What you remember best about Representative Bender, before he was Rep. Bender, were his expressions. Easy to know when Rep. Bender was in full disdain, haughty contempt or mocking disapproval, his go-to’s. Big eyes that hid nothing, small head, hawk’s beak of a nose, and a high-pitched, stinging laugh. Rep. Bender, informed, heartless, over-qualified, looking to eviscerate you in the public domain, to make you fear sharing your views if they conflicted with his. Your carefully researched positions made you a worthy opponent, and you had common decency on your side, which in retrospect may have been a disadvantage. You didn’t engage him as often as you disagreed with him because it was too despairing, chimeric scenes of first-strike violence crisscrossing your impetus. Rep. Bender would want to go for cocktails after work, as if taking every opportunity to refute any contention you made was routine in the course of any day. Nothing personal, just Rep. Bender doing Rep. Bender. For the first two or three drinks he’d be personable, even amiable. You knew to be gone by the third drink, before the magma buildup inside him became irrepressible.
You’d forgotten about him when there he is one day, on the home page of the local daily newspaper, rumored to be the next assembly majority leader. From the pictures on his Facebook page he’s proportionally larger, as though inflated via compressor and intake valve. Same round predatory bird face with tired, gilded eyes, cataracts of excess. Pics with a cocktail in his mitt, from fundraisers at Nice Ash. You know Nice Ash, a popular and relatively new cigar bar, part of the downtown reclamation, probably something Rep. Bender helped engineer. Old brick buildings rediscovered, gutted, repiped and resewered, stone mullion windows, ceilings torn out and rafters painted over, refinished woodwork and inadequate ventilation.
You wander in on a Saturday evening, making your way to the far end of the bar with the other solo acts. Fight night on pay-per-view, one of the undercards about to begin, faces along the bar upturned to the flat screens bolted high on the walls. Two women in an octagonal chain-link cage, disrobing, walking to the center of the cage, close-ups of both women glaring death at each other (you try to spot fear or determination in their eyes as if this might portend anything). Referee imparting instructions, both women nodding, bumping gloves, back to their corners, the bell, and it’s on. The fight is over in less than a minute, one woman with a vicious roundhouse kick to the head of the other, knocking her unconscious. “Ho!” From several guys around you, shouted in unison more or less, another laughing like this, “who-who-who-who,” loud falsetto.
You’re more of a cigarette guy, so you ask the bartender for a cigar recommendation. He comes back with a pressed Nicaraguan Viaje Robusto, ten dollars a stick, clipping it, presenting it to you with solemn reverence, lighting it, and you herf away on that slow-cooking monstrosity for what seems like half the night, inhaling sometimes.
Nice Ash fills up with resort-casual, above-average wage earners. Rep. Bender in the hizzy, you didn’t see him come in but you hear the laugh powering through the din. Loud and ridiculing as ever, emboldened. You didn’t expect him to have found an off-switch from then to now. Self-restraint was never one of his talents. You spy him through the cigar smoke and cluster of people, he’s nearer the entrance, centermost of a cluster of local A-listers, holding forth, throwing his head back and laughing, his laughter like a rider’s whip or sharp spurs to your flank.
Creeping up on last call and the crowd is thinning. You’re hoping he won’t see you. He’ll want to buy you a cocktail or a stogie, introduce you to his, what, associates? Sycophants? Hangers on? Groupies? If he has friendships they’re transactional, if or when he screws up they’ll lay claim to any spoils. Grab a shovel and throw some dirt on the box before the body’s stiff. And serial vetters they’ll be, wanting to know what you do to see if you’re worth the bother.
When your eyes are watering, they open the front door to let the backlog of smoke escape into the bitter night. Rep. Bender’s up from his bar chair, pulling a topcoat over his shoulders, putting his gloves on, throwing his head back and laughing, parting salutations, patting each other on the shoulder, and there he goes. The moment you’ve waited for. You’re up, slowly, studying your I-phone as you saunter out, brushing by someone. When you’re outside, you see his car isn’t far, you watch him get in and pull away and call 911, providing the make and model and plate number, eastbound on Sunset about a half mile west of 164. Driving erratically.
