The Presumptive Candidate - By Keeper

My ex-girlfriend was just elected mayor. By a landslide.

It was bad enough during the campaign, having to see her signs all over town. On lawns. In cafe windows. On bus benches even. On the bus bench ones, next to her name and that slogan, which you must admit was pretty dumb, there was a picture of her too. I had to pause and kind of squint the first time I saw it, the picture. She didn't look like how I remembered her. In the bus bench pictures she's smiling. She looks confident enough to run a small city of 130,000, which as it just so happens is about the size of where we live.

Of course it being a bus bunch on which her picture was on, some jokster couldn't resist a little graffiti. A moustache had been Sharpie'd on. And a crude penis, hovering right around the area of her mouth. I don't mean the penis in and of itself (by dint of being a penis, I mean) was crude, just that it was crudely, perhaps hastily drawn. The balls looked more like those round cactuses you sometimes see--prickly, in other words--than an actual scrotum and the penis part was all dinosaur neck. Anyway, I'm not going to lie. I laughed a little. Not outwardly. I'm too cosmopolitan for that. But I chuckled somewhat--on the inside. Of course in the long run it just made me think of penises not my own--foreign penises--in the area of my ex-girlfriend. For instance, like, that Sharpie penis was closer to her than my real penis ever would be again. Not that I don't think I made the right decision, you know, breaking things off with her. We just weren't right for each other. We fought all the time, like two different species of moth in the same tree.

But so she's mayor now.
I wonder how that will affect my trash pick-up (little joke).
No but really I wish her all the best. I do.

I know for a fact my brother voted for her. He's a step-brother, so I suppose that lessens the betrayal somewhat. Still, he wasn't even registered before this last election. I don't care though. It's good he's getting involved in the community. I'm a firm believer in civic action. So, good for him.

Of course here's a guy who doesn't own a wallet. So, you know, draw your own conclusions.

Did I know, all those months we were dating, and then all those months afterwards when we were living together that she one day hoped to run for mayor?

Honestly? No.

To be honest, I never realized she had one speckola of political aspiration. So I was very surprised when a mailer from her campaign arrived in my mailbox. In fact, I couldn't eat the lasagna I'd just made for lunch I was so surprised. And I love lasagna. I'm like Garfield in that way. In that way but no others. But so no, I didn't know. Which I guess, if you wanted, you could put up as proof of my being a bad boyfriend. But I asked her plenty about herself. I mean, we were living together. There are a lot of hours in a day to fill. And nights too. Nights are long. I distinctly recall many conversations--more than a handful, at least--in which hopes and dreams were discussed. The subject of possible future plans to run for mayor of the town in which I've lived my entire life and where I know everyone and everyone knows me just never came up. Honestly.

Maybe she never mentioned it because she knows how I get when anybody gets on about politics. I get diarrhea. Which, I'm not being crude. It's a special kind of diarrhea and very medically documented. It is mostly all blood that comes out, and any candy I was eating. Blood and Skittles, if I was eating Skittles--for instance. Get going about what so-and-so (the senator from wherever, just as an example) said and you can count on the inside of the nearest toilet soon resembling the milk after Froot Loops have been floating in it, or a stained glass window, melted, from a church--if that makes sense.

But so that may have been why she kept mum.

She could be very empathetic in that way. She really tried to take into consideration the welfare of others. She really could be very caring. When she wasn't crying, which wasn't very often.
I'm glad she's got this new project in her life, actually--being mayor. Maybe it will help her with her emotional instability.

Did I vote for her? My ex-girlfriend?
Okay. No. I didn't.

She's pretty smart. I mean there's no doubt about that. And we share a lot of the same values, I guess. Or no, I know so. We do. And like I said, she can be very empathetic. Screwy sometimes, but very caring. And spiritual but in a pragmatic way. Like "Jesus was a carpenter but we build our own houses"--that sort of thing. But I don't know...

She laid on the floor for an hour once and talked into the carpet about killing herself. I'm not cold. If she'd been serious, I would have done something, immediately. But I can tell the difference between petulance and will to act. Believe me.

I mean what did she want?
I don't own a rifle because I hunt deer, for Christ's sake.
Seriously, it's good we stopped seeing each other.

By the way, I found out the other day a girl I dated in college just got married. To some big shot research scientist from Cambridge, MA. It was right there in the Special Announcements section of my alumni magazine. Apparently this guy, this research scientist is pretty hot stuff, on the international scene, I mean. They asked him to contribute his sperm to space. Seriously. Have you heard about that? How they're going to send a rocket full of the frozen jism of earth's "greatest minds" into the boundless realm of the cosmos?

I really liked her, Katie. Katie was the girl's name, who I used to date. I don't know, things just didn't work out. I can be trying sometimes. I really can. Things happen for a reason, though. That's what God and my mom say. Anyway, that's what my mom says God says.

Anyway, now everytime I look up at the stars--which is something I do frequently, believe me; I'm a regular nut for stargazing--now I have to think about her husband's jizz, Katie's husbands jizz up there. Hanging up there in a frozen clump. I can't not think about stuff like that. Who could? Once you imagine it, there it is, right there, on your brain like a button on a vest.

My mayor ex-girlfriend ran her first municipal meeting yesterday.

I didn't sit in on it or anything. We've got a public access station here in town and they played a re-play of it on there.

You should have seen her. Professional to beat the band. And I have to admit, she looked good. She did look good. Not just how she "looked." I mean she certainly looked good, but her bearing, too--you know, her demeanor and everything. Sharp. She came off savvy. She didn't embarrass herself.

Did I tape it? No. I thought about it, yes. I did think about taping it, the meeting. But what do I need to start taping municipal meetings for? Although it might not be a bad idea, actually. You know, just to get a sense of how things work in local government. All that.

I've been thinking lately, actually. I get some good ideas sometimes. Some damn good ideas. I mean even Lisa used to say so. You know, ideas about how things could be improved around here.

I don't know, you know, who knows--maybe I might, I don't know...

Maybe I could run for mayor.

Councilman even. Ward representative, I don't know. There are a handful of options.
I think I'd be pretty good at it.

And when's the next election? Not for a while, right? Plenty of time to prepare.

I don't know, I just might. I just might do that. Run, I mean.
To the exclusion of all else, I mean.
You know, to the exclusion of everything else.