Hell Hole by Chris Grabenstein

senator’s all set to make a big toast.”
    T.J.’s already lined up three-dozen magnums of Moët & Chandon in foil-lined bins.
    I plop my ice bags on the ground and try to reestablish some semblance of circulation to my limbs. Starky repeatedly smacks and smashes her two bags on the concrete to break up the clumped-together cubes. Gives one bag a good karate kick. Then, she tears open the top with her teeth, gives the whole thing a good shake, and dumps ice into the channels between champagne bottles. She’s not even breathing heavy. Maybe I should sign up for Tae Kwon Do.
    â€œWe have a senator here?” I ask to kill some time so I don’t have to lift anything heavy for another ten seconds or so.
    â€œSenator Worthington,” says Starky. “The senior senator from Pennsylvania. I parked his Lexus while you ran to the store for ice. It’s a very nice car but he’s a terrible tipper. Gave me seventy-five cents.”
    â€œMan, you should’ve kept driving,” says T.J. “You could’ve held his Lexus hostage. Hey, Danny?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œDid you meet Springsteen?”
    â€œNo way. He’s here? Springsteen?”
    â€œYeah. He played a couple songs. You know—‘Crazy Janey and her mission man were back in the alley trading hands.’”
    â€œOh, man! He sang ‘Spirit in the Night’?”
    T.J. chuffs a laugh.
    â€œGotcha!”

    Kids. You gotta love’em. Can’t shoot’em.
    â€œI’m yanking your crank,” T.J. says as I dump my first load. I make sure a couple cubes tumble out. I also let the water slosh onto his sneaker.
    There’s some commotion across the pool.
    Eight brawny guys in dark suits and sunglasses who look like linebackers with curly wires trailing out of their ears. One of the guys talks into his sleeve, just like in the movies. I don’t think he’s talking to his buddy Mr. Cuff Link. I think they’re Secret Service agents or some kind of private security guards—either for Dirty Larry, the king of all airwaves, or the senior senator from Pennsylvania. Right now, I’m guessing they work for the senator because they have crew cuts and shaved heads. I’m certain Dirty Larry’s security posse dresses in the latest gangsta rap fashions and none of these guys are wearing necklaces that resemble hubcaps on chains.
    The security team scans the crowd, sweeps it with their hidden eyes. A couple talk to their sleeves some more.
    Rita swings by the booze tent carrying a tray of pigs in a blanket—golden brown pastry shells wrapped around sizzling little wieners. Starving, I reach for a toothpick.
    â€œDanny? These are for the guests. Hey—have you guys seen John?”
    â€œNope!” says Starky, the one off-duty cop not currently drooling like Homer Simpson in a doughnut factory.
    â€œDarn,” says Rita. “I wanted him to hear Senator Worthington.”
    â€œIs he the guy in the suit and the Army boots?”
    â€œYes, T.J.,” says Rita.
    Okay. I’ve read about Senator Worthington. Only because his fashion statement made the cover of this weekly newspaper I read whenever I’m in the express line at the grocery store with the mathematically challenged. You know—people who can’t count to fifteen. The Star Gazer loves Senator Winslow “the Winner” Worthington because he always wears a pair of his son’s dusty ol’ Army boots. He says he wears the boots “so I never forget the daily sacrifices being made by my son and all our brave troops with boots on the ground over in Iraq.”
    Geeze-o, man.

    Hey, call me cynical, but the wearing-my-son’s-old-Army-boots bit sounds like a slick political PR stunt to me. Something for the TV cameras. This is why, when he speaks, he never stands behind a podium, unless it’s made out of Plexiglas. It’s all about the boots.
    And it’s working.