blackout | mayor novak snapshots

Five seconds in the room and you already feel cornered. You immediately turn your attention to the half-empty brew of coffee at the center of the table. A gaze of eyes moves with you. Could it be any more obvious that your friends and family were talking about you when you entered? Your guard stiffens as you pour the coffee, leaving it black in the mug.

"Rough night? I had a great night, thank you very much." Even you can't tell if your tone is that of deception or denial. It's none of their business either way. You're thirty fucking years old, confrontation like this is childish, even for Uncle Elio's patronizing way of parenting and leadership.

Uncle Elio leans in, his knuckles knocking against the wooden surface. "I think the rustling in your bed, the groaning, and the occasional scream would beg to differ. You havin' nightmares, son?" You were clearly uncomfortable last night, but screaming? You can't remember that part.

Ruslan, Elio's childhood best friend and partner in crime nowadays, rests his hand on the blade of your shoulder. "Adrian, when you were a boy, even before you started livin' with Elio, I used to babysit you." When distant memories would go on drug runs for Elio, Ruslan would look after you like a hawk. Knowing what would happen in the years to follow, you feel as though it was more out of intent and strategy than goodwill. You try to shoot him down."Please don't try and psychoanalyze me with stuff from twenty years ago. You know I don't believe in that shit, Rus."

"I'm not! I'm just sayin' that you're doin' a helluva lot nowadays. We don't want you spreadin' yourself too thin, y'know?"

"So what, you all decided to throw a fucking intervention at my dining room table?"

A few people try to reason with you, but it's Elio's authoritative voice that quiets them and forces you to listen. "You're distracting yourself with the shit that doesn't matter. You wanted to help the empire by being mayor. You started off good with the money, the drugs, and the guns, but now you're just pokin' your nose into that orphanage? You knew that was supposed to become a gentleman's club for our guys. And all this entertaining those revivalist creeps, what's that about? We have great plans for Ten, and you're hurtin' us."

He's right, you know. You ran for mayor to further Elio's plans. You started with a step forward but now you're only taking steps back. Enzo's made a soft spot in your heart, a weakness that's been exploited ever since you met him.

"When was the last time you took a break? Went on a date? Got laid?"

"Oh, so you're a matchmaker now?" You roll your eyes, dropping your half-drank coffee onto the table. It splashes over the white cloth.

Elio tries to calm you down. "Of course not. Adrian, we all know you're not a family-style man. We know some very discrete women. Any time, any place, any sort of interest-"

Ruslan pipes in assuredly, "It doesn't need to be a girl eith-" but Elio gives him a stern look before he can finish the thought.

"Y'know what? You were right. I am having nightmares. This. This right here," you draw a circle through the air with splayed fingers at Ruslan and Elio. "Nightmare." It irks you, slightly, that they still associate so much of you with the way you were as a teenager, cruising around for fun. Whoever. Whenever. Wherever. Enzo's consumed your mind recently, and for better or worse, he's your biggest secret.

"Just stay focused, son. You're one of us, not some hero. Don't worry about getting your hands dirty. There's a dozen people who can clean it off for you in a matter of seconds."

"I know. My head is in the game. You just gotta trust me. That's how politicking works. Let them think we're the good guys now so they'll look the other way later." They wouldn't get away with nearly as much as they do without you looking the other way. It's a selfless job, really. "And if Calvin O'Keefe came to our dinner party last week, he woulda known that we were planning to buy a hairdresser's store for his fucking gentlemen's club. Pile'a paperwork to make it out to be a district storage unit on my desk. You people think I'm just blindly sayin' yes to everything you want without communicating. Wrong." People like Calvin O'Keefe and Ulrich Benjamin take your role for granted. After all you've done for Elio's empire, they still don't believe you're smart enough to figure it out.

A bolt of lightning sparks from behind the window curtain, breaking the conversation. Your Aunt Drea is the one to resolve the conversation. "Well, we'll tell him to come over and discuss it with you tomorrow. Would that satisfy everyone?" The oversaturated masculinity and inflamed testosterone in the room agree with nods and stoicism. That's fine with you.

With that conversation out of the way, you take a cinnamon raisin bagel from the dish and spread cream cheese across either side. Then, you move back to your room, knowing that staying here will only lead to more tension between you, your uncle, and all the others who 'were just trying to help' you.

Instead, they've left you feeling more pissed off, isolated, and paranoid than you were last night.

Cruising has become somewhat of a challenge for you over the past five years. It's different now that, aside from victors and the year's pageant queen or king, you're the most recognizable face out there. Finding a quick partner isn't possible anymore. Your way of finding a one-night stand has shifted from anonymity to a need for discretion. The leverage your ex-girlfriend has exercised over you has only shown that people will do anything to survive. District Ten isn't rich, no matter how much you and your predecessors have tried to make that not the case. You carry one-fifty in your wallet, a transaction you'd never require but always offer after the fact.

It's been nearly a year since you started seeing Lorenzo exclusively, and you hadn't gone out for a few months before that, either. Still, you recognize the streets where prospective partners may be. The queer community in District Ten is by no means hidden. Everyone loves their cowboy fantasies, yourself included. Your platform on it, like most things regarding social and moral values in the district, is that it's none of your business. Uncle Elio advocates that you turn into some sort of prude to get the support of the conservative men of the district, but how much of a hypocrite would you be if you did? This is one of your favorite pastimes, after all.

You walk through the alleyways out of personal preference, poking your head out into each main street corner to test your options. Most times, there's no one of note, people clearly not interested in your sort of activities. Others have older men occasionally pace around, fifty or more years of suppressed sexuality on display with their dropped lips and wrinkles. But eventually, you manage to find a man. His tawny beige skin is wrapped up in a loose flannel and blue jeans. The smirk on his lips reminds you of Enzo. The thought of how much you miss him comes flooding back in your mind. Hiding him underneath your covers, helping him get out through the panic tunnels, erasing that smile of his with a night of love.

You miss him, but you miss yourself with him more.

The silver rings on your hand startle the man as you rest them on the side of his arm, played off as if you bumped into him by accident. You tip the front of your baseball cap. "Howdy," you whisper half an octave lower than your usual tone. This is the most awkward part: the yes or the no, whether or not you were right to assume he was looking. The man bumps his elbow into your stomach playfully.

And the rest, as they say, is history that only the tavern's furthest bathroom will ever know. You get the sense that this guy doesn't even know who you are, but you take a fifty from your wallet and slide it into the pocket of his unbuttoned flannel. He questions it, plucking it out. "No, you can take it." You kiss his chest. "Just because you're damn handsome. I gotta scamper off, though." Scamper? Seriously? Late nights with your boyfriend wrapped around your arm has made your language a bit too cute. The man spins your ring and asks you if you have a wife you need to get back to. Three little tsks tell him that you're not revealing any secrets. "Look at you, wanting to be a little homewrecker."

You leave the tavern and return to the shadows, hood up over your hat as you traverse through the alleyways. Eight out of ten, you rank him in your head. Maybe it's the man, maybe it's the environment. But a perfect score only seems to happen in your bed, perhaps because home is the only place you feel safe enough to let your guard down.

The gates to the mayor's house are loud and noisy. Given that it's the middle of the night, you hop over the backyard fence. Doing this at twenty-five, sure, but thirty? The ache upon landing gives you a momentary limp as you creep to the back door. Delicate with the screen door, you slide it open just enough to squeeze through.

You feel the walls of your home, turning corners and dodging tables or plants as you head to the bedroom. It comes to your attention through the gap beneath your door that the light in your bedroom is on.

One strict rule you've given to anyone who steps foot in your house: The Mayor's Bedroom is off limits. You barge through the door, tongue ready to chastise whoever broke your rule.

"HEY! What the fuck are you–"