Gus Chapman plopped his council notebook on the kitchen table, opened the fridge, and grabbed a beer. He walked back outside, across the gravel to the shop, sighing.
Flipping on the light switch illuminated the outbuilding, its various hand and power tools, and its collection of bumper stickers. Gus loved each of the slogans he now faced, but was unwilling to place any of them on any bumper that he owned. He realized his place as an elected official. While he is a man not reluctant to voice his perspective on things, he also appreciates decorum and its benefits. As an outlet for his concerns with the faults of society, he emblazons his own space, privately practicing the First Amendment and its glory.
Gus looked about the room: "No Quiche on Board," "Monolinguistic and Proud!" "Insured by Ruger," "I Voted for Nixon...Three Times!!!" "Uncle Sam: Oh, He's an Inlaw" "Bork You!" "Warhaven: Love It or Leave It" "If an Angler Carps, Put Him in His Plaice!" "The Feds Are Milking You Dry! Are You a Cow or a Man?" "The U.N.: What a Bunch of Dopes" "I'm a Dreamer: Cubs vs Red Sox in My Life Time," "Burma Shave," "Taxation...Whatever!" "World Peace: Is It Really So Stupid?" and his latest find was tacked up right above his rack of screwdrivers, "Tatoo This!"
He looked back to the world peace sticker. He stewed. "Heck," he thought. "The way Congress is going, they're going to rubber stamp everything the president thinks of! Whatever happened to the checks and balances of the Constitution? Whatever happened to the backbone and independence of the legislative branch? Whatever happened to follow through in the executive branch? Didn't Katrina wake up anybody in the District of Columbia?' Gus sighed. As grumpy as he sometimes felt, as curmudgeonly as he oft publicly spoke, as he occasionally forced himself to speak, Gus was a happy man. He knew his place, knew his need to squabble, to bicker and haggle. Gus Chapman was the linebacker for Warhaven, zeroing in on the fancy dancing quarterback, and nailing him at the knees, shutting his cute little mouth, his flamboyant ways, his end runs, and his passing off to distant receivers. Gus was the town's bulldog, the saint in the rough, the ironic, paradoxical, cynical saint who called a spade a spade, and who stood two feet planted surely in the soil that nourished all roots of Warhaven.
Gus thought that if he chewed chaw, he'd spit on his own shoes right now. He was ticked, and the bumper stickers were giving him little solace. He took a gulp from his beer and sighed. The council meeting had looked at projections for spending over the next five years. The federal government was taxing him emotionally, and he was getting tired of the on going sleight of hand that the feds dealt municipalities. From ponderous mining and grazing deals of the BLM to the gigantic costs to schools for No Child Left Behind to OSHA regulations and the need for volunteer firefighters to be unpaid professionals troubled him. Government was too big, too oppressive, and while the state bugged Gus too, it was the national bureaucracy that made steam pour out of his ears.
Gus scorned the hoity-toities of the District of Columbia, in their suits sipping lattes, deciding the fates of western states from some cubicle, never having been west of Pittsburgh. "To them," Gus thought, 'We're the ignorant hoi polloi! What a bunch of nimrod nabobs!"
He walks back to the door and stares at the sticker above the light switch, "If I Were King of the Forest, I'd..."
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