Chapter 12 The Art of the Deal
“You ain’t got nothing bigger? My granny wouldn’t be caught dead in this pussy mobile.”
Mitch Sweeney was sixty years old and both his grandmas had been dead for decades, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, he needed to make an impression and this shit wouldn’t fly.
When the Hertz attendant shook his head, his floppy blond hair looked like something out of a shampoo commercial. Mitch had already noticed a trace of polish on his thumbnail. He wondered how anyone in their right mind could argue the crap the government put in the water wasn’t turning men’s grapes into raisins.
“The Toyota Tacoma is the largest model we have on the airport lot today. I could call round to our other Atlanta locations if you like. You have a specific vehicle in mind?”
“RAM 3500 or Ford F-450. A Hummer might work in a pinch.” Back in LA he drove a Mercedes-Benz G-Class, but in Georgia, only American-built would do.
“Alright then, why don’t you come on back to the office and we’ll see what we can find for you.” The attendant paused and his eyes narrowed as he took Mitch in. “You know, you look awful familiar.”
“Mmm-hmmm.” Mitch refused to engage. Usually he loved being recognized, but today he had shit to do.
“You ever work down at the Pep Boys on Peachtree?”
“Fuck no, soy boy,” Mitch said. “I’m an international movie star.”
“Of course,” the attendant said with the distant smile of someone forced to take abuse for a living. “That must be it.”
It was times like these when Mitch wished he was just a regular Joe who could kick the shit out of a loser and not make the news.
“Are you kidding me? I was Roy in American Spirit.”
“Right. Haven’t seen that one yet,” the attendant admitted. “I was a little too young when it came out.”
“Guess you never snuck into an R-rated movie?” Mitch said with his signature sneer.
“No, sir. Not back in preschool,” the attendant told him.
When he finally slid behind the wheel of a silver RAM 3500, Mitch did a quick check in the rearview mirror. A quick check was all he could stomach these days. He’d left Georgia in ’86, a lean mean six-three and 180 pounds, with a chiseled jaw and a head full of chestnut-brown hair. Last he checked, he was still six-three, but that was where the similarities with his former self ended. The head he saw in the mirror had been shaved clean to camouflage male-pattern baldness, and his once steely jawline had melted into a set of jowls.
Not that Hollywood cared. Mitch still got as much work as he ever had. He’d simply transitioned from playing one set of villains to portraying another. There were always plenty of roles for actors with authentic Southern drawls. Evil state troopers. Evil sheriffs. Evil overseers. Evil army generals. Evil hillbillies. Evil corporate types. Evil grand wizards. Evil coaches. Evil cartoon characters. When he’d first moved to California, he’d done everything he could think of to break out of the bad guy rut. But the very few Southern romantic leads all went to pretty boy Matthew McConaughey and the Oscar bait crap to Billy Bob Thornton.
“You look like an asshole,” a casting director had told him. “And you sound like one, too. It’s a gift. Make good use of it.”
It didn’t feel like a gift, though. An actor should be able to disappear into any role. That was impossible when people had you pegged the second they heard your voice. Dumb, angry, and racist, they figured. But when he tried ditching his accent, he just ended up blending into the crowd. Actors who blended in didn’t make bank. So at some point, Mitch stopped fighting and became the man they wanted him to be. That’s when he started to go viral.
It began one night in 2016. He’d been lying in bed, performing his daily Google search of his name, when he stumbled across a tweet by some Ivy League activist who’d described the men at a Trump rally as “mouth-breathing, gay-bashing, white nationalist Mitch Sweeney types.” Until that point, Mitch had never made a public comment about anything political. Hell, he wasn’t even registered to vote. But there was something that made it okay to go after him—and everyone knew what it was.
Mitch had talked about the discovery a million times since. Though he loved to embellish his origin story, he never revealed how he’d truly felt at that moment. A little bit hurt and a whole lot scared shitless. He’d typed out his subtweet and turned out the lights, but he hadn’t fallen asleep for hours.
White. Southern. Male. Straight. I was born this way. What the fuck is wrong with that?
The next morning, he woke up to a hundred thousand likes and a voicemail from the host of the biggest news show in the country.
“I didn’t choose to be a straight white man,” he told the host on TV later that day. “I didn’t choose to be born in Georgia. I don’t discriminate against anyone, and I sure as hell have never owned any slaves. So I don’t understand why anyone would want me to feel bad about shit I can’t help. I’m trying to get through the day just like everyone else. I will not accept blame for things that happened before I was born, and I am not going to apologize for who I am. I have a right to be proud. All of us do.”
For a few hours after that first interview, Mitch had fretted that his use of foul language might have been a mistake. But his willingness to defy the censors only served to convince viewers of his sincerity. Within a few months, he had two million followers on Twitter and over a million on Instagram. He was a regular on Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, and Joe Rogan. When Donald J. Trump himself asked Mitch to join him onstage at a rally, Mitch was honored to oblige. He didn’t know much about Trump’s policies back then, but he knew Hillary Clinton was an uptight cunt, and he wasn’t afraid to say so. It was Trump who pulled Mitch aside and told him he ought to consider a career in politics. The world needed more men who called things like they saw ’em.
What Mitch was seeing by that point was his own glorious future. He’d finally landed the perfect role—one that would attract millions of adoring fans and require minimal acting on his part. Of course, there were plenty of haters, too. You couldn’t say a word in support of white men without every virtue signaling asshole coming right for your throat. And when those #MeToo bitches crawled out of the woodwork, Mitch had to postpone his plans while the lawyers dealt with a couple of ghosts from his past. But two personal assistants who couldn’t handle seeing a grown man naked weren’t going to stop Mitch Sweeney from going hard against the libs.
Feminists won’t be satisfied until white men surrender our guns, our rights, and our balls.
That tweet got five hundred fifteen thousand likes.
“You better be careful,” his brother, Jeb, had told him. It was the first time they’d spoken in months. Years earlier, Mitch had bailed out the family farm, where his brother still lived, but Jeb wasn’t big on phone calls or gratitude. “You’re starting to sound like a Nazi with all this white men shit.”
“You know I’m not a Nazi,” Mitch said. “I’ve worked with a million gays and Jews. Liked almost all of them.”
“The Nazis sure think you’re a Nazi,” Jeb replied.
“So?” Mitch demanded. “What am I supposed to do about that? I can’t tell them who to like.”
“You’re kidding,” Jeb had responded, like the self-righteous asshole he was.
“Fuck you. This is war,” Mitch told him. “It’s time to choose sides, and I’ll take all the help I can get.”
Jeb did not choose Mitch’s side. It stung a bit, but looking back, his brother had always been a fucking libtard. Mitch tried not to hold it against him. He knew it must have been hard for Jeb growing up in his shadow. The only way for Jeb to stand out was to be as different from his brother as possible. So he’d been the sensitive child. The smart one. Then he went to vet school and started saving sweet little kittens and everyone loved him and thought he was the greatest thing since sliced fucking bread even though Mitch was talented and famous and had millions of followers.
Halfway between Atlanta and Troy, Mitch pulled over for gas. A cuck at the next pump kept sneaking peeks over his shoulder.
“For fuck’s sake, just ask,” Mitch told him. Nothing annoyed him more than a man with no ’nads.
“Okay. What’s it cost to drive that beast all the way from New York?”
“What?” Mitch looked down at his jeans and boots. He’d worn them home after his last day of playing a good old boy type. The costume manager was one of the best in the business. He had to appear authentic. “Do I look like I’m from fucking New York?”
“You got New York plates.”
Mitch left the pump in the fuel filler and stomped around to the front of the rental truck. “Moth-er-fucker!”
He kicked the front tire three times with each foot. If there’d been time to turn back, he probably would have. But he needed to get to Troy straightaway.
Just like God told him to tweet back in 2016, he’d had Mitch switch on his favorite news show the previous night. The first thing he saw on the screen was his hometown’s hero, Augustus Wainwright, in all his glory.
“Mayor Randy Sykes resigned yesterday evening and candidates are already lining up to take his place,” said a voice-over. “School board member Beverly Underwood was the first to announce a run, and she’s already making big promises.” The video cut to some prissy-looking blond woman standing in front of Val’s salon across the street from the square.
“Just as book banning has no place in a democracy, a slaveholding Confederate officer should not be honored in the United States of America,” the lady announced. “I am a direct descendant of Augustus Wainwright, and if I’m elected mayor, I will have my great-great-great-great-grandfather’s statue removed from Jackson Square.”
The camera cut to the show’s host, jaw dangling like the bitch had slapped him right across the face. Mitch thought it was sad that his new best buddy didn’t get credit for being one of the finest actors around.
“That statue of General Wainwright has stood on the same spot in Georgia for over one hundred and fifty years—a tribute to the philanthropist who built the county courthouse. Now one woman thinks she has the right to blow a town’s history to smithereens. This!” The host pointed up to a graphic of the statue exploding. “This is what we can expect if we let liberal feminists gain the power they want—to see our heritage and way of life destroyed.”
It wasn’t the host’s heritage, of course. He’d grown up in Greenwich, Connecticut. But Mitch had ancestors who’d fought side by side with Augustus Wainwright.
“Not in my fucking town.” Mitch picked up his phone and dialed the host at his studio in New York City.
For a few hours, Mitch toyed with the idea of running for mayor until he was reminded it would mean actually living in Troy. Besides, his friends in the news business thought he should set his sights higher. There were several statewide contests coming up in the next couple of years—and that might give him just enough time to convince his ex-wife not to open the door for any nosy reporters. What Mitch needed right now was to build his profile. So he’d thrown his support behind the feminazi’s opponent. This one was a female, too, but nobody’s perfect. Lula Dean had made a name for herself around Georgia by ridding the local libraries of propaganda and pornography. Woman or not, she was exactly the kind of politician his people loved—the kind that got liberal panties all in a twist.
Just found out my hometown’s being threatened by the liberal elite,he posted. Only two people can save it. Me and @luladeanformayor. Heading down tomorrow to kick some ass.
Lula was suitably thrilled. They agreed to meet at her house the next afternoon when he got to Troy. As soon as Mitch set foot in the place, he started to worry he’d hitched his star to the wrong broad. The lady’s home was done up like the inside of a vagina. Everything was decorated in shades of pink and the furniture upholstered in silk or velvet. The place made Mitch feel itchy and claustrophobic. First thing he did was walk to the windows and check to make sure no one could see in. Having his picture snapped in a room like this would destroy his credibility. Plus, he was sweating like a motherfucker.
“I see you have a flair for decorating, Mrs. Dean.” He brought out the charm while he wedged his manly ass into an armchair. “Does your husband love pink as much as you do?”
“Oh dear Lord, no,” Lula said. “When John was alive, we had our living room done up in tartan with walnut trim. After he passed, just the sight of Black Watch made me burst into tears. I had to go pink for the sake of my sanity. Can I tempt you?” She’d picked up a plate and paused with an unnecessarily large knife poised over a pie in the center of the coffee table.
“Yes, thank you,” Mitch said. “Is that apple?”
“Peach,” Lula said. “I can’t live without peach pie, so my girl and I spend all summer canning them.”
“It’s hard to find a woman who knows her way around a kitchen these days. The feminine arts seem to be dying out.” Mitch took a bite of the pie and forced himself to swallow. He washed it down with a mouthful of coffee and let the plate rest on his knee for a second while he waited to see how Lula would respond.
“Mmmm,” she said, savoring her creation. “And my mama said I couldn’t bake. Can you believe that?”
“Madness!” Mitch offered. He could still taste the grit in his mouth. The peaches were weird and flavorless, and if he hadn’t known any better, he’d have guessed the crust was made of that kinetic sand shit you used to see at the airport.
Lula set her plate down and folded her hands in her lap. “Now, am I to believe that an international movie star has flown all this way to support little ole me in my bid for mayor?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a chivalrous bow of the head.
“No, I’m afraid I was being serious just now.” The saccharine-sweet smile was gone and Mitch realized he’d walked into an ambush. “Why should I believe you’re really here to help me?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your brother, Jeb, has been a massive pain in my rear end lately. Every time I hold a press conference, he’s always right there holding a silly sign. Last time it was some nonsense about burning books leading to burning humans. Made me sound like a horrible person.”
Mitch took a second look at Lula. When he’d first laid eyes on her, he’d seen an aging belle with a Botoxed forehead and orange hair that matched her Lilly Pulitzer tunic. She looked like all the bored rich ladies who opened boutiques on Main Street, and he’d assumed she would be easy to manipulate. But now he’d met the real Lula Dean and Mitch realized she wasn’t the woman who’d greeted him at the door. He’d fallen for an act, just as he had with his ex-wife. Women like Lula made you feel like a king until they got you where they wanted you. Then the claws would come out.
Also, fuck Jeb. That woke asshole had been a thorn in Mitch’s side since grade school.
“Jeb and I don’t always see eye to eye, but I assure you I can find a way to make him stop harassing you.”
“That would be greatly appreciated.” Lula was smiling again. This time, Mitch found it troubling. There was something unnatural about this woman. “But let’s not pretend you’re here for me. You say you want to help? What’s in it for you?”
He didn’t dare lie. He was starting to suspect Lula could see straight into his soul. “Visibility. I want to run for statewide office someday and I need to start making a name for myself in politics.”
“Here—or back in California, where you’ve lived for the past forty years?”
The lady wasn’t fucking around. “Here. This is my home. There were Sweeneys on this land before there was even a town.”
Lula seemed to approve of that answer. “And why would someone want to vote for you? Aside from a willingness to film full frontal nudity, what exactly do you stand for?”
Ho-ly shit.Lula Dean had just informed him that she’d seen his penis. That was one hell of a power move. Respect was due. “Loyalty,” Mitch said. “I always stand by the people who are loyal to me. I will not turn on them or let them down, no matter what the coastal elites say or who tries to cancel them.”
“You mean the people who are loyal to you—or the people who do what you tell them to do?”
Mitch snorted. “Same thing, ain’t it?” he asked.
“Close enough,” Lula agreed.
As Lula took another bite of her nasty pie, her eyes never left Mitch’s face. The bitch was seriously hard-core.
“What about you?” He couldn’t let her just run him right over. “What do you stand for, Mrs. Dean?”
“You drive past that run-down brick building out by the highway on your way into town?” she asked.
“You mean the old Lambert mill?”
“That’s the one. My maiden name is Lambert, and my daddy was the last person in my family to run that mill. His great-grandfather built it, and before there was a mill, my great-great-grandfather ran a gin on that site. If I’m not mistaken, your family’s fields supplied a lot of the cotton that went through their machines.”
“I’m sure that’s right,” Mitch confirmed. “The Sweeneys made a pretty good living back in the day.”
“A fortune, I’d bet. Just like the Lamberts. We built a big house. We turned out judges and congressmen and even a senator. But then things started to change. When I was a little girl, the district attorney brought a case against my father for paying the workers the way they’d always been paid. Nobody was complaining, but she called it wage theft. We lost everything. Your family fare any better in the past fifty years?”
Mitch stifled a yawn. Was he supposed to wish the Sweeneys were still farmers? Did Lula want to be running a fucking cotton mill? All this good-old-days bullshit was holding folks back.
“There wasn’t any money left in growing cotton. There hasn’t been a farmer in the family for three generations.”
“What about that land the Sweeneys were living on before Troy was a town?”
“’Fraid most of that’s gone, too.”
“Along with the respect that went with it. Being a Sweeney isn’t quite what it used to be, is it? Not much to separate y’all from the riffraff these days. Is that why you hurried off to Hollywood? To get the respect and attention you deserved? The attention you’d been denied all the years you were here?”
This time, Mitch didn’t feel any need to respond. The woman was clearly obsessed.
“Look, I’m not trying to get at you,” she continued. “I would have done the same thing if I’d had any talent. Instead, while all y’all moved away, I stayed here and watched everything go to seed. Didn’t seem like there was anything I could do to stop it. Truth is, I didn’t figure out what I’m good at until recently. You know what my gift is?”
“I can’t wait to find out.” What he really wanted to know was why was he sitting inside a giant vagina discussing this woman’s gifts when he honestly couldn’t give a fuck.
“I’m very good at finding people who are just as frustrated as I am. Folks whose fortunes have fallen and those who worry their circumstances will be reduced. I know how to talk to them. I know how to rally them to the cause. You know how I do it?”
Now they were getting somewhere. “How?”
“By saying the things they’ve been afraid to say and doing the things they’ve been afraid to do. You asked what I stand for and it’s real simple. I believe that we’re at a crossroads. People like my opponent want us to give up everything we’ve always held sacred. Our values, our history, our place in this world. If she wins and this town follows her, men like you are going to be tossed on the scrap heap of history right next to Augustus Wainwright.”
“And if you win?”
“I will follow the lead of the two white men who built this town—Augustus Wainwright and Jesus Christ. And if you’ll join us, Mitch, I truly believe we will make Troy great again.”
He liked the sound of that. “Then count me in.”
“Wonderful. But before we can do anything, we need to destroy Beverly Underwood.”
“Remind me who that is again?” Mitch Sweeney asked.
Outside, reporters had gathered. Mitch and Lula stood together outside her picket fence. Red, white, and blue Lula for Mayor! signs called out from the yard behind them.
“Thank y’all for being here today,” Mitch addressed them. “I came down to Georgia because things have gone way too far. The radical left has pushed its agenda into our schools and our libraries. I hear they’ve got our kids baking dirty cakes and learning how to use butt plugs. Now they’re out to destroy our statues and what’s left of our great heritage. If we don’t rise up and stop them now, I promise you, there will not be another opportunity. If we want to return to the way things were—to a time when our way of life was honored and respected—we have to defeat these libs for good. That’s why I urge everyone here in Troy to vote for Lula Dean!”
“Thank you, Mitch,” Lula cooed as she accepted the microphone. “I gotta say, I’m just tickled pink that an international movie star like Mitch Sweeney would come all this way to lend me his support. I think it shows how much good we’ve done so far. People are tired of being pushed around. Life used to be simple in towns like Troy, and I’m convinced that it can be again.”
“Let’s get a shot of you both with Lula’s little library,” a reporter from the Herald called out.
Mitch and Lula posed on either side of the purple book-filled cabinet.
“You should take a book.” It sounded more like an order than a question. Lula reached in and pulled out a book and thrust it into Mitch’s hand.
“Well, how about that? I didn’t know you stocked the classics,” Mitch joked. “This here’s my favorite book.” He held The Art of the Deal up for the reporters to see, offering them his widest grin. “I think we’ve all got a lot to learn from the master.”