I had a full itinerary planned, which included stops in Columbia, Charleston, Hilton Head, and a few of the more notable small towns, all of which could be visited within a day, I was sure of it. I was going to wring South Carolina dry of all political commentary on all the issues: poverty, racism, gay rights, the budget, and maybe even Our Little War. I was seeking the Hard Core, here, past the rings of the ages and the heartwood. Deep into schizo-my-parents-dictated-my-political-beliefs territory. Deep into reactive and proactive psyches. Deep into the heart of the Palmetto state.

As luck would have it, I never made it out of a Hooters just across the border.

My first and last stop was Greenville, which is really one giant strip mall and the handful of tall bank buildings called "downtown". It's relatively close to the NC border, and a lot of radio stations are based there providing the upstate with fresh "there's-a-rock-in-my-pants" jokes. It was very early—around 7:30 am—when I arrived, so I stopped in at Hooters for some coffee. It is a little known fact that Hooters has some of the best coffee in the world, and after my girl Sandie had brought me a cup or two I was on my mark. Another little known fact about Hooters is that no one goes there for breakfast because they don't have a breakfast menu. I took advantage of the relative emptiness of the restaurant to interview Sandie about politics over my bucket of hot wings. Turns out she was studying pre-law at the community college with hopes of heading to USC in two years.

"Did you see the debate the other night?" she asked me.

"Yeah."

"Who do you think won?" Her look said she was ready to shoot me down and explain why.

"Uh. Dean held his own."

"Wrong. There is no ‘holding your own' in presidential debates. In fact, there is no winning. Each of the candidates could claim to have won on different levels: Sharpton with his wit, Kucinich with his impressive boldness, Kerry with the sympathy...but no one wins. You just survive. Which is why Kerry is going to win the nomination. He already survived Vietnam."

Her strong opinion was respectable, but I wasn't quite sure if I shared it. I was still in charge of the situation, however, so I sent her off for more wings, coffee, and onion peels. While she was distracted, I headed over to the bar where Trisha was wiping down everything without much passion.

"Kin I help you?"

"Just came over to smoke."

"You were sittin' in the smokin' section."

"I think wherever you are is the smokin' section," I said. Hey, we can't all have campaign advisers telling us what to say at all times. She smiled a polite smile, but started to turn away. Quick action was needed. "Are you going to vote today?"

"I s'pose so."

"Who for?"

"Bush."

"Bush? He's already in office."

"He's runnin' agin, ain't he?"

Her accented voice was so beautiful, her body so fine, I didn't want to believe the words coming out of her mouth, but I had to.

"Yes, yes he is," I said. I ordered a Three Wisemen as a little joke to myself and in honor of the three contenders in the SC race: Sen. John Kerry, Gov. Howard Dean, Sen. John Edwards.

Edwards was the favorite. Somehow he'd won a seat in Congress in my state without any experience; just a pretty face, an honest voice, and a true trial attorney's bank account. Despite his youth, Edwards was of the Old School. All you needed, like the man said, was a shoeshine and a smile, and Edwards rode his pearly whites and some Jesse Helms backlash into the Capitol Building. The question was, could he do it again? This time, of course, the stakes are much higher.

"Do you like Edwards?" I asked Trisha, after taking the shot and a Captain chaser.

"He's preddy handsome."

"I see. Thanks."

I went back to my table, but the alcohol was piggybacking on the five big mugs of coffee I'd already had, and I stumbled twice. When I got back to my booth, I saw that Chris Matthews was on the TV already yelling at everyone. Next to the ticker was the time: 10:07. Jesus! I'd already missed my next destination, and the time allotted for my third, New Guilford, was coming up fast!

I couldn't leave yet, though. I hadn't gotten anything answered here. The waitresses obviously lived in their own world; I had to get something from the proletariat who were starting to drift in for early lunches. Yes, the blue collars. They could help me.

I sat up in my booth on one knee and leaned over the back to the table behind. There were a few city engineers gathered around some menus.

"Mornin'," I said.

"Mornin'."

"You fellas going to vote today?"

"Yes, sir!" one said excitedly. "For sure going to try to keep that Bush out of the White House again!"

"Why's that."

"Well," he said, "You see this uniform?" The dingy gray shirt had bright fluorescent orange bands around the torso. "City of Greenville" was embroidered in cursive above his left nipple. "This shouldn't say no ‘City of Greenville.' This should say ‘Worth-Tex Industries.' Does it say ‘Worth-Tex Industries?"

"No, it doesn't," I said. "It's plain as day that it doesn't."

"Shitfire, this boy can read! No, it don't, because the people that work for Worth-Tex Industries now all speak Mandarin Chinese! Now what we need is a boy in the White House, or La Casa Blanca, as Reyes here would say"—here he clapped a fellow engineer on the shoulder, a dark Mexican who grinned yellow—"who's gonna keep jobs here. Who's gonna protect our GNP, who's gonna, goddammit, let me stop weedeatin' and drilling concrete for this hell's water excuse for a city."

The others nodded their heads, cleared their throats, and went "Uh-huh." I decided to join them for lunch (since I had just had wings for breakfast, I decided to go light and only got half of a meatloaf sandwich and a cup of potato soup). We discussed NAFTA, taxes, and other economic issues, and I felt that I had enough material that I could leave. I imagined the heading: "High Economics at Hooters". Unfortunately, I had money problems a bit closer to home...due to my frenzied preparation early this morning and my excitement to get onto the road, I had grabbed a pair of pants out of the laundry basket and pulled them on quickly, completely forgetting that I had laid out a pair with my wallet inside them on my chair the night before. As a result, I couldn't pay my bill. Luckily, I realized this before I had called for my bill, and now I had two courses of action. I could try to slip out with minimum damage done to the Hooters establishment, or I would have to stay and eat and drink until some kind of opportunity presented itself for me to make some quick cash. Since the dining room was still far from crowded, I decided to stay. If worse came to worse, I could slip out during the frenzy that would occur during the Gamecocks basketball game that night. The only problem was that the game wasn't scheduled until 9:00pm...almost 10 hours from now. Could I really hold out that long?

The city engineers had left; they went back to work out on the cold streets, sweeping excess salt off the roads after the big ice storm. In the bathroom, I read the sports page while my bladder relieved itself of coffee and whiskey. I was getting jittery; I needed to calm down. Beer would be the ticket, and lots of it. The Mellow Gold. Of course, if I was going to stay here, I was going to have to get some more material for the Big Boss. Nacho was calling my cell every hour on the hour, "WHERE ARE YOU?"

"I'm on the interstate, boring in straight to the center. Columbia!"

"What's the outlook?"

"Oh, they're political animals, boss. Probably tear me to shreds, but not before I fax in the story."

"Well...DRIVE FASTER!"

He rung off and I settled back into my booth. Pabst was on special, so I had ordered two buckets, and I watched the ice melt while the liquid soaked through my body like a rag. Now thaaaaaaaat's nice, I thought. A nice Southern afternoon. I begged Trisha the bartender for a dollar to put into the jukebox. I had no cash, I explained, but I would be sure to tell Sandie to charge me extra when I paid with my credit card. Honest Injun. She took one out of her tip jar and handed it to me with one condition, "No Springsteen."

Dammit. Just when I was in the mood to soar with "Thunder Road." Ah well. As I was choosing my selections, a man walked up behind me.

"Been here for a while, ain't ya?" he asked in a low voice.

"Yeah, why?"

"Anything wrong?"

I turned to face him. He was an older man, probably fifty-five, with white stubble. "No. Everything's peachy-peach," I said.

"You're askin' folks about the primary, right?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Doin' a story?"

"Kind of."

"Well, I got an opinion, too."

"What's your name?"

"Just call me...Sam."

"Uncle Sam?" I joked.

"You could say that," he uttered in all seriousness. "I am a veteran. Inner Beltline all the way. I've worked in many positions in many of the white marble halls of DC for thirty years. I retired early on kickbacks and pork barrel line-item residual checks. They all but bought me off. I know things."

"Let's go to my booth," I said.

He sat across from me and pulled out a pack of cigarettes without a label. "RJR Private Stock," he said. "Finest tobacco in the world, direct from the old boys themselves. A private favor. Have one?"

"Sure," I said, drawing one from the pack. God damn if it wasn't the finest in the world. He had credibility in my eyes now. "Tell me what you know."

Sam kept his gray-eyed gaze on me. "None of these candidates care about you," he said. "They want change, sure, but not your kind of change. They don't care about Boys Club basketball tournaments, keeping drugs off the streets, or the elderly. If they could, they'd ship all the elderly to Canada or Belize. All they care about is power. The presidency, now, is less of a commander-in-chief position than it used to be. Now it's more comparable to that of a supply officer in a large company. Requisitions are sent in, and the president decides who gets what, who needs what. Of course, these decisions are based on a system of favors, judgment is bent like hot steel by the deal-making hammer. Iraq got what they did because they'd given up on our system. They didn't care to deal anymore. So we locked them out."

"So social change...that's right out?"

"It doesn't concern them. The courts and the media...that's where social change comes from. It's one of the few things that works from the bottom up. All the president has to do is sign things, appoint key people...and it's all good old boy favoritism. This campaign for president, on all fronts, is about getting a new man in. Doesn't matter who. Nine vs. one is good odds. They've covered all the bases; it's like a goddamn Real World cast on the ballot: you got your military man, your smart man, your fringe man, your nigger, your Jew...something for everyone. What they want is turnout, my friend. Get enough people excited early on, and it can build into a cresting wave that crashes on November 2nd, washes out the Republicans no matter which candidate gets thrown on shore."

His metaphors and the Blue Ribbon aftermath in my stomach were confusing me. I retreated, as the drunk do, to something familiar inside myself: political optimism.

"But, surely, a democrat would be a little more responsible in this tense time," I said. "Surely we could return to a time of negotiation with other countries, start tearing down the wall of isolationism..."

"Negotiation? My boy, Vietnam was Lyndon Johnson's idea! Terrorism succeeded in its infancy because of Carter's milquetoast demeanor! These things, this Big Ideas, are beyond even the President of the United States' control. His may be the highest office in the world, but it still has its limits. One human's mind can only comprehend so much; one man's body can only sign and decree and shake so many hands...beyond that, there's emptiness that is filled, rapidly, by others with guns, fundamentalism, money, or even heart. I've said enough. Now I have to leave you."

He slid out of the booth and went out the double glass door, looking over his shoulder in the parking lot before walking around the corner.

Sandie came up to me. "My shift is over. Do you want to close out with me?"

"Uh, I'd really like to just have it all on one check. I'm on business, you see, and it would help with the expense report. I promise I'll leave you a big tip."

"Ok," she said, trustingly. "Cindy will be your waitress now."

"Have a good one," I said, and she walked off. I hated the fact that I was going to leave her high and dry, but she had two assets that I did not, and they would take her far in this world.

The dinner crowd was filing in now, and the TVs were blaring above their chatter. The early reports had the South Carolina race close between Edwards and Kerry. I had the new girl, Cindy, bring me a pitcher of the black stuff. Wholesome Guinness grain to outweigh the pale aftertaste of the metallic Pabst. When she returned I asked her if she had voted.

"I did," she said, "but I don't remember who for."

I was in the bathroom again without remembering the trip from my table. I stood staring at the sports page again and a nervous sense of foreboding was preventing me from completing my task. From the next stall over came a voice.

"Hey, buddy," it said.

"Me?"

"Yeah, you. You a gambling man?"

"I only gamble with my life."

"What?"

"I said, ‘sure.'"

"Well, how's about the primary? I'm takin' bets now."

"What are the odds?"

"Edwards pays out two to one, so does Kerry. Dean is four points, and if you want a big bet, Kucinich is 29 to one."

"Is there a trifecta bet?"

"I'm taking ‘em all, buddy."

"Give me twenty on Edwards-Kerry-Dean."

"Your name?"

"Captain America."

"All right, Cap, I'll find you afterward...win or lose." There was a flush and he was out of the bathroom before I could turn around.

I got back and found food sitting on my table. I guess I had ordered it at some point. I was happy to see it, but it sure seemed like an excessive spread: a fried chicken basket, a plate with three scoops of slaw, two orders of onion rings, and a small bucket of raw oysters. I began to eat ravenously; I drowned the 24-hour news networks out with my chomping. Before I got too far, though, I was interrupted when a family of four surrounded me.

"Who are you?" the father asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Why are you eating our food?"

"I'm sorry, I just...I thought this was my booth."

"He's probably homeless, dear," said Mother. "Call for the manager!"

"How could you possibly think this was your table?" Father asked.

"Well, I thought...I thought I ordered food and this looked like my order and..." things were getting hazy now. Maybe I hadn't ordered. Maybe this was the wrong table. Perhaps I should reason with them. But wait...wasn't that my notebook? "This is my notebook!" I cried.

"That's my coloring book!" Sister yelled. Upon further inspection, it was, indeed, a Yu-Gi-Oh! Coloring book.

"Forget about the coloring book!" Father said. He was getting more upset by the minute, possibly because I was still cramming French fries and oysters into my mouth with alternating hands. "What about the baby? Didn't you see the baby?!"

Sure enough, right beside me in the booth was a small carrier with a bundle of joy sleeping inside.

"Jesus!" I said. "What kind of sick fucks leave a baby unattended in a Hooters!? You should all be ashamed of yourselves! I could have stolen it, and then you'd have another Elizabeth Smart on your hands!"

"But—but—!" Mother was whimpering.

"You should be grateful," I said, beer-batter crumbs flying out of my mouth, "that I decided to stop here and guard this precious child while you were away doing God knows what!"

"We put quarters in the jukebox!" Brother said, oblivious to the panic around him. He was toe-tapping to Paul Simon.

"Regardless, it was downright irresponsible, and I would chide you some more if this infant wasn't such a lamb to care for. Such a darling, such a sweet pea—"

"Okay, you've had your fun," Father said and grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the booth. "Just get lost."

"Goodbye, Angel," I said to the baby. "Don't forget to Rock the Vote!" I blew it kisses, and Father shoved me some more. I started to laugh insanely as if his jabs tickled me then lost my balance and fell to the floor. Time to get some space between me and the madness. I rolled on the floor down the aisle between tables, knocking my head against chairs and cowboy boots. When I hit a wall, I curled reflexively into a ball and closed my eyes tight. People were yelling in an uppity way and political pundits were shouting from the television about Confederate flags and double-anal/double-vaginal intercourse and its place in our society. I tried to sing to drown them out, "And if I can call you Betty, then Betty you can call meee Al!" but the intensity required wore my diaphragm out. It gave up, my lungs imploded, and everything, as the man says, went black.

When I woke up, I was at the bar, my head propped up by several "Girls of Hooters" calendars. Cheers were ringing out; my first sense told me that it was the USC game, but in a moment of true clarity I remembered that the game wasn't until Wednesday. I'd been wrong all along about that. Instead, the cheers were coming from men around me. The results were finalized and being broadcast. Edwards defeated Kerry defeated Dean. The golden boy from the South might have a chance at that Casa Blanca. Glasses were chiming all around, and it seemed that I had not been charged any penalty time for the fiasco with the family. Quite the opposite, people kept buying rounds and I was only too happy to accept. A seedy-looking man approached me, but he, too, had a smile on his face. He pulled out a roll of hundreds and peeled two off. "For you, Captain America."

"Thanks," I said. Now the miracle had occurred. It was best not to overstay my welcome. I tracked down Cindy the waitress.

"This is for my tab," I said.

"This is going to just barely cover it," she said. "What about a tip?"

"A tip? Stay off the roads. I'm driving home!"

With that, I danced out the doors and into the cold Carolina air. My notebook was gone, my clothes were soiled, but I still had my keys. After several attempts, I got the key into the ignition and circled the parking lot for a good ten minutes looking for the exit. Without so much as a care in the world I went to search for the interstate, thinking of Eisenhower and how much he'd done for this country.