Hizzoner beguiling as bus tour backfires

Hizzoner beguiling as bus tour backfires

Am I punch-drunk? Woozy? Dazzled, maybe? No, no, no.

What I am is ┘ beguiled.

I just left Mayor Carty Finkbeiner's office, where I was summoned yesterday by The Good Carty. From notes I took during my hour-plus mayoral meeting:

I am being wooed. Such charisma! Whatta smile!!

And to think, Carty played defense on a column I probably wouldn't have even written.

This involved a tale of, depending on the teller, a mayoral (a) kidnapping or (b) kindness. As one city hall vet said: "People are just dying about this story."

Long story short: In April, during the monthly bus tour - a rolling fun-fest in which Hizzoner forces underlings to take a long, hard look at the city - Carty spotted a kid alone on a sidewalk during school hours.

As it turned out, Nelson Foster, 13, had a stomachache. Excused from school, he waited for a bus. One reason I wasn't inclined to write about what happened next is because there's so little agreement about what happened next. Mayoral staffers I spoke with agreed only that the boy was named "Norman."

Um, b-i-g confirmation problems.

Anyway, Nelson got on the bus. The group was heading back downtown, Carty said, and someone would get him home.

First, a stop at COSI.

Version 1, from a Carty underling: "We got out of the bus, except Norman. The mayor was a little agitated with the condition of the park. ┘ He was literally screaming. By this time, it's 12:15 or 12:30. It was a beautiful day and people were walking by watching him scream."

Back on the bus, according to the Version 1 source, Carty "unleashed another tirade" sprinkled with profanity, while "poor Norman's sitting there holding his stomach and watching."

Now get Version 2 of the mayor's remarks, from another Carty underling:

"He was mad about the state of an area near COSI, but he wasn't going berserk on the bus in front of Norman or anything like that. Most of his comments [occurred] outside the bus. And based on how bad shape the area was in, it really wasn't inappropriate. ┘ I don't remember it being X-rated, but you know, I'm one of these guys who's been around for awhile. I know when he's saying a lot of things, he doesn't mean anything."

As for Hizzoner, he affixed a firm smile on his face, looked me straight in the eye, and calmly said: "If you say I blew my cork that day, I'll tell you I did. Absolutely."

Sigh. Honesty is so disarming.

But did he blow his cork (with grown-up vocabulary) back on the bus, in front of Nelson? Hizzoner leaned forward, and it felt like a gesture of disclosure.

"I honestly don't remember if I said anything when I got back on the bus. I may have. But I did blister my people."

I stopped by Nelson's house, to get his version, but he was in school. His aunt, Danielle Hardison, knew just what I was asking about, though.

"He said he got a ride from the mayor. We didn't believe it at first!"

On the phone later with Nelson, he told me Carty "said a curse word because the garbage was everywhere by COSI."

Other than that, the mayor was "really nice."

Plus, there's that beguiling smile.