Campaign Update

"I'm bleeding," she said.

"That's because McDougal just punched you in the mouth," I said. I didn't tell her I was sorry. I wasn't the one who punched her in the mouth. I don't suppose I really had any reason to be sorry. Other than that I was sorry for her ... for her existence ... for what she had already and was about to endure.

"That wasn't a punch."

No. No it wasn't a "punch." He kind of just cupped her a bit with the back of his hand. She wouldn't be conscious had McDougal actually punched her. She was in the back seat of a 2001 Ford Winstar that McDougal had won in a back alley game of three-card monty. The van wasn't actually ever thrown into the pot, but McDougal's got this thing where he won't handle money. He calls it "filthy lucre" and has grown fond of quoting anti-currency Bible verses -- you know, that one about the moneyhandlers getting kicked out of the temple. Only, in McDougal's version, they are not just money handlers. They are shapeshifters.

McDougal is convinced that there are only about 1 million people on the planet. 400,000 of them are shapeshifters, he said. And their sole purpose in life is to deceive the other 600,000 of us.

She made the mistake of asking McDougal WHY he thought this was the case.

Jesus Christ, you just don't confront a paranoid delusional maniac when he's on the tail end of a six day meth jag. Why couldn't she just keep her mouth shut?

"A billion people in India," McDougal said. "That's my ass."

I wished he'd look back at the road. That Windstar was wound up. The speedometer was broken, but based on the cars we'd passed, I guessed we were probably cruising at about 110. And McDougal hadn't looked at the road in at least two minutes. Granted, it was a fairly straight patch of I-40, and the traffic was light, but I was starting to get nervous.

I looked at the handle and once again considered the potential for surviving a tumble from a minivan at triple-digit speeds.

"So then how do the shapeshifters get from one country to another so quickly? Or are you implying that there are only like 30 or 40 of them in the U.S.? Because I totally don't buy that," she said from the Ford lounge chair behind McDougal.

When the semi ran over her flipping, rolling body, I could still see most of what was happening in my sideview mirror. It was definitely the front left tire that first crushed her, then it was her hitting the underbelly that ripped her limbs off and sent her flying in all directions onto the median. Then I lost sight of her pieces, and turned back to the radio.

McDougal wasn't exactly pissed, just incredulous ... indignant. "Fucking Ann Coulter."

"I don't think that was Ann Coulter, McDougal."

"No shit, Sherlock," McDougal said. "That's the point, isn't it?"

I didn't follow.

"Nobody's Ann Coulter. There is no Ann Coulter. There is no Bob Woodward."

"You mean Bob Edwards," I corrected him.

"No," McDougal said. "No Bob Woodward. Edwards is one of us."

"One of us?"

"He's not a changeling."

"Oh," I said. "I thought you meant a Democrat."

"Don't be a faggot," McDougal warned.

I wasn't.

CAMPAIGN MANAGER'S JOURNAL 11/07/2006

I spent the evening with McDougal at Diebold Master Control, making subtle changes to the election results. This midterm elections is critical to our plan to make McDougal the next President of the United States. We wanted to make sure that Democrats took control of the House at the very least, and the Senate too if possible. Not that McDougal is a big fan of the Democrats. Far from it, in fact, but with an unpopular lame duck Republican in the White House, a closely divided Congress with a slight Democratic majority should guarantee legislative gridlock up until the 2008 Presidential race. If all goes according to plan, by that time the American people will be just as sick of the Democrats as they are of the Republicans now. This will make a third-party candidate like McDougal look far more appealing.

I told McDougal that after tonight he should take a break from the campaign. He's been stumping hard for months and what he really needs is to unwind. Go down to Mexico, or where ever the big man goes this time of year. I'll need the time to retool the campaign. The staff needs to be retrained so that they will fall in line with my new style of management. My biggest mistake in the past few weeks was attempting to manage McDougal's campaign in the conventional sense. McDougal is the one who manages the campaign. My number one duty should be to manage the damage he leaves in his wake. Smoothing ruffled feathers. Sweeping debris under the rug. Running dead hookers through the wood chipper. Whatever it takes.

Patriots

McDougal LOVES American football. And by "loves," I mean he's never actually watched an entire football game. But he loves the concept.

So when he invited me to accompany him to the Rose Bowl, I was (to say the least) equal parts excited, confused, and scared for my life and for those of the Trojans and Longhorns. But I wasn't about to sit back and watch this bit of curiosity on the tele when I could have a ringside seat for what would surely end in sortid debauchery, crimes and misdemeanors, and most likely - cannibalism.

Of course, we never made it to the game.

McDougal said he had to stop and make a small withdrawal, which I knew before he even said anything meant "rob a small rural bank in Farmville, KY."

So there I was in the passenger's seat of McDougal's 1977 El Camino with a 40-pound bag of dogfood in my lap and a sawed off pump action 12 gauge fixed on a uniformed police officer, while McDougal went inside to make his withdrawal. Three states and two hours later, we were in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where McDougal believed the Rose Bowl was to be played, with a duffle bag full of small unmarked bills and two exploded dye packs, and a dead hooker in the bed of the cruck.

McDougal was hopped up on pills, incoherent, had eaten the entire bag of Puppy Chow, and shat himself at least three times in transit.

"What now, Dougal?" I asked him -- not really expecting a response.

"Wait for it," McDougal says.

So I do. For three days, I wait. Then McDougal spots a small private jet on the horizon.

"That's our ride," McDougal says.

Minutes later, the craft - an old school learjet Model 23 - landed in a pasture and McDougal says we have to run for it. I'm not sure what the hurry is after sitting in that shit-stinkin' car for three days, but the big man insists, so I follow orders. I was slowed because he forced me to carry the duffle bag and the whore, who it turns out wasn't dead at all - just very tired.

We board the plane and are greeted by a man I recognize as Handsome Jimmy, a disbarred Florida lawyer who flew in Che Guvera's air force in the mid 60s. Handsome Jimmy doesn't speak, as his larynx was ripped out in a bar brawl in Des Moines, Iowa in 1982. He's got a midget sidekick who does all his spoken word communication for him. He calls the midget tattoo (in sign language), but his name's really Fast Mike. I knew Fast Mike from the Army of the Revolution. We fought together in the Battle of the Sexes. He's a good man. Shifty as hell, but a good man at heart.

Nine hours later, we're in Helsinki, Finland. Handsome Jimmy and Fask Mike are dead (bitten to death by sharks somewhere over the Atlantic), and McDougal is in respiratory failure. Thank God the dead whore knew how to land the plane. We were greeted by a fleet of Interpol officers, who resuscitated McDougal and helped us launder the dye stained cash.

McDougal and I just watched the NFC wildcard game on a 52" plasma TV. I told him we were at the Rose Bowl. He doesn't know. Looked like the Panthers were going to pull it out, but I'm not sure because McDougal ate the TV at the beginning of the third quarter.

If he asks, tell McDougal that the Panthers are the champs, and it was a great game. You might tell him that you ate your TV, too.