Fiction logo

A Bowl of Pears

Buster McKeaton's Bedtime Reflections on Power and Money

By Michelle Rose DiehlPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
3

Hot, sweaty and irritable is no way to end the day, Buster McKeaton thought as he eased his considerable bulk onto the cot he leased in the ramshackle “apartments” of the Haitian landlord. He pulled the light cotton sheets up to his chest, feeling the need to be covered rather than lay exposed, despite the sticky heat.

McKeaton’s head hurt. His nasal passages were swelled. If only his brain would function, he could have figured it out. He could have made sense of the mess scattered about the floor of the pitiful hut he occupied, rather than whatevering the whole deal away.

He didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want this to turn into a mystery of that kind, not before bed. McKeaton wanted to go to sleep with thoughts of butterflies and rainbows and daffodils and all that hippie crap that was supposed to make you feel good. He wanted to fall asleep with a ridiculous little grin about his lips, so that if he died and they came upon him the next morning they would nod and say, “Look at his face. Surely this man has gone to a better world.” McKeaton didn’t want his last thoughts to be the word “murder.”

McKeaton stared at the bowl of pears sitting on his “kitchen” table six feet away. He tried to wax poetic about the sensuous curve of the fruit’s speckled skin glowing softly in the moonlight, but Buster was no beatnik, and only found himself wishing he’d bought apples instead. He didn’t know why he’d chosen the pears. Maybe he’d been thinking of the slum complex’s pear tree. It grew in the center of what they called the courtyard, and apparently never bore fruit.

Some strange mood had possessed him that afternoon as he’d shopped at the local market. It had reminded him of the corner grocery store his father used to own. When Buster was just a snot-nosed punk, he used to help stock shelves and run the register. McKeaton’s lips quirked up as he recollected those days, but nostalgia shortly turned bitter.

One afternoon, a representative from a large supermarket chain approached Buster’s father with an offer to buy their little grocery. Frank McKeaton refused to sell out. Buster’s father paid protection to the local mob, but the city’s extensive criminal element couldn’t protect him. In the end, he was forced to close his store when the local health department, bribed by the conglomerate that owned the supermarket chain, found an excuse to condemn the whole complex.

That bit of cronyism had been Buster’s first glimpse into the world of power and money. He wanted in. As Frank McKeaton settled into his humbled position as store manager of the new supermarket, his son set his sights on a path toward that more exalted realm known as the Hill.

The sickly-sweet scent of rotting fruit jabbed like a snort of cocaine to his brain. The pears looked fresh, but one must have been turning to mush beneath the others. That had happened with the fruit basket a colleague sent to congratulate McKeaton when he became a congressional staffer.

The staff assistant job had been mainly secretarial work – answering phones, responding to emails, arranging schedules – but he was in the foothills. McKeaton had passed the gate into the rarefied air of the world of power and money, and he was ready to scale the mountain.

They said money was power, but what did they know? Power was power, and like anything else it was a commodity. The people with the money wanted power, so they bought it. The people with the power wanted money, so they sold it. Average people thought they weren’t a part of the world of power and money, because they themselves had neither. It was that shortsighted belief that separated the players from the played.

His father’s grocery had kept little 5-packs of gum by the register. They sold for twenty-five cents each, and Buster was supposed to offer one to every customer as an add-on to their order. “It’s only twenty-five cents to them, Buster, but for us it amounts to a hundred bucks or more each week.”

As a collective, the common schlub had more of both money and power than any top player. No individual could buy or sell it, though, and that’s where the game began. All they had was quarters, but people in the world of power and money spent most of their time thinking of ways to siphon those quarters into their own coffers.

After a particular senator discovered McKeaton had a knack for the game, he promoted the young man and took him under his wing. The senator straightened out Buster’s misconceptions, and in taking lessons from the advanced playbook, McKeaton learned the collective had more than quarters. They had nickels and dimes, as well.

One day the opportunity came to play for a windfall. An industrialist approached the senator with a building project he thought could be lucrative for them both. The only hitch was that the property he had in mind was already in use as a pear orchard in South Carolina, and the owner didn’t want to sell. The senator was never one to let a constituent get in his way. “Let me tell you about this little thing called eminent domain.”

The senator sent Buster to the orchard to deliver the formality of the government’s initial offer. None of them expected the orchard owner to accept; the condemnation action for the Resolution of Necessity had already been drafted. This visit was just a bit of necessary theatre. McKeaton flew in to South Carolina, prepared to play his role with all the sincerity the offer was supposed to include, but he had not been expecting to act against such a charming and droll leading lady.

“Mary Peabody?

“A-pear-ently.” The orchard owner delivered the cornball response with a dry tone and straight face, but with a twinkle in her brown eyes and a hint of a smirk that revealed her awareness of both the pun and its lameness. Buster had been expecting hostility.

“I know you’re just doing your job out here. You seem like a decent person.” She pulled a ripe pear off a tree and winged it to McKeaton in an underhand toss. “If I’m being candid, yeah, I want to get you on my side. I hope when you go back and tell your bosses I reject their offer, you’ll do it with the recommendation they find some other land for their project.”

Mary led him on a tour of the pear orchard. “I built it literally from the ground up,” she told him. “I wanted to create something. There’s nothing more rewarding than helping things grow and seeing them bear fruit.”

McKeaton had never been bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but he found himself enamored. Buster returned to the senator, prepared to do his utmost to talk him out of filing for the Resolution of Necessity.

“Would you have me deprive the people of this splendid public works for the sake of one woman’s selfish ambition? I must think about the greater good.” The senator was all heart. It was funny, though, Buster had never met an individual who counted among the greater good. Maybe it included the senator’s brother-in-law. His construction company had been hired by the industrialist for work on the building project.

As a consolation for his scruples, McKeaton got a raise, a bonus, and a promise of promotion. That had been eight years ago.

In the world of power and money, people’s lives were bought and sold like produce. Lives like his father’s. Lives like Mary’s. And lives like McKeaton’s, whose current net salary was well above the average Special Assistant’s pay rate.

Buster shifted to his side. The screw-turn pressure over the bridge of his nose lessened long enough to tease a hope of relief, before the burgeoning migraine dug itself back in between his eyes.

Last week, the senator had called McKeaton. That same industrialist had just died. Before McKeaton could decide whether or not condolences were in order, the senator urgently instructed Buster to grab whatever was in his docket and get out of the country.

His pillow smelled like armpit. McKeaton rolled to his back.

McKeaton supposed it must have something to do with the pear orchard. The senator must have been worried that the involvement of his brother-in-law’s construction company would come to light and he’d face charges of corruption. Buster wondered if he could be indicted on charges of corruption as well. At least if he went to prison, the pillowcases would be laundered. That’s what the inmates did, right? Made license plates and did laundry?

Sweat rolled down McKeaton’s temples, plastering his hair to his head.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to find out. The senator had been unreachable since that phone call, but somewhere in the pages scattered about the floor, there was some clue as to what Buster’s sudden vacation was all about. And if McKeaton could find it, he could fix it. After fruitless days of waiting to hear from the senator, it had finally occurred to McKeaton to review the paperwork the senator had been so anxious he bring.

His heart was racing. McKeaton didn’t think he’d be able to fall asleep after all. He felt like he’d downed a dozen cups of coffee, even though he hadn’t touched a drop of caffeine since this morning.

The slate of current projects and proposals in his docket were as standard as whiskers on a rat, like the one Buster heard rustling in the corners of the room. The dead industrialist had been involved in one of those projects, a major one, but McKeaton couldn’t find anything unusual in it. Nothing that should necessitate him spending a week in this hell hole.

The smell of rotting pears was unbearable. How could they have rotted so quickly? The one he’d eaten this afternoon had tasted fine. Maybe a little off, but they all couldn’t be as fresh as the one he’d gotten from Mary, straight off the tree.

McKeaton had found one discrepancy in the project documents. Just one. A typo listing the industrialist’s wife as the owner of the company. McKeaton supposed she’d be the head of the company now that her husband was dead. A simple mistake. Buster didn’t want to consider any more nefarious explanations. He wanted to fall asleep happy.

Buster wondered where Mary Peabody had ended up, if she was working as a waitress in a diner, broken and embittered, or if she’d started over somewhere else. Funny how he’d always seen power as the ability to destroy. The greater power was the ability to create, but hardly anyone seemed to care about that. Buster never did. If he had, maybe he would have tried to create something with Mary. McKeaton wondered what had brought the idea to his mind. He’d never been one to count his regrets. He was feeling philosophical for some reason.

A cold sweat shivered McKeaton. He clutched the sheet and wound it tight around his body, pulling the fabric up to his chin. The temperature seemed to have dropped twenty degrees.

The senator had been having an affair with the industrialist’s wife. Widow. McKeaton wondered why the non-sequitur had flashed into his mind so suddenly.

Whatever. He draped a hand over his face, squeezing his eyes shut. His mouth pulled down in a grimace. Thinking of pears, Buster McKeaton fell asleep.

Short Story
3

About the Creator

Michelle Rose Diehl

Profoundly silly.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.