The Loneliest Gnome in All the World

One of the oldest adages in politics and, one of my favorites as a matter of fact, is that a somebody beats a nobody. Every time.
Ladies and gentlemen I give you - - Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and, for good measure, Senator Hillary Clinton to name just two.
So it is that Bushie the porch gnome finds himself bungeed to the spare tire on the back of Boss Trent’s ramshackle motorhome on the way to the inauguration of the chief executive of New Orleans one Paris Hilton, soon to be the Honorable Paris Hilton, Mayor of New Orleans.
Also in attendance, Governor Britney Spears Federline Zimmerman Hudson Taomorino al-Hakim Jefferson Jackson Rodriguez Swett presiding. Why the fuck not, right. Right?!
Boss Trent was asked to do the Mayor-elect’s hair and makeup and so it was they hit the road that January day.
Anyway, it was freezing this January morning on the road between Pascagoula and New Orleans and Bushie was not a happy gnome. No, not at all. But, he was very rarely a happy gnome since he retired to Boss Trent’s stoop lo these many years ago. This is where he said he would be someday and that day came and people were only too happy to oblige him his dream of spending time on the porch of Trent Lott’s home in Pascagoula, the one rebuilt after the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. This is where he said he would come someday as the rest of Mississippi lay in ruins and southern Louisiana was nothing but a fetid miasma of sorrow and recrimination. Revered he was still in a few compounds in Idaho, reviled he was everywhere else.

It was unthinkable that Bushie would have moved on as a relatively young gnome after his presidency to do important things. Contribute to humanity, if you will. Write papers or articles for some faux “research institute” like the Project for a New American Century(PNAC) (the folks who provided the “intellectual reasoning” for the invasion of Iraq) or the American Enterprise Institute PNACs rancid progenitor. Or that he would have embarked on a studious retirement of bookwriting on his life and times and “service” to a great Nation. Wrtite books? Write books? Yeah, right. He didn’t read books, despite what you saw tucked under his arm on the way to Marine 1 on the South Lawn enroute to another dusty dry vacation at his “ranchette” in west Texas. Hey, screw those fancy liberal Eastern elites with their fancy reasoning and big words. You think Hank Hill read 1776? No way, hombre, not if it was 40% off at the Meglomart, no way.
Build homes for poor people or manage emerging democracy elections like Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton, puhleese – no shock ‘n awe in it people, no thanks.

The motorhome is directed to a spot in the north lot of the infamous Convention Center in New Orleans. As it came to a stop the bells on Bushie’s nutsack jingled a little. The bells were tied on his scrotum because when he first got to the mansion in Pascagoula he would wander inside and look for the liquor cabinet, that, dammit was always locked up. The bells would alert the night valet who would chase Bushie back outside and under the stoop. He would curl up staring at the black snake he named Karl, black snake with one rheumy eye and kidney stones ( Janice get research to see if snakes have kidneys), and he would imagine Karl hissing at him, something about lost opportunities and assuaging the base, and whatnot. Big fucking words to Bushie. But the nutless gnome has no fight in him. Oh no, not since his stones dried up and evaporated in that classroom in Florida. How long does a man’s testicles take to dry up and go pop. The time it takes for said grown man to read My Pet Goat in a classroom full of 2nd graders. 7 minutes, yo. You could make fun of Michael Moore all you want, hell, I might indulge from time to time but that is one thing no one can ever, ever, take away from us and that is that 7 minutes that the gnome looked around and had no one to bail his ass out. Not this time.

Boss Trent gets out of the motorhome and unclips Bushie from the back of the motorhome and flicks his right ear where the golden orb spider spends her nights and sets the leash on Bushie for the walk over to City Hall for the inauguration ceremony. In one hand Boss Trent has his beauty kit with about a gallon of hair spray inside and in the other the leash with Bushie on the other end loping along. They make their way to a line of Dons Johns at the back of where everyone will be sitting and Bushie is chained to the brightest bluest John in the row so that everyone at the event who makes their way back for a piss is invited to piss on the gnome. The gnome got soaked that day with no one for company, not even Karl the black snake to hiss his curses. Oh, for the wet leaves and mud of the stoop back in Pascagoula. Hopefully, the autumn rains will come soon and wash the sticky and the stink away.