My Parasitic Twin Wants to be President – Chapter One – The Decision

Well, I warned you all. Here are excerpts from Chapter One of the book that I’m writing concurrent with the presidential campaign. Yes, the grammar is wrong. It is written in the first person – a campaign diary supposedly written by the modestly-educated host twin of the parasitic twin candidate. The grammar is meant to be wrong. Click to read the excepts, if you dare.

I never wanted to write a diary for myself, let alone one for my brother. Heck, I don’t even like to read. Why read when you can get all you need to know from watching TV? I do like that the President and me have that in common. That, and KFC. Love the extra crispy. Do you ever get grossed-out that we’re eating chicken skin? I never even thought about it, until my stupid brother pointed that out. He takes the skin off his chicken. Really? That’s the best part!

Anyway, my brother wants me to keep this diary for him as he runs for President. That’s right, my little brother is running for President of the United States of America. I’m pretty darn proud of him, but I do have mixed feelings about him running against President Trump. My brother and I didn’t vote for Trump, but I sorta like Trump. He says what’s on his mind. I wish I could do that, but Ma always slapped me upside my head when I tried that as we was growing up, so I usually stay pretty quiet these days.

My brother and I not only didn’t vote for Trump, but we never vote for anyone anymore. If you vote, you get called for jury duty. I had to sit with my brother for a week when he was called to do jury duty about ten years ago. I think he kinda enjoyed it. Not me! When I got my notice for jury duty, I called up the government office and told them folks I wasn’t going. They asked me why. Told me it was my civic duty. I told them straight out that I have a parasitic twin growing out of my chest. Surprisingly, that’s all it took. My dumb brother coulda done the same. He shoulda told them he was my parasitic twin brother! But no, he wanted to be on a jury, so of course, I had to go along. I think he likes getting out and getting all the attention.

I keep getting side-tracked. First, chicken and now jury duty. Ray won’t like my rambling writing. He wants me to stick to writing about the campaign issues. Ray, that’s my brother’s name. I’m Gary, and we live in Okawana, Iowa. Okawana is in northwest Iowa, about halfway between Waterloo and Sioux City, but just north a bit. If it helps any, Okawana is a little south of Emmetsburg, but north of Pocahontas and east of the main north-south road. It sounds a little remote, but we like it. We have a diner and general store in Okawana, but Emmetsburg isn’t too far of a drive and has everything you need like a dollar store and even a casino. Ray and I got thrown out of that casino once. When casino security spotted Ray peeking out between the buttons of my shirt, they claimed he was counting cards. He denied it, but knowing Ray, he might have been, and was just not telling me. Damn, we coulda made some money that night. Next time we went to the casino, we stuck to playing the slots and video poker.

(lots of good writing omitted)

We ended up with a lot of free time to watch TV, and Ray was on his phone a lot keeping an eye on what Trump was doing. He saw enough bad stuff going on that he wanted to do something. He first wrote some emails to our Congressman, Steve King. He’s pretty popular round these parts, despite his racist tendencies. Rep. King actually sent a letter back to Ray that indicated his support for Donald Trump. That did not sit too well with Ray.

At that point, Ray decided to check out getting involved with the local Democratic Party.  Well, guess what? There actually is one, but we’d have to travel a spell to get to the local meetings, so Ray was initially against that. Ray is not too keen on car rides. He doesn’t think I’m a very good driver, so he’s worried that I’ll have an accident and set off the airbag that’ll smack him right in the kisser. It’s possible.

So we talked to our Uncle Ernst about driving us. Just to clarify, his name is Ernst, not Ernest. His given name was Ernest, but he had it changed to Ernst as soon as he could legally do that as an adult.  If you ask him about why he changed his name, he always says the same thing: “Why should I have an extra ‘e’ in my name when everyone will just call me Big Ern?” The confusing part in all this is that Uncle Ernst is only five foot, eight inches and about one hundred fifty pounds. And why didn’t he just change his name to Ern? Well, that’s neither here nor there. What’s important is that Uncle Ernst agreed to drive us in his old Ford truck with no airbags.

(more NY Times bestseller list quality writing omitted)

At that point, Ray made the decision to run for President as a Republican, but only after checking with Uncle Ernst about the driving. It seems like it didn’t matter to old Ern if he was driving us to a Democratic Party meeting in Fort Dodge or if we was going to hold a Republican campaign rally in Des Moines. Uncle Ernst’s old Ford burns oil like it’s a Saudi prince, so as long as we were willing to chip-in for gas and oil money, Ern was up for driving us.

Ray’s decision had been made, but he forgot to get the approval of someone very important. No, not the chair of the local Iowa Republican Party. Running for President doesn’t hinge on what some soybean farmer has to say. I’m talking about me! Ray had been making all these big plans and he kinda just figured I’d support him. Well, I like to be a good big brother and support Ray, like the time he wanted to take a yoga class. It didn’t take much doing on my part. I brought a pillow and took a nap while Ray turned himself into a human half-pretzel on my chest. I’m real sorry I got him kicked out of that class due to my snoring. I really tried to stay awake, but every time Mrs. Millington in her overly-stretched yoga pants would try a downward dog pose, I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to watch. Once my eyes were closed, I commenced to snoozing and snoring.

(words, words, and more words omitted)

I agreed to join Ray on the campaign trail. I also agreed to be his spokesman. You see, Ray don’t talk. He was born without a larynx. Maybe he was supposed to use my larynx like we share other organs. I wouldn’t mind. What’s mine is his. But it’s just not connected-up inside of us properly for Ray to use my larynx. That doesn’t stop him from being quite the chatterbox though. Him and I use American Sign Language to communicate with each other, although I am of the opinion that he uses his middle finger to communicate with me much too often. He can sorta speak using one of those electronic vibrating machines he holds to his throat, but that creates a lot of feedback when he uses it with a microphone. Ray’s expecting to need a microphone a lot to address some big crowds, so we decided that I’ll read his speeches for him, and he’ll sign to the audience. Talk about efficient! We won’t need to hire anyone to do the sign language for Ray’s speeches. Ray will sign himself.

Ray has another good idea. When we do some question and answer sessions at small campaign stops, Ray found an app on his phone so he can text answers that will be displayed on a big screen monitor. We’re going to try that out when Ray makes his candidacy announcement and first campaign stop at the general store in Okawana. We think it’s better whenever possible for Ray to communicate directly with the people instead of through me. I sometimes get the burps when I try to speak while translating Ray’s signing, so it is probably best to keep me out of it and for Ray to answer directly himself. Ray’s looking for a big monitor now that is reasonably priced and can fit in the back of Uncle Ernst’s truck in between all the tools and the rest of the crap he drives around with. Once Ray finds that, he is going to schedule his big campaign announcement right in our own home town.

So there’s your sneak peek at Chapter One. Chapter Two excerpts will be coming in July, assuming I have any blog readers left after reading the Chapter One excerpts.