The King Did Not Hang

On the evening of May 6, 2011, Ron Hagglesoap called a press conference to announce he’d formed a Presidential Exploratory Committee. Ron Hagglesoap, a cable car operator in Patoka, Ind. had never called a press conference before, but he felt sure that calling a press conference was the correct thing to do immediately after forming a Presidential Exploratory Committee. And so he did.

Billy Furt, of the weekly Patoka Waxwing, was the only reporter to show for Ron Hagglesoap’s press conference, which Ron Hagglesoap had - perhaps somewhat rashly - called for six o’clock the next morning.

It was likely that the only reason the Waxwing sent a reporter to cover the press conference was that Billy Furt had been sitting next to Ron Hagglesoap at the bar the previous night at Ye Greene Sheepe when Ron Hagglesoap formed his Presidential Exploratory Committee and subsequently called the press conference.

Also, that next morning Billy Furt woke up on Ron Hagglesoap’s living room pull-out sofa bed, parched like you fucking read about and without his car keys, so he needed Ron Hagglesoap to give him a ride back to the Sheepe so he could get his keys back from the tavern’s proprietor, Shifty Hooker, and collect his ’88 Hyundai Zebedee.

In return, Billy Furt agreed to cover Ron Hagglesoap’s press conference, during which, it was rumored, Ron Hagglesoap would announce the formation of a Presidential Exploratory Committee.

Also, Billy Furt was, technically, the only reporter in Patoka (Roberta von Crispp was regarded by most everyone in town as a celebrity bloggist, not a proper reporter) and the only employee of the Waxwing.

Both Ron Hagglesoap and Billy Furst arrived at the press conference nearly 18 hours late. They had been on their way to the Patoka Community Center & Ice Arena where the press conference had been scheduled, when Ron Hagglesoap realized they were passing Ye Greene Sheepe, and that Shifty Hooker’s rusted out Mitsubishi Pentateuch was parked out back. Shifty Hooker (real name was Palsy) sometimes opened for brunch on Sundays, and on this Sunday Ron Hagglesoap and Billy Furt stepped in for some caramel corn and gin.

When Ron Hagglesoap and Billy Furt finally made it to the Patoka Community Center & Ice Arena, a little after midnight, Ron Hagglesoap made the announcement that he’d formed a Presidential Exploratory Committee. And then he opened the floor to questions.

Billy Furt began with the obvious press conference opener: Did Ron Hagglesoap have Billy Furt’s winning Quick Draw Keno ticket from the night before? Ron Hagglesoap checked his pockets and announced to Patoka’s press corp that he did not now, nor did he ever, have Furt’s winning Quick Draw Keno ticket from the previous evening.

Billy Furt was a natural reporter, a curious truth-seeker who had covered Gibson County politics for three of the last seven years, and so he asked Ron Hagglesoap a follow-up: Could Ron Hagglesoap please check his jacket pockets for the Quick Draw Keno ticket?

Ron Hagglesoap produced the crumpled Quick Draw Keno ticket from the left pocket of his Pacer’s windbreaker. Veteran beat reporters like Billy Furt know that persistence pays off. When no one else in the gaggle is willing to ask the obvious, it’s sometimes that softball question that forces the source of the question itself - the act of questioning itself - to locate the root of all answers. And if some reporters are willing to plumb those depths while others stand on the edge of foamy darkness, if some reporters are willing to travel low to the dirty dirt floor of the valley and then, after that, travel way up high to the top of the much cleaner valley top, like to the clean roof of the valley…

Billy Furt sat down on the floor at the Patoka Community Center & Ice Arena. He’d had fourteen Galliano shots at the Sheepe, and he wasn’t thinking straight. It was after midnight, the tail of a six-day bender, and he was confused. He was forgetting things. He’d forgotten, in fact, what Ron Hagglesoap’s Presidential Exploratory Committee was exploring. Could Ron Hagglesoap please remind the assembled press about the reason this committee was being formed?

Ron Hagglesoap looked stricken. Ashen. White as a white, white ghost that’s has been in a bleach bath for four hours because it hadn’t been quite white enough to be so scary. For a moment Ron Hagglesoap pretended not to hear the question. Then he mumbled something about freedom and America and turkey gravy, which was confusing. But then, the entire scene at the Patoka Community Center & Ice Arena was confusing. Finally, flustered, Ron Hagglesoap left the podium, yelping about exploring Billy Furt’s dumb cranium for brain cells. Also, he threw up. And then Ron Hagglesoap drove Billy Furt back to the Sheepe in his ’97 Pontiac Pleroma for five more Galliano shots before last call.

The headline, above the fold, in the following week’s Patoka Waxwing was - most Patoka citizens agreed - unkind.

“Local cable car operator forms Presidential Exploratory Committee to test…what waters? He doesn’t really know. And then he threw up on me.”

It wasn’t one of Billy Furt’s best headlines, but he’d always had trouble editing himself, and since there were no copy editors (or any editors at all) at the Waxwing, he was left to crush his own dreams. From Ron Hagglesoap’s point of view, things didn’t really improve in the story itself. The lead of Billy Furt’s story - most Patoka citizens agreed - was cruel.

“An explorer traditionally sets out exploring for something other than his own ass. Not local cable car operator, Ronald Hagglesoap.”

Waxwing subscriber, Shemmie St. Yachtthrottle, read the paper that morning and felt horrible for Ron Hagglesoap. First of all, before they’d split three years earlier, she’d been married to Billy Furt for what seemed like fucking ages. And, secondly, Shemmie St. Yachtthrottle had once been a member of a Presidential Exploratory Committee. She knew how these things worked, and she knew the process wasn’t pretty.

She called Ron Hagglesoap. Hey, she said. I can help. I’ve got experience in the Presidential Exploratory Committee sector, and I have a friend from class who is itching to lead a Presidential Exploratory Committee. This guy has ideas, Shemmie St. Yachtthrottle said.

Ron Hagglesoap appreciated the sympathy, and even the offer for help, but he wasn’t sure. After all, he’d already been humiliated in the media. Why put himself out there again, when - if he was honest with himself - Billy Furt was right? He really didn’t have anything worthy of presidential exploration in mind.

I read the Waxwing story about your press conference, and from what I understand, it sounds like your passions have something to do with freedom and America and rabbits and chalk, Shemmie St. Yachtthrottle said. Those are ideas I can get behind. I believe in you, she said. I believe that you believe. As long as you believe, then I believe in you and your campaign for chalky American rabbit gravy.

This is crazy, thought Ron Hagglesoap. A week earlier he’d decided to form a Presidential Exploratory Committee, then he called the press together to announce his intentions…of nothing. And now here he was, on the cusp of really forming a Presidential Exploratory Commitee; of having believers. Yes, it was crazy. But if there was never a crazy, Ron Hagglesoap thought, then Thomas Edison would never have been a member of Mumenchanz.

Let’s do it! he said to Shemmie St. Yachtthrottle. But she had hung up while he was trying to remember the difference between Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin. So he called her back and said, Let’s Do It! very loudly into her ear. What the fuck?!! Shemmie St. Yachtthrottle asked. And then Ron Hagglesoap apologized for screeching like that.

So Shemmie St. Yachtthrottle brokered a meeting between Ron Hagglesoap and her friend, Morris Kraptost, whom she’d met in continuing-education crystal calligraphy class at Patoka College, and who was studying for an advanced degree in Panda Math - the discipline of teaching linear algebra and (later) game theory to pandas. The Chinese bears.

Morris Kraptost had, indeed, led a Presidential Exploratory Committee, he told Ron Hagglesoap. The year was 1987, and the candidate was Heather Skrylbottum who had launched a campaign for election to the Eleventh Presidency of the World Garlic Council.

It had been Morris Kraptost’s idea to set up a fake organization, Pelt Children with Garlic - or PCwG (pronounced “pee see smalldoubleyou jee”) - which advocated throwing bulbs of garlic at children whenever that opportunity presented itself to one.

In its fake mission statement, PCwG said garlic “should be thrown at children because children represent innocence and who wants to look at that anymore?” Morris Kraptost’s strategy had been to heighten, then corral, parents’ anger against the PCwG, and finally provide an anodyne to their pain via Heather Skrylbottum. A mother herself, Heather Skrylbottum - in remarks during the committee exploration phase of her bid for the Eleventh Seat of the World Garlic Council presidency - denounced, in no uncertain terms or words or phrases or other words, the irresponsible assault on American children by anti-garlic forces whose only goal was to eliminate a child’s basic right to grow up without bulb bruises.

The disintegration of Heather Skrylbottum’s Presidential Exploratory Committee came after garlic-industry beat reporters were tipped off to Morris Kraptost’s scheme by children in his own neighborhood whom Morris Kraptost had been pelting with garlic as he “hid” behind a small spruce in his front yard.

This was exactly what Ron Hagglesoap had been hoping to hear. Morris Kraptost was the kind of leader who could bring together an effective Presidential Exploratory Committee. More importantly, Morris Kraptost had the experience to be able to find some kind of presidency for which Ron Hagglesoap could form an exploratory committee.

Ron Hagglesoap threw a fist in the air. Rock ‘n Roll-a! he said. He’d never said Rock ‘n Roll-a! before, and he wasn’t quite sure where he’d first heard it. But things were coming together for his Presidential Exploratory Committee, and it felt great to yell Rock ‘n Roll-a! as he threw a fist in the air. It was energizing and it gave him the kind of morale boost he’d need to make it through what was sure to be a brutal campaign.

At that moment, Ron Hagglesoap determined that Rock ‘n Roll-a! - with not one, but four fist throws (one for each syllable) - would be the official motto/arm movement for his Presidential Exploratory Committee.

Since veteran political consultant Morris Kraptost was sitting right there, Ron Hagglesoap consulted with him on the motto/arm movement idea. Morris Kraptost said he loved it, especially the throwing of the fists straight up in the air, above one’s head, rather than straight out in front of one’s chest - horizontally, parallel to one’s shoes. Or parallel to, say, a bottle of Galliano tipped on its side on the Sheepe’s floor and in danger of being stepped on, it’s long, delicate neck shattered and all the syrupy, golden liqueur seeping into the months of grime, vomit residue and dried urine coating the floor to the right of the bar next to the Golden Tee Golf coin-operated video game.

One wouldn’t want to throw one’s fists straight out in front of one on the campaign trail - lest one punch a baby, or a member of a minority group in the head, Morris Kraptost said. The support of mothers and Buddhists is crucial in the exploration phase of any presidential run, he explained to Ron Hagglesoap.

Ron Hagglesoap was uncomfortable with all of Morris Kraptost’s talk about Hindu fist babies, and he was really weirded out when Morris Kraptost started in on how “one” would do this, and “lest” this happened. What was he, Dutch?

So Ron Hagglesoap fired Morris Kraptost on the spot and determined he’d turn spilled milk into lemons by basing his first Presidential Exploratory Committee television ad on the bold move of firing Morris Kraptost. Better the devil you know than bark up the wrong tree, he figured. A house divided against itself paints a thousand words. And then he asked Morris Kraptost to pay the $6.95 for the fancy grapefruit he’d just eaten at Froederich’s Fancy Cafe while listening to Morris Kraptost’s pitch.

I totally understand, Morris Kraptost told Ron Hagglesoap after his job had been eliminated from Hagglesoap’s Presidential Exploratory Committee after recent streamlining. It would be difficult for the American people to get beyond the fact that in my past I fired hard-necked rocamboles at children for political gain, he said.

But Morris Kraptost had become a believer in Ron Hagglesoap’s cause. You need help. That’s much is clear, Morris Kraptost said. Let me introduce you to my Presidential Exploratory Committee network. They’re good people.

The list wasn’t long, but it was gamy. It was nosey. It was all sun-boiled tartar sauce and cigarette butts. Morris Kraptost kept that list hidden under the passenger seat of a ‘03 Suzuki Sheol that had been abandoned - windows down - by the overpass at Interstate 41, near the airport. The two men walked out of Froederich’s arm-in-arm to retrieve the document, and to make a dream come true.

Ron Hagglesoap, Ron Hagglesoap thought, was on his way in the zippy, kaleidoscopic world of Presidential Exploratory Committees.

Hejji Rammelkhark
EXPERIENCE: Selection of Indiana’s first Presidential Exploratory Committee in 1978, when his son’s Little League team - the Palmyra Phantoms - was absent a coach. Refused to be called “coach” because of his aversion to “faux-thority,” but embraced the prospect of exploiting his new position to bang Rose Marble, shortstop Richie Marble’s divorced mom, who came to all the games in a black Corvette with a white rose painted on the hood. Yes, Sir!
DRIVES: ’88 Subaru Parousia

“Spaghetti” John Cazzpouge
EXPERIENCE: Gathered members of the famous Rensselaer Riggle Piggle Six carpool team together before the 2007 decision to name Rita Schweart coordinator (ie. president) of all Riggle Piggle carpool schedules for the 2007-2008 school year.
DRIVES: ’06 Honda Chrysostom

Camille Horfle
EXPERIENCE: As the first female butcher in Indiana to win three of the five competitions (stunning, exsanguination, dehairing) at the annual Indiana Great Slaughter of Animals Festival in North Vernon in 1996, Horfle led the search for the next head of the state’s Hot-bone Slaughterhouse Oversight Board.
DRIVES: ’85 Buick Jebusite

Richie Sbuk
EXPERIENCE: Consistently decided who would go first in shuffle board during a family Puta Hermosa Cruise Lines vacation from Panama City to Cancun.
DRIVES: Mom’s ’99 Ford Apostasy

Sue Corkenflap
EXPERIENCE: In 1993, voted Most Likely to Fall Over Because She’s So Dumb by her sisters at Alpha Epsilon Theta Delta Epsilon at Indiana University.
REDEMPTION: First woman in Indiana to sit on fourteen Presidential Exploratory Committees, including for Youth Cigar Team in Covington, Hop Scotch and More Scotch Club for nurse practitioners at St. Vincent Catholic Hospital in Terre Haute, and Radial Rotations Day at the Tire Rack in Elkhart.
DRIVES: ’04 Lincoln Ecclesiastic