Simon Finkel vs The Cheerleaders From Hell
Part Two
by The Preve
Inspired by the picture "Cheerleaders Having Some Fun," by Voloh
Eighteen Years Later
"Simon Braggaducci, get your ass down here this instant!"
"What the fuck is it this time?" Simon sighed.
It was always something with Uncle Paulie.
He's at low volume so it's serious but not too serious.
Life in the Braggaducci household taught Simon to expect drama at any second. Not that it was a problem; he loved his Aunt Mary and Uncle Paulie. The constant drama got tiresome though.
He ran down the stairs to see his aunt and uncle in the living room. His stocky uncle wore a frown on his bulldog face. His aunt sported a similar expression beneath her aerosol rigid hair.
Fuck! What'd I do?!
"What the fuck is this Simon?" Uncle Paulie's hand held a letter.
"Huh?"
"Huh? Geez, that all you can say boy?" Paulie thrust the letter angrily into Simon's hand.
Simon, confused, read the letter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into the Class of 20 . . . at New York University. We look forward to your attendance.
"What's wrong?"
He looked up, wondering why his aunt and uncle were so pissed, to their beaming faces. The classic Braggaducci fake out.
"My boy Simon," Uncle Paulie crushed him in a huge hug.
"My nephew's going to college," Aunt Mary pinched his cheek and kissed it.
"Geez, Aunt Mary," Simon rolled his eyes, but it was a big deal for him. Uncle Paulie initially wanted an athletic scholarship for his nephew, not an academic one. He slowly came to the realization Simon held more brains than brawn. Simon did okay as an athlete but performed much better in the debate club. The scholarship came as the product of four years nose-to-the-grindstone work.
Uncle Paulie never made it past high school, nor did Aunt Mary. He got his GED and joined the Navy. Paulie met Mary, a waitress, while on leave. The two of them married and, soon as Paulie left the Navy, scraped together their savings to open a dry cleaning business.
The couple were savvy enough to make enough money to open another. Now Paulie and Mary owned a chain of dry cleaning businesses around New York and New Jersey. If some of the money contributed for the stores came from the shadier relatives (in exchange for a little "laundering") it was never mentioned. Paulie stayed away from that life . . . mostly.
"So, what's my nephew got planned for his major?" Uncle Paulie asked.
Simon hesitated, "Um . . . law. Criminal law." He braced for the storm.
Instead his uncle frowned briefly, then nodded, "That's good."
Simon saw his aunt visibly relax. He knew some of his relatives would not like his choice. Uncle Paulie, though, while on the periphery, made it clear he didn't want his nephew mixed with that life. Simon's cousins, to their credit, kept their distance.
Simon himself, saw enough glimpses of the life to stay away. He knew his decision, if it paid off, might pit him against his relatives someday, but that war was in the future. Now the path lay before him.
Uncle Paulie beamed upon his nephew, more like his son. He and Mary raised Simon from a baby. There weren't many Braggaducci's who'd made it to college, his cousin among them. Simon was a rare treasure.
Paul "Paulie" Braggaducci expressed reluctance to take in his cousin's pregnant daughter at first. He wasn't too keen on his cousin. Chaz liked to flash his wealth and his daughter, Cece, was a spoiled bitch.
Cousin Chaz, though, promised help with the dry cleaning business. It was a good sweetener at the time, and Simon turned out a good boy.
"Okay you two, break it up and wash for supper," Aunt Mary said, "I got a roast beef that needs taken care of."
Aunt Mary kissed Simon again and went to the kitchen.
"You heard your Aunt. We'll talk at the table."
Paulie hugged his nephew again and went to the restroom.
Simon went back upstairs, happy the drama was about something good. He was off to college, end of summer and, hopefully, a good career after that.
"If my crazy dreams don't get in the way of my real ones, I should be okay," he thought.
He couldn't call the dreams that crazy. They weren't surreal like a Dali painting or anything. It was just, so long as he could remember, occasional dreams of a different life, with different parents, would enter his mind. Not multiple lives, just two other than his.
He couldn't understand why; dreams of living another life often meant dissatisfaction with his own.
The problem was he liked his life. Aunt Mary and Uncle Paulie were great. School hadn't been easy but certainly wasn't hell. He had friends, people who liked him, and some who didn't. A bully or two appeared over his eighteen years but no one real bad.
He didn't have girlfriends but not because no one liked him. His focus was on schoolwork, and good grades for college. The girls could wait until then, not that a few of them weren't just friends. Some were close, just not romantically.
Some of the guys never understood his reluctance to date. A few interpreted it as something else, but Simon made clear his lack of interest in boys.
"I'm shooting for a scholarship to NYU," he told Marky, his best friend. "I'm not letting anyone get in the way of that."
"That" included his two other "selves", the British one and the Southern one. He called them that because of their accents. They were his mirror in all other aspects: dark brown hair (albeit the Southern one's hair was shorter), pale skin, brown eyes, slender build (the British one looked more athletic).
His other selves looked to have similar backgrounds to his own; upper middle-class, affluent, but Simon retained the strong working class attitude of his aunt and uncle.
These observations still didn't answer the central question,
Why do I dream about other lives?
He'd never told anyone about his dreams, not even Uncle Paulie and Aunt Mary.
They'd think I'm crazy.
Also, his dreams were harmless. Those other lives were almost the same as his.
Just with different accents.
"Simon, you ready?"
"Coming Aunt Mary," Simon tucked away those thoughts and went down for supper.
****
Senator Kate Buchanan (nee' Jackson) scanned every detail of her body. Everything needed to be perfect: hair, suit, makeup.
Every act she'd ever committed, the deals, compromises, power plays, and betrayals, led up to this moment. Now, it was time for the ultimate prize.
"Senator Buchanan, we're ready," Kelly Hudson, her publicity director said.
Kate strode down the hall to the backstage. They were all there. Her husband, Bob, carefully selected for marriage as he was a Buchanan and, therefore, money. Plus, he was shorter than her, and a milquetoast, easily dominated.
Her two children, Ellen and Mike, twelve and ten respectively. Useful as props to project an image of family values. Ellen, Kate noted, was shaping up to be a chip off her block, considering how she treated Mike. No matter, Kate didn't give a fuck so long as they smiled, waved for the cameras, and acted like the Disney channel sitcom kids she trained them to be. After that, a quick send off, back to their private schools, where she could forget their existence until needed.
Corben, her fixer, skulked near the curtains, his hooded eyes scanning the audience for enemies, potential blackmail material or, if necessary, elimination. Corben and his team were good enough to keep the rough stuff far away, allowing Kate to "categorically deny everything".
The auditorium was packed; supporters in the front, reporters in the back. Plus the stand behind her, packed with cheering acolytes waving signs, placards, and wearing the T-shirts and hats ubiquitous at her campaign rallies.
The more savvy observers, looking on, thought, an announcement like this from Kate Buchanan would happen ten years from now. Her rocket fast rise was the most notable, fascinating, political story of the past decade.
The savvy young congressional aide who married a scion of one of the country's wealthiest families. Who went on to win a seat in the House, while pregnant with her second child. Who quickly became hailed as the right-wing conservative foil to her left-wing progressive opposite. Who used a combination of beauty, brains, populism, and Machiavellian ruthlessness to gain prominent positions on the most important subcommittees.
Who seized the opportunity, upon the retirement of an elderly senator, to offer herself as candidate for his seat. She crushed her rival in the primary, and trounced her Democratic opponent, to become the youngest senator in Ohio's history.
Kate stepped up to the podium and gazed about, feeling the energy in the room. The media salivated. No senator had risen this high, this fast, and this young, since Obama. She smiled, pageant queen with a touch of wolf.
"Good morning Akron!"
The crowd responded, "Katie! Katie! Katie!"
She despised the nickname but found it useful. It brought her closer to the people.
She waited until the chants cooled, and then began her speech.
She spoke with the cadence found in Midwesterners, something she'd spent years perfecting. It didn't do to lord her upper-class, Yale-educated background over this crowd.
The speech contained the usual spiel: elegies about the decline of American/family/moral values, government inaction towards immigrants, anti-Black/Brown dog whistles disguised as anti-crime rhetoric.
The reporters and most of the crowd heard it all before. It wasn't the message but the delivery. Kate was very good at it. Her movie star good looks, combined with blazing charisma, and oratorical gifts reminiscent of early twentieth century masters, were on full display.
She wrapped it up with diatribes against "woke" liberals, "moral degenerates" (LGBTQ), and socialists (anyone slightly left of her), followed by the announcement and sign off.
"And that is why I am announcing my candidacy for President of the United States of America! God bless you, and God bless this great country of ours!"
Thunderous applause, cheers, and frenzied screams, "Katie! Katie! Katie!" washed over her. None in the crowd knew her utter contempt for them.
"Fucking morons," she thought, waving and flashing her dazzling smile. "To think I have to rely on mushrooms like these to get to the White House."
She made the show of hugging Bob and the children, while the music (bland, countrified, with pop inflections) played. They flashed smiles of their own, and waved, projecting the image of solid all-American familyhood so reliable on the campaign trail.
Kate's handlers ushered her to the press conference, more a rehash of the speech, couched as answers to unimaginative, standard questions from timid reporters. The actual journalists, who could be expected to ask genuinely challenging questions, were either barred, ignored, or sparred, with varied degrees of effectiveness.
