Shortly before the polls officially closed on election evening, Lance and I arrived at the Safeway drop-off site with the signed ballots from the Lone Fir Cemetery. Lance had regarded me dubiously as I displayed the ballots, but he soon fell in with my scheme. He helped me carry the stacks to the attendant who received them with great wonder.
“Oh, my goodness,” she said. “Look at all these. You barely brought them here in time.”
“They’re from an old-folks home,” I said. “We’re the delivery boys.”
“It’s wonderful that you young folks are willing to help these old people vote,” the volunteer gushed.
Adjusting our haloes, Lance and I rushed back to Ladd’s Addition, stripped off our clothes, and made passionate gay love, which did us more good than any nap. After cuddling in each other’s arms, we shaved, showered, combed, and when we heard Janet bellowing rude remarks outside our door, hurried upstairs for dinner.
After consuming Mom’s hamburgers with onions, ketchup drenched fries, and green peas, followed by a thick apple pie lathered with Cool Whip, we brushed our teeth, and decked ourselves in our finery.
Of course, I dressed in the black Hugo Boss pinstriped suit Lance had brought for me at Saks and all the accouterment including the Hanro bikini underpants.
“That suit looks great on you,” Lance said.
“I never got a chance to thank you,” I said, grabbing the back of his head and kissing him hard.
“Oh, you’ve thanked me,” he said, caressing my buns with both hands. “You’ve given me your love.”
Before the event could turn into another soap opera scene, we summoned a taxi to carry us downtown. With campaign parties taking place at the major hotels, parking would be impossible. At 8:30, the cab dropped us in front of the Governor Hotel, and the uniformed doorman hurried to open our taxi’s door.
Television and print reporters were stretched thin since the presidential election was taking place, the proponents of ballot measures like Peter Prickle’s anti-gay-marriage crowd had their parties, and the political organizations were hosting events. To facilitate media coverage, the Flanders campaign had joined with five other non-partisan campaigns and rented the Governor Hotel’s ballroom, so in addition to our group, two city commission candidates, two county commission candidates, one candidate for metro council and their staffs and supporters were partying in the ballroom.
Sharon Hobbs was standing outside the hotel, somewhat apart from the doormen, making notes in her stenographer’s book. At her side stood Jennifer, Lance’s former roommate, and I wondered what was going on between them.
As Kim Flanders, Bill St. John, and Bill’s lover Tom Knott were climbing out of a limousine, the photographer from The New Out snapped their picture. Lance and I shook hands with Tom and hugged Bill and Kim. Kim was still telling Bill his plans. “I’m not hiding until the votes have been tallied. These people are my friends and supporters. I’m going to hang out with them.”
“Your availability leaves you open to questions from reporters,” Bill protested, “and if the numbers are looking bad, anything you say could be construed as a concession.”
“Do you feel like a winner this evening, Mr. Flanders?” Sharon Hobbs called out.
“Yes, he does,” I shouted since Kim hadn’t heard the question.
Kim Flanders’ eyes glinted with a hardness I didn’t know he possessed. He was still focused upon Bill’s remarks about concession. “Albee called me an ill-conceived degenerate, a namby-pamby pantywaist, and a milksop pansy. There will be no concession, Bill, and if that panty-wearing bastard wins I won’t congratulate him.”
With Sharon Hobbs scribbling furiously behind us, we strode into the crowded ballroom where television reporters were announcing the early returns. Satoko and Stacy had been waiting for us just inside the door. Neil and Lisa, their shoulders slumped in defeat, were staring at the announcer. With 12% of the ballots counted, the total stood at 58% for Albee and 42% for Flanders.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Lisa shrieked, causing heads to turn.
Kim slid his arm around her shoulders. “Those percentages don’t mean anything, Lisa,” he said. “The churches that collect their congregation’s ballots and the extreme right wing talk show fans get their ballots in early.”
A hand gripped my shoulder, and I turned to find a pair of grinning cowpokes. Bunny and the Buckaroo were dressed in suits, albeit Western cut with string ties and cowboy boots.
“That slick-heeled varmint hain’t hornswoggled us yit,” the Buckaroo announced confidently.
Lance and I strolled around the room, greeting each candidate, both the jubilant and the crestfallen. When Lance and I made our way back to the Kim Flanders group, we saw that the percentages had improved slightly, though with 28% of the ballots counted Albee still led with 54%. By 10:30, 75% of the ballots had been counted and Albee stood at 52%, and in spite of his gradually falling numbers the Fox affiliate television news station projected the incumbent mayor as the winner.
Lisa swore a blue streak and then cried on my suit coat.
“Hobble yore lip, gal,” Bunny insisted. “T’ain’t over ‘til the fat steer yodels.” The group moan could be heard across the ballroom, but Bunny pressed on. “Right ‘bout now, that Albee’s full of wind as a bull in corn season.”
At 11:00, the local stations were reporting 80% counted with Albee holding at 52%, Bill’s cell phone rang.
“Ignore it,” I suggested.
“No,” Bill said. “I’m going to send a message to the fucker.”
“Let me talk to him,” Kim suggested.
“No way,” we all chipped in. Bill answered his phone, and we heard a coarse voice haranguing over the wire. Dirty Jack was calling to demand Kim Flanders’ concession.
Abruptly, the Buckaroo grabbed the phone from Bill’s hand. “Looky here, you ole’ pecker pole,” the Buckaroo advised his listener. “Yore more balled-up than a Rocky mountain canary if’n you think we’re lightin’ out now.” An explosive blast of strong language emerged from the phone.
The Buckaroo replied gamely, “Next time you call, I’m a-comin’ over there, pullin’ down yore britches, and cornholing you on live TV.” The Buckaroo looked at the phone quizzically. “The damn-fool peckerwood hung up,” he complained.
At midnight, 92% of the ballots had been counted, with Albee a scant 513 votes ahead. Our conversation died down and we stood in silence waiting. Bill twice called the supervisor of elections to ask how close they were to the end. The supervisor promised to call as soon as the final ballots had been tallied.
Meanwhile, the local stations continued broadcasting the results, and the heavily perspiring newsman at Fox admitted that his projection might have been premature. At 1:14 a.m., Bill’s phone rang. I nearly jumped out of my clothes, but I wasn’t alone. Tense white faces stared as Bill answered.
“396 votes,” Bill said, pale, almost trembling, but grinning triumphantly. “Kim, you won by 396 votes.”
“Albee will demand a recount,” Stacy Sawyer prophesized, but a few seconds later Kim’s cell phone warbled. Justin T. Albee was calling to concede the election. We’d elected Portland’s first openly gay mayor.
On Friday evening, we celebrated in a banquet room of a popular Portland steakhouse: Our party included the candidate and his sister, Lance Hancock, me, Bill St. John and his lover Tom Knot and their friends David Ankeny and Alex Skidmore, Bill’s photographer friend, my private eye Lizzie Dykeman, Lisa Shaw and Lou, Bunny and the Buckaroo, the teachers Charles Charters and Larry, Al of Al’s Print Job and Robby of the curvy ass, Neil Boyd and his partner Bob, Satoko and Stacy Sawyer, the interns Kathy and Spencer Underwood, the volunteers Rebecca Fakler and Bruce the Weasel, Mom, Pop, Janet, and Mahatma. Spike and Spank hadn’t been invited; at the time, Spike was topping Janet’s shit-list for some cause she refused to specify. However, we did have the reporter Sharon Hobbs joining us. Sharon’s companion for the evening was Jennifer.
I’d gotten Mahatma past the restaurant manager by claiming that he was a service dog. The manager had been suspicious, but I drew him aside and assured him that the dog was necessary to keep my mentally retarded, obsessive-compulsive, paranoid-schizophrenic sister from demolishing his restaurant.
“Pets are the newest thing in psychiatric care,” I whispered as he eyeballed Janet uneasily. “The dog alleviates my sister’s more alarming symptoms.”
“Hustle your ass, Tinker Bell,” Janet yelled. “The party’s in this room, not in the manager’s pants.”
“Of course the dog can stay,” the manager acquiesced suddenly. “We’ve always made accommodation for working animals.”
I nodded my thanks, but he fled to his office and didn’t reappear that night. I entered the meeting room where servers were pouring big mugs of the Deschutes Brewery’s Mirror Pond Pale Ale or Obsidian Stout. (When Janet presented her mug, the server filled it with fruit juice. I chose the stout, mirroring the sentiments of the old Monty Python sketch about American lager being like making love in a canoe—fucking close to water).
“Let’s join hands,” Mom insisted as I took my seat next to Lance, and no one had the will power to dissuade her. I ended up holding Lance’s hand with my right and Mahatma’s front paw with the other. Janet held the dog’s other front paw.
“Oh, rollicking Daughter of the star-struck naked nights,” Mom intoned. “Oh, radiant Maiden of the grass-gowned morning,” she continued, rolling her R’s outrageously.
Releasing the poor dog’s paw, I nudged Janet over Mahatma’s head. “Mom’s off the Hindu/Buddha thing finally.”
“Sounds like Hell’s brazen witchcraft to me, Tinker Bell,” Janet said. “Jesus has gotta hate our family.”
Mahatma was seated beside Janet’s chair, the party hat on his golden head fastened securely with a rubber strap. I slipped him a bone treat before raising my mug in a toast. “It’s as Benjamin Franklin so wisely said . . .” I started, but Dave Ankeny rudely attempted to complete my quotation. “He that lies down with dogs, shall rise up with fleas.”
“No,” I said, rather piqued. “That’s not the quotation I was thinking of.”
Neil threw his oar in. “He that lives upon hope, dies farting?”
I sighed dramatically. “Not that one either. I was thinking of him saying that ‘Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy.’”
“Mike, that quotation is an Internet hoax,” Dave chimed in. “You’re quoting the Philadelphia town drunk, not Ben Franklin.”
“You go, girl,” Tom Knott contributed.
I gnashed my teeth while Lance patted my hand in consolation.
“Franklin said it,” I muttered.
“There, there, Mike,” Lance whispered.
Kim Flanders raised his mug toward the freshly laundered purple panties hanging like a flag from a pole. “Let’s toast Justin T. Albee’s panties,” he suggested. “When you stole the mayor’s underpants, you turned the tide of this election.”
I raised my glass and drank to the former mayor’s slinky underwear though I knew deep down that Albee’s underpants hadn’t won the election. As I sipped, I turned to Lance, the love of my life, and winked into his knowing face. Lance responded with a kiss.
“I’m your willing accomplice, Mike,” Lance had assured me after we turned in the graveyard ballots, “your partner in everything—always.”
Bunny, the Buckaroo, Neil, and I registered 804 phony graveyard ballots, and Kim won by 396 votes. Mayor Kim Flanders owed his political success to fraud, but he would never know.
After the election, Lance, Neil, Lisa, and I opened a campaign consulting and direct mail firm. Our business made us wealthy, so Lance and I finally moved out of my parents’ basement and into a fine house we bought in the Western Hills. Janet dumped Spike after the election. She graduated high school, got accepted by the education program at Oregon State, and plans to become a history teacher, though she claims she’s going for a stint in the Peace Corps before she settles down into a teaching job. (Mom attributes the changes in Janet to the good influence of the Bodhisattva Maharini Jones.)
Satoko ran for the state legislature, and with Lance and I running her campaign, she won handily. She and Stacy still live together. Sharon Hobbs became Jennifer’s roommate. We see Sharon and Jennifer frequently, and Jennifer still pesters us to let them watch. She claims that Bunny and the Buckaroo fuck for the girls (which I don’t believe), so why should Lance and I be shy? Lance always tells Jennifer that it’ll never happen. He thinks we’d end up on the front page, and he’s determined that our love would be a media event one time only.
Besides Lance and I are too busy to entertain a pair of curious females. We received a call from Bill St. John asking for our help. Kim Flanders has decided to run for governor.
