Synopsis: My meeting with the Romneys grants me an intimate look at their strong faith and unwavering devotion to conservative values.
I met Mitt and Ann Romney after what they would
call a successful appearance at a Republican Leadership convention in Dallas, Texas.
This was last week. Fatigue was in the air, but so was the humid drape of
exaltation. An evening of cheering, laughing, yelling, arms thrown into the air
in celebration, and general Republican-style hellraising was enough to bring
any man to exhaustion. Flashing my all-access reporter pass with “Fresh Prints
of Bukkake” laminated across it at event security, I was given passage to the
secretive back rooms of the George W. Bush Convention Center. This was as far
as the all-access pass would take me. It was up to me to locate Mitt. Since
we’d never met prior, I didn’t have his cell phone number and would need to
rely on hawk-like reporter instincts to zero in on the target. It wasn’t hard.
Young Republicans were out in full force at the convention, wet in adoration of
Sir Romney’s rumbling, bombastic, clean-shaved legacy. All I had to do was follow
the scent of body sweat and other forms of human moisture as they became
stronger and more pungent until the gleaming aura of Mr. Romney filled my view.
His
glow emanated from a huddled mass of young Republicans who, with feverish hands
and gaping mouths, pleaded for Lord Mitt’s acknowledgment. “You’re the Nixon of
our time!” shouted one such admirer. “I prayed for another Reagan and the Lord
gave us Mitt Romney,” said another, older supporter. “Mitt Reagan! My vote goes
to Mitt Reagan!” exclaimed an excited chap, quickly solidifying the
Presidential candidate’s comparison to the late ex-President of the 80’s. Others went so far as to suggest that “the
Lord has given us himself, and His name is Mitt Romney.” This was the kind of
party it was going to be.
“Mr.
Romney!” I yelled over the cackle of conservative boys and girls already
learning to lobby for their interests,
groveling at the feet of their parents’ candidate of choice. Foolish choice of
things to yell, I thought. Everyone’s yelling his last name. “Mitt!” I yelled.
His eyes met mine, and his face seemed to say, “Son, you’ve sure got some
audacity coming over here and addressing
me by my first name.” But it worked. It got his attention. This was a man who
liked audacity.
Pushing
my way through the dense collective of Mitt’s supporters, I extended one hand
for a friendly shake, and with the other showed Mitt my laminated pass. “Fresh
Prints of Bukkake,” he said. “Oh, right. You’re here for the story.”
I
nodded at Mr. Romney and kept my other
hand extended in case he wanted to shake. He ignored it, wiped his hands
on his shirt, and shooed away the flock of supporters around him. The crowd
dispersed and only his trophy wife Ann remained. “Where do you want to do
this?” I asked.
“Energy’s
good around here,” said Mitt. His chiseled jaw seemed to flex between each word.
Was this the source of his power? His imperceptible charm? So many questions I
had for this man I feared one evening would not be enough. “But I’m tired. Ann
and I have a ride waiting to take us to dinner. Come along. We’ll talk.”
The
three of us walked at a brisk pace through the back hallways of the convention
center, weaving between Republicans young and old. When the idolaters spotted
Mitt, their bodies exuded pure energy that my skin absorbed as we passed. Mitt
was a fuel source few could match, and even fewer could understand. A gentleman
in a handsome shirt opened a back door for the Romneys and me that spilled us
into a side road where a sparkling white limousine waited. Another man in a
handsome shirt opened the limo’s door for Ann and Mitt, and tried to close it
on me as Mitt laughed and kicked at me, before finally telling the man I was
with them. A sense of humor is important in politicians and business men, and
it seemed Mr. Romney knew it.
“To
Morton’s,” Ann said to the driver through an intercom. One of Dallas’s finest
steakhouses, I had been told. The limo took off to our destination, and I
looked forward to a steak dinner.
“I’m having a little trouble
remembering what your people told my people,” Mitt said, while I buckled up
beside him. Ann sat across from us and sipped on a can of ginger ale.
“Oh,
I haven’t got any people,” I told him. “It’s just me. I believe I sent you the
pieces I did on Santorum and Obama. I’ve been eager to do a story on you.
Thanks again for sparing some of your time. I know it’s valuable.”
“Don’t
mention it. But I don’t think I know about these stories about Obama or
Santorum. What’d you say about Rick?”
“Here,
I’ve got them with me.” I pulled out my phone and opened the stories about
Karen Santorum and the Obamas.
“I’ll
read them to you, Mitten,” Ann said, setting aside her ginger ale and reaching
for my phone. Her storytelling voice was mythical, with surprising zest and
dramatic qualities. Put this woman on a television, I thought. Hers is a voice
that belongs on the airwaves. She read “Politics: A Tale of Bravery” and “More Politics: Another Tale of Bravery” to Mitt, who, like a child, smiled and
giggled in inappropriate bursts throughout the stories, damaging the flow and
pacing Ann was trying so hard to execute. As she read, I nodded at her that she
was doing fine, and my eyes told her not to let Mitt’s antics ruin the mood. As
she read the end of “More Politics”
aloud, Mitt licked his lips and mentioned he was ravaged with a hunger he knew
no steak would quell. The closing of the story seemed to spark in him a memory,
a swirling whirlpool of nascent thoughts that reacted with the gray matter
walls of his mind.
“I
remember you,” he said with a voice like ice blocks—his usual voice. He stared
me down and Ann handed my phone back to me. “You were there… in the beginning.”
Mitt
was of course referring to my presence at the White House that March evening,
during which I had spent some time with Barack and Michelle to learn a little
bit about the President and his family. At the end of the night, a curious
creature had emerged from my throat and crawled slowly across my bed, leaving a
trail of slime behind it, and laying
eggs along its path. Barack had been standing next to the bed watching
it, and we witnessed together the hatching of the five eggs. The tiny
Presidential candidates who emerged from the eggs sent shivers down my spine,
and still do. They crawled over one another to fill their mouths with an
odorous goo the creature secreted onto the bed, and they ate it as if its
importance was greater than any food I have ever known. The details are of
course relayed in “More Politics” so I won’t waste more time on them.
“You
watched us,” said Mitt. “I remember. You don’t look familiar, but my eyes weren’t
fully functional when I hatched. They never are.”
“Surely,”
I said. “But we need not dwell on that. I don’t like to think about that night.
Let’s talk about you. How do you feel the Presidential race is going? The
debates are exciting, I hear. Haven’t watched any of them so I can’t say this
with certainty.”
“The
race is always the same. Don’t ask questions you know the answers to.” Mitt
didn’t look at me as he spoke. He’d pulled out a small notepad and was eyeing
it intently.
“My
wish, Mitt, is that both you and Barack could be President together. Maybe a
conjoined President. The first one. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“That
would be something,” Mitt said. He laughed his ubermensch laugh and paged
through his notepad, shaking his head like a man who had some things on the
edge of his mind.
“Mind
if I see what you’re reading?” I asked. He looked at Ann, then at me, and
tossed the notepad to me. Jokes. It was full of jokes. One-liners, zingers,
punchlines with extra punch. I couldn’t help but laugh, myself. They were good.
“Did you write these?” I asked, floored by the wit and zany hilarity contained
on the paper.
“I
did,” he nodded. “You like them? Barack and I send each other jokes when we’re
not pampering our staff, or reciting our beat poetry on the campaign trail.”
“I
do, I do. These are pretty funny.”
“Tell
me your favorite one.”
Ann
opened a tiny bottle of vodka and drank it straight, and swallowed the bottle
when she finished. I gulped and picked a random joke from the notepad.
“This
one about tidal waves,” I said.
“Haha!
Tidal waves and the hands of lions! Yes, one of my favorites as well.” Mitt
brushed his hand through his hair and eyed Ann as she moved her hands over her
body. The alcohol seemed to take control of her.
“Yes,
it’s certainly a powerful joke,” I said. I handed the notepad back to him. “Back
on topic. It’s been said that you’d like to take harsher action with drone
attacks on suspected terrorists. You’ve gone on record saying even Obama’s brutal
reign of terror overseas isn’t heavy enough. These attacks raise many moral
concerns, understandably. And some argue there are legal implications that - ”
“Driver!”
Mitt shouted into the intercom. “We’re here. Open the doors!”
The
limo skidded to a halt, and the door flew open. “Morton’s, sir” said the doorman
from earlier.
Mitt
and Ann unbuckled their seatbelts and climbed out of the car. It looked like my
questions could wait. I followed and pestered Mitt for his attention, but his
hands were all over Ann, and their tongues engaged in guerilla warfare upon
each other’s faces, a show I was let to witness alone. The man who’d held the
limo door open for us directed us into a building that didn’t seem like a high
class steakhouse, but more like a back alley party zone with dull and strange
music. It was dark and my heart trembled lightly.
“Driver!”
Mitt shouted once more. “Follow!”
A
pudgy man ran from the limo and joined us as we walked into the building,
wiping the sweat from his neck and burying his hair under a stupid hat. He was
quiet and didn’t look happy. When we were settled in the strange building that
seemed to have no distinct purpose and the most peculiar architecture, Mitt and
Ann held hands and stood facing the limo driver, myself, and the door-holder.
With their eyes closed and their hands clasped they recited what I assumed to
be a Mormon prayer, calling upon ancestral deities and the all-seeing eye of some
obscure god.
“Let
the blood of the master flow eternally,” chanted Ann.
“Let
the semen of Origdo spill fresh to the soil,” chanted Mitt.
I
looked at the driver and the doorman, both of whom stared at the Romneys as
they spoke. They seemed unworried.
“Claws
of land and claws of sea.”
“Horns
upon thorns, the tree within me.”
“Serpent
from the sand, serpent from the hill.”
“Great
eye of Mhalat, let us perform thy will.”
“Beast
with no eyes, guide us deep.”
“Beast
of unlight, our hearts you keep.”
“The
sigil, the vessel, the meat.”
“The
hand, the sword, ritual complete.”
“A
trinity presents itself.” Ann opened her eyes and looked at the driver, the doorman,
and me.
“Come
forward!” Mitt shouted, his eyes opened and his jaw seeming to flex its
intangible bone-muscles.
The
three of us stepped forward and the room seemed to change its shape, either
larger or smaller, but I couldn’t be certain. I was far too terrified to let my
eyes drift from the Romneys, so I didn’t notice the exact transfigurations the
walls took.
A
booming knock came from behind us, and the Romneys shouted “Enter!” to the
bringer of the boom. Deciding to not appear paralyzed by fear, I turned around
to see the guest. It was the limo. Shining white, glistening in some unseen
spectral source, it slowly rolled forward, around us, and parked before the Romneys.
The driver and the doorman didn’t seem phased by this. No one sat in the driver’s
seat, yet the limo moved. Here it was, sharing the oddly shaped room with us.
The
ear-rupturing sound of a thousand shrieking babies burst forth from unseen
children, causing me to throw my hands over my sensitive ears and fall to my
knees. I grimaced in horror and pain, and screamed to cover the most awful noise
ever inflicted upon me. The other gentlemen continued standing, and as I looked
up, the limo seemed to shift its shape, just as the walls had, but this time I
stared intently at it, unwilling to let my eyes leave it for a moment. The baby
shrieking continued, seemed even to grow louder, and the limo morphed before
our eyes into a glistening white beast, a horrific serpent with five tails,
wings, the face of a mythical dragon whose striking realism was more grotesque
than any medieval imagery could have suggested. The sounds and sights within
this room was the stuff of nightmares. Still, the driver and the doorman
refused to budge or show fear.
The
Romneys approached the vile white beast and put their hands on it, taming its
frothing, pulsating face and limbs. It unfurled its wings and lurched up, towering
at least thirty feet above us in a room that by now was the size of a stadium.
No ceiling was in sight, and the stars shined down, though their configurations
were alien to me. These weren’t the stars I knew.
“Driver!”
shouted Mitt. “Come forth!”
The
driver walked forward a few paces and stopped, sweating, and again stuffing his
hair under his hat.
“Door
man!” Ann cried. “You next.”
The doorman
lumbered slowly forward, and stopped beside the driver. The crying of a
thousand babies ceased, and I removed my hands from my ears, ready to be the
next called to face the Romneys in what I thought was an unfamiliar Mormon
ritual.
“Morton!”
Mitt yelled. “Reveal yourself!”
A
gust of wind blew through the room and a tall man with a limp walked out of
shadows to stand beside the doorman and the driver. He was wrapped in tight
bindings, which Mitt and Ann began unraveling with the help of the driver and
the doorman. As the bindings fell from the tall man, disfigured limbs protruded
from his body, first appearing as mutated arms. But I soon realized these were
not arms, and although some parts resembled strange hands, these shapes were
not functional and looked like tumors, some like branches of a tree, others
like painful growths that could never be cured. The man became naked and his
protruding limbs, tumors, shapes, whatever they were, started to bleed without
being touched. Mitt and Ann wiped their hands in the blood and walked back to
the shining white serpent that sat still before the three men.
As
the tall man bled and made no sounds,
the driver went to his knees and inched forward, in front of the great white
beast. He pushed the hat from his head and pulled from it a small blade. He pulled
his pants and underwear down to his knees and took the blade to his penis. I
screamed in disgust and terror, and closed my eyes. “My God!” I shouted. “No!”
“Open
your eyes,” Mitt screamed. Horror and
terror, in an unusual betrayal, forced
me to keep them open and to give my attention to the act of self mutilation
before me. The driver made no sound.
Soon,
he dropped the blade to the ground, and held in his hand his own penis. Blood
fell freely from his wound, and he turned to face the rest of us. I almost
passed out, but the adrenaline pumping in my veins kept me alert and repulsed.
The magnificent white beastly serpent opened its abyss of a mouth and hurled
fire upon the driver, who was engulfed in orange flame. Again, no sound was
emitted from him except the distinct noise of crackling flame, burning flesh
and cloth. I crawled backward as the flame consumed him, dizzy from multiple
sources of mindfucking stimuli.
In
mere minutes, the driver’s body turned to ash. The Romneys stomped out the last
of the fires, and dropped their pants to urinate in the remains. They blended
the ash with their urine, then called forward the doorman, and handed him a
syringe. With his fingers, he scooped tiny amounts of urine-caked ash into the
syringe until it was filled. He then injected it into his arm, much like a
junkie dosing himself with heroin. Wretched, awful. I became sick and vomited
on the floor, unable to stop myself. When I stopped, I looked up to notice all
activities had paused so that I may finish. When I had, the doorman came to my
puddle of puke and put some into his syringe. Again, he injected it into his
arm. This time I passed out.
“Phil!”
Mitt’s voice rang in my ear. “You alright?”
“Goodness!”
Ann cried. She was kneeling in front of me, and Mitt was propping me up against
his leg. “You had us worried. We can’t carry on without you. Please pull
yourself together. You’ve a strong heart, I know that much. I can smell it, I
can sense it. I want you to give this all your attention. See it not with your
eyes but with your heart.” She stood up and straightened her clothes.
Mitt
handed me a glass of water and I drank it. I was feeling better. But I was
still in the same starry-skied room of
monstrous dimensions, and the chaos I hoped I’d only imagined still remained
before me. The doorman’s arm was swelling and the tall man’s strange growths
and deformities bled profusely.
“Keep
your chin up, Phil,” Mitt said, warmly. “New star systems can’t be mapped with
weak hearts and a weak will.” He looked up and again I noted the bizarre
arrangement of unfamiliar stars. And I thought nothing of Mitt’s ramblings.
He
and Ann walked back to the awful white beast and faced the doorman and the tall
man. The doorman placed his hand on the tall man, pulled flesh and odd textures
off of him, and ate them. Some looked like scabs, others looked like flesh, and
a few pieces looked like the bark of a tree. The doorman ate them without
hesitation and without any apparent awareness of the filthy horrors he stuck in
his mouth. He chewed and swallowed every bite with a sense of duty. A fluid
that wasn’t blood then poured from the tall man’s wounds where his flesh was
removed. It poured with a consistency of syrup, and the doorman cupped his
mouth over the wounds to drink it. It spilled from his mouth as he
enthusiastically lapped it up, some even draining from his nose as it entered
him faster than his throat could handle it. The Romneys looked proud while they
watched the spectacle, and I again felt a sting of terror. But by the same
strange force that overtook me earlier, the fear seemed to strip away my
ability to look away and held me gazing upon unspeakable acts.
When
the doorman pulled himself away from the tall man, he seemed weak, and appeared
noticeably thinner. He fell onto his back and tried to pull himself into a
sitting position, accomplished only by the assistance of Mitt and Ann, who
seemed eager to get him in just the right position. They said things to him I
couldn’t hear, and didn’t want to. Slowly, methodically, and with a sense of
purpose, the Romneys stripped more flesh
from the tall man, though it appeared more like wood than human skin. He didn’t
flinch while large strips were pulled from his deformed body. The pieces were
constructed with an odd quickness around the doorman, sitting on the floor. Ann
and Mitt were building what appeared to be a body-sized tomb around the man. It
was finished before I could collect my senses and make sense of the scene, and
the doorman within was no longer visible. The strange, fleshy, woody, organic
pieces that composed this structure melted into each other, and, like the walls
of the room, changed shape around the doorman, tightening, shrinking, closing
on him. He made no sound.
The music
I’d noticed when first we entered the building again became apparent to me,
though it was low, melancholy, and sounded like the sonic equivalent of
loneliness. My mind was in no shape to focus on its melodic qualities, but my
subconscious responded with an appropriate sense of desolation. The Romneys
still looked impeccable and merry. How I envied them.
The
small organic tomb that held the doorman began to open, and a skeleton stripped
of all flesh and organs was all that remained of the handsomely dressed
doorman. Mummification and the vanquishing of the self. I looked at the “Fresh
Prints of Bukkake” laminated pass hanging
from around my neck. The story now seemed meaningless. The Romneys
pulled the skeleton from the tomb and laid it on the ground beside the tall man
who, for the first time since entering the room, if still a room it was, began
to move. He stretched his arms out, or the things that were as close to
resembling arms as any part of his body would get, and they grew like plagues
toward the skeleton and the organic tomb. Both were grasped by strangely shaped
digits that could have been fingers, and were pulled slowly to the tall man.
His other growths began to throb, change color, and mutate. As his body
absorbed the skeleton and the morbid tomb that once held the doorman, the tall
man gasped in pained spasms that threatened to topple him like a freshly cut
tree. The skeleton and tomb were now
fully absorbed and his arms returned to their regular length. And without
warning, the horrific white beast hurled itself forward and in two gory bites,
devoured the tall man. No remains left behind.
I put
my head in my hands and closed my eyes, hoping this was a nightmare that felt
more real than any dream ever had. The music and the smells of death and fire
were constant reminders it was no nightmare. I opened my eyes to see the
massive white beast transform back into a limousine, and the amazing stars
overhead drift out of my vision until a ceiling seemed to materialize above us.
The room returned to its first configuration and the walls seemed as though
they had always been just as they were; solid, flat, in a square around us.
The
limo pulled out of the room and Mitt helped me to my feet.
“Now
we get to eat,” Ann said. They each held my arms as we walked out of the
building. The limo was waiting for us on the street. No doorman held the door
open, and no driver sat in the seat. When we climbed into the back,
plates of food were waiting for us. Divine smelling steaks on white plates,
joined by vegetables and a selection of other side items had somehow been
neatly prepared.
“In
the Mormon church, we learn about proper nutrition. Joseph Smith emphasized
health above all else.” Ann cut her steak and began eating. “It’s important to
eat well after a proper ritual.”
“Taste
it,” Mitt said. “Morton makes the best steaks in Texas.” He filled his mouth
with the meat and I couldn’t help but agree it looked and smelled fine. But my
appetite found itself unable to hang on, and my skin crawled. “I’m not going to
tell you again. Fucking eat the steak.” Mitt meant business.
Without
utensils I picked up the steak and tore into it, fearing unknown punishment
should I defy the Romneys. It was delicious. It was, and still is, the best
steak I’ve ever had.
“I
believe you had some questions for me,” Mitt said as he chewed and his jaw
flexed at me. “Something about the drones, am I right?”
“I
don’t remember,” I answered.
“You’re
not going to have a very good story if you can’t remember your questions,” Ann
said with a smile. “Goodness! A journalist with no questions! Haha! Mitten, I
think he just wanted a free dinner and a free ride.”
“The
boy probably won’t even vote,” Mitt said, his lips wet with steak sauce.
The
steak’s true flavors made themselves known to my tongue as the Romneys laughed
at me. Hints of ash and oak and stomach acid and flesh rose up from the myriad
of flavors. As I ate I tried to remember the questions I would ask Mitt Romney,
but their laughter carried through the limo as it raced us through the dark Dallas streets. I would
worry about questions later. I let the rich flavors and the rich voices lull me
into a trance. The music from the building began to play over the limo’s
speakers, and I made a mental note to give up journalism as soon as I could.
Brilliant!
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