A Prayer for Sarah Palin

by John Irving McCain


I am doomed to remember a woman with a wrecked voice, not because of her voice, or because she was the dimmest person I ever knew, or even because she was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because she is the reason I no longer believe in God. I am no longer a Christian because of Sarah Palin.

I met her at a prayer breakfast after she had been selected as my running mate. She was pretty in a J.C. Penny catalog model sense, although she was not rich enough for my tastes. It was when she opened her mouth that I realized how unique she was. She had a voice that sounded as if it came from another time zone. Now I’m convinced that it was a voice not entirely of this world.

“HI YA, JOHN. I’M SARAH,” she said. “WE’RE GOING TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.” She spoke with a series of tongue clicks and winks that made me think she had Tourette’s. I think she had all of those tics because the endless reserves of incompetence and incoherence that bubbled beneath her soul needed to escape in any way possible.

Her manicured hand had mine in a crushing shake. “DO YOU LIKE HUNTING?” she asked me.

I did not, but it was an election season, and I did not want to appear less manly than my female running mate. “Sure,” I said.

“WE SHOULD GO. BRING YOUR MOM,” Sarah said with a wink.

It took some cajoling, but I convinced Mother that this would be a great photo opportunity for my campaign. I dispatched my aides to the nearest Cabella’s store to purchase suitable attire. When Mother and I arrived for the hunt, wearing orange jackets and hats, Sarah stood in full camouflage, her face painted the same green and black pattern as her outfit. She carried a large rifle on her shoulder. She leaned against a helicopter, bathed in the machine-gun bursts of flash bulbs from the reporters. “Oh, dear,” my mother said.

“Why do we need a helicopter?” I asked.

“I LIKE TO HUNT FROM THE AIR,” Sarah said. “LIKE A BALD EAGLE. ONLY WITH A GUN.”

I saw Mother blanch, but in her classic WASP demeanor, she swallowed all emotion and plastered a smile across her face. “Sounds splendid,” she said, climbing into the helicopter.

We flew above the forest. “TAKE THE FIRST SHOT,” Sarah said. I spotted a moose down below, in a break among the trees. I aimed and fired, missing, and sending our prey galloping back into cover.

“YOU HAVE TO LEAD,” Sarah said. “LIKE THIS.”

She spotted another moose. Raising her rifle to her shoulder, she turned quickly to her right to track the animal. The gun barrel slammed into Mother, who lost her grip and tumbled out of the open chopper door. I screamed and grabbed for her, but my hands came away with only her orange hunting cap.

“OOPS,” said Sarah.

At the funeral, I said that it was an accident and that I didn’t hold Sarah accountable. Sarah said she was sorry, although she told the reporters, “THAT’S WHY THEY SAY BUCKLE UP FOR SAFETY.” Inside, I wanted to throttle her, to crush the very box that produced that voice. Instead, I smiled and hugged Sarah in front of reporters, swallowing my fiery rage for political gain. It’s what Mother would have wanted.

We met before the Republican convention and discussed policy points. When I asked her about her position on science, she said, “THE DINOSAURS DIED OUT BECAUSE NOAH DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH ROOM ON THE ARK.” We talked about health care, and she said, “JESUS IS THE BEST DOCTOR YOU’LL EVER HAVE, AND THERE’S NO PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS, EVEN IF YOU’RE JEWISH.” Regarding Iraq, she said we had to stay because “QUITTERS NEVER PROSPER.”

“No, it’s, ‘Cheaters never prosper,’” I corrected her.

“THEY DO IF THEY DON’T GET CAUGHT,” she answered.

After consulting with my advisors, I told her, “Maybe the convention is not the best place to discuss policy. Just go out there and be yourself.”

“WHO ELSE WOULD I BE?” she asked. “I COULD BE SOMEONE ELSE, THOUGH. I WAS IN A SCHOOL PLAY ONCE. I PLAYED A TREE.”

The eve of the convention, I could not sleep. What had I done? How could I ask America to vote for this woman when I wouldn’t vote for her?

But then it happened. She stepped in front of the microphone and won over not just the party, but America. She was folksy, charismatic, and not dim. “You did great,” I told her when she came off the stage.

“I HAD ALL THESE THINGS I WAS GOING TO SAY,” she said. “BUT THEN ALL THESE WORDS APPEARED BEFORE MY EYES, LIKE MAGIC. I JUST READ THEM, AND THEY SCROLLED DOWN AND MORE APPEARED AND THEN PEOPLE CLAPPED. I THINK JESUS WAS SPEAKING THROUGH ME.”

“Yes,” I said, “I’m going to go out and speak the magic words too.”

“YOU SHOULD SAY THAT ‘COMMUNITY ORGANIZER’ IS A CODE WORD FOR ‘SECRET MUSLIM.,’” she said.

“I will if that’s what Jesus writes,” I replied.

The polls shot up and what looked like certain political doom turned into a convention miracle. Maybe I was wrong about Sarah. Maybe I really did not understand what ordinary Americans wanted.

“THAT’S EXACTLY RIGHT,” she told me. “I’M LIKE THEM. OR THEY’RE LIKE ME. AND YOU NEED TO SHOW THAT YOU’RE ONE OF US.”

She started telling me about The Plan. It came to her in a dream. “I SAW A MAN, UNDER A SINK. I COULDN’T SEE HIS FACE, JUST THE TOP OF HIS HINEY STICKING OUT OF HIS JEANS. YOU WERE IN THE SINK, NOT REAL SIZE, BUT TINY SIZE. THE MAN WAS TRYING TO FIX THE PIPES.”

“What do you think it means?” I asked her.

“I DON’T THINK THE PIPES ARE REALLY PIPES. THEY’RE AMERICA. WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT WHO’S GOING TO FIX THE PIPES.”

I looked at her, thanked her, and told her I would take her advice under advisement. “WOW, NO ONE HAS EVER DONE THAT BEFORE,” she beamed.

She started doing interviews, and things turned disastrous. When asked about looking for oil in ANWAR, she said, “I HAVE THE SAME BELIEF ABOUT OIL THAT I DO ABOUT SNUGGLE TIME WITH TODD: DRILL WHERE YOU WANT, AS MUCH AS YOU WANT, WITHOUT ANY PROTECTION.” She told Katie Couric that she had a plan for dealing with Russia. “IT’S LIKE D-DAY, ONLY WITHOUT NAZIS. AND WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS.”

“Sarah,” I told her. “You have to watch what you say.”

“I WAS,” she said, “BUT THE JESUS WORDS DIDN’T APPEAR, SO I SAID WHAT I HEARD IN MY HEAD. GOD TALKS TO ME THAT WAY, TOO.”

After another meeting with my advisors, we fixed it so she would only talk when she had ‘Jesus Words’ in front of her—at least until we could get her to memorize the Jesus Words we wanted her to say. But the damage was done. The media had a field day with her. One evening, she telephoned me. Her voice was quick and her pitch a full tone higher. The receiver was like a diamond-cutter sawing at my eardrums.

“JOHN,” she yelped. “I’M ON THE TV, BUT I’M ALSO RIGHT HERE. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?”

I turned on the set. “Which channel?” I asked.

“CHANNEL SEVEN,” she said.

Channel seven on my system was the cable guide. “Which network?”

“THE ONE THAT’S ON CHANNEL SEVEN.”

I eventually found what she was looking at. “Sarah,” I said, “That’s not you. That’s Tina Fey.”

“WHO?”

“An actress playing you.”

She paused for a moment. “WHEN DID THEY MAKE A MOVIE ABOUT ME?”

My political fortunes continued to slide. Privately, I resigned myself to losing. But Sarah would not accept defeat. She kept admonishing me to follow The Plan, even though she didn’t know what The Plan really was.

Sarah called me. “TURN ON YOUR TV TO CHANNEL 32.”

After some investigation, I determined she was watching CNN. They were running a piece on my opponent, who was being questioned on a campaign stop by a plumber named Joe. I asked her what was so important.

“THAT’S THE GUY WHO WAS FIXING THE PIPES IN MY DREAM,” she said, her voice giddy. I asked her how she could know that when she had not seen the man’s face. “I JUST KNOW,” she said. “YOU HAVE TO TALK ABOUT HIM. IT’S THE PLAN.”

I may never know why I listened to her. Maybe I was desperate. Maybe I wanted to seem like a man of the people. And maybe—and this is what I think, deep down, is the answer—I wanted to believe. I wanted to be part of the America that thought they could find answers in dreams and Jesus Words, to be able to just believe what you wanted, without the gnawing fear of being wrong.

During the debate, I didn’t just talk about Joe the Plumber. I invoked his name over and over, making him my prayer, my mantra, my hymn to the average American that my running mate so clearly exemplified. When I finished, Sarah greeted me as I left the stage.

“IT’S GOING TO WORK. IT’S THE PLAN.”

The part that haunts me, more than anything, is that I believed her.

Of course, it didn’t work. It failed spectacularly, and in many respects, The Plan made me look even more out of touch than ever. On the night of the election, after I conceded, I turned to Sarah.

“So much for your plan.”

“I KNOW. I THINK I MISUNDERSTOOD THE DREAM. DREAMS ARE HARD, LIKE MATH.”

She looked genuinely sad, and for a moment, I felt bad about hurting her feelings. I hugged her and told her that was okay, that we gave it our best shot.

“I HAD ANOTHER DREAM,” she said. “IT WAS 2012 AND PEOPLE WERE CALLING ME ‘MADAM PRESIDENT,’ LIKE ON BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. ONLY IT WAS REAL LIFE AND NOT IN SPACE. MAYBE THE PLAN WAS TO GET ME THE EXPERIENCE I NEEDED SO I COULDBE PRESIDENT.”

“So you’re saying that The Plan—God’s plan—was for me to lose so that you could become president?” I asked her.

“YES,” she said. “AND IF I WIN, YOU CAN BE MY VICE-PRESIDENT. IF YOU’RE STILL ALIVE.”

For the second time, I believed her. That God wanted her to become the leader of America because she was the future of America. And that belief—that searing, hot, ball of conviction in my gut—is why I am no longer a believer. Yet I still pray. I pray that I will join Mother in the sweet, peaceful oblivion that is as far away from The Plan as possible.

The Candy Man

A CJSD Analog Short


It all started with the damn candy.

Last year, Loretta didn’t buy enough. I told her to get a few bags worth, what with all the yuppies and their kids moving into the neighborhood now. “Make sure you get enough,” I told her. So what did she do? She bought two bags of those little Snickers bars. Two. “‘That should be plenty,’” she told me. Hmph. We ran out by 8:30 and the next morning, who’s outside scraping dried egg yolks off the Plymouth? Not Loretta, let me tell you.

So this year, I tell her to make sure we had enough candy. Specifically, I said, “Buy enough goddamned candy to feed a Vietnamese village.” Now you see, I was exaggerating in order to make a point. But Loretta, she’s not so good at picking up on little subtleties and what not. She comes home from the Super Shopper with enough candy to feed the entire Viet Cong. Jawbreakers, Milky Ways, Milk Duds...and three bags of Candy Corn. Fifty bucks worth of candy. I imagine my face was red as an apple. But when I look at Loretta and she’s smiling and proud of herself for getting so much candy like I asked her, well, I can’t really yell at her now, can I?

Halloween night comes around, and the inside of my porch looks like Willy Wonka’s factory. There’s candy everywhere. And I’m throwing handfuls of the stuff in the kids’ bags, not even waiting for them to ask for it. They’re saying “...treat” and I’m already onto the next kid. But we had a lot less kids coming around on account of last year’s incident with Mr. Johnson’s popcorn balls. So even though I’m like the Santa Claus of Halloween, I’ve got more than half of the candy left at the end of the night.

Luckily Loretta’s like a pack rat and saves every damn bit of paper that she can. Normally I yell at her for keeping all that junk, but this time, she’s got the receipt for the candy. I figure I’ll just take it back to the store, end of problem.

I throw all the stuff in the back of the Chuck Wagon—that’s my nickname for my cargo van—and drive off to the Super Saver. I come to the customer counter and talk to this kid. I tell him what happened and show him the receipt.

“I’m sorry, sir, but there are no returns on Halloween candy,” he says.

“But I didn’t open it, and I’ve got my receipt right here,” I tell him.

“Yes, I understood you the first time,” he says, “but the store policy is that there are no returns on Halloween candy.” And he says it in this real condescending voice, too, like I’m an idiot or something.

“Look here,” I tell him, “I heard you the first time, too, okay? And I want you to hear this...I want to speak to the manager.”

“I am the manager,” he says.

Manager! This kids looks like he’s not ready to start shaving yet. Well, to make a long story short, I use some language I normally save for poker night with the guys and wind up being escorted out of the store—candy still in hand. Super Shopper. More like the Super Sucker.

I’m driving in the van, just mad as a tick. I know rules are rules, but when a customer comes in with perfectly good merchandise and a receipt, that should be the end of the story, right? You got a receipt and unopened candy, you should get your money back. This isn’t Russia. I’m turning all this over in my head and trying to figure out what to do with all the candy when I damn near hit some kid who comes flying out of nowhere. He’s chasing after a football his friend threw into the street. I slam on the breaks and honk the horn and roll down my window, ready to give this kid a lecture on looking both ways, when it dawns on me: kids...candy.

“Hey, little boy,” I say to him out of the window. “You want some candy.”

The kid just looks at me like I’ve got two heads. “Hey,” I say, louder, “You want some candy? I’ve got some for you.”

His little friend—the little quarterback—comes over and grabs his arm. He says something to him I can’t hear and they just take off running. “Wait,” I yell out to them, but they take off faster than Loretta’s waistline did after she turned 30.

I get back home and decide I’ve had enough hooplah over a bunch of stupid candy for one day. I leave it out in the van and go inside.



Next day, Loretta gives me a grocery list and a bunch of Super Shopper coupons from the Sunday paper. I don’t want to tell her that I’m banned from the one over on Hawthorne, so I take the coupons, hop in the van and drive to the one way the hell over on Jackson Street. They’re having a sale on winter salt, so I figure I might as well load up and get a fifty pound bag. But while I’m throwing it in the van, I’m not paying attention and almost throw it on top of the candy. I catch myself and twist my damn back just like I did the last day at the plant. It wrenches up like a vice grip, enough that I had to ask some girl bagger to help me get it in the van.

On my way back home, I see a bunch of kids playing in a yard. They look happy and normal, not like the two dim bulbs I saw the day before. I pull up to the curb and roll down the window. “Hey kids,” I say, friendly as I can be. “How would you like some candy.”

“You’ve got candy?” they ask, excited.

“Whole bunch of it,” I tell them.

“Oh, please mister, can we have some of your candy? Please please please.” Cute kids, they are. And normal.

“Sure thing,” I tell them. I get ready to get out, and my back locks up. “Say, why don’t you guys come around and get it out of the van yourself?” I tell them.

They smile and giggle and run around to the back. They get door open when I hear this scream. I look out the window and see this woman running toward the van. “Kyle! Joseph! Get away from there! NOW!” I mean, she’s acting like the kids are getting into a burning building.

“Ma’am, they’re fine, they’re just getting some candy out of my van.”

“You leave them alone!” she screams, her voice dropping to this growl. And she comes around the side and yanks the kids away from the van. They start crying and whining about the candy, but she just pulls them to the house, looking back at me and giving me the evil eye. And not only did the kids not take any of the God-forsaken candy, but they left the door wide open. I get out and lurch over to the side door and slam it shut. For the second night in a row, I’m sitting at home with a bunch of candy I don’t need.



Now, I know what you’re thinking: why don’t I just keep the candy? Well, it’s Loretta. With her blood sugar and obsessive compulsive disorder, it’d be Easter Sunday in the hospital all over again. In fact, I told her I already returned it so she wouldn’t go snooping around in the Chuck Wagon.

So why don’t I just throw it out? Let me tell you what’s wrong with this country, other than baby-faced store managers who get to tell you what you can and can't return: throwing stuff out when it’s perfectly good. That’s not how my dad raised me. My mother once made meat loaf that was packed with onions. My father, rest his soul, he loved onions. “Honey,” he’d tell my mother, “you never put enough onions in the meat loaf.” So one night she puts two whole onions in the meat loaf, just so my father will stop talking about there not being enough onions. It was a wonder that she could even bake it. I know he hated every bite, but he’d rather swallow every mouthful of onion-soaked meat than throw it out. I hate onions, so I pushed the plate away. What’d my father do? He stuck that plate in the refrigerator. For the next three nights, he’d go in the refrigerator and set that cold, slimy plate of meat loaf in front of me. I didn’t get any other dinner except that, “You finish what your mother made you, boy,” he said each night. I don’t know how I did it, but I choked it down. And even though I went up to my room and called him every name in the book, I learned a big lesson that night. So that’s why I couldn’t just throw that candy away.



I get up the next morning and Loretta’s got another list for me. She’s out of yarn and needs me to go to Needle in a Haystack. I hate having to go there—I’m always the only man in the place. But she can’t drive on account of her deformed big toe, so I have to go.

Unfortunately, Loretta’s a little behind on her laundry, so all I have to wear are my “fat pants.” I had a bit of weight problem after the accident at the plant, and finally lost it by going on that shake diet. I put them on and they practically fall off. I grab my one good belt, but while I’m tightening it, the damn buckle hole rips. I tell you another thing wrong with this country, they don’t make belts like they used to. My father had one belt that lasted him 47 years. I can’t get one to last 17. I could wait for my pants, except you don’t want to come between Loretta and her yarn. I figure what the hey, I’m just running out for some thread.

In the van, I pass by three of the cutest little girls you ever did see. Triplets, all dressed alike, laughing and jumping in a big pile of leaves. It’s like a sign, like God’s telling me, “give these girls your candy.”

I pull over to the curb and get out of the van, holding my pants up with one hand. “Hey girls, how are you?” I ask them.

“Fine,” they say, all together like a choir.

“Do you girls like candy?” I ask.

“Candy?!” they yell. “You have candy?”

“A whole lot of it,” I say. I open up the back and pull out two fistfuls of bags. I toss them to the girls and they’re squealing, “candy, candy, CANDY!” I get all the candy out except for two bags that are just out of my reach. The little girls are hopping up and down around me, and just as I get the last bags in my hands, I feel a bit of a breeze. That’s when I hear the siren. I turn around and see two cops. I hold up the two last candy bags just before my fat pants fall to my knees.

So that’s how I wound up here. Try to do something nice and look where it gets me. No good deed goes unpunished, my dad used to say. I’ll tell you, that’s what’s really wrong with this country. And whoo boy, you’re lucky you didn’t have to hear Loretta when I told her I was in the pokey. It’s gonna be a long ride home. As soon as someone can drive her over here, of course.