SPILL

By Randy Attwood

Failed and fired English teachers scams the political system and gets the girl, the money, and a killer skateboard computer game.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Attwood Consulting, LLC
• Release date: Oct 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386770039

Randy Attwood

I grew up on the grounds of a Kansas insane asylum where my father was a dentist. I attended the University of Kansas during the troubled 1960s getting a degree in art history. After stints writing and teaching in Italy and Japan I had a 16-year career in newspapers as reporter, editor and column writer winning major awards in all categories. I turned to health care public relations serving as director of University Relations at KU Medical Center. I finished my career as media relations officer of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Now retired, I am marketing the fiction I've written over all those years. And creating more.

Book preview

S P I LL

Randy Attwood

© 2011 By Randy Attwood

Chapter 1

Fred Underwood was driving his 15-year-old, once-white, now rust-speckled Nissan pickup six miles over the speed limit on his way to deliver the head of a dog to the state’s vet school for rabies testing when several things happened to him.

He saw a sign announcing—as though proud of the fact—that gasoline at the upcoming station was selling for $4.15 a gallon. He looked into the rear view mirror when he heard a siren and confirmed that, indeed, a police car was chasing him. He uttered, Shit, but then felt his body swept with euphoria: an idea smacked him that would make him rich.

Waiting for the officer to run his license tag and wondering if he would also be fined for the red transparent tape he had used to repair a broken tail light cover, Fred looked into his rear-view mirror to see his own broken and aging face. He needed new glasses. The scratched lenses of the mangled pair sitting on his thin nose gave him the look of a disgruntled teacher who had been fired long before retirement age, which pretty much summed Fred up. His hair had more salt than pepper, and pepper was losing that seasoning battle daily. The lines at the side of his mouth were deep and long, giving him a permanent scowl. Fred lowered his window as the officer waddled forward, and claimed to the cop, I was only going five miles over the limit.

I got you at six, the policeman, who looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy but without the smile, replied, took the license and proof of insurance Fred had ready to hand over, and began to write the ticket.

Why do you think they’re jacking up the price of gas so high these days? Fred asked the ticket-writing officer.

Because they can, the officer said, handing Fred his ticket.

I don’t trust the bastards, Fred commented when taking the ticket.

Neither do I.

Exactly! Fred let the earlier sweep of euphoria transform his permanent scowl into an ear-to-ear grin.

After a third vodka and tonic he asked Zoe, the bartender, if she would be his accomplice. He knew she had been a political science major, a college degree even more useless than his own—English. She was cute in her black curly pixie haircut and pug nose. He was attracted to her; he rather doubted she was attracted to him. His tips to her bought him a smile, but he figured that would be about all it would ever buy him. Unless...

What do you want me to do?

Run against me in the Democratic primary for this district’s seat in the state’s House of Representatives.

That brought her up short and she twisted the bar towel in her hands as though wringing thoughts out of her brain.

A Democrat hasn’t even entered the race for this House seat in, I don’t know, 30 years, let alone have two enter so there’d have to be a primary.

Exactly.

And then Fred explained the plan and watched Zoe’s cleavage expand with her increasing lung intake and finally say, Fred, of all the nutty ideas you’ve had, this is one that just might work. She smiled at him and again he felt the distant hope that one day he might see—what he was sure had to be—the all-natural attributes creating that grandest of canyons.

Fred and Zoe waited until the last minute of the last day to pay their fees to file for office. The clerk looked at them as though she were certifying they were insane instead of stamping the documents affirming that one Fred Thomas Underwood and one Zoe Xanthe Quinn were officially Democratic candidates for the 27th seat in the state’s House of Representatives. Fred took the opportunity to hand the officious, gray-haired Medusa his first piece of campaign literature: a note card upon which he had written Nationalize the oil industry. I don’t trust the bastards. Do you? Vote for Underwood.

So what’s MY campaign all about? Zoe wanted to know once they had settled themselves back on their bar stools, clinked glasses and congratulated each other on their candidacies.

What’s that Xanthe all about? What kind of middle name is that? Fred asked.

It’s Greek for blond. My dad had this hope that even though my mother was a black-haired Greek, she might have something in her background that would let me be blond, he being a red-haired Irish guy.

Those Irish. Dreamers to the end.

So what IS my campaign all about? Someone might ask.

Nothing. If you’re not for or against anything, then nobody can be for or against you. You’re just running because you want to be elected so you can be a public servant.

And that’s what Zoe told the female newspaper reporter who reached her the next day asking about her candidacy. Zoe also added, Bartending has given me a wonderful perspective on the needs of the common man. (The poor saps, she thought to herself.)

Fred, on the other hand, went on a rant:

Nationalize the oil industry. I don’t trust the bastards. Do you? Provide universal health care. Why is it other countries, even Cuba—for God’s sake—have national health care plans and we don’t? Outlaw handguns. What are they good for—other than killing people? He could hear the reporter pecking at her keyboard. Oh, yeah, I’m for abortion, too. If you women don’t control your own bodies, you’re nothing more than chattel! That means property, honey, as in slaves.

Those comments made the front page, which meant the story made the newspaper’s website, which meant it popped up on the screen of a minion working at Witcomb & Dole & Associates, a D.C. public relations/lobbying firm employed by several oil companies to monitor any threatening activity against them. That resulted in a report that resulted in an analysis that resulted in a meeting to discuss a course of action.

Do nothing, one advisor advised. It’s a Republican district; this Democrat Underwood goof ball has no chance anyway.

Let’s donate to the Republican and make sure, a newly appointed vice president decided.

He has Democratic primary opposition, a young female intern of the blond-babe variety noted, being the only person at the table who actually had read the newspaper story.

Then contribute to his primary opponent instead, the new VP decider re-decided. Let’s beat this idiot in his primary election.

Fred! Fred! Fred! Zoe screamed when he walked into the bar after a particularly dreary day of document deliveries between law firms and banks. The fact that he had passed security checks to become a bonded delivery agent—given the many on-record facts of his own unreliability matched only by the disreputability of his truck—still amazed Fred. No wonder terrorists could fly planes into buildings. He caught Zoe as she came around to hug him, and he was more than ever assured that her ta-tas were real. Three thousand dollars! They’ve contributed three thousand dollars to my campaign!

Who?

I don’t know. Ten people I don’t know have given me $300 each. That’s $3,000 dollars! It’s working!

Chickenfeed. Just wait, he said, his face red with monetary and close-proximity- to ta-ta excitement.

The newspaper article meant a local service club took notice of Fred’s and Zoe’s unusual candidacies and invited these curiosities to speak at its luncheon. Zoe declined; Fred accepted.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I want to take the handguns out of your possession and melt them to be transformed into shovels and hoes for community gardens.

Calls to the National Rifle Association were literally instantaneous from cell phones in the audience.

One audience member asked Fred:

This nationalizing the oil industry. You are running for state legislature not Congress. Even if you were to succeed, a state legislature couldn’t nationalize anything, he said and looked around him with a smug look at his fellows who nodded back as though that logic would settle the silly matter.

You are wrong, Sir, Fred responded. As I’m sure you know this state has, though small, not insignificant oil production and rather significant gas production. The state can take over these assets...

Fred! Fred! Fred! I just got $5,000 from some NRA action committee! Zoe yelped. What am I going to do with all this money? Can I buy...

Not just yet, not just yet. We’ve got to do all this properly. Set up an account in your campaign’s name and write me a check because you’ve hired me to manage your campaign. I’ll cash the check and give you half, he said, although he thought he really deserved more because the idea was, after all, his. But the smile on that pretty, pug-nosed pixie face was so broad he didn’t want any factors reducing her feelings of joy for him.

Get me a drink. I’ve got to start making some bumper stickers.

One of his deliveries that day had been to a local printer and he noticed they were throwing away blank bumper stickers because of minor flaws. He had grabbed the box.

Borrowing a felt-tip marker from the bar, he wrote in thick block letters upon one blank sticker: NATIONALIZE THE OIL INDUSTRY. VOTE FOR UNDERWOOD.

One long-time patron of the bar, a retired bartender himself, who stuttered, came up to Fred and asked if he could have the bumper sticker to put on his own car. I don’t trust the ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bastards either, he said. Here’s a twenty for your campaign.

Fred looked at the bill in his hand before he shoved it into his pocket. His first campaign contribution, and of the sweetest kind—cash.

I’ll be damned.

Back at Witcomb & Dole & Associates there was another meeting.

This is a far more sophisticated campaign than you all realized, one of the agency’s senior vice presidents declared as the group around the table was shown pictures of Fred’s bumper stickers on several cars provided by a private investigator they had hired to monitor activities in the distant city.

Amazing. Those bumper stickers look like they were hand printed. Each one’s a little different. That’s a very expensive printing proposition. This jerk-off must have some serious money behind him. They’re trying to make this look like it’s a real grassroots movement. Let’s pump some more money to his opponent. And I think we’d better send our people out there to see what’s going on. I’d at least like to know who’s doing his creative.

Who would you like to send, sir? The new vice president from the first meeting asked and realized it was a stupid question because the senior vice president slapped his hand on the conference table and declared:

Do I have to do ALL the thinking around here? You send an intern babe to check out the guy. You send an intern stud to check out the female opponent. How the hell did you get beyond the intern stage yourself? What was your name?

The new vice president decided he’d better start sending out his resume.

The 20-somthing intern babe of the blond variety learned the first lesson about contributing knowledge at a meeting – don’t. Otherwise you were likely to be picked to go out and do the nasty field work (being so knowledgeable about the political situation out there, the now threatened vice president explained).

She really hoped the intern stud tabbed to accompany her would not be Elmer because she was very tired of Elm, as he unsuccessfully tried to get people to call him, hitting on her.

Chapter 2

Elmer looked at his airplane seatmate and was sure Veronica wore the white blouse opened at the first button just for him. She still looked coldly professional in her gray charcoal suit, but the white blouse hinted—if but one more button were undone—access to wonderful delights. But he wasn’t close to needing a V yet.

He considered leaning close to Veronica and giving her his technique, the unibrow raise. He had learned that when he got close to a potential bedmate and raised his unibrow—as though the caterpillar thing suddenly lurched up his forehead—he had an amazing rate of success. Elmer decided he had best save that move on Veronica for a later time when she could become a V candidate. He still couldn’t resist teasing her, Want to save the firm some money and share a hotel room?

Drop dead.

Some women said no in the most charming of ways. He smiled at her. He knew she really wanted him.

Tell me again why we’re going to this backwater town?

Didn’t you read the material?

I was going to on the flight, but I left it on the coffee table, he said and thought of a witty quip: The coffee table drank my homework!

He laughed. She didn’t.

Come on, what am I supposed to do?

You are going to meet and be charming to... Veronica stopped and brought out a piece of paper. One Zoe Xanthe Quinn.

Elmer froze. Say that name again.

Yes, it’s an odd one. Zoe and the middle name is Xanthe, she pronounced it Zanthe, and spelled it for him, X-A-N-T-H-E, and then said the last name again, Quinn. And then she wondered aloud to Elmer, What the hell kind of middle name is Xanthe?

Elmer was lost in a sweaty reverie. He had never, never, ever, never, ever expected that his life’s goal might be achieved with one woman. It must be destiny. His face turned pale. His palms started to sweat.

Zoe Xanthe Quinn, he muttered as though it were a mantra leading to Nirvana.

Elmer, Elm. You okay? Veronica was getting a little worried about the slime ball.

Give me the file. I must study. Zoe. Xanthe. Quinn.

Early in his life Elmer had realized that in spite of the ridiculous name his mother had given him, he was extraordinarily attractive to women.  It was as though to make up for the family curse of naming the first-born male Elmer, Nature compensated with good looks. Elmer had a jaw that was solid, but not Neanderthal. It was further softened with a chin dimple into which women who were attracted to him, of which there were legion, liked to place their thumb and then put the knuckle of the second joint on their index finger under his chin and thus pull that full wide mouth with sensuous up-curling edges to their own mouth to be tongue strangled. His deep dark brown eyes were wide set and atop these visual perception orbs sat that manly uni-brow.

The degree of attractiveness that he enjoyed has been described over the decades with words ranging from dreamboat to stud muffin to babe magnet to hottie. And he came of age in an era when the female had no qualms about seducing a hottie and so, at age 14, he lost his virginity to an Alice. The second triumph, when he was 15, was by chance to a Betty. But when the third encounter, at age 16, was to a Cathy, he had no doubts about chance at all. He began to pursue an alphabetical quest. Gloria was put on a waiting list until he could get to a Debra. Then he discovered there weren’t many E’s in the pond and his love life entered a stage of quietude despite the attentions from that Gloria and also a Frances. A whole year went by before he encountered an Emily and actually had to meet her father before he scored, and could go on in quick succession to that Frances and Gloria.

The remarkable thing he found was that as his reputation as a thorough rogue spread among the girls, his popularity among them increased. But waiting for an H made many girls, such as Janice, conclude he had been misjudged. Maybe, she woefully misconstrued, he was just misunderstood, and so threw herself at him. He resisted, but noted her down for later consideration. Being then a senior in high school, he searched the yearbooks and found a Helen, a mere sophomore. Piece of cake. Then he hit the brick wall of the I. There were no Ingas or Irises at hand. It threw him into a funk because that Janice, some Kathys, Lindas, Marys and Nancys were to be had by the handful. But where to find an I?

When his mother introduced him to her new friend, Irene, he realized that his quest might require sacrifices. She wasn’t ugly but she was what, 38? Perhaps he should wait. College was in the fall and there must be some girls whose names started with I among that population. But it was summer. And he was young and horny and unibrow-handsome. Mother’s friend, Irene, often came over for gin and tonics by the pool where he swam and he saw the ways she looked at his body.

Could you give Irene a ride home? his mother finally one day asked, too sloshed herself to do so and Irene, having been dropped off by her husband because her car was being serviced, needed that ride.

Sure, Mom.

Done with his I, he called that Janice right away. At college he went through a Kathleen, Linda, Mary, and a Nancy in his first two years. An O proved more difficult. He had not yet crossed the color line, although an Oprah in one class looked damned appealing. There was a red-headed Pamela in his acting class who he suspected thought he was playing hard to get—she certainly flirted with him enough. He was tempted to skip a letter, but resolved to wait. But when Pamela got the part of Ophelia in Hamlet, he gave himself permission to fudge. He could get an O and a P at the same jump.

Q gave him serious qualms. He had never met nor heard of any woman whose name started with a Q. Study revealed that he could jump the color line and look for some Orientals, as in Qiao, but that seemed like cheating. Q, he decided, was a kind of anomaly. An unfairness in the game he was playing. And he was the one who made the rules. So Q could be skipped. He went merrily on to a Rebecca, a Susan, a Tina and then hit U.

He graduated and his parents asked him what he wanted for a gift and he said a trip to Sweden. There, an Ursula was easy to find. Back home, Vicky was nice; Wendy, too. X, he decided, unless he wanted to go to China to find a Xie, would be another anomaly. Yolanda, a very, very light-skinned, more-olive-than-black-skinned girl had required the full force of his charm, but she succumbed to the unibrow lift. Z, he decided, would just be one more anomaly. He congratulated himself. He had completed the alphabet except for Q, X and Z. What to do now?

Redo his ABC’s, of course.

So at the time of that plane trip with Veronica to do some sort of stupid political thing in the sticks, he was searching again for that difficult-to-find O woman when Veronica informed him he was about to