The Junior Senator

The Junior Senator

[It's been awhile. Here's a story I have been working on for quite some time. It's long, and you get it in one drop, as I don't like waiting for chapters myself. Caution: It involves a Republican, which may trigger some.]

I couldn't contain my joy as I watched Wisconsin Attorney General Jackson James Masters raise his right hand and, at age 38, become the nation's youngest Senator. I was not in the retinue that surrounded him, which included his lawyer father and homemaking mother from Green Bay, who were watching their lifelong dream for their son come true; Claire, the elegant woman he had met and married at Harvard Law School, whose ambition dwarfed his own and who had delivered two perfect daughters once they moved to Madison to teach at the University of Wisconsin School of Law; Eleanor and Evelyn, the aforementioned perfect daughters; and the President of the United States, a discolored, unprincipled man who had cajoled Jackson to go back on a campaign pledge that was less than two years old and take on the two-term Senator who, until about ten days before the election, had seemed like a lock for a third term and who seemed as shocked as she was surprised to make a concession call after rural Wisconsin county after rural Wisconsin county turned out massively for what CNN was calling "the upset of the night."

Senator Kathleen Bannister went from being on everyone's short list of potential 2020 Presidential nominees to being the only incumbent Democratic to lose a Senate election on what was otherwise a great mid-term night for Democrats.

At 53-47, the election was the opposite of what the final polls had predicted. Over the final three days of the campaign, our internal numbers had seen the same twelve point swing.

There were hints of the swing.

The last seven days of the campaign had been vertiginous. Our crowds were large and loud. Senator Bannister's were not.

The President had attended a rally in Green Bay and another in Janesville. The President didn't waste his time on "losers."

The rallies had been overflowing and raucous, the supporters outside the buildings equal to or exceeding the supporters inside. I had stood among them, their energy and love for our candidate matching my energy and love for our candidate. "This does not feel like a loss," I had thought.

The Kavanaugh vote had been a catalyst. Bannister had hawed and hemmed and refused to reveal how she would vote until she was actually voting, and she voted "No," mewing about how the allegations, while unsubstantiated and at the 11th hour against a candidate with a stellar record who had been vetted and vetted, were too serious to ignore, notwithstanding how many proved, more serious adult allegations she had ignored against those ideologically aligned with her.

"Fucking fantastic!" Jackson had declared, one of the only times outside of the bedroom that I ever heard him swear. "She just ceded us an advantage."

She had. There was only one reason for her to vote "No": 2020. She voted "No" to preserve Presidential viability and, in so doing, had ensured no Presidential viability. Unless you're Richard Nixon, you can't lose your last election before running for President. You just can't.

The "No" vote galvanized rural Wisconsin. They stood in line for hours, waiting to protest her vote with their own, waiting to cast out the woman who had placed her interests above theirs.

Jackson had seen it all coming.

"It's happening," he said, his hand in my hair as my cheek pressed against his chest and my hand played between his legs, long after we should have been asleep and restoring for one of the last campaign days. "I feel it. I'm going to win."

"We're going to win," I corrected.

"Yes, we're going to win," he accepted.

We did win. The exit polls and the turnout had us giddy by 3 p.m.

Our victory was certain by 5 p.m.

Bannister conceded at 7 p.m.

Wisconsin has 72 counties. In 2016, the President won 60 of the 72. In 2018, Jackson won 66 of the 72. He was on his way.

******

Jackson and I had met seven years before. At the time, I was a second-year law student at Wisconsin and the student representative on the search committee that interviewed both Jackson and Claire Masters, husband and wife Harvard Law graduates who had both clerked for the United States Supreme Court. After clerking, they both practiced Appellate Advocacy at silk stocking law firms in New York and, now, were moving together into academia.

I had lobbied against inviting either them for on-campus interviews. I was a Progressive (I had caught Obamania in 2008), they were Federalists, I thought Federalists were Fascists, and I didn't think Wisconsin needed Fascists on its faculty.

"We need to hire people of color, not people who want to oppress people of color," I had battle-cried.

I had been out-voted.

They had come to campus, and they had charmed the Committee and the overall community. In bearing and personality, they were the opposite of what I had expected them to be.

Jackson was tall, about 6'4". But, his impeccable posture made him seem taller.

He was not a classically handsome man. His brown hair was bland, parted on the side and flipped over just like every other Crimson, although perhaps a bit higher in the front, a cowlick exaggerating the height. His brown eyes didn't stand out. His Roman nose was a bit large for his narrow face. And, his straight white teeth were a little too big, like he needed to grow a bit to catch up to them. If Seth Numrich was taller and a little buck toothed, he'd have been Jackson's doppelgänger.

Jackson knew his teeth were too big. I could tell, because he tried to keep his smiles small, which was too bad, because his big smile revealed two crescent dimples that diverted all attention from his teeth.

Regardless, he -- like Claire -- was elegant. Although he stood ramrod straight, he moved with dignity and grace, his movements languid, unhurried. He moved like someone who had been raised well. He moved like someone who didn't need speed, who had never needed speed.

And, he filled out his tailored suit nicely. I would later learn it was from being a triathlete, biking or running or swimming almost every day so he could travel here and there to torture himself in Ironman competitions. Then, I knew only that his suits didn't drape on him like they did on most academics; they were taut and tight, like they had been crafted especially for him.

He looked more comfortable in a suit than most people looked in shorts and an undershirt. He looked like he slept in a suit.

Claire, by contrast, was smallish in stature, 5'4" or so. But, she was not smallish in either intellect or personality. She was vicious. You were bleeding out before you even knew she had cut you.

She was also eccentrically beautiful. Even I recognized that, and I hadn't been with a woman since the night W was re-elected. I had worked for the Kerry Campaign and I was as certain of his victory as Senator Bannister had been of hers. When the early exit polls predicted a Kerry victory, we started celebrating. We continued celebrating even after our inside information said the exit polls were way off and Bush would win Ohio by 3 and Florida by 5 and, with those, the election. We continued celebrating even after the networks called the election for Bush, a call Kerry would not acknowledge, much less accept. We celebrated so long and so hard I found myself inside a girl I didn't know doing things my body had never done before.

"Never again," I had pledged as I looked for the condom I hadn't worn, dressed in clothes I didn't recognize, and slinked out of an apartment I couldn't re-find if my life depended on it. "Oh my God," I thought as I walked around Boston looking for something familiar, "the re-election of George W. Bush made me gay."

Of course, it hadn't. I had been gay for as long as I could remember. I just didn't want to admit it. I thought that, if I didn't admit it to myself, then I wouldn't have to admit it to anyone else, either.

It was 2004. It was a much harder admission than it is now, and it's still pretty damned hard.

By the time I met Jackson Masters, I had given my ass to so many men that I wore my homosexuality like a badge of honor. I wouldn't have undone it even if I could. I liked being gay. I don't know that I'd have chosen it, but, now that I had it, I had no interest in giving it back. I reveled in it.

Anyway, Claire's eyes were like oil spills, dark brown and large, too large for her small face. At times, she looked like a Precious Moment figurine.

Her nose, by contrast, was small, a button.

Her lips continued the alternation, thick and round, although the mouth they housed was small. "I bet she can't take a dick in that mouth," we gossiped behind her back.

Like her mouth, her body was small. "She should have been a gymnast," we observed.

When we were being cruel, we wondered what she saw in Jackson. Then, we speculated that she saw the man she could make him be. Later, I'd see what she had seen, that when Jackson Masters focused on you, I mean really focused on you, everything else stopped and that focus was the only thing that mattered. It was like heroin; once you tried it, it's all you ever thought about.

When we were being really cruel, we joked that they were "The Rectitudes." They seemed so staid as to be priggish.

"I'm surprised they've fucked twice," someone said, believing the twice only because they had two daughters to prove it had to be true.

"You know they're pure missionary, both of them with their shirts on, their faces pinched and looking away, and their minds thinking 'hurry hurry hurry oh God please hurry'."

"There is no way either of them says 'God' when they're fucking," someone corrected, in light of their very public piety.

"I disagree. Still waters run deep. I bet they're both pigs for it. I bet she climbs on him and rides him like a mule, bouncing up and down while he squeezes her tits and insists 'take that dick, bitch, take that dick'."

We laughed as we thought of the scene. There was no way it was accurate.

"I bet it's very efficient and regimented," I said. "I bet he's like 'Claire, dear, it's Thursday. So, once we've finished with dinner, I'll put the girls down while you clear the plates. That way, we'll have three extra minutes for our weekly lovemaking before the 9 p.m. news comes on and we retire to our separate twin beds."

"And I bet she's like 'Why, Jackson, how efficient of you, you romantic schemer'."

I mocked him because I hated him. I didn't know him, but I hated him, because of who I thought he had to be.

My hatred carried into the first semester of my third year. For some reason, I had signed up for his "Constitutional Thinking and Thought" seminar, which was limited to eight students who played at being Supreme Court Justices. The class was very hard and very interactive and, in addition to meeting for three hours every Wednesday night, required a great deal of 1-1 interaction with the Chief Justice, who was played by Professor Masters.

Despite myself, I found myself growing to enjoy our 1-1 interactions. One, he gave great eye contact. "He barely blinks," I thought to myself, his eyes focused on me so intently it caused me to blush and deflect.

Two, he spoke regally, his diction slow and smooth, his words formed perfectly and forming paragraphs perfectly.

Three, he displayed a combination of cleverness and humility and kindness that I didn't expect from someone with his pedigree and views. He was, in a word, charming, and his charms chipped away at my resistance to him.

I tried everything I could think of to push his buttons, but he never took the bait. I got emotional and impassioned and he just listened to me, patiently, sometimes nodding, almost never frowning, always placid.

"How can you be so passive?" I asked.

"You're trying to convince me because you're trying to convince yourself. I don't need to convince you because I've already convinced myself."

"You're too smug."

"I'm not sure that's possible."

"Oh my God."

He winced. He hated the mention of God in an un-Godly context.

I often left his office frustrated. I always left it entertained. He was smart, and I was beguiled by his smartness, even when I fought against it.

"You surprise me," I said during one of our interactions.

"How so?"

"I thought I hated you. I really did. And, I really wanted to hate you. I want to hate you. But, I just can't."

"Hmm. I don't hate anyone. And, I don't want to hate anyone."

"I know. I thought you would. I thought all you Religious Nutjobs hated fags and hippies and liberals."

"Well, first, I don't consider myself a Religious Nutjob. True, I'm a Christian. But, I'm not a Nutjob."

"You go to church on the regular. In my book, that's a Nutjob."

"I don't think I want to read your book."

"I think you're probably right."

"You're too intelligent to be religious."

"I'm certain that's an insult."

"It is."

"Second, I didn't know you were a, well, I don't use that word, the one you used, and I'm not quite sure what word I'm supposed to use...."

"Gay. You can say it. You didn't know I'm gay."

"I didn't know you were gay. Are gay, I mean. You were and you are and you will be, at least so they say. Uhhh, I sound like a total lunk."

"A lunk?"

"It's something I say when I'm flustered. You know, when I'm lunking about verbally, like I just was."

"Third, I don't think you're a hippie. Your hair could use a trim, but you're not what I think of when I think of a hippie."

I looked at myself, figuratively. At 6'2", I was a bit less than Professor Masters. My black hair was curly/wavy and way too long, but I hated getting it cut. I always had, the small hair prickling my skin when I was a child and conditioning me against haircuts forever.

My dark blue eyes sat beneath very dark and very thick brows and atop dimpled cheeks that were perpetually shadowed by at least two days of growth. My thick red lips opened to teeth that had never been braced and that were a little exotic, my canines long enough that I looked feral when I was angry.

My skin is very white and very clear. I could easily be mistaken for the Vampire Lestat, only on the dark side.

My features are a bit androgynous. I'm almost feminine, pretty. Think Lee Williams, from his modeling days or from "No Night Is Too Long." Alternatively, think Ezra Fieremans, from "Follow Me."

I dressed like a peasant, usually in deteriorating shoes, tattered jeans, and actual peasant shirts. I changed only when Wisconsin's weather forced me to, and then only to add shit-kicker boots, a heavy overcoat, and a thick, well-worn yarn scarf.

When I looked in the mirror, I liked what I saw. I was cool and I was hot. I loved my nose. It was prominent.

When others looked at me, I knew they liked what they saw. I got chased.

"Fourth and finally, I suspect your liberalism is just a phase that I can convince you to abandon, if you use your two ears more than you use your one mouth, which -- if past is prologue -- is a very big if indeed."

I laughed at his arrogance. "Funny," I said back. "I think the same of your conservatism."

"I'm not a Conservative," he corrected. "I'm a classic liberal, not a political one, a classic one."

"You talk like you write," I said. "I mean, you just first, second, third, and fourth'd me for fuck's sake."

He winced on the fuck. He didn't like profanity.

"Sorry," I said.

He also talked liked the well-raised. His diction was perfect. His timbre was deep and resonant, almost sonorous.

Our conversations continued, deepening and widening. I was normally reticent, but, with him, I had diarrhea of the mouth. I don't know... He was comfortable, like an old sweater or a stuffed animal received as a child and still loved, the nose missing, the fuzzy cotton pilled and, in other places, rubbed bare.

So, I blabbed and blabbed and blabbed, opening myself up and laying myself bare. I let him know me like no one else knew me. He accepted what I shared, the way only a true friend does.

He shared with me, too, giving me bullet after bullet that I could use but never would.

I was moved by his kindness. He was, at his core, a caring, kind man, not at all what I expected from one I expected to be anathema.

Seven years on, I was still a liberal. But, I was a liberal who was Chief of Staff to a brand new Senator after serving as his Chief of Staff to him as Wisconsin's Attorney General.

I was also a liberal who had long ago gotten the classically liberal Professor and then General and then Senator into bed.

*****

It had been a slow roll. Over the Fall semester, my visits to his office became more and more frequent, far more frequent than required for the seminar he taught. I found myself drawn to him, my smile wide as I walked toward him, his smile wide as he greeted me, the intimacy we shared as we talked slowly filling the empty spaces in his office.

Once there, I found myself not wanting to leave. And, I found his "I need to get home to Claire and the girls" coming later and later until they stopped coming altogether.

When my visits started, he was always behind his desk. As they continued, he moved to the front of his desk, his backside against the edge, his legs crossed at the ankles and his arms crossed over his chest.

I didn't know if he noticed, but I stole glances at his crotch as I wondered about his penis, whether it was cut or uncut, whether it was long and thin like him or short and fat like mine, whether it was as big as his hands suggested it might be. The glances revealed nothing, no bulge visible.

"You know what they say about men with large hands?" I teased.

"Yes," he deadpanned, "large gloves."

"You should play the piano."

"I do. I was an only child. It's what's done."

"Do you play well?"

"I do everything I do well."

I used his hands as a feint. I pretended I wanted to look at them more closely. I held them in mine, little bolts of electricity shooting from them into mine.

I looked at them intently. I noticed the hair on the backs of them, none between the nail and the first knuckle, none again between the first knuckle and the second, a hint of hair between the second and the third knuckle, the back dusted by a light brown whorl.

I looked at the nails. They were deep and long, half moons brightening the otherwise dark pink beds.

I didn't want just to look at them. I wanted to hold them. So, I turned them this way and that until my fingers were locked in his, left and right. I was giddy, his hands in mine.

He didn't try to free himself. So, I moved our hands, lowering them, until they were by our hips, our fingers still intertwined. We were holding hands.

We just stood there, his hands in mine, mine in his. I began to wonder.

"What does your family call you?" I asked, my hands still in his.

"Really?" he asked.

"Really," I answered. "Not your extended family, your dad and your mom. What do they call you when no one else is around?"

"What makes you think they call me anything other than Jackson?"

"It's what parents do."

"It's too embarrassing," he deflected.

"It's not," I insisted.

"If I tell you, I'll have to kill you," he joked.

"You're already killing me" flashed through my mind, a thought that I captured before it escaped my lips.

"Tell me," I said, squeezing his hands, my voice intimate and low.

"Bucky.... When we're alone, my parents call me Bucky. Sometimes, it's Buck. Usually, it's Bucky."

As he said it, he was abashed.

I didn't ask. I knew it derived from his teeth.

"I love those teeth," I said, showing him that I knew why he was abashed. "When you smile, they light the way."

He smiled. Big. His teeth lit the way. It was all I could do not to kiss him.