Dog Bites Man Read Free

educating a child was possible,where tax dollars would be wisely spent and where those present, and all New Yorkers for that matter, would be happy to live.
    "Mr. President! Mr. President!" one tiddly reveler shouted out.
    "Please, please. That's crazy talk. All I want is a very, very tranquil and peaceful four years in office. Trying to make this a better city . . ." His voice trailed off as he resisted repeating the Great City speech, his mind awash with the ethnic variations—
grande,
magnifica, maravilhosa, città, cidade, ciudad, Stadt, ville,
though he had on one occasion excised Gullighy's citation of St. Matthew's "city on a hill." (And he shuddered as he thought of an appearance at a Queens mosque, where he had stood in his stocking feet and choked on the phonetic
aazeem madeena
written on his cue card.)
    .    .    .
    Now, a year and a half later, he had weathered a threatened New Year's transit strike; a police slowdown after his attempt (thwarted by the City Council) to name an Asian-American police commissioner ("'No Irish need apply' was discredited fifty years ago," the police union president had thundered); Italo-American outcries after he had attended the opening of
Padrone,
the latest Mafia movie (produced by one of his larger financial backers); a gay/Planned Parenthood rebellion after he had taken an "under study" stance to a proposal for condom machines in subway stations; a picket line of militant Catholics at City Hall protesting that same "under study" cop-out; and hundreds of messages, ranging from the chiding to the psychotic and only occasionally positive, on the Web site he had instituted at Gullighy's urging, www.hoaglandmayor.com.
    There had been some triumphs. The State Legislature, in Albany, had been remarkably passive when picking at appropriationsbenefiting the city, in part because Governor Foote's description of that august body as "hack heaven" had leaked to the press and canceled any effectiveness she might have had in leading an anti-city assault. And the metropolitan press (with the exception of
The
Post-News
), led by Boyd and
The Surveyor,
gave the new mayor a free pass. Discreetly manipulated by Gullighy, they bought the line that the new mayor was a class act and that the city was the beneficiary of a sort of meritocratic noblesse oblige, with one of its most prominent intellectuals unselfishly serving them in public office.
    .    .    .
    The world, or at least the metropolis, assumed that all Eldon's problems and cares involved matters of high policy. They did not know about Amber Sweetwater, a political groupie who had offered her services as a scullery maid in exchange for a meager salary and a bed in the tiny serving pantry alongside the kitchen at Gracie Mansion, the mayor's residence. She performed valuable services as a dishwasher, recycling sorter and vegetable dicer for the marginally competent
chef de cuisine
(a semi-hysterical Hispanic gay—two points on the affirmative action scale) the mayor's staff had located.
    The chef, Julio, had barely kept his job after preparing something he called "puerco festivo" for a mansion dinner for a group of rabbis from Brooklyn whom Eldon hoped to mollify in their noisy crusade to get public school funding for their yeshiva. That evening had been saved by Amber, who, once Edna discovered pork on Julio's menu, hastily chopped up and assembled a vegetable plate of broccoli rabe, boiled cabbage, canned corn and beet salad. The rabbis were puzzled at the fare but nonetheless expressed satisfaction at having been invited to dine at the mayor's house (while not giving one inch on their money demands).
    Ms. Sweetwater had written Eldon soon after he was elected, seeking the job she had thought up herself. He was intrigued by her initiative and after an interview hired her, thus giving himself an anecdotal example of the kind of thrift he hoped to impose on local government. He had not consulted Edna