The press conference alone had been enough human wreckage for one day. Still, the solemn late afternoon drive from City Hall to the bucolic New England neighborhood Tucker Simmons called home was in a lot of ways worse then the media lynching he'd just endured.
46 years old, and in the middle of what was to be his third term as Mayor of the town he'd lived in his whole life, Tucker gripped his hand hard around the steering wheel of his black BMW and stared aimlessly forward, desperate not to make eye contact with any of the people he encountered as he drove on. He remembered the first day after being elected Mayor how he'd driven down those same streets, making eye contact and waving at every car or person walking down the sidewalk. Now that same neighborhood felt like the mouth of a shark and each one of the houses was just another tooth waiting to chomp down on him.
Not that he didn't run a smooth and efficient ship during his 3 terms as Mayor. Everything Tucker had done in his professional life, and the relationships he built during his time in office were solid gold. It was the carelessness in his personal life however that landed him in the quandary of a lifetime.
In his paranoid mind's eye he sensed that every house he drove by, the occupants were all huddled around the picture window, staring out at him and poking each other in the ribs saying 'there goes the man who had it all and blew it'.
Sadly, in a few of the cases he was probably right.
In a lot of ways, Tucker had Elliot Spitzer to thank for making him such a pariah, not only in his hometown, but in his own home as well. Tucker continually kept going back to the morning in March when he'd sat down at his desk, cracked open the morning paper and saw the first headline about the soon to be disgraced New York Governor. Tucker just sat there hunched forward in his seat, glaring down at the tiny black print with the grim look of a man knowing his career was about to swirl down the toilet as well.
For the past four years Tucker Simmons had been doing pretty much the same thing as Spitzer. It had all started with a round of golf at a charity event in Boston back in 2004 during the ill-fated John Kerry Presidential campaign. One of the businessmen in his foursome had a rather attractive younger woman at his side during the round and not knowing whether the lady was perhaps the man's daughter or even his mistress, Tucker avoided making a fool of himself by asking. Seeing a wedding ring on the man's finger but the absence of one on the woman's, he figured the two weren't married. The more he surveyed the couple, Tucker didn't see enough of a resemblance between the two for them to be related either.
Sometime around the 14th tee, the man must have sensed Tucker's quizzical stares and after a few awkward tidbits of banter back and forth, the man handed the stunned Mayor an embossed business card to the upscale escort agency he'd been using.
"Privacy and discretion assured," he promised Tucker.
Well maybe for any random widget salesman, but not for the mayor of a gossip-riddled New England town if the shit was to ever hit the fan.
It took Tucker a couple of months to work up the courage (or desperation) to finally call the number. Another two times to actually go through with an arranged meeting after chickening out twice. After finally going through the first experience he had with the girl they'd set him up with however, Tucker found himself using the service each time he was down that way on business.
"Goddamn Spitzer," Tucker once again mumbled out loud as he drove on, feeling just like one of the dominos that got set in motion when the media frenzy started to swell round the NY Governor had now fallen squarely on him. District Attorneys were as close to scavengers as any breed of animal God have ever placed on the Earth, and with one in his town who had open political aspirations, Tucker should have known to keep his shoes clean. His libido unfortunately had won out, and once there was so much as a trace of evidence about the his potentially illicit relationship with a call-girl ring, it didn't take long for the DA to pounce.
Tucker's life started to unravel innocently enough a few months earlier on the Turnpike when a man was pulled over by a Massachusetts state trooper for suspicion of drunk driving. The officer immediately sensed something was amiss seeing the age difference between the much older man and the girl in her 20's. After running the field sobriety checks, it was clear the man was past the legal limit and after running the girl's name and social security number it came back that she was wanted on several bad check warrants. The fact she also had handful of loose joints and a few pills of Ecstasy in her purse didn't help matters.
The 20 year old girl, who was trying her best to work her way through college with two parents who both were mired waist deep financially in the mortgage mess, spilled her guts on the spot and admitted she was an escort. It wasn't long before an enterprising and curious detective got a hold of the girl's phone records and ran the numbers inside.
Early the next week, a pair of very thorough investigators were waiting for Tucker in his office when he walked in to work, followed not long after by a horde of tv and print reporters. The Mayor's jig was up.
"And all the shit might have been worth it if the Bitch looked anything like the piece of ass Spitzer went down for," the mayor chided himself as he drove home, trying to cull a little dose of gallows humor out of an otherwise piss-poor situation.
The only salvation for Tucker over those early months of '08, while the walls of his personal life were beginning to close in, was that his two Daughters were both away at college. While not immune at their age to the sins of their Father, thankfully they didn't have to be at ground zero in the family's home every night to see it all up close. For selfish reasons, Tucker was glad they were both gone as well so he didn't have to look, with pitiful shame, into each of their eyes on a daily basis having them know what he did.
As for Tucker's wife Ellen, having her squirm uncomfortably in the public spotlight wasn't the worst feeling in the world. In a lot of ways, she was the one that precipitated him originally dialing the number to the escort agency in the first place.
Steering his Beamer into the driveway and switching off the ignition, Tucker just sat behind the wheel for a few minutes, gathering his thoughts and trying to muster the courage to walk inside and face his family after the public flogging he'd just endured at the press conference. Sitting there behind his tinted windows as the last shades of dusk gave way to night, Tucker couldn't help but marvel at how similar the sunset was to the night nearly five years ago when he'd driven home at a similar hour, only to have his wife inform him as he was reaching in the fridge for a beer to wind down with, that after 20 years of marriage, she'd decided to become a lesbian.
It wasn't like the two were having much sex at time as it was, but it was still a blow to Tucker Simmons' manhood hearing her put it into words. Ellen had confided in him during those tender moments in the dark early in their marriage that she was attracted to other women, and during those initial years of marital bliss, the two had even contemplated bringing an occasional second woman into the mix if the opportunity ever presented itself. Once the kids started to grow up and Tucker's political aspirations took flight however, the lust between Husband and Wife steadily began to wane.
Actually going through with telling her Husband of her 'conversion' wasn't borne so much out of her hormones however, as it was out of her reliance on a smooth and constant bottle of rum at her side. Tucker knew Ellen had been fooling around with the wife of one of his business associates for awhile back then and apparently the two women had, in a drunken and cocaine fueled stupor, decided to 'come out of the closet' together. It didn't take long for both women to come to the conclusion however that life was more easily led keeping the persona, wealth and status of being the loyal wife of a successful man rather than announcing to the world their undying love for each other.
Within a year or so Ellen and the other woman had broken up, but it didn't amount to any more contentment for him. She wasn't attracted to him anymore and frankly the sight of his Wife, even though she was still a relatively fit and attractive woman, made Tucker a little ill as well. Their relationship for the previous few years had devolved into nothing more than a simple facade for public consumption and a vehicle to keep their Daughters' lives as consistent as possible until they were both done with school.
As for Tucker's needs, he knew there were plenty of women he encountered either through his job, or his vast social circles, that he could strike up an affair with. Having genuine concern for his career, not to mention despising the thought of doing anything that might harm his family, he turned all that accumulating lust inward for a very long time. It wasn't until that man at the golf tournament handed Tucker that business card that he even contemplated straying. Once an option to address his natural urges was laid out for him however, one that he thought was chalk full of discretion and fail-safes, Tucker's Puritan Will eventually eroded.
Not that there wasn't a certain amount of hubris involved in that decision. He was still good looking, had most of his hair and was the top elected official in his hometown. If his Wife didn't want him, there were plenty of women out there that would. Instead of cheating with someone who either might make the mistake of falling in love, or considering his position in the community, might hold the affair over him, Tucker realized paying for the companionship that was lacking in his life was perhaps the best option.
One long exhaled sigh shot like a gust of wind from Tucker's mouth and nose as he reached for the door and stepped out of his car. Noticing his wife's Jag parked at the top of the driveway, Tucker couldn't help but harkens back to the tail end of the press conference when Ellen, who had been standing beside him throughout it all with a calm, cold and straight forward stare, suddenly disappeared. Not that he could blame her, there were plenty of times he'd dug his own tunnel out of that conference room if he had a shovel. Still, it did make it that much more awkward trying to answer the barrage of personal questions after his Wife had ditched his side.
Tucker also saw his Daughters' cars parked in the driveway as well. While both Mikala and Angie had been home from college since each of their semesters let out in early May, Tucker wouldn't allow either the public ridicule of attending his press conference/flogging. The brick walkway leading to the front door felt like quicksand under Tucker's shoes as he thought about the shame and disappointment his kids would have to live with until everything, God willing, eventually blew over. He'd activity encouraged both girls to maybe get a Summer job, or perhaps take a few Summer courses back at their colleges so they wouldn't have to be home dealing with their Father's malfeasance, but both Mikala and Angie were insistent on coming home and lending whatever moral support they could.
The front door was unlocked and after another painfully long sigh, Tucker walked inside. He was instantly struck by how quiet the entire six bedroom, 3000 square foot house seemed. Thinking for a moment to call out to someone, the urge got lodged in Tucker's throat for fear of hearing his own voice echoing emptily back to him.
"Is this what I have to look forward to," his throat tightened as he contemplated his future.
Putting one cautious foot in front of the other, Tucker started to walk down the hardwood floor of the foyer, the report of his trotting footsteps providing the only soundtrack inside his head. The TV in the family room wasn't on, and it might have been the first time he'd ever walked into the house when either of his Daughters were home that there wasn't some sort of music blaring from either of their rooms.
His ears starved for any shred of stimulation, the only thing that they could faintly detect was the hum of the refrigerator running in the kitchen. Going back through his mental memory bank, Tucker thought back to when he was getting out of his car and to his best recollection, the only light he saw on inside the house was in the family room down at the far end of the east side hallway.
