Subject: CODY: FROSH Chap.1 Gem County
From: mithryl@walrus.com (Mithryl)
Date: 1996/11/10
Message-Id: <565649$gsk@alice.walrus.com>
FROSH
By CODY ANN MICHAELS
c. All Rights Reserved
PART 1
MORAL CUSTODIANS
Chapter 1
Gem County
"I have surmised that Stanford [White]'s abdication of
responsibility was complete. As the moral custodian of his own life, he
simply wasn't present. Because of this, there is no story. Without
awareness, without at least an attempt to exercise choice, there is no
drama. How can there be drama if no one is there?" -- Suzannah Lessard,
Stanford White's great granddaughter in The Architect of Desire, Dial
Press, 1996, reviewed NY Times, 10/28/96
"You won't believe this at first, but there is no Bill Clinton.
That is, he has no principles he will stand by if they lose him
popularity." -- Paul Greenberg, Little Rock journalist, in 1992, as
repeated by Nat Hentoff, Village Voice, 11/5/96.
*
Shit! In all the confusion the past several weeks, what with
getting married, winning the Nobel, and trying to get my book published on
the internet, I completely forgot to mention I was running for Congress.
Of course, I had to lie about my age, because no matter what it may seem,
most congressmen are not 14 years old. That's their minimum i.q.
Why I wanted to be in Congress is hard to say. For one thing, I
would be able to keep abreast of the issues; it would look good on my
resume, and I would have a secretary to type my term papers. Then there
is the 135 grand salary, which is almost as much as I make putting out
for U.S. Congressmen. So why not, I reasoned, go where the money is? I
also get an expense account. And free postage.
I know a lot of people are going to think in view of some of the
things I wrote in my last book, that I sold out, but the truth is I ran as
a Republican. For one thing, my district, the 3rd, is almost wall to wall
with Republicans. Some of those people are still trying to keep us out of
World War 2, they're so right wing. I also thought the GOP was more
sociologically adapted to the elements of my life style: you know, things
like child brides, intra-family sexual arrangements, ritual mass murders,
slavery, etc. But the other thing is, if you're a Republican, the
Christian Coalition will provide you with all sorts of backup just for
saying the most bizarre things about abortion. Those freaky people will
go door to door, hand out literature, and even lie down in the middle of
the road and be run over just to get you elected. And it's all free. You
don't even have to campaign yourself. I'd almost forgotten I was on the
ballot.
A couple of days after the election, I called my campaign manager
from the motel in Emmett, Idaho, where Kelly and I were spending our
honeymoon at a militia training camp, to see how I did. He said it had
been a landslide. "For who?" "You. You won!" "Wow. Now what do I do?"
He said the first thing was for me to put out a statement thanking
the electorate for supporting me, and praising my opponent for having run
an honorable campaign based on the issues. I asked who it was. The name
meant nothing. "He said you were a two dollar whore." "Oh, that guy?"
What a cheap schmuck he turned out. He deserved to lose. It's true what
they say about liberals. They will spend anyone's money but their own.
"What about Newt Gingrich?" My manager said Newt was on my side. "Oh
yeah. All that GOPAC money. I forgot. Wait til you see the neat utility
vehicle we bought with it."
I would also like have to actually go to Washington. "Uh, oh
yeah. Like when?"
Lenny said he thought I could put it off until after Christmas.
"By the way, not that it matters, but who won the election? I
mean, for president? Really? That's the guy who's on the posters down at
the firing range. The ones with the circles on them. Do I get a car?"
"No."
"How about secret service?"
"You only get that if you run for president."
"So I'll run."
"You can't. You're underage. You have to be 36."
"Jesus. Who made that rule? I'll be an old woman. My mother
still has three years." Not that she'd make a good president. My mother
is sort of like Arianna Huffington. I think they were clones together at
Vassar. Lenny said he couldn't help it. He didn't make the laws. That
would now be my job.
"By the way, where exactly is the third district?"
When he told me, I nearly flipped. "Jesus, that's practically a
swamp. Couldn't you have got me something more upscale? Like South
Beach." Lenny said the Cubans owned that. Besides, there was a big army
base in my district. I ran on my military record.
"Yeah? You didn't tell them about Fort Bragg, did you?"
"We said you were a war hero."
Yeah. 20,000 infantrymen can't be wrong. Well, just so long as I
don't have to spend time there. You can fix up the photos with a
computer, right? The supermarket openings. The high school graduation.
The pie eating contests. Yuck! Like spare me the agony. The non-virtual
humiliation. They're lucky they will be able to worship me from afar.
Maybe, now that I think of it, I do belong with the Republicans.
Kelly and I are in Idaho because we wanted to spend our honeymoon
in a state that was totally moral. Did you know that Idaho has a law that
explicitly forbids sex between "unmarried people of the opposite sex"?
Which means Kelly and I would have been completely legal here, even if we
hadn't gotten married. The law was passed in 1921, but nobody paid it
much attention until the local Prosecuting Attorney decided to use it to
arrest teenage mothers. You can see why people like Mark Fuerhrman... did
I spell that right?... would want to live here.
Besides outlawing "forn-if-cation," Idaho is also home to the
Phineas Priesthood, the Aryan Nations, and the Christian Identity Church,
not to forget Ruby Ridge. It seems a girl, who -- just to pick a name out
of the hat -- we will call Hester Prynne, went and got herself knocked
up. And the Gem County prosecutor being the kind of aspiring backwoods
politician who never misses a chance to get his name in the paper and make
a fool of himself and his hometown in the national media, had her
arrested. In fact, he nailed ten of the local hussies for the crime of
illicit motherhood, girls turned in to the authorities by "teachers,
family members or social workers." What a town.
"We have higher standards than some of your faster metropolitan
areas," the sheriff who served the warrants said over his belt buckle
(which naturally was shaped like a gun). So does Attica. No girls ever
dared to get pregnant when he was in school in the 1950s, he told
reporters. If he's a specimen of what was available, I can see why. I'd
rather do it with a goat.
One would have thought Nathaniel Hawthorne had handed down the
last word on small town, small minded petty government interference in
people's private lives, no, but The Scarlett Letter has apparently still
not made it west of the Great Divide. The p .a. is naturally a white
male, 33 years old, who it is easy to imagine is getting vicarious revenge
on the girls who snubbed him when he was a pimply teenager by attacking
these girls now in his power.
Of course, he is only going after teenagers, even though the law
is supposed to apply to adults, too. Yet another reason why young people
don't vote, having experienced first hand what growing up in a "free"
society really means. He even gloated about it. "We limit the freedoms
of minors already." In Idaho, you can't buy cigarettes, or alcohol or get
married without your parents' consent. And you can't drive a car until
you're 14. What kind of law is that? Also, you can't drop out of school
until you're sixteen. So what if you high tail it across the border into
Oregon? How are they going to stop you? If I was pregnant (again) that's
what I'd do. Or head for the badlands of Montana. Of course, that might
result in a warrant for your arrest. I can see being stopped at a road
block fifteen years from now and the computer says I'm wanted in Idaho for
being a mother. But, it's not my problem. I have to get back to
Washington.
It's interesting to look at a map, and sort of free associate to
what you see there. It can tell you a lot. When I look at a map of
Idaho, for instance, what I think about are bird headed goddesses. These
are little figurines, most of them not much longer than seven inches,
that have been found all over Europe in caves and burial sites from
twenty-thousand years ago. The most famous is probably the Venus of
Willendorf from Austria, although she definitely has a head. But the
others have just sort of a point where the head has been pinched together
-- like Idaho. And they are all pregnant. In fact, that's the most
noticeable thing about them. The bellies. They stick out a mile. It's
the exact same shape as Idaho's. This is because -- people think -- that
in primitive societies women were reverenced for having babies. They
weren't locked up. Or shamed. Or bussed into Boise for sex education
classes. It shows you how far we've come, doesn't it?
Kelly asked if I was going to do this all the way back across the
country. I said I couldn't help it. I just liked to read maps. She said
I was driving her nuts. Every state we went through, I would read the
map. Trying to figure out God's plan. What it meant. Why were
different names placed next to one another or far apart? Once she grabbed
the Rand McNally out of my hands and threw it out the window. Looking
back, I saw the pages of America symbolically scattering on the interstate
which ran straight to the horizon. Fortunately, at the next truck stop,
I got new maps.
Kelly left me and took off in the Bronco. I was a thousand miles
from home, and all I had was a map, and my lovely teenage body. We got
back to New York about the same time. "How was it?" she asked. I said I
had acquired a fresh perspective of the American experience.
I've decided, however, that I don't want this book to be about
politics. I think that sort of spoiled the last one. Because politics is
of the moment, and I want this volume to evoke truths that are timeless,
like the ones you might get from being on crack.
Besides, politics does not mean as much to Kelly as it does to me.
To her, it is filled with sham and deceit. Her cynicism is that of the
average teenager who has been harassed since birth, while at the same time
being forced to pay lip service to the idea that we live in a free
country. It's hopeless to try and reason with her.
In any case, I had to hurry and get dressed. I was to be a guest
of honor at a banquet that night at the Waldorf, where people were waiting
to get a glimpse of the country's youngest freshman congressman. To be
honest, though, I had lied on that questionnaire they make you fill out
before you can run for congress, that I was 34. I had also said I was a
man, because that was demographically more appealing to the constituency
in the district I was running from. And I had said I had once been a
quarterback for the Boston Celtics because congressmen who are ex-sports
jocks are usually very popular. Since I only weigh 118 pounds,
twenty-five of which is in my breasts, this was a bit of a stretch. I
wondered if anyone would notice. Anyway, I don't know why it's so
important to have been in sports, because invariably your opponent is
going to make a sour remark that you forgot to wear your helmet once too
often. Witness Jack Kemp. Dole used to say that about Kemp all the time,
which gives you some idea of what a whiz bang joke it is. I had also said
I was one of Newt Gingrich's half-sisters.
Kelly asked what about her? I said she would have to sub as my
wife. It was a small sacrifice. No one would know. Besides, it wasn't
like it was the first time she had ever worn a dress. She looked
stunning. With long diamond earrings and her long curly red hair falling
around her bare shoulders. The hot pink dress was a little short for a
congressman's wife. And her cantaloupes were about to fall out of the
top. I wore a tuxedo with shiny black panties, black stockings and high
heels. But I put my hair back. I didn't want to start any rumors.
The press conference before the banquet went well. Reporters
wanted to know my agenda. I said that I was grateful that the issue of
welfare had finally been settled so skillfully by our party's leader, Bill
Clinton. However, the problem of poverty in America still remains, well,
a problem, because of the millions of snotty little kids who will now be
starving, probably in public as a cheap liberal tactic to embarrass the
administration. The people of my district, my what do you call them,
constituents, were honest, caring people who worked hard for a living.
Why should their money go to pay for black kids' babies and drive by
shootings? Many owned their own homes, and some had vast cattle ranches
which they leased from the government at seventy to eighty percent below
what they would have paid for private grazing range.
This had given me an idea. If it works for cows, why not kids?
For this reason, the first bill I would introduce in Congress would be the
National Urban Youth Resettlement & Final Solution Act, under which little
black boys and girls would be taken out of the ghettos and turned over to
the ranchers of my district (and elsewhere, of course) so they could be
fattened on federal lands. The ranchers, of course, would receive a
subsidy for each child. The children would have fresh air and exercise.
Then, when they were ten, the normal life expectancy of a ghetto child,
they would be herded down to Laramie, put on trains, and railroaded to
Chicago, where they could be turned into all sorts of useful products,
such as Hamburg Helper and shoe polish.
"Everyone will benefit. The ranchers, who will be paid for piping
in water and keeping fences electrified; the kids -- children love the
great outdoors, although surviving winter outside on the plains of Kansas
might be a problem for some. We'll have to see about shelters. Maybe we
can do a study. And their parents, whatever, people on welfare, they
would no longer have to worry about if their children are getting decent
daycare while the parents are sweeping streets and cleaning subway
bathrooms. I don't see how it can miss, especially now that our party
controls both houses of congress and the presidency. But, I have to
admit, while I was doing research, I discovered someone named Dean Swift
had proposed exactly the same thing two or three hundred years ago, only
in Ireland. I don't know how it worked out. I couldn't find any studies.
Even back then, there was probably some liberal bureaucrat putting
roadblocks in the way of progress and free enterprise."
One thing Kelly and I had in common with the militias is that we
felt there was just too much government. Always sticking its nose in your
affairs. Why did it have to? I was determined to stop it. However,
before I could get very far, I discovered I was pregnant.
Kelly wanted to know how that could happen. I knew she didn't
want to hear unproven theories about the egg and the sperm. She's totally
fundamentalist. Still believes devoutly in the stork. I said I thought
it had something to do with the time we were both raped in that biker bar
back in Gem County. You know, the place where it's illegal to get
pregnant with someone who's not your husband. So I had like committed a
felony.
I wondered how that might affect me. My career. I mean, like, as
a congressperson, would I be exempt from laws like that? Also, could they
reach me here? They could issue a warrant for my arrest. But if I never
went back there, what could they do? Wait until I ran for president and
then nail me?
And suppose I wouldn't or couldn't identify the father -- there
had been six of them. What then? The worst though was having to look at
Kelly and admit what a slut I was.
Kelly knew we were going to be raped when we stopped there. I
don't think she thought it would happen to her. But she was sure I was
going to get it dressed the way I was. I looked like a real cowgirl sex
pig. High heeled boots. Stirrups. Black stockings. A real short
leather skirt and a black vest. I also had my hands tied behind my back,
and a rope around my neck. I was either going to put out or hang.
Sheriff's deputies had picked us up at a roadblock outside of
town. And taken us to the bar. Kelly's six-guns had been taken away from
her, and she was pretty bloody from trying to defend me. Also, she had
been shot several times.
They smashed her against the bar, and kicked her in the stomach.
Then they started on me. Come here, sugar. You couldn't fuck with the
local girls, because that was against the law. But we was from out of
state. No one would notice.
Imported stock.
Pale dry vermouth.
I always wanted to pork a congresswoman.
Well, technically, I'm not yet.
I bet your one of those stinking liberals from back east. Who
always want the government to poke their nose in other people's business.
no. stinking rich bitch. He back handed me. Hard. We know what to do
with bitches like you. WHAM.
all screwed up inside.
Both of us tried to forget it. Put it out of our minds.
I realized that I could feel nothing. I was just blank. Empty.
With no feelings left. I couldn't even feel my sex. Everything was
just... neutral. Not dead. I knew I was alive. I didn't have any pain.
But I didn't feel bad either. It was as if I were luggage waiting to be
moved. A body waiting to be taken in the other room and fucked. Meat.
Until then, I was on my own. I just had to sit there and look pretty.
Not soil my dress. Or play with myself. Or show off my panties. It was
hard. I really wanted it. I was screaming inside. Fuck me. Fuck me.
Cody, Liz said, it won't work any more. Your fantasy life is
degenerating. Why did you quit? I don't know. Her voice echoed through
a tangle of curls as they beat her. I haven't answered you in a long
time. I've been busy.
I need help with this.
Rest, Cody. Rest.
I can't. It's an avalanche. I've got to get out.
Sorry, Cody, your book has run out. You're done for.
Wait a minute. I didn't ask for this.
You'll have to come up with something better, he said, and closed
the door. They don't sing Closing Time in the bars round here. They just
take another swig of piss 'n beer.
What are you in for?
Literacy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------