Sometime in the latter part of last week I received a phone call from someone claiming to be from Scott Brown's re-election campaign committee. He was requesting a meeting.
At first I wanted to beg off, not interested. . . but I was presented with a little information they had about my previous activities as a Republican. It was hinted at that the outing would ruin me on Dailykos.
Ruin me? I'm like a "C List" dairiest. Whatever information they had, outing me wouldn't amount to much. But I was intrigued, so I eventually consented.
The time and date for the meeting was set for yesterday beginning in the early afternoon and lasting for as long as it would take.
My meeting and impressions below the fold.
The voice over the phone gave me my contacts name, which was "Bogey." The time, around 2pm, and the place, along the Cranberry Highway (rt. 28).
My announcement that I'd make this meeting met with questions about my sanity from my husband. After all I just had a strange, unrecognizable voice over the phone, some details about what I did as a Republican, and a meeting point. To make matters seem more fishy the meeting place was a dirt road off the main road.
I assured him that I would be fine. After all I had received some martial arts training from one of the best in the business, and I was always thinking ahead, running through all possible scenarios, I'd be okay.
Just in case, however, my husband gave me his cell phone because it's GPS feature was better than mine. And just in case they took mine, I'd have an unknown or expected back up. I also bought a handful of buttons with the letter "C" on them, to drop like a Hansel and Gretal trail.
At around 1pm I left yesterday off to the Cranberry Highway to look for the dirt road. It was, supposedly by the Cartland sign in East Wareham. I found the driveway and was directed to park my car in amongst the trees. If you look very closely at this picture I snapped before finding the driveway to the dirt road you will see my contact.
"Bogey," as it turns out, is the long rumored Cranberry Bog Monster. "Well," I thought, "if I got nothing else out of this evening I would have definitive proof the the Cranberry Bog Monster does exist."
I parked my car in an area hidden to the road and we walked (well Bogey kind of shimmied) a little ways into the woods. That was a little nerve racking, but Bogey talked about how nice it was to finally have sun after all the rain. It didn't seem to take long before we came to a clearing where a helicopter was waiting.
This was something I hadn't thought of. I had not made any contingency plans for this possibility. Sensing my hesitation Bogey said "There is something I want to show you in Northamption (the town where Rachel Maddow lives) and this is the fastest way to get there. You can call your husband and give him the tail registration number if you like).
I did, but the line was busy, so I left a message and dropped a button. I contemplated dumping the whole pocket of them at this point, because the buttons seemed moot. But I ended up only dropping about 5. Hey, at least if I disappear they will know where I was last.
As we flew I wonder what had gotten me here. Why had they called "me?" What did my past insanity as a Republican have to do with anything? I grew a little nervous as I remembered tales my ex-husband, a Nam vet, had told me. Tales about interrogations that ended with the interrogatee was "walked" out of the flying helicopter door. I pulled my seat belt straps tighter, and clutched my purse tight and close. Not that I thought my purse would be very effective in protecting me in these close quarters, it was serving more of a "teddy bear" function at this point.
During the trip to Western Massachusetts, Bogey and I chatted about this and that. He asked if I drank Cranberry juice. Fearing what results a positive response would bring I lied said "no." Truth is that I drink cranberry juice every day, I wondered if he could smell it. But then, did he even have a nose?
He ranted on a bit about Ocean Spray being a communistical socialistical agricultural cooperative. I was rather grateful for the roar of the engine, even with the headphones on, I didn't listen much. . . I just looked out the window, and day dreamed a bit. I had never been in a helicopter before. Soon he nudged me and pointed out the window, "This is what I wanted you to see."
At first I didn't see it. We were approaching Northampton all right. I saw the Connecticut River, the fair grounds, Smith College and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in the distance. Then I saw it, and snapped this picture before we flew on:
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks." He said with a smile.
Great. A walking cranberry bin who's read Shakespeare. /snark
He explained that after buying a full page ad in the Boston Globe, Rachel had contracted with local farmers to spray paint their fields. He pointed out that soon, however, these words would be plowed under as corn would be planted. "So they will disappear by the time she formally declares her candidacy. She's very good." he intoned.
"She's not running." I corrected.
He answered in the tone of someone who had more knowledge that the other person, "We shall see." Then he changed the subject by openly wondering if the cornflakes made from that corn in the field would infect people, especially kids, with "teh liberalism."
We flew northward along the Connecticut River and landed in a field by an old tobacco barn. There waiting for us was a . . . a . . . well, a Plesiosaur. A Nessy and Champ type Plesiosaur. Now I know you're not going to believe me, so with his permission, I took a picture.
He introduced himself as "Quabbs," the "Quabbin Reservoir Monster." I felt faint, I didn't even know we had one of those. It was getting dark and he hustled us inside where chairs, a table, a Coleman lantern and heater and plenty of Dunkin Donuts coffee and Donuts were waiting.
Plenty is an understatement. I guess it takes a lot to feed mythical monsters, re-election campaign staff. Mitt Romney must have pulled some strings to get so much. Quabbs sat down and after offering me some, promptly ate two dozen. Maybe "horked down two dozen" is a better description.
Quabbs said that we were waiting for one last person to arrive, a Mr. Sevvatonic E. Pastoonacie. We made small talk while we waited.
Quabbs had traveled to the Connecticut River and then drug himself up the shore and into the shed for this meeting. I can't say I was unimpressed by the shear dedication for this meeting, I was. Though I did ask how he got to the Connecticut River from the Quabbin. He looked at me as if I was daft and said "Highway 202 to Rt. 2 then on to Turners Falls, of course." I guess they have a trailer for him, but I didn't ask.
Quadds told me that he was trying to get a local band, Rippopotamus, to do a song about him, but to no avail. Yet. He wasn't giving up.
When my eyes adjusted I noticed that there was another being in the corner. "Who's that?" I inquired.
"Oh, sorry, Harvey please come here so we can introduce you."
Harvey didn't move.
"THE Harvey?" I asked.
"Yes. He's angry with you for exposing him, and angry at Scott for bringing in a new campaign consultant. He's been sulking all today."
"Expose him, what did I do?" as I uttered the last word I knew what I had supposedly done and why I was here. "It was a joke, I didn't even know you existed." I protested.
Nothing I said helped. I thought maybe a picture proving they all existed would help. Maybe Harvey would feel less upset if his existence would no longer be used as a punchline. But he wouldn't budge, so I just got a picture of just Quabbs and Bogey.
Very shortly after I took the picture the was a rumbling outside and it got very cold, even colder than it already was, and for some reason the batteries drained. I wondered if the same thing was happening to both cell phones, but I didn't check.
That's when HE showed up, the person we were waiting for. It the signs weren't already ominous enough I could see through the slats in the shed that a black Hummer Limo had just parked outside. My first nervous thought that someone was over compensating.
The door to the shed swung open and a big hunk of a man stood there. At first I thought he was Mr. Sevvatonic E. Pastoonacie. Soon it became obvious he was the stereotypical muscle bound security guy in shades. "Dude!" I thought, "it's already dark, what can you see with the shades on?" But I kept it to myself.
After him, and very much in his shadow, in walked Mr. Sevvatonic E. Pastoonacie. He stood about 3 feet tall and to describe him as a Rove/Cheney/Armey Mini Me, does not do his visage justice. He was obviously a man who enjoyed a lot of power. I wish I could have taken a picture, but like I said, and those versed in the paranormal can relate, the batteries on my camera went dead. I instantly disliked him.
He set his brief case on the table and sat down.
"First of all Mrs. Orestia, thank you for coming," he said, with a swarmy, "Dick Armey self satisfied condescending" smile.
"It's Ms Orestia." I corrected.
"Very well, Msssss. Orestia." He hissed with a smile that made me very uncomfortable.
He opened up his brief case and pulled out two files dossiers. One had Rachel's name written across it, the other had mine. Remembering my buttons I reached into my pocket and nervously dumped a few on the ground.
"We'd like to know how you found out about Mr. Brown's friendship with Harvey."
And there is was, confirmation of the pieces I had put together moments before. I was here because of my sig line on DailyKos.
"It was a lark, a silly punchline, to an even sillier campaign by Scott Brown." I reasoned
"Who told you? Who's the leak?" he demanded
"I told you! It was a joke. I didn't even know Harvey really existed!" I responded. His goon security man, moved closer to my chair.
"Very well, Ms. Orestia. We have good intel that you an Ms. Maddow have been close friends for a very long time."
I smiled, "Really. If I were you I'd go to where ever you got your intel and get your money back."
"You used to live here. How do you know her then?"
"I've been a fan of her's since our first Boston progressive radio station put her show on before Stephanie Miller's. That's been about 6 years I guess. I haven't lived here in Western Mass since 1993 and Rachel was still at Standford University at that time. On the other side of the country."
"For not being close to her you seem to know a lot about her."
"It's on her Wikipedia page. Maybe you ought to go look it up instead of spending so much time on silly sig lines at Dailykos." I was getting annoyed, besides the free helicopter ride this was really wasting my time, I had laundry to do.
"Wikipedia is a liberal bastion of lies and misdirection. We know you are friends with her and we want you to carry a message to her."
"You seem to be able to read Dailykos well enough. Why don't you email it to her yourself, because that's the same way I will "get" it to her."
"Ms. Orestia you can either cooperate or we can release some of the contents of this file." he said as he stroked the fold lovingly.
"Have you been watching some bad movies lately because your dialogue is really stilted and rather silly?" my annoyance was overriding caution.
"I can assure you, no. I am quite serious." With that he pulled a picture from the "Rachel" file and slid to towards me. "Here, you can take this with you."
"I think you will agree that this will be devastating to her campaign and a boon to ours."
"YOU photo-shopped this!" I said trying to keep the sarcastic disbelief out of my voice.
"And it's not even a good one!"
"It doesn't matter. You liberal leftist Marxists will be upset when you see that she's shredding a copy of your bible, the Communist Manifesto. And our base will be even more motivated when they learn that she owned one in the first place."
"She can not win."
"She is NOT running."
"What do you have in my file? I challenged. Me and Abbie Hoffman having lunch together?
The evil little twit ignored my challenge.
"Please let her know that if she persists in her campaign to run against Scott Brown, we will release far more devastating information and pictures. For instance we know that while in New York City Rachel is often see in the company of men. Their initials are K.O., K.J., and C.H.."
I tired to keep the "oh you can't be serious" look off my face.
He went on. "Think about Susan, how would she feel? How would they whole dy. . . I mean, lesbian community feel? And the gay community at large? I watched Law and Order when Kathy Griffin was on, I know what happens."
His syrupy sweet, concern troll voice, was getting a little hard to take.
My right eye began to twitch and I dug my fingernails into my arm to keep myself from laughing.
"She's. . . Not . . . Running! What more does she have to say or do?"
"Very well Ms. Orestia, I can see we aren't going to get any further with this meeting. Please give my regards to Rachel. Bogey and the rodent will take you back to your home."
With that the little troll went back to his penile replacement mobile and left.
Looking after him Quabbs volunteered, almost forgetting I was there"I really don't like him."
"If I didn't need the work, I wouldn't hang around him. I don't know why Scott hired him. Harvey is scared of him." Bogey answered.
"I wish he wouldn't address him at "the rodent." It's so disrespectful." Quadds added.
As the Hummer drove down the road, what warmth there is in Hadley/Sunderland on a March night (it was totally dark now) returned.
"Ahem," I cleared my voice, "Can I go home now?"
"Oh right" said Bogey as if I shook him from a day dream. "I've got to escort Quabbs to the river, and then we can go."
Harvey emerged into the light and began picking stuff up. He looked truly sad and I apologized to him. I felt really bad. Sort of like saying "So easy even a caveman can do it." Only to find the guy behind you is a caveman.
A short time later we were up in the air. The closer we got to the east cost the more of the pinkish street lights appeared. I always thought it looked like a necklace emanating outward from Boston.
Once we landed in East Wareham Bogey said good night and disappeared off into the darkness to do whatever Cranberry Bog Monsters do in March in New England. I hadn't noticed Harvey's car when I had gotten there earlier. It was a white Volkswagon Golf. He drove off without waving.
I drove home 20 or so miles and began compiling this diary.
I will send this information on to Rachel Maddow as soon as I can.