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Signs of the Times: A Tale of the Campaign Trail

A Fictional Work

By W. John Williamson, FCBO NEWS NETWORK Correspondent

“Where in the hell could those signs have gone?” Rickie Saunders said,
dismayed at the disappearance of even more of his campaign signs.

“I don’t know,” said his right-hand man, Silas, in charge of putting up
the signs. “Somebody really has it in for you.”

Rickie’s girlfriend Molly, too, was concerned about the situation. Her red
hair seemed to blaze with indignation as she blurted out: “What kind of a
wacko would do such a thing?”

Rickie chuckled, thought her beautiful when she was angry, but took her
seriously: “I don’t know, but it’s a pain and a nuisance, that’s for sure.
Financially as well.”

“We can’t let this S.O.B. get away with this, Rickie,” she said, her dark
eyes flashing.

“That’s easy to say,” Rickie replied, glad for her support. “But how do we
find the guy, or woman, who’s doing this?”

Congressional District 6 covered a lot of area. Someone out there didn’t
like him. But who?

Hubert Gulch looked at the numerous signs of “Rickie Saunders U.S.
Congress” that were in the shed in his back yard. He had been collecting
the signs, as it were, since June from various locations throughout
District 6. He thought of them as his “prisoners of war.” The war between
the Republicans and the Democrats. Between Conservatives and the
feeble-minded liberals. Those who were Pro-Life and those who were
Pro-Death. Those who were worthy and those who were the scum, as he called
them, of the earth; or the Devil’s spawn, filthy Communists, or other
high-level intellectual expressions.

Mr. Gulch knew that he was not alone in the way he thought. He had been to
meetings of the Tea Party in Fountain Hills. There, he had heard others
express the same thoughts as he, using the same words. “Illegal
immigrants” should “go back to where they came from,” were words he had
heard there and with which he agreed. Rickie Saunders supported a path to
citizenship for undocumented immigrants, but this was something which Mr.
Gulch strongly, if not fanatically, opposed. Mr. Gulch felt that by taking
down Mr. Saunders’ signs that he could do damage to the Democratic
candidate’s campaign.

At the Tea Party meetings in Fountain Hills, sometimes Congressman Robert
Capricorn would be in attendance. Capricorn was the Republican congressman
from CD6 of which Fountain Hills was a part. The congressman was in his
second term. He did not openly advocate that his followers say hateful
things about the other side; but neither did he discourage it. That’s the
nature of leadership sometimes; whatever motivates one’s followers to
support one’s cause, so be it. Yet that doesn’t make it right.

Mr. Gulch was not a tall man. He was slender, as if his anxiety about the
future of our country kept him from eating an adequate diet. Much like the
alcoholic may only leave room mainly for alcohol; so also, in this case,
the fanatic let his obsession rule his existence. He had blonde hair, cut
rather short; and he dressed in clothes of a drab, almost colorless hue.
His brown eyes looked at the world as if on their guard against some
terrible evil that might, at any moment, overthrow what he believed was
the good. His hands had a nervous energy that craved a task to do, such
as, in this case, take down a “Rickie Saunders for U.S. Congress” sign,
abscond with it, and take it furtively to the work shed in his back yard
where the other “prisoners of war” were in captivity.

Hubert’s wife, Penny, had questioned him about his late-night/very early
morning jaunts out into the community. “What are you doing out at 3:00
A.M.? That’s when the drug addicts and others like that are on the
streets.” Her eyes grew wide in an attempt to discern a clue as to the
nature of his activities.

“Been nervous lately,” Gulch informed her. “Can’t sleep. Drivin’ my
pick-up calms me.”

Penny became suspicious. Her husband’s explanation did not satisfy her.

Late July, Hubert went out around 4:30 AM, of an early Sunday morning. He
had seen a new green, white, and blue Saunders sign the previous day put
up on the northwest corner of Bell Road and Tatum Boulevard, by the Wells
Fargo Bank. The sign had the characteristic kicking Democratic donkey on
it.

“Ripe for the takin’,” Gulch thought as he drove determinedly to the
location of his latest target. “To save the Republic,” he muttered as he
saw the object of his mission come into view.

He pulled into the bank parking lot and brought his vehicle to a halt. He
got out with his wirecutters in hand and strode towards the evil sign. He
grasped the top of the sign roughly, then clipped the plastic ties one by
one to detach the sign from the two rebar poles that held it up for all to
view. “Dirty Democrats!” he said as he pulled the sign free and held it in
his hand as if a helpless prey that he had trapped. “You’re mine now!”

He pulled the two rebars out of the ground so that it would not be evident
that a sign had been removed from its poles. “No use for these,” he said
dismissively.

About that time, it so happened that Rickie Saunders was driving towards
the Bell and Tatum intersection, but he was still far enough away that he
could not see the corner. He was up early so that he could put some signs
up in the western part of the District out by 43rd Avenue, the western
boundary. Molly had come along, not necessarily because she wanted to, but
because she did not want Rickie out at that hour by himself.

As the Bell and Tatum intersection came into view, Rickie let out a cry
of dismay: “I can’t believe this! Another sign has disappeared! Damn those
sign thieves!”

“Maybe it’s lying down on the ground,” Molly said, trying bring some hope
into the situation. “They do that sometimes, you know.”

Meanwhile, Hubert Gulch had headed west from the intersection, on his way
to his home hear 40th Avenue and Bell.

The driver, Thomas Pendergast, of the black Suburban going east had just
come from a bar where he had stayed until the late hours servicing his
hankering for alcohol.

Suddenly the Suburban crossed the center line.

“What the–!” gasped Gulch. But it was too late.

The Suburban hit the Tacoma head-on and there wasn’t much of a contest.

The crash was a boom that left flames coming from the Tacoma’s engine. The
flames shot upward into the dark morning sky as from the depths of Hell.

Rickie saw the flames in the distance.

“What’s that?” he cried out, and drove instinctively towards the blaze
about a quarter mile west of Bell and Tatum.

He, with Molly, arrived at the crash site and pulled off to the right side
of the road.

“Don’t get hit by a car!” Molly shouted to him as he opened his driver’s
side door.

As he crossed Bell Road, he eyed the flames shooting upwards from the
Toyota’s hood. He rounded the pick-up so that now he saw the driver’s
side. The driver, a man, was slumped over the steering wheel, inert.

To his left, Rickie noticed another man wandering in the eastbound lane,
weaving from side to side, as if inebriated.

Focusing back on the driver of the Tacoma, Rickie approached the driver’s
side door hypercircumspectly, not wishing, to tell the truth, to get blown
up. He put his hand on the door handle; it was too hot to hold onto for
any length of time. He took his handkerchief out of his pocket and, using
it to insulate his hand, opened the door gingerly.

The blond-haired man inside was unconscious, that was for sure. How else
would he be able to bear the heat? Rickie moved to unbuckle the seatbelt,
using his handkerchief again to shield his hands from the scorching heat.
He then pulled the man, who must have been about six feet in height, from
the front seat and, staggering under the man’s weight, although he was
thin, started to drag him away from the vehicle.

The inferno towered in front of Rickie like a monster who would swoop down
on him at any moment. The heat on his face was unbearable. He heard
himself crying out the temperature was so great. Yet as he gained distance
from the Tacoma, he experienced infinite relief as his skin escaped the
onslaught of the heat. Now he was on the south side of the road, at what
he thought was a safe distance.

Without warning, the pick-up exploded, showering debris all about him.

“Molly!” he shouted out in the direction of across the street. “Are you
all right?”

Soon he heard her voice at his side. “I called 9-1-1,’ she panted. “The
ambulance and firetrucks are on their way.”

Glancing over at her, he noticed to his right one of his campaign signs.
It said, clear as day: “Rickie Saunders U.S. Congress, with the kicking
donkey in the center of the sign.”

“What is this doing here?” he asked her.

“I don’t know.”

“Did it come from the pick-up?” he asked, incredulous.

When the paramedics arrived, the man from the pick-up, as they put him on
the stretcher, started to regain consciousness. He looked about him, as if
discovering the world, and human life, for the first time.

“What happened?” he said.

One of the paramedics answered. “You see this guy here?” he said, as he
pointed to Rickie.

The injured man nodded.

“He saved your life, my friend. First, the air bags saved you. Then this
guy pulled you out. You would have been a goner in that truck, sir. You
would have been blown to kingdom come.”

Hubert Gulch looked uncertainly at Rickie. “Thank you,” he said, out of
the zone of shock in which he was living.

“Not a problem.”

Gulch struggled to speak and said, hoarsely: “What’s your name?”

“Rickie Saunders, sir.”

“Oh, I see,” Gulch said, confused, as if he was supposed to understand
something, but couldn’t, in the throes of just having barely escaped
death, figure out what it was.

In the hospital later, it all became clear, because Officer Bart Hernandez
of the Phoenix Police Department was there. Penny Gulch’s suspicions had
gotten the better of her and she had gone out into the shed in their
backyard and seen the Saunders signs–some 27–all arranged against the
walls, neatly. Something was not right with that picture, as she told the
officer when he came out that morning to look for himself.

“We’ve received reports of Saunders signs being stolen,” he told her as he
stood in the shed talking to her. “This must be where they ended up.”

Officer Hernandez, in the hospital now and looking at Gulch carefully,
said: “You have the right to remain silent, as whatever you say may be
used against you.”

“What’s this all about?” Gulch said.

“We found the signs in your backyard shed,” Officer Hernandez reported.

“Oh,” Gulch said. “I was trying to save the Republic.”

“Sir?” the officer said.

“Nothing, Officer,” Gulch said. “You may take back the prisoners now.”

“Sir?”

“Nothing, Officer,” Gulch again said. “It’s just that this whole
experience has been kind of a dream–a nightmare, I guess you could say.
But I’m awake now, and I think things will be better.”

Officer Hernandez looked at Penny Gulch anxiously, as if uncertain how to
take Hubert’s words.

“It’s okay, officer,” she said, as she nodded reassuringly at him. “I
think things are going to be okay now.”

Candidate Saunders was not averse to letting Hubert Gulch work out his
redemption in a fair-minded manner. In return, when he recovered, which
was, to tell the truth, in about three weeks, Gulch put every one of the
27 signs he had stolen, including the one that had been thrown from the
bed of his pick-up in the explosion, back in its original location, rebar
and all. In return for that, the felony theft charges were dropped by
Candidate Saunders.

“We all make mistakes,” Saunders told the newspaper reporter afterwards,
“But what matters is not that we have fallen, but that we get up.”

Talking with the same reporter a little later that day, Hubert Gulch said:
“It’s embarassing to be saved by a Democrat, but,” he admitted, “it is
what it is and I’m thankful to Mr. Saunders for saving my life, not only
from the towering flames, but from the folly of my misguided notion of
fair competition too. I’m still a Conservative,” he added hastily, “but
there’s a place in my heart for Rickie Saunders that wasn’t there before.
If only more people could learn this without having to end up on Death’s
door in order for it to happen. If we could only learn, as Barry Goldwater
once said, to disagree agreeably, life, politically, in our country would
be more congenial and bearable.”

“Thank you for your words,” the reporter said.

“You’re welcome,” Gulch replied.

Copyright 2014 by W. John Williamson. All rights reserved.
Scottsdale, Arizona

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