(Author's note: Take this story for what it is worth, probably nothing but if you ask me real life has already gotten weirder and more dangerous than my puny imagination.)
The reason my family and I went into a
self-imposed exile from our home state of South Carolina was the
result of a complex chain of events that while improbable,
exponentially fed on itself creating a situation so inherently
unstable I began to fear for my family's safety. Looking back on it
now, I have come to believe I have only myself to blame for
essentially throwing that small pebble into the ocean that has
created a political tsunami unmatched in American history. What was
the minor event that started this chain reaction that threatens to
make a mockery of all we hold dear? It was a phone call I received
around two-thirty one Saturday morning three years ago.
It is almost an absolute of modern life
that phone calls that early are never good news but for my wife and
I, it is something we both have come to expect. As the ringing began
reassembling my tired consciousness for a couple of seconds I toyed
with the idea of not answering it. There was a high probability I
already knew who was calling and as I lay in bed the thought occurred
to me that for once I ought to let the caller figure his own way out
of whatever mess he created for himself. Unluckily for me, it was my
wife who forced me to once again do my duty.
“Well,” my wife Diane said groggily
as she used her right hand to pop the side of my head before turning
over. “You better answer it before Billy goes and does something
else stupid that might really cause some problems.”
On the face of it her statement was
true, Billy Wainwright, my only cousin and de facto responsibility
given the nature of my mother and aunt's close relationship, could
cause a whole spectrum of disasters just by walking into a room. Just
to avoid, or more than likely, mitigate possible legal and liability
issues that my cousin always seems to become entangled, I always
answer the phone no matter how much I so desperately wanted to ignore
it. That being said though, my wife's statement had more to do with
the fact she wanted me to do something to end the ringing so she
could go back to sleep.
For those two reasons, I sat up in bed
and picked up the receiver. “Hello,” I mumbled actually finding
the naivety to hope it might be a wrong number.
“Hey Charlie,” Billy answered back
with a tone of voice that was his patented combination of shame, and
sadness, mixed with a never-ending but irritating supply of
child-like enthusiasm. “The deputies here at the strip club said I
had to call someone to come take me home.”
Anyone who didn't know Billy might have
asked him just what in the hell had he done that ended up involving
several deputy sheriffs and Watertown County's only strip club but I
figured that was a story I best save for the drive home. “Okay
Billy, I'll be there in a few minutes,” I said wondering where I
had laid my wallet and whether or not I should bring the credit card
Aunt Sally, Billy's mom, had gave me for just these sort of
occasions.
The saddest thing about my cousin was
that his life peaked during high school. During those seven years he
took the Watertown High School football team, the Raccoons, to three
state championships. Something it had never done before or since when
state law and simple practicality forced the principle to graduate
Billy. As much as the football coach literally cried at the feet of
the school district superintendent trying to persuade her to let
Billy have one year of school, you simply couldn't have a
twenty-something man playing with kids in their teens or be a student
when some of his teachers were the same age.
For Billy, it boiled down to the fact
that despite rugged good looks and an overabundance of charm so
potentate he easily passed several of his high school classes by
cajoling the panties off some of those teachers, he simply wasn't
equipped to handle a world far more complicated than he could
conceive. Having known Billy for all his life I can say honestly that
there has never been a time when his intentions were based on hate or
selfishness. He just could never grasp the overall concept of cause
and effect, which given his humble origins usually kept his
adventures small and only dangerous to his friends and family.
Having graduated high school, Billy
felt the call of duty to his country and enlisted in the United
States Army. As kids we watched plenty of war movies with Billy
always saying he wanted to be a soldier. Of course, to Billy being soldier meant characters like Rambo, John Wayne, and Chuck Norris, all
action heroes whose exploits never reflected the true nature of
serving in a military where teamwork, constant training, and
prolonged periods of boredom were the reality.
The dreams of military glory for Billy
ended abruptly just a couple of days into basic training when the
Drill Instructor got in his face screaming a mind numbing number of
insults and instructions. Billy's good old country boy instincts came
into play resulting in a broken jaw for the DI and a couple of months
in the stockade for him. Billy somehow returned to Watertown with a
general discharge and expressing an interest in attending the local
community college with the goal of becoming a mechanic for a NASCAR
racing team.
By that time I was starting my second
year at Clemson University and gratefully disengaged from the
constant family concern about just what Billy would do with his life.
That changed a couple of months later when another student from
Watertown showed me the local newspaper, complete with a picture of
my cousin on the front page with his eyebrows burnt off along with an
expression on his face suggesting intense befuddlement and utter
surprise. With a truly morbid curiosity I read the article which
stated that Billy was in class with several others one morning when
he decided to modify the fuel injectors on a car used for training to
take aviation-grade fuel.
The result was an explosion and fire
which destroyed the auto repair shop along with the neighboring
cosmetology and real estate classrooms. Watertown Community College,
never a bastion of the liberal arts nor sciences, was so damaged that
a huge majority of the student body was told to go home and not
return until it could be rebuilt.
Luckily none of the student body or
teaching staff were hurt in the incident, except the automotive
instructor who took up drinking again after realizing leaving Billy
in the classroom might just amount to the worst mistake of his life.
The Watertown county council also took a big hit after the cut rate
insurance company they used balked at the idea of paying for to
rebuild the destroyed facilities. This forced the council to shell
out over a million dollars in funds and use a backdoor method to
raise the local sales tax to begin reconstruction. This being South
Carolina, the members of the county council were defeated in the next
election and forced into hiding by irate taxpayers who generally feel
higher education is a waste of their hard earned dollars.
With higher education behind him,
Billy began bouncing around different low paying jobs doing his best
not to cause any new calamity. Even worse were Billy's relationships
with various ladies in the county, all of such low quality, to Aunt
Sally, that it left her breathless and near despair each time he
brought one home.
It didn't take Aunt Sally long to figure out a procedure that
would minimize the emotional and physiological trauma of meeting
Billy's new love interest. Once Aunt Sally knew about Billy's new
girlfriend she would ask him for the number of tattoos on the girl's
body and if she had served any significant jail time and then rush
down to the nearest liquor store and buy an amount of wine
proportional to those numbers. If this girl had children, Aunt Sally
would forget the wine and go straight to bourbon, usually a pint for
each kid with an upper limit of a gallon if the she had over four.
My mama, in an attempt to give her as much support as possible,
had an agreement with the owner of the liquor store to call her if
Aunt Sally started making what seemed to him too many visits. With
Billy's taste in women being consistent, the poor guy had long since
been forced to add mama to his speed dial.
Aunt Sally and my mama being very close
and with no other siblings for Billy or me, had since elementary
school drafted me into taking care of my cousin. For both of them I
did my best and since Billy was easy to get along with normally, it
wasn't hard as long as he didn't do anything out the ordinary.
Billy's dad, Uncle Henry, was especially thankful for me looking
after his son. Uncle Henry was a true Christian in every sense of the
word and over the years had spent many a night on bended knees
praying for his son. I love my Uncle Henry but I always felt
uncomfortable with the fact that he was so sure that his son was
destined for greater things because Jesus came to him in a dream one
night saying so. I figured the All Mighty had far better judgment
than to involve my cousin in much of anything beyond making a phone
call to order a pizza, so I let the whole subject slide when I was
around the man.
Thankfully, my drive along U.S. Highway
17 to the strip club was uneventful and I pulled into the gravel
parking lot stopping next the establishment's huge neon sign made up
of a female figure which every fifteen seconds or so flashed
different sections to simulate getting naked. The sign, while tacky
in the extreme, had long since become part of the local scene with
most everyone affectionately calling the electrically illuminated
lady “Electric Betty.” While the strip club itself has closed and
reopened many times with different names since it was first
established in the early 1960's, Electric Betty has been the one
constant as the years have slowly passed. It has been both a
navigational beacon for people going to or from Myrtle Beach when
Highway 17 was largely undeveloped and given a hint of what a naked
woman might look like to an uncountable number of prepubescent boys
feeling the first stirrings of onrushing hormones.
Electric Betty had survived numerous
attempts by local Christian groups over the years to have her removed
because of the immoral influence it was having on the youth of the
area. The fight for Betty's continued existence all culminated when
one pastor in the early 1980's had gone as far to chain himself to
the electrical disconnect at the base of the sign. With a camera crew
from the local television station recording the event, he promised to
stay there without food or water until the heathen sign was torn
down. The one thing the pastor didn't take into account was that his
demonstration of peaceful civil disobedience was taking place during
the summer months when sudden and violent thunderstorms were common.
Sure enough about an hour into his protest a single stray dark cloud
lazily drifted over the area with the pastor going through the
religious motions to have God or his angels send it away.
As the little cloud flashed lightning
inside it, a few in the pastor's support group tried to talk him into
abandoning his efforts but he refused. Saying God would protect him
and his just cause the pastor stayed chained to the sign despite
their warnings. With wiser heads then deciding to withdraw to safety
it was at that moment a brilliant flash of lightening struck Electric
Betty, severing the chain the pastor put around the disconnect box
and sending him flying thirty or forty yards into a medium-sized
ornamental pond the strip club owner at that time had installed to
“class up the joint.”
The little angry thunder cloud then
drifted away as people rushed to the aid of the pastor who they found
alive but being attacked by the three ducks and one goose that called
the pond home. The pastor suffered no ill effect from the lightning
strike but soon abandoned religion and became a used car salesman.
Electric Betty was amazingly not injured by the random act of nature
and returned to her usual work once the sun went down.
Electric Betty was the least of my
concerns as I got out of my car and began walking over to the eight
or nine county sheriff vehicles which had almost surrounded the strip
club. My cousin, Billy Wainwright may be a walking disaster waiting to
happen but I knew the amount of police attention at the strip club
had less to do with whatever he was involved with and more with the
fact that the deputies on night shift wanting to score some points
with the dancers.
Sure enough, as I approached the
entrance I saw several of the scantily clad ladies making small talk
with the deputies who were acting like five year-old kids who found
they had accidentally been locked up inside a candy store. Luckily
for me I saw the one deputy, a guy named Sean Blake, who by all
appearances seemed to be making sure none of his fellow law
enforcement officers did anything other than just talk to the women.
The other benefit of seeing Sean was that he had played football with
Billy before graduating and had remained friends with my cousin.
“Deputy Blake!” I yelled to get his
attention. Blake waved back and walked over to my location. “Just
what did Billy do this time?” I asked hoping it was his usual
weekend antics that might involve a couple of punched thrown with
another guy before the club bouncers ended the scuffle.
“Well this weird looking dude is
claiming Billy was trying to kill him.” Blake answered back
pointing towards someone sitting on the hood of a patrol car wearing
a 1970's leisure suit.
For a couple of seconds I felt this
strange sense of temporal displacement looking at the man who wanted
my cousin charged with attempted murder. What struck me oddest was
the fact that he looked exactly like the late British actor, David
Niven with his bald head and pencil thin mustache. Adding to the
weirdness, as the guy sat on the hood of the sheriff's patrol car I
saw him attempt to light a cigarette that was attached to one of
those holders that extended a few inches from the end that a person
held in their mouth. When you threw in the 1970's, pea-green leisure
suit the man was wearing, I had the bizarre notion that actor Burt
Reynolds and comedian Flip Wilson would suddenly walk out the strip
club's front door laughing about the antics of John Travolta who
would disco dance his way out a few seconds later.
“What's up with the guy's leisure
suit, Blake?” I asked. “Was the strip club hosting a costume
party tonight or something?”
Deputy Blake made a face as he
scratched his head clearly thinking of a way to properly phrase his
words. “Yeah, the man's name is Thad Lovelace and one of the
deputies asked him about that, the guy then went into a long speech
about how he was a fashion genius before his time and that he fully
expected the leisure suit come back into style. The idea being that
once that happened he would be finally be recognized for his cutting
edge brilliance.” Blake said deadpan, much in the same way he would
relate any piece of information that simply didn't make a damn bit of
sense.
Since I came late to the party none of
what Blake said made any sense until Trixie
Anna Belle Duval came out of the strip club carrying a bottle of club
soda and rushed over to the distraught and strange little man
sitting on the hood of the patrol car. Trixie had been Billy's latest
in along series of true loves, which by the looks of how she was
caring for the leisure suit wearing Thad, my cousin and her
relationship had clearly ended tonight.
I felt some sadness at the knowledge
that my cousin Billy was once again alone. That realization was made
worse by the fact that Trixie Duval was actually a step up from his
usual redneck girlfriends. I had met Trixie several times, even
having Billy and her over to the house to have dinner with my wife
and me. In another, slightly better, reality Trixie might have
actually made something of her life. She was clearly intelligent but
a lifetime spent in a culture that considered reading suspicious and
pursuing an education beyond high school in anything but technical
fields tantamount to treasonous, unamerican activities had long taken
its toll.
That night Diane and I had them over
for dinner, I learned that Trixie had once attended the local
gymnastic school and had won close to a dozen state awards. Several
of the coaches had talked to Trixie's parents about taking her
training to the next level by having her perform in front of a
visiting U.S. Olympic dignitary in Charlotte, North Carolina, but
tragically fate had other ideas.
A few days before they were supposed to
make the trip up to Charlotte, her daddy's favorite deer hunting dog
got into a fight with a porcupine, and lost badly. The money that
would have paid for the trip went to emergency surgery on the dog who
after several weeks of recovery, promptly had another tussle with the
irate but quite well protected porcupine and that time lost so badly
the poor dumb dog had to be put down. Feeling the need to avenge the
insult to his beloved hunting dog, Trixie's daddy went looking for
the porcupine and while the human survived the encounter, the end
result was that there were never anymore children born to the Duval
household.
After high school, Trixie worked her
way up to dancing at the Watertown strip club after spending several
years working at the local factory that made lamps for household use.
When the factory was closed and the jobs sent to China, Trixie
auditioned at the strip club where her former gymnastic training
served her quite well in getting hired. While I had never seen one of
Trixie's performances, Billy told me several times that her abilities
on the dance pole earned her many standing ovations.
Deputy Blake eventually went to go find
Billy, who they were keeping well away from Trixie and her new love
interest. Despite Thad Lovelace's insistence that Billy be charged
with murder, as far as the deputies and the owner of the strip club
were concerned my cousin had done them a favor by taking the
obnoxious twit down a couple of pegs. A few minutes later with Billy
now inside my car we were soon on the way back to my house where he would spend the night. It during that time Billy explained to me that
he had discovered Trixie and Thad making out in her dressing room.
Shocked that the love of his life had betrayed him, Billy forced
Trixie to confess with her saying she had simply outgrown my cousin
and that Thad had connections with strip clubs up in Greenville,
South Carolina and as far west as Atlanta.
Trixie had come to believe in a few
years Thad could have here pole dancing at the center of the strip
club universe, Las Vegas. My betrayed and now depressed cousin only
got violent after Thad, a short skinny man who probably weighed
one-hundred pounds when soaking wet started acting like he wanted to
fight. Billy's single punch busted Thad's lip with the blood quickly
soaking the leisure suit coat the strange little man was wearing.
It was the heavy silence in the car
that ultimately forced me to try and think of a way to lift my
cousin's spirits with the sight of an open convenience store offering that thin opportunity. Both Billy and I loved honey buns as kids and I thought if I
bought us a couple of the sickly sweet pastries along with bottles of
cold chocolate milk he might once again begin his journey of
recovery. Instead, the end result of my stopping at the small store
only began a chain of events that could ultimately bring disaster on
us all.
When I caught Billy eyeing the clear
plastic case containing all the colorful scratch-off lottery tickets
something deep down in my soul told me to grab the man, have us both
get back in my car, and drive away as fast as possible doing
everything I could to make him forget he ever considered buying one
of those things. The depth of this urge was so great that in
hindsight I have often wondered that maybe it could have been a
psychic warning broadcasted to me from some dark, apocalyptic future.
Being a fairly rational person I discounted the foreboding nature of
my dread, especially after seeing my cousin turn around and look at
me with those sad puppy dog eyes. Billy was never the type of person
who thought more than a day or two in the future, which when disaster
struck him always brought on a profound depression.
“What the hell Charlie,” my cousin
said to me apparently reading my mind. “My luck can't get any worse
and I sure as hell ain't ever going to leave this town.”
“Go for Billy, you never know when
the worm will turn.” I found myself saying despite the little voice
in my head cursing both me and my descendants for allowing him to tempt
fate.
Billy whipped out his wallet and
purchased ten of the big payoff five-dollar scratch-off tickets and
promptly stuffed them in his back pocket. Frankly, I was speechless
for several minutes after because I was the one purchasing the honey
buns and chocolate milk for the both of us with my credit card while
my cousin had a nice wad of cash in his wallet. Billy, of course,
never noticed my ruffled feathers as we walked to the car. He was too
busy tearing into the honey bun with his teeth and smiling like the
same ten year-old he never left behind.
The ride home was uneventful and once
we arrived, I quickly rushed Billy off to the guest room in the hopes
of climbing back into my bed and catching a couple of hours of sleep
before my young sons were up demanding the usual Saturday pancakes I
make for them. After laying down my wife, Diane, wanted a full report
on Billy's latest escapades and for some reason looked upon me doing
my family duty with such warmth I was actually surprised when she
began taking off her nightshirt and panties. Never one to look a
gifted horse in the mouth, I quickly followed her lead and spent a
good deal of time playing doctor with my wife. When sleep finally
returned to us both we were happily holding each other oblivious to
the world outside our bedroom door.
That all changed some unknown time
later when we were both awakened by a deep cry of victory and triumph
coming from the direction of our kitchen. I immediately knew Billy
was involved somehow because accompanying that happy bellow were two
smaller shouts which I had to figure were my sons.
“What the hell happened now?” Diane
asked sleepily still laying next me.
“Don't worry,” I answered, “Billy
is probably just playing X-box with the boys.” That was a good thing
since that meant all three were in the living room eating cereal,
which would require me to do a major cleanup later but that meant
more time laying naked with her in bed. That all changed when Billy and
my two boys came barging into the room causing Diane to scramble
underneath the covers and begin glaring at me as if the woman I just
had sex with was someone other than her.
“Charlie,” my cousin exclaimed in a
tone of voice that suggested he had just won the lottery, “You
won't believe it but I'm now worth five-million dollars!”
With my wife, naked under the bed
sheets glaring at me, my two sons already on sugary cereal overload
jumping around like spider monkeys suffering from a caffeine
overdose, and my hulking cousin staring at me like he had just found
Jesus, I was in sensory overload. For all intents and purposes I was
in a catatonic state somewhat thinking this was all a seriously
screwed up dream. It was Diane that finally brought about some quiet
and order to the chaos.
“Everyone get the hell out of my
bedroom now or I assure you all there will be hell to pay!” She
screamed to Billy and the boys who quickly ran out of the room. Much
to my surprise, Diane wasn't finished and now turned her attentions
on me. “And you,” she said, “get out as well and find out what
the hell is going on before I get out of bed.”
After finding a pair of gym shorts and
t-shirt I joined the other men in sad exile. A cup of coffee later to
chase away the tiredness, Billy and I are sitting at the kitchen
table with me trying to make sense of the lottery scratch-off he says
had solved all of his problems. As I examined the lottery ticket, my
initial assumption was that Billy had simply misread the card which would result in a waste of five dollars and my cousin suffering another bout of dashed hopes. Much to my surprise I soon
learned that he was correct, barring a monumental bad decision,
unfortunately a real possibility for him, Billy would never have to
worry about money for the rest of his life.
Both Billy and the boys took my
proclamation that he was correct about his initial assessment as a
reason to once again to start howling victoriously. Diane came
running out of the bedroom, fully clothed but with her hair wet from
a shower, after the resumption of needless noise ready for war but
when she saw the amazed look on my face she began shaking her head
dumbfounded at the sudden turn of events.
Billy wanted to start calling people,
especially Trixie, and tell them about the unexpectedly won riches
but I stopped him saying we needed to come up with a plan on how
protect his new wealth. Unfortunately, I did let him call his mom and
dad, which I soon learned was the same as him calling everyone in the
first place. Aunt Sally and Uncle Henry started calling their own
friends who called even more people and before long the entire
population of Watertown County knew that my cousin was now a
millionaire. The only exceptions to that news were Trixie Duval and
Thad Lovelace who had left town barely an hour after the deputies
had released Billy into my custody.
The real complication to Billy's wealth
didn't appear till the next day when Aunt Sally and Uncle Henry
forced their son to go to church the next morning. My aunt and uncle
were members of the Watertown New Faith Church of God, a mega-church
that when it wasn't hosting Mid-Atlantic Wrestling or monster truck
rallies events could seat over two-thousand people to hear the word
of God. Curiously enough, even when it was a church a person could
still buy a cup of coffee and sub sandwich from the in-house
Starbucks and Subway shops.
The pastor, the charismatic and Brad
Pitt-level good looking Mitchell Carter was close friends with the
county Republican leader, Robert Edward Ryder, a man who I thought
was the physical embodiment of the evil Emperor of the Star Wars
movies. My opinion of Pastor Carter was that when you discounted his
rather large ego he was almost a decent guy. The best description of
Carter was that he was my cousin, Billy, with about twenty extra IQ
points. Several times he had attempted to groom Billy, who at least
equaled him in good looks and charisma, to save souls for Christ. But
my cousin just couldn't consciously direct his talents and all
attempts to make him a preacher failed miserably.
But it was Robert—I personally called
him Dick Ryder-- who now took an interest in my cousin. That Sunday,
using his own politically motivated abilities drawn wholly from the
darkside, Dick had already mobilized his political support teams, and
with the blessing of both Aunt Sally and Uncle Henry, took control of
Billy. Like the fictional Emperor, Dick saw massive potential in
Billy and began guiding him along a path that even on a county level
filled me with dread.
Since I thought setting foot inside the
multipurpose mega-church was the absolutely worst thing anyone wanted
to do and remain a Christian, I didn't learn about this turn of
events until Aunt Sally called my mom who in turn told me. At first I
thought my mom was joking but when I tried to call Billy on his cell
phone all I got was some hack in the employment of Dick Ryder who
said my cousin was busy.
In the space of a few weeks Billy no
longer talked with a deep Southern accent that sent most people
snickering behind his back. Add a decent haircut and clothing that
leaned heavily towards business casual and Billy began looking like a
respectable person. This upgraded Billy was put to use six-month
later when he became the newest member of the Watertown County
council. Apparently careful and constant handling prevented Billy's
usual destructive talents from taking hold and much to my surprise my
cousin appeared to be enjoying his new life and how to move among
folks and act like an intelligent person.
After the successful transition from
luckless local bum to respected county council member, party officials
decided to take Billy to the next level. Much to my surprise many
aspects of my cousin's life were wiped off the records. Somewhere
along the way, my cousin earned a college degree from a university in
Idaho that I had never heard of but was said to run advertisements in
the classified section of various men’s magazines. A short time
after that, Billy became an officer in the National Guard without
benefit of training and with a whole bunch of awards on his
records. His drill weekends had him hanging out at the state
headquarters making coffee, talking about football, and driving the
staff around. Most surprisingly was that Billy became a subject of
political gossip in newspapers across the state about a possible
career in politics.
Sure enough when the next election came
up, my cousin, the newly minted Richard Wainwright became South
Carolina's newest state senator.
By this time my visits with Billy were
reduced to a few hours a month but much to my surprise I woke up one
morning to read the paper and see a picture of him standing with a
stunning young lady who the article said was a Charleston debutante
whose family could trace their lineage back to colonial times.
Despite his now polished and dignified appearance, it was clear in the
picture that given the way Billy looked at this example of high class
breeding he was totally in love with the woman. Upon reading this
news I started laughing so hard that I fell to the floor thinking of
his previous love Trixie Duval whose greatest aspiration was to make
it to the strip clubs of Las Vegas.
The beautiful spring morning Billy
married the high class debutante it looked as if the entire political
leadership of South Carolina was in attendance at the ancient Charleston church where the ceremony was held.
Decorum had prevented Billy's political handlers from stopping me
from being his best man but it was clear neither his fiancee nor the
rest of her family wanted me anywhere near my cousin. I took this to
mean they understood I could ruin their massive investment in Billy
if I happened to talk with the wrong individual. After the ceremony,
Billy made a point of including me with the important men folk who had gathered privately in a small room to smoke and drink and discuss issues. I was actually having a good time until I
about choked on my glass of fine bourbon when the South Carolina governor dropped in to say hello and told my
cousin he should prepare for a run for his office in a few years.
The night Richard “Billy”
Wainwright was elected governor of South Carolina I immediately began
looking for a job outside the state. Despite all the training and his
scores of political handlers, I keep seeing the picture of my cousin
in the newspaper taken after the explosion of the automotive shop
which resulted in his eyebrows being burned off. Billy's one true
talent is his ability to produce a fantastical amount of chaos with
nothing but his two hands and a few good intentions. I don't know if
Billy is simply jinxed or deep down in his genes are all four horsemen
of the Apocalypse distilled into his DNA, but like a long dormant
volcano silently gathering strength at some point his bad luck will
erupt forth and cause new destruction.
With Billy the new governor of South Carolina there is talk that the Republican party is looking at him as a possible
presidential contender, I'm starting to suffer from a series of
nightmares where Billy thinks the red button that launches the
nuclear missiles is a just something from a video game. Given the
chance I'd move my family to Antarctica if it was possible, but
instead all I can do is sit back and hope sanity returns to the
political process or that Billy suffers from a massive heart attack.
