My hands can’t move at all. Are they tied? I’m blindfolded, I know that. Shouldn’t I be able to chafe the rope? My legs are tied. I’ve tried kicking them. Can I move my hands –

“Don’t try that.” The first voice, it’s lower, harder. And the cold metal again. I stop wriggling instantly. He doesn’t strike me with the “gun, it has to be a gun,” my mind says. I don’t get hit with it, it’s just held against my skin. I pray in my head.

“Dear Lord, keep me safe, and give me strength… and don’t let me wet myself.” I think, deep down, the Lord appreciates a little humor. My eyes itch from crying underneath the blindfold. He must have given me strength, because I find myself saying:

“What do you want from me?” much tougher than I would’ve imagined. “Is that you, Abby, saying this?”

“Uhh…” the first one says. There’s whispering. I can’t make it out.

“We want you to renounce your beliefs.” The first one states. I’m so cold.

“What… do you mean?” I whisper. The cold metal. Against my forehead. I gasp.

“Why did you leave your husband…” the coldness runs down my neck. I blubber again, a torrent of words tumble out of my mouth, chasing each other in fear.

“I didn’t! I love him! I love him so much! I love and support everything Frank does.” The metal is tapped against my forehead.

“Then why are you always running around with those…” The first one seems like he’s about to say something, something he can’t say because it disgusts him too much, because he’s worried about what saying the word would do to his throat, his tongue, and his face.

“Republicans,” the 2nd one, (“why do you think of him as smaller, Abby?”) finally says. “Why are you always with those Republicans?”

“I love my husband…” I whisper, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There aren’t any Republicans. I don’t know what –”

“Shut up!” the first one roars. I cringe against my chair instinctively. I can’t move, I can’t see, but I’m still trying to hide.

“Your husband loves you,” the 2nd one –
“Give him a name. Give them funny names. Like she taught you. Nothing’s scary when it has a funny name, is it?” my mind points out.

“Your husband really cares about you,” the 2nd one, Smalls, continues. “Why would you do that to him?”
“I love him, but…”

A kick in the leg. A warning shot. I think First did it – “What’s his name? ’Randy?’ ‘Meany?’ ‘Dopey? That’s it! Dopey!” I feel him breathing down on me.

“But what?” he says, softly.

“Not to get melodramatic on you here, sister, but how can you answer a question you don’t know in your heart?” I tilt my head up to him – I can see black shoes from the bottom of my blindfold.

Smalls sighs. “How could you do this to him? After what he did for you back in college?”

A cold shudder through me. Another. God, I want to move. “What? There’s no way he could –”
“I’m not a liberal writer! Jesus, I’m not even a democrat!” He runs his hand through his hair, his forehead slides along his forearm, towards the keyboard. His head pops up in anger, his hair flies all akimbo – I love when he looks like this, the Mad Professor. “I’m a libertarian, Christ, I’m a moderate, but under this current administration, I’m a goddamn radical! When did everything move this far away from sanity, and moderation? Uniter my ass.” He gets up to pace. He points at the TV, and doesn’t look at me:

“Turn that off. I can’t think.”

I turn hopefully – “I could turn it down?”

He shakes his head. That isn’t good enough. I turn the TV off.

He speaks his thoughts, almost whispering – quietly and quickly, as if giving them life will lead him somewhere: “What am I going to write? Question the administration? Say out loud that the Iraq war was based only on mistakes, and no one’s been held accountable?” He chuckles, and walks around the room – “That Bush is a good man, a good, decent man, but no one that religious should be President? That religion should never UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES dictate a single decision?”

“I like Bush’s faith –” I mumble. I know he can’t hear me. It doesn’t matter.

“Watch a movie with me. You’ll feel better.” I smile up at him. He rolls his eyes.

“Please. I can’t watch that crap you watch. Adam Sandler? Julia Roberts? Shoot me in the face.”

I shrug, not sure what to do.

“But people are afraid now, of this terrorist stuff, so now they can’t think straight. The Republicans didn’t have an issue where they could be ‘tough’ after the fall of Communism, so they became the party of ‘morals,’ and ‘religions,’ despite the sexual proclivities of Newt Gingrich – and then terrorism fell in their laps.” He chuckles to himself.

“Now I sound like one of the goddamn enemies of freedom.”

I look at him strangely – “What did you say? You’re not an enemy of freedom; you love this country –”

He laughs, and comes to sit by me.

“I know, I know. I love America. It’s all this… right wing noise monster. These people are very smart.”

Like who? I asked him.

Ann Coulter, he said…

“And so you went to see her talk?” Smalls thunders at me.

“I was curious, I just wanted to…” my voice trails off. I have no idea what I was trying to say.

“You just wanted to piss him off? You just wanted to be an asshole?” Dopey snarls at me –

“No! I loved him!” One of them snorts.

“No! I did! You can’t ignore that! I cooked dinner every night! I left my friends behind so I could marry him, live his life –”

“You never had many friends,” Dopey says, almost sadly.
“But I loved him… you don’t know anything.” I say, more petulantly than I wanted. “Now what do you want with me?”

More whispering – I can make out the word “time.”

Smalls: “Okay, let’s say I believed you. That you did love him. And you were going to see Ann Coulter… why? Because you never got to experiment with drugs? You weren’t the prom queen? Who knows?”

He leans into me, I can smell something on his breath – garlic? “How do they know all of this?” I think for the millionth time. “What, you still can’t believe that Frank would –”

Even if I believed all that, why would you go to dinner with her after the show?

I take a minute to respond.

“But you don’t understand, she’s –”

Engaging. She’s the most… amazing person I’ve ever met. Funny, smart, beautiful, but… there’s something else about her. It’s obvious that it’s there, right as you meet her – shaking hands after she spoke at Graham Chapel as part of the Assembly Series. And the way she smiles – her handshake is so soft, compared to the harsh power of her eyes. There is something else about her, something half hidden like an iceberg in the ocean, and you see it while she’s ordering eggs at a twenty-four hour diner. There is something else about her – something detached from her militaristic sarcasm, and her beautiful image – there’s something more than just the dissonance, as if her two sides are so incongruous, they give birth to something else altogether, something you can’t quite figure out, but damnit, you have to –

“It’s the power of words, Abby.” She says to me, scooping her scrambled eggs with a fork. “The most obvious attraction to the ‘Right’ is the viscerality of the language.”

“Huh?” I say, as amazed by her words as I am by her. She looks at me and smiles, I almost blush from feeling so stupid – “Huh? Huh? What am I, four years old?”

“The language of the right appeals to emotions – to primal, basic things everyone can feel. Home. Pride. Love. Family. Faith. These are things all people feel, that everyone loves.” She says elegantly, simply. She reaches for the salt, her hand brushes mine.

“But don’t the people on the left believe in those things, too?” She smiles at me, a teacher beaming down at a slow student.

“Maybe. Probably. Maybe not. How can you tell from their rhetoric? Look –“ She grabs my hand, I can’t think/concentrate. “The left makes it an intellectual game. You have to think about it – the right makes it about emotions. There’s no thinking involved. You just follow your heart.”

I’m nodding dumbly, to keep up with the beating of my own heart.

“Do you, Abby, want to follow your heart?”

“And I went home to my husband! I could’ve went with Ann, I could’ve hung out! I could’ve learned so much more from her but I went home and had sex with my husband!” I scream at Dopey and Smalls.

“Well gee,” Dopey drawls, “I guess we can’t argue with that.”

Silence.

I can’t take this anymore. I can’t just sit here and listen to them – “Jesus Lord honey, did Frank hire these guys, and tell them absolutely everything about the two of you?” I have to get out of here –

Wait.

“Look, if this is about that argument last week with Frank, I can explain.”

“Please do.”

“You don’t understand, that –”

“That I just can’t do this anymore, Frank. I need a break.”

He sits on the couch, looking at me. I’m pacing around the room now, standing over him, making direct eye contact.

“Everything I do, you nitpick. Nothing I do is ever good enough.” He opens his mouth, I cut him off – “Let me finish, Frank! For once in my life, let me talk!”

Silence. He stares straight forward.

“I’m not saying it’s over, I just need a break. Maybe… this is the end, I don’t know. But I can’t be here now. I love you Frank, I need you to make me complete. I think. But I need a break, okay?” He still looks forward. “Frank, if there’s anything you have to say, you can talk now.”

He looks at me, he ducks his head. It looks like he’s fighting tears, I can’t tell. He looks up at me. I can’t take this anymore – “Say something, Frank!”

“Okay.”

I feel dizzy.

“That’s it?”

He shrugs, his eyes downcast.

“You do what you have to. I’ll be waiting for you here when you change your mind.”

“But, Frank…” I trail off. “But Frank my ass! Get the hell up! Why aren’t you fighting me on this?”

“If this is what you think you need, then… I can’t stop you.” “Frank you asshole! Stop thinking about it, and do something! Show me you care about me! Get up and stop me, goddamnit! Lord, I apologize for the swear…”

“I love you, Abby. I love you so much. You’re the thing I care about the most in this world, but – “But if you fucking cared about me you’d do something about it! If you cared about me that much, you’d show it, instead of just thinking it, or saying it!”

“But you have to do what feels right for you.”

“Please, Frank. Please stop me –”

“You’re a grown, beautiful woman. You have your own mind, and –

“Frank! Be a man –”

“I think it’s a bad idea. But I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.”

“Frank… Jesus…” I thought to myself over and over again in my head. “How did you let this happen…? How…”
“Okay, Frank. Okay.” “Have it your way!” I almost said to him. “I’ll be going to my cousin’s house this evening.”

He puts his head in his hands. “Tears, Frank! Show me some goddamn tears! Let me know that you have a heart, for Christ sake!” But when he looks up, his eyes are dry. He looks tired, and a little older somehow.

“I’ll help you pack.” He said –

I scream – one of them squeezes my arm so much oh God oh God it HURTS –

“Let go of me, PLEASE!” I cry out. I whimper. I can’t help it.

Smalls (I think) taps the gun against my nose:

“Is that your story, Abby?”

“Yes, yes, it is, yes it’s all true –” and suddenly, the blindfold dips a little, and I can see over the top it now, instead of the bottom –

“I can see you sons of bitches now!” I almost scream – almost.

The first thing I think: “Don’t think about this right now, Abby. Pretend you don’t see them again. Pretend you’re still in the dark. You don’t want to know who they are. You could be wrong. You could be drugged. This could be a dream. I bet it isn’t who it looks like –

“I know who it is –

“You’re probably wrong, Abby. How could you be right? Just realize, you’re out of it. I’m sure you’re wrong. There’s nothing wrong in pretending, there’s nothing wrong in not knowing, just so long as what you’re feeling is always right –”

He – “Smalls, Abby! His name is Smalls now!!” grabs my arm again. I cry out, again –

“Abby,” he hisses into my ear, “we know you didn’t go to your cousin’s house.”

I’d whip my head around in shock, but I’m worried the blindfold would fall all the way off.

The lights. The colors. And all the people – they’re so happy, smiling, dancing. Laughing. There’s so much laughing, and confidence – it’s a family. A big one. A gigantic one, that doesn’t just fill this stadium, it fills my heart. I’d give anything for these people to love me.

This is what the Super Bowl must be like, or a rock concert, but I’ve never been to either one. All I know is that I was never born until I came to the Republican convention, and now I never, ever, want to leave.

Ann speaks in the afternoon – as hard as it is to walk away from that floor I have to see her, to listen to her again. To listen to her speeches and just believe in something again – to feel something again, to know that America is number one A-OK the best and nothing can ever, ever change that, unless we doubt ourselves and let others kill us because we have to change anything –

But that doesn’t make any sense – shut up, Abby. Don’t ruin this or think about it.

And Ann is wonderful. I had to see her again. She’s so powerful, she’s so strong up there, and yet she still reminds us that feminism is wrong. I hate our enemies. I love our friends. She’s amazing, and she has to be right.

I almost go up to talk to her during the speech, but I waited in my seat, as hard as it was. Even though I was down in the front, there’s a big line of well-wishers in front of me by the time I get up the nerve to talk to her again, I’m so shy.

She looks at me,, and shakes the hand of the person after me. I can feel my heart breaking, and falling onto the floor. She doesn’t recognize me. Or, she does recognize me, and doesn’t want to talk to me. I reach out my hand, starting to hyperventilate:

“Hello, Ann. We… talked in the diner.”

“Okay. Did you enjoy the speech?”

“Yes, umm… you made me believe in home, and love again.”

She gives me a strange look, then nods, smiling slightly, and shakes hands with the next person. I stare at her as I’m pushed out of the way.

I storm out of the room, and back onto the floor, but it’s not the same. I don’t want to wave my banners anymore. I don’t want to care about this – I don’t. It’s all a lie. These are just frightened people, scared, who can’t believe in themselves, so they’re desperate for something else to believe in, and they’ve bought into all of this bullshit. I yell out a couple times, “The Iraq War is a Lie! The Iraq War is a Lie! The Iraq –”

To hell with it: None of them are listening anymore.

I dump my little campaign bag by the side door, and walk out –

Where I’m stopped by security.

“Where are you going, ma’am?”

And I don’t know how to answer him. “Home, to the husband who was right?” “To my cousins?” “To kill myself?” Any of them feels like the wrong answer, with just a trace of the right one in each –

One of them starts to frisk me, and I recoil, both physically and mentally when –

“She’s with me.”

I turn –

Ann!

She’s here! She came for me! She didn’t forget after all!

And she whisks me away to her box. She has a great view, I can see the stage so much better than I could before! And all of her friends are so funny, so good-looking, so witty, I feel like an old woman who finally got to be a princess, Cinderella in Red.

“You aren’t happy at home, are you?” Ann says.

I blush again, she’s always making me do that – maybe that’s because of something in your own heart you can’t admit – shut up shut up shut up –

“If you come with us, Abby, you’ll be accepted.”

I look at her as if struck. Come with them?

“Yes, Abby. Join the campaign. You’ll be accepted here. You’ll be loved. No more awkwardness, no more painful thinking. You’ll be fighting the enemies of freedom, with the armies of compassion, with the best people in the world. What do you say?”

I’m so taken aback, I don’t know what to say. I blurt out, without thinking –

“But my husband –”

“He’s what made you strong, Abby. Look at these people, everyone here. How many of us do you think could live with a liberal for that long? “But he’s not a liberal – shut up, Abby!” “No one could take that constant criticism, and second-guessing, and thinking things through. None of us could live with that. All that pain of doubting yourself, your religion, your President… that makes you stronger, Abby. It makes you worth more to us, and we want you with us so badly. We could love you, Abby.”

And I can’t think straight, just hearing her say that. One little voice in my head screams – “Oh right, like they just don’t want to exploit the wife of a left-leaning columnist” – but that voice is immediately silenced.

I look into Ann’s eyes. I gasp softly as she squeezes my hand, and holds it. Ann is holding my head, Rick Santorum is speaking, and I’m in New York for the first time. This is my real birthday, my true baptism: not into life, but into heaven…

I sit tied to the chair, and looking at Smalls and Dopey. They don’t know I see them – “you can’t see them, Abby! Just think you can’t see them -!” and I don’t know what to do.

Suddenly, the door in the room opens. In walks – “You can’t see who it is, Abby! Just say to yourself you can’t see who it is –”

And I hear a voice in my head, that sounds a little like my husband’s:

“Come on, Abby. If you’re going to sell Frank out, sell yourself out, then at least admit to yourself, just once what you’re looking at, then go from there, huh doll?”

Okay, Frank. Just once.

Ann Coulter walks in the door. She walks over to the two security guards who stopped me at the convention, but here I only know them as Dopey and Smalls. There’s some whispering, then Ann yells – “I’m coming for you, Abby!” and Dopey kicks the wall. Smalls yells out, as if in pain, and walks to the door quietly. Dopey screams out, and walks to the door, too – he salutes Ann, and the two of them run out –

Ann lifts off my blindfold, and hugs me –

“You poor dear, are you okay?” I nod, slowly. I’m pretty traumatized, she looks at me: “That’s the lengths these people will go to, Abby. They’re the same people who want to ban the bible in Virginia.” I nod, again. She unties my knots, and helps me stand up –

“What’s… going on, Ann?” I ask.

She looks at me strangely.

“Whatever you want, Abby. It can all happen now. You can come with us. You can help us fight for a better America, a greater America. Come on, Abby –”

I stand up, and look at her –

Suddenly, Frank runs in the door:

“Abby, thank God you’re okay!” He grabs me and hugs me. He kisses me – it takes him a moment to look at Ann.

I have never seen a more stunned expression on a person’s face.

“Ann… Coulter? What are you doing here?”

Ann glares at him –

“Keeping her safe from you. Come on, Abby. Let’s go.”

Frank whirls around and looks at me, his face a torn with confusion.

“Abby, what’s she talking about…?”

“She knows what’s right, and what’s wrong. And she’s tied of your negative, socialistic liberal dogma. She’s too smart for it. Aren’t you, Abby?”

I look at the two of them – Frank grabs my shoulders –

“Abby, please. Let’s go home. You know she isn’t right – I’m not even a liberal. I don’t know what that has to do with anything, but… I love you. More than anything. Please…”

Ann’s crooked smile turns up at one end. Frank’s eyes plead at me.

“This is the one chance you have, Abby. One shot to change the world –”

“Okay, Ann.” I say, quietly.

Ann takes my arm, and we walk towards the door – Frank jumps in front of us –

“Where are you going??”

Ann answers, pushing him out of the way –

“On the road. We’re going to bring the truth to people, not the negative doctrine of the left –”

“Abby, please, listen –”

“To what?” Ann snorts. “That Iraq isn’t going well? Bush is too ideologically based? Give me a break –”

Ann takes me down a hall – “I’m in a hotel?” I notice, stupidly.

Frank runs after us –

“But, Abby –”

Ann pulls me into an elevator.

“She’s going with the right people, now.”

As the doors close, Frank yells out to me:

“Abby, they aren’t even Republicans! The Republican party is a great, truly wonderful organization that was built on the ideas of personal and fiscal responsibility! These people have sullied both of those! None of them take responsibility for anything – and they’ve spent so many billions of taxpayer money, Abby, please. Look, honey, I don’t care what you believe in just so you aren’t motivated by fear, and fear alone. But Abby, please –”

He said more there, I think. It was all just so negative.

All I could think while I was standing there was:

“Why don’t you just shut up, Frank, and reach out your hand to stop the door?”

But then the door closes. Ann rubs my shoulder, and kisses me on the cheek, and I completely forget what else Frank said.

A few blissful minutes later, the elevator door opens, and we walk out into the bright, warm sun.