Parties in Congress (6 page)

She tossed the pages haphazardly on her desk, intending to read them later when she was less distracted. She reclaimed her computer mouse and, out of habit, did a search on “Colleen O’Bannon.”

A news entry she hadn’t seen earlier was now at the top of the search results. She clicked it and scanned the story with great interest.

Once done, she rose, approached the mayor’s office, and knocked on Janet’s door, knowing she was ensconced in there with Donna. Swallowing loudly, she listened for a response from within.

Instead, the door flew open and she was face-to-face with a very aggravated-looking campaign manager. “What is it?” Donna barked.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Bijal replied softly, staring past her antagonist and speaking directly to Mayor Denton. “But I thought you’d want to know that O’Bannon has responded publicly to the gay-bashing in DC yesterday.”

Donna blinked absently. “Gay-bashing?”

“Uh, you know,” Bijal explained awkwardly, “the two men who were beaten downtown last night?” Neither Janet nor Donna showed a glimmer of recognition, so Bijal continued. “One was killed? The other’s in critical condition?”

Janet finally mustered an expression, and it was apparently confusion. “I must have missed that story.”

Bijal was now officially livid. “Um…okay.” Did the two of them just sit in the office telling ghost stories and making s’mores all day while everyone else in the office actually worked? How did they both miss such a major local news story? The national press had even run it that morning.

“Did O’Bannon decide to have a big gay press conference?” Donna asked sarcastically. “That can only help us.”

“No,” Bijal replied curtly. “But the media approached her for a statement since she’s both openly gay and a co-sponsor of the hate-crimes bill. I sent you both a link to the story with her full response.”

“Great,” Janet said brightly. “Thanks.” Neither made a move to look at Janet’s computer.

A very awkward silence ensued as Bijal became more incredulous that she was apparently the only person in the room who cared about this development. “Because the press may want to get your response as well,” she suggested, trying to help them understand. More silence. “Since you’re her opponent…and this has become a very visible issue.”

“Maybe we could get some free airtime out of this,” Janet suggested to Donna.

Donna shook her head rapidly. “We don’t want to touch this with a ten-foot pole, Janet. Let’s let this pitch go by and we’ll swing at the next one. Roo, if anyone calls for a statement on this, we have no comment. Let everyone know.”

“You don’t think we should prepare
anything
?” Bijal asked, no longer caring that her annoyance was patently audible in her voice.

Janet cocked her head slightly. “What are you thinking, Bijal? Do you have an idea?”

“It’s important as a mayor of a small town for you to shift more inside the Beltway.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Donna asked, her nose wrinkled in disgust.

“It means that it’s more important for Janet to be seen as out front on issues that are national, and even more so on issues within DC—which, incidentally, isn’t that far from District 12.”

Janet scowled. “Hmm.”

“But there’s no way to win on this issue, Roo. If we come out as even remotely pro-gay or pro-hate-crime legislation, we risk losing the right.”

Bijal suddenly pictured the large Hitler dildo Fran had described. “I don’t believe that.”

Donna looked stunned. “You what?”

“We need to be appealing to the moderates, not the social conservatives. O’Bannon’s already put herself out there as extremely progressive. No matter where you stand on most issues, you’ll be to the right of her. We can make real ground by focusing on those in the middle.”

“Good point,” Janet said absently.

“So if you believe polls and statistics regarding hate crimes, most voters agree with O’Bannon. It’s a win/win situation for us to make a public statement. We need to start siphoning voters away from her.”

“Right,” Janet replied with a nod, sounding only slightly more certain than she had the second before.

Donna glowered. “Okay, Roo. You’ve given your two cents. Thank you.”

“Sure, and it’s
Rao
.” Bijal refused to break eye contact with her until the door was shut between them.

*

Bijal seethed for nearly two hours about what a horrendous, incompetent bitch Donna was. Only when the phone on the desk to her right rang did she allow herself to stop visualizing Donna’s evisceration.

“No, the mayor has no comment on that,” her officemate Kristin was saying to whoever had called. Her face suddenly registered shock, then twisted up. “What? Could you please repeat that? No, she has no comment on that either. No, sorry.” Kristin hung up, but her mouth hung open.

“What is it?” Bijal asked.

“That was the
Herald
,” Kristin replied, her eyes wide with panic. “They wanted the mayor’s response to her husband’s comments on hate crimes.”

“What?” Bijal shouted the question so loudly that the other half dozen staffers hustled over to her desk in time to see her do an Internet news search on “Reverend Denton.” To her horror, an article appeared, as though to taunt her—“Congressional Candidate’s Husband Denounces Victims of Gay Bashing.” “Oh, shit. Someone go get the mayor.”

After some coaxing, both Janet and Donna emerged from the mayor’s office, eating Chinese food from the cartons.

“What is it?” Donna asked, her mouth full of lo mein.

Bijal read directly from the Web article.

Reverend Albert Denton, minister and husband of congressional hopeful Mayor Janet Denton, stated today that the two victims of an assault outside a District of Columbia gay bar last night that left one of the two dead were “inviting that kind of aggressive response” by “defiantly embracing sin.”

Rev. Denton, who went on to say that neither he nor his wife “support the gay lifestyle” or any legislation that would “give special rights to people who brazenly engage in immoral behavior,” was asked to respond to public statements made by his wife’s opponent Rep. Colleen O’Bannon.

O’Bannon is one of only a handful of openly gay members of Congress and is a co-sponsor of a recently passed anti-hate-crime law. Earlier today, O’Bannon told the press that a government that “allows hate crimes to continue without penalty is complicit every time an act of violent discrimination occurs. In a country that boasts ‘liberty and justice for all,’ we now send a clear message we won’t tolerate persecution of anyone. I hope the perpetrators of such a reprehensible act are quickly found and prosecuted fully.”

O’Bannon’s opponent, Janet Denton, currently mayor of Ravensdale, VA, was not available for comment via her campaign spokesperson. However, her husband readily responded to press inquiries regarding both the recent crime, as well as the related O’Bannon-Croft hate crimes legislation.

Rep. O’Bannon, contacted with Rev. Denton’s statements, said, “While I have no interest in starting a feud with either Mayor Denton or her husband, I’m horrified that anyone would imply that two people walking down a sidewalk somehow ‘invited’ a brutal beating and murder. That kind of bigoted and incendiary rhetoric is precisely the problem, and frankly, it’s an outrage.”

Bijal spun around in her chair and scowled at Donna.

Janet shook her head. “God damn it, Albert.” She looked at Donna apologetically. “I had no idea they’d try to talk to him.”

“Bastards,” Donna spat.

“So now what?” Janet asked. “Do we release a statement?”

Donna grumbled loudly. “We’ll have to. Roo, pull Albert’s comments in their entirety and print me a copy. We’ll have to parse his words so it looks like what he said was just taken out of context. Kristin, brew a new pot of coffee. Janet, call your husband right now and tell him that if he utters another syllable to anyone, I’ll personally cut his nuts off.”

*

“Hello?”

“Hey, Fran. It’s me.” Bijal sighed into her cell phone as she got into her car and shut the door. “I got your voice mail.”

“Holy shit, girl! What’s going on over there? I thought I’d turned on the movie
Footloose
, but instead of John Lithgow preaching about the evils of dancing to bad eighties music in a barn, it turned out it was just your boss’s husband on MSNBC. And in case you don’t know yet, that jackass is
all over
the blogs.”

Bijal rested her forehead on her steering wheel and closed her eyes. “I know, believe me. If they’d just responded to O’Bannon’s comments proactively, like I fucking suggested, the press probably wouldn’t even have contacted that idiot.”

“Wait a second,” Fran said, the indignation evident in her voice. “You suggested they respond earlier and they didn’t?”

“Yup. Remember when I mentioned how useless our campaign manager is?”

“That does sound familiar. Well, I hope your foresight got you something.”

“Oh, it did—a series of very nasty looks and an extra”—she paused to peer at her watch in the darkness—“two and a half hours at the office trying to do damage control.”

“Damn, that sucks. Are you on your way home?”

“Actually, I need you to do me a favor, Fran.”

“What?”

“Can you go online and find me a lesbian bar, anything within a forty-mile radius? I’ve spent a large portion of my day listening to people talk shit about gays, and I need to cleanse myself.”

Fran laughed softly. “I hear you. It just so happens that I’m online right now…and you’re in luck, sister.”

“Thank God! I knew I couldn’t be languishing in this fucking Stepford town all alone. What’s it called?”

“You’re gonna like this—The Klit N’ Kaboodle.”

Bijal had no problems finding The Klit N’ Kaboodle because Fran had given her excellent directions. She was surprised to see that the place wasn’t small and unassuming, like so many queer establishments tended to be—especially one in such a rural area. Had Bijal been in a better frame of mind, she would have found their neon sign featuring a sassy-looking cat flicking its tail utterly hysterical.

Though the sun had set long ago, it was still far too early for any crowd to have gathered, which was fine with her. She wasn’t there to socialize or dance. She was there to have a stiff drink and ponder if she had possibly made a mistake in accepting this job.

Hardwood floors and brass railings made the place seem a bit like an old nautical fish house. The lights had not yet been dimmed, and in the corner DJ equipment sat next to an area that was clearly a dance floor when they got busy. The blue patio string lights draped across the ceiling gave the place a rather charming feel.

She shuffled up to the bar in the center of the establishment—rectangular and surrounded by dark bar stools. Behind the bar was an expansive collection of liquor, overseen by a female bartender, graying and a little paunchy, who was wiping down the glasses with a linen napkin.

Bijal took the seat 180 degrees away from the only other person seated at the bar—a thin, sinewy woman wearing a Western cowboy shirt with mother-of-pearl snaps and a bolo tie. Bijal had no desire to speak to her, or to anyone, for that matter.

The bartender smiled at her and nodded. “What can I get you tonight, honey?”

“Um…do you have a happy-hour special?”

“The specials are right there,” the barkeep said, pointing to a small acrylic menu holder several inches to Bijal’s right.

“Great,” she said, scooping it up and perusing it. “I’ll have the…um…hmm.” The drink names sounded foreign yet disturbingly familiar. “I’ll have the pink twatini.”

“Good choice.” The bartender grabbed a bottle of vodka haphazardly by the neck.

“And I suppose I’d better get some food, since it’s been about nine hours since I’ve eaten. Do you have a menu?”

“Flip it over, sugar,” the bartender said as she prepared the astoundingly X-rated-sounding drink.

Bijal’s weary brain didn’t immediately know how to process the instructions, but the right synapse suddenly fired and she flipped the drink menu over to study the bar food. The last thing she needed was to be too drunk to drive home on a Thursday night.

As she scanned the modest selection of cuisine that fell under the heading Cunt-ry Cooking, she was struck by the same issue she had with the drink specials. “Hey, um, can I ask you a question?”

The bartender set down a very pink-colored drink in a traditional martini glass, garnished with a maraschino cherry with the stem tied into a knot. “The name’s Sue,” she said with a flirty smile. “And, sorry, but I’m taken.”

“Good to know, but I actually wanted to ask you about the names on your menu.”

“Oh, that,” Sue replied, crossing her arms. “Here’s how I see it. I’m getting pretty goddamn tired of women, especially lesbians, being called nasty names and made to feel like we’re somehow not as good as other folks. So in the way the African Americans have reclaimed the N-word to take away its power over them, I’m doing the same thing…in my own little way.”