The circle of men were naked. Butt naked. And beating on drums.
Good Lord.
Gwenyth Jones shook her head with an air of incredulous disbelief. When she had agreed to shoot the photographs for her best friend Candy Crawford’s exposé piece on the conservativeNational Association of Men, or NAM as they referred to themselves, she had never expected to encounter this. What the hell kind of conservatives rally in the buff? Of course, she quickly reminded herself, the men of NAM had no notion that their private party was about to become very public.
Gwenyth scanned the clearing of the forest with the keen eye of a trained photographer accustomed to getting the picture. There was a total of twelve men, all of them naked, all of them beating on their drums, NAM placards propped up behind them against nearby tree trunks. A glimmer of excitement sparked in her eyes as she considered for the first time not only what this would mean to Candy’s desire to join the leagues of the paparazzi, but the ramifications this event would also have on her brother Harry.
They would both win this battle. Gwenyth would see to it that the incumbent senator looked as foolish as possible in tomorrow’s early morning editions of the Florida newspapers. And her brother would take his place in Washington DC.
Grinning triumphantly, Gwenyth turned to Candy and nudged her. “Is Senator Green here yet?” she whispered, not wanting the naked protesters to notice their presence just yet.
Candy smiled owlishly, her gum smacking as she chewed and talked simultaneously. Gwenyth couldn’t understand her best friend’s desire to leave her lucrative career in novel writing behind for a low paying job in journalism, but that was Candy’s decision. “Uh huh. That’s him and his aide right over there.” She pointed towards the NAM round that was conspicuously propped against one of the taller trees. “Take the picture, Gwen. It’s a perfect shot,” she murmured.
Gwenyth wasted no time. Candy was right. An ace in the hole photograph like this one didn’t come along every day. Senator Green and his aide were standing with the NAM rounds visibly adjacent to them, naked men beating on drums everywhere within their vicinity. She crouched down low on her knees, held the camera at an angle, adjusted the zoom lens, and snapped away.
“Make certain you can see the NAM placards behind him,” Candy whispered excitedly. “I intend to have my story dominate tomorrow’s front pages.”
It seemed to Gwenyth that Candy’s fascination of late with journalism was at best another attempt on the author’s part to alleviate the monotony of having worked within the same field for several years. Last year, bored after hitting the bestseller lists yet again, Candy hit the drag racing scene, deciding it would be “cool” to become the next Shirley Muldowney. That lasted a week. The year before that Candy swore up and down she’d had a vision and was thereby convinced that she was destined to deliver singing telegrams for a living. That lasted three days. Gwenyth was willing to lay odds that journalism would last equally as long if that. Still, she said nothing.
“Done.” Gwenyth stood up and rubbed her hands together with unabashed glee. “With the senatorial race right around the corner, this couldn’t have happened at a better time.”
Candy nodded bemusedly. She spit out the piece of bubble gum rapidly losing its flavor and popped a fresh piece between her lips. It seemed to Gwenyth that any given career outside of novel writing lost its flavor to her best friend as quickly as the piece of gum she’d just discarded. “Until tonight, nobody knew that Senator Green supported the agenda of these naked, overprivileged whiners. Not only will this jumpstart my as of yet stagnant career in journalism, but this will also make your brother’s coup all the easier.”
Gwenyth grinned. She could agree wholeheartedly with the last observation. “I know.” Like a panther stalking its prey, she silently moved through the fragrant trees and snapped as many photographs as she could take. Two rolls of film later, she dropped to her knees and placed the camera on the ground while she hid her evidence.
To prevent the soon to be irate senator from removing the incriminating photographs of him and his aide chumming it up with the naked NAM men, she tucked the two rolls of film into her underwear and reloaded her camera with a third decoy roll. That accomplished, she regained her standing position and gave the signal to Candy to move in for the kill.
Candy blew out a bubble and nodded. She moved in; shit hit the fan. Threats flew, fists cuffed, and naked men scattered for their clothing, their unmentionables flapping up and down as they did so. An hour and a painkiller later, Gwenyth sat up in the back of the ambulance bed and dabbed at the shiner she’d received from the senator’s aide in his struggle to take the camera from her. She winced as she drew the icepack up to her battered eye, but managed to glance over at Candy with the eye she could see out of long enough to grin. The senator’s aide had taken the camera.
But Gwenyth Jones always got the picture.
* * * * *
The following evening, Gwenyth was ear-to-ear smiles regardless that she sported a purplish, puffy eye. Candy’s story was not only picked up by the Florida papers, but by the Associated Press as well. Once that happened, Gwenyth’s photos of the naked NAM men with Senator Green at their rally spread through the nation like wildfire. The incumbent’s numbers in the polls immediately dipped ten percentage points. Her brother Harry’s went up by twenty-three. It was a glorious day.
“I still can’t believe it.” Harry grinned as he flicked off the TV by remote and swung around on the barstool in the Jones’ family house. “I knew Larry was wacko, but fraternizing with NAM? Jay-sus!”
Granddad Willy harrumphed. The fact that he was a wealthy, self-made man was at ironic odds with his long gray ponytail and the t-shirt he was wearing today that proclaimed:Proud to be a Union Man. “I’m not surprised a lick. Met the senator once or twice myself. Weird boy, that’n.”
No one bothered to mention to Willy the fact that at forty-five, Senator Green was as far from boyhood as a man could get. “That he is, Granddaddy.” Gwenyth touched her eye lightly and winked. “But his aide can sure pack a wallop.”
Harry winced. “Sorry about that, Gwen. I appreciate what you went through to get those photographs, but I wish you hadn’t had to get a black eye in the process.”
Gwenyth studied her brother quietly. With the Jones family’s trademark tawny hair and green eyes, he was a good-looking man and a very eligible bachelor. Until this morning, Harry’s unmarried status had been working against him in the polls. Now it seemed that no one genuinely cared. Compared to Larry Green and the naked NAM men, Harry’s singlehood was by and large turning out to be the lesser of two political evils. She shrugged and grinned. “No big deal.”
Granddad Willy harrumphed again. “She’s a Jones girl, Harry. Your sister has true grit. It’s in the blood. Why I remember a time before your Grandmama did me the honor of weddin’ this ole boy when we were at a protest for…”
Gwenyth and Harry groaned simultaneously. Willy had more stories of his hippie, protesting days than a cat had lives. In the sixties, he and Grandmama had protested the Vietnam War. In the seventies, racism and sexism. In the eighties, they protested against President Reagan in general. These days, he and Grandmama rallied against a little of everything. Not that their causes weren’t good. It’s just that the stories all tended to run together after a while. Whether it was how Willy had been named the first white Black Panther or how his hero and quasi namesake Willy Nelson had once called him “a groovy guy,” Gwenyth and Harry had heard them all. “Please Granddaddy,” Harry begged, “not another story.”
Willy glared at him. “Your Grandmama would roll over in her grave if she could hear you say that, boy.”
Harry frowned at the family patriarch. His southern lilt carried a hint of annoyance. “Grandmama isn’t dead. She has no grave to roll over in.”
Willy waved his hand dismissively. “A figure of speech.”
Gwenyth and Harry exchanged an amused glance, but said nothing. They had been brought up by the elderly hell-raisers after their parents were killed in a car crash, so if Granddad wanted to tell one of his stories of the glory days, they would just have to listen to it—again.
“Quit your talk, Willy, and let our grandson revel in his gained percentage points for a spell.”
