Meeting the vast Unwashed

Upon the Stoa, we pull up our chairs and watch the TV show, "The Moderator". This week, he is going to roam from coast to coast to meet people in the various regions of this great and diverse country. Pour a glass of OJ and enjoy.

The Moderator checked the pen top on his signature marker. His wife would kill him if it spotted his $500 shirt. He just returned from signing off on a new contract to continue doing the show.

Lately the show had become quite hazardous to his health. His life insurance policy quadrupled in price and his health insurance carrier threatened to drop him after a shotgun blast came within inches of damaging his sweet TV face.

The new contract took all that into account and gave him a hefty raise to cover the added expenses.

This time there was no specific agenda or generational slant to the show. He was just going to roam a few sample cities from East to West, North to South and ask general trivia questions. Some producer somewhere in the company thought this would be cute. We'll just see how cute, thought the Moderator.

His last bodyguard quit...from his hospital bed. He had to write down his resignation since DeRoy had busted his jaw with the butt of a shotgun. At least she just knocked him out. She was in rather a hurry to get at him so she didn't waste time finishing him off.

At least DeRoy was safely put away somewhere where she couldn't hurt anyone.

Since that little, petite psychopath was the only person to ever try to kill him, he felt he didn't a bodyguard anymore.

He had a different cameraman as well. He demanded a transfer to a different show and he was given the choice of either staying on the cushy, party-filled life of the Moderator Forum or going to help film documentaries on Yak migratory patterns in the Siberian winter. He chose the Yak. His loss.

The sound man was the same, though. Apparently, the shotgun barrel ruptured his stomach and after the surgery, the smaller stomach allowed him to lose about 50 pounds. The sound man's wife did not let him quit and told him that the next time his about to get hit to please lead with his face. Guess she is hoping for some plastic surgery for her husband.

Their first stop was going to be in the North East, Bangor, Maine. Very cold this time of year.

He was standing in front of a small library on the corner of S.Main St. and School Street. What better place to test the average education and sophistication level of the average Bangorian?

Stamping his feet for warmth, he saw a man coming in a typical cold-weather jacket.

"Excuse me sir, I'm with the Moderator Forum. Can you tell me if you've gone to the University?" Mist gathered around him on this windless, cold day.

"Yeah, fat lot of good it did me, eh?" He said with this oddly Canadian accent.

"I'm $55,000 in debt, have no job and no prospects. I declared Bankruptcy but student loans ARE NOT dischargeable. What a racket the Feds have, eh?"

"Thank you, sir."

They waited around stamping the ground to keep circulation in their feet until they saw an older woman round the corner and walk their way.

"Excuse me, Ma'am, I'm with the Moderator Forum and I'd like to ask you about living on a fixed income."

"People used to think that the older people were better off these days. We're not. Our pensions have stayed the same while inflation has gone up. Gone up ALOT in the last few years. Social Security was flat last year but my rent and expenses weren't."

"Do you think the government is doing enough to help the elderly?"

"I think the government has done enough. Too much, actually. Look, I'm cold and I have to go feed my goldfish."

The Moderator turned to the camera to finish the segment but did not get the words out before, "MAH GOLDFISH ARE DEAD! WHY DO YOU HAVE MAH GOLDFISH!"

DeRoy lept out of an old 1978 AMC Gremlin, more rust, holes, and gray cement then sheet metal. She jumped out, leaving the door open and the car in gear. The car rolled forward and hit the front of the studio van, her non-factory installed brush bar breaking out the headlights on the van.

DeRoy ripped around the back side of the car and slipped, sliding into a parked car.

The old woman, terror written on her face attempted to hobble her way towards the Library and assumed safety.

"Bleep!" Shouted the Moderator into the microphone. He rushed past the camera man and had his hand on the door handle before DeRoy could get up from the fall. The sound man opened up the side door and threw his equipment into the van.

As DeRoy ran in place on the ice for a moment, she caught site of the camera man continuing to film, even as the van's engine turned over.

"YOU SOM'BITCH" She began to get traction on the ice and snow and began rocket towards the camera.

The sound man reached out and grabbed the camera man with one arm while holding onto the door frame with the other. The van backed out at high speed, ramming the vehicle behind them. The wheel spun and the van pulled into the road, the cameraman being pulled along beside the van before he could be yanked to safety.

The van ran an oncoming car of the road as DeRoy literally leapt over the parked Gremlin. Before the Moderator could straighten the steering wheel, he hit DeRoy head on. She slammed into the front of the van, her face plastered to the windshield, a stream of profanities steaming the windshield.

As he pulled the wheel to the right, turning on S.Main St., she was flung off the front, windshield wiper clutched in her hand. She rolled into the parking lot of the local Save-A-Lot and out of the Moderator's sight.

It was not until he turned left on Wilson St. and onto the bridge that he reduced speed.

"What the hell was that about? Is she stalking me? How can she be so insanely strong!"

The cameraman panted, his breath being stolen by the wind as the side door slammed against its latches. The sound man was too shaken to slam the door shut.

Hours later they rolled into the suburbs of Virginia Beach, Virginia. It was warmer, about 60 degrees. A far more pleasant place than the cold Maine environment.

Ready for the second segment, they sipped coffee from the local Star Schmucks and looked up the Neptune statue.

Even though it was the middle of winter, there were people out enjoying the relatively mild day. Skateboarders, rollerbladers, and bikes zipped and zoomed everywhere. There were lots of people out walking as well.

A well dressed woman strolled by and he moved to intercept her, "Excuse me ma'am, I'm with the Moderator Forum and I'd like to ask you a question."

"Sure," she said.

"What do you think about Obama recently declaring victory in Iraq?"

"Oh, I'm glad thats over. So much money and young people getting killed."

The Moderator decided to prod her for more details, "Bombing is out of control and more civilians have been killed in the last two months than all of last year. Don't you think that it was premature for Obama to declare victory?"

The woman's nose crinkled like she had bit into a prune, "That's a civilian matter, not a military one. The war is over, it is all up to them now."

The Moderator thought she didn't quite get the difference between a shooting war and a revolution.

"What about when Bush declared 'Mission Accomplished', people gave him grief over that."

"Oh, yeah, that peabrain, the fighting went on for years after that. Obama actually ended it."

"Ma'am, there is a difference between winning a war and walking away from one."

She snorted and walked off without a word.

The Moderator turned to look South along the boardwalk and saw a teenager on a skate board start to go around him.

"Son, son, I'm with a TV show and would like to ask you a few questions."

"Shoot." The guy says.

"I assume you're in high school, right?"

"Yup, honor student."

"Ok, then, we have been at war with Afghanistan since 2003, can you tell me where it is."

The guy pulls out an iPhone from his pocket and starts to look it up.

"No, no, no. Can you tell me without looking it up?"

The guy looked blankly at him for a moment, "why do I have to know that? I've always got the Internet for that?"

"Knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence are not found in the Internet, son."

The guy still looked at him blankly, "what?"

"Ok, ok. Who is the current President of the United States?"

"That's easy dude, Obama-man. He sings, you know. Man, he's cool."

The sound man squinted into the sun for a moment and then shrugged.

"Just because he sings, does not make him cool," the Moderator said.

The guy looked at him for a moment, "what?"

"How about this. Did you know that with the ballooning National Debt, you will have over $55,000 of debt assigned to you upon graduation?"

"Naw, man, like, Obama will pay that."

The sound man squinted again at something over the young man's shoulder.

"Son, you realize that he gets his money from you? The President taxes money, borrows money, or he prints money. You can't pay off debt by printing more money or borrowing more money."

"What?"

The Moderator is bumped on the head as the microphone drops into the camera frame.

Looking over, he sees the sound man beginning to run down the boardwalk, back towards where their car is parked in a pay lot on the corner of Atlantic Ave. and 33rd street.

The camera man, for some reason, swings the camera down and begins to run as well.

The Moderator leans to the side to see around the young man he is interviewing and sees a slight woman with hair just below the ears, running at full tilt in his direction.

At first he thought she was just another jogger and was about to dismiss the event when the sicking realization hit him. It was DeRoy!

He spun on his heel as well and began to run when he hears, "AHHHHHHHH, YOU BASTARD!"

He does not look back as he hears a meaty thud, a scream and then a skateboard breaking against the Neptune statue.

He is running as fast as he can, the sound man and the camera man are slowed down by their expensive equipment. He slowly gains on the camera man.

He begins to hear something that is not quite a huff. More like a low growl. He looks over his shoulder and sees this slight woman rapidly gaining on him. She will be on him in moments.

He can not begin to think about how this woman can be so tireless. Tireless and eternally angry at him.

It looks like he is going to have to do the manly thing and face her.

Eventually.

With a huff and a puff, the Moderator puts on some speed. Just enough to reach out and grab the harness on the back of the sound man. With a yank, he falls in a tumble of gear and lines. The Moderator jumps to the side just as DeRoy's hand was at the back of his neck.

With a screech and the sound of equipment being smashed against the pavement, the young woman becomes entangled with the sound man and his equipment.

As the Moderator continues to run towards their lampless van, the screams of the stricken and the damned echo off the beach front hotel and out onto the Atlantic Ocean.

Rounding the corner onto 33rd, he can see the van in the lot. The camera man is just ahead of him. His camera being less bulky than the sound equipment.

With fading effort, he glances back and sees DeRoy coming on fast again. Blood streaks her face and hands. He could swear that she has blood around her mouth, as if she had just fed upon the sound man.

Whimpering like an animal, the Moderator throws himself at the camera man, knocking him over as well. He nearly gets tangled up in the flailing limbs and equipment.

Again, DeRoy is so single-minded about catching the Moderator that she plows right in to the camera man's thrashing form.

"What is wrong with you!" the Moderator shouts back, fifty feet from the van.

"AH HATE YOU!"

"What did I ever do to you!" His hand is on the locked door. In a panic he smashes the window with his microphone and fumbles for the keys in his pocket.

"YOU RUINED MAH LIFE AND YOU KILLED MAH GOLDFISH YOU SOM'BITCH!"

The engine roared to life and he peeled out backwards, away from the now charging DeRoy. Spinning the wheel over, he straightens out the van. A hub cap pops off and takes out a motorcyclist.

"You're crazy!"

"DON'T CALL ME CRAZY, AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Something slams into the back of the van as he roars away.

There is banging on the roof and it begins to dent.

He jerks hard on the wheel, cutting over a curb, scattering pedestrians.

With another yank and a jumped curb, DeRoy's form sails through a restaurant window, the van's step ladder broken off in her hand, and into the laps of people trying to eat lunch.

He turns again on Arctic Avenue and does not see the mayhem that must be in progress.

He feels sorry for the two men he had to leave behind, but the show wasn't about them, it was about him and he had to be protected.

Turning on the radio there was a breaking news story of a woman rampaging in the Seafood Harbor restaurant in Virginia Beach. Several policemen were down already and the SWAT team had been called in to assist.

What the hell was wrong with this woman and why did she hate him so much? How did she keep getting free all the time!

With that, he turned his smoking van South towards Atlanta. Perhaps he could pick up another van on his way to Florida.

End of Part I, the national experience.

Live well.

--Zavost