Teresa Santiago, somewhat disillusioned by the workings of the Kapucinski campaign, was now sitting in the backroom at the Rob Jones regional headquarters, looking into the too-blue eyes of Gerald Vidisson, listening to him explain the job he wanted her to do, while also thinking of her junior prom.
She had gone with a boy named Gerald. What was his last name? Matsui. Gerald Matsui. He was not handsome, not tall, but he lifted weights and had a pleasing physique. Teresa didn't know him well, no one did -- he'd moved into town only four months before, and left a week after the school year ended. Gerald Matsui. He'd kissed her for an hour on the roof of the Doubletree Hotel, in whose ballroom the prom had been held. For an hour he kissed her too softly -- he thought that was sensual, probably, but for Teresa it was exasperating, just trying to keep her mouth attached to his -- though the night was very warm and in the end she really didn't mind. The next day, when her friends recounted tales of horror, of vomiting and failed attempts at intercourse, broken waterbeds and entanglements with shrubbery, she felt fortunate that with Gerald, whom she would never know well, she'd had a harmless and almost perfect prom night. And a perfect prom night, she knew then and appreciated so much now, was hard to come by.
Vidisson was still talking. He was describing something he wanted Teresa to do, something called "franking."
"Did you officially quit working for Kapucinski?" he asked.
"No," Teresa said, climbing slowly out of her reverie. "I just wasn't planning on going back."
"Well, Teresa?"
Vidisson looked at her with those eyes, the color of the underwater portion of an iceberg. They were almost electric with intended meaning. After a moment, Teresa realized he wanted some kind of utterance from her.
"Yes, Gerald?" she said, though hating to use that name. She wanted to remember the other Gerald, and not have the name diluted with this person in front of her, whose tuna and hummus sandwich emanated from his breath like a train emanates from a tunnel.
"Do you believe in what we're trying to do here at Rob Jones for President?"
"I think so," Teresa said. "But I've only read the one pamphlet. It seemed fine."
"It's more than fine, Teresa. I can tell you that. It's more than fine. It's so fine that -- did you happen to see the rally the other day, in Lincoln?"
"No, I missed that."
"What you missed, Teresa, was seeing, standing right by Rob Jones' side, one of the greatest actresses we have here in America. Heck, anywhere."
"Were they filming a movie?" Teresa said. Teresa loved movies.
Gerald Vidisson's iceberg eyes melted a bit.
"I guess you could say that. I guess you could say that they were filming a little movie called 'The Future of America.' Are you interested in helping with that movie, Teresa Santiago?"
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Two hours later, Teresa was back in the Kapucinski headquarters, making phone calls. Yvonne was having three volunteers make calls to registered Democrats, to whom the volunteers would tell their "story." Their story was how they became convinced that Thomas Kapucinski was the man who would lead the nation to a better place, or at least back to the less bad place it occupied before J. Junior Inferior was elected.
An hour earlier, Teresa had sat in a small circle, with Yvonne and the two other volunteers, and together they had spilled their stories, had whined and wept and felt inspired. Terry Wintergreen was a college student from Maine who, when he saw Kapucinski's speech to the trapped miners in West Virginia -- when he saw the future leader of the free world take time out of his schedule to speak to a group of bauxite miners trapped 600 feet under the surface -- well, then he knew he'd found the man who would lead him away from the abyss.
"What abyss?" Teresa had asked.
"My girlfriend," Terry said. "She'd almost swallowed me up, but I'm still standing. I know I started it with all the trips to that one barber but that doesn't mean I can't end it. It doesn't mean I don't know who I am and why I'm gonna be a star. Man, she almost got me, like that other lady almost got me, the one who came with the cocoa. But I'm still standing, and now I'm gonna do something about it by getting this guy ... this ..."
Terry looked pained.
"Thomas Kapucinski," Yvonne helped.
"Yes, ma'am, I'm gonna get that guy elected."
Teresa tried to tell her own story, about faking a pregnancy to move from Iowa to New Hampshire to get involved in the Democratic process, but it seemed to bore Yvonne, so she made up a story involving a father whose farm had been repossessed by Republicans who pulled up in a big truck and took it. "Took the whole farm away," she added at the end. Yvonne clapped, pretended to wipe away tears, and told them to call at least 130 registered Democrats each that day, repeat their stories and ask the voters to join them in their quest for justice and redemption and better girlfriends and farms, and left the room.
Leaving Teresa to try to figure out a way she could execute Vidisson's plan, which would require her to:
- get to the supply closet
- wait till no one was watching
- retrieve a box (or boxes) of postage-paid envelopes
- wrap the box(es) in a paper bag or some such disguise
- leave the building with said box(es)
- bring the box(es) of envelopes back to the Rob Jones campaign HQ
- go to the hardware store
- at the hardware store, buy 11 large bags of sand, a small scooping tool, and a funnel
- return to the Rob Jones campaign HQ
- remove the envelopes from box or boxes, knowing that the postage charges for each envelope, when sent, will be electronically calculated and eventually charged back to the Kapucinski campaign
- take said scoop, insert it into one of the bags of sand, remove as much sand as might fit into an envelope, and, using the funnel, deposit this sand within
- seal the envelope with saliva, glue and perhaps duct tape, and insert the envelope, which should, if all steps are performed properly, weigh at least 3 pounds, into the nearest blue mailbox.
According to Vidisson's calculations, a standard large box of 500 postage-paid envelopes would cost the Kapucinski campaign about $6,300 to send, thus causing Yvonne Spreewell, upon receipt of this bill, to lose her mind, thus causing her to fire three or four of the younger staffers and volunteers (whose responsibility or complicity she assumed), thus causing officewide ill will and grumbling among the remaining staffers, thus causing an overall feeling of malaise and dark humor, thus causing general lassitude and minor acts of internal sabotage, thus causing one Julian Min, friend of one of the fired volunteers, to replace, during a major Thomas Kapucinski campaign appearance in Nashua, his theme song, a really catchy number by John Mellencamp -- played for a full 90 seconds before each speech as Jones worked the audience near the stage -- with "Disco Duck," played at really stunning volume, causing much hilarity among the crowd and press corps, causing them to use the event as an example of the unraveling of the Thomas Kapucinski campaign (a story that will be picked up nationwide and worldwide), thus causing a precipitous decline in donations to said campaign, thus causing follow-up stories about that donation decline, thus causing the Stench to attach itself and grow around the campaign, and thus killing the Thomas Kapucinski campaign for president within 11 days.
Emboldened and crestfallen by the power available to her, Teresa sat in her chair, in the Kapucinski regional HQ, and pondered her next move.
