Beast Machine (36 page)

Instead of hinting at what
he was going to do by being purposefully vague, Southwyck showed
his hand to the entire country. Every single camera caught this
statement and many audible gasps could be heard in the crowd, and
across the nation.

There was a table of oil
and gas gentlemen in the ballroom. None were too pleased by the
statement Southwyck just made. Each man looked at one another
wondering, “What the hell is this idiot doing? Is this the best we
could do?” They wanted a charismatic guy, a guy that could schmooze
the press and the lowly people. Not some belligerent assclown that
just came out and said the plans directly. It didn’t matter if he
said that during a closed debate like in Bella Vista, but it was
idiotic for him to reveal a plan like that right in front of these
cameras.

Silence fell upon the room.
The disgusting silence felt only after someone completely fucks
up.

“
Isn’t that what you guys
want to hear?” yelled Southwyck. “Low Taxes. Woo!!” The crowd
stayed silent. “Come on, folks! LOW TAXES!”

McSuede interrupted the
silence, “Well, I think you’ve made your stance right there, Mr.
Southwyck. We’ll just end your turn early. Now Miss Steenburgen,
your rebuttal?” McSuede couldn’t believe he took time out of his
schedule to moderate this debate and try to help out this sap of a
candidate.

Southwyck, disappointed in
himself, lowered his head onto the podium. He kept it there until
his next turn to speak. He thought to himself, “I need a bump right
now, damn it.”

Steenburgen coughed before
speaking slowly, “I… think… that…” she coughed loudly once more.
“S’cuse me. I think that taxes are an important part of the
political system.”

Grumbles could be heard in
the crowd.

“
But it’s where the taxes
are allocated that matters! Mr. Southwyck thinks by cutting
corporate taxes to nothing will help Arkansas – it won’t – but I
think cutting taxes for…” The crowd stopped their
grumbling.

“…
animal services and fast
food establishments!” finished Steenburgen. The crowd sighed and
the businessmen shook their heads. “Who doesn’t want to help out
animals and make fast food meals cheaper?! They’re the only option
for food for poorer areas! We’d be helping the poor and poor
animals!” She tried to urge the crowd to join her in cheering for
her plan, but they continued to grumble. She sighed, “Thank you.
That is my rebuttal…” She closed her eyes tightly.

“
I know I enjoy my fatty
hamburgers after a rough night of drinking, Felicia!” said McSuede.
“Thank you for your rebuttal; Huxley Obelis, are you
ready?”

“
Yes,” said Chairman Obelis
as he scanned the crowd quickly. The table of oil and gas men sat
in their seats with sullen faces and sweaty palms. Even they were
unsure of how the state of Arkansas would shape up in the coming
years without a candidate under their thumb. “I would like to begin
stating that there are good and bad things about taxes, things that
are never properly explained. The good: infrastructure improvement
in the many cities and small towns in Arkansas – think roads,
bridges, hospitals, public transport! Infrastructure improvement
leads to jobs, better transportation options and better city
planning to attract companies, tourists and new residents. We want
Arkansas to be a wonderful place to live don’t we?”

The crowd hesitantly
clapped. Everyone looked around to see if everyone else was
clapping too. Some nodded their heads in agreement, while others,
like the businessmen and oilmen, sat with their sullen faces
clapping slowly.

“
There are more benefits to
taxes, but since I need to be brief I’ll go into the bad portion,”
continued Chairman Obelis. “Taxes suck!” The crowd, again, looked
around at one another and then began to clap. “No one wants to pay
taxes because then you’re losing
your
hard earned cash, right?” The
clapping grew louder, aside from the sullen businessmen and oilmen.
“I dislike the idea of sabotaging or disparaging others, but I feel
I must in this instance. Time and time again, you’ve been paying
your taxes and, for the most part, previous administrations have
handled your tax money poorly. They created frivolous governmental
departments, made asinine laws that benefit no one – not even you
rich business men!” Chairman Obelis pointed toward the table of
grumpy oil and gas men.

Each man jumped at the
acknowledgement. They plastered fake smiles on their faces and
nodded at Chairman Obelis. None of them were actually listening to
what Chairman Obelis was saying; they were much more worried about
how terrible their candidate was just a few short minutes ago.
Southwyck still had his head rested on his podium looking like a
dunce.

“
Twenty seconds!” said Don
McSuede happily.

“
Thank you,” said Chairman
Obelis. He nodded at McSuede. “Essentially, taxes are bad when
they’re mismanaged at the top – by the current administration.
Every administration wants to do right by the people that voted
them in, but this leads to short-term goals that screw up the
long-term. I have a background in many start-up companies and
technology businesses. I never trimmed a budget by firing someone
nor did I stick extra cash in my pocket by only trying to advance
myself or friends. We’re in this together and if taxes need to be
raised on the super rich for some years to correct past mistakes,
we must do so, but the money needs to be handled properly at the
top.”

“
Wow, what a rebuttal!”
exclaimed McSuede.

An employee of the college
tried to gently wake Southwyck from his podium. He had fallen
asleep at the end of Chairman Obelis’ rebuttal and began to snore.
He brushed the employee away and tried to keep sleeping.

Moaning could be heard from
the oil and gas men. “I thought this McSuede was supposed to
make
our
guy look
better?” said one man with a bumpy red nose. “Wasn’t this supposed
to be a sure thing?”

“
I don’t give a shit what
that skinny nigger says up there,” said another man with a black
cowboy hat, a bolo tie and denim shirt, “I want
our
damn guy in the governor’s spot.
We were promised by those pricks at the RNC that Southwyck was
going to run away with this. They fucked us over like I thought
they would, God damn it. They said we were demanding too much, but
bullshit. I need to go give them a fucking call. S’cuse me fellas.”
The denim wearing man stood up from his fellow oil and gas men, and
walked into the hallway.

As the man entered the
hallway, he went to pull out his cell phone but bumped into another
gentleman entering the ballroom. This caused the cell phone to fall
to the ground.
Crack-ack-ack
.

“
I’m terribly sorry!” said
the gentleman entering the ballroom. He bent down and picked up the
cell phone.

“
God fucking damn it, man!”
said the denim wearing man. “I have important people to talk to
right now!” He ripped his phone away from the gentleman. The denim
wearing man caught eye-contact with the gentleman and noticed the
piercing blue eyes and powder white hair the man had.

“
Like I said, I’m terribly
sorry,” said the white haired man. “Is there anything I can do to
help you, uh, what’s your name?”

Taken aback by the man’s
powerful blue eyes and politeness, “I’m, uh, Mr. Erdol. Jimmy Erdol
is the name! I’m the guy that runs Gaxxom,” said Jimmy Erdol. He
stuck his hand out as a greeting to the white haired man. “Sorry
for yellin’ at you! I’m just frustrated that the guy I’ve been
funding is a complete idiot!” The white haired man obliged to the
handshake. “He’s dumber than any farm animal I’ve come
across.”

“
Oh, you must be talking
about that Ryan Southwyck fella?” asked the white haired man. He
shook his head in disappointment. “He has a lot of problems to work
out it seems. Too arrogant and too drugged up on pills and beer. He
rides on his daddy’s coattails. Which leads me to this question,
Mr. Erdol, is it? Why would you fund a candidate with such a rocky
history?”

“
Well,” replied Jimmy
Erdol, “that’s a good point. We normally just trust the RNC to give
us a quality candidate then we donate to them. It usually works –
guess not this upcoming election. I’m just throwing money down a
damn well! That damn nigger is gonna runaway with this if Southwyck
can’t shape up!”

The white haired man
squinted painfully. “What about the democratic candidate, um,
Steenburgen, I think?” said the white haired man. “She’s better
than Southwyck.”

“
Better person maybe,” said
Jimmy Erdol as he crossed his arms, “but she’s a yuppie libtard, ya
know? She’s just going to fund things to help animals and weird
people. I don’t like that kind of shit.”

“
Is that such a bad thing
to help people?”

“
Well, no, I guess not, but
I just like to back a winner! She’s not a winner! She’s got no one
helping her – her own damn party hasn’t given her a cent! That’s a
joke. Sure, Southwyck is a dipshit but we’ll back him and try our
damndest to get him to win since he’s what we’ve got right
now.”

The white haired man and
Jimmy Erdol stood there for moment just staring at their
surroundings. A few paintings made by students of the community
college were hanging on the walls and the carpet had a floral
pattern with a gray background.

“
I think there’s something
I can do to help Southwyck win this election, Mr. Erdol, if you
have the money and proper connections,” said the white haired man
in a lowered, serious tone. “I can assure you a much closer
race.”

Again taken aback, Jimmy
Erdol replied, “What sort of connections? And what sort of money
are we talking here? You aren’t gonna kill him are you?”

“
I can if you need me to,”
said the white haired man. He licked his lips.

“
No,” said Jimmy Erdol. “I
don’t want to go down that route again, like we did in ’84, unless
it becomes absolutely necessary. First, let’s just try to scare him
can you do that? If that doesn’t work, then we’ll kill him and make
it look like he offed himself. I got a guy if you aren’t up to
it.”

The white haired man held a
grin on his face and replied, “Call me at this number in three
days. We’ll talk about a safe meeting place, compensation, and your
connections. Make sure you use a payphone.”Jimmy Erdol was handed a
card with a phone number written on it. “For now, this is goodbye
and I don’t know who you are and you don’t know who I am.” The
white haired man entered the ballroom to find his seat. Southwyck
was still trying to sleep at his podium as his friends tried to pry
him away from it.

“
Payphone… I haven’t seen
one of them in years. And I don’t know who you are! What’s your
damn name at least?” asked Mr. Erdol into the ballroom. “Can’t I at
least get that?”

Chapter 33
My Mind Hurts

Before Chairman Obelis had
taken over the mining facility, it was considered a deathtrap –
nicknamed “The Gulag” after all – because zero safety procedures
were followed or administered. The procedures were never regulated
either. Not once, even after it was made federal law that coal
mining operations were to undergo significant regulation. The Gulag
became a deathtrap for workers and citizens in the surrounding
area, generally anything that was alive. It was an environmental
disaster zone that no one in power knew about or would care
about.

Helmets given to the miners
rarely fit correctly and typically had cracks; the elevators
leading down to the main mining seams hadn’t been inspected for
decades and constantly got stuck in their shaft; oxygen tanks were
never properly filled, so many miners died of suffocation, while
others died from a litany of other avoidable work conditions.
Funerals happened so often that families would have group funerals
to save money.

Former owners of the mine
rarely had to pay out to the deceased’s family because they were
friends with the local government and police, or they claimed the
miner was drunk or on drugs at the time – sadly, this was normally
true as some miners were drunk or on drugs when they died in the
mine. Drug abuse was how they coped with the difficult working
conditions. All the miners knew how to do was work in the mine,
drink, smoke, eat and fuck. That’s all the owners wanted them to
know.

Despite the deadliness of
the mine, it stayed open for decades because, well, it made an
enormous amount of money for the owners of the mine and their pool
of workers spawned like rabbits.

The purposeful carelessness
– known as cost cutting – by the owners caused much of the
environmental disasters when the chemicals (benzene, nitrogen
oxides, and mercury, among many potent others) used to procure coal
from the mine permeated the local water tables – this led to 25% of
the local community to develop malignant tumors around their ears.
In addition to the tumors, a significant decrease in much of the
local flora was tied to the chemicals, and local fauna was known to
have the same ear tumors as the humans. Rodents and certain insects
were the only known organisms unaffected by the wastewater
runoff.

Luckily, and scientifically
implausible, children in the community eventually gained immunity
to the chemical water they drank and rarely had tumors form near
their ears, but were more likely to have chronic fatigue and
chronic masturbation disorders that ruined their social lives. The
mine was a deathtrap for the miners, the community and, in essence,
planet earth.