“What's that cart?” Johnny asked.
“You'll see,” Roger said, still grinning hugely.
Herman said: “The wild card is Gregory Ammas Stillson, forty-three, ex-salesman for the Truthway Bible Company of America, ex-housepainter, and, in Oklahoma, where he grew up, one-time rainmaker.”
“Rainmaker,” said Johnny, bemused.
“Oh, that's one of his planks,” Roger said. “If he's elected, we'll have rain whenever we need it.”
George Herman went on: Stillson's platform is… well, refreshing.”
John Denver finished singing with a yell that brought answering cheers from the crowd. Then Stillson started talking, his voice booming at peak amplification. His PA system at least was sophisticated; there was hardly any distortion. His voice made Johnny vaguely uneasy. The man had the high, hard, pumping delivery of a revival preacher. You could see a fine spray of spittle from his lips as he talked.
“What are we gonna do in Washington? Why do we want to go to Washington?” Stillson roared. “What's our platform? Our platform got five boards, my friends n neighbors, five old boards! And what are they? I'll tell you up front! First board: THROW THE BUMS OUT!”
A tremendous roar of approval ripped out of the crowd. Someone threw double handfuls of confetti into the air and someone else yelled, “Yaaaah-HOO!” Stillson leaned over his podium.
“You wanna know why I'm wearing this helmet, friends n neighbors? I'll tell you why. I'm wearin it because when you send me up to Washington, I'm gonna go through them like you-know-what through a canebrake! Gonna go through em just like this!”
And before Johnny's wondering eyes, Stillson put his head down and began to charge up and down the podium stage like a bull, uttering a high, yipping Rebel yell as he did so. Roger Chatsworth simply dissolved in his chair, laughing helplessly. The crowd went wild. Stillson charged back to the podium, took off his construction helmet, and spun it into the crowd. A minor riot over possession of it immediately ensued.
“Second board!” Stillson yelled into the mike. “We're gonna throw out anyone in the government, from the highest to the lowest, who is spending time in bed with some gal who ain't his wife! If they wanna sleep around, they ain't gonna do it on the public tit!”
“What did he say?” Johnny asked, blinking.
“Oh, he's just getting warmed up,” Roger said. He wiped his streaming eyes and went off into another gale of laughter. Johnny wished it seemed that funny to him.
“Third board!” Stillson roared. “We're gonna send all the pollution right into outer space! Gonna put it in Hefty bags! Gonna put it in Glad bags! Gonna send it to Mars, to Jupiter, and the rings of Saturn! We're gonna have clean air and we're gonna have clean water and we're gonna have it in SIX MONTHS!”
The crowd was in paroxysms of joy. Johnny saw many people in the crowd who were almost killing themselves laughing, as Roger Chatsworth was presently doing.
“Fourth board! We're gonna have all the gas and oil we need! We're gonna stop playing games with these Arabs and get down to brass tacks! Ain't gonna be no old people in New Hampshire turned into Popsicles this coming winter like there was last winter!”
This brought a solid roar of approval. The winter before an old woman in Portsmouth had been found frozen to death in her third-floor apartment, apparently following a turn-off by the gas company for nonpayment.
“We got the muscle, friends n neighbors, we can do it! Anybody out there think we can't do it?”
“NO!” The crowd bellowed back.
“Last board,” Stillson said, and approached the metal cart. He threw back the hinged lid and a cloud of steam puffed out. “HOT DOGS!!”
He began to grab double handfuls of hot dogs from the cart, which Johnny now recognized as a portable steam table. He threw them into the crowd and went back for more. Hot dogs flew everywhere. “Hot dogs for every man, woman, and child in America! And when you put Greg Stillson in the House of Representatives, you gonna say HOT DOG! SOMEONE GIVES A RIP AT LAST!”
The picture changed. The podium was being dismantled by a crew of long-haired young men who looked like rock band roadies. Three more of them were cleaning up the litter the crowd had left behind. George Herman resumed: “Democratic candidate David Bowes calls Still-son a practical joker who is trying to throw a monkey-wrench into the workings of the democratic process. Harrison Fisher is stronger in his criticism. He calls Stillson a cynical carnival pitchman who is playing the whole idea of the free election as a burlesque-house joke. In speeches, he refers to independent candidate Stilison as the only member of the American Hot Dog party. But the fact is this: the latest CBS poll in New Hampshire's third district showed David Bowes with twenty percent of the vote, Harrison Fisher with twenty-six-and maverick Greg Stillson with a whopping forty-two percent. Of course election day is still quite a way down the road, and things may change. But for now, Greg Stillson has captured the hearts-if not the minds-of New Hampshire's third-district voters.”
The TV showed a shot of Herman from the waist up. Both hands had been out of sight. Now he raised one of them. and in it was a hot dog. He took a big bite.
“This is George Herman, CBS News, in Ridgeway, New Hampshire.”
Walter Cronkite came back on in the CBS newsroom, chuckling. “Hot dogs,” he said, and chuckled again. “And that's the way it is-. -,
Johnny got up and snapped off the set. “I just can't believe that,” he said. “That guy's really a candidate? It's not a joke?”
“Whether it's a joke or not is a matter of personal interpretation,” Roger said, grinning, “but he really is running. I'm a Republican myself, born and bred, but I must admit I get a kick out of that guy Stillson. You know he hired half a dozen ex-motorcycle outlaws as bodyguards?
Real iron horsemen. Not Hell's Angels or anything like that, but I guess they were pretty rough customers. He seems to have reformed them.”
Motorcycle freaks as security. Johnny didn't like the sound of that very much. The motorcycle freaks had been in charge of security when the Rolling Stones gave their free concert at Altamont Speedway in California. It hadn't worked out so well.
“People put up with a… a motorcycle goon squad?”
“No, it really isn't like that. They're quite cleancut. And Stillson has a helluva reputation around Ridgeway for reforming kids in trouble.
Johnny grunted doubtfully.
“You saw him,” Roger said, gesturing at the TV set. “The man is a clown. He goes charging around the speaking platform, like that at every rally. Throws his helmet into the crowd-I'd guess he's gone through a hundred of them by now-and gives out hot dogs. He's a clown, so what? Maybe people need a little comic relief from time to time. We're runningout of oil, the inflation is slowly but surely getting out of control, the average guy's tax load has never been heavier, and we're apparently getting ready to elect a fuzzy-minded Georgia cracker president of the United States. So people want a giggle or two. Even more, they want to thumb their noses at a political establishment that doesn't seem able to solve anything. Stillson's harmless.”
“He's in orbit,” Johnny said, and they both laughed.