Special Election

HEAVEN

Is there a heaven? No. There are, instead, many heavens, each of them populated exclusively by people from your state or province or canton or... well, Lawrence Welk doesn’t know all the names for state in the many places of the world. All he knows was that he was born in North Dakota in 1903, and when he died in 1992 and went to heaven, it was filled with other people from North Dakota. Now, he’s alive again, and back in North Dakota, the real North Dakota, and he’s sitting in the office of the chairman of the state’s Democratic Party. The chairman explains the situation. There had been an election, for the governor of North Dakota. The Republican who was elected has died. He didn’t die after taking office; he died before taking office. He didn’t die after being elected but before taking office; he died before he was elected.

“The voters elected a dead man!” Lawrence Welk says. This seems incredible. He wants to know how such a thing could happen. He wants to know how he got here. He wants to know how you can go to sleep in heaven and then wake up on earth. He wants to know what year it is. He wants to know about his children, whether they’re still alive, whether they’re well, whether he can see them. He wants to know why the office doesn’t have wood paneling. Every important man’s office should be paneled with wood, Lawrence Welk thinks.

“Yes, they elected a dead man.”

“Did they know he was dead?”

“Well, some of them must have.”

“And now you want them to elect me!” Lawrence Welk says. “A man who was dead but now is alive!”

The chairman nods. He says, in a bored way, as though reciting from a manual, “If the voters elect a candidate who has already died and gone to heaven, then heaven must send two people back from heaven to run for that office.” The chairman then leans back in his chair and hooks his hands behind his head. He is a small, pasty-faced man with a large gut and an open suit jacket and a long tie. “It’s a special election,” the chairman says.

PARTY LINE

“But I’m a Republican,” Lawrence Welk says.

“The Republicans already chose their candidate,” the chairman says.

“Who?” Lawrence Welk asks.

“Not you,” the chairman says.

CHECKING IN

Lawrence Welk says first he must check in with his wife, Fern, who also was born in North Dakota, and who died ten years after Lawrence Welk. Fern is back in their heaven. He communicates with her silently, with his eyes closed, as though in prayer.

There she is, in a field. Her right hand is encased in leather. Perched on it is a goshawk. In heaven, Fern has taken up falconry.

“I won’t go if you don’t want me to go,” Lawrence Welk says, and at the sound of his voice the bird’s eyes become huge. In them, Lawrence Welk sees chaos, he sees distrust, he sees will, he sees appetite, he sees the bird seeing the mouse parts that Fern will feed the bird if the bird flies away, and then comes back, when Fern tells it to.

“Won’t go?” Fern says softly, her eyes on the bird’s eyes. “Lawrence, you’re already gone.”

REUNION

“And my children?” Lawrence Welk asks the chairman. “Are they still alive?”

“Yes.”

“Wunnerful! When can I see them?”

“When it’s time,” the chairman says.

“When will it be time?”

“When you’ve won,” the chairman says.

LATE BLOOMER

A knock on the door and in walks a man who is obviously the son of the chairman of North Dakota’s Democratic Party. They look identical except that the son has lived some decades fewer and is wearing a zipped-up fleece vest, not a suit jacket, over his too-long tie. The tie dangles out of the bottom of the vest in an unseemly way. The son’s name is Ryan...