Chapter Five of the Beehive Bit** memoirs
CHAPTER FIVE
By some fucking miracle the flight lands early and we get to the hotel in good time.
Alix, go to the bar and get two double rum and cokes and get them in coffee take away cups. Then use your generation tech bro autopilot skills to get those poll results on the screen in the meeting room. NOBODY gets a printed copy. This shit is not leaking.
Who are all the old white dudes?
Alix is watching our esteemed collaborators filter in. The ex-mayor. The ex-MP from Tauranga. The head of the small businesses association. The head of the Rotary Association. Who would have thought Rotary would have such influence in Napier. Who would have thought Rotary wouldn't have died a death along with landlines, fax machines and the post.
Nobby stumbles in looking flustered. Why are you wearing a bowtie? What kind of fucking dinner party does your wife organise? And why didn't you think to take the bow tie off before you walked into THIS room? Fucktit.
Anyways, time to get this started. Get the first slide on the screen Alix.
Oh yes, deep breaths as they all take in the shit show that is the polling percentages. This was meant to be a two-horse race so who the fuck is Alan Wainsbridge and why is he within a hair's breadth of grabbing Nobby's scrotum and taking second place and leaving Labour ahead?
- The Town Hall Guy, says the head of the Rotary association. He was a total pain in the arse during the mayoralty contest last year. He's reusing his billboards from that campaign. Looks like a bit of a joke.
- He's running as an independent, Nobby chips in.
Yes, we can fucking see that on the slide knob-end.
- All he talks about is restoring the town hall and how Wellington doesn't care about us, the ex-mayor sighs while knowing full well “Wellington doesn't care about us” was his election slogan for over a decade.
It's fucking with our vote share. Next slide Alix. Our core party voters are sticking with Nobby but available and open across the centre right are getting sucked up by Wainsbridge. They wouldn't vote Labour but they would vote for this town hall cunt flaps.
- It's just polling. They'll swing behind the major parties when it comes to election day.
Shut the fuck up Nobby unless you have anything useful to contribute.
Alix is going to see what she can find on Wainsbridge and get it into the press or at least on the community Facebook pages. Yes, the pig ring nose in front of you has talent. Stop doing the mental calculation of how many drinks before you could get away with an accidental grope of her arse or brush of her tits. CONCENTRATE. We need a high impact policy announcement to get Nobby through the next three weeks. Give me your ideas. Go. Not you Nobby. Shut up and let the grownups in the room talk.
- What about infrastructure? Committing to improvement in the area?
Boring. You can't visualise infrastructure. Putting some hard hats on a flyer is fucking trite.
- Roading? Commit to a new highway.
Nope, that’s Wellington wheelhouse. You’d just be criticising us for not doing our job.
- One of the ladies in the bar downstairs was talking about the water restrictions. She’s really upset her lawn’s going to shit. Something about hydrangeas but I don’t know what they are.
They all spin to wonder why Alix, who has moved to scrolling her phone in the darkest corner of the room, has opened her mouth. Nobby’s looking desperately at me to tell her to shut her trap.
What are the water restrictions?
- No sprinklers and hand watering only on ever second day, says the head of the small businesses association.
- A lot of our older constituents hate not being able to use their sprinklers, the head of the Rotary Association looks like he is thinking about his lawn.
This is growing on me. For too long the Labour government neglected water care in this city and now there are real concerns of water outages across the city on some of the hottest days. This will deeply impact our most vulnerable, particularly the elderly who are susceptible to heat stroke.
- It’s a council issue, not central government. You'd need to work directly with the entity which only local reps can do, says the ex-mayor trying to sound knowledgeable. Nobby nods gravely as if he is actually keeping up with the grown ups' talk.
Doesn’t matter. Constituents just want somebody to say they'll fix something. We’ll use it.
Alix? Better be two fucking steps ahead of me girl. Let's show the dicks in the room we are a PROFESSIONAL outfit.
- I'll get the designer onto new flyers and we can get some copy onto the next round of the electronic billboard rollout. Once that's lined up I'll pitch two different stories for national and local press. Anything else?
Good girl.
- I can...
No you can't Nobby.
Off you go Alix. I'll talk to the gentleman about how they can be of service.
BY THE time we hit the tarmac in Wellington Alix's efforts are already having an impact. I'm feeling so pumped I stop by the posh supermarket to pick up some danishes for the office staff. Love me people. I am your benevolent matriarch.
But of course mud flaps jowlled Mr President has to piss on the parade.
- I've told Ms Catherty not to authorise any more contracts or accommodation payments without my signature.
The dowdy one casts an apologetic glance and hungry disappointed that she probably won't be getting a danish.
- What in the world made you think it was okay to ship in eight teams of door knockers and agree to pay, feed and house them until election day?
Puffing your chest that hard doesn't obfuscate your small dick energy. It's the youth wing with nothing else to do until Uni goes back who are willing to work for minimum wage and sleep ten do a dorm in the backpackers. It's fucking good value for money. Until we can un-red tape the migrant worker legislation you are not getting such a good deal on labour anywhere else.
- It's not in the operating budget so it's not happening.
It is fucking happening. We are going to knock every door in Napier twice, thrice, four times, until they have more blisters on their feet than acne on their back. And we are going to win this campaign. And you are going to offer to suck my clit in apology.
- There's no more cash in the campaign account and it can't go into overdraft. It's done. Tell the teams to go home.
No fucking way am I killing my ground campaign.
- There’s no money in the account.
Fucktit smirks like he's won the biscuit game.
Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.
Two vapes and three Tom Collins in the -----'s hotel bar before I figure this one out.
I call Alix. Meet me in Atomic tomorrow night.
- Where?
San Fran.
- The bar on Cuba St or are we going overseas?
The bar. There ain't nobody in the US who gives a toss about this parochial cuckfest.
- How should I dress?
Like you want to fuck, but nobody should dare lay a hand on you.
- hmm
Red lips, no midriff, heavy boots
INSIDE San Fran Alix does not look impressed, even after I put a double rum and coke in front of her.
- I had to go to an ATM to withdraw cash and the price of entry is $15 which means I'm now stuck with a $5 note. What am I meant to do with this? And why are there so many men without any hair in here?
Give it an hour and your age group will turn up. They're so cheap they need to front load first. Back in my day we subsidised student drinking. But sensible move to pull the ladder on that one up behind us. Way too much early parenting.
Anyway, I'm paying you enough to stop your whinging. Go get another double and coke before Sally Molloy gets here.
- Who?
One of our top donors.
- How much money does she earn?
She's way beyond the IRD requirements of us mere mortals. She doesn't 'earn'. She has. And it's more than you could spend in a thousand lives.
Sally times her entrance better than us. The young people have arrived and there are only hair breadths of space on the dance floor. The best I get from Sally is an air peck on the cheek and a nod at Alix before she disappears into the middle of the throng.
Alix asks why everyone is losing their shit to Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. There's sweat dripping off the ceiling. The young ones' eyes are like saucers while some of the oldies look like they are one air punch away from cardiac arrest.
Any moment now Sally's going to come back to get her handbag. You're going to follow her to the toilets. She'll invite you into the cubicle and offer you some ketamine which you absolutely need to say yes to. Don't worry she's not going to grope you, she just needs to still feel relevant. There's no real dykes here, just curious divorcees.
Sure enough Sally is coming back and the promise of ketamine seems to have sold it for Alix.
While they're in the toilets I bat away some of the hovering beer guts who are hoping I'm single and not encumbered by dependents.
Alix and Sally come back out just in time for Blondie's Atomic. By the time Blue Monday hits, Alix is absolutely off her tits
But then it's peaked. The young ones are heading to their after-parties. I need to get Sally out of here before the dance floor empties and it's just the bald head in the too tight t-shirt giving it laldy. Sally hates to see her generation disgraced. Oh shit, Come on Eileen is starting - the end of the second-wedding parties.
I'll put you in a taxi Alix. Sally is coming back to mine for caparinis and an electronic bank transfer.
THE PRESIDENT can't stand to come to the office over the coming days. He knows I will take the first opportunity to say I told you so in a big BITCH voice as I preside over Best dressed admin bitch preloading prezzie cards for the door knockers from the newly swollen campaign account.
Still, apart from some petty gloating, there's not much to celebrate. I've commissioned two more polls. Even Alix who still knows fuck all about these things knows this is not good.
- Someone's going to leak to the press and they'll add up how many polls we've run. They're just saying the same thing. You need to get Nobby out there more.
We need to get Nobby's oddly pleasant face on as many surfaces as possible and we need to keep his mouth as tightly shut as possible.
Alix thinks I’m sending her into exile when I put her on the ground in Napier for the final weeks. Girl, it’s a sign off confidence that you have become a BITCH I can trust. And you have the energy of youth. Which means you are less likely to snap at the schmucks who have volunteered for a campaign limping towards the finish line like a dog who knows the final trip to the vet is booked in.
I need some deep thinking time. What the fuck is next for Project Tui if I can’t get Nobby in? ZERO interest in going to Project Kereru or whatever the PM called the shitty arsed alternative election strategy.
By the time election day comes we're back in the bleeding bowling club.
- Why are we having the election party here? It's so.... Alix trails off as she realises there are no Gen Z descriptors sufficient to cover the sadness of the reappropriated birthday bunting trying to make the place look like it's ready for a party
It's homely. A safe space if Nobby is defeated. Everyone can cry into their usual and then look around the walls at their forefathers and pat themselves on the back ready to fight another day. And if we win the booze is cheap and won't cost us too much. If we win. FUCK.
The head of the Rotary Association swaggers over, pint in his hand. Too early mister. We’ve barely passed midday.
-I think it’s looking good. I can feel it’s looking good. Nobert has stepped into the breach. He’s had our boots on the…
Alix gives him a pointed glare and starts scrolling her phone to cut off the battle puns he’s been planning all morning.
The youth wing volunteers start to filter in, looking despondent. Only they would wear button up shirts and chinos so they look like Mormons. The Greens and Te Pāti Māori have young people that other young people want to date. We have lonely young men that type out their political ambitions in the incel chat rooms at 3 in the morning when #nzpol has gone to sleep.
Alix, go ask them why their faces look like Elon Musk just renounced Ayn Rand on social media.
She gives me a do-I-have-to look but duly puts her phone in her pocket and stalks over to the biggest huddle. How does she always have clothes with pockets? This is why real feminism is dying and women are off fighting for everyone else's rights. Young ones don't understand the battles we fought to be taken seriously when we weren't even allowed fucking pockets on our clothes. Real ones that hold things and not the pishy sewn on flaps of fabric.
Alix is trying to beckon me over. Fuck that. Come and report back over here so I don't need to go over and disingenuously thank them for their service.
- They were getting bad feedback on the doors this morning. Nobody seemed interested in voting and not for Nobby. And his wife shouted at one of them for forgetting to pick up the flyers. She said if Nobby doesn't win it's all his fault and he'll have to take public transport back to Wellington.
I can see them over her shoulder, heads docile, leaning to me, waiting for a bone from mama.
We're NOT here to be losers.
Come on Alix. We're going to get out of here and get some rum and cokes in the hotel bar.
- Should I tell them where...
Head high. Seize the day. Not long till polls closing. They can take some of our blood after that.
Nobody in the hotel bar looks like they give a rat's fuck there's a by-election on.
Five missed calls from the Press Sec. No messages which means it's the PM losing her shit over the possibility that Project Tui is falling over.
7.30pm comes. Alix's eyes flicker in the staccato of a thousand meaningless notification alerts. My phone is on silent. More missed calls from the Press Sec and Nobby has started too.
- The advance voting indicates low turnout. And they're saying very few specials to count.
All may not be lost. That's excellence news.
Get that quizzical eyebrow down. Low turnout favours the right and special votes favour the left. Nothing like a good bit of apathetical constituents to warm my juices. I buy her another rum and coke.
Missed calls from the wifey campaign manager. STOP being so tiresome. But we better get back to the bowling club because Nobby is scheduled to arrive. Three text messages asking what he should be wearing. For fucks sake.
By the time we get there the volunteers have cheered up on the free booze but the grey purse clenchers tutting their teeth about the possibility of Nobby losing have spread a fog of despair through the club.
Nobby reads the room completely wrong. He bounds onto the trophy awarding stage with the bounce of a camp counsellor. He’s introduced by the head of the small businesses association who successfully dampens his enthusiasm with a Presbyterian account of all the hard work everyone has put in. He has everyone half asleep by the time he hands over to Nobby to thank everyone for their generous efforts. Oh for fucks sake, don’t read their names from a list that seems to be on one of your kids' jotter paper.
Alix, we might need you to go round the corner to get some proper rum.
Once he's off the stage the purse clenchers envelop him in a flurry of coos. What a handsome lad, eh. Their sons are propping up the bar. How many more before they are too trollied to take nana home. But better than having to do bedtime with the kids.
Hold on, the Party Secretary is calling.
Have you heard from the Electoral Commission? Have they finished the count?
No don't start in alphabetical order, for fucks sake. Is Nobby in or not?