Ed Gorman - Blindside

‘You know why I wear this little American flag pin? You know what it symbolizes to me? It symbolizes the America I grew up in. Hard work and family church and belief in the finest country God ever created. And no matter how much they try to dirty and pervert this land of ours, this pin right here is my shield. It protects me and my family from the atheists and the degenerates and the global-warmers and the gay-pushers and the liberals who mock those of us who love our country and mean to save it. And prayer in school is one of those issues where I’m using my shield — and picking up my sword — to make sure that it’s still allowed in schools everywhere. I pray to God every morning at my desk and I don’t see anything wrong with our children doing the same thing. All we’re asking is that we have the right to keep America the way it was — and the way it should still be!’

Maybe he wasn’t Reagan but he was just close enough to make a solid impression. The physical heft, the hard face, the rich voice… he was corny but effective.

I watched the entire debate. I judged Burkhart the winner by a few points. What had cost him the election were all the stories about the lawsuits at the various companies he owned. Age discrimination, sex discrimination, unsafe working conditions, sexual harassment, and some video clips of him at a Chamber of Commerce meeting railing against the minimum wage. ‘This is destroying the opportunity to offer Americans what they really want — more jobs.’ Yes, at $1.25 an hour.

But all of this had failed to seriously damage Burkhart this time around. His flag pin speech was packing them in. He was still the odds-on winner of this campaign.

I walked the DVD down the hall to Kathy’s desk.

‘I’d vote for him,’ I said.

‘He’s good on the stump. And he’s not a moron. He’s just a country-club bully who picked the right year to trot out all his bullshit again.’

‘Other than that you’re nuts about him.’

‘I’m secretly in love with him.’ She pointed to a chair. I sat. She planted her nice elbows on her desk and her face in the V of her hands and said, ‘You really going to keep us in the dark?’

‘I’m going to try to.’

‘You don’t trust us.’

‘This really bother you or are you just having fun?’

She shrugged and sat back in her chair. ‘A little of both, probably. Lucy and I have been with Jeff since the beginning. It kind of hurts our feelings that you come along and keep us out of the loop.’

‘So it’s me you’re pissed at?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Anything I could do to change that?’

She put a finger to her cheek and pretended to be pondering the question. ‘How about buying me a drink and not putting the moves on me?’

‘ The first congressman I worked for was in the late nineties. I was just out of college. I wrote his speeches and did the scheduling, even though I didn’t have a clue about what I was doing. I really liked him for taking a chance on me until I found out he was doing all this so he could get me in bed. You know when you hear all these actresses complaining about how being beautiful is really a pain sometimes? Well, it really is. I’m pretty but I’m hardly beautiful. But just being pretty — and God, there are millions and millions of girls prettier than I am — even then it gets in the way. He wanted me to go back to Washington with him. Yeah, right.

‘The second congressman was straight-ahead but he had this insanely jealous wife. She called me out at this party one night. Made this big scene about how I was destroying her marriage. This was in their home. One of their teenage daughters was on the stairs listening to it all. The story got into the press. I quit. Even the tabloids picked it up. There was the photo of the congressman and me on the front page right in the checkout lane. My poor parents. My dad’s a doctor in a small town. It was humiliating for him. I kind’ve liked the congressman I’d been working for. I always felt that maybe we should have slept together after all. At least we would’ve gotten something out of it. He lost, of course. The scandal did him in. He’s still married to that hysterical bitch and I’ll never know why.

‘The third congressman was straight-ahead, too. Good, bright family man who practiced what he preached. But the other side planted a spy in our camp. He started leaking stories to the media about the congressman and I having an affair. If I was a reporter I’d have believed him, too. He looked legitimate. He was a driver and he worked with the volunteers. By the time we figured out he was a plant he’d done some damage. The media had played with some hints and the hints had started to have an effect on the voters. Fortunately, we were able to win, anyway.

‘Then Lucy called me about Jeff Ward. Everybody always thinks that I was a sorority girl or something in college. Actually, I was very shy. In high school I’d been fat and had a bad complexion. By sophomore year in college I’d sort of bloomed outwardly but inwardly I was still the same high school girl so I didn’t hang around with any of the cliques. Lucy and I had two poly sci classes together and we became friends. I thought it’d be great to work with her so I joined the Ward campaign just under three years ago.’

She was as pleasant to listen to as she was to look at. The late hour and the drinks that brought on a melancholy kind of sexuality made me feel comfortable for the first time since I’d arrived in town. I could close my eyes and imagine myself back in Chicago in similar circumstances.

‘I’m just afraid of what I’ll turn into.’

‘And what would that be?’

‘Oh, one of those older women you see on the Sunday talk shows. Kind of coarsened by all the years of working on campaigns and being strident and adamant about things. There’s always something sad about that. The men get to be gray-haired and wise even if they’re morons but the women just look used up and kind of hysterical. And nobody really pays attention to them. They just have them on the shows because they need females for their demographic base.’

‘So where will you go after Ward?’

‘Not sure yet. Maybe try to find a small college somewhere and teach. I’ve got a master’s in poly sci. I could work on a doctorate while I taught.’

‘You wouldn’t miss the fun?’

She frowned. ‘Some fun. Jim gets murdered, nobody can find David, and Burkhart seems to have something on Ward. And Ward has really disappointed me. I’m thirty-four years old. I think it’s time for a husband and a family, and the kind of guys you meet on the trail aren’t exactly the right kind of material for domestic bliss. And since I’ve never been much for one-night stands, I get pretty lonely.’

I remembered her telling me not to put the moves on her. I wondered if I was that obvious. Probably. I was as lonely as she was and needful of bed. My mind was getting clouded with the one thought that banishes all other thoughts — sex.

‘You’re going to start glowing in the dark pretty soon,’ she said.

‘Pardon me?’

‘You’re starting to radiate.’ She stretched out her arm and offered me her hand. I took it. ‘Do you ever just sleep with a woman? No sex, I mean. Just sleep.’

‘I’ve tried. It’s a bitch.’

‘At least you’re honest.’

Then I realized how dumb I was. ‘But I’d be willing to try. I’m pretty tired. Maybe I’d fall asleep right way and it wouldn’t be any problem after all.’

I was a dog, tongue hanging out, begging for scraps.

‘Now I sound like a tease. I’m sorry. But you were right in the first place. It’s a bitch trying to just sleep. But I have this thing about one-night stands.’ She glanced at her watch.