by Mark JACOBS

I told the id­iots I didn’t want to be their king. Don’t even think about vot­ing for me, I told them. You want proof they de­serve their name? They thought you vot­ed on kings the way you vot­ed on pres­i­dents. I did not try to dis­abuse them of the no­tion. It was no use. They’re in­ed­u­ca­ble, in­di­vid­u­al­ly and as a group. But I did stand up at the end of the bar and urge them in a loud voice to vote for Mack. Mack, you see, ac­tu­al­ly want­ed the job. I’m no saint, but I try to do the right thing when the op­por­tu­ni­ty presents itself.

The sons of bitch­es elect­ed me any­way. Talk about a slap in the face to Mack. He took the hit like a gen­tle­man, came over and con­grat­u­lat­ed me, shook my hand and bought me a beer, but los­ing put a hurt on the man. He has a heart the size of the Grand Canyon. Why do there have to be win­ners and losers in every­thing we do? Can’t we re­or­ga­nize so­ci­ety, or at least how things work in it? I know, it’s a ques­tion wor­thy of an idiot.

I don’t mean to go off half-cocked. It’s a ten­den­cy. Here is what you need to know: the bar where the id­iots con­gre­gate is lo­cat­ed in a Buf­fa­lo neigh­bor­hood you prob­a­bly nev­er go to, and for good rea­son. The res­i­dents, most of them any­way, work hard to jus­ti­fy its stinky rep­u­ta­tion. The bar is called Lumpy Peter’s Tra­di­tion­al Grist Mill, and I wish I could tell you why. I’ve heard the­o­ries but give them no cre­dence. There’s an own­er, but he steers clear of the joint. Do you blame him?

The id­iots grew up here and nev­er left. That takes in­tegri­ty, not to men­tion a lack of am­bi­tion. Put the two to­geth­er and you get a group of cit­i­zens in their thir­ties and ear­ly for­ties, men and women both, who call them­selves The Id­iots. In their minds the name is cap­i­tal­ized, to dis­tin­guish them from the run-of-the-mill fools you meet on a dai­ly ba­sis on the side­walks of every city in the world.

I should men­tion the time of year, since weath­er is a big fac­tor around here. First week of March, with the win­ter hang­ing on mak­ing you think this year it’s ac­tu­al­ly go­ing to do it, it’s go­ing to eat the spring and we’ll freeze our ass­es off un­til May. The left­over snow gives no in­di­ca­tion of melt­ing any time soon. Every­where you look there are gray and grit­ty mounds of the stuff. Flori­da, you think, but it’s not a com­plete sen­tence, is it?

When the elec­tion was over I was ready to shove off for home, where my wife Janet had to be told the bad news. I was able to put off that dis­agree­able task for a few min­utes thanks to Flo­rence, who poured me a con­grat­u­la­to­ry shot of good Scotch. Flo­rence has worked at the Mill for­ev­er and has lat­i­tude. She wants to give away a gen­er­ous shot of the good stuff, she gives it away. She claims she is six foot sev­en, but that’s an ex­ag­ger­a­tion. In any case she is what my old man used to call a long drink of wa­ter, and blonde in the worst way. The size of her hoop ear­rings is leg­endary among the id­iot tribe, along with her snap­py come­backs, which have been known to draw blood.

“You re­al­ly didn’t want this, did you, Jim­my?” she said, which I thought was insightful.

When she leaned her el­bows on the bar she looked like some sort of tro­phy, but I can’t be more specific.

“It just goes to show,” I told her.

“Show what?”

“They re­al­ly are idiots.”

“Takes one to be their king,” she said, and I was in no po­si­tion to de­ny it.

Janet took the news about like I ex­pect­ed, which is to say, with frigid dep­re­ca­tion. She grew up in the neigh­bor­hood just like the rest of us but ab­solute­ly re­fus­es to be an id­iot. She works as an in­sur­ance ad­jus­tor and makes a de­cent liv­ing. We could move some­where else, and that’s her goal. So far I’ve re­fused to budge. Get my back up, and it stays up.

I found her in the liv­ing room watch­ing Jeop­ardy re­runs on her com­put­er, a bowl of pop­corn on the couch next to her, wrapped in an afghan her grand­moth­er cro­cheted for her. She’s an at­trac­tive woman, every­body says so, on the pe­tite side with curly red hair she keeps short, lik­ing things un­der con­trol. She has that white Irish skin I’ve al­ways been par­tial to. Un­der stress it glows pink and is a sexy sight to behold.

“You cam­paigned for this,” she told me.

“No I didn’t.”

“That’s how you man­aged it, by not want­i­ng it. Very clever, Jim­my. Too clever by half, if you ask me.”

“That’s not fair.”

“You’re go­ing to make the speech, aren’t you?”

“Do I have a choice?”

She shook her head and went back to her Jeop­ardy and her pop­corn. If Ken Jen­nings showed up at the front gate, my wife would be out the door like a shot, wouldn’t even stop to turn down the ther­mo­stat. They would live hap­pi­ly ever af­ter in Triv­ia City. Not like­ly. Ken Jen­nings would nev­er come any­where near our neigh­bor­hood. He’s no idiot.

You’re prob­a­bly think­ing I’m a to­tal dead­beat. It’s what you ex­pect of an id­iot king. Twen­ty hours a week at a con­ve­nience store, some­thing along those lines. But I have a good job, as good in its way as Janet’s. I do web de­vel­op­ment work for a healthy com­pa­ny that sup­ports non-gov­ern­men­tal or­ga­ni­za­tions. How’s that for de­fy­ing your ex­pec­ta­tions? Most of the time I work from the house, which I’m more than hap­py to do. Now and then the fa­vor of my pres­ence is re­quest­ed at a head­quar­ters meet­ing, and I go. While I’m at those meet­ings, you would nev­er know I was king of the idiots.

I sat across from Janet in a chair that goes beau­ti­ful­ly with the so­fa al­though the fab­rics are dif­fer­ent. She has ex­cel­lent taste. I had some lines of code to re­think. They lacked the el­e­gance of sim­plic­i­ty. I don’t al­ways get there, but I shoot for el­e­gance in my work. I couldn’t fo­cus on the code, though. It was the speech. In ac­cept­ing my elec­tion to the king­ship, I agreed to make a speech at the Mill, the night fol­low­ing. I’m not big on pub­lic speak­ing, not even around peo­ple I know. You know the strong, silent type? I’m half that.

The in­au­gu­ra­tion speech is a tra­di­tion, though, and I couldn’t let my re­luc­tance get in the way. So many de­cent and rea­son­able things have gone out the win­dow late­ly, haven’t they? Ex­trem­ism is in. Man, is it ever in. That’s why I had to re­spect the un­writ­ten law that said the new king or queen would make an ac­cep­tance speech lay­ing out pri­or­i­ties for the new reign.

Pri­or­i­ties for the rain, the id­iots think it is, and bring their umbrellas.

Af­ter twen­ty min­utes of fid­get­ing in the chair I got up.

“I’m go­ing out,” I told Janet.

“Where?”

“To the Mill.”

“If you’re look­ing for some adu­la­tion from your sub­jects, I bet most of them have gone home.”

“I’m rest­less,” I told her.

Some­times hon­esty re­al­ly is the best pol­i­cy. She called me over and gave me a kiss good­bye. In it was the promise of com­fort, and maybe more.

“Do you know the cap­i­tal of Brunei?”

I didn’t. Not the first time I’ve dis­ap­point­ed my wife.

Janet was right. The Mill had pret­ty much cleared out by the time I walked in. Flo­rence was stand­ing be­hind the bar, and Mack slouched in front of it, nurs­ing a beer. The Mill was a down-home kind of place. You’ve been there, or some­place just like it. A tele­vi­sion no­body paid at­ten­tion to; the col­ors tend­ed to­ward or­ange on the spec­trum. Stools that looked like they came over with the Pil­grims, if you can pic­ture a Pil­grim on a bar stool. Old posters of rock bands on tour, and a framed pic­ture of a snow­storm that made the front page of the Buf­fa­lo News, as though any amount of snow was news­wor­thy in our city. The door to the men’s room fea­tured the Zig-Zag man burn­ing his clas­sic blunt.

“All Hail the King,” said Mack, lift­ing his glass.

Maybe there was a tinge of irony in that, maybe there wasn’t. Like I said, for rea­sons of his own he had ac­tu­al­ly want­ed the job. Mack works for the city. In the win­ter he dri­ves a snow plough. Sum­mers he does main­te­nance at the parks. He has a round face, a squat­ty body, and that enor­mous heart. Stand­ing next to Flo­rence, which of course he oc­ca­sion­al­ly does, he looks like a munchkin.

Flo­rence asked me, “You write your speech, Jimmy?”

I didn’t want to moan and groan about be­ing elect­ed, not with Mack there. But the whole idea of be­ing king of the id­iots was re­al­ly get­ting to me. I guess it’s good that there are things you don’t un­der­stand about yourself.

“Not yet,” I admitted.

Flo­rence poured me a shot. She poured one for Mack, and then one for her­self. Who’s go­ing to turn down John­ny Walk­er Black? We talked for a few min­utes. Desul­to­ry I think is the word for our con­ver­sa­tion. I was sip­ping slow­ly, The whiskey went down like a kid on a wa­ter slide.

It was Flo­rence who came up with the idea of me prac­tic­ing my speech on them. Seemed like a good idea. At least it was an idea, a com­mod­i­ty in short sup­ply just then.

“You ought to stand on a ta­ble,” Mack sug­gest­ed. “That’s how a re­al king does it.”

I had my doubts, but I climbed on­to a chair and from the chair on­to a ta­ble that had been at the Mill since Leif Erik­son out­flanked Colum­bus. It seemed stur­dy enough. They don’t make ta­bles like that anymore.

“You got a theme?” Flo­rence want­ed to know.

Un­til she asked, I didn’t know I did.

“Who needs id­iots?” I told her. “That’s the theme.”

It was the spark I need­ed. In half a sec­ond the funk I was in went away. The fog dis­si­pat­ed, the sky cleared, and the sun of com­pre­hen­sion broke through.

“Id­iots,” I told them.

“Sing it, broth­er,” said Mack. “Give it every­thing you’ve got.”

What a guy, what a heart. The City of Buf­fa­lo has no idea how lucky they are, hav­ing him on the payroll.

“Peo­ple think we don’t need id­iots any more,” I said, warm­ing to the top­ic as it came in­to fo­cus. “They think the day of the id­iot is done, the world has moved on. From here on out we all need to be smart. We need to be cal­cu­lat­ing. We need to be fash­ion­able and pleas­ant and mind our man­ners in com­pa­ny. Well, fuck that noise. I’m here to tell you, beloved sub­jects of the reign, that those who pre­dict the demise of id­io­cy are not just wrong, they’re dead wrong. A so­ci­ety with­out id­iots is a so­ci­ety with­out a soul.”

I went on for a while, riff­ing on my theme and hav­ing a fine time. It kind of sur­prised me, all that ar­tic­u­late heat be­ing in me, es­pe­cial­ly be­cause, as I said pre­vi­ous­ly, I’m no kind of pub­lic speak­er. When I was done, Flo­rence raised her glass and told me, “I think you’ve got hold of some­thing there, Jimmy.”

Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. But I knew that by the time I stood up on that very same ta­ble to give the speech, less than twen­ty-four hours from now, I was def­i­nite­ly go­ing to have it.

Filed under Fiction on July 4th, 2025

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