CHAPTER TWO

“For months, the talk at our dinner table was all about what a mess the
world was in, how Washington didn’t seem to know what to do about
it, how we needed new blood in that stale capital. Newsmen all said
we needed to elect as President someone familiar with the world,
a senator or an ambassador perhaps. But we knew a governor would
make a darn good President. Growing up near Lubbock, I could almost
see Mexico. And as governor of Texas, a state with an international
border, I came to understand how governments act with one another.”
--Samuel Parsons, A Rogue At The Zero Hour

“Perhaps we in the media are to blame for the current dearth of
satisfactory Presidential candidates. We report the comings and
goings of reality show stars when the shows are not reality and
the participants are not stars and they themselves are
not really news. We give time to the fringe
believer equal to what we give the studied government official.
We have created a world in which mediocrity is something to which
our youth aspire and our learned accept.”
--Hal Simpson, Editorial in The Carlsbad Current Argus

As was his habit every day at 4:30, Hal Simpson was sitting in his office, his legs stretched out before him on his old mahogany desk, the backs of his brogans resting on a stack of wrinkled papers. He had a Landshark, his beer of the week, in his left hand and a half smoked cigar in his right. His chair creaked each time he leaned forward to set his beer down or pick it up.
Carlsbad, New Mexico, was a city of almost 22,000 inhabitants when Hal had moved there with his family in 1959. There were four of them then. His father, whom Hal worshipped, was a tall thin man whose hair had grayed in his early twenties. He had wanted to be a lawyer; in his youth, Hal had thought his father looked like a thin grayed Carl Betz in Judd For The Defense. He had met Hal’s mother while a sophomore in college in New Jersey; when she became pregnant in his junior year, he dropped out school and began what would be a succession of jobs—short order cook, record shop manager, trucker. He took college classes whenever he could and eventually became a successful paralegal. By the time Hal turned twelve, his father was the office manager of the largest law firm in Carlsbad. One day in July, returning to his office after securing a deposition, his father's car was struck by a drunk driving a company truck. Hal saw him after the accident only once; he had walked to the hospital and sneaked by the nurses to get into the room where his father lay in a coma. He sat for what seemed like hours, saying nothing, holding his father’s hand. He still remembered how cold and clammy his skin had felt, how shallow the breathing seemed, the constant beep-beep-beeps of the different monitors. He didn’t cry; he only sat there, staring at his father, somehow knowing he would not see him up and around again, trying to almost to breathe in the way his father looked, the way he smelled, the way he felt; knowing that those memories would stay with him forever and would be a sad substitute for the time he could never share, the attention he would never have. He remembered the prayers he whispered, the deals he offered if only God would make his father wake up. Did he whisper to his father that afternoon how much he loved him? To this day he wasn’t sure.
The managing partners of his father’s firm were only too happy to sue the company that owned the truck that collided with his father's car. Hal was never sure it was fair that they should pay for an errant employee over whom they had no control, but fair or not, the partners did and obtained for Hal, his mother and his younger brother a multi-million dollar judgment.
The settlement meant nothing to the remaining Simpsons. Hal’s mother saw no reason to change her lifestyle with blood money. Though she was quite possibly now the richest woman in Carlsbad, there was nothing to prove to anyone. She was dedicated to her children but saw to it that they would grow up without airs and develop into responsible adults unaffected by the wealth that had taken so much to obtain. Her pet name for Hal was Halbert. His brother didn’t seem be able to pronounce that and always called him Houseboat, a nickname that stuck.
Like his father, Hal saw himself as a lawyer. Throughout high school, he had rather grandiose schemes about graduating from law school, joining the ACLU, and proceeding to save the world from itself. Once in college, though, he found it was more fun to have fun than to study, and he realized law school would not be his future. He thought perhaps being a newspaper reporter might be to his liking--after all, he was good at English, could sort through people’s b.s., and liked to be at the center of all sorts of happenings, both large and small.
He was en route to an interview with the St. Louis Post Dispatch when he received a phone call that his mother had suffered a stroke. He turned his blue Ford Falcon around and managed getting three speeding tickets as he headed west on Interstate 40. From Amarillo, he headed toward Lubbock, from there to Hobbs, New Mexico, and then to Carlsbad.
He sped through town and west on Pierce Street to Memorial Hospital, a one story, red brick structure that always seemed to smell of sick people. At the nurses’ station, he identified himself to a portly redhead with a stethescope dangling around her neck that made an odd clanging sound each time it hit the countertop. The nurse did not look him in the eye, but she really didn’t seem to look away either when she told him his mother had passed away a few minutes before. She conveyed no warmth, no sorrow. Only a look that said death happens.
It seemed full circle as Hal sat by his mother’s bedside. The cold, clammy skin seemed too familiar to him as he sat and held her hand. He combed her hair, still dark, so much like his, but it was full of static electricity and would not obey the commands of his brush strokes. He finally just sat there. Should he say a prayer? He had not prayed since his father died. Why believe now that there would be anyone out there who would hear him? Where is the logic in the universe when the good are taken so early?
Now it all seemed so long ago. When the estate was settled, Hal decided to stay in Carlsbad. He quickly became the Current Argus’ star reporter. He was proud of his achievement, even though he knew the only other reporter never left his desk, ferreted out his news only by telephone, and made up as much information as he discovered. Late in his second year at the paper, irritated over an editorial change in the flavor of an article he had written (okay, it only took five minutes to write, but that wasn’t the point), he bought the paper. At age 23, he was owner, editor, and publisher of the largest newspaper in Carlsbad, New Mexico, albeit the only newspaper in Carlsbad, New Mexico. The city’s high and mighty and its lowdown and dirty all looked up to him. He wanted to say he could make or break people, but he really didn’t think he knew how.
Hal had discovered he had a deep, almost reverential, respect for news. News is facts. Facts is truth. Truth needs no blandishment, it needs no editorial gussying up. Yes, the Argus had an editorial page, and yes, he knew he was known around town for his often wordy editorials, frequently out of step with local opinion. But page one and all the other pages were for news. Hal knew that while a lot of people in town subscribed to area papers like the El Paso Times and the Albuquerque Journal, they still read the Argus. It was homey. It was truthful. It could be trusted.

Now it was 2016, and he had been editor of the Argus for 41 years; looking back, he’d say most of those years were good ones, both professionally and personally. Yes, there was that disastrous first marriage, but the second one had been a charm, more or less. True, he was a bit bored at home, but he had a wonderful child, a damn nice house, a brand new Camaro, a kick-ass AV system, and unknown to almost everyone, a special friend in whom he could confide, let his guard down, and be himself.
He took a deep puff on his cigar. He wasn’t really sure why. Cigar smoke is such a nasty taste. A nasty manly taste. Oh well, that’s why I’ve got the beer, he thought; it makes a great cigar chaser.
He tossed the empty beer bottle into the trash and turned to his credenza, in which he had a small refrigerator stocked with a couple dozen more bottles. He popped the top off another Landshark and asked the two men sitting in front of him if either wanted another. This is the life, he thought. Where else can you drink beer, talk politics, say whatever you want and not have to worry about who agrees with you and who doesn’t? Freedom to kick back, freedom to mouth off. What were the words of that CS&N song? “Find the cost of freedom, hiding . . .” Hiding where? He was trying to remember the next line when he heard,
“Yep, I woulda been damned if I'da thought Obama had a snowball’s chance in hell in ’12. I still don’t know how he pulled that election outta his ass.” The political commentator was Allen Jeffries, a friend of Hal’s since elementary school. He was a regular at these 4:30 smokefests. Four years younger than Hal, Allen had never married. He often talked about living la vida loca, but Hal and everyone else knew he hadn’t had a date in five years. Hal never thought of Allen as particularly articulate, but he gave him high marks for common sense. And while Allen’s reasoning may often have been somewhat circuitous, Hal found that the two of them agreed on most things.
“He won because this country isn’t ready for a Mormon President,” came the reply from Hal’s left. Somewhere behind a climbing waft of smoke sat Frank Greene. “He plays well in Utah and I guess Massachusetts, but there was no way this country would elect him. What’d he take in the Electoral College? Six states?” Hal liked Frank’s company, but he found him to sometimes be a bit of a bore. Like Allen, Frank kept abreast of news and happenings, but whereas Allen could explain both sides of an issue, Frank generally found his own to be the sole compelling argument.
Allen blew out a mouthful of cigar smoke. He always looks so ridiculous when he tries to blow those smoke rings, Hal thought. “Yeah, but six states don’t tell the story. Remember how close the popular vote was? What was the difference? Like 0.5% of the total? That’s a helluva lot of non-Mormons voting for the guy.”
“You know,” interjected Hal, “I truly think the Republicans could have won in ’12. I think the reason they lost was Parsons. He scared away the independents.”
“Where do you get that?” demanded Frank. “Parsons is the best damned governor Texas has ever had.”
“Well, compared to Bush . . .” began Allen.
“Don’t even go there,” said Frank. “Parsons turned that state around. Crime dropped . . .”
“Frank, crime dropped because under Parsons, Texas judges incarcerated more people than at any period in the state’s history. And early parole became almost non-existent. More people were in prison and people in prison were in there longer. Hell, there wasn’t anybody out on the street to commit any crimes,” Hal said. He knew he didn’t believe what he’d just said, but heck, he knew Frank would take the bait. And he wasn’t ready to go home yet.
“And you have a problem with that? Damn guilty people need damn longer sentencing. And besides, they built six new prisons under Parsons’ term. Lotta new jobs. More than your boy Obama can say for his policies.”
Hal and Allen exchanged glances, both rolling their eyes upward a bit. Frank always carried his arguments too far, Hal thought, but he was never really sure how much of what Frank said was real and how much of it was . . . well, bait.
“C’mon, Frank-o, get real.” Allen took another swig of beer. He liked these afternoon bull sessions, even if Hal’s taste in beer was a bit strange; Landshark this week, Red Label last week, what was it the week before? “The only reason Parsons was even tapped was because Texas has one helluva lotta electoral votes. Pure and simple. The guy’s a bozo. They didn’t even know each other before they met on the day of the announcement.”
“Al, buddy, think about it. Doesn’t matter if they knew each other. It’s all the staff guys that do the research and all anyway. Look at the facts. Parsons is one fine law-and-order man. Hell, every time I hear that theme music to Law & Order, I think Governor Parsons and get goose-bumps. Look how he shored up security at the border when the feds couldn’t do it. How he cut back on welfare and got the cheats off the rolls. Too damned many of those blasted welfare recipients driving Cadillacs.”
“Get real, Frank.” It was Hal’s turn again. “Next you’ll be telling me welfare mothers have all those babies just so they can get another $80 a month. I give credit to Parsons for firming up security at the border. Lord knows we needed it. But what about all those reports of shootings by state militia? These aren’t army guys. They’re not National Guard. They’re a bunch of trigger happy NRA guys concerned that someone from Mexico or Central America is going to come across the border and take their jobs. Parsons did nothing to keep those people in line.”
“There’s a song that reminds me of Parsons, too,” piped up Allen. “Theme from Sesame Street.” Both Hal and Frank looked him. “What? I missed the moment?”

Samuel Parsons was born in Post, Texas, where he was an indifferent student before he graduate from high school twenty-first in his class of thirty. Post was a small town of about 3500 people, dependent on agriculture and the vagaries of the weather. Voters elected Parsons mayor in 2008. Post mayors generally had little to do other than occasionally direct a letter to the state utility commission or attend a monthly council meeting. Fortunately for the future Presidential candidate, however, he was able to show his mettle when a crime spree occurred in his town. After car window was shattered by a rock and a motorcycle was stolen, Parsons ordered the sheriff to place anyone out after dark into jail for the night. He gained regional attention when it was reported in Dallas newspapers Post had no curfew hour and that 95% of the people jailed were either Hispanic or black. Within a year, he resigned his position and moved to Lubbock, a city of about a quarter-million people about forty miles west. Buying a percentage of a local television station (Hal thought it odd no one had ever explained where the funds had come from), Parsons gave himself prime time airplay, using his time to interview guests, the locally famous and the not-so-famous, extremists from both the left and the right. He patterned his interview style after Joe Pyne, one of his childhood heroes. He rarely subjected militia members, pro-life, pro-death penalty, or anti-immigration guests to any particularly deep questions. He reserved his grilling and name calling to those guests who were pro-choice, anti-death penalty, or just plain pinhead liberal Socialist Communist anti-American pink namby-pamby jackasses. He insisted he slipped when he called Howard Stern a motherfucker on the air, but he was quickly developing a reputation as the Texan Rush Limbaugh. Even Glenn Beck traveled to Lubbock to be on his program and call him “Lubbock’s answer to the sissified Obamafied politics that have taken over our country.” Parsons’ television exposure and his reputation for straight talk allowed him to stage an upset victory over incumbent governor Rick Perry to take the Republican nomination for governor of Texas in 2010.
The election pitted him against Democratic nominee Kinky Friedman, a relative newcomer to politics whose main claim to fame was a song titled, “They Don’t Make Jews Like Jesus Anymore.” Parsons won a lopsided victory in November.
While governor, Parsons pursued a law and order agenda. (Hal saw this as right-speak for the whittling away of civil rights.) He spoke out against the ineffectiveness of the federal government’s domestic and international policies in the weekly television addresses he used as his pulpit. His detractors were “jackasses,” liberals were “dangerous morons,” pro-choice adherents were “cold blooded baby killers who would stick a vacuum cleaner hose in a women’s body for a few lousy dollars.” It was insinuated, though never quite said, that all Latinos (Parsons labeled everyone in this category as “Messican”) were thieves, Jews were bigger thieves, and blacks were murdering thieves.
And the public just ate it up. A year after his election as governor, Texas’ junior senator died when his plane crashed in Bermuda, where he was en route on a fact-finding tour. Samuel Parsons appointed himself to fill the now empty senate seat. When informed he was unable to do this by Texas law, Parsons resigned his gubernatorial seat. His successor’s first job in office was to appoint Samuel Parsons the new junior senator from Texas.
When the Republican National Committee helped cast about for a vice-presidential candidate in 2012, Parsons was regarded as a Texas hick, opinionated and quirky, a man who liked his alcohol (too much) and his women (dangerously young). But he was a populist in a state with big electoral votes and someone the powers that be thought they could control. For this he was crowned the nominee for vice-president.
He was off and running.