Congress is in recess but, thanks to air conditioning and permanent on-site staff, the business of Congress continues year-round, unabated. And so it was that yesterday a summon came from Winslow, a staffer for Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, to discuss matters current and pressing.
Unless you have just arrived back from the New Guinea highlands in the last three or four days, you no doubt have a pretty good idea, Dear Reader, what Winslow wished to discuss, and he certainly wasted no time cutting to the chase.
“I told him to go on the plane!” Winslow declared the second I sat down – for some reason, all the chairs were gone, leaving no option but a rather odd couch, hewn of cottonwood and finished in rawhide. Having never visited Winslow’s office before, I marveled at the decor, which exhibited an intensity of Western kitsch that might even embarrass a Texan. The walls were festooned with memorabilia – the bleached skull of a steer, a bull whip hanging ostentatiously from a huge, rusty barn nail driven in the wall, several ornate lariats, a Sioux headdress sporting an impressive number of eagle feathers, a Blackfoot calumet, a daguerreotype of a high mountain fur trapper, a faded box camera print of a pioneer family arranged, sullen and dour, before their homestead cabin, interspersed with numerous frontier period weapons and firearms, including what appeared to be a Colt single-action pistol that pre-dated the invention of cartridges. Everything was deftly placed to draw the eye across the room to an original Alfred Jacob Miller, depicting a Native American buffalo hunt, which dominated an entire wall, then down to a credenza just below it, upon which perched a Remington bronze of trail hands roping a steer.
“You mean,” I asked, quickly returning from my brief reverie, “to, ah, do his… business on the airliner prior to landing at Minneapolis – St. Paul International Airport?”
“Yeah!” Winslow fumed.
“So as to avoid having to use the airport men’s… lavatories?”
“Damn right, Collins,” Winslow muttered, pacing back and forth, vexed beyond imagination, “those Minnesotans are all a bunch of unionized commies and moon-bat liberals. One state, Collins, only one state in the union went for that damn socialist, Mondale – his home state, God damned Minnesota! And what city does the most left-wing public radio program in America originate from?”
“San Francisco?” I guessed, uncertainly.
“Minneapolis, Minnesota!”
“Which program is that?”
“The one that damn Bolshevik, Garrison Keillor does!”
“You mean, ‘The Prairie Home Companion?’” I said, not much more sure of that guess, by any means.
“Does that [expletive] secular humanist Red have any other job you know of?”
“Can’t say as I can think of one,” I admitted.
“Well then,” Winslow proclaimed, triumphant, “there you have it. My boss, this fine, loyal, genuine American, Senator Larry Craig, landed in a final bastion of the Liberal Left, risking everything to make a pit stop right in the middle of the last hot-bed of baby-murdering evolutionists between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. He might as well have tried to use the men’s room at the airport in Havana!” Winslow opened a box on his desk, took out a cheroot and lit it, puffing maniacally.
“So you think that there was a conspiracy to entrap him?”
Winslow shot me a look, half irritation, half disbelief. “Of course there was! Larry’s been a bulwark of family values, conservative ideology, free market capitalism, private property, state’s rights and authentic patriotism since his first day in Congress. Nobody’s going to tell me that the left-wing Democrats haven’t been searching, year after year, for a way to neutralize him. Then…” Winslow stared ruefully out the window at the Capitol. “Then they saw their chance, and they took it!”
“So you’re convinced that the cop who arrested him made it all up?”
Winslow turned from contemplating the Capitol to glaring at me. “That’s the obvious explanation, isn’t it?”
“Ah, well,” I replied, carefully, “the arrest report states that particular men’s room had been the subject of numerous past complaints…”
“Faked!” Winslow roared.
“The Minnesota cops got a large number of unrelated individuals to call and complain about a rest room at the airport?”
“Those Minnesotans stick together, Collins,” Winslow replied, flicking ashes from his cheroot as he took the chair behind his desk, “socialism does that to people. It unites them – like ants.”
“I find it kind of hard to believe that Minnesotans could be so nefarious,” I opined, “I mean, think about – they elected Jesse Ventura governor, didn’t they? How smart could they be?”
“Jesse Ventura was the best damn governor Minnesota ever had, Collins. He was too good for them.”
“So you don’t think Senator Craig spent two minutes staring through a rest room stall crack at the cop?”
“He is not gay.”
I paused a moment, considering whether to bring it to Winslow’s attention that he had not really answered my question. Using my best consultant’s judgement of personal interaction, I decided to point it out. “If not, why was he peeking through the crack?”
“He was looking for an unoccupied stall.”
“You don’t believe that when he placed his roller bag at the door end of the stall, he intended to block the view through the bottom opening?”
“Sure I believe he did. Lots of people do that, to get some privacy.”
“So when he sat down and began tapping his right foot, then moved it toward the cop’s left foot in the other stall, that’s just the way he behaves when he takes a dump?”
“You got to realize, Collins, that we guys from out West get used to taking a very wide stance when we sit down on the commode. Comes from using the rough and ready facilities out on the range – and from riding horses, of course.”
“And when he moved his right foot into the stall the cop was sitting in and touched the cop’s left shoe with his right shoe, that was some kind of weird bathroom malfunction?”
“Like I said, that wide Western-style out-house stance sometimes causes the cowboy’s boots to protrude to the side of them little itty-bitty city slicker rest room stalls, that’s all.”
“And when he put his left hand under the stall divider and started moving it from the front of the stall to the back, that was a temporary condition of muscle reflex incoordination or something?”
“He was trying to pick up a piece of paper he had dropped.”
“With his left hand? Why would he reach across his stall to the floor of another stall on the right using his left hand?”
“Maybe he was using the other one for something else.”
“But the cop stated he never flushed the toilet,” I remarked.
“Prove there was nothing in it,” Winslow shot back.
“Okay, I see your point. It was Senator Larry Craig’s word against some Minnesota cop working what’s got to be the worst detail in police force history. No photos, no other witnesses. So why did Larry plead guilty?”
“He didn’t.”
“Ah, yes, quite correct. He never pleaded guilty to lewd conduct. But he did plead guilty to disorderly behavior.”
Winslow stubbed out his cheroot and lit another, thoughtfully. “Well, partner, sometimes as, they say, [expletive] happens.” Winslow leaned back, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “And I reckon he figgered nobody’s going to fault a good old Idaho cowboy for some occasional ‘disorderly conduct,’ you know?” Winslow leaned forward and smiled, “I mean, think about the two concepts – ‘cowboy’ and ‘disorderly conduct,’ Tom. Hell, they go together like ‘ham and eggs.’ Tarnation,” Winslow snorted, “you’d think nobody in Minnesota had ever seen a John Wayne movie.”
“I’ve watched plenty of them, and I don’t recall any scenes with two guys in the john. Look, Winslow,” I told him, matter-of-factly, “if Larry had been talking to some Minnesota liberal at the bar in that airport, and the Minnesotan had said something like ‘I don’t think taxes are all that bad; Keynesian Theory says taxes stimulate the economy, and I’d even be willing to pay higher taxes if I knew it meant that everybody would have a job,’ and Larry had cussed the guy out and decked him; well, that would be the kind of ‘disorderly conduct’ people would expect from a good old Idaho cowboy who don’t hold with that Eastern elitist pseudo-intellectual bleeding-heart welfare-state talk. But the kind of ‘disorderly conduct’ Larry plead guilty to happened in the men’s room, and it wasn’t a good old Idaho cowboy taking a bath in one of the sinks, either.”
Winslow shook his head, snubbing his second cheroot out in disgust. “And don’t I know it? What do you think, Tom?”
“I’ve heard that he’s hired an attorney to get the guilty plea nullified.”
“Yeah,” Winslow drawled, “I know you ain’t a lawyer, but what the hell’s your take on that?”
What indeed? My head fell into my hands as I spoke. “Winslow, the man’s a United States Senator. If he didn’t understand the meaning of a guilty plea, then our Congress is populated by five hundred and thirty five congenital idiots…”
“Okay, great…” Winslow murmured. I glanced up. He was taking notes. He saw me looking at him and stopped writing. “I get it,” he said, gesticulating with his pen, “and because of that, the guilty plea is no good.” Winslow grinned, “Now, why didn’t I think of that? I could just kick myself.”
“That’s not what I meant, Winslow,” I explained, “what I meant was, Larry even trying to get his guilty plea nullified is one of the most monumentally stupid things I have ever seen in my entire life.”
Winslow nodded, and resumed scribbling away. “Right. So stupid it proves what you said before. Brilliant, Tom, just brilliant. I’ll pass that along to the legal team. You’d be surprised, Tom, the incredible ideas legal teams can miss, just working on their own. Now, I was thinking about this while you were on your way over here – what say we get some sympathetic commentator to start pointing out that guys in Congress like Barney Frank aren’t being arrested, investigated by ethics committees and called upon to resign for what they do? What makes them so special? I mean, [expletive] and [expletive] are [expletive] and [expletive], right? Why should liberal Democrats get away with it while Larry gets crucified?”
“I’m pretty sure Barney doesn’t hang around in public rest rooms flashing come-on signals at strange men, Winslow.”
“He doesn’t? I thought all those big-city fruits here back East did that.”
“What Larry plead guilty to in Minnesota is just as illegal in Barney’s home district, Winslow.”
Winslow looked up from his notes. “It is?”
“Yes, and I doubt any self-proclaimed homosexual members of Congress would risk everything they have achieved by breaking the law – and not just that one. I’m sure they are very careful not to violate any laws at all; and it’s illegal to have sex in public, Winslow, even if the people involved are a consenting, adult, heterosexual married couple. Asking why admitted gay members of Congress aren’t in Larry’s personal pickle is a complete non-starter. Gays living in accepting environments have their own social life, not unlike straight people, and they meet each other and form relationships in remarkably similar ways. On the other hand, Larry got busted in the men’s room doing what looks like a closet queen dance from the nineteen-fifties.”
“He is not gay,” Winslow proclaimed, shooting me a cold stare.
“Well,” I admitted, “the only definitive evidence that he is gay would be a statement to that effect from the Senator. But what about all these men coming forward, swearing they know for sure?”
“I was going to ask you about those,” Winslow continued. “Got any ideas about how to discredit them?”
“I assume your legal team is pursuing the usual ones – investigating their pasts, searching for skeletons in their closets, going through their garbage, bribing their neighbors for spicy tidbits, searching for the ex-whatever’s juicy and vindictive personality profiles of the target?”
“Oh, sure,” Winslow smiled, “just like with Larry’s political opponents. Anything innovative we could try?”
“Issue statements which imply that all of them are doing it to obtain publicity. Then monitor what each one does after he goes public with his Larry Craig confessional. Is he shopping his story around to various media organizations? Has he written a book about it? Anybody offer him an interview for money? Has he corresponded with or responded to inquiries from published authors, screen writers…”
“Not so fast,” Winslow requested.
“… motion picture producers, and so forth? Is he using his story as leverage to get ahead in the gay commmunity?”
“And when we find one of them doing any of that?”
“Imply that what you have found proves that all of them are similarly motivated.”
“Bingo!” Winslow chortled as he finished writing. “Exactly what I was looking for. You think if we do a good job on that, Larry can stay in the Senate?”
“Based on my observation of the Senate’s interpretation of ethical conduct, I doubt they will throw him out of the club. But getting his committee posts back will probably take a while,” I consoled, placing as much optimistic spin on the senator’s prospects as a sane person reasonably could.
“I understand,” Winslow conceded, “but tell me, in your opinion, what’s the root cause of all this outrage?”
“As I see it, Winslow, there are two effects combined here. First, his constituency views the situation and thinks ‘He has betrayed us,’ and everybody else takes a gander and thinks ‘Jesus Christ, what a raging hypocrite!’ I mean, let’s face it, Winslow, if Larry didn’t come on as such a moralistic, intolerant, narrow-minded right-wing conservative blowhard bigot, the vast majority of the American public would probably cut him some slack. But as it is, for most folks, this just looks like poetic justice.”
“Now wait just a minute there – you know damn well Larry has no choice about his political positions, Tom,” Winslow rebutted, “he’s there to represent the people of Idaho, and his speeches and voting record reflect the beliefs, values and sentiments of his constituents.”
“Which is to say,” I pointed out, “that the people who sent him to the Senate are a bunch of moralistic, intolerant, narrow-minded right-wing conservative blowhard bigots.”
“And damn proud of it! Those are the values that made us the richest, most powerful nation in the world. Goes to show that we folks out in God’s country know what it means to be real Americans, even if those spineless, limp-wristed, multi-cultural, bi-coastal liberals in New York and Los Angeles have forgotten,” Winslow trumpeted. “And when you think about it – the real Americans in Idaho are the only ones who count, aren’t they? What does Larry care what the people in New York or Los Angeles think of him? They can’t vote in Idaho – [expletive] them, their overpriced espresso coffee, their wimpy little high-mileage cars and their United Nations full of jibby-jabbering foreign diplomats from third-rate, no-account, [expletive]-ant countries you can’t even find on a map, telling us what we should do. What I want to know is; how do we get Larry’s people, the people who matter, to support him again?”
“Redemption,” I suggested. “People like that are total suckers for a good redemption story.”
Winslow raised his eyebrows. “Think so?”
“Absolutely,” I assured him. “They live their whole lives fighting an unending struggle to measure up to the moral standards they were so strictly raised to believe in – standards that take little or no notice of true human nature. Consequently, nearly every one of them has strayed from their ideals, and many of them have been shamed, even punished for doing so. In order to survive, they had two choices. They could get the hell out of Idaho; or, they could undergo a redemption experience – a type of social theater that other members of their repressed, narrow-minded community could witness, and, more importantly, a dramatic performance in which those people, who feel betrayed by the wayward person, could participate with the penitent sinner. Like you said, the ones who decided to leave can’t vote for or against Larry anyway. The ones who can vote for Larry stayed in Idaho. To do that, and not end up dragged behind a truck and left to die tied to a tree with barbed wire, it’s dollars to doughnuts they have been through at least one redemption experience themselves, if not several.”
Winslow lit another cheroot, considering my analysis and recommendation at length. Only when the ember of that tiny, twisted cigar was about to burn his fingers did he extinguish it, walk slowly over to the couch and sit down next to me.
“You’re right, partner,” he sighed, “when I thought about what you said, I realized that even I would fall for it. How,” he went on cordially, “do we go about constructing Larry’s redemption?”
“Like all effective works of fiction,” I advised, “Larry’s redemption will require a compelling narrative, jeopardy, confrontation, dramatic plot twists, strong focus on the protagonist and a highly visible transformative character arc.”
“Could you cook up one of those – for a price?” Winslow slyly asked.
“Yes,” I confirmed, “but in order to stage a redemption, we need Larry to perform in the leading role, and he, as the dramatic protagonist, the star of the show, must first obtain attention, involvement, sympathy and a willing suspension of disbelief from his audience.”
“How’s he do that?” Winslow inquired with piqued curiosity.
“Well, the simplest thing would be to admit he’s gay.”
Winslow drew back from me on the couch. “Never! He’s not gay! You heard his press conference, didn’t you? He said that, over and over. He’s not gay! Besides, if he turns around and says he’s gay now, it will make a liar out of him.”
“That would be part of the redemption narrative theme suite – redemption from denial. ’I could not face my sins,’” I illustrated in a slightly theatrical tone, “’I lied about them, but alas, now I know it’s true…’”
“He is not gay!” Winslow protested once again.
“Okay,” I conceded, “he’s not gay. Then what is he? And don’t,” I cautioned, “say he’s the victim of a conspiracy, because the protagonists of redemption stories can’t be victims.”
That kept Winslow’s wagon wheels spinning for a good five minutes, during which he paced the room like a gunfighter waiting for his rival to ride into the corral, but at last I saw the light bulb go on over his head and he resumed his place next to me on the couch.
“Larry is a man…,” Winslow stated, obviously delighted with his own cleverness, “who other people think… has sex… with other men.”
“Winslow, you’re missing the point on the nature of redemption. Larry can’t personally redeem himself from what other people think.”
“Okay,” Winslow said, throwing up his hands in surrender, ”then he’s a man who has sex with other men, but he’s not gay. Now, how do we explain that?”
“Portray it as a medical problem,” I brainstormed. “An uncontrollable compulsion. If he plays it right, it can work like Peter Lorre in ‘M’ – sure, the audience reviles Lorre’s character for what he did, but they identify with him, they develop deep sympathy for him, and in the end, they forgive him for his tragic flaw. And that’s how Larry would play it – a tragic Shakespearean flaw – not a preference, not a life style choice or anything like that; no, it will be an uncontrollable compulsion beyond the compass of the human soul.”
“Medical?” Winslow squinted, his brain cells heating up. “Naw, we can’t do that – it’ll make him look weak, some kind of invalid; disabled, even.”
“It could elicit sympathy,” I speculated.
“Maybe in Pennsylvania or some place like that,” Winslow objected, “but in Idaho, we know that only the strong survive – and a sick person ain’t strong.”
“All right then,” I charged on, “say that the Devil provoked him – not tempted him, mind you – but pushed, and pushed and pushed, like the Devil did to them, that time your constituents cheated on their spouse or fell off the wagon…”
“That’s it!” Winslow sat up, “the Devil made him do it! That’s perfect!”
“It’s got just a touch of victimization in it,” I commented, “what with the Devil choosing to do that to him, but everybody in his core constituency believes that the Devil is out there, trying to mess with them, pushing at them to do something wrong, so they can identify with what happened to Larry – it’s a universal victimization paradigm that they can all share with him.”
“Sharing! Yeah, I like that – ‘sharing.’” Winslow exulted. “We’re going to get the voters of Idaho to share Larry’s redemption with him.”
“Nice angle, Winslow,” I complimented carefully.
Now Winslow was satisfied – he was a man with a solution, a goal and a plan; action must follow. “Then it’s a deal. When can we get rolling?”
“I could have something for you by COB Friday,” I told him, kicking off the inevitable negotiation.
“COB Thursday.”
“Friday at noon.”
“Done!” Winslow smiled, the happy client personified. But instead of standing up and shaking my hand, he put his left arm around me and placed his right hand on my right thigh.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” he whispered in my ear, “I always suspected Larry was gay.”
“Why?” I politely demanded as I pulled my ear away from his mouth, turning to gaze at him reproachfully.
“Well, out in Idaho, we got the LDS, you know, and to tell the truth, any man who stays single as long as Larry did and then only takes one wife, well, people talk.”
Winslow cocked his head thoughtfully for a moment, then looked back at me, speaking in a low, tender voice. “You know, there are a lot of lonesome cowpokes in this crazy old world, Tom, and a lot of them are men who have sex with men…”
“Winslow!” I protested, “I don’t know what your excuse for making a pass at me is, but no way am I gay!”
Winslow shook his head slowly, betraying a small, wicked smile. “That dog won’t hunt, partner. Old range hands like me, we can tell.”
“In case you haven’t noticed,” I reminded Winslow as I removed his hand from my thigh, “we ain’t on no old range, partner.”
“Yeah, I know,” Winslow cooed, replacing his hand, ”but ya gotta consider the facts. Does Tom Collins get his hair cut at a barbershop? No, he visits a salon, and when he’s there, he gets a facial, a manicure and a pedicure, too. What’s more, I also know you’re single, drive an imported sports car, cook fancy gourmet food, drink snooty wines, collect antique furniture, play the piano like Liberace, go to them foreign movies with the English words printed on down at the bottom, and them art museums with the pictures that don’t look like nothin’ hanging in ‘em, and them egghead theater shows that’s all high-falutin’ talk and ain’t got no music or show girls; plus, I know for a fact you like ballet and opera. On top of that, I’ve heard you’re… a great dancer… and, well, then, lookie down here…”
Winslow began banging his left rattlesnake cowboy boot up against my handmade Italian lamb skin shoes while tapping his right foot up and down. “… at those. I’d say that clinches the deal, wouldn’t you?” He drew back a few inches, gazing at me as if appraising a piece of livestock. “[Expletive]! You’re a damn sight purtier than that there Minnesota cop Larry was fishin’ for. How ‘bout a kiss?”
“Judas Priest!” I shouted as I extricated myself from Winslow’s amorous embrace. “Are you such a corn-fed hayseed ‘bama [expletive]-kicking red-neck cowboy you’ve never heard of metrosexuals?”
“Huh?”
“I’m straight, Winslow, okay? All that stuff you went on about is just an expression of sophisticated, erudite, artistic, refined, post-modern urbanite taste.”
“Well, then, I’d sure like to sample the flavor, hombre,” Winslow winked.
“Damn it, Winslow, I have a girlfriend!”
“Liar.”
“Why would that be a lie?”
“Ain’t no woman I know wouldn’t figure you for gay quicker than biscuits.”
“Which is why there are no metrosexuals in Idaho, Winslow.”
At that, Winslow reached behind the couch, withdrawing a guitar. He placed his fingers on the fret board in the elementary C chord first inversion position – the “country and western C” that’s unbarred, but uses all the strings – and strummed. If there’s one thing that really gets on my nerves, it’s people who play guitars without tuning them – sure, the bass strings stay put, but the world is full of clowns who let the top three strings go flat and play the damn thing anyway. And Winslow’s was in even worse shape for some reason – banging the tuning pegs on the back of the couch, probably – not only were the top two strings miserably flat, the G string and low E were sharp. Mother of God, it was agony – and I don’t even have perfect pitch.
“Just a cowboy’s lips, that’s all I got please you; just a cowboy’s lips, to serenade at night…” If you’ve ever heard a white-hot branding iron hit a spring calf’s rump, buckeroo, you know what Winslow’s idea of Bel Canto sounds like. He kept on moaning that cattle trail ballad and making grotesque faces at me as I snatched up my briefcase and made hell for leather out the door and down the hall, looking to the puzzled summer denizens of the Hart Senate Office Building, I am sure, like a speed walking fanatic trying to set a new indoor world record.
I drove from Capitol Hill over to Cerise’s place to enjoy a surprise menu dinner. Silly idea, I had thought, when she suggested it, but after my visit with Winslow, I was grateful for the mental diversion it provided as I tried to guess what the dishes might be – would there be roast quail with saffron risotto, duck ala orange, mussels in white wine, escargot pilaf, sesame crusted seared tuna in scallions and ginger, artichoke stuffed manicotti?
When I arrived, however, I found her tending a charcoal brazier on the back porch. What was that fragrance? I drew another lung full; no – it was not hickory, it was not applewood. It was mesquite, and there was our repast – corn on the cob, grilled prime steaks and, yes, baked Idaho spuds. Nevertheless, a wise fellow knows better than to spurn his girlfriend’s best efforts at cooking, so I cut the nibs off the corn, sliced up the steak, and, after only a brief moment of hesitation, scooped a pure white, bland and yet curiously light heart from its tuberous cradle onto my plate. Then I asked Cerise to sit on my lap while I ate the stuff with a fork. She thought that was quite romantic.