Because he realized he had been responsible for the elevation of the first Indo-Chinese Catholic to the Papacy, Eugene Keeton decided to use his incredible, though specific, power for the good of all mankind.

All right, he admitted to himself, when he was finally convinced he had “the might to vote,” I made a few mistakes. Nixon and Reagan were examples of muddy thinking; and voting for The Greatest Show on Earth for the 1952 Oscar, just because I liked Jimmy Stewart as a clown, when I should have gone for On the Waterfront or Viva Zapata! or Moulin Rouge or High Noon, was just plain stupid. But who knew? Who knew I was the deciding vote? Who could believe such a thing?

Now, miraculously, he knew.

He believed.

In some wonderful, cockeyed flash of inspiration on the part of the sentient universe (no doubt in league with the powers of synchronicity, serendipity and entropy), he had been touched by the Paw of Chance: he had been accorded the lofty position of holder of the deciding vote. The knowledge had come slowly; it had taken forty of his fifty years to understand who and what he was.

It hadn’t dawned though he had cast vote for every successful presidential candidate since his twenty-first birthday. It hadn’t dawned though he had been chosen by Flora from the slate of suitors for her hand. It hadn’t dawned though he had been dead-on selecting every Emmy, Oscar, Tony and Obie winner for the past three decades. It hadn’t dawned though he’d been on the winning side for the Rose Bowl, the Super Bowl, the World Series and the Stanley Cup.

But when, for a lark, he voted for Daffy Duck as a write-in for the Board of Supervisors, and D. Duck won — after six recounts — by one vote, he began to have suspicions.

So he tried a lightweight experiment. When TV Guide ran a readers’ poll coupon for viewers to select their favorite television shows, he picked the sign-off Sermonette as best dramatic presentation, Tom Snyder as most outstanding male personality, and The National Drunk Driving Test as the best comedy.

When they won, to the amazement and dyspepsia of Walter Annenberg, he knew he was on to something hot.

He vaguely remembered a filler item he’d seen on ABC just before the last election. A county in Wisconsin — or had it been Oklahoma? — where the voting record had been identical to that of the nation as a whole since the 1840s without a miss. A statistical fluke, the announcer had said.

Fluke, indeed. He was another.

Eugene Keeton was the stuffer of the ballot boxes.

He came to think of himself as a superhero with a secret identity. In real life he was mild-mannered, fifty-year-old Eugene Keeton, good old Gene, an electrician at Universal Studios, a husband, father of two grown daughters, slow and precise and a credit to his race. But when the bat-signal flashed against the night sky, when the beleaguered forces of Good and Decency called for The Green Hornet, then Eugene Keeton shed his bib overalls and his Hush Puppies and became the deciding vote.

Even with the emphysema and the arthritis, the secret knowledge made Eugene Keeton’s life a happy dream.

And when Cardinal Sorapong Krung Utanan was elevated by the Holy See, when the puff of white smoke went up over the Vatican and Reuters flashed the incredible news to the bead-counting world, Eugene Keeton knew he was the focus of vast powers. With knowledge came a sense of responsibility.

Then he decided to do good things.

But first, because he didn’t have any concrete plans, because having the power and knowing how best to use it were very different matters, he resolved to share his wonderfulness with Flora.

“You what?” she said.

“I’m the ballot-box stuffer. I can make it all go my way.”

“Go to bed, I’ll get the heat pad.”

“Flora, you’ve lived with me for twenty-two years. Have you ever heard me say anything like this? Do I see flying saucers? When Sandi wanted me to go to that self-actualization seminar her boyfriend was running, did I come back and talk about needing my space? Am I a sensible person or am I not?”

“Maybe the hot water bottle, too,” she said.

Eugene Keeton went fishing. He hadn’t gone fishing in over fifteen years; nonetheless, he sought privacy and sat for six silent hours in a small boat on Lake Sherwood. And as darkness fell a great sorrow took him.

I’m fifty years old, he thought, and I don’t know what to do with the world. I’m just a man, no great brain, no deep thinker, and I know there are so many things that are wrong, that ought to be made better, the world easier for people, and I don’t know how to do it.

He considered taking trips to other lands, to vote in elections so the terrorist strongmen in the Middle East would be deposed. He contemplated voting for little-known men and women he would seek out and research and assure himself would make the world a better place.

But the enormity of his lack of expertise in such matters stopped him. How would he know if they were the right people, honest and courageous? And what if they did things he didn’t like?

Eugene Keeton had caught no fish in six hours. He had, in fact, been caught himself: by the terrible dread certainty that he had been selected as God … and was impotent.

Flora was waiting up for him. She was in the yellow terrycloth bathrobe, sitting in his chair in the rec room, in the dark, holding a mug of cold tea in both hands. She spoke out of the darkness as he came limping down the stairs. “The arthritis again?”

“A little. It’s not bad.”

She waited till he had sunk into the old sofa they had put down here after they’d bought the new suite for the living room. He had not turned on the lights.

“Honey?”

He made an acknowledging sound. She could barely see him.

“I didn’t mean to make light.”

“That’s all right. I know how it sounded.”

“Even so. I should have listened to you.”

They sat silently for a time. Finally, he sighed and said, “Flora, I never knew how hard it is. The electrical bill goes up and we swear at the Arabs. Half my crew gets laid off at the Studio and we blame Carter, or Reagan, or whoever’s at the top. People get assassinated, crime all over the place, the Dinettis down the street get broken into and we say it’s the Mexicans or the blacks … but we don’t really know. And when you get a chance to do something, to take a hand, maybe to vote for someone you think’ll change it … it’s just more of the same.”

He was quiet again. Then he said:

“God ought to be able to do something. But there’s nothing to do. He can’t get a handle on it.”

“You shouldn’t say that, Gene.”

“But I know! I’m sure He’s just like we are. Just sitting in the dark and hoping something’ll happen. But it won’t.”

“Yes, it will. It has to, Gene. God or someone else has to take a hand. If you think you’re the one, well, maybe you’ve been touched by Him. Maybe He’s working through you.”

Silence. For a long time. Then, “Maybe.”

He resolved at least to try.

It wasn’t right to have this power and not do something with it. So he resolved at least to try.

The union had an election coming up. There had been problems. Talk. Just idle talk about featherbedding and more layoffs. About some tie-in with people under indictment in Chicago and Detroit. Kickbacks. Just talk, idle talk. But Eugene had been disturbed by it.

He studied the background of the men running for office. He made his selections after careful consideration. He voted and they won, all of them, down to the last dark horse who had been on the stump for sweeping changes. They all seemed honest.

Within a month, six more of his crew were laid off; and the dues were raised.

Flora came home from volunteer work at the hospital to find him sitting at the kitchen table with an open, full bottle of beer. It had grown warm.

“Did you heat the casserole?” He shook his head.

“Bad day?”

“Hersh and Ken Toland and four others were laid off today.”

“How did it happen? Didn’t the union make a fuss?”

He looked at her. In twenty-two years she had never seen such desperation on his face. He was always ready with a silly riddle — why is a chicken sitting on a fence like a new penny? — but these days he seldom had anything silly to say. “How did it happen?” he said softly. “I made it happen.”

She started to say, don’t be silly, Gene, but his eyes were sad and she laid down her purse and put her arms around him and kissed his hair.

After a while they went to bed. She lay awake hearing him breathe. She pretended to be asleep, not wanting him to know she was so worried about him. But he didn’t fall off till almost morning.

And the next day he called in sick. He wandered around the house in Toluca Lake that now seemed too large for an aging couple whose children had lives of their own in far places called Seattle and Rapid City. She found him, during one empty hour, standing in the middle of the living room, staring into the blank wall. She spoke his name gently but he didn’t respond; so she went back into the kitchen and after a while found herself washing the same tumbler over and over.

Late that afternoon she found him in the backyard, sitting on the grass under the loquat tree, staring at the remains of a dead bird. He sat like a child, his legs out straight in front of him, his hands folded, staring unblinkingly at the rotted thing that had once danced through sunlight. She stood waiting for him to notice her, and when he failed to look up, as if he were willing himself into the shapeless mass, she said, “I think that was the jay we heard hit the window last week. Mrs. Carmichaels angora must’ve been at it, you think?”

He didn’t answer for a long time. Then he looked up at her and she realized he had been crying. He said something that clogged up in his throat.

“I didn’t hear you, dear,” she said.

He repeated it, and she could not bear to let him see the effect his words had on her. She turned away and went back to the kitchen, hearing him say it again and again in her terror:

I should ought to be able to do something or it.

She waited in the kitchen, waited for the fall of darkness and waited for the sound of his footsteps coming into the house asking what was for dinner; but he sat out there in the evening and she sat inside in the darkness, fearing even to turn on the television.

Finally, he came in and after a while they went to bed. Again he lay awake all night, and so did Flora, until close to dawn, when she drifted off into troubled dreams.

And the next morning he was gone.

She stayed in bed. He had gone away. She knew he would never come back. She just knew it. And there would be ever so much time for crying during all the later that lay ahead.

He went away.

God, helpless as those He had created, wandered forlorn through the machine that had assumed a life of its own; that would run, and continue to run, until there was no one left to notice.

The Author wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Lance A. Diemback in the creation of this piece of fiction.