Teresa Santiago was confused. She had come from Sioux City, where she lived alone with her half-brother Terence, the Eagle Scout, to volunteer for the campaign of Thomas Kapucinski for President. She had faked a pregnancy to get three months' maternity leave, was staying at the Econolodge for that period, had been working for Kapucinski for six weeks, and planned to stay for six more. But she was confused. She had just found a Rob Jones for President sign on the snowbank in front of their Nashua headquarters and didn't know what to do about it.
"What are the rules about that?" she asked. Stamping the snow from her duck boots in the doorway, she took off her coat, ready to begin a day of calling registered Democrats and telling them that the other candidates had rabies. There'd been a recent rabies scare in New Hampshire, and no one wanted their candidates to have rabies. It was a major concern.
"There aren't any," said Yvonne Spreewell, the regional coordinator. Yvonne was extremely tall, imperious, and rarely blinked. She'd worked in Boston mayoral politics for 18 years and was tough as nails, or tougher than that -- she was as tough as a type of nail that was even tougher than nails. A nail reinforced somehow, perhaps with lead or platinum. "Where was this sign?"
"Right near our parking lot. On the snowbank."
Yvonne's head jerked back, as if she'd been hit. "Well, that's our property. They're in violation right there. They can't stick their signs on our snowbank."
"They can't?"
Now Teresa regretted mentioning it. Yvonne seemed too upset. When Yvonne got upset, Teresa got a speech. While she felt thankful for having met Yvonne -- she'd taught Teresa so much! -- she thought that Yvonne took things a bit personally. When unflattering letters were written in the local paper about Kapucinski, Yvonne would track down the letter-writer, arrive that afternoon at the home of the letter-writer, and invite herself in for a chat. Yvonne was 6 foot 1 and loud. She would stay for hours. It was her favorite thing.
Teresa, more than a few times each day, wondered if she'd made the wrong decision. She'd actually come to New Hampshire thinking that she'd work not for a candidate but for a cause of some sort, a smaller group lobbying for something specific. She wanted to get involved, to be part of the process, as her father, two-term mayor of Le Mars, Iowa, had been. But she'd had a difficult time navigating all the organizations. She'd collected dozens of brochures, searching for something that would ignite her passion. She'd spent a night with the literature spread out before her, materials representing the groups doing advocacy work in the state, trying to sort it all out. Americans for Democracy was a liberal organization seeking to limit the influence of soft money, while Democracy for Americans was a Christian group attempting to put more biblical references and imagery on currency. People for the American Way was an anti-censorship organization based in D.C., while Citizens for the American Way, headquartered in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, advocated the creation a seven-member panel of ministers and Wal-Mart executives who would screen all written material, rating it in an MPAA-like way, and sending anything inappropriate to France. The Common Values Association was a Mormon group advocating the legalization of polygamy, while Americans for Values Which Are Common (AVWAC) was the new political arm of the National Man-Boy Love Association. While still attempting to choose between the groups, she'd gone to the motel bar and met Yvonne's sister Yvette, who convinced her that her time would be best spent working for Kapucinski, because he'd lost three fingers to a sniper in Kosovo. That was six weeks ago.
"Of course they can't put their signs on our snowbank!" Yvonne shrieked. "That's an election code violation. Code 7. It's actually in violation of Codes 4 and 11, too. Maybe 33. It's highly violative. Actionable. Did you already remove it?"
"No. Should I?"
"Of course you should."
"What do I do with it? Bring it back to them?"
"Are you kidding?"
"No. What--"
"Bring it back to them? After they violated twelve codes and the sanctuary of our regional HQ? No ma'am. No ma'am do you bring that sign back to them."
"OK. Then--"
"You take that sign and you get it roadkilled."
"What?"
"You place it on the street until it's run over."
"Really?"
"Really? Of course really. Teresa, this is not a student council seat we're fighting for, this is the future of the free world, and even space. Teresa, have you thought about who will govern space in the remainder of the 21st century? Do you want it to be some bastard deficit-expanding Republican stooge? No. Of course not. And to beat those loose-spending bastards, we need the best and toughest candidate the Dems can field. And you know that Kapucinski is that, correct?"
Teresa nodded, now frightened. In all that Yvonne hadn't blinked once.
"The man was shot three times in Nam, twice in Korea, and had a leg removed due to activity in Grenada. He's indestructible."
Teresa opened her mouth to speak.
"I know it wasn't combat-related, but doesn't matter. He was there on a combat mission. What, you're gonna nitpick here? That because it happened while he was playing clarinet that he's not a hero? Is that what you were about to say? That he can't be a war hero and a member of the Marine Corps Modern Jazz Ensemble? That it was somehow his fault that the stage wasn't properly reinforced? That it was his fault he was trapped for hours under six tons of visual equipment which had so enhanced the MCMJE show, projecting images of Beat poets and the early work of Bruce Connor?"
Teresa shook her head vigorously. She hadn't even known about the clarinet story. She'd been told Kapucinski's leg was blown off in Somalia.
"So we can't pussyfoot around the daisies, can we, Teresa? Is that what your ancestors did, when they got rid of all the Aztecs, when they discovered the West Indies and stormed the Alamo and everything? No. No, Teresa. They didn't twiddle their thumbs when the enemy was putting its signs on their snowbanks. Wait. Actually, let me ask you something, Teresa. Did our forefathers twiddle their thumbs when their snowbanks were being polluted with the wretched refuse-type messages from their weaker opponents?"
Teresa again shook her head. She wanted to go back to Sioux City and forget about Yvonne Spreewell, whose jaw was shaking as if it had become unhinged.
"That's right, they didn't. The Founding Fathers protected their freakin' snowbanks, and we're sure as hell gonna protect ours. And the only accepted remedy for dealing with this kind of thing is roadkilling that sign. It's in the book. Have you read the book? It's online. You check that book, Teresa. You take their sign, remove it from our snowbank, you place it upon the road, you wait for it to be run over, and then either place it prominently in a corner garbage receptacle, or place it on the ground in a well-traveled intersection."
"Oh."
"You still don't understand, do you?"
"Yes," Teresa said, though her eyes betrayed that she did not.
"What would it mean," Yvonne continued, her eyes now at least twice their usual size, growing like tiny white balloons, "to the average passerby to see one of their signs, soiled and placed in the garbage? Just sitting there sad and forlorn and utterly trampled upon? Right! It would mean that someone had become fed up with Rob Jones' lies and hypocrisy or his campaign's general lack of momentum and message, and they've said enough! Enough! And they've tossed the sign in the dumpster. Or on the highway or whatever. This is the humiliation factor! This is like the enemy sticking the soldiers' heads on sticks, or making necklaces out of their teeth and ears, you see! You see the profound psychological damage we're inflicting with this kind of thing? C'mon!"
Teresa was about to cry.
"We'll do it together," Yvonne said, and minutes later the two of them were in their coats, hats and mittens, and were climbing the eight-foot snowbank, and were removing the sign. They trudged down and walked seven blocks to a busy intersection across from the convention center. There, in a lull in traffic, Yvonne walked demonstratively out to the center of the intersection, and threw the sign down. Then she jumped on it three times and walked back to the sidewalk.
"You see the looks on those motorists' faces?" she said. "What they saw out there was a volunteer fed up. A volunteer making a change. About 40 motorists saw a woman give up on the Rob Jones campaign. Can you imagine the devastating psychological effect that that one act will have on the Jones camp? These drivers will tell ten others, and before you know it, it'll become legend. The Legend of the Fed-Up Jones Volunteer! You see what I'm saying? It's about mythology. Always has been. Mythology. The creation thereof. Let's go out and make some more dreams come true, Teresa."
