The Barbarian Nurseries A Novel - By Hector Tobar Page 0,163

of his waking day in conversation and monologue—on the phone, in his City Hall office, in parking lots and passageways, in elementary school auditoriums, at doughnut shops, in Westside receptions, in his official Lincoln Town Car. The mayor was a self-described pathological talker who liked to brag that he’d been talking nonstop since the age of four; he knew his consultant had two small children and that he could call and find him awake at dawn. Six hours earlier, he had done just that, after catching the appearance of an up-and-coming state senator from Fremont, California, on Univision’s ¡Despierta América! talk show. “Hey, I just saw Escalante talking about that Mexican nanny again,” the mayor had said, without preamble. “He’s going to town on this. He was on Telemundo yesterday. And someone told me they heard him on the radio a couple of times.”

“Really,” the consullant had said wearily into his kitchen phone, while watching his eight-year-old son and six-year-old daughter eat Cream of Wheat and simultaneously twirl their chestnut ringlets. The consultant was a New Jersey transplant of Italian heritage with a wild shock of gray Beethoven curls, a lefty pamphleteer who had risen from 1980s rent-control battles to become the master tactician of the progressive wing of the state Democratic Party, helping a variety of principled and competent leaders win election to office. “I think it’s obvious why Escalante’s doing this,” the consultant began. “He’s not on anyone’s radar, because he’s never done anything. A Latino politician who has to wave his arms like crazy to get the attention of Latino voters isn’t going anywhere. He’s got no shot at winning any statewide primary. None.”

Araceli Ramirez was a cause célèbre and a deepening obsession among the mayor’s core Latino supporters, but the consultant’s position on what the mayor’s position should be in her case had not changed. It was the same at 6:45 a.m. in the kitchen of his Northeast L.A. bungalow as it had been in two previous conversations on the subject: keep closed lips and fight the temptation to opine. “You’re the mayor of Los Angeles—this is in Orange County. Leave it alone. Because if you don’t, this crazy family and their nanny could blow up in your face.”

At 6:45 in the morning, the mayor had accepted this counsel as wise and obviously true. He had forgotten about Escalante and the proto-martyr languishing in a Santa Ana jail cell. Then, in the waning moments of his third and final public appearance of the morning, at the Bonaventure Hotel, he had been given another rude reminder of Araceli’s existence. The mayor was paying a courtesy call to a group of striking hotel workers, and had just finished up with a few words in his thick-accented but steadily improving Spanish, when one of the striking maids reached over and squeezed his wrist. She was a short woman with the angular face and short hair of a female prizefighter, and she had pulled the mayor close to her. “No tengas miedo,” she said, in a tone that recalled the mayor’s late mother. “Ponte los pantalones. Di algo para apoyar a Araceli. Me enoja que no hayas dicho nada sobre esa pobre mujer.” The mayor gave a grimace-smile and pulled away, startled a bit by the strength of the woman’s grip.

“She told me to put my pants on,” the mayor said suddenly to his consultant as his salad arrived. “That last woman in the hotel. The short one. Did you see her? I actually recognized her once I was forced to take a look. Die-hard shop steward. Walked precincts in each of my campaigns. She told me she was angry I hadn’t said anything about the Mexican maid. ‘Put your pants on,’ she said. ‘And say something to support Araceli.’ “

“What is that, some sort of Mexican thing? Not having pants?”

“Yeah. Precisely.”

“Well, that’s emasculating. Is that why you ordered a salad?”

“Very funny,” the mayor said, and with that he gave his famous, world-conquering grin—it was the flash of erect porcelain that had gotten him elected mayor, and that got him into trouble, sometimes, when he directed it in private at petite, single young women in their thirties. He dug into his salad, took a few bites, and began to talk. “But she has a point.”

“She does?”

“The way she sees it, she didn’t vote for me just to run the City of L.A.”

“Right. The whole icon thing. The long-oppressed people thing.”

Legions of people expected the mayor of Los Angeles to opine