I’d seen hospital rooms on television, but I had never been in one before that day—to my recollection. Nevertheless, there lay I, doped to the gills with painkillers, clothed in a drafty hospital gown, and bedded in a private room. I wondered who was paying for this extravagance; after all, I was one of forty-six million citizens lacking medical coverage.
I had ridden in an ambulance driven by Calvin Coolidge. With me rode Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who kept demanding that I stay awake. In spite of his radio presence, I floated in and out. As I passed through parallel elections and multiple congressional districts, my eyelids drifted shut of their own accord. Next came the experience of the emergency room, where Martin Van Buren stole away my clothes and examined me from head to toe. I remember John F. Kennedy checking me out, while I grabbed at his rump. I didn’t see President Kennedy again, sadly, because John Quincy Adams snatched me and wheeled me down a labyrinth, finally delivering me to Hillary Clinton who ran my head through a CAT scan. Though my mouth wasn’t working properly, I tried to convince Hillary that July 20, 1969 would be remembered as the most significant day in human history, even ahead of October 12, 1492, but she kept repeating over and over, “It takes a village to raise a Janet Dodger.”
July 20, 1969
October 12, 1492
“Mike has the jawbone of an ass,” the doctor informed an assembled group that included Lance, Bill, Kim, Lisa, Neil, Mom, Pop, and Janet. “He has a concussion, and since he lost consciousness we’re keeping overnight for observation. The concussion resulted from his head hitting the pillar. Otherwise he lost one molar on his left side, but the blow didn’t break a single bone in his head.”
My tongue explored my jaw. Sure enough, I discovered a gap stuffed with cotton.
“When can he come home?” Mom asked.
“Tomorrow, if nothing else develops,” the doctor said. “It’s really amazing. If any one of us took that punch, we’d have our jaws wired shut and eat through a straw for a month.”
“Tinker Bell always had a hard head,” Janet contributed. I freed the cotton with my tongue and spit it in her direction.
“Be aggressive in your treatment,” Lance urged. “Treat him as you would the President of the United States. The city is picking up the tab.”
In spite of the painkillers, my face hurt like hell. However, I made the effort. “I hope somebody locked up that crazy cop. If he’s walking the streets, I’ll be afraid to close my eyes.”
Lance hurried to my bedside. “Don’t worry, Mike. Internal Affairs has charge of him right now, but he’s going to get fired for certain and he’s facing six months in the county jail.”
My friends and family crowded around me. Mom and Pop kept asking how I was feeling. Somewhere, beneath the dope the doctor had shot into me, I felt the headache of a lifetime waiting to happen and my jaw still didn’t work right.
“I’m okay,” I muttered. I looked at Kim. “Don’t you have a candidate forum with the Bicycle and Pedestrian Coalition tonight?”
“We’re going to leave in a couple of minutes,” Bill said. He and Kim were dressed casually, appropriate to the group hosting the event.
“When’re we gonna to put up more yard signs, Mike?” Lisa asked, tears shining in her round eyes.
“Soon as they let me out of here.” I tried not to slur my words.
Neil patted my thigh beneath the hospital sheet. “You’re not afraid to get back to the campaign”
I drew my wits about me. “No. If anything, I’m more motivated,” I said. “A punch in the kisser excites me.”
“Spoken like a sicko pervert,” Janet proclaimed.
When Kim, Bill, Lisa, and Neil left for the candidate forum, Lance asked Mom, Pop, and Janet to give him a few minutes alone with me.
“Yuck,” Janet exclaimed. “They’re gonna go for the jab-booty in the hospital bed.”
Mom grabbed Janet, swatted her rear, and hustled her out the door, Pop slouching behind. Before Lance could say a word, a nurse who looked like she’d stepped out of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest hustled in and tried to kick Lance out. “My patient needs rest now,” she insisted.
“Give us one minute,” Lance asked.
The Big Nurse looked at her watch and stood her ground.
“Can you wait outside the door?” Lance asked. “This is confidential.”
With a low grumble in her throat and a check of her watch’s sweep second hand, Nurse Ratched departed.
“Can you smuggle in a gun?” I asked Lance. “A Colt .380 will do nicely.”
Lance supplied the appropriately horrified expression. “You think you need to defend yourself against Macmillan?”
“No, I’m gonna shoot Nurse Ratched.”
Lance chuckled, bent to my face, and kissed my lips. I was glad then for the painkillers. The emergency room doctor had stitched my lip where the cop’s fist had split it.
“I’m heading back to City Hall,” Lance said. “I’m going to confront Albee. I’m going to tell him I’m gay and that you’re my lover.”
“Are you sure?” I managed, as a swell of emotion filled me. I could feel tears leaking from my eyes.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” He consulted his watch. “Maybe I can still catch him.”
I started to shake my head; then thought better of it. “He’ll be on his way to that candidate forum.”
“You’re right.” Lance glanced over his shoulder as the Big Nurse reentered and started shooing him out. “I’ll tell him after tonight’s forum. I’ll see you in the morning, Mike.”
I tried blowing him a kiss, though it couldn’t have looked like much with the stitches. After bathing me with his angelic smile, Lance Hancock slipped out the door, neither of us knowing then that we wouldn’t see each other again until two miserable weeks had elapsed.
The next morning every molecule in my body throbbed; however, my discomfort didn’t deter a rough-trade orderly, who looked like an out-of-work longshoreman or a laid-off roustabout, from wheeling me down for a second brain scan. The doctor didn’t want my brains leaking out my ears after they sent me home. Confident that Lance would show while I was getting my head examined, I left strict instructions at the nurses’ station.
“Is Lance your boy-friend?” Nurse Ratched asked, her lip curling.
Before I could deliver a parting shot, the misplaced dock-walloper wheeled me out of her range. “Don’t let that twat get your goat,” he advised. “She usta be a nun, but they kicked her out for going down on a priest.”
When I got back to my room, I found Mom and Pop waiting. Both had taken the day off from work. Mom said, “During times like these, a boy needs his mother.” She started chanting “The Medicine Buddha Empowerment Mantra,” a Sanskrit recitation to eliminate the ills of the body.
During times like those, a boy needed his boyfriend. “Have you heard from Lance?” I asked.
“No,” Pop said. “Sorry son.” Mom was busy chanting, “Namo Bhagavate Bhaisajya Guru Vaidurya. Prabha. Rajaya. Tathagataya. Arhate samyak sambuddhaya. Tadyatha. Om Bhaisajye bhaisajye. Bhaisya. Samudgate. Svaha.”
I asked Pop to hand me my phone. He found it in a drawer, but it was wrecked. I must’ve fallen on it. Since the city was paying, I called from my bedside phone. The call bounced directly to Lance’s voice mail.
“Lance, are you all right?” I whispered. “I’ve been expecting you. How’d things go with the mayor?”
I gently cradled the receiver and sank back as Mom’s chant washed over me. The painkillers had worn off. I had a whopper of a headache and my jaw throbbed. My mouth was so sore that my breakfast had consisted of nothing but hot tea and yogurt. However, the greatest pain lay in my heart: Lance should have appeared by that time. At the least, he should’ve called me. Something was clearly wrong.
“Did the paper say anything about the attack?” I asked Pop.
“I didn’t see anything,” he admitted.
“The mayor probably suppressed it. Back in the good old days, newspapers had reporters hanging out at the police department and city hall so they could keep track. Now, the media waits to be informed.”
An hour later the doctor showed up. Since my brain wasn’t swelling, bleeding, or doing much else that morning, he told me that they would discharge me. Of course, another hour slipped off the clock face before the orderly showed up with a wheelchair to transport me to the front door. In the meantime, I’d swallowed orange juice and lime Jell-O, jumping at every footstep in the corridor in hopes that Lance would appear. When I finished slurping my lunch, I showered, wrapped a towel around my bare form, and asked for my clothes.
Mom smiled knowingly. “Mike, your nice suit was ruined, so Lance took it away with him. Yesterday evening while you were sleeping, a delivery man brought new clothes.”
Pop pulled open the wardrobe and pointed to a suit and shirt on hangers. Then he picked up some Saks Fifth Avenue bags from the floor of my closet and dumped them on the bed. (One thing Portland shares with New York City—Saks is located on Fifth Avenue). Everything had been delivered with the price tags attached. Pop picked up a package containing a single pair of black underpants. “Fifty dollars,” he choked in amazement. “Fifty bucks for one pair of skivvies.” Pop’s briefs came three to pack. Once a year Mom tossed out all the old ones she could find and purchased three new packs during the 25% off sale.
“Let me see those,” I said, reaching. Pop handed me the underpants, a black Hanro brand packaged as “Emotion Bikini Brief.”
Pop was still puzzling over the price of my underpants, but he suggested, “Donna, let’s let the boy dress in private.”
I called Lance again while my parents were out of the room. “Lance, I’m being discharged from the hospital,” I said. “Listen, don’t call my regular cell phone. It’s smashed. Ring me up on my home number or swing by. I want to see you.” I paused for a second. “Thanks for the clothes.” I hung up, dropped my towels and pulled on the sexy black briefs. Then I went to the closet and examined the black Hugo Boss pinstriped suit priced at $850.00 and the pastel Ermenegildo Zegna French cuff shirt, which had set Portland back $210.00.
“French cuffs,” I groaned aloud. I didn’t have any cufflinks: I’d never owned a cufflink in my life. I checked the accessories lying on the bed. Sure enough, Lance, or whoever had selected this outfit, had included cuff links, square Dunhill cufflinks with onyx centers at $235.00. Other items on the bed included black Brioni dress socks priced at $29.50; Salvatore Ferragamo classic dress shoes at a whopping $480.00; a Saks alligator belt, $325.00; a Dunhill Hallmark tie bar, $95.00: and a Ted Baker striped silk necktie; $75.00. I cut off the tags with the penknife on my key ring. The suit Scout Macmillan had ruined had set me back less than $200.00 on sale.
Pop drove us home, and upon arriving I grabbed up the morning paper and headed for the cellar. “I’m going to take a nap,” I called back.
After stripping and carefully putting away my new wardrobe, I scanned The Portland Bee. Nothing had been printed about me or Scout Macmillan. Sharon Hobbs had written a brief report on the previous evening’s candidate forum. According to Hobbs, neither the mayor nor Kim said anything noteworthy. She quoted both praising bicyclists and pedestrians. On one level of consciousness, I felt a certain satisfaction that I had missed the forum.
I tried calling Lance again, and once more got switched to his voice mail. Leaving no message, I hung up and dialed the Flanders Campaign office. Lisa answered on the second ring.
“It’s the human punching bag,” she announced.
After telling her that I was home and expected to survive, I asked how the forum went.
“Fantastic,” she said. “Kim whipped the mayor’s ass.”
“The Portland Bee didn’t write anything about an ass-kicking.”
“Oh, that Nazi rag.” Lisa dismissed the most influential newspaper in the state with airy aspersions. “Kim talked about how Portland was the best bicycle and pedestrian community in the country and offered suggestions to make the connections even better.”
“Yes, that sounds good. How’d he kick Albee’s ass?”
“Albee says the city needs to revisit the bicycle issue. Instead of letting that remark fly by, Kim calls him on it. Wants to know what the mayor means. So fuckin’ Albee says that bicycles and pedestrians are crowding cars off the roads. He says that people crossing at intersections are impeding the flow of traffic. Then the crowd boos him and he shuts his trap. It was fuckin’ great, Mike. You should’ve been there.”
After revealing what Sharon Hobbs forgot to mention, Lisa put Bill on. Naturally, Bill ordered me to take a few days off, but I informed him I’d be back on the job Friday.
When I hung up, I checked my voice mail. Sure enough, someone had called while I was on the phone. It never fails. I punched in the security code and listened to a mechanical voice tell me that I had one new message that had arrived at 3:01 p.m. Finally the phone got around to offering up my message.
“Mike, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Uh. This is Lance.” I already knew that; I’d know his voice anywhere. “I tried to do what we talked about, Mike. I tried. I’m sorry. I can’t see you anymore, Mike. Don’t call me anymore. I’m sorry. Have a good life. Uh. Oh, yeah, the city is still paying your hospital bill. I hope you liked the clothes I picked. Goodbye.”
The telephone receiver was a rattlesnake in my hand. I dropped it on the floor, and when I bent to pick it up my ears roared and the pounding headache returned with a vengeance. I cradled the receiver, curled up on my bed with my face turned toward my wall collage, and sobbed until I could sob no more. After a time, I slipped into a merciful sleep.
A ringing phone returned me to consciousness. My head was throbbing, but I grabbed up the receiver and mumbled some greeting.
“Mike,” twanged Bunny’s voice over the wire. “Me and the Buckaroo is all a-twitter. We heard tell ‘bout a passel o’ hard-case, badge-toting galloots skitting and hullabalooing and knocking yore punkin’ head galley west whilst crowdin’ their nightsticks up yore pooper.”
Bunny’s description brought me fully awake. I sat up. “Bunny, while you’re spreading fabrications, add that Justin T. Albee pulled down his pants and mooned the crowd while the cops were working me over.”
“’Tain’t gospel?” Bunny asked. Did I detect a note of disappointment? Had I jammed the wheels of the rumor mill by not getting my rectum stretched and my head caved in?
“That sadistic cop from the bandstand punched me in the mouth and I hit my head. That’s all. I’ll be okay in another day.”
“That ole’ boy needs to git corralled,” Bunny mused.
“Taken care of,” I said. “When the marshals who protected the public gather for the big roundup, Scout won’t be among their number.”
“Mike, we’d appreciate your leaving the cowboy metaphors to us,” Bunny said, so annoyed that his hayseed diction temporarily evaporated. “What do you want us to do?”
“See if you can arrange a casual meeting with Justin T. Albee’s receptionist, Mrs. Lincoln. Buy her a drink—or hot chocolate and cookies. Find out what’s going on between Lance and the mayor. The wheels are coming off the wagon.” I didn’t mention that my love life had gone awry.
“The Buckaroo and me’ll rope that heifer, Mike,” Bunny promised, stretching the cowboy jingoism way too far.”
After agreeing to meet in Shaketown the next afternoon, we hung up. Then I called Lizzie Dykeman and after she reported that she had so far struck out on discovering any of Albee’s sexual indiscretions, I gave her instructions regarding Lance’s secretary Satoko. Governor Earl Long once said that a public man has to be discreet in his indiscretions, but Justin T. Albee had carried discretion to a whole new level. He’d made his dirty, little secrets top secret.
Finally, I called Lance’s cell phone. Again, I connected directly through to his voice mail.
“Lance, what’s happening? You shouldn’t leave me twisting in the wind. Last night everything was fine. You kissed me and you were going to come out to the mayor. Then this morning you didn’t show up as promised, and then you leave me this horrible message. That was cruel, Lance. I don’t understand what’s happening.”
I hung up before I said anything even stupider or started crying into the phone. Crying would run him off for sure—as would anger, and I was pissed. “How could you treat me like this?” I asked aloud to the erotic collage that was my room. “No one insults Mike Dodger with impunity,” I vowed, sounding to my own ears like a mad scientist in a low-budget horror flick.
I heard a hand twisting my doorknob. I’d thought I’d locked it, but apparently my brain had been more scrambled than I’d thought. Janet skipped blithely in to catch me standing in the center of my room, tastefully attired in the contour-delineating Hanro briefs. Mahatma had followed Janet down the cellar stairs. The dog promptly climbed into my unmade bed.
Janet’s eyes narrowed, her nostrils flared, and the corners of her mouth turned somewhat downward. “Jesus H. Christ. Spike wears the same underpants as you, Tinker Bell. He gets a five-finger discount. I gotta tell you, Spike’s cock is bigger.”
“So what?” I said, turning my back. Mahatma made himself comfortable with his head on my pillow.
“Cheer up, Tinker Bell. Your ass sticks out like a girl’s. I guess that’s a good thing considering you’re a big fairy.”
“What do you want?” I demanded.
“Mom wants to know if you can eat real food tonight.”
I’d consumed my fill of pudding and Jell-O. “Yeah, I could eat a horse.”
“Right, Tinker Bell, and I know what part of the horse you’d like. Drag your gay buns upstairs. Supper’s ready.”
I pulled my robe from my closet, tied it around my waist, slipped my feet into my burgundy terrycloth slippers, coaxed the dog off my bed, and followed Janet upstairs.
Mom had fixed meatloaf smothered in onion sauce with mashed potatoes and squash. My jaw was sore, but I managed to swallow a substantial meal. I may have lost Lance, but I hadn’t misplaced my appetite. I was going to need my strength: I’d emerged from the hospital more determined than ever to whip Justin T. Albee, and after Kim took over City Hall, I’d accept the Chief-of-Staff position. I was itching to take care of a few people.
From the Shaketown parking lot, I saw Bunny and the Buckaroo seated in a booth. The evening before, Pop had driven me to campaign headquarters to pick up my Honda, so I was rolling again. I locked up the car and hurried through the drizzle into the overheated restaurant. I bought an Oregon hazelnut milkshake, a hamburger fully loaded, and a large order of fries, promising Mom’s goddess of nutrition that at some future date I’d pay attention to my diet. Tucking that admirable resolution away, I piled my food on the table across from the cowboys.
“Did you talk with Mrs. Lincoln?” I asked after I’d flavored my fries with loads of salt and ketchup, popped the lid off my shake and tasted it, and gobbled a bite from my burger.
“Yep. The gal related ‘twere some shindy betwixt the mayor and yore boyfriend. First thing yesterday, Lance up and pops inter Albee’s office, but Sawyer comes after and couple o’ minutes later Lance vamooses out ‘white as a ghost,’ she says. After that, ole’ Albee’s got the mugwumps like a stove-up skunk, and finally shins out during the shank o’ the afternoon. Meanwhile, Lance hain’t takin’ no calls, nor does he make airy a one through the switchboard. And that’s all the gal knewed.”
“Airy a one.” I thought. So Lance had tried to follow through with his plan. Anything might’ve happened. Had he chickened-out when he looked the mayor in the eye? Or had Albee ordered him to stay in the closet until after the election? What was happening inside City Hall? What was going on with the Albee reelection campaign? Was my life turning into a soap opera?
“So what you got a notion fer?” the Buckaroo asked.
I pondered the cowboy’s vague query. “Keep on the mayor. See what you can unearth.” A humorous suggestion sprang to mind. “Unless you boys want to swing by headquarters and help with the phone banks?” The voters would think Chester of Gunsmoke was calling.
Bunny trembled at the suggestion and the Buckaroo paled. “The phone don’t fease the voters none,” Bunny said. “Nothin’ but a noise to ‘em.”
“I don’t know what fease means, but otherwise I’m with you. However, negative calls work. Maybe we can run another push poll this weekend. Meanwhile, if you get tired of following the mayor, you can pull up some of his yard signs. I’m taking Lisa out again tonight and breaking her in on the rough stuff.”
When I strolled into campaign headquarters, Lisa dropped her phone and ran to examine me. Firing unanswerable questions about my general condition, she followed me to my desk. I sat down and grinned at her.
“How’s your mouth?” She demanded, impulsively grabbing my chin and prying my teeth apart. My lip stretched around the stitches.
“Leave off,” I yelped, wincing with pain. “I’m not a horse. Keep your dirty fingers out of my mouth.”
Soon I had the full staff including Bill and Kim, plus a cadre volunteers and interns, scattering questions without waiting for my response. “Does it hurt? How’s your brain? When do the stitches come out? Did you lose a lot of brain cells? Are you gonna sue the city? Did getting hit affect you, uh, you know, like sexually?”
Assuring my fellow travelers that my brain and dick functioned as before, and that the doctor would snip my stitches in a few days, I escaped into my e-mail system. During my absence I’d accumulated a few messages, but none left me in a condition of breathless excitement—I’d received no word from Lance. Likewise, my voice mail held nothing but a waste land of trivia. I spent the shank of the afternoon composing an e-mail from The Precious Virtuous Decency League. Signing myself Gene Debs, I created new allegations about Albee’s affairs with young teenagers, and touched upon my past invention of Albee’s career in pornographic films. I wrote that the mayor’s boast that he’d invented pancakes called his sanity into question and spoke volumes regarding his integrity.
By the time I finished, I was believing my own fabrications. I could remember Justin T. Albee claiming he invented pancakes. I sent the message to Neil’s e-mail, and he bounced it through a complex network until it multiplied and landed in the e-mailboxes of those luckless souls who’d attended Albee’s “Amazing Grace” fundraiser.
Bill emerged from his office and read the letter over Neil’s shoulder. “You boys,” he reproved, shuddering at our perfidy. Nevertheless, he didn’t suggest that Neil retract the message.
Satisfied with another job well done, I poured coffee into my mug and settled onto the corner of Lisa’s desk. She looked up at me with doe’s eyes. “Sorry I grabbed your mouth,” she said.
“It’s okay, Lisa,” I said. “Just control your impulses.”
Her sorrowful expression shifted to one of pure demonic wickedness. “That’s what Lou says.”
“Speaking of Lou, would she mind sharing you tonight?”
“What’ve you got in mind?” Lisa demanded.
“I thought we’d put up a few more yard signs.”
Lisa wrinkled her nose. “The way you do it? Without people knowing they’re getting them?”
“Naturally. That way they can’t refuse.”
“I’ll bet a beer that every friggin’ sign we put up has been burned in somebody’s fireplace.”
“It’s a bet,” I said. “So I’ll pick you up around 10:00?”
Lisa blew a loud raspberry, but she said, “Okay.”
Thus it came to pass that around 10:30 on Friday night Lisa and I were rolling toward my rural mailbox. I hadn’t emptied the box for days, and I was afraid the mail carrier would question why the mail was piling up. Since I saw no sign of a police car hiding behind the bushes, I figured that the God of Opportunity had switched to my side again.
Lisa was snooping into my break-up with Lance. “So you ran-off another one?” she commented solicitously—solicitously for Lisa, that is.
“I didn’t run him off, as you so quaintly put it,” I protested. “Something scared him away. It’s a setback but not as bad as it looks. I got him once; I’ll get him again.”
“Optimism can be a snare,” Lisa opined with a fatalistic whistle.
I applied the brake. “See what’s in the mailbox.”
Turning her head to her right, Lisa abruptly realized where I’d brought her. “Oh, crap, we’re gonna steal their fuckin’ mail again?”
“We’re not stealing anything.”
“It’s a felony!” Lisa howled, enjoying herself immensely.
Three additional voters’ pamphlets had turtled through the postal system. Tons of political advertisements accompanied them—though none from our campaign—and other advertising flyers filled the box, including seventeen credit card offers and ninety-seven inducements to purchase burial plots. The senders selling funeral plans were sitting way behind the eight ball.
A hundred yards north of my mailbox we passed a car lurking beside the road. With a sinking heart, I recognized the tell-tale signs, and even Lisa commented, “An unmarked police car. What’s up, Mike? The cops are all over your ass.”
My nausea returned, masking fear, but I assured myself that the cop couldn’t have seen us extracting the mail because too many trees and bushes stood between him and the mailbox. However, this cop was too close for comfort. During the 1964 presidential election, Senator Barry Goldwater’s slogan ran, “In your heart you know he’s right.” In response, college kids carried signs reading, “In your guts you know he’s nuts.” In my butt I knew Lisa had one lucid thought: the police were all over my ass.
I drove to the neighborhood where we’d planted signs on Sunday night. Even I was amazed that all but two were still standing. Either the homeowners were Flanders supporters or they hadn’t noticed the signs popping up like mushrooms.
“I don’t fuckin’ believe it,” Lisa swore. “These people are sheep.”
“That’s how people vote in this country,” I affirmed. “Like sheep. People like you and I lead them to the polls and tell them how they should vote. Then they do it. And if we don’t do our jobs, then it’s the radio talk show hosts or other pundits in the media who tell them what to do and make them believe it’s their own idea.”
Even in the uncertain light, Lisa turned noticeably green. “Then why the fuck am I sitting on the phone every goddamn day trying to convince people to think about the campaign and the issues?”
“How the hell should I know, Lisa. I don’t waste my time with such trash. Remember the old Chuck Colson motto, before he became a born again whatever: ‘When you’ve got ‘em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.’”
“That motto makes me want to cry,” Lisa complained as I drove us to another neighborhood crying out for Flanders campaign signs.
“You can cry while you’re buying my beer.”
Chuck Colson
“Fucking hell.”
We scouted likely yards, boldly trespassing, hammering stakes into private property, and admiring our handiwork. We’d planted fifteen signs in prominent locations before disaster struck. Lisa had hammered in a stake, and I was in the process of stapling on the yard sign when the front door of the house opened wide.
“What’s going on there? a coarse voice shouted. “I’ve got a dog.”
“You ordered a yard sign,” I shouted back. “We’re putting it up for you.”
“That’s a faggot Flanders sign,” he yelled. “Sic ‘em, Fritz.” A large dog bounded out the door.
“Oh, fuckin’ hell,” Lisa shrieked, springing for my Honda. Though burdened with the hammer and stapler, I ran hard on her heels. Lisa dived into the passenger seat while I slid across the hood of the car—or Fritz would’ve had me for certain—and gained my door while the dog was running around the car.
Fritz, a blackish German Shepherd, was scrambling at my car door and pawing at my window. I hated to imagine what his nails were doing to my paint. Fritz backed off when I started the engine, so I sped away before the homeowner could reach us. I turned the first corner and put miles between ourselves and that neighborhood.
“Crap, Mike,” Lisa said. “Did you get a good look at that fuckin’ dog?”
“Better than you did; he was trying to bite the door off my side,” I said.
“You’re missing the point, dumb ass. What kind of dog is Fritz?”
“A German Shepherd,” I ventured. I had no idea what she was getting at.
Lisa snorted at my stupidity. “Fritz is a police dog. I tell you, Mike, those fuckin’ cops are on your ass.”
Tuesday morning, two weeks before Election Day, I was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee, and reading Lizzie Dykeman’s final report. My private investigator had dug up the dirt, even to the extent of luring Lance’s secretary Satoko into her bed, giving her multiple cascading orgasms, and winning a fortune in loose-lipped pillow talk.
Lizzie’s information wouldn’t help with the campaign against Albee, though the Flanders campaign account was paying her standard rates—even for the stolen hours she spent luring Satoko into cheating on her partner. Lizzie’s expense sheet included phone calls calculated to lay the suspicions of Satoko’s lover and accessories purchased from a shop specializing in sexual toys and love lotions.
The weekend had been long. After the strange behavior of the police dog in the night, Lisa and I had erected signs in another neighborhood. Then, on Saturday evening, having sufficiently corrupted her, I inveigled Lisa into conducting a push poll along with Neil, Bunny, and the Buckaroo. We’d made the calls from a gay bar—not Shove It—and Lisa had bought the beer. We called a list of Holy Rollers, identified ourselves as The Precious Virtuous Decency League, and asked if Christians would be more or less likely to vote for Justin T. Albee if they knew he was a child molester.
The results had varied. Six Goody-Two-Shoes sniveled, four Lip Servers recited mealy-mouthed platitudes, and eight Whited Sepulchers canted. One Holier-Than-Thou affirmed he wouldn’t believe Justin T. Albee was screwing underage females if Albee himself bragged about it on a stack of Holy Writs.
Sitting in the empty house, I scratched Mahatma’s ears and returned my attention to Lizzie’s report. The whole grim story of Lance’s poltroonery was spelled out, mingled with descriptions of Satoko’s moans as Lizzie gobbled the information.
On Thursday morning, while Satoko eavesdropped through her intercom (her customary clandestine exercise), Lance had marched into Albee’s office, emboldened by the assault on me, and attempted to tell Albee that he was my lover. At the last second, Lance’s courage failed (the best of us needs support when coming out in the face of hostility, and Lance had tried going it alone—ask the 43rd president how well that tactic works). Timorous and doubting, Lance ended up suggesting that City Hall had been infiltrated by a homosexual coven bent on undermining Albee’s reelection. Lance had mentioned me to the horrified mayor, not by name but by description. Finally, Lance returned to his own office, appalled by the rank betrayal that had issued from his mouth, but too ashamed to admit the truth. Meanwhile, Justin T. Albee was so disturbed by the revelation that he spent the remainder of the day in bed under the influence of a powerful sedative administered by his personal physician.
On Friday, Stacy Sawyer, panicked by Lance’s accusations, sprang her trap. She attempted to “out” Lance to the flustered mayor. She claimed that she’d long suspected Lance and had dragged him to Skindive to expose his inclinations. When Albee, more befuddled and bewildered than before, summoned Lance to his office, Lance denied he was gay, swore that the patrons of the boy-boy bar had disgusted him, accused Sawyer of being a lesbian, and offered to fuck Sawyer on the mayor’s carpet. When she told him not to be insulting, he claimed she’d proved the truth of his allegation.
Stacy Sawyer seized the lapels of Albee’s suit coat. “You met Lance’s boyfriend,” she screamed hysterically while the thoroughly frightened mayor mashed the “Homeland Security” button on his telephone. “It’s Mike Dodger. Lance brought him to the park.”
“I didn’t spot any shirtlifters at my barbecue,” Albee stalled, praying for rescue. “I remember a young lady with a Golden Retriever, the one with the nice . . . um . . . ah . . .”
“He joined the Rainbow Club,” Sawyer shrieked, pointing at Lance who cringed and bolted around Albee’s desk. The two men huddled in the face of Stacy’s wrath.
Reaching into her bag, Sawyer dragged out a photocopy of Lance’s membership card and waved it in the mayor’s face. Lance was prepared for that move, claiming that he’d joined the Rainbow Club to expose the coven of shirtlifters in City Hall.
“I’ve been conducting an undercover investigation,” Lance claimed. “I’ve infiltrated the shirtlifters trying to undermine you, Mr. Mayor, and laid bare their dirty tricks.”
Stacy Sawyer virtually leaped across the desk and grabbed Albee’s necktie. “Come to the Rainbow Club with me,” she shrilled, nearly pulling him across his desk. Albee foiled her by hanging onto Lance. “You can ask anybody there. It’s a gay club.”
“It’s also a lesbian club, Stacy,” Lance taunted, attempting to shake loose from the mayor’s desperate grasp. “Let’s hear you say the word lesbian.”
“Faggot.”
“Dyke.”
“I’m not a dyke,” Sawyer shrieked, which made Satoko hurl her intercom toward the opposing wall and run for the scene of the action. She burst through the doorway at the same instant as the belated Homeland Security.
“How can you deny you’re a gay girl, Stacy?” Satoko cried as the Homeland Security agents cuffed Sawyer’s wrists. “You’ve betrayed our love.” She turned to Albee. “Mr. Mayor, Stacy Sawyer and I live together. We sleep in the same bed. We’ve been committed sexual partners for fifteen years.”
Feeling numb, I laid down the typed sheets. The report differed in some details from the story I’d heard from Bunny and the Buckaroo. However, discrepancies were to be expected, and Lizzie’s source was more reliable. Nor did I feel guilty about paying Lizzie to seduce Satoko—no one deserved a cheating bitch more than Stacy Sawyer.
I couldn’t blame Lance for betraying me. He’d lied to save his own ass. He hadn’t been rooting out gay deceivers: he’d wanted my body, and our lovemaking had been hot. However, cold feet had carried him back into the closet. Dark clouds were covering our affair, and the horizon wasn’t rosy with hints of our future bliss. I traced my finger over the photograph of Lance that Lizzie Dykeman had provided.
“I had you, my pretty,” I cackled madly, alarming Mahatma so that his ears lifted. “I’ll have you again. I’ll make you mine forever.” And I shook the kitchen table with forlorn glee and crazed desperation.
