A Greater Purpose

It's three a.m. in the lobby bar of the La Quinta Inn in Jacksonville, Florida. Next to the cash register a phone is ringing. You can bet your ass I am not going to answer it. I've got my first drink of the night in front of me, Ginger Schnapps (Don't ask.), and I'm settling in with my notes from three days of research and speeches, platforms and platitudes, congressional records and Op-Ed pieces. As I have had no luck, still, contacting my editor and my agent, the illustrious Mr. DeShapiro, is on his annual prostitution binge in Thailand, I have been bribing the driver of the Straight Talk Express to let me sleep on the bus. But, I'm fired up tonight. The bar's empty, but for one sad drunk with his head slumped in front of a half full snifter, and the bartender, who doesn't appear to be heading home anytime soon.

I've been so busy getting to know this McCain character that I haven't even thought of or called Sela (Oy Sela!).

The bartender, a middle aged man with hairy knuckles and a fanny pack like paunch, is itching to talk. He's been polishing glassware for twenty minutes with what looks like a used hankerchief. Every five glasses he stops and takes a swig of whatever bottle is closest to his hand. The phone stops ringing. He walks over and puts his chunky hands on my pile of papers. He smiles.

"So, uh, you covering McCain, right?" Obviously a seasoned drinker, he stammers a bit, but betrays no other sign of the seven shots I've watched him put down in the last twenty minutes.

"I am." I say. I am not interested in having this conversation. This enigma, this McCain is starting to coalesce into more than a concept, an idea maybe, and the last thing I need is another conversation with another drunk bartender.

"Me, I'm gonna vote for 'im. I was gonna vote for Thompson. Principally, I'd say, for his work in Die Hard Two, which kicked ass--- I used to work in an airport bar and I used to bang these lonely middle-aged types two at a time in the security office, course that was before 9/11. Shit, you just can't have a good fling in an airport security office in these trying times. Fucking terrorists. Anyway, so I liked the second Die Hard more than the first principally because it was set in an airport. And I got a lot of ass in airports. And I liked the people. And I figure any guy who could've run an airport with that much shit going down like Thompson did, well, I'd like him to kick the shit out of Osama. Ya' know?"

This man was clearly insane. I had to talk to him.

"So, I understand your position on Mr. Thompson, Mister... what's your name?" I asked putting down the David Brooks piece I had been rereading.

"Bart."

"Bart. Perfect. So, Bart, why have you taken to Mr. McCain since Mr. Thompson left the race?"

Bart was excited now. His red face flashed redder. He leaned in and I could smell the horrid combination of gin, whiskey, and creme de menthe that he had poured into his system.

"It's not because he's a Republican. I mean I voted for Clinton three times." Bart did not show a trace of irony when he said this.

"Because he got ass in the White House?" I offered.

"Exactly. I like you. What's your name?" Bart asked with a lizard like grin.

"Bill." I said.

"Bill." He frowned. I was about to ask him why the name displeased him. "It's not you." He grimaced and grabbed a bottle of Jameson's without even looking at the bottles behind him.

"Let's drink!" he said loud enough to elicit a groan from the passed out man at the other end of the bar. He poured two full pint glasses of Jamesons, leaned back on the back bar, and crossed his arms.

"The thing about this McCain guy, and I got this from listening to all those speeches this week, the thing is he's basing his whole campaign thing on this phrase that he keeps repeating: A greater purpose. Now, I bet you think that it's a Jesus thing and I 'm some sort of nut. But, that's not it. Me and Jesus, we got issues. Big fucking issues. You don't like Jesus, do you Bill?"

"No, Bart, I do not."

"Good. So, the thing about this greater purpose that McCain keeps talking about is that I think, you know since the country's fucked right now, that maybe this guy, who, as I've discovered," He leaned in and lowered his voice to an emphatic whisper, "this guy has been through more shit than any of the character's Fred Thompson ever portrayed, even the guy in Die Hard Two. Did I mention that movie yet, because I love that movie."

"Yes, Bart, you did."

He frowned again and I tensed up. I wasn't sure how Bart would take my candor. He palmed the pint glass and tipped it up to his cracking lips and downed six ounces of Jamesons in one gulp. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand and smiled.

"I get mad at myself when I repeat things. Ya know? A little sip calms the nerves. So, this greater purpose thing is important to me because I am thinking, principally, that this is a guy who knows when a man, like those guys with the weird eyebrows in that war that McCain was in, when a man's purpose is at his worst, cause he's seen it, probably seen it more than Bruce Willis ever did, even when he was walking on all that glass in the first Die Hard, which is good too, and he knows that since the country is fucked, and that a man is capable of doing some really brutal shit to another man that well since every reaction must have another reaction in the other direction, that maybe a man who's seen so much of our lesser purpose, maybe he really knows what our greater purpose is. And that is why I think he'll make the best president we've had since Nixon."

Bart was pleased with himself. He knocked back the other half of his pint full of Jamesons. I was riveted. I had barely taken a sip of my whiskey. Hundreds of questions jostled in my mind. Before I could open my mouth and ask one, Bart's entire face had changed. He wore an impatient scowl and had put his hand around the rim of my pint glass.

"Mister, it's nearly 3:30 in the morning. You should have been gone hours ago. Now pack of those papers and head off to wherever you're sleeping."

My jaw dropped. The childish banter, the delightful insanity of his logic, had all disappeared. He walked away with my drink in his hand and dumped the remains in a sink. He woke up the other squatter, walked through two wooden doors, and disappeared.