Atomictumor

“WHAT the hell were you thinking?!?!”

*smack*

That was his hand on the bar. Three of the shady looking Norwegians looked over warily, the scent of the kill deep in their nostrils.

“JESUS man. All of the things I do for you, and you go and put THAT on the internet?”

*smack*

Maybe smack isn’t the best sound. See, he has a really big, meaty hand, and it kinda makes more of a WHOOMP sound when it slams against the bar. My beer overturned, and ran down the length of the bar to the sleeping dockworker at the end. She looked up groggily, muttered something about “the last time”, and went back to sleep.

I took a second to watch the vein in his neck, and reflected on what brought me here.

—

I got the email to meet him in one of the gloomier bars on the east side of town, the kind of place where the stale cigarette smoke and the constant Skynyrd combine to make an ambiance that washes out the watered down beer you drink for hours on end. He, like me, isn’t a telephone person, because it creates “traces”. Weird guy, but damn if he isn’t a political genius. They say he was one of Reagan’s insiders back in the day, when Ollie North rode high, and Alexander Haig was taken seriously.

He went by “Sugar Sack Smith”.

He was pissed.

—

“Look, its your website, do whatever you’re going to do, but I spent 3 hours talking to you about this, and I thought we had an agreement. I thought you told me you were voting Hensley, Evans, and Hayes. You said yourself ‘Those are the obvious choices’. Are you stupid? Are you braindead? Where the HELL did Ellen Smith come from? Were you that determined not to look like you were Stan Mitchell’s little brother? What the hell’s wrong with you???”

“Well,” I said “Stan has nothing to do with it. I mean, yeah, he went Evans, Hensley, Hayes, like we were talking about, but that has no bearing on why I changed my mind…”

“You changed your mind because you’re a dumbass. I swear, if you weren’t a single father, I’d feed you to my piranha. Look, I know what you’re doing. You’re being liberal.”

“What? That has nothing to do with it. I think Ellen would be very capable.”

“Its perfectly natural. You’re still stupid. Thats why you’ve got me. Listen, heres the deal. Hayes, he’s the school dude. He’s the ace in the hole to make sure Oak Ridge remembers how good the school system is, and a hope to get over this board vs. council nonsense.
Hensley, he’s the rational environmentalist. He’s on the ball with making sure the greenbelts stay green, the billboards stay out, and people stay off the grass.
Evans, now, he’s the businessman. You need a businessman on the council, son, no matter how much you disagree with much that the Chamber people say, and how much you want to have a utopean small business collective in town, the fact is, son, its not going to happen. The reality of the situation is that any business development is going to need the council, and its going to need somebody that understands business. Ellen Smiths a smart gal, but, like you, she darn near has a knee jerk reaction against business and development.”

“Hell,” he continued “I have knee jerk reactions all the time. Spiders, Mormons, chainsaws. The thing is, I understand that spiders are important in keeping insects under control, chainsaws are important in maintaining production, and Mormons… well, you get what I mean.”

I tried to ignore the whole Mormon thing.

“OK” I finally stuttered out “I don’t disagree. As much as I’d like to endorse Ellen, because I like the cut of her jib, I just don’t know if she’d be an effective politician. She certainly has a place in the city, but maybe not on the council.”

“Thing is, Sugar Sack, I don’t do corrections. I’m like Imus. If I’m wrong, even if I KNOW I’m wrong, I’m not going to admit it. Like during the whole Oak Leaf thing, when I vilified the school board and Dr. Bailey for a week or two. I just won’t do it. I’m stuborn.”

I looked up at him, and found a very large drag queen in his place, looking in the other direction. I looked around to try to find where he made off to, but he appeared to be long gone.

The bastard stuck me with the tab. I paid it off, and drove home.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 19th, 2007 at 8:37 pm and is filed under Local, Drunk, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.