John "Turncoat" McCain Denounces The Nation's Capital

by Duke Amboy

"It's harder and harder to do the Lord's work in the city of Satan."

Augustine couldn't've said it better, John Iscariot.

McCain - waving a honey barbecue grilled-chicken sandwich, his mouth half-full, froth flying from his lips -  addressed a congregation (I'm sorry, executive board meeting) at the Chik-fil-A headquarters in Atlanta.

I must confess I wasn't present. (And I'm sure S. Truett is ecstatic I can even bring myself to use those words). I had been detained at the entrance, whisked off by three large men in dark suits and sunglasses - and a man in a cow costume wearing an EAT MOR CHIKIN sign around his neck - and locked into a conveniently empty taste-testing lab on an underground level, where I was forced to sample various menu items - chicken in strip, nugget, fillet, cube and origami swan form - while we were subjected to an audio recording of Dave Ramsey reading from his latest Christian self-help book, Financial Peace for Kids.

By the time Adventures in Odyssey came on, a lesser man would've snapped - caroming around the room, squealing like a greased pig and flinging his feces at the inspirational posters. But, when all is said and done, I remain a professional - committed to nothing more or less than GETTING THE STORY. And I knew - it was fifteen or so floors above.

I threw myself down on the linoleum floor and thrashed around as spasmodically as I could, feigning an epileptic seizure. Without a word, the two goons nodded at each other and left the room. I thought I could hear crying from inside the cow costume. It was now or never.

Jumping up, I threw the cow into a corner and bolted. The hallway was clear but the elevator at the end required a code for access. So I ran back and grabbed the cow.

"What's your name, you fucking shill?" I asked it.

"They call me Bessie," a young man's voice answered. "Please don't hurt me."

"Give me the code and I won't have to mess you up," I told him.  When he finally managed to get out an "I don't know," I could tell by the fear in his voice that he meant it.

"Never mind," I said, "I think I can guess."

It was a shot in the dark but the single digit repeated three times did the trick and soon the elevator arrived. As its doors swished open, I heard running footsteps behind us. Turning and using the cow as a human (bovine?) shield, I shouted, "Hold up, fuckos! One more step and Bessie here's ground Chuck!"

As the doors slid shut, I saw the goons - with three others, practically identical, behind them - crossing themselves and mouthing what I could only guess were prayers. Vengeful, Old Testament prayers.

"The boardroom. What floor?"

"Thirteen," Bessie said.

"Thirteen? You're shitting me.  Building's don't have a thirteenth floor."

"This one does."

And sure enough there was the 13 on the panel. Top floor. Executive suite. I stabbed the button and up we shot.

In less than ten seconds (must've been an express elevator), floor number thirteen lit up in an infernal red and the doors hissed open, revealing a vast boardroom with floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows, gold-encrusted light fixtures and a seemingly endless mahogany table, around which I counted 13 over-padded executive armchairs.  At the head of the table, on a high gold- and gem-encrusted throne, sat S. Truett Cathy, the pontifex of Chik-fil-A. He held a gold shepherd's crook in one had and in the other a flail of some sort, also gold. On his head was a glittering crown in the shape of a crenelated tower.

And, to my amazement, John McCain was kneeling at his feet, as though at worship, fiddling - or so it seemed to me - with something in Cathy's lap. After a moment he stood up, turned to the other executives and wiped some sort of mayonnaise off his chin. He was smiling wolfishly and waving around a laser pointer like a conductor's baton. He had just aimed it at a PowerPoint display on the wall when his eyes met mine.

I could see the initial look of surprise and fear. Then the nearsighted, watery blue eyes narrowed. A phalanx of security goons descended on us from both sides. The jig was just about up.

But before all twenty of them piled into the elevator, I had just enough time to notice what Judas McCain was pointing out:

Why, John? Why do you want so desperately to occupy the down-turned tip of the pentagram?

What unspeakable horrors do you hope to perpetrate? What primordial, shambling god do you worship?

And precisely why should we - the American public - EAT MOR CHIKIN?