New Hampshire Is for Lovers

She'd responded to that phenomenon -- the book had somehow been made into a TV movie starring James Brolin and Frankie Munoz -- with her own treatise, "Right This Way!" which had sold 1.2 million copies in hardcover and twice that in paperback. It featured on its dust jacket a photo of herself thumbing a ride on an Arizona highway while wearing a leather miniskirt and a stars-and-stripes halter top, looking both defiant and demure and carrying a stack of law books, to underline the fact that in 1992, she'd passed the bar in Kentucky. This salvo had been answered by Frank McFadden's "Right This Way? How About, Like, Wrong This Way? Know What I'm Saying, Lady?" a line-by-line rebuttal of every claim made in O'Mealy's book. O'Mealy then published "I Meant What I Said in My Last Book, Right This Way! And I Mean It Even More Now, Two Months Later, When America Needs to Hear It More Than Ever," featuring a photo of herself in a leather halter top and stars-and-stripes hot pants, holding a riding crop (in a jolly but deeply threatening way) while straddling a child's stuffed donkey.

Each of O'Mealy's covers in some way featured the American flag, a small pile of law books -- for she had been a lawyer for many weeks (in the hitchhiking shot they were set on the roadside, in the donkey shot they were in the saddlebags) -- and just enough leather to make older men, whose breath she shortened, feel submissive. McFadden's books, on the other hand, all looked eerily similar, with him standing, shlump-shouldered, in a white T-shirt, jeans and 1986 high-tops, always holding a shot put and inexplicably making, with his left hand, a Hawaiian "hang loose" kind of gesture. Together, in eight months, her books and McFadden's had sold a total of 17 million copies. No one could explain who was buying all of these books, or if anyone was reading them, though it was evident that both were wildly popular in Germany -- McFadden for his trashing of the sitting American government, O'Mealy for her harsh Teutonic look, her leather and pouting, and for the fact that on her third book, "A Thousand Years of America: Looking Forward Forever Unabated," she was straddling, in fishnets -- next to a small pile of law books wrapped in the American flag -- a giant sculpted eagle seemingly ripped off the Reichstag.

In most of her book jackets, she was straddling something, and in this new one, while she tried to perfect her pout, she was straddling a man on all fours. The man was about 50, bearded, wearing a tie-dyed shirt and a peace-sign necklace. He was crawling on the ground, and Carol was sitting atop his back, the stiletto heels of her thigh-high pleather boots digging into the backs of his hands. In reality the hippie she was riding was her accountant, Barry, who seemed all too happy to play the part. He'd asked to be gagged and wearing a saddle, but Emmanuel had thought it too much.

"Now," Emmanuel said, taking his camera off his shoulder, "you pout for me good. And bad. If you know my meaning when I say these things." He peeked behind his camera and winked.

Carol tried to concentrate on her pout, listening for inspiration. Instead of disco music to set the mood in the studio, Carol had brought tapes of her radio show, with the callers edited out. She heard her own voice filling the white studio walls -- stern, sassy, outraged, fun-loving (everything she loved about herself) -- and grasped for something pout-worthy.

"Listen," her voice was saying, "there are winners and losers in every facet of the animal kingdom, every facet of the world and everything God created. He made animals that eat each other, he made huge mammals that unwittingly step on insects and rodents. There's no equality in the solar system! Even the very fact of life on earth was a matter of winning! There's only one planet that got life, and that was ours. The rest are cold, desolate, made of gas and rock. Let's remember that, people. The very land we live on is unequal! It's full of mountains and valleys, the oceans are full of trenches and tidal waves. There's no inherent equality in any inch of this beautiful planet, so let's be careful about defying everything God worked seven long days to give us."

Inspired and impressed by her own wisdom, though disappointed she hadn't made the veiled comparison -- which she'd even written in her notes! -- between immigrants and weeds, she pouted.

"Hmm. This is getting close," Emmanuel whined, "but still it feels more like the woman who shows up late to the Planned Parenthood rally and finds out Ani DiFranco already played. She missed nice Ani and now she is sad."

Carol had not heard of Ani DiFranco but she sounded like someone who would spell her name with an "i," not a "y," and this she despised. She injected more blood into her pout and tightened her thighs' grip around Barry's neck. He moaned with bliss.

"No, no," said Emmanuel, "not like you are biting someone. More like, you are dissatisfied with the size of a package you have just opened, you see? Yes."

Carol now thought of taking the president, J. Junior Inferior -- whom she found terribly attractive, particularly when he wore his jodhpurs -- throwing him down, ripping off his shirt and then pants and finding inside not a mighty python but a sweet, suffering tadpole. A tadpole representing everything soft and shrinking and spineless about his administration. This was disappointment. This was dissatisfaction, and this was the pout she now gave to Emmanuel.

"Ah! Perfect. Like you are inspecting the smallness of a president! Now move up on the Barry-hippie. Like you will choke him between your strong thighs because his beard is unclean and he does not love Mr. Sharon like you do."

Carol squeezed. Emmanuel gasped. Barry let out a moan that sounded like release.

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