Dropdead Fine

After Oklahoma stole the Alamo with a convoy of eighteen eighteen-
wheelers and three Mexicans, Texas came up and drove the Gawlmighty
Gang out of Oklahoma and made it apologize.

Gawlmighty was doubly humiliated to have to bow to the will of his own
home state where he had once been governor. It just didn't look right in
the newspapers. (But little of the damage he did ever made it into the the
mainstream papers who were all well-paid and proud to play along.)

Tired of Hitler, Gawlmighty went back to pretending he
was the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Then things went from bad to worse.

Gawlmighty was cokey and hadn't paid attention when Hurricane Hannibal
ate most of New Orleans and Gawlmighty was left looking like he'd been
cokey and hadn't paid attention. As Hannibal chased Louisiana up to the
Great Lakes region, Gawlmighty was watching the little wisps of grey
smoke come up when smokebubbles popped on the beach. Three days
after everything was dry again, Gawlmighty flew over the storm-ravaged
area in the Space Shuttle and told a reporter it didn't look that bad to him.

But his troubles didn't really start until he met Bambianna at a
dinner party in her honor. She was the ambassador from Bambidamn,
a small country in the Alps with no people. She was also sleek, lovely,
and hotter than Venus. Gawlmighty was introduced to her as if he were
the President of the United States.

"No! Zis must be, howyousay, a joke! You tink because I from a country
of no people that you can bring me zis handsome moofie star and tell
me he is zee President and I will know notzing of your ruse!"

"Nah, really, purty lady," Gawlmighty said, blushing lime. "I'm the real
Prez'dent. I stole it fair and square!"

Miss Handbasket lifted a lace hankie to her bombastic bosom and
smiled a smile that made it hard for him to think. It was then that
Gawlmighty truly grew up. And since he didn't wear anything but the
cowboy hat and the cowboy boots, it was obvious to Helena that
Gawlmighty liked her.

Miss Handbasket pretended that she was enamoured of Gawlmighty
because she had been paid very well to do so. Gawlmighty, on Ick's
advice, had used homosexuals as scapegoats the way Hitler had used
Jews. But unlike the homosexuals themselves, payback was a real
bitch. It was her assignment to wrap him around her little finger and
then dismiss him with a snap.

Gawlmighty took his hat off around Miss Helena like Texans did
around the ladyfolk. But the first time he did, Helena passed out
over the ugliness of his bald reptilian head. So he bought himself
a toupee that looked like he snatched it off a clown's head. It was
several days before Miss Handbasket could look at him without
having to run off somewhere and laugh.

Helena Handbasket dragged Gawlmighty through two months of
romantic degradation and had him kissing her slippers at the end.
He was so addicted to the comfort he was getting from the nimble
Miss Handbasket that he would do anything she said. When she
told him to pee on a Bible while she took photographs, he was
beyond denying her anything.

With relief, she learned from her gay patrons that her job was done
and she could leave Gawlmighty. She left, in the middle of one of his
lies, so amazingly fast that he thought she had disappeared and called
Ghostbusters. But he wasn't all alone. He was beside himself.

The awkward Christian soldiers who had been right behind him as long
as he pretended to do what they thought God wanted were
thumping their Bibles and gathering stones. He had betrayed all the
Christians moral values that had made this country the wonderful
mess it is today. How could he do such a horrible thing? Did the Devil
make him do it? If so, he had no business being the leader of a God-
fearing country! With the Washington Monument being so handy, there
was no need to look for a stake to burn him at. But he must be punished!
Christianity was a religion about punishment first and foremost in the
common hypochristian's mind. To hell with impeachment! Crucify him!

But the worst of it all, from Gawlmighty's point of view, was the fact that
something should have been visible in the notorious photograph that
was so small that it could not be seen. Somehow, no one was all that
afraid of Gawlmighty after that.

But, just when Gawlmighty thought that things couldn't possibly get any
worse, something happened that dug his grave even deeper.

Blood may be thicker than water. But it's not as thick as money.