It never made sense to me when people joined a "fraternal organization." This is a club you join so that you can belong to a club. I know they do good things for the community and have events and things, but it seems easy enough just to make regular friends, doesn't it? Do you have to pay dues to hang out with people? Anyway, I worked with a guy who was an Elk, and one thing after another, we were standing at the bar of the local Elks Club having a beer on a Saturday night.
The folks there turned out to be pretty nice, normal people, and I made some new friends. The big excitement was that the rodeo was coming up in about a month and they were planning activities for it, a special dance and barbecue and other events. This was a pretty big Elks lodge, I was told, with over a thousand members; the bar looked like it could hold a couple hundred people but there were probably closer to fifty people there. A mediocre band was playing on an overly large stage and sometimes people would dance. They had a preference for oldies but the crowd was predominantly thirties and forties, I'd say. A couple of younger people, a few white-hairs. I did not see anybody with Fred Flintstone horn-hats on.
There was a clump of women at the end of the bar, yacking away. Several of them were pretty good looking and now and then some guy would go over and ask one to dance. Sometimes if one danced another would go out, too, and on Mustang Sally the whole bunch of them went out on the dancefloor, along with most of the rest of the crowd. These ladies were on the younger side and I wouldn't say "dressed to kill," but, you know, tight jeans, spaghetti straps, cleavage, three-inch heels, lipstick.
My buddy Jake was filling me in on the people at the bar. His wife was wandering in the crowd somewhere, so he was free to go into some detail. He talked about each one in the clump of ladies and said, "You see that one in the kind of silver top? Yeah that one. That's Eileen. She's running for rodeo queen this year."
I looked her over. "Well if it's a beauty contest, she has a chance," I said.
"Yeah," he said, "I don't know what you call it. Some years we have had real dogs for rodeo queen. It just depends on who people vote for. Last year Macy-Tee won. She's a good old gal but not much to look at. She just won because everybody knows her. I think some people felt sorry for her because she never wins."
"I see," I said, sipping my beer from the bottle. "And what about this one over here in the silver?"
"Huh," Jake said, looking around. "You might get a kick out of this. She is giving blow jobs."
The band was a little loud, and I leaned in. "What did you say?"
"I said she's giving blow jobs. For votes."
I looked over at the lady. Someone was telling a joke and she was listening raptly. "And how does that work?" I asked him.
"How do you fucking think it works?" Jake laughed. "She gives you a blow job and you vote for her. It's pure politics."
"Wow," I said, gaining respect for fraternal lodges. "How many guys has she blown?"
"Oh, none," Jake said with a smirk.
"No takers, huh?"
"None that will admit it. I bet she wins though."
"Did you get a blow job from her?"
Jake looked at me incredulously. "Are you kidding? I'm a married man."
I looked around the room. "It looks to me like most of these guys are married."
"Yeah," Jake said. "That's why she hasn't had any takers."
"Nobody will admit it, huh?" Jake looked away and did not say anything.
I let that sink in for a minute. If it was a private vote she would never know if you actually voted for her or not, so this was not a foolproof method. On the other hand, why not? Who the fuck cares who's rodeo queen? Also, I was pretty sure the women of the lodge would be voting one hundred fifty percent against her.
While we were talking, a guy in a plaid shirt walked over to the woman in silver and struck up a conversation. After about a minute the two of them headed off down the hall and turned up a flight of stairs. I don't think Jake noticed, or anyone else for that matter. Everybody was having a good time, chatting and dancing.
"What's up those stairs?" I asked Jake, pointing.
"Up there? Nothing. Some offices." Jake and another guy were arguing about a ref's call on the football game behind the bar. The guy on the other side of me starting asking me if I golf and I rattled off my usual quips about golf, which in fact is a game that bores the fuck out of me, and I do not play it. He was not discouraged, though, and we moved on to the weather. After five or ten minutes I saw the man in the plaid shirt come down the stairs and blend into the crowd, and a minute later the future rodeo queen came down. Everything was cool, none of it mattered, no one was keeping track.
The golf guy's wife was looking nice, and I complimented her and ended up dancing with her over the next hour or so. She was basically a plain woman but was emphasizing her breasts in the evening's outfit and also she did have a great ass. She tried to flirt with me but I was not that comfortable with it, being on unfamiliar turf. I didn't know what the Elks' norm for flirting was, and so I smiled and was polite but did not encourage the woman. She seemed pleased by it all and did not attach herself uncomfortably to me.
As the drinks flowed, the dance-floor started getting a little crowded, the pitch of conversation elevated, and I decided to look into this further. Eileen, the rodeo queen candidate in the silver top, was still laughing with the girls, so I went over and started a conversation with her. I introduced myself and said, "I have never been here before, seems like a nice place."
"Oh yeah," she said. She seemed confident and friendly. "These are great people. I'm here just about every Saturday."
Up close, Eileen was prettier than I had thought. I'd put her at mid-to-late twenties, slender and petite. She was wearing a wedding ring but I had not seen a husband hovering around. Her hair was layered like that one singer everybody likes, I forget the name, and she seemed like a very ordinary girl. I asked her to dance and we headed out to the floor for Brown-Eyed Girl.
"So what do you do?" I asked while we danced.
"Who me? I'm just a stay-at-home housewife," she said. "I help out around here a lot, getting the place ready and things like that."
"I see," I said.
"And I'm running for rodeo queen," she added.
"Oh, how does that work? I have never actually been to an Elks Club before."
"It's not a big deal, if you win you're in the rodeo parade and they put something in the newsletter. Also you preside over the car show, but, you know, that's nothing, you just hand them their trophies."
"Huh, cool, sounds like fun. What does it take to win?"
She gave me a look, like, wondering if I knew something already. She had never seen me before, of course. "Well people just have to vote for you," she said. "In two weeks they'll put out a ballot box and all the members can vote."
"I see."
"I think I have a chance of winning," she said with a pretty smile. "I have a pretty good campaign strategy."
"Oh, and what is that?" I asked.
"I am giving blow jobs for votes," she said while we danced.
I laughed. "Sounds like that would work."
"Oh yeah," she said, "I've had a lot of takers. You want one?"
"Want one what?"
"Do you want a blow job?"
As you can imagine, it kind of surprised me. "What -- right now?"
"Sure," she said.
"But I'm not a member, I can't vote for you."
"That doesn't matter," she said, "You're kind of cute. Come on, follow me."