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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781937110383 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Greenleaf Book Group, LLC |
| Publication date: | 02/01/2013 |
| Pages: | 274 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.62(d) |
About the Author
Timothy E. McDaniel, formerly a member of the United States Air Force, lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Cindy.
Read an Excerpt
A BITTER CUP of TEA
a novelBy TIM McDANIEL
EMERALD BOOK COMPANY
Copyright © 2013 Tim McDanielAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-937110-38-3
Chapter One
"The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite." —Thomas Jefferson
Hobbs Willers was sitting in his glassed-in cage. It was almost time to start his show. His producer, Aleighse Avery, had just told him that the Washington Post had written an unflattering article on him that nonetheless proclaimed him to be the newest, freshest voice on right-wing talk radio. She had told him he had taken the East Coast by storm, and he had just surpassed Rush Limbaugh both in Dallas and in all of Texas as the most listened-to radio host in his time slot. Still, it was nerve-racking, how fast and far he had come in the few short weeks he had been syndicated. He would have to write and talk on a level he had only dreamed about. He wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead and prayed he wouldn't falter.
He looked out of his glassed-in cage and saw Aleighse hold up her hands. Ten seconds to go to dazzle his audience and sponsors. Could he do it again?
Ten ... nine ... eight ... seven ... six ... five ... four ... three ... two ... one ...
"Good afternoon, folks. I'm Hobbs Willers, and I'm coming to you from a little town in Texas that folks around here call the Big D, otherwise known as Dallas. Welcome to the show. For those of you that are new to the show, what I do every time I open is give a little monologue that can last anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes. When I'm done jawing, I'll break for our dear sponsors or the news. When we're back on the air, I start taking phone calls. Now that you know how I do business, let's get ready to rock the political boat.
"I hope everyone out there in radio land is feeling hale and hearty today because we're going to be talking about our newly elected president, Barack Hussein Obama. And yes, folks, now that he has been elected, we can say his middle name without fear of being chastised by our good friends on the left, or at least we hope we can. I'll be jawing about him and a few other things as well. So hold on to your hats or purses, 'cause here I go.
"I tell you, folks, Obama as a campaigner is a man who sure knew how to dazzle most of us unwashed masses with a vague but powerful message of hope and change. I doubt anybody but he and his nearest advisers knows exactly what kind of hope and change he has in store for the country now that he's in a position to offer it to us, but some of my friends on the political right have their suspicions. Regardless, both us unwashed and the mainstream media have fallen in love with him, and those on the far, far left have gone into near epileptic fits of joy. I remember watching the boob tube awhile back and one pundit said with a stern face, 'I have to tell you, you know, it's part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often.' After my laughter stopped echoing through the house, I thought, you know, Senator McCain is in big-time trouble because I bet my bottom dollar that a whole lot of other folks are feeling that same weird thrill going up their legs, and sure enough I was right. There was no stopping Obama, especially after the economy tanked.
"As David Ehrenstein wrote in the Los Angeles Times, Obama is a 'Magic Negro,' a nonthreatening African American who whites can feel comfortable voting for as the first black president. And I got to tell you, his supporters thought he would, if elected, be the new messiah, a demigod who could not only walk on water but, if that wasn't enough, also keep the world's oceans from rising and Manhattan from sinking. In stunned adulation, the world would watch as lions bedded down with the lambs while Hezbollah and the Israelites gently placed their weapons on the ground and embraced in loving forgiveness. To top it all off, they thought, and they were right, he could be elected! As then Senator Joe Biden said, 'I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook man.'
"Well, folks, one has to wonder what went through the minds of all other black politicians throughout the land when they heard that completely inane remark, but coming from Mr. Biden they probably took it with a grain of salt just like every other time he has put his foot in his mouth, which is pretty much every time he speaks. In any event, fate would dictate that we would indeed elect Barack Hussein Obama as our first black president, thus allowing former president William Jefferson Clinton to shed that label for all time.
"I know that many of my friends on the right were puzzled and despondent over the victory. They cannot for the life of them understand how a onetime community organizer with no executive experience and precious little legislative experience could have been nominated, much less elected president. Nevertheless, the Democrat base—which consists of the labor force, both public and private sectors, Hollywood, the mainstream media, college professors and students, minorities, welfare recipients, Socialists, Communists, ne'er-do-wells, malcontents, and rabble-rousers—understood because Obama's message was clear to them. He was going to spread the wealth, and they would be the beneficiaries of that confiscated wealth. As one voter interviewed by a television reporter put it, 'I can't wait till Obama brings me my new car and fridge!'
"Well, folks, those friends of mine on the right have another reason to be despondent. A columnist from the New York Times gleefully wrote that conservatism was dead and buried and that it would take at least twenty years before it could rise from dank and rotting earth. James Carville, Bill Clinton's most ferocious political lapdog, predicted forty years. Now, I can't tell the future, but those two seers of the left, if there truly is no God, just might turn out to be right on the money; that is, unless they're both descendants of Cassandra.
"Those liberals that were running against Obama in the primaries must have felt their own puzzlement and despondency as well. I mean, hell, if credentials mean anything anymore, then those men like Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, well maybe not him, Russ Feingold, Tom Vilsack, or Evan Bayh were all infinitely more qualified than Obama, who, to tell the truth and shame the devil, had no qualifications to speak of to be our next president. But of course since the advent of television, it seems that what matters most to the average voter is how one looks, not how one thinks, or even if one thinks at all. So Obama, who is one clean, articulate, and good-looking African-American, was given the brass ring, to the joy of the woman who needed a new car and fridge and millions more like her.
"But you got to know, folks, that out of all of Obama's primary opponents, Hillary Clinton has to be the most bitter at his victory. She just knew that Gaia or her husband, Bill, had preordained that her husband would be First Husband, and you could see her frustration when Democrat voters cast their votes for a man just as inexperienced as she was. Her husband, Bill, we can only hope and pray, felt her pain, along with tens of thousands of radical feminists who wanted to see a left-leaning woman preside in the White House almost more than life itself. It just wasn't fair, it just wasn't right, but after fighting the good fight for much too long, and after crying bitter tears, Hillary finally threw in the towel and had to acknowledge that her husband would not go down in history as the first president and the first man to be called First Husband.
"But fear not, folks. As a consolation prize, Mrs. Clinton has accepted the position of secretary of state, and she is more than qualified for that job since the main requirement to hold that position is the ability to jaw a lot, which means that every successful politician in this great land would, like her, make a damn fine secretary of state.
"It's time for a station break, my friends. We'll be right back with your phone calls so you can tell me if I hit the bull's-eye with my assessment or if I need to take more archery lessons."
* * *
For what might have been the millionth time that day, Andrew Rand, thirty-six years old, pulled up the sleeve of his Brooks Brothers suit to glance at the Raymond Weil wristwatch his wife, Carolyn, had given him as a gift two Christmases ago. There were still ten minutes to go before the polls closed in his hometown of Wyland, Ohio. If his pollster, Karl lettering, was as good as he said he was, Rand would know within a half hour after the polls closed if he would be the new congressman to represent the good people of the Seventeenth Congressional District of Ohio. He knew he would win. He just didn't know how much time it would take to be declared a winner.
He was in the top suite of the Wyland marriott Hotel, sitting in a chair, a television set six feet in front of him. Carolyn was sitting next to him, and surrounding both were his parents, Clint and Amy Rand, also from Wyland; his campaign manager, Tina Ackland; lettering; and Taylor Radford and his wife, Corrin.
Radford, one of the richest men in Ohio, had been his biggest campaign contributor and had also funded several key campaign events throughout the district. He had rented both the suite and the ballroom on the third floor of the hotel. The ballroom was full to bursting with Rand's supporters eagerly awaiting the moment Rand would come down from the suite so they could share in his anticipated victory.
Thinking of Radford, Rand felt a twinge of guilt flicker through his body. In order to get Radford's support, he had made a promise that he would vote against the passage of health care reform if the Democrats were able to bring the bill to the floor for a vote. Even as he'd made the promise, Rand knew in all likelihood he would not be able to keep it, and he hoped to God that Radford would understand the reason he could not keep the promise when he found out it had been broken. Well, it was no use worrying about that now since it would be months before he would have to cross that Rubicon.
He glanced down at his watch again and then glanced at Carolyn, who, as usual, was lost in her own thoughts. Carolyn, three years younger than he, was stunningly dressed in a satiny blue A-line dress bought at the Cheesecake Boutique in Columbus. In sharp contrast, she was wearing a cheap $20 silver locket around her neck. It was the first gift Rand had given her when they were dating. She had told him never to buy her another necklace because she would never take it off, and she never had as far as he knew. Besides a slender Rolex he had given her on their fifth anniversary, the only other jewelry she wore was her engagement ring and wedding band. He had asked his father for a loan to buy the rings, and his father, after meeting Carolyn, had gladly given him the money as a wedding gift.
God, you look so good, he thought as he looked at her. But then he always thought that. Even on her worst days, when she was sick and her eyes were puffy and her nose was a Rudolph red, he thought her incredibly beautiful and sexy. If it was possible, he thought her more beautiful and sexy than he had when he had first met her at Stanford University when he was a senior and she was a freshman.
The love he had for her, which had already been as deep as lake Baikal, had grown deeper still when she first gave him his son, Charles, and then his little princess, Maggie. His love for her was so strong that if she turned to him in the next instant and asked him to end his political career, he knew he would, without hesitation, pick up the hotel phone and call his Republican opponent and concede defeat. And though he knew he would do that, he also knew that she would never deny him his dream of working as a congressman in Washington, DC.
Even after fourteen years of marriage, he still felt extremely lucky that she had agreed to be his wife. He knew that many men his age or older, who had gained success, left their first wives and latched on to women in their early twenties. They were called trophy wives, and novelist Tom Wolfe described them as "boys with breasts." Unless the first wife was a complete and utter bitch, Rand could not understand why those men would do that. Carolyn, though she could be withdrawn and as shy as a wild rabbit around others she did not know at times, was all he needed in a wife, all he could have hoped for, and it was a rare day when he didn't thank God she was a part of his life. He thanked God because although Carolyn disdained all things political, she had agreed to be his wife anyway. Her reluctance to become more involved in his career may have frustrated him at times, but he seldom had reasons to regret letting her remain an outsider in his political world. Whenever he did regret it, he remembered what she had told him about her upbringing.
Even with her dislike of politics, Rand knew Carolyn would be happy for his victory, which, if lettering's preelection polling numbers stood, they would soon be celebrating.
Carolyn glanced at Rand and gave him a smile. He smiled back and whispered, "I love you," and then looked down at his watch once more. Less than two minutes to go.
"Hey, Karl," Rand said, turning to his pollster. "I know you and Tina think you're the hottest shits in Ohio at what you do, but do you want to place a bet on how good you really are?"
"What do you mean?" lettering asked, smiling broadly.
Rand smiled back. "You assured me I'd know the results within a half hour of the polls closing. If that's true, I'll give you one of the hundred-dollar bills I have in my wallet. The bet with Tina is, if I lose the race, I get a full refund, and if I win as she predicts, she gets to be my campaign manager on my next go-around."
"What do you win with my bet?" Karl asked.
"I get to kick your butt without you fighting back."
Everyone in the room, including Carolyn, laughed.
"Sorry, Andy, but I learned a long time ago never to bet on politics. You never know what's going to happen until the fat lady stops singing so she can finish eating her Twinkies."
"That fat woman you keep fantasizing about must weigh more than a baby beluga by now with all those Twinkies you force her to eat. Does Suzy ever get jealous of her?"
"I'll take the bet," Tina said, "because I've seen the fat lady and her voice is hoarse and she's eaten the last Twinkie."
As more laughter echoed through the suite, Carolyn placed her hand on her husband's arm and said, "The polls have just closed, my darling."
The room became silent as raw numbers started scrolling across the bottom of the television screen. After ten minutes, a checkmark was placed next to Rand's name as the predicted winner of his race. Rand pumped his arm, leaped up from his chair, and yelled, "Yes!" Everyone else in the room began to clap.
Carolyn stood up. She wrapped her arms around her husband, kissed him, and then whispered in his ear, "I'm so happy for you, Andy, and so very, very proud, and you know what that means."
"God, how I love you," Rand said, blinking back tears.
After the couple released from their hug, Rand then went to his mother and hugged her. She kissed him on the cheek and said, "I know how much this means to you, and I'm so very happy for you, Andy."
"Thanks, mom." Rand said and then turned to his father and gave him a hug. His father, smiling, said, "Even though I failed you as a father and you became of all things a Democrat, I'm still very proud of you, son. You set a dream for yourself, and you did what it took to reach that dream. Very few men can claim that prize."
"I'm not supposed to tell you this, Andy," his mother said, "but your dad sent your campaign an anonymous donation, and he asked me to send one as well, which I already had."
His father laughed and said, "Just don't tell any of my friends at the country club or I'll be blackballed."
Rand laughed and said, "I promise I'll keep mum. Thanks so much, Dad."
He then went to Taylor Radford. Radford shook his hand and said, "Do us proud in Washington, Congressman Rand."
"I'll do my best, Taylor. Thanks for all your support. I could not have won without it."
"I'm glad I could be of help. Just remember promises made must be promises kept."
"I'll remember, Taylor," Rand said, shifting his focus to Radford's wife.
"That's good," Radford said, nodding his head. "That's good."
Rand gave Corrin a hug, accepted her thanks, and went to lettering. They shook hands and then hugged as well.
"Congratulations, Andy."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A BITTER CUP of TEA by TIM McDANIEL Copyright © 2013 by Tim McDaniel. Excerpted by permission of EMERALD BOOK COMPANY. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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