By Silent Majority

by Robert Buschel

  The first person Daniel had to see was his wife. He had grown to love June in a brotherly way. The only romantic moment he ever had was on his wedding day. As the marriage went on June became disgusted with sex. Daniel never tried to satisfy her. He wondered if she was involved in an affair. It was a thought he never really investigated. Because he didn’t care. The relationship sustained itself because she was disinterested and became mildly repulsed by sex with Daniel. He came to terms with his nontraditional relationship with June and after all the years of marriage the best moments became simply cordiality. June grew into the part. To the outside world, she became a traditional wife. She loved the power and the glory of being the First Lady and was the perfect wife in public. She had the whole world fooled.

  Daniel made his way to the master bedroom.

  “June, I want to talk with you.” Daniel paused for as long as he did after he announced he was homosexual a few hours ago in his speech. “I’m sure you heard the news.” She was shocked all over again, but inside she knew it could happen one day. June had hoped it was way after the presidency when the world wouldn’t care. Why wouldn’t the world care at that point, but it cared now?

  “Oh, Daniel,” she gasped. June put her hands to her mouth. “How?” Instantly her dreams shattered. Her way of life was destroyed. She comprehended what she suspected throughout their marriage. Her heart sunk and she began sobbing. Her instinct was to respond like Terrence Bratton’s wife years ago, when he had the revelation of a scandal of another woman. At that moment, June couldn’t believe that was even a scandal. Today, it would be ridiculous. Not even considered by the public as a factor in character. Or would it?

  “I can’t believe it,” June sat on the bed. “It can’t be true. All we’ve worked for. All I’ve done.”

  Daniel was a little surprised June didn’t even question if it were true. Even this fact, as in all of politics, the truth is a relative and arguable thing. “I’m sorry it’s going to change our life for a while.”

  “Can you still win? You can’t back out now.” Her head was spinning and desperately she said, “Deny it! I’ll get on television and say you’re a great lover. I’ll be convincing. We’ll figure something out.”

  “Perhaps it won’t matter,” Daniel said in desperation.

  “Oh, but what about our friends, Daniel?”

  Daniel wondered, ‘What about me?’ June released some of her tension with a laugh.

  “Listen, I already made the address to the country. The world knows.” It took a moment to sink in. He made such a monumental decision without asking her. How did Peter let him get away with it?

  “How dare you?” She said with demonic scorn.

  “I didn’t consult you because I wanted to come clean with this. I wanted to defuse the scandal. I didn’t want my enemies to destroy me. I wanted to give the American people a chance. The benefit of the doubt. I didn’t want the Silent Majority to win, for once. I know after all I’ve done they will be able to handle it. And if they can’t, I can become the professor I always wanted to be.”

  “You fool! I knew this would come to an end someday. What did I do to deserve such a thing? I became a good Christian. God. It was Tom. I betrayed my husband. I let him get involved in the sinful world of drugs. . . .” Daniel’s temper rose quickly.

  “Oh shut up, June. I’m sick and tired of your bullshit! The Lord can’t help us now. We have to help ourselves.” There was silence. June stared at him with an intensity that said that he was blasphemy.

  “This is what I get for marrying a man who is a sinner against nature.”

  Daniel took a deep breath and sighed. He stared into the mirror on the wall. He saw the wrinkles on his face. He turned and saw the hate in hers.

  “I’m going to talk with my daughter.”

  “Remember, she’s my daughter. You didn’t have the desire to make your own. All those times you tried to pleasure me.” June contrived a laugh. “Thanks for the favor.”

  “Thanks for your support.” Daniel said disdainfully. He turned to leave and June left him with a final thought, “I’ll pray for your soul, Daniel.” Strangely, she said it with sincerity.

  Daniel walked to the other end of the house to find their daughter laying face down on her made bed. Paul was in the room and excused himself.

  “Connie. Hello, kitten.” Daniel sat next to her on the bed.

  “Hello, Daddy.” He rejoiced in hearing her address him as, “Daddy.” Connie turned over because it was uncomfortable to lean on her baby. She turned over and covered her eyes with her hands.

  “I have something to tell you.”

  “I know, Daddy. And I don’t want to talk about it. Tell me it isn’t true. Please!” He wished it weren’t. For a fleeting moment he tried to will himself into being a heterosexual.

  “I’m sorry, darling, it is. It’s been true for a very long time. I was . . .”

  “I don’t want to hear it! I don’t want to hear it!” Connie kicked and screamed like a child.

  “I’ll let you be,” Daniel said as he left to go to the bathroom.

  He admitted to himself that this would be tough for a child of any age to accept. Probably the older, the harder, because children design a certain schema their parents fit into. If they violate it in any way, it’s a shock to the psyche. Daniel never intended for his children to ever find out. It wasn’t a secret. No parents should really talk to their child about their sex life. It’s none of their business. In this case too.

  The downtrodden Daniel Carlson again stared at himself in the mirror and sobbed into his hands. He had no one. No one to share his pain in this time of misery. Everyone was making their own misery. No one was comforting Daniel. Daniel had another drink before he went to visit Alan. He figured that Alan would take it the worst.

  Daniel entered Alan’s room and saw that Alan was studying for semester exams.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Hi.”

  “Is something the matter, Dad? I’ve never seen you drink in the afternoon.”

  “Actually, the drink’s for you, Alan. I have something to tell you that’s going to upset you.” Alan braced himself emotionally.

  “Did somebody die?” He asked solemnly. Daniel sat on Alan’s bed and Alan turned his chair to face him.

  “Maybe me.”

  “You’re sick?” Alan said in a nervous tone.

  “No. I was just trying to make light of the situation. Alan, you sometimes grow up and you think certain things about certain people. For instance, a son thinks that his father is the strongest man in the world. Can do no wrong. Is the best father in the neighborhood?” Alan didn’t quite follow his father’s point but didn’t interrupt. “When the son finds out something different about his father, the boy may feel differently about him. To get to the point, I’m going to tell you something about myself that you don’t know. It may change what you think about me. And I hope that one day you’ll think of me as the hero I once was to you.”

  “Dad, are you involved in some type of Watergate scandal?”

  “No, Al.” Daniel stood up and touched his son on the shoulders. “The media is going to release that I’m a homosexual.”

  Alan laughed, “Get the hell out of here, Dad. I’m trying to study. Go bother Connie.”

  “I’m serious, Alan.” It took a moment to sink in. Al shifted and broke free from his father’s touch. There was complete silence for a few seconds.

  “But, you’re married to Mom.” Alan realized that logically what he just said didn’t necessarily make sense.

  “Some homosexual men are married, Alan.”

  “I can’t believe it. Cut the shit, Dad. You got me.” If it were a joke, Daniel would be taking it a little too far. The absence of a response made Alan finally believe. He began to take his shirt off. He felt very hot and it was hard to breathe and sweated profuse
ly. “I . . . I, this is true?”

  “Yes. I can turn on the TV.”

  “Jesus!”

  “Please talk about it with me. I need help dealing with it myself.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Since I was a young adult.”

  “What am I supposed to say? I thought my father was a man and today he’s not.” Alan began to cry. “I make fun of gay people, Dad. I don’t get it. What did we do to make you gay?”

  “You did nothing. Who knows what makes people heterosexual or homosexual? But I’m still your father. You’re still my son. This is information I never wanted to tell you about.”

  “So have you been having sex with Mom all these years or what?”

  “I’m not going to . . . It’s really not your business to know.”

  “No, but it’s okay to know you’re a fag!” Daniel’s anger welled up inside of him and he struck Alan with his open hand. The blow tossed Alan to the corner of his room. Alan was in shock. His father never hit him before. He was confused; he didn’t know how to react.

  Alan charged at his father and tackled him into the opposite wall. Daniel recovered and broke his arms free. As he smacked Alan, Daniel screamed, “I’m still your father! I’m still a man! I can still kick your ass like I did when you were a little boy.” Alan fell to the ground and just laid there weeping.

  “Am I going to be gay?” Alan asked. Daniel began to cry again into his hands. He turned away from Alan so he wouldn’t see his father weeping. Again he saw himself in a mirror on the wall. He looked away.

  “I don’t think it’s something that is taught, or runs in the family.”

  “You’d rather be with a man than with Mom?” Daniel actually found humor in that question. It would be tough for anyone to be with his mother. If there was a theory that claimed that a man could be driven toward homosexuality, she’d be the best case study.

  “I haven’t had a male relationship since my early twenties.”

  “How did they find out?” He turned and let his son see that he was crying. Alan remained on the floor.

  “Who knows? But I made a speech asking the American public to understand.”

  “I know this is pretty selfish, but, how am I going to take the bar exam now? I’ve been looking for an excuse to do poorly on it.” Both men smiled at each other. Alan sat up and wiped his tears.

  “I’m going to leave you alone. We’ll talk later. I know it’s going to be a difficult time for you. It’s a lot to deal with. Most importantly, Alan, I love you.” Daniel left the room, and Alan said nothing.

  The President went into his private study and looked around. He sat in silence for a long period of time. He noticed the books on the shelf and remembered reading almost every one. He looked at his watch and discovered that dinner would be served in about an hour. It would be a solemn and silent supper.

  Daniel always loved the Ivy League look to the library. With the leather seat and mahogany desk with the green shaded lamp attached to the desk, it reminded him of his Yale and Harvard days. Daniel sat behind his desk, opened the drawer, pulled out his presidential stationery, and placed a fountain pen on top. As he opened another drawer, he saw the glint of the metal gun in the corner. The gun was always loaded. The President’s attention turned to the pictures and awards on the wall. He stood with great men who respected him. He wondered how many would respect him when they read the papers.

  Perhaps he wasn’t giving the cameras enough credit. Maybe there was an ounce of decency in someone’s bones who had the power to stop the destruction of a great man’s career, and his family life. He laughed at the thought. It was the camera’s job to tell all that was factual and interesting to the reader. All in the name of the First Amendment, the right to know.

  Alan decided to look for his father. He had thought of something to ask him. He himself was still shaken up over the whole idea of it. He went into the kitchen, but Daniel wasn’t there. Daniel picked up the loaded automatic weapon and placed it on his desk. Picking up the fountain pen, he began to write some notes on the sheet of paper in front of him. Alan looked in the family room. His father always watched television before dinner. He called it the journal hour. He would sit in silence watching a blank television screen.

  Daniel wrote and wrote, taking only a second to caress his gun with his left hand. He squeezed it, then wrote another sentence. Squeezed and wrote. He pointed the barrel in his direction. He squeezed then wrote.

  Finally, Alan figured that his father must be in the study to sit in silence. Daniel looked at himself in his mind’s eye. Everyone he told about the upcoming catastrophe was asking, ‘What about me?’ ‘Look how it’s going to affect me.’ That’s what Daniel’s job had been throughout his life. He answered everyone’s question, ‘What about me?’ When his mother died, his father asked it. When Peter was dumped by the party, he asked. The one time he really asked for help, no one would even listen. They only wanted to talk about what they wanted to talk about. He wished someone would talk about what he wanted to talk about, instead of running for cover in a shield of selfishness. ‘Me. Me. What about me?’ He squeezed then wrote. It occurred to Daniel that this was the third time he really cried in his life. Once for his mother, another for failing the army physical, and now.

  Alan opened the door forcefully. Alan stood at the door still without a shirt. His eyes were red from tears. “Dad, I just wanted to say I love you too.” Daniel quickly slipped the gun back into the drawer. He rose and walked over to the door. The two men hugged and cried. “I love you, Dad. It’s going to be okay. We’ll stick it out together. Me, you, the whole family.”

  “You don’t know how good that makes me feel,” he said between sobs.

  “You weren’t going to kill yourself with that gun?”

  “No. I thought you and me would go out and kill some members of the press. Good idea?”

  The sanctimonious Silent Majority might have wanted it, but Daniel chose life instead.

  “Hmm. Can you do that?”

  “Of course I can. I’m the Goddamn President.” The two smiled at each other. Daniel held Alan’s head in his hands and kissed him on the lips. “You really turned out to be a great kid.”

  “Well, I take after my dad.” Daniel let that comment sink in, and he smiled.

  “Well, while we’re talking, I might as well tell you my mother was Jewish.” Alan looked at his father and tilted his head in bewilderment.

  The election day arrived. Usually excitement and anticipation filled the air like Christmas Eve to a child. Daniel was flying around the Northeast getting out the vote. The crowds he spoke to were of course friendly ones. He could scarcely tell at all that he had a cloud hanging over his head.

  Daniel reconsidered the repercussions from his speech. He feared that he asked the American people to radically change their thinking toward acceptance of an idea too quickly. The American mind is like changing the direction of a large ship—even when the wheel has turned, it takes many miles before it turns around. And what a shame. What a great President Daniel Carlson had become. Today, the unemployment rate for the previous quarter, three percent unemployment, the lowest in the country’s history.

  It was Election night and the polls were closed. Daniel asked that his family come to Washington and stay in at the White House. He wasn’t going to attend any parties no matter what the results of the election. He also told Peter not to prepare “winning” or “losing” speeches. He sent a message to the Chairman of the Committee to Re-elect, stating that he would neither accept congratulations nor defeat until the following day. Peter had the speeches written anyway. Peter knew that he would convince Daniel that a concession or acceptance speech must be given.

  Connie still had pain. Pain of being kept in the dark through all those years. But Daniel was her father, a loving and caring man since the day she met him—unconditio
nally. But even with his family home on the East Wing of the White House, Daniel knew he was alone, and always was alone —when he was a hero and in his moment of disgrace.

  Peter Spark was on the phone the last few hours with the campaign advisers in key states and the Geeks. The Geeks were uppity. They were rich, powerful, and arrived. Peter was too grateful and gave them so much. Bradford said Peter didn’t give them enough time to learn how to break the encryption of touch screen voting machines in Ohio, Texas, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. Peter realized he didn’t need the Geeks because President Carlson was too far ahead in the polls just a few months ago, and he wasn’t desperate for them. Boy, did he want them now. Yesterday, winning the election fairly was an easy promise Peter could keep to his President and friend. Today, the counting in Florida and California were closer than expected. Both sides were saber rattling about litigation for recounts.

  Daniel pulled out the bed in his office, knowing that he wouldn’t sleep with June. He took off his jacket and tie, wrapped himself in a robe and turned out the lights, going to sleep, perhaps the last night as the President. But as he went to sleep as a great leader of the nation, he knew he would awake as the same man. The Silent Majority having won.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Robert Buschel was born in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in South Florida. He flies compassion missions for the medically needy as a private pilot. He practices as a trial lawyer in Florida and California.