The Misery Circle

By Morrell

The day after defeat in the Presidential Election, John Kerry awakes in a lonely place.
He finds himself re-enacting a classic American tale in a country that is beginning to doubt itself.

The story chronicles his adventures in the wake of the United States Presidential Election 2004 and examines the fates of other failed candidates.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Morrell
• Release date: Sep 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301087358

Book preview

The Misery Circle

by Morrell

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 by Morrell

All Rights Reserved.

Cover photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrsenil/3480867604/>Mrs eNil via http://photopin.com>photopin http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">cc

Whatever became of Hubert?

Has anyone heard a thing?

Once he shone on his own,

now he sits home alone

and waits for the telephone bell to ring.

CHAPTER 1.

They brought me to a village or a stock brick town or an island in a desert, a film set replica, a mirage, a dreamscape, cyberspace, a city. They brought me…I don’t know where they brought me. I don’t really know who they are but they brought me someplace, that’s all I know, all I know about this.

I knew that if I failed I’d be brought here, somewhere at least, someplace different, somewhere not America, a place where, if you fail, dropping off the radar is proverbial.

To tell you the truth I didn’t know that I’d be brought somewhere, bought and sold here, if I knew it at all it was without conscious reasoning.

But I knew it.

I knew it as certainly as any rational explanation.

I didn’t really think I’d fail (does anyone?) I changed my work shirt every day without fail though never my conception of myself. I never really looked at failure until I became one, it was like grass revealed once the snow has thawed in all its vivid green.

Think about moving forward and stand still. Don’t think about it, just move forward! I was a soldier, a leader of men. My intention had found equivalence in action.

But I failed.

Nobody ever told me about the pain of failure, about how much it hurts you, destroys you. (Unlike the British we are not intrinsically programmed to fail.) Nobody ever tells you that failure will change your life as much as success changes your life. I won’t be defined by failure!

I remember it as if it was yesterday (it was.) I awoke in this room here, these strange old-fashioned rooms with their fresh flowers, white round-dial telephone, quilted headboard and no TV (and no refrigerator in the kitchen.) No TV in the living room, it reminded me of a Priest’s house, the Priest who married me (me and my wife, that is.) I think about my wife. I think about the twins. I don’t know how I got here. I’d been drugged, I think. The last thing I remember (of what shall now be known as my former life) was twenty minutes after I’d left the stage following my farewell address. It was the best speech I ever gave, in my opinion, because I was myself. No policy wonkers, shell gamers, blowhards or Roman candle shooters had written my words. They were my words alone, that is if you can ever be yourself on a stage.

They liked me, I was sure of that but there’s something hollow and foreign to us about applause for one who has failed.

Maybe it wasn’t the best speech I ever gave. Maybe it wasn’t even any good.

But that’s how it happened. I came off stage. I spoke to my wife. I went to a restaurant (the Watergate Hotel) with my staff, at the bar, a drink, a female stranger. And that’s all I remember.

The next thing I know I’m waking up here. How did I get here? Who put me to bed here? Where is here?

Yesterday, almost without warning and without any sense of the intervening hours, Kerry, the former American Presidential candidate, sixty two and first name John, had awoken in Winchilsea apartments.

Where am I? he had thought. (See before.)

He had got out of bed tentatively (he was very tall) after waking in panic at not recognising where he was. A full bladder directed him swiftly through an adjoining and larger living room, the open door of a porcelain bathroom to which he walked with a rolling nautical gait. He urinated for a long time like a horse (his genitals felt cold.) Moving to a dismal wash-hand stand with a bar of carbolic soap he rinsed his face out, which sported a cold sore. Reaching into the bathroom cabinet with big popcorn hands he searched for aspirins. There a glass bottle made by the Boots Pure Drug Company, the packaging unfamiliar, kind of old fashioned like the room he had awoken in, the painkillers round powdery discs with bevelled edges and a bisect line. Swallowing two with a glass of water, uncomfortably large in his throat, left a bitter taste. His grimace revealed a manly forest of nasal hair.

Where the hell am I? he thought, again.

Oh God, this could be embarrassing, waking up in a strange room not knowing where you are. He drew his hand across his chin. This is embarrassing! What about the campaign? Ah, no, that was over, he remembered…What was the last thing he could remember? . . Last night…The Watergate Hotel…Was he there now? He recalled last night and felt disorientated. It was like emerging from a cinema and finding that it was still daytime. Was he in The Watergate Hotel now?

Furnishings.

The rooms of The Watergate Hotel did not resemble these rooms with their chintz and brown wallpaper and carpet colour of digestive biscuits. The bedroom smelt of folded alpaca and mothballs, the bathroom had a queer coin-in-the-slot meter. The living room, a high–ceilinged room redolent of old leather, fireplace to the left, pokey calor-gas heater, right, marble-faced wall cupboard-door, two sofas facing each other, centre, old-fashioned furniture, was similarly English and quaint. The pyjamas Kerry was wearing looked old fashioned too!

Take a look outside, he thought. But he would need clothes for that. Best to look out the window for now. Two in front of him, both locked, looking out on tall white buildings gone grey, the sort of places which usually house dubious embassies. What could he hear? The hum of machinery and motor-car horns from rainy streets below, the murmur of street colloquy. Kerry calculated that he was situated on about the fifth floor.

With that a buzzer sounded from the front door of the rooms. Should he answer it?

He dressed in a dressing gown, which he retrieved from the foot of his bed in the bedroom. Beside his bed a portmanteau and a case of hairbrushes…The buzzer sounded again. Ah, yes. He answered it (the door).

CHAPTER 2.

Zorba, the Clerk!

Mike Dukakis! What are you doing here? It was indeed Michael Dukakis, stood in the doorway, hanging from the bell-push.

I thought I’d drop round and see how you’re settling in, he answered, with a brown velvet voice.

Why, that’s great, replied Kerry, his own mouth like a cavernous hole. But how did you – find me?

Relatively simple compared to the great blizzard of ‘78, Dukakis boasted.

Kerry ushered him into the flat.

They sat facing each other on the sofas, Dukakis in a vintage woollen suit of blue serge. On his head, a boater with meringue toppings of tulle. Where else would he have a hat? His facial appearance that of a fairly robust man.

Dukakis had always reminded Kerry of Walter Matthau. Reminded him not as in Dukakis was always saying: Hey, don’t forget about Walter Matthau, John! but reminded Kerry of Walter Matthau, i.e. resembled him in physical feature. When once stopped Walter Matthau died, once stopped because a fan once stopped him and said: Handsome? I’ve seen better, Kerry was instantly reminded of Dukakis, so much so that he almost picked up the telephone and rang him. Despite their familiarity with each other (many years ago Kerry had been a DA and had served under Dukakis) Kerry had felt as if something was amiss, a bit like the parts of your house that smell strange and not like your house. They were in a room not so much interacting as arranged in tableau, their awkwardness further exacerbated by the surreality of the present situation.

I’m sure glad to see you, Mike. I feel all at sea here, he managed to say at last, Kerry. He ran a hand through his hair, hair resembling the thick hair of the mentally backward. I’m not too sure what this whole thing, err, I mean, what’s happening here?

Dukakis looked as if he had eaten something that disagreed with his digestion.

This isn’t the Watergate Hotel, is it?

Dukakis shook his head. His hat cocked forward over one ear.

Then, I don’t know where I am, said Kerry. I mean I can’t remember much about last night.

Must have been quite a night! Can’t you remember anything?

Nothing since being in the hotel room, erm, hotel.

Nothing, hey? muttered Dukakis, inclining to animus. Apart from Goldwater?

Goldwater? asked Kerry.

Yes, Dukakis replied.

He set his hat tilting.

It’s testament to the human spirit that it didn’t break you as a person.

Barry Goldwater? asked Kerry, again, seeking to regain sapience. A thought-cloud lingered over his head. Empty.

Well, we’ll come to that in a minute. Look, is there anything you need right off? I mean, that’s why I’m here. Not checking up as such.

Dukakis roared a sales rep laugh.

Just here to see that you’re settling in.

What’s this stuff about Goldwater? Kerry asked, his curiosity piqued. Dukakis appeared chary of discussing the matter.

Oh, you did a