The Mayor

Abstract

Abstract His Honor Spring Hill Mayor George Jones was at the wheel of his blue 1979 Lincoln Continental, a relic of an age when cars weighed five thousand pounds, had four hundred horses under the hood, and powered along the asphalt on big tires, snouts high, downing a gallon of gas every few minutes. Three radios crowned the drive-train hump, with little red blips flowing horizontally across one of them like flashing jewels. Blueprints and maps were heaped on the back seat, like so many wallpaper samples. When the mayor pulled into one of his spec houses (he built George Jones Custom-Built Homes to make ends meet), left the baby blue dinosaur in gear, and ran down the drive, white socks showing, I reached down and slid a box of .22 revolver ammunition from under my seat. Was the mayor armed, I wondered. He hustled back up the drive and hopped in. He made it clear he was a little aggravated at the crew that had prepped the drive for the asphalt coming later today. They hadn’t done it right, he said. We backed out, went up the street to U.S. 31, and headed south toward Columbia, smoothly, gaining power.