The Thumper Amendment

by BRUCE EDWARDS

  “What are you doing up here?” shouted Peter.

  I didn’t even acknowledge his presence, choosing to gaze out over the murmuring crowd instead. “Alright, everybody,” I shouted to the stunned audience, “listen up! I have an important question to ask you.”

  They listened.

  “How much cruelty is enough? How much more meanness do you have to see before you’re satisfied? One man ruins another; the other vows revenge. A father mistreats a son; the son strikes back. Strong vs. weak; rich vs. poor. Neighbor against neighbor; nation against nation. Meanness in the media; meanness online. Injustice, discrimination, racism. It’s all the same thing. Where does it end?

  “But I’m one to talk. I’ve locked meanness away in my heart for someone my whole life. Let me tell you something: it doesn’t feel good. They say that it takes twice the energy to be mean than it does to be kind.

  “Remember that cartoon, that movie about the deer and the rabbit named Thumper, who said: ‘If you can’t say somethin’ nice, don’t say nothin’ at all?’ Lawmakers, judges, members of Congress, I know a lot of you are out there tonight. I have a proposition for you: The Thumper Amendment. Make meanness a breach of the Constitution. Make it punishable by showing an act of kindness. What do ya say?”

  My chair slid downward. I wasn’t getting through to them. Okay, it was a silly idea, and I didn’t expect anyone to take me seriously—but why not? Why should anyone be afraid of something, just because it’s never been tried before?

  “This is important!” I shouted. “What do I have to do to convince you?”

  I was descending faster, now.

  I unbuckled my lap belt and stood up on the chair. “I’m begging you! Stop all this madness before it destroys the greatest country on Earth.”

  The chair wobbled, and its movement made it hard for me to stand upright. I waved my arms around, but could no longer keep my balance, and started to fall. The seat cushion had nothing to hold on to. The armrests slipped through my fingers like butter. The last thing between me and the hardwood stage was the foot rest. I grabbed hold of the chrome bar and held on tight.

  If I could just hang on long enough, I thought, I’d be lowered to the stage, and everything would be alright.

  But I wasn’t moving!

  Below me, Alan and the backstage crew scrambled around like mice in a pet shop window. Smoke poured out of the control console. Sparks shot up from the top of the computer racks, like fireworks.

  “Get me down!” I cried.

  The chair didn’t budge.

  Breadcrust called the audience into action. “Please! Everyone!” he said. “We are having technical difficulties, and can’t get her down. We need you all to turn your dials to the left very slowly. But the spectacle had sent the audience’s adrenaline levels off the charts. They were like a pack of hungry wolves, salivating at the smell of blood.

  My chair went higher!

  “No!” said Breadcrust. “To the left!”

  I saw Alan underneath me. “I need some good news, buddy,” I shouted down to him. He just shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

  The noise of the frenzied audience sounded like a street riot. Sirens wailed. Police tried to disperse the crowd to allow fire trucks to get through.

  While my chair continued to rise, Peter’s was slowly coming down. He began to rock his chair from left to right, then unbuckled his lap belt, and at the exact moment our two chairs met, leaped across onto mine.

  Grasping the back of the chair with one hand, he reached down to me with the other, but I was too far away.

  “Hang on, Amy!” he shouted.

  Hang on, he says! I had been telling myself that ever since he broke my heart.

  “I don’t think I can,” I shouted back.

  “You have to.”

  “What’s it to you? You don’t care anything about me.”

  “You’re wrong, Amy. I’m not the same person I was. I hurt you back then in ways you didn’t deserve, but not because I didn’t like you.”

  “You had a strange way of showing it.”

  My fingers began to slip.

  “I envied you,” said Peter. “You had the perfect life. You had friends. Your mom walked you to school. You represented everything I wanted, but couldn’t have. So, I bullied you. That’s how a stupid kid acts when he doesn’t know how else to show affection.”

  Peter wrapped his legs around the back of the chair, then reached down and grabbed hold of my wrists with both hands.

  “I don’t believe you!” I shouted.

  “Please, Amy,” said Peter. “Don’t fall.” He bit down on his lower lip. “I’m sorry!”

  I looked into Peter’s eyes and felt strangely calm and secure. The clamoring below me went silent in my ears, and I heard only Peter’s voice.

  “Please,” begged Peter, with tears in his eyes. “If you die, I may never know what love is.”

  Just then, the chair slowly inched downward. It picked up speed, and before long I felt my feet gently touch down, like landing on a soft pillow.

  There was no applause, no cheering, no outpouring of emotion from the audience. They simply got up and left, feeling cheated for having been deprived of a violent ending.

  Breadcrust was nowhere around. The TV crew packed up their gear. The shameless banners that had dishonored the monument to our first president were torn down.

  Backstage, among the shattered glass and smoldering equipment, Peter and I shared a well-deserved embrace. Alan walked by, patted me on the shoulder, then kept on walking. It was my turn to be given some space, and he knew it.

  Peter and I held each other, as if the world would end if we let go. No words were spoken, for in that brief, glorious moment, there was nothing more to say.

  Chapter 15

  The Vote

  Channel Nine news: Election night coverage.

  Breaking news! With 2% of the precincts reporting, we project Chester Fields as the winner in today’s primary election. As the nominee for the Awesome Party, he now goes on to the presidential elections in November.

  All evidence of Alan’s campaign efforts were removed from Shankstonville. Street banners were taken down, flyers were pulled off telephone poles, and Vote For Alan t-shirts were turned into cleaning rags. Townsfolk pulled up lawn signs, peeled off bumper stickers, and tossed campaign buttons into waste baskets.

  Shankstonville’s favorite son had lost.

  Inside the empty farmhouse, that had served as Alan’s campaign headquarters, mounds of confetti and hundreds of balloons lay on the floor. Alan’s supporters had planned to release them the moment he was named the winner. Someone released them anyway. Now, no one was in the mood to clean up the mess.

  In spite of all the bad Press, Chester was spun to the public as “someone you’d like to have a beer with.” The voting majority figured that anyone that likable was automatically qualified to be the World’s most powerful leader. He would later be cleared of all wrong-doing in the Fritterz scandal, thanks to a multi-million-dollar publicity campaign, and a bit of jury tampering.

  Brian Breadcrust was awarded TV’s highest honor for creating the highest-rated show in television history, and started work on his next reality project, Squirm or Die.

  Congress laughed off my Thumper Amendment idea, as I expected they would. (Nice try.)

  There were a couple of good things to cheer about, however. Proposition 7, that gave the vote to high-schoolers, proved a rousing success. A staggering number of teens turned out to participate, most all of them voting for Alan. Regrettably, their numbers weren’t great enough to alter the final outcome.

  Fritterz were granted United States citizenship, and awarded ownership and control of Theme Farm, as reparation for their mistreatment.

  Ward Dempsey would have been pleased.

  As for me, I had the rest of the summer to mull over my odyssey through presidential politics. I had seen more, and traveled further than some people do in a lifetime. I was a ce
lebrity for almost a whole week. Did it change me? Not really. I still watched old movies, listened to Chicago blues, and stayed politically active.

  I took one last look around the farmhouse before shutting off the lights, then locked the door to the Freeberg For President headquarters for the last time.

  Alan waited for me on a wooden bench outside, not sharing my last-look sentimentality. He gazed out at the countryside, with the last light of day reflecting in his eyes, as I sat down beside him.

  “Well, that’s that,” he said.

  I sighed. “Yeah, it was quite a ride, but I don’t think I’d do it again.”

  “Me neither. But I know who I’d like to have with me if I did.”

  I detected a weepiness in Alan’s eyes. “You’re not going to go mushy on me now, are you?” I said.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” said Alan. “I lived all those years like a hermit, without a friend in the world, never knowing that my best pal was right under my nose, all the time.”

  I offered Alan my hand. He accepted it, but then wouldn’t let go. He covered it with his other hand. “Amy, I’m sorry for—”

  “No, don’t!” I said. “Everybody’s been doing a lot of apologizing lately, and I think it’s time I did some of my own. I’m sorry for not being honest with you, about Peter, I mean. It was a stupid thing to do.”

  “And I’m equally sorry for bringing the hammer down on you for it. Now, that we’ve purged our guilt, there’s something I have to show you.”

  Alan brought out an envelope containing a letter and a photo of an attractive, young woman. “It’s from Helen,” he said. “She saw me on the show and found out where I lived through Breadcrust’s office. She wants to meet with me.”

  “I’m so happy for you,” I said.

  “And guess what else?” he said, with childlike delight. “She works as a political consultant. Go figure!”

  My heart overflowed with joy for Alan. His life had been an endless series of painful missteps, his fallout with Helen taking the greatest toll on him. Now, he had a chance to reverse all that. The Race For The White House may have ended in disaster, but his biggest failure was now leading to his greatest success.

  “So, what are your plans now?” I asked.

  Alan jammed his white cowboy hat onto his head. “Farmer’s Market tomorrow. Gotta get an early start. Those organic cucumbers don’t pick themselves, ya know?”

  Alan got up to leave, took two steps, then swung back around to me. “Oh, I almost forgot!” he said. “I never told you how we finally got control of those damned barber chairs.”

  He handed me a small, wrapped package with a purple bow on top. Inside was my Grandfather’s charm that was lost so many years ago. AMY was spelled out in bright, gold letters.

  “Where did you find this?” I said.

  “We were trying everything to override the system failure, but nothing worked. The backup generators were all failing, and we thought we’d lose power for sure. Suddenly, the last power unit kicked in and we were back in business. Later, we found this inside one of the equipment racks, laying across a fried circuit board. It jumped a faulty connector, and probably saved your life. It must have fallen off your neck while you were dangling up there. Some luck, huh?”

  No luck at all, I thought. Thanks, Granddad!

  A shiny, black limo came up the dirt road to the farmhouse, and pulled up in front of us.

  “I think I know who that is,” said Alan, “and three’s a crowd. Guess I’ll be moseying along.” With Alan’s bus only a few yards away, he didn’t have much moseying to do.

  The limo driver opened the back door, and out stepped Peter. Chester had a lot more campaigning to do before November, and he needed to repair his family man public image, so he restored Peter’s limo privileges to him.

  Peter sat down with me on the bench.

  “Looks like you and your dad have settled your differences,” I said.

  “Not even,” said Peter. “But I’m staying out of his way until the election is over. He’s explained away my outrageous conduct as a result of ADHD. He’s convinced the public that I’ve got a behavioral disorder! Can you believe that? And to make it look more convincing, he’s sending me to someplace called Bonehead Bootcamp.”

  I wanted to laugh, knowing what Peter was in for, but I didn’t. Telling him about my own experiences at that place was best left for another day.

  Peter put his arm around me, and I snuggled up to his shoulder.

  “How long you in town for?” I asked.

  “Just till morning,” he said.

  “Then what?”

  “Home, boot camp, college in the Fall, then . . .”

  “What is it?”

  “I was just thinking. I turned 20 yesterday. I’ll be old enough to run for office in a year from now.”

  “You can’t be serious!”

  “Why not? I’d make a great public servant. I’ll get elected Street Cleaner or something to start, then work my way up.”

  There was a long pause, then Peter looked into my eyes. “What would you say to a reformed bully kissing a political activist?” he said.

  “I’d say, it’s a free country.”

  We kissed—the warmest and most heartfelt I ever had.

  “Take you home?” asked Peter.

  “Gotta get some things out of Alan’s bus first.”

  On my short walk to the bus, I stopped at Peter’s limo. The chauffeur stood rigidly, guarding the passenger door, like it was Buckingham Palace. As usual, his bowed head concealed his identity under his cap.

  I turned back to Peter. “I’ve been wondering about something,” I said. “Where did you dig up all that dirt on Chester? That whole Fritter thing was top secret.”

  Peter looked at his driver, then patted the top of his head, indicating that the driver should remove his cap. As the chauffeur obeyed, two long ears flopped down to the sides of his woolly, long-nosed face.

  “Sergeant Sheep!” I said.

  “You two know each other?” asked Peter.

  The sheep put his hand over my mouth. “Sh!” he whispered. “It’s true. I told him about the Fritterz. What he doesn’t know is that I’ll be his drill sergeant at Bonehead Bootcamp. Limo driving is just a moonlighting gig.”

  “Your secret’s safe with me,” I said.

  “Thanks. I’m gonna see that Peter gets drilled on how to avoid becoming a corrupt politician. The last thing we need is another bonehead in government.”

  Standing at Alan’s front door, I got a little misty, gazing at the grungy, old bus that had been my chariot in the race of a lifetime. The video cameras and satellite equipment had all been removed. The campaign signage was also gone. The peace signs and faded hippie artwork that remained didn’t look so bad to me, now.

  As I went inside, Marge’s screen came on.

  “You still with us, Marge?” I asked.

  “Not for long,” she answered. “The repo man’s on his way now.”

  “Gonna miss you, in a strange way.”

  “I wish I could say the same, but I’m a machine, and I don’t have feelings.”

  “Neither do a lot of humans, I’m sad to report.”

  “Before I switch off for good, I wonder if you’ll do me a favor.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “There’s something you should see, back in The Lounge. Go check it out. Bye.”

  Bleep!

  I opened The Lounge door and found Alan alone in the dark, under a carpet of stars. He was slouched on the couch, with the What’s-next-specs on his head.

  “See anything good?” I said.

  “Hmm,” he mumbled.

  “You alright?”

  “Hmm,” he mumbled again.

  Then Alan suddenly sat up straight. “Well, what do ya know!” he said. “I’ll be damned!”

  I leaned over and knocked on the side of the helmet. “Avon calling! Anyone home?”

  “Sorry, can’t come to the door right now,” he rep
lied. “Got a hot idea on the stove.”

  “And what would that be?”

  Alan turned off the device and lifted it off his head. Then he turned off the heavens and opened the motorized shades on the rear windows. The setting sun over the Shankstonville farmland gave off a crimson glow as beautiful as I had ever seen.

  Alan was deep in thought, as he gazed out at the fiery sunset. “What’s that old expression?” he asked. “Nice guys finish last. Isn’t that it?”

  “I think that’s how it goes. I guess we proved that one, didn’t we?”

  “It suggests that you’ve got to be mean to win.”

  “I wish it weren’t true.”

  “What if I told you that old saying is a lie?”

  “I’d like to believe you, but the election’s over, and the nice guys lost.”

  “But, it’s not over.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Alan turned and faced me, his smile firmly stuck in place.

  “What are you doing four years from now?”

  About the Author

  Bruce Edwards was born in Marin County, California and raised on a tasty diet of jazz and Disney animation. He majored in Architecture in college, but switched to Music to join the burgeoning San Francisco music scene. As a composer and musician, he wrote rock tunes and radio jingles, and toured as a pop music artist between studio gigs. He tinkered with early computer animation which led to a career as a feature film character animator. His more unique vocational detours included a stint as a puppeteer and performing magic at Disneyland. As a writer, he wrote screenplays during his Hollywood years before finding an audience for his young-adult fiction. Mr. Edwards currently lives in Orange County, California.

  The Age of Amy: The Thumper Amendment

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  P.O. Box 1478

  Brea, CA 92822-1478

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  Copyright © 2014 by Bruce Edwards

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