due respect, Mr. Mayor, you must have had a better reason to come here than to listen to my TV.”

“Yes.” Flustered by Smitt’s remark, Madison winced slightly. “In short, I understand that you seek the mayor’s office.”

I mean, I have been campaigning against you for a year, genius, Smitt wanted to say. Instead, he nodded.

“Yes. There is a clear conflict of interest here, I think we can agree.”

“A conflict of interest?”

“I am the mayor of Lakeland. I have been the mayor. You seem quite intent upon unseating me.”

“I suppose you would call that a conflict of interest,” Smitt agreed apprehensively.

Madison paused, then took a step closer to Smitt, completely shutting Armstrong out of the conversation. “I have a proposal that may benefit us both.”

“Look, I’ve been out here for a year and I’ve spent thousands of my own voters’ money. If you think I’m gonna--”

Madison held up his hand. Smitt was immediately silenced.

“You drop out of the race tonight and endorse me. Life in town returns to normal, and perhaps some of the village budget finds its way into your pocket.”

“Are you trying to bribe me, Mr. Mayor? I hope you realize that’s in violation of campaign finance laws.”

“Cut the bullshit,” Madison snarled. “This town needs me. If you stand in my way, the stress of the job will be the least of your problems.”

“Bribery and now threats? This could be grounds for impeachment.”

“Impeachment? You want to impeach me?” Madison gave a high-pitched laugh. “Oh, I’m not threatening you, Mr. Smitt. I won’t hurt you. Unlike you, I still have a shred of decency left. I took this job to protect the common good and keep Lakeland safe.”

“You call towing someone’s car because they dared to park past 3 PM ‘keeping Lakeland safe?’”

Madison smiled a tight, painful smile and grinded his teeth together. “There is so much about this job that you do not understand, Mr. Smitt. Withdraw and put an end to the mockery you’ve made of this beautiful town. Withdraw and let life return to normal. Your life will be made much easier, of that I can assure you. I’ve been re-elected once for every fifty dollars you’ve made in your entire career, and believe me, I will see to it that you don’t regret your decision. So suspend your campaign tonight, for the greater good.”

Smitt pretended to think for a second. He could almost feel Madison’s sharp blue eyes burning into him, and his heart began to race much like it did when he was first interviewing for a job at Goldman-Sachs so many years ago. But this time, he had the upper hand and he knew it. He smiled and turned to Armstrong, who was now sitting on the couch staring at the floor.

“Armstrong? Get this guy outta here.”

“Right away.” Armstrong obediently leapt to his feet and cracked his neck back and forth.

“No! Please, Mr. Smitt, you don’t understand what you’re doing,” pled a shocked Madison.

“Too late, buddy,” said Armstrong. He rolled up his sleeves-- a feat which demonstrated strength by itself, for he was wearing a suit and jacket--  to reveal two very strong arms.

“You can’t do this to me, councilman! I am the mayor. I am your boss!”

“But it’s not you that elected me. It was the people. And now, you’re going to see what the people are capable of.”

Armstrong gritted his teeth and flexed his biceps. He clenched his right hand into a fist, and with one sweeping motion, slammed it down on a button affixed to the wall.

“Security? It’s time to remove the mayor from office.”

Madison glared at Smitt and Armstrong for a moment, then turned with a flourish and left, evidently trying to avoid a scandal on election night.

Armstrong turned to Smitt and grinned from ear to ear. “Did you like that line? I’ve had it prepared for years in case this happened.”

“It was… It was good.” “When I said ‘remove him from office,’ it was, like, a double meaning. I was talking about this office.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So you liked it?!” “It was good, Armstrong. Now, let’s go watch the election results.” The outcome of the election was quite predictable if you had been paying attention to the political climate in the past year. Smitt beat Madison 52%-48%, the mayor’s first loss in a political career so long it could be considered a one-man dynasty. Tens upon tens of people, which was a lot for a political event in Lakeland, came to watch Smitt’s victory speech, which they received with much applause. The city council liked Smitt even more, with the majority standing and applauding when he entered the council chamber for the first time (Armstrong was nearly censured for his loud whooping). Smitt’s first act as mayor was to eliminate all parking restrictions in Lakeland, which passed the council 9-1. The one dissenter was a longtime Madison loyalist, a tall, gaunt man who watched contemptuously from the shadows as Smitt signed the bill into law.

The first day after the bill became law, cars now lined the streets of Lakeland such that no one could tell whether there was a major traffic jam going on or if it was simply 8:00 PM on a Wednesday night and everyone had just returned home. It was a beautiful sight. Subarus, Toyotas, Hyundais, Fords, and more adorned the streets, framing them like a picture of American freedom.

And as Smitt got into bed that night, blowing a kiss to his Tesla that was parked right outside for once, he felt truly accomplished. His eyes drifted shut.

---

Crash. Bang. Vvvvvrrrrrr.

Smitt’s eyes drifted open again. Without seeing the time, he knew they had not been closed long enough. But there was crashing and banging going on outside, and Smitt’s phone was vibrating fiercely. He groggily reached for it. The display said 3:48 AM. I’m not going to answer, he thought. It’s too early. The president could be calling and I wouldn’t answer.

He answered the phone.

“Smitt-- I mean, Mr. Mayor Smitt! Are you there?!” It was Armstrong, who had not sounded this distraught since the two got kicked out of the Applebee’s bar the night after the election.

“Whoozair? Armsrong? IssthreeAM.”

“Mr. Mayor, look outside! The town! Oh, it’s too horrible!” Smitt sighed and hung up. He pulled his pillow over his ears, shut his eyes tightly, and tried to go back to sleep, when a tremendous earthquake shook the floor and nearly knocked him out of bed. That was when Smitt realized that something was seriously wrong in Lakeland. He leapt to the floor, slowly pulled himself by the windowsill, and peered out the window. He could not believe what he was seeing.

The clouds in the sky had parted; lighting was flicking through them like an angry god thrusting his trident. All the houses and the cars parked in front of them were in shambles. Massive tentacles the thickness of tree trunks burst from the ground, their great suction cups illuminated only by the lightning. They thrashed around furiously, throwing houses off of their foundations, uprooting trees, and sweeping unlucky people off the ground towards a fate that Smitt shuddered to imagine. Underscoring this horrendous scene was a cacophony of splintering wood, shattering glass, screaming people, and of course, car alarms. Smitt could only watch in horror as the town he had grown up in, campaigned for, and now governed, crumbled before his very eyes.

Suddenly, Smitt remembered Madison’s words about the town needing him. Realizing the true nature of those words, Smitt rushed to his dresser and pulled out his phone book. He quickly flipped through it until he found an Elliott Madison. Hands shaking, he dialed the number. The phone rang once, then twice, then three times, until finally someone picked up.

“Smitt, I presume?”

“You’ve-- You’ve gotta help me, Madison. What the hell’s going on?” demanded Smitt breathlessly.

“What you are seeing now is the great beast that until now slept below Lakeland. He has been sealed underneath the streets since the beginning of time-- and I was to be his warden, essentially. If enough cars remained in one spot for long enough, the pressure would wake him. I had to prevent that. Thus, the parking laws.” Madison spoke with a hint of amusement, and a hint of utter despair.

“What… Why didn’t you tell me?!” shouted Smitt, nearly crying for the first time in his life.

“Let’s be realistic, Smitt. You wouldn’t have believed me. Even if you did, you would have repealed the parking laws all the same. Because you just have to serve your constituents, don’t you. You must bend to their self-serving whims. You must tweak every rule, take an eraser to every bill, until the people smile back at you.”

At this, Smitt rushed to defend himself, tripped on his words, gasped, and choked on his gasp.

“Goodbye, Smitt. It has truly been a pleasure. May our last few moments on this earth be as pleasant as all the ones before.”

“Madison, don’t go. It can’t end like this. You know something and you’re not telling me, right?! Madison!” But there was no answer. Smitt might as well have been screaming into a brick, and he knew it, as much as he did not want to.

Smitt shambled to his door, slowly opened it, and walked outside. His Tesla had been reduced to a pile of smoking garbage, much like how he currently viewed himself. There was no chance now of evacuating.

“All I wanted,” he said to himself, “was to be mayor.”

“All I wanted,” he said in between tears, “was to fix the damn parking situation.”

“Now, the town’s fucking gone.” He crumpled to the ground and punched the sidewalk.

“God fucking damn it.”

But in his last moments, Smitt did not cry. On the contrary, he smiled. He smiled with joy, because he remembered something.

This was one blaze that Richter and Sons’ Accounting Firm would never be able to come back from.