O’Rourke was surprised by the applause. He stepped from behind the podium. “How many of you are employed?” Most of the hands went up. “How many of you have health insurance?” The show of hands was halved. “What Councilman Lamè spoke about is very important,” O’Rourke continued, “but so are other things that are important to both gay and straight Democrats of this district. The need for universal health insurance should be one of the crucial themes of the Democratic Party.” O’Rourke had caught their attention and there was silence. “How about adoptive rights? Are there any adoptive gay parents here this evening?” Four hands shot up, a male couple and a female couple. “How easy was it for you to adopt?”
“It wasn’t easy at all,” said one of the males. “They practically called us perverts.”
“Same with us,” said one of the females. “You knew they were thinking ‘dyke’ from the get-go.”
“Adoptive rights,” said O’Rourke, “are important. That’s another area that should be investigated in Washington. And if you adopt, education is important, as is health insurance. It doesn’t matter if you’re gay, straight, or asexual,” he said, thinking of Ed Koch. “We all have so much in common that we must not divide our attention and our efforts. There is only one way to march and that is together and forward as we uphold the great traditions of the Democratic Party in America.”
To O’Rourke’s complete surprise he got a loud ovation. The two gay couples he had spoken to stood up to applaud and the rest of the audience followed their example. He looked at Nuncio Baroody and smiled, for Nuncio had done his job superbly.
The votes were tallied and Lizzie Townsend came back to the podium. “The vote is as follows. Councilman Lamè 105. Wolfe Tone O’Rourke 25. Thus the VQD endorsement for the 7th Congressional District goes to Councilman Thom Lamè. This meeting is adjourned.”
O’Rourke went over to shake Lamè’s hand and say congratulations. Lamè ignored him and headed straight towards Dominick Carter of New York One. “How do you feel?” asked Carter.
“Just tremendous,” Lamè gushed. “What a tremendous victory. We will go on from here to win the primary in June and the general election come November. God bless America and sodomy on demand!” said Lamè as he and his followers left the building. O’Rourke shook his head in astonishment at Lamè’s statement. He knew Lamè had just frightened half the Upper West Side into his camp.
“What’s your reaction to your devastating defeat here tonight, Mr. O’Rourke?”
“Geez, Dominick,” said O’Rourke, “he didn’t say what I thought he said, did he?” Dominick Carter gave a nervous laugh and O’Rourke could see the plea in his eyes. If he was in a barroom he would break Carter’s balls, but right now he decided to let him slide. “I didn’t think it was that devastating,” continued O’Rourke. “After all, I am playing in the other guy’s ballpark.”
“That may be true,” said Carter, “but remember the VQD endorsement packs a lot of electoral wallop.”
“You may be right,” said O’Rourke, smiling as he remembered a lesson he had learned from LBJ. “At least after tonight, Dominick, I now know the difference between a caucus and a cactus.”
“And what might that be?”
“On a cactus, all the pricks are on the outside.”
The phone had started ringing the next morning after CNN picked up the feed of New York One.
“They’re going crazy,” said Sam McGuire to O’Rourke.
“Really.”
“You knew all along, didn’t you?”
“I figured this might happen,” replied O’Rourke.
“How?”
“New York One is affiliated with CNN,” said O’Rourke. “I thought there was a good chance of being picked up if I said something to pique their interest. Cable channels can’t help themselves. You can bet that CNN wants to beat Fox to any kind of political news, no matter how spurious it is.”
“CNN wants you,” said McGuire.
“Let them wait,” replied O’Rourke. “I want something with a little more fire.”
“Like?”
“Like Liam Hanrahan of the Fox Network.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Like a fox, my dear,” and O’Rourke laughed at his simile.
“You are one lucky son of a bitch,” said Pepoon as he walked into the office.
“I am never lucky,” said O’Rourke with an edge. “I don’t believe in luck. I planned this just as I planned those ringers in the audience last night.”
“Ringers?” asked McGuire.
“Yeah, those two gay couples with adoptive kids.”
“I thought you were lucky they were there,” said McGuire.
“They were there because Nuncio did his job and planted them there,” said O’Rourke. “And ‘all the pricks are on the outside’ is ancient history also.”
“LBJ,” said Pepoon.
“Right you are,” said O’Rourke, and McGuire raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Said it right after he was fucked in a caucus. One of the funniest lines in American political history.”
“Here it is again,” said Pepoon as he took the remote and released the mute button. The three of them looked on in anticipation.
“God bless America and sodomy on demand!” said Lamè once again.
“That should go over big in Middle America,” said Pepoon. “He’s his own worst enemy.”
“He couldn’t help himself,” said O’Rourke. “Pure hubris. Big win and he’s flaunting it—and frightening half the people in the district. He’s an amateur.”
O’Rourke was now on the TV screen. “At least after tonight, Dominick, I now know the difference between a caucus and a cactus.”
“And what might that be?” said Dominick Carter perfectly.
“On a cactus, all the pricks are on the outside!”
“What is our political dialogue coming to?” said a perplexed Wolf Blitzer of CNN into the camera.
“It’s Wolf on Wolfe,” said Pepoon.
O’Rourke laughed. “Blitzer’s the dumbest kraut since Rudolf Hess.”
The phone rang again. “It’s Liam Hanrahan’s people. They want you tonight,” said McGuire.
“I thought they would,” said Wolfe Tone O’Rourke.
22.
O’Rourke and Clarence Black took a cab up Sixth Avenue to the Fox News Studio on West 48th Street. O’Rourke was silent, which was beginning to drive Black nuts.
“What the fuck you up to?” asked Black, clearly annoyed.
“You packin’?”
“Yeah, I’m packin’,” said Black. “That’s what you pay me for. What the hell you up to?”
O’Rourke looked at Black and smiled. “It’s time for the dry run, Clarence.”
“Dry run?”
“Yes,” said O’Rourke, “we’re going to find out if my plan will work, starting tonight.”
O’Rourke was immediately taken to makeup. As he sat there in the chair they powdered his nose and swabbed the sweat pockets from underneath his eyes. He was not nervous. He was focused on Liam Hanrahan—Fox’s highly-rated political pundit and bestselling author of God Made America Just for You!
Hanrahan was 48. He wore impeccable dark blue suits. Recently he had abandoned his tie and had taken to wearing turtlenecks.Turtlenecks, it appeared, were the leisure suit of the new millennium. One surmised that he thought this fashion statement made him more a man of the people. In reality, it made him look like he had a foreskin crawling up his neck. But the one thing that got everyone’s attention immediately was his immaculate razor-cut. His black hair was all shiny. It would not move in a tornado. In fact, his hair made it look like he had a permanent black hockey helmet cemented to the top of his head. He had teeth that glistened like fine china. You could always tell when the Irish in America had made it because their kids had teeth so perfect it looked like Michaelangelo had personally chiseled each and every one. And of course there was that famous, square-cut Hanrahan jaw. Rock solid, with a tiny Cary Gr
ant cleft. Hanrahan was almost perfect.
But almost doesn’t count.
He had a flaw and O’Rourke knew what it was—16 years of Catholic education, topped off with a B.A. from Manhattan College in the Bronx. This was something that Hanrahan didn’t shout from the mountain. In fact, he was embarrassed by it. Not exactly the kind of pedigree he wanted to flaunt. He wanted to be accepted by all those rich Republicans, those Texas oilmen, those moral crusaders from the prairie with their stark Protestant beliefs and their steady trust funds. They had all gone to places like Princeton and Harvard, not, for God’s sake, Manhattan College run by the De LaSalle Brothers. So he didn’t like to talk about his pedestrian Catholic education. He also knew his Republican friends really didn’t trust Catholics all that much. Papist plotters, that’s what they really thought of Catholics. It bothered him, but he had put his lot in with them and there was no going back. He knew they didn’t like Catholics, but they absolutely abhorred Jews. They were all for a right-wing Israel, which they would defend with their aircraft carriers and someone else’s sons. They just didn’t want Jews, or Catholics for that matter, playing golf at their country clubs on the weekend. But that Protestant attitude—we’re better than you because we were here first and we have old money—would not stop Hanrahan. He would overcome his background. He would do it by being to the right of the right-wing. He had won their admiration by relentlessly attacking Clinton and he would not stop now. And why should he? Clinton bashing had made him famous—and rich. Without Clinton he had been nothing, just another gasbag talk-show host on an obscure Riverhead, Long Island, radio station. With Clinton he was a star. Bashing Clinton had propelled him to Celebrity Felony, the TV tabloid show where he had managed to turn the raised editorial eyebrow into his smug trademark. Deep down, Liam Hanrahan loved Bill Clinton. Then the Fox Network came calling.
Hanrahan was fourth-generation Irish-American. The first Hanrahans had shuffled off the boat at Ellis Island before World War I. They had been working class and Democrats right up through the ’60s, when their fear of a socialist state—they apparently didn’t need handouts themselves anymore—and New York Mayor John V. Lindsay had chased them into the hands of the Republicans of Nassau County. Hanrahan was typical of the devolution of many of the Irish. He was handsome. He was opinionated. He thought he was tough, but he didn’t know the meaning of real toughness—the ability to overcome, to put food on the table for the family while worrying about how to pay this month’s late rent. He was like the rest of the bought-Irish, thought O’Rourke—a narrowback without a spine.
O’Rourke was shown into the studio. As he was being seated and miked, Hanrahan perfunctorily nodded at him, then went back to his notes. The red light on the camera went on and Hanrahan looked straight into it and electricity bolted through his body. This is what turned him on.
“You’re on The Hanrahan Debate,” boomed Hanrahan into the camera. “Tonight our guest is Wolfe Tone O’Rourke, Democratic candidate for Congress for Manhattan’s 7th Congressional District.” He paused for effect. “You might be the only man in the world named after a terrorist,” said Hanrahan, his way of baiting O’Rourke, taking him down a notch before a word had even come out of his mouth.
O’Rourke had been dealing with smarmy punks like this for years. He would not be baited. “Well, Liam,” O’Rourke began, “I’ll have to disagree with you there.”
“How so?” Hanrahan said, his voice soaked in a feigned mock.
“You never heard of George Washington Carver? He was named after a terrorist. An American terrorist who also fought the British.”
“Ah,” said Hanrahan, showing good cheer, “you got me there. But President Washington was a freedom fighter.”
“So was Theobald Wolfe Tone,” replied O’Rourke. “As was Nelson Mandela. As was David Ben-Gurion.”
“Well,” said Hanrahan, “let’s move on. How does one get named after an Irish Revolutionary?”
“My parents were Fenians, fervid Republicans,” replied O’Rourke.
“Yes, Republicans,” said Hanrahan, beaming. “Everyone will be one soon!”
“Not your kind, Liam,” O’Rourke said evenly. “My parents were Republicans in Dublin. But they were Democrats in New York!”
“Hmmm,” smiled Hanrahan into the camera. “Let’s move on. Why are you running for Congress?”
“It’s about time this district, overwhelmingly Democratic, was returned to the people. It’s time this district stops being exploited by Republican sorcery.” O’Rourke thought Hanrahan would bite at that statement, but he didn’t.
“What do you think about Our Lady of Greenwich Village appearing to Congressman Swift?”
“It’s possible,” said O’Rourke. “I believe in the Virgin Mary. My mother was named after her. I was born a Catholic, and I’m going to die a Catholic.”
“But aren’t you a little ticked off that she’s on our side?” responded Hanrahan.
“Your side?” said O’Rourke. “Which side is your side?”
“Opponents of Roe v. Wade.”
“Believe me,” said O’Rourke evenly, “if Our Lady had a legal message, the last person on earth she’d bring it to would be Jackie Swift.”
“That’s pretty condescending,” said Hanrahan.
“The only thing Jackie Swift knows about Roe v. Wade,” said O’Rourke, “is that he thinks those were George Washington’s options when he was preparing to cross the Delaware.”
Behind the scenes, a cameraman started laughing. Hanrahan, distracted by the laughter, squinted into the camera. “Let’s move on,” he said. “How about your opponent in the primary, Thom Lamè?” Before O’Rourke could respond, Hanrahan said, “Let’s run that tape.”
There was Lamè on the screen from the VQD caucus: “God bless America and sodomy on demand!”
“Sodomy on demand!” said Hanrahan. “That sums up the agenda of the Democratic Party.”
“Why are you so homophobic, Liam?” shot back O’Rourke.
Hanrahan jumped out of his chair and to his own conclusion. “Don’t you dare call me a sodomite.”
O’Rourke didn’t move a muscle, and Hanrahan saw the coldest pair of eyes he had ever seen. Rebekah’s “kind eyes” had vanished. Hanrahan retook his seat. “You always hit below the belt, don’t you, Hanrahan?”
“Well, O’Rourke,” said Hanrahan, “my staff has compiled a dossier on you.” He hastily pulled papers from a folder. “Your rap sheet goes all the way back to Bobby Kennedy in 1968. You’re a leftist, O’Rourke,” said Hanrahan as he stuck his neck out of his turtleneck like a turkey. “Admit it!”
“And you’re a right-wing asshole.”
The set went dead quiet.
A blush bloomed on Hanrahan’s face, which was soon as red as an apple. O’Rourke thought blood was going to gush out Hanrahan’s ears any minute. He had him just where he wanted him.
“How dare you!” said Hanrahan, almost in stroke. “How dare you use such filth on cable television.”
“Why not?” replied O’Rourke. “The airwaves belong to the American people—not Rupert Murdoch. You propagate filth daily on this channel with your lies and half truths. Fox is to journalism what Adolf Hitler is to the B’nai Brith!”
“Fox adheres to the highest journalistic standards.”
“You’re not journalists,” said O’Rourke, “you’re keyhole peepers.”
Journalists, thought O’Rourke. He no longer believed a thing he read. He knew the New York Post made up most of their stories. And he wasn’t paralyzed by the sterling reputations of the New York Times and Washington Post either. American journalism, as O’Rourke saw it, had plummeted from the halcyon days of Edward R. Murrow on radio and TV and David Halberstam reporting in print from the jungles of Vietnam. How could you ever believe someone like the pontificating George Will, infamous for coaching Ronald Reagan for his debate with Jimmy Carter, then hours later declaring as a commentator on ABC News that Reagan had walloped Carter in the deba
te? O’Rourke knew there was more hard journalism in one of Jimmy Breslin’s columns on Marvin the Torch then in all the predictable, flaccid prose of David S. Broder and William Safire combined. But what really ate at O’Rourke were the so-called TV journalists, like Hanrahan. They were good at doing two things—looking pretty and reading a teleprompter. O’Rourke had never forgotten the reader on Eyewitness News who had put on a morose face and announced “We have sad news tonight. Isaac Bashevis, the singer, is dead.”
“Do you see this?” said Hanrahan pointing to the American flag in the lapel of his blue suit while trying to change the subject and regain control of the debate at the same time.
“Yeah,” said O’Rourke, “so what?”
“Men died for that flag!”
“I know,” said O’Rourke. “I was with them. Where were you?”
“What?”
“I was in Vietnam. Where were you?”
“I had a deferment.”
“Oh, yes,” said O’Rourke with a laugh, “you couldn’t go because you had an anal cyst, right?” Again, there was laughter from behind the camera, which only encouraged O’Rourke. “You know what an anal cyst is, America? It’s a pimple on the ass. This man couldn’t fight for his country because he had a pimple on his ass. Imagine that. Meet the patriot from the Fox Network—Anal Cyst Hanrahan!”
Hanrahan was beginning to wonder who had the dossier on whom. “We’re getting way off track here,” said Hanrahan, still pointing to the flag for all America to see. He was ruffled. He needed a comeback. “You have a warped view of this world and a warped view of this country. Why aren’t you wearing an American flag!” He thrust his arm at O’Rourke, his index finger pointing accusingly.
“Because I don’t have to,” said O’Rourke flatly.
“You should be ashamed of yourself, exploiting Vietnam vets,” said Hanrahan, his voice dripping with reproach.
“Look in your little dossier,” said O’Rourke. Nobody had ever talked to Hanrahan that way.“I don’t have to wear your little American flag because in Vietnam I earned a Purple Heart, a Navy Cross, and a Bronze Star so chickenhawks like you could boast about how patriotic they are, but when they had their chance to kill commies they sent guys like me.” For once, Hanrahan was speechless. “In fact,” continued O’Rourke, “the first legislation I introduce when I get to Congress will be for universal conscription.”
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