It was just coincidence that I happened to be at the Bumkin house when the tornado struck. Billy Bumkin, the mayor of Possum Holler, Arkansaw, had called me there to discuss whether I might be interested in consulting with him about improving his public image. His wife, Hilda Hamrod, had been nagging him for years to hire someone with my particular skills, so sure was she that an image enhancement would raise the entire Bumkin family to a new social status.

I've long been of the opinion that enhancing one's image is precisely the same thing as raising one's status, so Hilda got no guff from me. In fact, I made it a point from the very beginning to snuggle up to Hilda, as my first impression was that she wore the pants in the family. Besides, there was the delicate matter of my consulting fee, and I knew darn well that before Billy could spend a dime, Hilda had to approve.

So there I sat, rocking on the Bumkin's front porch and admiring the onset of another lazy Arkansaw sunset as I waited on Billy. I pulled the brim of my hat down over my eyes, crossed my hands behind by head, and leaned back almost to the wall in the rockin' chair.

I had arrived at suppertime, naturally. It was one of those late summer afternoons when the air gets so thick with the smells of the countryside that you seem to soak in it. There was a cool touch of rain on the breeze, and a few puffy thunderclouds brewed in the west.

The Bumkin's young daughter Cheslea was traipsing to and fro in the garden, picking out the ripest tomaters and squarsh, while Hilda prepared supper in the kitchen-which I understood to be the exception in the Bumkin household. (Hilda, you see, only took on feminine chores when visitors were about.) The rattling of pans and the smells of fried chicken and sweet potato pie soon wafted out from the kitchen. I closed my eyes and rocked that chair in a slow, easy rhythm, thinking about evenings on the bayou back home. Didn't take long before I began to snooze.

As for Billy, he was in the bedroom accessorizing the business suit I'd brought along for him, and fine duds they were, all tailor-made and full of ruffles, ribbons, and buttons. The suit had been a gift from my very first client, whom I'd helped out years before when I was still in the newspaper business.

That inaugural client of mine was a preacher from the southern swamps who had gotten caught in a compromising transaction involving a set of twins and a swingset. The preacher was, and still is (thanks to me), a raging success on the bayou revival circuit, and not a bad fellow, except that he has some singular hankerings and more money than he knows what to do with. I got the preacher back onstage in a few short months, just as popular as ever, for a considerable fee, of course; and so began my career in public relations.

I hated to give up the duds, but I needed a new account, and Billy was known to respond well to a timely gift.

So as I was saying, there I sat, just barely dozing. Billy was tarrying in the boudoir, which I would soon discover contained a magnificent full-length mirror. I reckoned he was having trouble getting his mayoral sash to hang properly on his new suit, which I judged might be just a smidge too tight.

Presently an evening chill began seeping into the air. Normally this would have been a welcome refreshment-but it came on a little too early and a bit too quickly, disquieting man and beast. The crickets started chirping as if it were dusk, and the dogs skulked up under the porch.

The western sky, which had been only a little dark before, was getting darker, so much so that I could sense it even with my eyes shut. The air was dead still one moment and full of whirlwinds the next. I heard the weather vane squeak, then two screen doors slammed shut of their own accord.

That's when Cheslea suddenly let loose a squeal, and then Hilda shrieked for Billy at the top of her ample lungs: "Bill-LEE! Billy BUMKIN!!!"

I stretched my back and rubbed my eyes as Billy bolted out of the bedroom and scampered to Hilda's side just outside the front door.

"What in the world…" he said, and then he gasped. For in the west, a sheer black mountain of a thunderhead was bearing down ominously on the humble Bumkin estate. The edges of the storm glimmered silverish from the effect of the sun setting behind it, and wisps of bright white eddied about its shoulders. Beneath it columns of rain slanted to earth, and from its lower extremities three black tails dangled, cyclone-like.

I hopped out of that rockin' chair and headed for the basement, only to realize there was none-the Bumkin house was built slap on the Arkansaw dirt!

"Ches-LEA!" shrieked Hilda as the girl bolted right past us and into her parents' bedroom. Hilda followed close on the girl's heels, with me just behind making vague motions as if to herd the females to safety. Billy stood for a moment judging the speed and direction of the storm. Then he set his jaw and turned smartly on his heels.

"Under the bed!" he commanded, as straight and sure as if he'd said it a thousand times before.

Well, I didn't need any invite, so I flipped the four-poster up, guided Hilda and Cheslea underneath, gestured Billy on in, grabbed up all the bedding I could and dove on under, pulling the bedding in behind. We were all elbows and knees, settling into place with only a few unkind nudges.

Not a moment had passed when the tornado swooped down on Bumkin Bluff and sucked, rather gently for such a beast, the little Bumkin hovel clear into the sky-all except the stone chimney, which stood rock solid through the whole ordeal and remains so to this day.

Now, let me stop here for a minute. I know that many a tall tale has been told in recent days. No one in their right mind would believe at first glance that not only could an entire house be pitched into the sky by a tornado, but that anyone unfortunate enough to be residing therein could live to tell about it.

Well, it was a small house, and well constructed-just a plain square hovel with a shotgun hallway down the middle. It was built at a time when people were more respectful of natural forces, and when a 2X4 was really two-by-four, so it was sturdy from joint to joist. Plus, I do believe there were other forces at work that day, as you will soon deduce for yourself.

The plain truth is that the tornado bore that house, with yours truly and all three Bumkins snuggled up like squirrels under the soft feather bed, from Possum Holler, Arkansaw, clear on over to Capital City, practically a hundred miles away.

Of course, all the proof anyone should need is the historical record-for it is an irrefutable fact that on the evening in question, Billy, Hilda, Cheslea and I thumped abruptly onto the lawn of the Capital City Mall, where our arrival was greeted with such fanfare you'd have thought it was the second coming.

We were quickly surrounded by a throng of reporters, there being more reporters in town than there were news stories that day. The reporters were followed by many times the requisite number of government officials, lobbyists, and lawyers, owing to the fact that there was little else for anyone to do in Capital City at that moment in the nation's history. A herd of police officers and assorted onlookers rounded out the mob.

As a former newsman myself, I was a bit surprised by both the intensity and the scale of our reception, especially there in the busy capitol of the nation. But the business of governing had just recently been suspended due to the "resignation" of the President of the United State, a kind and gentle man who had become so sickened by the din and clatter of partisan politicking that he simply hadn't the heart to carry on any further. The press, of course, abhors a vacuum, and we sure filled it.

The mere landing of a house on the Capital City Mall was, I suppose, news in and of itself, especially in a time when many reporters had reverted to the sensationalism of earlier years. The fact that all four of us walked out of the ordeal with little more than bumps and bruises magnified the story's newsworthiness tenfold.

You can imagine, then, how stunning it must have seemed when, on top of all that, Billy Bumkin came striding out of the hovel dressed like the slickest campaigner around and sporting his mayoral sash. I'll be damned if it wasn't the perfect setup for Billy, who, though he'd learned the trade of politicking in a humble backwater, nonetheless had the art of wooing the public down pat. It's all local, after all.

Hilda tiptoed up beside her husband and gestured behind her backside for Cheslea to join them on the porch. Meanwhile, I slid into the shadows in the foyer and surveyed the members of the press, who were doing their best to maintain an air of civility as they jostled and prodded their ways to the front of the crowd in order to gain a better vantage.

Hilda turned and cast a glance my way. I could already read her thoughts. The upshot was this-with the combination of chaos and malaise that had gripped the countryside ever since the resignation of the former President, Billy might actually have a chance to make a splash in Capital City!

At that time Capital City was dominated by two competing parties--the DoGooders and the DoNothings. The DoGooders, being the more populist of the two, controlled the Central Council as well as the presidency. Nothing moved in Capital City without the weight of one party or the other behind it.

Fortunately, the Bumkin's loyalty to the DoGooders was unquestioned; plus, they had made some influential acquaintances among the DoGooders in the Central Council, as had I. And then there was Billy's natural charm, which, it was said, could uncurl a billy goat's horns.

Billy himself was not ignorant of the possibilities. If he could seize the moment, this might be the biggest day of his life.

Billy casually slung a leg up over the porch rail and engaged the group of reporters, one of whom jokingly asked if he had been sent from heaven to rescue the government and lead the people to glory. Billy raised an eyebrow, bit his lip, let his head sway back and forth a little, and with a smile as sincere as a baby's burp chuckled, "I'll just leave that to the man upstairs and the people down here to decide."

A warm murmur spread through the throng as Billy winked at a little girl whose father had just propped her up on the porch rail for a better view.

"And what's your name, sweetie?" he cooed.

"Gwendolyn," she answered as flashbulbs popped in rapid succession like the end of a fireworks display. "Are you our new president?"

Billy mugged for the crowd, beaming with pleasure as he scooped little Gwen up in his arm and brushed back some golden locks from her forehead. The flashbulbs kept up their barrage.

"No, honey, I'm just lil' ol' Billy Bumkin, the Mayor of Possum Holler, Arkansaw. But if I ever am your president, would you like to come work for me?"

Little Gwen threw her arms spontaneously around Billy's neck, partly because he was just oozing a sugary avuncular quality, but also out of fear of the members of the press, whose popping cameras had intensified into a fusillade.

"Which party do you follow, Mayor Bumkin?" shouted one. "The DoGooders, or the DoNothings?"

"Are you seeking the nomination of either party?" screamed another.

"Did the tornado tear out all your plumbing, or did you not have plumbing in the first place?" screeched a third as she snooped around the Bumkin hovel.

The next morning, every paper, pamphlet, and broadsheet in the land ran a photograph of Billy and Little Gwen before the backdrop of the miracle cottage from Possum Holler, Arkansaw. Better yet, the headline in the Capital City Crier, the capitol's leading organ, read, "Are You Our New President?" and featured a smashing photo of Little Gwen throwing herself onto Billy as if he were her own dear Grampa with a pocketful of lollipops. Literally overnight, Billy Bumkin had become a contender for the vacant presidency.

That photo, believe it or not, set the stage for the beginning of the Bumkin administration. As unlikely as it seems, Mayor Billy Bumkin of Possum Holler, Arkansaw, was nominated shortly thereafter to be the DoGooder's candidate for president, and the appropriate committee on the Central Council soon agreed to schedule a popular vote.

But before I can tell you the rest of the story, I have to tell you about another big day in Billy's life. For while he did have the charm and instincts of a first class campaigner, he also had another advantage over just about every other ambitious DoGooder and DoNothing in all of Capital City.

You see, Billy Bumkin had a gremlin in his goober.

Let me say right here that I'm no expert on gremlins. For that matter, nobody is. The little critters are slippery, like sprites and nymphs and faries, only way, way smaller and a thousand times more devious.

What you've probably heard about gremlins is more or less true. Yes, they do inhabit machines, or any other apparatus. Yes, they do like to cause as much mischief as they possibly can. Yes, they do have powers to control and muck up just about anything. And yes, they can enter a human body, which is a machine at heart; and when they do, they wreak havoc like nothing else known to fact or fiction.

The phenomenon of gremlin parasitism, as it is known scientifically, has been documented for years under various names: prophecy, possession, schizophrenia, charisma. Truth be told, there's no treatment for gremlins. They come when they want to, and they go when they want to. They do whatever they like, without regard for consequences.

And their sense of humor is more dangerous than the purest human evil. Believe you me, the last thing in the world you want is to be inhabited by a gremlin.

There's one other thing about gremlins. They live anywhere they want to, and I do mean anywhere.

Of course, nobody has ever seen a gremlin. They're too small for that, and too foxlike. Most everything I know about them-and that's not an awful lot-I learned from watching Billy Bumkin.

Billy told me this story late one night at the beginning of his administration as we were sipping whiskey and smoking cigars. He had been down in delta country the very weekend before the tornado struck enjoying a junket arranged by a prominent DoGooder, whose name Billy discretely omitted, but whose identity I soon guessed. Now this DoGooder was known to love a good time, and he had a very liberal wife, so he and Billy made natural runnin' buddies.

Well, on this one particular night, the two had decided to take an envelope of unmarked campaign cash and spread it among the working women of a certain district of a certain quarter of the region's principal seaport. They wound up in the home of the city's most well-connected matron, where they shared more than whiskey and cigars.

Indeed, they shared the company of this matron several times over that night, like hungry schoolboys indulging in sloppy second helpings of pie.

And from that night forward, Billy Bumkin confided, he had suffered from two absolutely inexplicable conditions:

First, his member, which before had been as straight as any other man's, suddenly developed a hard thirty-degree turn to the left about halfway down.

And second, from that night forward, Billy was plagued by wanton thoughts and urges, not all of which were carnal in nature, that seemed to well up from nowhere and utterly cloud his reason.

Now here's a bit of inside dope that should convince even the most skeptical among you of the veracity of my story: the DoGooder whose name Billy discretely omitted, and who shared that certain matron's affections with Billy that night, suffered for years from precisely the same two conditions as Billy-right up until that very same night, at which point both conditions mysteriously ceased altogether!

How I came across this inside dope is not important. Let's just say that I am as well-connected in my field of endeavor as the matron whose affections Billy shared with this unnamed DoGooder is in hers. I also have it on good advice that the spontaneous emergence of neither condition can be explained based on current medical knowledge, much less the simultaneous transfer of both conditions from one person to another.

From this remarkable coincidence and the ensuing tornado episode, I deduced not only that Billy had been parasitized by a gremlin, but that the gremlin was a lover of politics. Moreover, I've come to understand the gremlin's modus operandi-it moves from politician to politician, reeking whatever havoc catches its fancy, by way of those women most deeply engaged in the social intercourse of the upper classes.

And there's one more thing-I've determined that the little bugger is partial to that part of the male anatomy which is most conducive both to leisurely reclining and to opportunities for transmittal into the body of another hostess.

Can't say it any plainer. Billy Bumkin had a gremlin in his goober, alright.

You've surely guessed that shortly after the tornado delivered the Bumkins to Capital City, the popular election was held, and Billy Bumkin, a Man of the People if ever there was one, became the President of the whole United State. Hilda was immediately named co-President Hamrod, and the happy couple moved proudly into the white presidential palace, which the people referred to with some reverence as the White Castle.

I was fortunate enough to be named Secretary of Missives and Information, which gave me open access to both the president and the various publishers and criers operating there in Capital City. Bottom line, I was responsible for Billy's public image.

There was some serious explaining to do from the very start. First thing the morning after the election, Hilda and Billy had me send out a press release proclaiming that theirs would be the most "morally upright and diverse" administration in the "whole history of the United State."

To bolster uprightness, they appointed a well loved (but thoroughly senile) preacher to implement a Straight As An Arrow policy. To maximize diversity, a One of Each policy was launched in the hopes of hiring a representative of each and every group residing in the United State to fill out the Bumkin administration.

There being little regard for morality in those days, the doddering head of the Straight As An Arrow policy quickly disappeared into a back office in the presidential palace, never to be heard from again.

But the One of Each policy soon became my first major headache when critics and hangers-on from every group imaginable descended on the White Castle demanding representation. Sad fact was, Billy's administration only contained so many posts, while the populace had long ago been segmented into hundreds of selfish interest groups by mercenary politicians and lobbyists.

We took plenty of heat in the press as we scrambled to actually find One of Each to fill out the cabinet. It was a task far beyond anything the Bumkins had imagined, and it eventually necessitated some aggressive headhunting for anyone who through ethnicity, disability, or proclivity could represent more than one group. There were halfbreeds and quarterbreeds and octoroons galore pounding on the door of the White Castle offering their pedigrees, while interspersed came a rather grotesque parade of pinheads, conjoined twins, bearded women, and the like. Rumor even had it that a man with the body of a goat was going to be the Secretary of State.

One by one we filled the many staff and cabinet posts with diversity such as had never been seen before, in part by mobilizing the military to search the entire country for every mongrel capable of holding a pencil, and in part by scouring circuses and freak shows. Within a week, two dwarves were appointed cabinet secretaries, a pair of Sapphic Siamese twins headed the education and corrections departments, respectively, and a dyslexic albino Rastafarian became the Chief of Staff.

Still, there were dozens of groups clamoring for representation.

Next we strategically created a series of new posts and departments, which were rapidly filled. These were followed by some new ambassadorships and under-secretariats; but we still didn't have One of Each. In desperation, the entire staff of the White Castle was fired and replaced with diverse-looking laborers with titles like Sub-Undersecretary of Doilies and Moist Towelettes. Still, there were a few stragglers who could credibly claim not to be represented in the Bumkin administration.

The scene finally grew ugly when an unlikely coalition of blind aboriginal hermaphrodites and lumberjacks who don't wear women's underwear began to picket the White Castle. They were gradually joined by the most outlandish array of oddities ever assembled, the diversity of which I cannot even begin to broach, chanting day in and day out, "One of Each! One of Each! One of Each!" The press, as you can imagine, gravitated towards this sideshow extraordinaire with gusto-and so was born the first crisis Billy, Hilda, and I had to face.

That was the first time I ever saw Billy and Hilda unleash their tempers. Let me tell you, they could both dish it out like sailors. Billy said that One of Each was Hilda's stupid idea, and Hilda said it was Billy's. Hilda said the crisis was Billy's fault, and Billy said it was Hilda's. Back and forth they went, using more physiological references and ethnic disparagements than I could count, until at last Hilda threw a lamp square at Billy's noggin, which it missed by inches.

At that, Billy picked up a chair to protect himself, and Hilda screeled like a bobcat. But just as the battle was about to be joined, Billy suddenly got an oddly peaceful look on his face. He set the chair down, snapped his fingers, and said calmly, "I've got it."

That night, the best toymaker in the land was summoned to the White Castle, and so was the nation's most gifted mad scientist. For four nights and three days the two labored nonstop, the toymaker in the castle's spacious woodshop, and the mad scientist in its secret basement laboratory. Curious packages came and went, some large and some small, and even curiouser noises wafted through the castle's halls and dungeons. No one was allowed to disturb the pair, nor were any questions entertained, until early on the fourth day, when I was directed to announce to the press the imminent introduction of the Bumkin administration's last two appointees.

Hundreds of reporters were soon assembled at the front gate of the White Castle, along with hundreds of citizens eager for the news. At noon, a squad of goons whisked the picketers away from the castle. Their cries of "One of Each! One of Each!" faded into the distance, and then Billy and Hilda made their entrance onto the front lawn, followed by Cheslea, who stood primly in the shadows.

Billy stepped up to the Castle's heralded rostrum and addressed the crowd.

"Thank you all for coming," he said with a sweetly sincere smile. "I'm sure everyone's ready to meet the last two appointees of our administration." A murmur of agreement rose up from those assembled. "Without further ado, please welcome my new vice president, Little Woody, and our new Barrister General."

The crowd gasped at what happened next. For emerging from the White Castle came two of the strangest creatures ever seen in the whole United State.

The first critter was a short, squat, wooden boy, who seemed to have been whittled right out of a log. His torso was indeed a thick, stiff log of hardest oak, its bark intact, with the odd knot or twig protruding here and there. His arms and legs were slender branches with stiff knotty knees and elbows, and twigs for fingers and toes. Twine puppet strings ran from each hand and foot to a small cross of wood that trailed behind him; but thanks to our friend the gremlin, he needed no marionette.

Most unsettling was his stout, expressionless head, which sat squarely on his woody torso and contained two dead eyes that seemed to see, but not to feel. He had no neck, and he could neither turn his head nor nod, so he had to move his whole body to look left or right, up or down. The only way the wooden boy could express himself was by speaking, which he did in a bland monotone as lifeless as those dull, dead eyes.

Little Woody the wooden boy waddled up beside Billy. "Good afternoon," he said, and then he plopped onto the ground as limp and lifeless as a board.

The second creature followed a moment later, lumbering with stiff legs up beside Hilda, and it took the breath out of everyone, myself included. This monster was gigantic, practically seven feet tall, with huge mismatched arms and legs and a torso as thick as a bull's. Its shape was human, but there was no hint of the masculine or feminine in its outlines-neither was there any hint of male or female in its pale, square face with its cold steel eyes and grim frozen lips. Its shoulders and neck were square, like blocks of granite, and its hands were large and thick-fingered, having once belonged to a stonemason. Of hair it had none, nor a strip of clothing; its body was a pale, featureless terrain, as sexless as a column of stone.

But the most grotesque thing about this monster was its skin, which was a patchwork of muted colors, all of which were infused with the pale gray of death, yet clearly of many distinct hues. Crisscrossing the massive figure were zigzags of craftily sewn seams of flesh that oozed greygreen pus wherever two hues came together.

Once the crowd had stopped gaping, Billy finished his brief remarks. "Our new Barrister General has been pieced together using parts from every unrepresented kind of person in the land. Little Woody, my vice president, is made of wood, and so becomes the first arboreal citizen to ever hold public office. This fulfills our promise to make the Bumkin administration the most diverse in the history of the nation. Thank you very much; I'm sorry, no questions at this time."

The reporters present erupted with a barrage of questions, the nature of which you can well imagine, as cameras flashed and photographers called frantically for a family portrait. But Billy and Woody, Cheslea, and Hilda and Hilda's Grimm, as the pale monster was presently dubbed, simply turned and walked silently back into the White Castle.

It fell on me to explain all this to an astonished public. And this was just the beginning.

The Castle was quickly divvied up in a way that suited Billy, Hilda, and, it seemed, the Castle itself; for the venerable structure had two quite distinctive wings that each suited one of the Bumkins precisely.

One wing was dominated by a tall, round tower of white ivory, which was topped with a collar-like balcony wrapped beneath a bulbous onion dome that blushed in shades of purple and red at sunrise and sunset. The other wing surrounded the president's famous workplace, the fabled Oblong Office, with its soft pink sofas and plush pastel carpets, and the myriad of windows overlooking the rose gardens. Between the two wings, the Castle's ivy-covered facade and fabled oaken front doors welcomed visitors into a magnificent central foyer replete with twin spiral staircases, sturdy marble pillars, and a blue domed ceiling.

Little Woody spent the rest of the Bumkin's tenure in and around the Oblong Office, tagging along behind Billy like a hungry pup, while the monster followed Hilda around the Ivory Tower (Hilda insisted on the letters being capitalized) just as incessantly. What gratification Billy and Hilda derived from the ceaseless presence of their animated friends, I cannot say. But I suspect the touching loyalty that grew between Woody and the Grimm and their respective masters was a strategy of the gremlin, as it was able to control Billy, Woody, and the monster absolutely, and through them Hilda, who apparently suspected nothing.

The fealty of most of the White Castle staff was not so easily secured. Because every member of the rather bloated staff owed his or her job to the One of Each policy, absolute job security was just presumed. It was only through the looming presence of Hilda and the monstrous Hilda's Grimm, who could be lurking around any corner at any time, that the staff was kept in line.

As soon as the One of Each crisis was resolved, Billy and Hilda got busy consolidating their hold on the White Castle and all its precious contents. Since Billy was in charge of the entire United State, Hilda insisted on being on top in the castle. She relished her position and left no doubt about that fact, for as soon as the first couple laid claim on the presidential palace, her visage and demeanor took on the most exalted of royal airs--nose up, eyes half shut, lips pursed. (Thank heaven I worked for Billy.)

Hilda's Rule Number One in the White Castle was that no one except Billy was to ever look her directly in the eye. Rule Number Two was that Billy had better be careful. Rule Number Three, and this one was enforced rigidly by the Grimm itself, was that regardless of what happened inside the castle, the staff was to maintain in public that Hilda was a warm-hearted angel who radiated hugs and farted perfume.

I have to admit that I admired her moxie. During week one of their tenancy, Hilda had the Bumkin's Arkansaw hovel carted on a wheeled frame from the Capital City Mall right on up to the front lawn of the presidential palace. The hovel was then emptied and its contents burned, and it remained there on its wheels throughout the administration. Over the years, some of the most exquisite objects in the White Castle were transferred piece by piece into the hovel and crammed heedlessly into every nook and cranny right on up to the rafters. Furniture, paintings, silverware, gold, crystal, gems, and jewels all made their way inexorably into chez Bumkin, so that by the time Billy's tenure neared an end, the little house would be ready to burst at the seams.

But that's not all the Bumkins managed to pilfer from their new home. For in their second week, Hilda sent out word that anyone with the requisite coin could spend a night or two in a suite in the White Castle itself! As the years wore on, the Bumkins squirreled away a small fortune as hoteliers renting out the hallowed halls. Of course, the guests never actually saw a Bumkin, but each and every one left the Castle forever bragging that they had lain in the same bed as one revered historical figure or another.

In week three, Billy got into the act. Against my best advice, he had a gorgeous round bed installed in the walk-in closet off his office, so he could take naps, he told Hilda. Truth be told, Billy had had a roving eye (that's not all that roved) throughout their marriage, and Hilda knew it. In fact, his virility was the stuff of legend clear across Arkansaw. Hilda had been overlooking his daily dillies and dalliances for years; some would say she practically encouraged them. That round bed must have seemed a bit brazen even to Hilda, but she never so much as breathed a sigh.

Between my own deductions and a few quips from Billy and his paramours, I've figured out what that round bed was really all about. Due to the thirty-degree bend in his willie, Billy had to approach his lovers at a commensurate thirty-degree angle in order to, well, consummate. On a normal bed, this left one partner or the other all cockeyed and hanging off a corner; but on a round bed, the partners could turn and spin all night long like the hands on a clock.

Believe you me, that bed took a beating. Billy entertained chambermaids and transcribers, lobbyists and lawyers, secretaries and secret agents and a Secretary General or two on his cherished round bed. In time, he had a kitchenette installed right there in the closet, and then a wet bar, and lastly, a trapeze.

That closet became Billy's favorite room in the whole Castle. He took to spending whole days drinking and smoking cigars in there. In fact, he did a good bit of official business from the big round bed itself. I myself spoke with him more than once from just around the corner in his office, while he and whoever he was "alone with" did who knows what.

At any rate, within a month or so, the Bumkins were comfortably ensconced in the fabled White Castle, with their little wheeled Arkansaw hovel decorating the front lawn. Cheslea had her own wing, her own tutor, and her own staff, so we rarely saw her.

Hilda spent most of her time with the Grimm, sashaying from suite to suite with an entourage of servants and sycophants. She held audiences occasionally in the Castle's grand foyer, but her real inner sanctum was the Ivory Tower. There she entertained the creme de la creme of Capital City's high society, discussing politics and finance, until she dismissed them or was whisked away for a milk bath or a coconut massage.

Billy rarely saw either Cheslea or Hilda. He seemed veritably anchored in his office, or more precisely, in that closet of his. I was able to convince the press and the public that Billy's heavy work schedule was the result of an obsessive desire to improve the lives of every citizen of the United State. But as time wore on, rumors began to spread about what really went on in the Oblong Office.

Now I'm a bit of an expert on rumors, both starting them and squelching them. Most of the stories that made their way through the grapevine were run-of-the-mill inferences and innuendoes, and nothing to worry about. It even filtered back to me that the existence of certain circus equipment used for certain adult purposes had been rumored, but I wasn't at all concerned about a little trapeze scandal. If I could handle a sex scandal involving a swingset, I could handle a sex scandal involving a trapeze.

The only tale that worried me was the one that could cause all the others to roar to life together, and all at once-the fact that Billy's goober was bent. I lost sleep, I must admit, fretting over an eruption of the bimbos and bedfellows who could verify that characteristic of the presidential apparatus, right down to its precise location and angle. If one of his dozens of lovers ever came out with the story in public, it could unleash a cascade of lurid exposes in the press, and we'd be sunk.

But if my charge to protect the image of the president was fraught with dangers and uncertainties, there were also moments of levity in my hours in the Oblong Office. Little Woody, it seems, was growing into a rather sensitive boy. One day he spoke up as Billy and I were working on an important speech. Though his voice never changed from its measured monotone, Woody was obviously bothered.

"I have a question to pose to you gentlemen," he stated blandly.

"Sure, go 'head," Billy responded.

"These strings attached to my hands and feet. I would like to know their purpose."

"Well," Billy explained sweetly, "the man who made you presumed that you were going to be a puppet. So he gave you puppet strings."

"I would also like to know the purpose of the cross to which the strings are attached."

"To control the strings. Here, like this." Billy chuckled as he picked up the wooden cross that dragged perpetually behind the wooden boy and manipulated him into doing a primitive hillbilly jig.

Little Woody's face changed not one iota, nor did his voice. "I would prefer not to have the strings any longer," he said as Billy kept him dancing the comical dance.

Billy glanced my way with a gleam in his eye. "Well, I don't know, Woody boy. We should think about it first. Maybe talk to Hilda. By the way, you can really dance, son. Really."

"I do not believe further consultation will be necessary," said Little Woody. "I do not."

Billy whistled a sprightly Irish tune and sped up Woody's little jig. Then he winked at me and said, "So you're asking me, man to man, to cut these strings."

"Yes." Little Woody's perfect stoicism was pitifully incongruous considering the queer choreography that Billy was inflicting upon him.

Next Billy commenced whistling a little call and response song where the same melody is repeated twice at the same speed, and then twice a little bit faster, and twice more a little bit faster than that, and so on, like dueling musicians alternating licks. With each successive call and response, he not only sped up the melody, but also amplified the dervish-like gyrations he was putting Little Woody through.

Pretty soon Woody was bouncing and spinning in a blur, until I thought he might lose a limb at any moment. Bark flew, and the smell of a woodworker's shop seeped into the air. I wondered at what point a spark large enough to ignite poor Woody might be created.

But Billy relented, and with a peal of laughter he whipped out his pocket knife and freed the wooden boy from those marionette strings.

"Thank you," said Woody in his toneless voice, and then he plopped down onto the floor and sat stock still, as if nothing had happened at all.

"No sweat," Billy beamed.

Such was daily life in the White Castle, which was quickly included in the local hotel and restaurant guide with an unprecedented sixth star.

Just as I had feared, it wasn't long before the pool of paramours who came to the White Castle for a spin on the president's round bed began to spring a few leaks. First there were whispered references to Billy's bent tool that made the rounds at Capital City's most exclusive dinner parties. Next came the inevitable allusions on the nation's comedy circuit, where comics stole each other's jiminy jokes with such abandon that just about any hack worth his or her salt could spit out half a dozen Billy Bumkin one-liners without missing a beat.

From there the rumor spread to the lower strata of the gossip press, where true confessions of every sordid sort began to appear, some of them even illustrated. Right behind came the mainstream press, whose reporters shamelessly stole each other's scoops while claiming to abhor the rumor mongering in which they were perpetually enmeshed.

As you can imagine, we had to fight these scurrilous truths in any way we could. Hilda swore before anyone who would listen that she "had never seen or otherwise detected any irregularity in her husband's organ" (which was a cold, hard truth indeed, I'm afraid.) Billy deflected any innuendoes by deftly alluding to his Straight As An Arrow policy, and he confronted the rare direct inquiry by insisting that any irregularity in his physiology, of which there were none, would be irrelevant to the performance of his duties anyway.

I myself began a campaign of terror against the erupting bimbos who were threatening the president's integrity. The most secretive machinations of the state were turned against each of the numerous strumpets who had appeared brazenly in the tabloids spewing those titillating tales of theirs.
Worse yet, sympathetic members of the press, which was naturally dominated by DoGooders, punished the strumpets by besmirching their reputations, while their careers were destroyed by Billy's wealthy DoGooder donors. Meanwhile, any of the president's lovers who chose to keep quiet was showered with tax refunds, humanitarian awards, and a lucrative sinecure at some DoGooder enterprise.

More to the point, Billy sent out feelers in the medical and scientific communities suggesting that anyone who could cure a crooked parsnip could expect the ultimate in royal treatment from the Bumkin administration.

Those feelers paid off right away when a stunning blonde masseuse came into the Oblong Office one day as Billy and I were strategizing. When I say stunning, well, even Little Woody stood at attention when this number walked in.

It turned out that not only was she an exquisitely beautiful creature, she was also a champion masseuse who just happened to specialize in the very part of the anatomy that plagued Billy. To top that off, she had developed over her career a miracle cream that, if applied often enough and with sufficient vigor, would cure any and all penile irregularities, or your money back.

"Well, darlin', I'm willin' to try anything," Billy cooed to the bombshell, whose pulchritude was legendary among her many clients. "Of course, you must understand that our relationship will be purely professional. Now, let's get right down to business...might as well use my round bed, eh?"

For the remainder of the Bumkin administration, the masseuse paid weekly visits to the White Castle, and sometimes she came more than that. Billy even learned to apply the miracle cream himself, which he did with gusto on a regular basis.

"At this rate," he chuckled, "it'll be back in line in no time flat!"

But while Billy was throwing himself hand over fist into his new therapeutic regimen, Little Woody was feeling a bit neglected. One day during consultations, the wooden boy interrupted us to ask Billy if he could borrow some of the miracle cream.

"I would like my twig to grow larger," he said.

And indeed, I noticed for the first time that the toymaker who'd assembled our oaken mate had, whether by whim or accident, left a tiny, slender wisp of a twig right where Woody's willie would be.

"I don't think it'll work on a...on you, buddy," Billy reasoned. "What you need to do is water that thing every day, maybe two or three times a day, with the strongest fertilizer my gardener can whip up. In fact, I'll get him right on it."

From then on, whenever Billy set aside fifteen or twenty minutes to vigorously apply his miracle cream, Little Woody would waddle off to the Castle's rose garden to water his vice presidential twig.

"Does it look any straighter to you?" Billy would ask his little friend.

"Yes. It does," Woody would reply in his wooden tone. "My twig appears not to have grown, however."

As the Bumkin administration rolled on, not everything was quite so quaint, however. In fact, various vague threats to the national security were afoot. There were, in that time, not one, not two, but three mad bombers loose in the world, each of whom had evil designs on our beloved United State. One was a stone cold psychoterrorist who lived in exile; another was a tyrannical tinhorn dictator; and the third was a mentally ill emperor for life.

There was also in that time a particular nation, one of substantial size and rank, that was secretly plotting to usurp the supremacy of the United State through subterfuge--from behind, as it were. The mad bombers were all exquisitely dangerous, but make no mistake about it--this nation was Number One Enemy.

The United State was in considerable peril, to say the least, and it fell to Billy to rectify the situation.

It just so happened that I worked in close proximity to several well-placed spies and soldiers, from whom I extracted more information than I should have. Otherwise I wouldn't have known precisely how Billy responded to these threats. As it is, I suspect that all three of the mad bombers probably had gremlins of their own, and that Billy's gremlin was in cahoots with the others.

Otherwise, there's no explanation for Billy's behavior other than simple depravity.

As for Mad Bomber Number One, Billy had not one, not two, not three, but four opportunities to lay hands on the stone cold psychoterrorist; but each time, the president came up with one of those patented excuses of his not to put the sick bastard in prison.

As for Mad Bomber Number Two, Billy had not one, not two, but over a dozen chances to depose the tyrannical tinhorn dictator and try him for crimes against humanity; but each time, the president delivered one of those signature doublespeaks of his and let the sick bastard go on terrorizing.

As for Mad Bomber Number Three, Billy had a golden chance to deprive the mentally ill emperor for life of the materials needed to build the most destructive of bombs; but instead, Billy Bumkin gave those very materials to the sick bastard in exchange for a promise not to be naughty.

And as for the teeming agents of Number One Enemy, Billy should surely have protected the secrets and treasures of the United State from them with all due diligence; but instead, he sold them whatever they were willing to buy, and he gave away a great deal more hoping for future favors from their leadership. At their behest, and perhaps out of a dogmatic faith in parity, the president seems to have worked quietly to undermine any advantages the United State enjoyed, beginning with our military superiority.

Truth be told, Billy loathed the military and everything it did. He went so far as to emasculate the vaunted army of the United State, forcing soldiers to display bouquets in the barrels of their guns and sending whole divisions to run errands in far-flung lands. Worst of all, in later years (when the gremlin was no longer around) the former president would sanctimoniously badmouth his successor's campaigns to confront the considerable dangers Billy himself had dodged.

If you still doubt that Billy Bumkin had a gremlin in his goober, just try to imagine what my job was like back then. Explaining the appearance of Little Woody and Hilda's Grimm was child's play compared to explaining Billy's foreign policy. There were days when I was relieved to be dealing with all those bimbos and strumpets, who continued to come like a flood. Thank heavens we had the DoGooder press on our side.

I remember one morning when Billy was escorting an especially delicious treat out of the Oblong Office, where I was busy researching the notes for an important speech to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Little Woody burst in with a barely detectable swagger in his waddle and said with a scintilla of boastfulness, "Please observe my twig."

Sure enough, while it hadn't grown in either length or girth, three tiny leaves had sprung up just above Woody's teeny-weeny twiglet. The wooden boy came as close to a smile as a wooden boy can come.

"Hot damn, little fella," Billy fawned, "that's just fan-freakin-tastick!" Billy gave his departing dish a devilish grin, pulled down his zipper, and let loose the presidential prick. "What about me?" he asked her without a trace of sheepishness. "Is it straightened out or what? Whaddaya think, hon'?"

"Uh, sure, it looks fine to me," she purred, even though she knew deep down inside that Billy was as bent as he could be.

"It looks straight to me also," Woody said flatly without looking.

A pause ensued, and I felt Billy's eyes on me. "Yeah, right, I'm right with you," I muttered absently as I pored over my notes.

"A miracle cream for my magic wand!" the president laughed. "Jee-hosephat, this is the life!"

You'll understand that the young lady was just telling Billy what he wanted to hear. Woody was just saying what the gremlin wanted him to say. And I was just protecting my position.

But as God is my witness, Billy really, really believed that his manhood was once again as straight as an arrow.

Thanks mostly to Billy's rumored exploits, but also to Hilda's growing haughtiness, certain members of the opposition DoNothing press began in the waning years of the administration to contemptuously refer to the first couple as "those Arkansaw Bumkins." Billy was amused at this tactic, but it enraged Hilda, who quietly despised Arkansaw and everything about it. She reveled in her own blueblood ancestry and regarded Billy's lineage, which was very southern, with absolute contempt.

I rarely saw Hilda or the Grimm, as Billy and Hilda, you will recall, lived separate lives on either end of the White Castle. Once I did see Hilda upbraid a trembling chambermaid who had accidentally looked the first lady in the eye while dutifully clipping her toenails. The Grimm loomed hunching above the pair, and then it bent down sniffing curiously towards the poor girl, who fainted on the spot.

To the best of my knowledge, Hilda and the Grimm spent most of their time ensconced in the Ivory Tower, utterly cut off from the world, except for an occasional foray into the countryside to kidnap brats or trample down the gardens of the unruly youngsters known as "flower children." There were, however, two incidents that brought me in close contact with the duo, and the first involved these selfsame flower children.

Back then the youth were prone to lawlessness, most of which was innocent, and some of which was actually quite philosophically sound. One rite of passage for any youngster who didn't want to be seen as complicit with the status quo (which every generation rejects in youth) was to smoke the flowers of the fabled lotus plant. This so-called "evil weed" has a mild narcotic effect, producing a euphoria that is said to last all day.

The flower children were so named because they tended to smoke these lotus flowers, which they called ma-na, on a regular basis. While this habit made them some of the most peaceable and humble citizens in the land, it had the intolerable side effect of distancing them from the strict economic regime of the times. Therefore, although both Hilda and Billy had smoked plenty of the stuff in their own youths, the Bumkin administration continued the State policy of putting lotus smokers in jail.

The Grimm proved to have, quite literally, a nose for lotus plants, as its actual olfactory apparatus came off an unfortunate lotus farmer from a west coast chain gang. Whenever Hilda got the urge to throw her weight around, she and the Grimm would patrol the fields and farmlands in search of patches of the evil weed. If they found one, and they almost always did, the Grimm would trample down the plants, and then Hilda would send constables to arrest and jail the landowners. Later, the Barrister General's office would confiscate the land. You could hardly dream up a better real estate racket.

One winter evening after just such a patrol, the Grimm came home with a lotus flower inadvertently wedged between its gnarled fingers. By chance, Woody happened to detect this flower (which, after all, was a cousin of his) as he passed the Grimm lurking in a remote hallway near the chambermaids' boudoirs.

Woody promptly transferred the weed to Billy in the Oblong Office. Billy emptied the tobaccy from a nearby cigar and then filled it back up with the lotus.

"I'm just gonna taste it," he beamed as he promptly stoked up the cigar. "If anyone asks, I don't really inhale."

Before long Hilda, having smelled the sweet smoke clear on up in the Ivory Tower, made an appearance, followed as always by the Grimm.

There were two lush pink sofas full of deep folds facing each other in the Oblong Office; Billy shared one with Woody while Hilda shared the other with the Grimm. And there they sat, passing the fragrant cigar back and forth, except for the Grimm, as I attended to my work at Billy's desk.

Woody took an effeminate draw on the cigar and said with scientific detachment, "That is the lotus, or indicativa, with a hint of berry."

"You...should.....know.......Wood-Man," Billy chuckled between chokes after a particularly massive hit.

When Hilda took a breath of the smoke, her arrogant visage didn't change a lick, but her voice did become just a tad softer. "I think I'll go look for those missing files," she said wistfully. "There's no way I'll find them now."

Billy bogarted a series of hits from the cigar then passed it to the Grimm, which had lingered after Hilda left as if ashamed to indulge itself in front of its mistress yet intrigued by the lotus flower itself. The Grimm inspected the sticky, smoldering butt then promptly ate it, cherry and all!

Billy hooted and guffawed like a lunatic at this, while the monster belched a little dank smoke and slumped away. "Wow, man," the president chortled as the last wisps of the pungent, skunky smoke slithered up from his nostrils. "There's, like moss growin' on my brain!"

To which Woody, in the only remotely emotional display I had ever seen from him, promptly snapped his twig fingers in accord.

The other incident that brought me in close contact with Hilda and the Grimm wasn't quite so innocent. It involved a little stone chapel in the countryside, where an infinitely stubborn and cocksure southern preacher decided one day to defy sworn agents of the United State. These agents merely wanted to search the chapel for the preacher's shotgun and his saw, on the legal theory that having both items would constitute a conspiracy to possess a sawed-off shotgun, which everybody knows is illegal.

Well, the preacher challenged the logic of the search warrant that was presented by the agents, claiming that he used the saw to saw wood and the shotgun to chase government agents off his property, which is precisely what he proceeded to do.

At dawn of the next morning, a crack squad of State operatives assaulted the chapel, where the preacher had presciently ensconced his flock awaiting the End. Unfortunately for these operatives, who were gunning for a budget increase from Billy, things didn't go quite as planned. Owing to the skill of the masons and carpenters who had built the little structure and to the shrewd preparation of its occupants, this crack squad failed miserably to penetrate the obstinate preacher's sanctuary.

For week upon week thereafter, the preacher and his naive penitents absolutely refused to abandon their chapel, on the legal theory that they should be left the hell alone. Inside they had stashed great stores of food, huge cisterns of rainwater, and several cows and goats.

This standoff put the Bumkins in a bit of a pickle. Such an act of defiance could not go unanswered. Suffice it to say that capable reinforcements were brought in--in the person of Hilda's Grimm.

On a windy Monday morning, the Grimm lurched up to the door of the chapel with a flaming brand held high in one hand. With the other, it reared back and struck a blow that rent the door into splinters. These splinters it used as kindling to set the doorway of the stone chapel afire.

What happened next is a matter of profound dispute, but my own analysis of the scene suggests that things unfolded as follows. First, the Grimm set fire to a pile of pews that had been wedged against the door to repel any assault. This effectively cut off any chance of escape. Next, the monster jumped up and down with such ferocity that the ancient wooden floor of the chapel was burst asunder, sending dozens of the screaming faithful falling into the basement, which soon became an inferno. Last, Hilda's beast rammed its head violently into the stone archway that supported the great central beams in the chapel's ceiling.

Within a few moments, the stone skeleton of the chapel collapsed in upon itself as its aged wooden skin popped and roared in a conflagration to rival hell itself.

When what was left of the little chapel was cool enough to inspect, I took it upon myself to investigate. What I saw was horrible: women crushed by falling stone, children burned to embers beneath charred adults, a mother clutching a tiny corded newborn that came into this world during the Grimm's assault. Most chilling of all was the flapping flag of the United State affixed arrogantly to the belfry.

A few days later, Billy made an appearance with Hilda's Grimm in front of the White Castle. He announced concisely the conclusion of an official investigation. According to the official report, the chapel had exploded spontaneously as the result of unvented methane buildup, which was in turn caused by the illegal simultaneous containment of farm animals and young children, in violation of the health and labor codes, respectively.

As Billy turned back towards the White Castle, a brazen reporter asked the president if he regretted the horrific deaths in the chapel.

"So some religious fanatics murdered themselves," Billy sighed glibly. "So what? You can't help those people. They think they're above the law. "

And the nation, preoccupied with its petty dramas and gossip, didn't disagree.

The beginning of the end of the Bumkin administration didn't involve purloined treasures or state enemies or roasted religious fanatics. Instead, it involved a stain on the right shoulder of a dress.

You will remember the little girl who asked Billy a fateful question on the day a serendipitous tornado brought an Arkansaw hovel onto the mall of Capital City: "Are you our new president?"

Yes, none other than Little Gwendolyn, now with the blush of womanhood about her, appeared one day at the doorstep of the Castle to apply for a job.

"Remember what you said? About me coming to work for you?" she asked, a little coquettishly. "Daddy says I'm old enough now."

Billy honored his word right away by giving Gwen the coveted position of chambermaid in the Oblong Office. There she would dutifully take dictation, conduct official intercourse, and moisten Billy's cigars in exchange for room, board, and college credits.

You can very well guess what comes next. Billy, or the gremlin, or maybe the both of them, found Miss Gwen irresistible, and the rest is history.

We'll just draw a little curtain over this ugly scene. Enough has been said and written about it already.

I just happened to be there on the bright morning when Miss Gwen came bursting out of the Oblong Office shrieking at the top of her lungs.

"My dress!!" she screeled. "My late grandmother's irreplaceable antique dress!!!"

I won't lower myself to repeat the jokes that soon circulated about the stain on Little Gwen's dress. But thanks to the vigilant Drudgery of the journalism world, word spread throughout the country like the reverberations of a shot heard 'round the world: the President of the United State had allegedly spilled his seed on the irreplaceable antique dress of that innocent young flower, Little Gwen.

Billy never bothered consulting me about this unfortunate situation. Instead, he marched right out to the front lawn of the White Castle, where the story had already drawn a crowd, and confronted the issue head on.

"I did NOT," he protested to the gathering, wagging his finger and beating insistently on the rostrum, "despoil the irreplaceable antique dress of that little Jezebel--Miss Gwendolyn." With that he turned resolutely back towards the Castle.

An intrepid reporter chimed in. "Mr. President," she shouted. "Critics argue that you have lost touch with the people. Do you still consider yourself a man who is of the people?"

Billy didn't hesitate one second. "That depends," he said over his shoulder, "on the sense that your definition of 'is of' is of."

"Pardon me?" asked the reporter.

The president halted and turned to face her. "I said, 'That depends on the sense your definition of 'is of' is of.'"

As the reporters stood with their mouths agape, Billy thanked them, turned briskly on his heels, and marched back into the White Castle.

We went into full attack mode immediately. Little Gwen's schoolmates were drilled concerning any history of heavy petting. A boy was found who testified that he showed her his, and she showed him hers. Her father was audited. Reporters hounded her every relative, and wealthy DoGooder donors withdrew their donations from her township's orphanage and soup kitchen.

For days the story roiled in the nation's public organs. Even the legions of the DoGooder press, who would have let the president get away with murder (or rape at least), wallowed in the irresistible appeal of the stain on Little Gwen's dress, an appeal that pumped up their circulation handsomely.

Understandably, there were those who refused to let the story die. Miss Gwendolyn demanded a position in the government, a corner apartment in Capital City, and a wheelbarrow full of cash, or else. Her father demanded a public duel. The chambermaid's union demanded a public apology.

Despite my best efforts, the president's filthy deed had become the hottest issue in years. Days stretched into weeks, and weeks into months, and still the story of the stain on Little Gwen's late grandmother's irreplaceable antique dress thundered on without abating.

Finally, Gwen got serious. She gathered the nation's press one afternoon for an important announcement. With the same dramatic flair and lollipop cuteness that had brought her to the nation's attention all those years ago, Miss Gwendolyn, as she insisted on being called, produced an old-timey Montgomery-Ward dress box. She then described in ghastly detail how Billy had splotched the irreplaceable antique dress, which she proceeded to remove from that venerable container.

Naturally, I was in attendance that day. What happened next made my knees go weak.

"Please notice, ladies and gentlemen of the jur...of the press, that the stain in question is unmistakably on the right shoulder of my late grandmother's irreplaceable antique dress," she said, dramatically raising the garment up high for the photographers. "Well, there's a reason for that."

That was the moment when my knees went weak. I knew what was coming.

"The reason the stain is on the right shoulder," she continued in a prosecutorial tone, "is that about halfway down, the president's penis turns sharply to the left, at an angle of approximately thirty-degrees."

The reporters' brows wrinkled simultaneously, and then one by one their jaws dropped as they nodded their heads in understanding.

Just as I'd feared, this little fact was the trickle that unleashed a flood of the most salacious stories of decadence and debauchery you ever heard. It was like someone had pulled their fingers out of a gushing dyke. The president's round bed, the trapeze, his cigar fetish--every detail of Billy's love life was soon being discussed throughout Capital City and beyond.

But the detail that really caught the public's imagination was that damned thirty-degree bend. I knocked myself out trying to come up with a strategy to squeeze off the dambreak, but to no avail. This was a story that just wouldn't go away.

Through it all, isolated as she was in her Ivory Tower, Hilda remained completely ignorant of the bend in Billy's bone.

Worse than that, so did Billy, whose faith in the miracle goober straightening cream had not diminished.

Things went from bad to worse when the local chapter of the Women's Auxiliary Network, or WANk, began to picket the White Castle. WANk was followed by a veritable parade of sympathetic female special interest groups including a lesbian construction workers' union that helped WANk erect a gigantic papier mache penis, complete with a thirty-degree bend and strategically placed garden hose, just outside the Castle's front lawn. Every afternoon, the protesters would wheel the forty-foot phallus back and forth in front of the White Castle, sarcastically watering the front lawn with the garden hose.

Hilda failed to see the humor is such behavior. Instead, she fumed with envy at the askance effigy that stood outside her Ivory Tower.

"Billlll-lee!" she shrieked one morning when she could stand it no longer. "Billy BUMKIN!!! You get rid of this...that.....those.......YOU CLEAN UP THE FRONT LAWN RIGHT THIS MINUTE, OR SO HELP ME GOD, I'LL...I'LL…"

Billy heaved a sigh and pursed his lips. Why he did what he did next, I'll never know for certain, but it was about as smart as mooning a billy goat.

President Bumkin casually winked at me, gave Woody a warm pat on the head, headed out the front door, and strutted right up to the rostrum. The protesters redoubled their chants at first; but soon they relented and began to gather in a great circle.

It was clear that the president meant business. First, without saying a word, Billy Bumkin unbuckled his belt. Then he looked out resolutely at the mob.

He's just joshing, assumed most of those present.

Next, Billy unbuttoned his pants and unzipped his fly.

Is he really going to do it? wondered a few.

Last, Billy pulled down his drawers with his thumbs, and out plopped his crooked prodder.

"See there?" he trumpeted. "It's just like I've been sayin'! I'm as STRAIGHT AS AN ARROW!"

Holy cow! everyone thought, but no one said a word.

In fact, it was dead silent. People began casting sidelong glances to see what others were doing.

How are you supposed to address the president's jiminy? they asked themselves.

And, Is it just me, or is he really, really bent?

Meanwhile, the presidential twig dangled between the presidential berries, its thirty-degree bend visible to all but its possessor.

Everybody suffered through a few more awkward moments. Through it all, President Bumkin stood proudly displaying the evidence, confident in the delusion that his goober was perfectly straight.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour, a near-sighted little boy near the back of the crowd, perched atop his father's shoulders and wearing the most darling oversized spectacles you ever saw, cried out in a voice as shrill and clear as the siren call of a sterling silver clarion,

"Look, Ma! He's bent! He's BENT!!"

And that released the floodgates.

"He has a twisted twig!" brayed one onlooker.

"There's a hitch in his hose!" boomed another.

"His wick is out of whack!" bawled a third.

"He's got a goofy goober!!"

But that wasn't all, not by a long shot.

"A fluky flute! A wavy wand!" someone squawked.

"It's a LOPSIDED FLOPPER!"

"Now that's a SCREWY LOUIE!" somebody squealed.

"A DEVIATED DANGLER!!"

Last came the creme de la creme:

"He TURNED his TALLYWACKER!"

"His MEMBER's not in good STANDING!!"

"He has a COCKEYED ROOSTER!!"

"His PUMP is CATAWUMPUS!!!"

At that, the throng erupted in laughter as I led a bewildered Billy, his divergent dick still dangling, back into the White Castle.

Heaving the papier mache penis onto their husky shoulders, the uproarious protesters began to march in a great circle, chanting their whiney slogans and singing their witty folk songs all the while. The phallus itself bounced heartily up and down as they carried it in a circuit at the edge of the circling mob.

The last thing I saw as I helped Billy back into the Oblong Office was that damned papier mache penis bouncing up and down, up and down, its thirty-degrees becoming forty, then fifty, then sixty degrees, until it finally gave way and broke in half, plopping limply onto the grass with a dull thud.

And that, believe it or not, was how Billy brought about the end of the Bumkin administration.

And the end came quickly. On the very next day, several conscientious DoGooders in the Central Council joined the sanctimonious minority DoNothings, who had been incessantly impeaching Billy's character from the start, to create a majority sufficient to give President Bumkin the heave-ho.

Once the wheels were set in motion, the Bumkin's departure from Capital City came with dizzying speed. A team of handsome Clydesdales was hitched that same afternoon to the Bumkin hovel, which, you will recall, had been sitting on its wheeled frame beside the White Castle from day one. As Cheslea and Hilda rushed to load their earthly belongings into the hovel, Billy entertained a series of foreign dignitaries with whom he had curried favor, hoping for some tribute or to land a lofty position in some foreign consul.

By the time the sun had begun to set, a mob was gathered outside the White Castle. Some were there to bid the Bumkins a fond adieu, others to taunt them and to toast their political demise at the hands of what would later be alternately described as a "vast left-leaning" and a "fast right-hand" conspiracy. The rostrum from which Billy had addressed the people so often, along with the Bumkin hovel and the broken hulk of WANk's bent effigy, provided the props to a scene whose background was the White Castle itself.

Not long before sunset, a sergeant from the Castle Guard rapped officiously on the castle's weathered oaken doors. Moments later Hilda emerged, followed as always by the Grimm. Next came Cheslea, and then Billy, and lastly, a horribly agitated Woody.

Billy, you see, had promised Woody that they would always be together in the White Castle, and that if Billy ever did leave, Vice President Woody would ascend to the presidency, becoming the first arboreal President of the United (or any other) State. You can understand, then, how badly Woody took the news that instead of becoming a hero to the world's flora, he would be going down south to become a cigar store ornament.

The ensuing tantrum was a sight to see, one that no one who witnessed it will ever forget. The wooden boy started by hopping angrily from one twiggy leg to the other, one-two-one-two, and then his twiggy arms began to whirl in furious circles. The combined kinetic affects of the hopping and the whirling soon sent the pathetic creature flopping onto his back, where he bounced and flailed with heedless abandon. After a while, the odor of sawdust began to waft through the crowd, which watched aghast every excruciating throe.

Towards the end, the pitiful creature erupted with a series of scratchy percussive wails that no species of fauna could fathom. Presently his thrashing escalated to truly manic proportions. The odor of sawdust took on a tinge of campfire, until at last, Little Woody the Wooden Boy ground himself into a pile of smoking sawdust, which was summarily dispatched by a passing zephyr.

And that was the end, the very end, of Woody.

As horrific as Woody's demise was, the Grimm's, which began even as Woody swirled into oblivion, was even more so. First its flesh began to wrinkle and come apart, quite literally, at the seams. Where the multicolored patches of skin parted ways, putrefied globs of innard and muscle oozed down the monster's contours. After a while, the Grimm began to shake, imperceptibly at first, but then more and more noticeably, as strips and splotches of flesh glopped onto the ground in a writhing, fetid circle.

The shaking grew progressively more violent, escalating into a wrenching series of staccato rattles, until the monster, rather mercifully I'd say, just flew apart like a watermelon smashed with a sledgehammer. All that was left was a bloody skeleton lying in three parts on the exact same spot where moments before the zephyr had dispersed Little Woody's remains.

A troupe of stray dogs approached shyly and sniffed at the pile of bones from a few feet away, but they wouldn't go any nearer.

Neither Billy nor Hilda seemed to even notice these grotesque goings-on. Instead, Hilda was busy checking and rechecking the contents of the Bumkin hovel while Billy carefully surveyed the crowd. When she was satisfied that nothing had been touched, Hilda sat down resolutely in a rocking chair on the back porch and, raising her nose high into the air, gazed disinterestedly into the distance. Cheslea ran past her mother and into the bedroom, sobbing. I skulked into the crowd with the brim of my hat down over my eyes.

And then here came Billy, mounting the lead Clydesdale with a flourish and waving a plumed general's hat he had purloined from a gnome on the castle lawn. Without a word he kicked that horse in the ribs and gave out a rebel yell. The proud beasts strained for a moment to get the old home moving, and then as they gained momentum, they began to trot briskly down the stone driveway and onto the yellow bricked Avenue, heading south as a particularly scarlet sunset reflected momentarily off the White Castle's onion dome.

Billy rode that horse without looking back while Hilda rocked grumpily on the back porch looking like a genuine Arkansaw granny.

The throng rushed in behind the departing mobile hovel like a wake following a riverboat. My mind went back to another sunset years before, back when I didn't believe in gremlins or ride tornados.

"Good riddance!" hollered more than a few spiteful DoNothings.

"God bless you!" gushed more than a few bedeviled DoGooders.

The people ran on and on behind the Bumkins like rats after the Pied Piper, jostling each other for a better view and trampling any who couldn't keep up the pace. Here and there someone on a horse or donkey eased through the eddies in the crowd. Scores of bicycles and a unicycle or two weaved about at the edges, and several haywagons bumped along bringing up the rear. A dozen or so of Billy's lovers waved breathless goodbyes as they straddled the shoulders of a strapping rugby team that bullied its way to the forefront of the mob; in their enthusiasm, two or three of the gals accidentally lost their upper garments.

I saw amid the throng quite a few happy convicts who had been released from prison still sporting their stripes, some at Billy's whim, others for a price. I also saw several suspicious types, perhaps swarthy agents of a mad bomber or well fed spies from Enemy Number One, lurking around corners and peering at the passing parade from darkened windows. And I could swear I saw the DoGooder head of the Central Council, to which Hilda would soon be appointed, smugly counting a stack of bills outside a prosperous DoGooder travel agency.

In years to come, Billy would indeed land a prestigious post in a lofty, if impotent, foreign body, while Hilda would cling to her broad seat on the Central Council, doing little to distinguish herself from the long shadow of Billy's "legacy." Cheslea left the United State for a while, too ashamed to face the scorn and ridicule her father had earned the family. As for me, I've remained in the PR industry, which, luckily, pays little heed to the kind of behavior my boss in the White Castle engaged in.

I'll leave you with a little bit of innuendo that circulates to this day at soirees and brunches in Capital City. I must once again beg your indulgence, as the subject itself, like so much regarding the Bumkins, defies decorum.

Rumor has it that a shortly after they left the White Castle, Hilda took advantage of an unguarded moment to separate Billy from that infamous member of his with a meat cleaver. An even deeper and darker rumor has it that she did the dirty deed only after learning, oh so belatedly, about the gremlin in Billy's goober, whose powers she hoped to harness to her own ends.

Whether Hilda really lopped off Billy's louie or not, we'll probably never know. He and Hilda ceased cohabiting a few months after departing the White Castle (though they kept up the appearance of marriage for political reasons.) I do have it on good advice that a certain mad scientist was called to Billy's penthouse apartment at about the same time the meat cleaver rumors hit the grapevine, though why I cannot say.

There's no point in speculating about the gremlin itself. The little critters are completely unpredictable. There is one thing, however, that I can say with some certainty. That gremlin eventually left Billy Bumkin and is out there somewhere to this very day making more mischief from some poor politician's pecker.

I still live and work in Capital City. I know the gremlin is out there. I keep my eyes peeled for any indication of who might be its latest victim.

But considering all the shenanigans going on in Capital City these days, there's just no telling where the little fellow wound up.

Copyright 2005 by Preston Coleman