“I hadn’t planned this,” Roush said, much more quietly than before, “but as I gaze out into this sea of faces I am reminded once again that this is a good nation, a great nation, filled with large hearts and great souls, people who would always rather know the truth than be placated with a lie.” His face seemed to change. He was more nervous now. His slow voice became almost stuttering. “Throughout our history we have experienced prejudice and inequality, but time after time and year after year we have fought the good fight, and watched as the old ways and the unfair ways were extinguished. We were once a nation plagued by the stench of slavery, but we fought that battle, both for freedom and, later, for equal rights. We were once riddled with gender inequality, but slowly and surely we have made this country a better, fairer place for people of both sexes. People of differing races, creeds, and colors are equal in the eyes of the law, as the Fourteenth Amendment says they must be. Today there is only one group of Americans that remains constrained by inequality with the full sanction of the law, and just as with the other terrible inequalities of the past, this blight on our collective conscience must fall, must pass away, and those who work to that end will be remembered as freedom fighters, tireless soldiers in the battle for truth and justice.”
Ben searched the faces of all those who surrounded him in the garden. Everyone else seemed just as puzzled by this strange and sudden turn of oratory as he was.
“This has nothing to do with my service as a judge or justice,” Roush continued. “This is a matter of conscience. I would rather you hear it from me than read about it Monday morning in some supermarket tabloid. I thought the truth might emerge during the prenomination screening process, but since it did not, I will make the announcement myself. I will not be a part of a lie, because lies are what hold us down, keep us from attaining our greatest potentiality as a nation. Ladies and gentlemen, the man you see sitting behind this podium is not my brother, not my uncle, not my cousin, not—as the Secret Service believes—merely my best friend. He is my partner, my life partner, and he has been for almost seven years.”
Roush paused, then looked directly into the camera. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am a gay American. And I will not live in the closet any longer.”
4
The phones were ringing so incessantly that Jones was certain he had developed tinnitis. In the wake of the previous day’s dramatic development in the Rose Garden, everyone, it seemed, wanted to talk to the junior senator from the state of Oklahoma. If Ben was getting this volume of calls, Jones could only wonder what senators of the slightest importance had to handle. The administrative assistants in the other senators’ offices, however, would at least have the pleasure of seeing the pile of messages from other politicians, lobbyists, constituents, press, and various and sundry cranks occasionally diminish. Ben’s stack wasn’t shrinking at all. Because Ben wasn’t anywhere to be found.
Jones saw Christina burst through the door and tried to take advantage of the three seconds or so before she disappeared into her office. “Any sign of the Boss?”
“None.” She stopped just outside her door. “And I can’t waste any more time looking. Someone has to start returning calls before the villagers revolt.”
“They’re going to want to know what Ben’s position is on the gay Supreme Court nominee.”
“Which will be challenging, since I have no idea.”
“What, you two don’t go in for pillow talk?”
She looked at Jones sharply. “Not about politics. In fact, I expressly forbid it.”
“So what are you going to do?”
She threw up her hands and disappeared into her office. “What politicos do best. Equivocate.”
Jones didn’t blame her for feeling overwhelmed. There was always a wave of publicity following the announcement of a new Supreme Court nominee, but no one had been prepared for the tsunami that followed the revelation of the nation’s first openly gay nominee—nominated by a very conservative Republican President, no less. The White House had been marshaling their forces and ducking all the important questions, such as: Did you know he was gay? Will you still support him? Don’t you risk losing the fundamentalist Christian support that got you elected in the first place? Similarly, everyone had expected to see presidential flak pieces saturating the airwaves over the long weekend. Instead, literally from the second Roush made his surprise announcement, the pundits’ attention had been focused not on the candidate himself but on the cause he might represent. His nomination had stopped being about his qualifications as a judge and had metamorphosed into a referendum on gay rights.
Loving wandered in from the outside corridor, his head hung low.
“Any luck?” Jones asked.
“Not a trace.”
“You’re supposed to be a private investigator. Surely you can locate one U.S. senator.”
“Not if he doesn’t wanna be found.”
“You think he’s hiding? Why?”
“ ’Cause that’s what I’d do, if I represented the very conservative state of Oklahoma and somebody put up a gay Supreme Court justice. What do the people callin’ say?”
“They’re opposed, by a six-to-one margin. Most of the calls are from rural towns in the western part of the state.” A quick phone call to Paula, Jones’s librarian wife back in Tulsa, had told him that the consensus of opinion was no different in the second-largest city in the state.
“That doesn’t mean much. The outraged always speak the loudest. We need some real intel.”
“There are about half a hundred pollsters working on that as we speak.”
“I could fly home, visit a few bars, and give Ben a more accurate picture of the public opinion. Be a lot cheaper, too.”
“He might want you to do that. It’s hard to tell. Since we don’t know where he is!”
Even though it was Saturday and the Senate was not in session, Ben had come to the Senate chamber early in the morning and sat at the little desk in the corner bearing his nameplate. Actually, he liked it better when the Senate was not in session and he could enjoy the historic setting without having to listen to people bickering with one another. He gazed across at the expanse of brown antique desks, row after row, curving toward the center. He was reminded of Arlington National Cemetery; it had essentially the same effect, except with desks instead of graves. Symbolic? He hoped not. The inkwells, snuff boxes, and spittoons reminded him that this was a very old room, with a hallowed and distinguished heritage. All the Presidents since John Adams had walked down that center aisle and taken their place behind the elevated rostrum to deliver their State of the Union addresses, flanked on either side by a long succession of outstanding party leaders. All the Vice Presidents had sat in that chair at the rear center, serving as President of the Senate, nine of them future Presidents themselves. Behind that raised dais, the electoral votes were counted every four years so the President of the Senate could announce the identity of the next President. This was a room that had been a bastion of excellence, a home to brilliant minds and daring idealism. In truth, Ben had never been particularly political, but sitting here always reminded him that despite the distastefulness of much of modern politics, the U.S. Senate was part of a long-standing and important tradition, one that had shaped a nation, and as a result, shaped the world.
“Place kinda gives you the willies, doesn’t it?”
Ben turned to see Senator Hammond sitting beside him. He started to rise, but Hammond waved him back down. “This is my second private audience with you in as many days,” Ben said. “If you don’t watch out, someone’s going to mistake me for a person of importance.”