The Nix(18)

“Holy shit.”

“Plus, sir, the internet. The assault was widely circulated on the internet. You don’t check any of these outlets?”

“When was this?”

“Day before yesterday. It’s fair to say she’s reached viral status, sir. Meme status.”

“Who did she assault?”

“Sheldon Packer, sir. Governor Sheldon Packer of Wyoming. She attacked him with rocks. Several rocks, sir. Thrown rocks.”

“This is a joke.”

“I probably won’t be calling them rocks during the proceedings. More likely I’ll call them stones, or pebbles, or actually now that I think of it probably gravel.”

“You’re lying. Who is this?”

“As I said, I’m Simon Rogers of Rogers and Rogers, sir, and your mother is awaiting trial.”

“For assaulting a presidential candidate.”

“Not technically a candidate yet, per se, but you’re in the ballpark. It was on every news channel literally all day and all night long. You haven’t heard about this?”

“I’ve been busy.”

“You teach a class, Intro to Lit. It meets for an hour twice a week, sir. I hope you don’t find it prying or intrusive that I have that information, but it’s right there on the school’s website.”

“I understand.”

“Because what I’m wondering, sir, is what have you been doing with the other approximately let’s say forty hours since this story broke?”

“I’ve been at the computer.”

“And this computer is connected to the internet, I assume?”

“I’ve been, you know, I’ve been writing. I’m a writer.”

“Because the national mood right now on this subject is like: Could we talk about something besides Faye Andresen-Anderson please? Total saturation, I’m saying, so I find it surprising, sir, that you’ve heard exactly zero about this, and it involves your own mother.”

“We don’t really communicate, she and I.”

“They’ve given her a catchy name: the Packer Attacker. She’s quite famous.”

“Are you sure it’s my mother? This really doesn’t sound like her.”

“You are Samuel Andresen-Anderson? That is your full legal name?”

“Yes.”

“And your mother is Faye Andresen-Anderson, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Who lives in Chicago, Illinois?”

“My mother doesn’t live in Chicago.”

“Where does she live?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her in twenty years!”

“So you’re unaware of her current whereabouts, sir. That’s accurate?”

“Yes.”

“So she could be living in Chicago, Illinois, and you just wouldn’t know.”

“I suppose.”

“So the woman in jail is probably indeed your mother, is my point. Regardless of her current address.”

“And she attacked the governor—”

“We would prefer less loaded terms. Not ‘attacked.’ Rather, she was exercising her First Amendment rights using symbolically flung gravel. I assume from the keyboard clacking sounds I’m hearing that you are currently verifying this via search engine?”

“Oh my god, it’s everywhere!”

“Indeed, sir.”

“There’s a video?”

“Viewed several million times. It’s also been remixed and auto-tuned and made into a rather amusing hip-hop song.”

“I can’t believe this.”

“You should probably bypass the song, however, sir, at least until the wound is not so fresh.”

“I’m looking at an editorial comparing my mother to al-Qaeda.”

“Yes, sir. Most foul. The things they’ve been saying, sir. On the news. Most horrible.”

“What else have they been saying?”

“Maybe it’s best you see for yourself.”

“Why don’t you give me an example.”

“Tensions, sir. Tensions and passions are running high, you see. Because it’s being seen as politically motivated, of course.”

“And so they’re saying, what?”

“She’s a terrorist hippie radical prostitute, sir, to cite one very nasty but for the most part emblematic example.”

“Prostitute?”

“Terrorist hippie radical and, yes, you heard correctly, sir, prostitute. She’s being rankly abused, if I may say so.”

“Why are they saying she’s a prostitute?”

“She was arrested for prostitution, sir. In Chicago.”

“Come again?”

“Arrested, but never officially charged, sir, I think it’s important to add.”

“In Chicago.”

“Yes, sir, in Chicago in 1968. Some years before you were born and long enough for her to amend her ways and find God, is something I’m likely to argue if this goes to court. We’re talking about prostituting herself with sex, of course.”

“Okay, see? That’s impossible. She was never in Chicago in 1968. She was home, in Iowa.”