The Newts
Preface
The
road to hell, it has often been said, is paved with good intentions.
And
our immigrant forefathers and foremothers in their old-countries were
told that the streets of America, the great Land of Opportunity, were
paved with gold.
Without
passing any judgment on the correctness of either of these singular
propositions, the reader is invited, as a thought experiment, to
exchange the conclusion of each with the conclusion of the other.
Such operation will yield two plausible alternate propositions: that
the streets of America are the ones paved with good intentions, while
it is the road to hell that is paved with gold.
This
little tale, inspired by Aristophanes’ Frogs,
makes no claim to furnishing any evidence regarding either the way to
hell or the composition of America’s infrastructure. The reader
should therefore have no expectation that this story will be of any
use whatsoever in distinguishing between roads leading to the
Infernal Region and those leading, for that matter, to Timbuktu.
Likewise, the reader will search in vain within these pages for an
accounting of the present state of America’s streets, roads,
highways, byways, and bridges – and least of all, for any
conclusions as to whether they were in fact built with the very
noblest of good intentions, or merely with federal transportation
funds.
The
Author presumes that trustworthy guidebooks on those subjects are
available, if the reader is interested in that sort of thing.
SAN
DIEGO,
July
4,
2012.
* * *
CHAPTER
ONE
In
which we attend a Tea Party, and meet Ed the Electrician, a Patriot
who vows to resurrect the Spirit of a Founding Father
It
was nearly midnight at the emergency meeting of the Riverside Tea
Partiers, a splinter group of the Riverside Tea Party for America
(which was itself a splinter group of the original Riverside Tea
Party), and the single item on the agenda, the group’s endorsement
of the Republican candidate for President of the United States, was
still being vigorously debated.
Rain
lashed the windows of the rented conference room at the Red Roof Inn,
as an unusually powerful summer storm made good progress in its
efforts to back up the storm drains and triple the number of potholes
in the roads the next day. Inside the conference room it was warm –
hot even – as Mrs. Midge West, retired dental hygienist, stood at
the podium giving a heartfelt homily on the twin Christian virtues of
small government and large Social Security payments.
Ed
Wurlitzerbachermann, electrician, ignored Mrs. West as he waited
anxiously for his turn to speak at the podium. In a low whisper he
rehearsed the short speech he intended to deliver, in which he
planned to include a neat little joke about rewiring Washington. As
he did so, his fingers slid under a navy blue tri-cornered hat to
scratch at his sweaty bald scalp beneath.
He
was a broad-shouldered, red-cheeked, stern-faced man, with large,
probing eyes set below a solid brow, and a neatly trimmed goatee
growing from his chin. Tonight he was wearing his Samuel Adams
costume: short black trousers on top of knee-high white stockings, a
brown button-down vest covering a ruffled white shirt, a pair of
stiff leather shoes with a large silver buckle on each, and the
aforementioned tri-cornered hat.
In
truth, it is more accurate to say that this was his imitation
Sam Adams costume. The Halloween store had sold it as the ‘Paul
Revere,’ and it came with a cheap plastic oil lamp. But a few of
Ed’s Tea Party friends insisted it made him look “just like the
guy on the beer bottle” – apart from the long hair, of course.
So he ditched the plastic lamp, embraced the Sam Adams look, and wore
the costume proudly to all of his official Tea Party meetings, and
some of the unofficial ones as well.
Mrs.
West was now asking – rhetorically, perhaps – why a government so
big couldn’t manage to accomplish small jobs, like the time she
called her local Social Security office and they kept her on hold for
“quite close to an hour.” Though undoubtedly sympathetic to her
criticism, many members of the assembled Tea Partiers shifted
impatiently in their seats.
“But
what about the nominee?” yelled someone from near the back of the
crooked rows of fold-up chairs. “Do you support him or not?”
“I want to support him, I really do,” replied Mrs. West, after
some hesitation, and much frowning. “But I just don’t know if
he’s the real deal, if he truly shares our values.”
“But
isn’t anyone
better than the dictator we’ve got in office now? Or would you
rather just let him
get re-elected?” The voice came from a man with a full beard, an
even fuller stomach (which stretched his “Don’t Tread On Me”
T-shirt to its full capacity), and a replica musket balanced on his
knees.
Mrs.
West stammered for a moment, recovering from the shock of being asked
such an impertinent question.
“Well,
the real question is,” she shouted into the microphone, “can our
guy win? That’s
what I
want to know!”
Heads
nodded in approval throughout the crowd, and Mrs. West stepped away
from the podium, chin held high. She had neither answered the
question nor stated a clear position on the topic at hand, but she
was proud of her performance nonetheless. It was as thrilling as the
time Channel 6 broadcast a piece about the Tea Party on the 11
o’clock news, and she could be clearly seen behind the reporter,
waving a sign that read, “Don’t steal from my Medicare to support
Socialized Medicine.” The gals at the salon had seemed a little
miffed at all her crowing about it, but she graciously reminded them
that in America, “sooner or later everyone gets their fifteen
seconds of fame.”
Now
it was finally Ed’s turn, and the electrician felt his heart
beating wildly in anticipation of speaking in front of the group. He
was normally a man of action, whose tools were wire cutters, not
words. But something had compelled him on this stormy night to speak
up.
A
few raucous voices chanted “Ed the Electrician! Ed the
Electrician!” as he stepped behind the podium, and he nodded
solemnly in acknowledgement. The title, like his Sam Adams look, had
also been conferred upon him by his Tea Party friends – although
for purely utilitarian purposes, since no one could pronounce his
last name.
“I’m
Ed Wurlitzerbachermann,” he said, “and I sure as hell don’t
want to see another four years of that fool
in the White House!”
The
crowd roared its applause, and Ed’s spirits were buoyed.
“His
beliefs are un-American and socialist! It’s not a conspiracy
theory, it’s not a bunch of hoopla, it’s for real. I say that
every day, and I won’t shut up about it!”
Further
applause emboldened Ed, and he banged his hand on the podium, but his
eloquence already began to fade.
“That
guy,” he said, “has done more damage to our country in the past
four years than . . .” – he stumbled a little now, searching for
the right comparison – “than the last three or four Presidents
combined!”
The
crowd applauded again, though somewhat less enthusiastically, and
then went silent for what seemed an eternity as Ed slowly recalled
the little speech he had rehearsed.
“You
know,” he said at last, “I’m just an electrician, and I don’t
know a lot about politics. But I think the answer is pretty simple.
We’ve got to rewire
Washington! The power lines need to be coming from the people!”
He
was pleased to see that his little joke won him another solid round
of applause.
“Yeah,
yeah, Ed, we all get that,” called out the man with the musket,
when the applause had died down. “But here I go asking it again:
what about the nominee? Does he have your vote? Yes or no?”
Unfortunately,
like the good Mrs. West, Ed wasn’t fully prepared to answer this
difficult question. They were both in the midst of experiencing an
unprecedented three-way internal conflict – between their usual
party allegiances, their newfound Tea Party values, and their bitter
disappointment with the Republican nominee. This had quite
understandably resulted in the procrastination of a final judgment on
the matter. In other words, they were undecided. Unlike Mrs. West,
however, Ed had an admirable willingness to try to come up with an
answer on the spot.
“Well
it seems to me,” said Ed, “that the liberals are always
complaining they’ve got to hold their nose and vote for the lesser
of two evils.”
Disapproving
chatter spread throughout the crowd. Was he actually about to
suggest they do as the liberals do?
“But
I say the hell with that! A vote for the lesser of two evils is
still a vote for evil!”
The
crowd cheered loudly, and Ed smiled with satisfaction.
“Sorry
to be a bummer,” said the musket-bearing man over the applause –
most impolitely, in Ed’s view – “but a vote for a third party
candidate might as well be a vote for the Socialist!”
Several
people voiced agreement with this, and Ed lost his nerve once again.
Clutching desperately to regain his previous favor with the crowd, he
blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“No,
no! I’m not saying we should back a third party. What we need to
do is, you know – find a different
candidate
to run as a Republican, a better
candidate!”
The
Tea Partiers groaned en
masse.
Here they were, back at square one. Months of flirting with this
candidate or that candidate during the primaries had exhausted their
patience for trying someone new, and now it appeared they were stuck
with the last man standing.
“Too
late for that!” cried the musket man. “If he doesn’t get you
all fired up, tough! If you don’t think he’s the great savior
that’s gonna’ deliver America back to us, tough! He’s the best
damn chance we’ve got.”
The
crowd murmured its reluctant agreement with him.
Ed
could see he was rapidly losing his audience, and he sensed the woman
waiting behind him for a turn at the microphone inching closer.
“Yeah,
but I’m not talking about just another Johnny come lately,” he
said. “I’m talking an honest-to-God Real American. Like the
Founding Fathers – right? If we could get someone like one of them
to run, he’d be unbeatable!”
“I
don’t think there’s too many Founding Fathers left,” said the
musket man, laughing derisively, “other than the folks playing
dress up, I guess!” He shook his head, snickered, and mumbled that
it seemed about time for the next speaker.
But
Ed Wurlitzerbachermann stood his ground. He had untangled wires that
were twisted together for decades, rewired electrical systems more
complex than a map of Los Angeles’ freeways, and charged customers
an hourly rate slightly higher than the going rate of brain surgeons
– all because he lived by the motto “Never Give Up.” And he
applied this motto to those tasks he knew had absolutely no chance of
succeeding just as much as he did to all other tasks, simply on
principal.
Furthermore,
the musket man had implicitly challenged his intelligence and
political acumen, a rather offensive act in any age. Rather than
admit defeat or at least cede the field, Ed did the natural thing: he
dug in deeper. He could feel his next words flowing uncontrollably
out of him, in a straight line from his gut to his mouth, like acid
reflux.
“Well
then I
think maybe it’s time to bring back a real
Founding Father!” he cried. “Because if anyone can clean up
Washington, it’s a man like George Washington himself. That’s
who we need to run! And I intend to find him – or someone just as
good – if I have to go to hell and back to do it!”
A
sudden angry rumble of thunder outside added to the prophetic quality
of his declaration, confirming in his mind the righteousness of the
mission he had just assigned himself. Ignoring the looks of
disbelief on the faces of the crowd and the snide laughter of the
musket man, Ed the Electrician slapped his hand triumphantly on the
podium, saluted sharply off the tip of his tri-cornered hat (to no
one in particular), and marched out of the meeting in a daze of
glory.
* * *
And as for the review...
"I live in Scotland but take an interest in the US. `The Newts` is a very inventive satire on the US, its politics, its fears and its attempts to find its way. The book is enjoyable on several levels...you don`t need any [kind of] literary background to enjoy this and you don`t even need to be American."
To say the least, Matt's book is reaching readers worldwide in a way that not many books based on US politics has done before. That in itself should be impressive, not to mention the sheer quality of the writing should make you want to rush out and get your copy now. Like, RIGHT NOW. Remember, the internet never closes...
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