Unbeknownst to him, Clark Eubank would have the chance to ruin a man that afternoon. He drew back the curtain that served as his kitchen door. The air stung, acrid from weeks of neglect; dirty dishes lined the countertop anywhere he could find, molded pad thai from the place where he asked for a two on the spice, please. Holding his breath, he tossed another plate on top.
He was up early. Some nonprofit had an awards luncheon at the Holidome and he had to prep the waitstaff and get the linens on the tables. Who in the hell had an awards ceremony at lunch? But first, a cigarette on the couch and a halfhearted attempt at scratching the flaky stains out of his apron with a fingernail. It somehow made them worse. Another cigarette then the bathroom. Pulled on the black pants and white shirt from the floor. Avoided himself in the mirror, graying and pudgy from neck to waist. The cigarettes used to help with that.
Two-dozen assorted from the donut shop and then the 8:13 bus across town.
***
The Holidome’s centerpiece was an indoor pool hemmed by plastic ferns. No matter where you went, it smelled like chlorine. The whole kitschy place. A few years back the assistant manager for catering was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis so they made Clark the new assistant manager for catering. For seven years he had put on puny events. Quinceañeras, proms, local bar association meetings that didn’t fill half the room. Bad suits, bad food, bad speeches with worse jokes. He started to worry he’d get multiple sclerosis, too, from all the chlorine. A muscle would twitch in his leg and the fear would burn hot behind his ears and he would call his ex, crying and begging him to come over.
At the back of the empty ballroom, a woman in a pink suit and massive ear gauges stood with her arms outstretched, pleading with the A/V guy. Clark recognized her voice from the thousand phone calls she had made the week before: Hi, Clark. For the vegan option can we not do that zucchini pasta? It’s just so tired, you know? Hi, Clark. We’ve got important people coming so there will be some extra security. Hi, Clark. I just emailed you our event program. Can you print me 200? Hi, Clark.
“Hi, are you Clark? Your guy can’t get the video to play. Did you download that software I told you about?”
Yes, lady, we have Windows Media Player on our Dell Inspiron.
“Hey, Verna. Maybe just try restarting it? I’ll be right back.”
Hustle through the kitchen, hugs and donuts for the bleary kitchen staff. NO VEGGIE NOODLES! they jeered. He raised a playful middle finger then ducked into the cubby-hole office to search for Verna’s email with the program attached.
Search Inbox: gay program
Dammit.
Search Inbox: verna gay program
Search Inbox: midwest gays
Goddammit, what is the name of this thing?
Search Inbox: midwestern lgbt
There it is.
Print.
A gaggle of waitresses milled around the kitchen, flirting with the dishwasher kid who had broken his arm in a JV basketball game. He described his bone sticking through the skin and one of his teammates puking on the court, and the waitresses touched his arm hoping they’d be the ones to pity-fuck the crippled guy after work. The kid was useless even with two good arms, but Clark hadn’t had the heart to fire him.
Out the backdoor, Clark’s shoes crunched on gray snow. Mel, the chef, was already smoking her first of the day.
“Hey, old man,” she said, chubby face red from the wind.
“That Verna lady is even worse in person, if you can believe it.”
“I can believe it.”
They smoked in silence for a time, thinking about what still needed to be done before lunch. Boil the potatoes, thaw the pies, flowers on the tables, mic check, Verna check.
She raised an eyebrow and looked down at his stomach. “You get that thing looked at?” “That thing” was a mole behind the elastic on his underwear. He was born with it, but recently it had started to resemble Tom Selleck’s silhouette. It was hairy and weepy and it revolted him and scared the shit out of him.
A guilty shrug, then he ground his toe into a cigarette butt and disappeared back into the kitchen. Past the printer still spitting out programs. Into the ballroom. A thumbs-up and reassuring smile to Verna who yapped into her cellphone. She nodded and pointed at two men in matching black suits positioned by the exit. Geez, she wasn’t kidding about the security. Chairs clanging and white linens floating onto tables. Smells of garlic and baked chicken creeping into the air. If nothing else, Clark liked the feeling of it all coming together.
“Hi, Clark. Can we get one program at each seat?”
A busser with wine glasses scurried from the kitchen, and Clark glided through the door on its backswing. He told the pity-fuck waitresses to help him in the office, where a pile of programs lay on the printer:
11th Annual Ally Banquet
Midwestern Colleges LGBTQ Alliance
Order of Events
Welcome Video
Opening: Verna Sanders, MCLA President
Lunch
Scholarship Recipients Announced
Ally of the Year Award: Gary Gatling, U.S. Representative
Clark’s stomach plummeted to his shoes. He read it again. Gary Gatling. There on the page like a ghost in a hallway. He spread his fingers on the desk, bracing himself. The office was no longer an office but a dank hunting cabin. The smells weren’t chlorine or garlic or yeast rolls. They were whiskey and fireplace smoke; they were gunsmoke; they were sweat and breath mixed up in early morning. And the linens didn’t float down like snow. They were kicked off the bed and scattered on the floor
***
“It’s Gatleeng. Like the machine gun.”
“Pardon?”
“You said ‘Gatlinnnn.’”
“Oh, sorry.”
That’s how they met. Nineteen-year-old Clark apologizing for dropping a guttural. Apologizing when they shook hands across the desk and knocked over a cup of pencils. For being early to the interview and having no clue that a gatling gun was a damn fine weapon for its time.
Gary Gatling, County Commissioner. Not the typical white-haired, sun-crinkled-skin commissioner. A young-father, devout, symmetrical-face-with-a-broad-and-confident-smile commissioner. His shirt was tailored but you wouldn’t know it; pressed chinos pulled over cowboy boots. He’d slap you on the back and later you’d screw your wife then whisper to her about how that commissioner was really going places.
“I give my interns the full treatment, Clark. You’ll see how the sausage is really made.” He was on Clark’s side of the desk now. “You know. Taxpayer dollars and all that.” A wink. A curious touch on Clark’s knee.
***
Staring at the program, Clark drew a steadying breath and chuckled. He ain’t no ally, Verna. “That guy plays for the home team,” he said under his breath. The waitresses glanced at each other and snickered.
People were arriving. Standing in clumps around the room. Small-talk and nervous laughter. A dad in a stretched-out polo shirt. A daughter with a shaved head and neck tattoo. The matching suits had pulled up chairs and held their cellphones sideways, gunning down imaginary terrorists. Clark scanned but didn’t see Gatling. Momentary relief. Mel pulled him back into the kitchen. Not enough beef, she told him. Just cut the sirloins in half, he said. Give them to the kids.
***
The cabin was four walls filled mostly by a queen bed and a wood stove. The sight and smell of it strangled much of Clark’s thrill. My family’s got a hunting cabin, Gatling had whispered, we’ll have it all to ourselves. The thrill had swelled over the first months of his internship as Gatling’s interest became clear: that curious first touch evolving into full-body hugs behind a closed door, into comments about Clark’s thighs and ass, into kisses in the parking garage. The thrill built to its height as Clark rode shotgun in Gatling’s jeep, desperately wanting to grab the commissioner’s hand when he shifted gears.
Passing through Knob Lick, Missouri, Gatling made the obvious joke, and Clark giggled like a middle-school girl. But then he couldn’t shake the thought of it — the anticipation of it all— and had to cover his crotch with his hat. Riding in that jeep felt to Clark like riding on Mars because it was not possible on his planet. It was impossible that a man would notice him and want him. On those nights as a kid, in the basement with pictures of the ’88 Men’s Olympic swim team, it was impossible — him smoldering, then coming, then ashamed, listening for his parents on the stairs like his life depended on it, because it really did.
Gatling threw their luggage on the floor of the cabin and pushed Clark onto the bed. He put his lips slowly to Clark’s neck, then ears; brushed his hand on the outside of his pants. Clark was a balloon, filling and filling. Then Gatling winked; stood. Took a piss right out the front door.
“Plenty of time for all that.” The truest thing he would ever say to Clark. “But we need to get the deer corn out first.”
***
The ballroom was full when Gatling finally arrived. Thirty extra years and at least as many extra pounds. All of the senior-citizen accoutrement: lumpy cartilage in the nose, droopy earlobes, meandering hairline. None of this surprised Clark, who made a semi-annual habit of Googling the only off-list celebrity he’d ever slept with.
There were two things, though, that Clark hadn’t accounted for.
First, Gatling’s family. The wife. The kids. The grandkids. There were a thousand of them. All smiles and hugs and proud of their patriarch, the progressive savior of downstate Illinois. From the back of the room, Clark watched them intently, a cipher of sorts. He was both a nothing and a key to Gatling’s life. Not a missing piece, but a piece deliberately locked up and hidden away. He was the piece lighting Sternos underneath shiny chafing dishes and placing slotted spoons in the green beans to keep the bread from getting soggy. It was surreal to know that he could just slide back into that place — fit neatly into the empty hole — and unleash a shock and sorrow on all of them. But, to Gatling’s great fortune, that wrath and power had never appealed to Clark. It only ever made him miserable to know he could wield it.
Second, Gatling’s bowtie: purple with white polka-dots. Of course a fucking bowtie.
The lights receded abruptly, and Verna blew into the microphone.
***
The deer corn had done the trick. Morning was earning its new glow as the men pressed together on the floor of the deer blind. Gatling behind, one hand on Clark’s hip, the other helping to steady the rifle. A mist gathered under a nervous buck as it wandered closer in, stomping frozen grass and listening for what might kill it. Oblivious to the men’s whispers. You ever shoot a gun before, Clark? No, sir. You scared? Some. Well, Clark, my dad used to say that guns are like women — it’s all in how you hold them.
The whispers on Clark’s cool skin drew him farther back into Gatling’s body, like a hand finding the empty spaces of a winter glove. He wanted to close his eyes. To forget about the deer. He could not see how death belonged in any of it.
Ok, Clark. We’re gonna wait ’til it’s broadside to us, okay? Clark forced his eyes open, gutted to see the deer so close now. Instantly afraid of the hunt. Here he comes. Just breathe normal. In and out. You’re gonna aim just above that front leg. The heart is there. In and out, Clark. When you’re ready, breathe out. Pause. Then shoot.
As a boy in church, Clark loved the moments between hymns, when the piano was quiet, the whole sanctuary quiet except for the rustling pages and the creaking pews. A room full of sinners: still. A hundred souls seeking communion with an omnipotent god, but the silent room was what moved Clark. It was in those moments that he found the divine. And after the gun sounded and the blind was quiet and he smelled what he knew only as fireworks, Clark was in church again. And he understood that — just like in the old sanctuary — death was gain there, too.
Or it would have been, had he made a clean shot.
“Shit, Clark! How’d you miss that?” The deer was halfway across the meadow. Gatling jerked the rifle away and trailed it with an errant shot. “You hit him in the gut. It’ll be slow and painful for him now.” Gatling fell back against the wall of the blind, a barbed space between them.
***
The waitresses cleared plates and poured coffee. Gatling held a blonde-headed toddler in his lap. She turned to face her grandfather. Covered his eyes then her eyes. Three tables watched and smiled.
A line of co-eds formed in front of the stage and accepted their awards. Clapping and pictures and handshakes.
Mel asked Clark what the hell was with him today. He motioned to Gatling and said “Remember the hunting politician I told you about?” She gasped and shrieked “NO WAY.”
“Yes, way.”
She was beside herself. Told him that this was his chance to make things right. To give that motherfucker a piece of his mind.
He nodded. “Maybe you’re right.”
Verna again. This next award is very special. Given each year to a community ally who has carried the torch for the LGBTQ community. This year’s recipient is a true hero. A man who has been relentless in advocating for equal rights in this country. I am truly honored to call him a friend and mentor. Congressman Gary Gatling.
***
In bed that night, Gatling covered Clark’s mouth and eyes. He rolled Clark over and bore down with his full weight; clamped his hands on Clark’s neck and tugged on the rolls of fat around Clark’s waist. Tugged on the fat on Clark’s chest. Called Clark a pig and made pig noises. Later he asked Clark if he liked that and Clark lied. “Yes. All of it.”
***
What an honor. Thank you Verna. Growing up in rural Illinois, I was no stranger to bigotry. I saw it in my own home. Whether it was the wrong skin color or sexual orientation, I saw hatred and was taught hatred. But it never sat well with me. So, when I decided to enter politics, my beautiful wife told me never to forget that feeling.
***
“You know how I knew you were gay, Clark?”
“Because I blew you in the bathroom stall?”
“Before all that.”
“How?”
“It was those bowties you always wear. Queers always wear those things.”
“You don’t wear them.”
“Ha. Funny little pig. I’m not gay, Clark. I just get bored sometimes.”
***
So, I always fought for the outcast and the forgotten. And today there are none more forgotten than those in the LGBTQ community who face insurmountable, daily obstacles to simply living and loving in peace.
***
On the floor by the fireplace, naked. Smoking and drinking whiskey from the bottle. Clark asked Gatling if he had heard about the kid murdered in east Texas.
“The gay kid?”
“Yeah. A group from my college is planning a trip down there. A big vigil and protests I guess.”
“You’re not going are you?”
“I hadn’t thought much about it.”
“Well, don’t. I mean, it’s a sad deal of course. Nobody deserves to be killed, no matter what lifestyle they’re living. What? What’s that look for? But from what I heard all these queers were going to the local park and basically having sex in front of little kids and stuff. So, I’m not saying this kid deserved it, but they don’t make it easy, either. What? You don’t agree? Tell me how I’m wrong?”
***
This award is for all of you. You are the real heroes. Thank you for inspiring me to be a better husband, father, and leader.
***
A light rain on the cabin’s tin roof sounded like a deluge. It drowned out every hint of their pleasure; erased and gone. Clark knew he had been foolish to hope.
***
The ally of the year waddled off the stage to applause and made a beeline out the door to the restroom. Mel nudged Clark to follow. She grabbed his sweaty hand and gave it a squeeze. He nodded.
In the hallway one of the black suits waited outside the restroom. But, to Clark’s dismay, he was able to walk right past and through the door.
Gatling was alone in a stall, talking loudly on his phone. He hadn’t heard Clark enter.
“Jesus, God. I’m going to need some sort of bath after this thing. All these men dressed up like ladies. Oh, I agree. My parents would never have allowed it.”
A zip and a flush then he emerged from the stall and paused, surprised to see another person there with him. Clark stood at the sinks and they made eye contact in the mirror. Gatling knew Clark had heard him. He turned on the faucet.
“You work here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re out of stevia at the front table.”
Clark turned and faced him squarely. There was quiet between them again. They were in the deer blind pressed together, but Clark was not young. He was standing over old Gatling with the rifle and he knew it was in him now to take a killing shot. A true shot, hands steady, no escape. A crimson smear across the bathroom tile. Skin him. Quarter him.
“I’m sorry. Do I know you?” Gatling squints and adjusts his glasses.
They were in a church pew. They were singing about wretchedness. They were fingering the hymnal. They were kissing and the sheets were white and trampled on the floor.
“No, sir. I don’t think you do.”
“Of course,” Gatling said.
Clark smiled warmly and reached over to adjust the old man’s bowtie. “Sorry about that stevia. I’ll get you some right now.”
Photo by Estera on Unsplash, licensed under CC 2.0.
- Ally of the Year - July 27, 2025