I voted for the other guy, but I couldn't tell her that, this beautiful specimen of a woman. She had her hands interlaced and flat on the table, waiting for me to respond. I couldn't bring myself to say anything. Why did she have to be so aggressive?

"Am I your city manager or not?" she repeated.

"...Yes," I said.

"So that makes me your boss, correct?"

"Well, technicall --"

"Stop, yes I am. Don't worry about Steve. As far as you're concerned, I am at the top of your chain."

I sat there. She continued.

"So don't argue with me when I tell you that I'm putting your job up for competition. I like you personally Rusty, but you screwed us professionally - well the city anyway. You got me elected."

I unfastened my jaw. She was less attractive now.

"So here's what's going to happen. I believe competition solves most problems, so I'm not going to fire you, but let you compete for your job. The terms are that your territory will be everything east of the Square and your competitor's will be west of it. Starting tomorrow, you have three weeks and whoever has the largest percentage of potholes filled will get the job."

"Who's my competitor?"

"Worry about filling potholes. You can continue to use all the same resources and whatever process you use - if any - the only difference is you have half the territory."

I walked out of that office hating democracy.

I immediately went home. Mom was on the couch watching Jeopardy.

"How was your meeting, sweetie? Make any friends?"

"No, mom."

"Oh, that's alright. If we made friends every day, we'd have new friends all the time. And that's expensive at Christmas."

I nodded my head in silence as I tried to rip the TV dinners from the freezer. When I gave a sharp tug, the ice machine came bolting out and crashing on the floor. I had always been better at destroying things than repairing them.

As we ate dinner, I thought about telling her about the competition. She wouldn't understand though. She had lost so much awareness since the diagnosis. I looked up at the mantel and saw my dad's photo. Ugh, why did I have to see that? He would have known what to say to that yuppie city manager. He'd also know how to win this competition. I saw mom was starting to drool, so I wiped her chin. We watched in silence. After it was over, I helped her to bed.

"You better get to bed too Rusty, you have a busy day tomorrow."

She said this every night, but she was especially right tonight.

"Yes, mom. G'night."

She stopped me before I left.

"Rusty, I'm proud of you."

I quickly left the room.