A small town mayor makes it big

As anyone will tell you, being the mayor of a small town ain't no bed of roses. I'll never go on one of those fancypants junkets to Peru, or Shanghai, or even Enterprise, which is just across the freeway and has its own WalMart. And don't even talk to me about a salary. I get eighty-seven dollars and forty-two cents a year for my "service" and another thirty-five for expenses. With Joe at the gas station squeezing my balls the way he does, that thirty-five dollars gets me about three quarters of the way to Sac.

Ha ha. I made a joke there. Well, it wasn't a very good one.

Oh. And I also get the use of a laptop. Don't get excited and go jumping into the mayor business. It was donated eight years ago, which is close to ninety in computer years. Neither the S or the T keys worKS, and every thirty minutes it will just power down, regardless if it's plugged in or not.

Even out here, in the middle of absolutely nowhere, one hundred and forty-seven dollars isn't very much. And it certainly isn't worth the headache. Mrs. Garcia wants to get alcohol banned in our one and only ball field. That ain't going to happen, but that doesn't keep her from coming out to every meeting and railing against the evils of drinking. And then there's Mr. Reynolds. Couple of times a year, he complains about the postman losing his social security check. And every time I tell him, he's gotta talk to the postmaster over in Greenville. Not me.

And now there's the latest town crazypants, Mortie. He moved here from God knows where a couple of years ago. Which is kind of strange in and of itself. All of the rest of us just kinda fell into place, and inertia keeps us here.

But not Mortie. He had a plan. And more importantly, he had money.

You could tell right away he didn't belong here. He was just too neat. Wore a tie and a small diamond in his ear and everything. His shoes were the kind that needed polishing, not that his did. Centreville was the kind of place where everyone, even the mayor, wore sneakers. That was weird right there.

The other weird thing was, he asked for me by name. Not by title, nor did he ask for a landscaper (my day job) or a pool guy (my other day job). Roberto Ernesto Fernandez. Used my middle name and everything.

I agreed to meet him at the coffee shop, because by this time I had caught a mild case of curiosity. I don't know what I was thinking, but I brought along the broken laptop, thinking it might impress him. Instead, I shoved it back in its case and tried to act like it wasn't mine. Sometimes, I get too much of an ego going, and this is God's way of bringing me back to earth.

We exchanged pleasantries and talked about the weather. Then finally, he came out with it. "I'm looking to build something big."

This could be good, I thought. "Big" usually means jobs of some kind. And maybe even a lawn that would need cutting a couple of times a month. I nodded, and he took that as some kind of approval.

That's when he brought out a bunch of drawings. The eraser marks and smudges made me think that they were hand drawn, instead of spit out by a fancypants computer printer. After making sure that my hands were dry and clean, he handed them to me one by one. Together they told a story. Parking for a few thousand cars. An RV lot. Gardens that would need pruning. Fish ponds that would need cleaning. Picturesque chalets. A front gate to rival Disneyland. A long whistle escaped my lips. i didn't even know I could whistle.

"Wow," I said. "Wow."

We sat in silence while he returned his precious drawings to his valise.

"Wow," I said again. There was really nothing else I could say.

I don't know how he settled on Centerville as the perfect home for his dream. I do know that he offered two farmers cash money for their property the next day. And I also know that the signs went up for Carpworld the next week. Yes, like the fish. Old Mortie must have really liked fish. But it all turned out okay for him, didn't it? And the rest of us too.

The city raised my salary to nine hundred dollars a month, not that I much care anymore. I've been the head landscaper at Underwater Adventures (Mrs. Dunham convinced old Mortie to change the name a year after construction started. I'm sure that alcohol was involved) supervising a staff of eight. And I'm still mayor. The broken laptop got recycled, and now I've got one of Mortie's castaways. And he spends all day with his nose pressed against the glass, watching his fish.

Maybe that's not so crazy after all.