Coming Out

Chapter 1-1

The atmosphere was electric. Casio’s Steakhouse was bustling—filled with canvassers, phone bankers, fundraisers, politicos, donors, family members, and a mishmash of other people involved with the campaign. Less than a mile down 10th Street was the KETV studio, restored from the old Burlington train station, full of reporters covering the results of the day’s elections.

Volunteers had wheeled televisions into Casio’s, all showing different local television stations: KMTV, WOWT, KPTM, and, of course, the neighborhood favorite KETV. The campaign manager had insisted that there be enough televisions at the party so that every local station could be shown, in case one of them had a results scoop on the others. He stood with a small group of lobbyists, draining jack and cokes and laughing loudly at their jokes, but allowing his eyes to flit back and forth to the television screens every minute or so.

“Well you must be excited, Brett,” remarked Clint Danson, lobbyist for the Nebraska Farm Bureau, “you’re just an hour away from graduating from campaign manager to legislative aide,” he added with a smile.

“Well, let’s wait until 8:30 before we start jacking each other off,” Brett retorted, hardly concealing the smile on his face, “I know we got more doors than Higgins, but I’ve lost when I should’ve won before.”

“Yeah, but you weren’t running a Gallagher that year,” interjected Phil Cummins, lobbyist for the Omaha Public Power District, “the year a Gallagher loses a race in South Omaha is the year the Democrats take the state legislature.”

“Nonpartisan!” Brett bandied back.

The group laughed.

Across the room was a much more visibly nervous field organizer. He sat beside a table that was covered in pieces of candy, with a fake flower bouquet in the middle. He adjusted the collar on his shirt, forgetting the discomfort he felt buying it earlier that day. He smoothed over the sticker on his chest that read “My name is Dane,” then slicked back his thick, black hair before abruptly downing the glass of beer in front of him. He then pulled himself out of his chair and slinked over towards an attractive brunette leaning back against a wall. She was nursing a drink in a rocks glass and was wearing a black dress with white polka dots, a white collar and white trim and white hem that ended halfway down the thighs. She had a sly smile on her face, but shifted her feet back and forth as she stood there, not making conversation with the guests around her.

“How are you holding up, Jane?” Dane asked her.

She turned to him with her smile.

“You know I never signed up for this,” she responded.

Dane looked back at her uncomfortably.

“He took me on three dates before he even told me he was running,” she said with a laugh, “if I knew I’d be standing in the corner of south Omaha steakhouse sipping watered down Smirnoff and fidgeting over state-level politics four months later, I don’t think I would have gone on another one.”

Dane laughed, relaxing a little bit.

“You know, you’re a good canvasser. I would have been pretty lonely a lot of those weekday nights if you hadn’t taken the time to join me,” he said to her.

She smiled back.

“I’m glad you asked me to! You know he didn’t have the balls to ask me himself.”

“He was just trying to be nice,” Dane reassured her.

“Well he also knows I put my heart and soul into things I believe in,” Jane insisted, “that, and he hates asking for help,” she added wrly.

Dane chuckled. He’d become accustomed to this brand of forthrightness from Jane. Though he’d never seen her perform, he knew she acted in local plays. Sometimes he wondered if she could possibly be any more theatrical on stage than she was in everyday conversation.

“DAAAAAAAANE!”

Dane whipped his head around to see a round, familiar face sitting atop an even rounder body. Outfitted in a stylish navy blue button-down with a prominent “Gays for Gallagher” pin on his chest, Glenn Svoboda stood there with a short muscular friend and another taller one with neon-tinted sunglasses and a shock of bleached, styled hair.

“Glenn, you made it!” Dane shot back at him, giving him a big hug.

“How was I going to miss it?” Glenn responded in mock offense, “I wore holes in some fabulous shoes to get this man elected. Also, who shows up for game seven of the playoffs then passes up a drink from the Stanley Cup?”

Dane and Jane both laugh. Glenn’s eyes shoot to Jane, then back to Dane. He gives Dane a knowing look. Dane then glances back at Jane, then to Glenn, then says,

“Oh, no no no! This is Jane! Jane, this is Glenn, President of the Omaha PFLAG chapter,” Dane stood back as they shook hands.

“Ooooooohhhh, Jane Dewitt, I have heard so much about you!” Glenn said as he tenderly took her hand and shook it, “wow, what a pleasure it is to be speaking to the future first lady of South Omaha!”

“Well…” Jane responded, doing her best to conceal the slight redness coming to her face, “I guess you’ve already met my Pete Davidson, then.”

“WHOOOO!” Glenn said, motioning his hand in front of his face, “she has some sass, too! I like this girl! No, sweetie, Michael and I have known each other since we were little little children. Even if there weren’t so many good drinks here, I’d never miss this coming out party!”

“Anyways,” Glenn said, turning to Dane, “where is that boy anyway? He’s about to miss the most important party of his life!”

“He’s probably still out knocking doors,” Dane responded, “but the plan was for him to break off about this time, so he should be back any minute now.

A man was standing at a door on a porch in Deer Park, south Omaha, tapping his fingers on his thigh impatiently. He was wearing dress shoes, slacks, and a button-down shirt tucked in. His naturally unkempt, strawberry blonde hair was gelled and slicked over, but had come undone throughout the chaos of the day. In one hand was a clipboard with a list of names, addresses, and phone numbers running down it. In the other was a stack of full-colored, glossy pieces of campaign literature with his own face on it. He rang the doorbell again.

“Hate to end the day on a ‘not home,’” Michael whispered to himself as he shifted his literature into his clipboard hand and pulled his iPhone out of his pocket. It read “7:45.”

“But you gotta call it quits eventually,” he mumbled to himself as he pulled out a piece of literature, slid it between the door and door frame, then turned around, taking off towards the street.

“Ethan!” he yelled out.

A teenage boy with hair darker than Michael’s but just as wavy and uncontrollable came bounding down the road toward Michael.

“But I’ve only got four more to go!” Ethan yelled.

“It doesn’t matter, Ethan!” Michael yelled back to him, running to the car, “We’re going to miss the results if we don’t get to Casio’s on time!”

Michael unlocked his Toyota Corolla then hopped into the driver’s seat, grabbing his tie from the backseat after he frantically rolled his sleeves down and buttoned the wrists. He heard a tapping on the window, and looked over to see Ethan standing outside with his arms crossed. Michael started the car, then rolled the window down.

“Whatcha doin out there, buddy?” Michael said as he knotted his tie, using the small sun visor mirror to check his progress, “get in or we might miss the results!”

“You said if I helped you I could drive us back,” Ethan quipped impatiently as he watched Michael fumble with a tube of gel and a comb in the car.

Michael laughed, then said, “alright, but don’t tell Aunt Jillian I let you do this!” as he got out of the car, running to the passenger seat as the threaded his arms through his suitjacket.

“I have my temps!” Ethan responded as he slid into the driver’s seat.

As they started driving, Ethan flipped the radio to a modern rock station, but Michael immediately changed it to a local news station.

“Hey!” Ethan objected.

“My car, my station!” Michael laughed as he adjusted his suit jacket.

“…In addition to having a new governor, the state legislature may have as many as 20 new senators by the end of the night,” Michael turned up the radio, “widely expected to be among that class is district seven’s Michael Gallagher, son of Todd Gallagher and a rising star in Nebraska Democratic Party politics. After finishing with over 60% of the vote in a four-way primary back in May, Gallagher has found a formula in Democratic Party coalition building, winning over establishment Democrats with his Chamber roots and progressives with his populist embrace of—“

Ethan abruptly turned the radio dial off.

“Can you just not think about yourself for one minute??” Ethan blurted out.

Michael laughed, “okay, okay, I think you can cut me a little slack for being interested in what they’re saying, though. Here, let me do you.”

Michael pulled a hair brush out of the glove compartment, then held it upside-down in front of his face, “Ethan Gallagher is widely expected to be a standout recruit for this year’s class, a rising star on an already-deep Benson Bunnies chess team. After finishing last semester by scoring an A+ in chemistry and successfully securing a Homecoming date with Maddie Reynolds, we expect Gallagher to—“

“Okay stop!” Ethan said, trying his hardest not to encourage Michael with a laugh, “I’m trying to concentrate on the road!”

“Alright!” Michael said with a smirk as he pulled up the Omaha World-Herald website on his phone.

They sat in silence for a minute, then Ethan said cautiously, “I hope you win…but I also hope you don’t turn into a dickhole politician if you do.”

Michael blurted out a laugh, then responded, “Ethan, no matter what, I will always be your dickhole older cousin. Now get ready, because I have to go out and play adult in a few minutes.”

As they pulled into the parking lot at Casio’s, Michael pulled down the visor again and flipped up the mirror cover. His hair was already out of place. He heard the bustle inside of the building—at his victory party.

Victory party, Michael thought to himself, thinking of all the victory parties he had been to where the candidate did not end the night victorious. The exciting thing about this victory party was that it was his, and the more exciting thing was that he was going to win. First of many, Michael thought as he tamed his hair back into place, first of many.

TAP TAP TAP. Michael flipped the visor back up to see a grown man in a jet black suit with black curly hair leaned over the hood of his car, banging on the windshield.

“Bretton Manning you bastard!” Michael yelled at him, a big smile on his face.

“Michael Gallagher you god-damn i***t!” Brett yelled back, “I spent the past six months knocking doors, l*****g envelopes, and scheduling talks for your sorry a*s: that doesn’t mean I’ll stand in for you at your own victory party, too!”