Monica said, "Thank you, Shelly Simon, switched off the recorder and added, "Good luck."
Sally said, "I just hope she doesn't get arrested."
"I spoke with Chief Kelly," Monica said, "and if she doesn't perform any lewd acts, he won't bother with her."
Sally said, "I hope he doesn't consider her pubic tonsorial choice a lewd act." Monica perked up.
"Is this something I should know about?"
I cut Sally a withering glance. "No, it's nothing. Forget about it."
As it turned out, I got really lucky. Searching for a campaign stunt of his own, Patterson's rich wife announced that she was providing the funds for some evangelical missionaries that she supported, who were busily exterminating Amazonian Indian tribes (either through disease, slavery or outright murder), to provide every family in one tribe with a refrigerator. She said, "Refrigeration is really important in the tropics."
Now, this might have been a generous act had there been any electrical suppliers within 700 miles of the tribe (and the Indians had some really long extension cords), but there weren't and they didn't, and when video emerged of terrified Indians being crushed to death by refrigerators falling from the sky, Patterson's campaign was pretty much over.
Furthermore, Patterson and his wife chose this point in the campaign to engage in a bitter divorce proceeding, and their estranged and much-aggrieved 20-year-old daughter offered to walk naked in the parade with me if I won.
This was a little bit underhanded because the daughter had already approached me about it, and I had assured her that if she made such an offer, it would be graciously rejected. Thus assured, she called a press conference and made the offer in public. At our only mayoral debate, as expected, Patterson jumped all over my 'perverted' parade promise, but I just told him that as our illustrious ex-mayor, he would be invited to walk naked with me. He got all flustered and red-faced and stormed off the stage. I won in a landslide.
The first half-year of my tenure went swimmingly. As promised, I cleaned house in the administration and attracted a couple of decently green companies that paid good wages to our town. Unfortunately, one of the CEOs was a real jerk who made a big point of telling me how much he was looking forward to the parade. He made it sound like that was the only reason he had moved his company here and said he planned to give all his employees the day off so that they could attend. I told him that since the 4th was both a national holiday and fell on a Sunday I didn't think his employees would find his offer all that magnanimous, and if he wanted that badly to see me naked, all he had needed to do was come to Santa Reyes on the 4th and watch the parade. I was also able to fight off a big-box monster store that would have devastated our downtown shopping district. My approval ratings were high when July crept up on me.
Since we had actually won, Sally had become a lot more cautious, pleading with me not to go through with my promise. "Please listen to me," she begged. "You don't know how you'll feel about a political career a few years from now. Why totally destroy that possible future?" Her pleas fell on deaf ears.
I was adamant. "Sally, if I shut down those options right now, then I will never even be tempted to run for any other office than mayor of Santa Reyes. And once my constituents see me walking down that street naked, they'll know that I would never abandon them because I never COULD abandon them."
Shortly before noon on July 4th, I parked my car near the parade's starting point, stripped off all my clothes, locked them in my trunk and walked up to the lead float. Just walking that short distance naked gave me a sobering jolt. I was naked in just about the most inappropriate place possible. Being around the corner from the start of the parade, there weren't many people looking at me, but I knew that was about to change drastically. I felt really conspicuous, and I knew that for at least the next three and a half years, in every meeting, large or small, everyone there would have seen me walking through town naked.
There was a small slit in the front of the float so that the driver of the tractor beneath it could see where he was going. I walked up to this window, peeked in and saw Tommy, one of the men who works on the crew that maintains the city's streets and roads.
"Hello, Tommy," I said somewhat self-consciously. Where do you want me?" He grinned at me, dismounted and walked up to that window slit, which clearly afforded him a fuller view of my naked body. He said, "Good to see you, Ms. Mayor. I didn't think you were gonna show. In about two minutes, walk to the corner, turn left, proceed down the middle of the street, and I'll follow about 30 feet behind you. I gotta tell you, though, both sides of the street are packed for as far as the eye can see. They've already extended the finish line by many, many blocks. There's gotta be more people on that street than actually live here. I think the word's gotten out. I talked to one guy who drove here from Cleveland just to see this, and there are TV trucks parked all along the street. It's gonna be a long naked walk, Ma'am, and if you don't mind my saying so, I think I'm really going to enjoy the view from back here. That is, judging from what I've seen of your front so far. I had to pay a buddy of mine $500 to trade with me so I could drive the lead float."
I noticed his eyes drifting downward. "Well," I said, laughing nervously, "I hope you get your money's worth."
"I'm sure I will. Hold on. I'm getting a call." He touched the headset he was wearing with its bud in his left ear, listened for a few seconds and said, "Time to get moving. You're a good sport, Ma'am."
"Here, hold these for me," I said, reaching through the slit and handing him my car keys. As he got back on his tractor, I turned around and walked about 50 feet, hearing Tommy call through his little window, "Yes! My money's worth!" I had to smile at his boyish enthusiasm. I made a left and began my walk down the center of the town's main street and through its primary shopping district. Tommy wasn't kidding. The sidewalks were jammed with people, and I couldn't even see to where the crowds ended. There was a huge roar, beginning near me and rippling along the street for, I guessed, as far as people could see me. I'm not going to even try to downplay my horrified reaction. Walking so naked, so out in the open and in front of so many people, I was as embarrassed and humiliated as anyone could conceivably be. I had never been naked in a public place before. Never gone skinny-dipping. Never even been outdoors naked. Now here I was, looking down that long, straight street bordered by throngs of avid spectators. Unshielded from view by any preceding floats, people blocks away could look my way and see a lone, naked woman, walking toward them, her curly black patch of pubic hair set against her pale flesh and seeming to announce, "This is it, folks. This is what I look like totally naked. Watch this space. (And wait until you see what's below that patch of hair.)" I could not have felt more utterly exposed.
What had I been thinking? What had I done? I hadn't envisioned this at all. I had naively pictured it as some kind of quirky, small-town peccadillo, observed only by my constituents. This was something else again. It felt and looked like Pasadena's Rose Parade or Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, only instead of featuring giant balloons, it featured a naked woman making a spectacle of herself in front of a national media presence. Cameras were, of course, everywhere, and it was all I could do to resist my bladder's persistent urging and keep from further disgracing myself. What I had hoped would be an amusing political statement meant to reassure my constituents had become a nightmare. I was acutely aware of my nakedness and vulnerability, aware that every eye was on me, evaluating my body, watching my bared breasts bouncing with every step and probably laughing at my public humiliation. Looking at the crowd, I could pick out, among all the strange faces, so many familiar ones, too. Childhood friends, old teachers, my one-time babysitter, my favorite aunt, my mailman and the kid who bagged groceries for me at the Safeway. I spotted some, maybe all, of my junior college students. I figured that job was now over and wondered how I'd get by on the mayor's meager salary. I wasn't going to steal like Patterson. I was blinking back tears.
As I later learned, there were pictures and videos of me all over. On every porn site on the internet, even though I didn't think that what I had done was in any way pornographic. Newspapers and TV stations throughout the country ran censored photos and videos of me, but one, an alternative weekly in Portland, Oregon, ran the photos uncensored. It was a small-circulation paper, but it's still a real shock to pick up any newspaper and see a large, full-color picture of yourself on the front page, naked in the street in front of an exuberant crowd and showing . . . everything.
I didn't really hear much laughter from the crowd, though. They were cheering me on and exulting at such a brazen display of public nudity. Still, Sally's words came back to me, and I knew that in any direction I turned everyone would have an unimpeded view of my clitoris. My mind was racing, verging on panic, and I was taking long, deep breaths, trying to stave off that panic, all the while waving to the crowd, keeping what must have looked a ghastly smile plastered on my face and pretending to be having the time of my life.
Then, when I was beginning to relax just a little, tiny bit and drawing some semblance of strength and confidence from the support of the crowd, something terrible happened. The tractor driving my float broke down. "Sorry," Tommy called to me. "I think I know what it is, but it's gonna take about half an hour to get a replacement part."
I froze like a jacklighted deer. Up until now, this show had at least been a procession, moving to some kind of conclusion, some kind of finish line. A moving parade. Now it was just a naked woman, standing in the street with everyone staring at her and wondering what she was going to do next. I even considered continuing on my own, leaving the floats behind and walking the rest of the way as a one-naked-woman parade. I glanced down at my breasts and the top of my pubic hair and cringed. I just couldn't see going on without the imaginary security of the accompanying floats that absolutely no one here was looking at, anyway. If there were any possible way to feel more publicly and helplessly naked than I already did, that would have been it. I turned to my right, spreading my arms wide and keeping my feet apart, my posture meant to convey the attitude, "Okay, this is what you came to see. Take your time, and have good, long look." I slowly turned around to face the other side of the street, continuing this display, which, although making me look like a blatant exhibitionist, was far preferable to just standing there and beginning to look increasingly mortified by this unexpected development. I saw many people lean over to their neighbors and appear to be whispering something, which in my fevered imagination could only be, "She sure does like showing off her clit, doesn't she?"
