24Victoria-Victor introduction. On 12 December, 2038, Bilodeaux, while finishing his second term as Prime Minister, was asked by one-time lover Allistair Aames (See Ch. 3) to write a foreword to his book on the Gay Homeland Movement and the creation of the Nootka Republic. The book was to be published in September of the following year coincidentally with the republic's 20th anniversary celebration. As Bilodeaux was the serving premier, had helped draft the country's constitution, and had stood on the platform during the Day of Victoria-Victor, he considered himself bound to comply, even though pressed by threats of war from the Fundamentalist Republic of Idaho throughout the winter of 203839.
He completed the foreword to Forbidden Island: The Tumultuous Creation of the Gay Nation (as Aames' work was eventually titled), shortly after the New Year. It read:
One cannot look back on the creation of the Nootka Republic without remembering the incredible decade that preceded it. Indeed, one may say that the quarter century before that delirious Day of Victoria-Victor (25 years that represented the physical, emotional, and political adolescence of my generation) were years of unprecedented socio-political change-beginning, perhaps, with broad systemic changes and evolving into many specific changes, of which the Gay Homeland Movement was one. There is an argument for going back even further, to the invalidation and overhaul of socialism in the early 1990s, to find the "pebble" that caused the ripples.
Events toward the close of the last millennium crowded together, one atop the other: the dissolution of the Soviet Republic; the European neosocialist phenomenon; the Pacific Rim Economic Crisis heralded by the purchase of Bakersfield by the Fumikawa Corporation; the Akron Ozone Convention; the Crypto-Conservative Scare; and of course the North American Regionalization Mandate. To be sure, the new millennium contributed its share of catalysts. Who can forget 2002, the Year of the Two Depressions? And three years later the world was again shaken-by the events in Tobruk, when the Pan Misanthropy Organization walked out of the Second World Congress of Terrorist Organizations, and then blew it up.
A fatigued world civilization can be forgiven for mistaking the restive years 2006-8 as the beginning of a long quietus wrought by 15 years of violent catharsis. Hindsight reveals that the respite merely allowed what my predecessor Vincent Fan Li called "the chimera of fragmentationism" to grow its many heads. The AIDS vaccine breakthrough, coupled with the combination of movements and calamities that followed the respite and changed the world map, made it possible for the "Acid-tongued Clique" (as detractors nicknamed it) to acquire Vancouver Island for the new republic. It is this malaise that my friend Allistair Aames treats so ably in the following pages.
But while acknowledging the systemic and intrasystemic forces that led us to V-V Day, I prefer to remember the day itself on an individual level. There, on the platform erected on what is now the Inner Harbor Pavilion, I was fortunate to stand among men who so well represented the very tribulations this book chronicles-men who lived through the tempest of the Turn of the Millennium as well as through their own diverse personal crises. That collection of souls was the incarnation of the spirit of this book.
I remember most vividly some of the honored guests flown in expressly to be cheered by the throng. There was the venerable Parker Segura, who like Moses led us to the promised land but never entered (contrary to contemporary rumors, he simply couldn't bring himself to abandon his beloved home on Bimini). There was the banty Cockney, Reggie Twofathers, who led the gay takeover of the Dodecanes in 2013 (many hail this as the first gay republic, though the region remains an only semi-autonomous part of Greece). There was the writer, Jervais Arnold, and his famous bodyguard, "Plugs" Mahony; Plugs always stood out in a crowd because of his size, but that night he gleamed in a black leather tuxedo and a rhinestone-studded right hand; he had lost his real right hand protecting Arnold during that sudden rioting in Scranton that would grow into the First Uprising of the Homophobes.
There were, of course, the dignitaries one would expect to find. Prime Minister Granton Milne and his first cabinet presided, joined by those of us on the constitutional boards. And of course present were the two men who had brought both sides through the 20 months of complicated negotiations for the acquisition of Vancouver Island and the San Juans: our own Carlos Lavender, and Premier Pat Silvagni of the United Counties of the Pacific Northwest.
But it was the men with personal stories that most intrigued me. Arthur Newton was there on the podium, though he had been left out of the cabinet due to an unfortunate and unfounded hetero rumor. And there was that militant champion, Mickey Paliescue, President of the International Union of Slave Boys. And then there was the man who for me made the most lasting impression: quiet, unassuming, 73-year-old Claude Preece.
A simple, taciturn man, Preece had been brought to the attention of the guest committee by Jervais Arnold, who suggested he represent those intrepid purveyors of gay sanctuary brought to the verge of extinction by the tragic proliferation of AIDS in the 1980s. Preece had served as managing partner for the Arcadian Grove, a remote private resort on the California Coast. The Arcadian Grove had been forced to approach a straight clientele after the AIDS Hysteria, and Preece eventually sold out, removing to Ashland in what was then southern Oregon. There had been attempts to revive the Grove's original concept after the Great Unzipping, but the world that welcomed the AIDS vaccine was economically too volatile.
I watched this proud old man as he waited to be introduced beside latex king Marvin Gold, and later, as the band struck up our unofficial anthem, "I Think We're Alone Now," I found myself in a small circle with him, toasting the new republic. Someone asked him how he had found the strength to go on after his dream resort had gone astray. He smiled and drew a deep breath.
"Well...I was given a sign," he said. "Only I didn't know it was a sign at the time."
We saw the gleam in his eye as we waited for him to go on. He spoke softly, so we huddled close.
"It was winter...off season; there was only a handful of guests. This was 1981. Heavy fog rolled in off the Pacific one evening, and Juan, the pool boy, came running into the office all flushed and out of breath, saying that a school bus had run off the road rounding the curve near our gate. It was a high school wrestling team, lost on the way back from a match. Night had come on, they were miles away from any help, and they had no idea where they were. There was nothing they could do but spend the night with us. You see, that night...some higher power gave us a glimpse, a night in Paradise. I knew it when the bottom fell out a couple of years later; I knew there was a reason not to give up hope. The essence of that evening has stayed with me from that night to this, though I could not tell you the name of one of those boys, or the name of the high school even though it was embroidered on every one of their jackets, or even if they won their match."
One of the more lascivious members of the circle blurted out desperately that he needed more detail, but Tom Elder, newly sworn Minister of Tourism, cut him out.
"No," Tom said with a smile. "Don't spoil the magic; let it remain as it is." Then he stepped closer to Claude Preece. "It was Alta Rios High School," he said with a wink. "And we did win the match."
And so, begging you to remember the exchange of Claude Preece and Tom Elder on the day that Victoria, Vancouver Island became Victor, Nootka Republic, and asking that you remember the thousands of other stories bound up in this history, I commend to you the excellent account that follows.
-Devon Bilodeaux, Jan. 2038
C.P. Stancich says, "Love it/use it-hate it/ reject it. But credit it with one thing: short as it is, it makes room for a jab at Idaho; not enough fiction does that." And all this from Tacoma.
For more stories by C.P. Stancich, click here.
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