the secret history of van camp’s retirement: part one in a series

(Amarillo) In a scandal that has gotten him dubbed a “political Martha Stewart,” Virgil Van Camp was able, as long as two weeks ago, to acquire insider knowledge of the 2008 presidential race, the Panhandle Truth Squad has learned. Late in December of 2007, Van Camp shirked his Christian obligation to celebrate Christmas and traveled to Iowa to unearth secrets about the upcoming caucus. Due to his preternaturally youthful appearance and unparalleled skill as a wordsmith, Van Camp was able to pose as “Virgil Van Vamp,” an up-and-coming gay collegian attending the famed Writer’s Workshop in Iowa City. In this guise, Mr.Van Camp gained the confidence of all thirty Iowans who drove the turnout to record-shattering levels at the 2008 caucuses.

Although Van Camp’s research skills were as formidable as you would expect from the man who once elbowed Tom Wolfe and whispered “Hey, get this—the “Me Decade”! Good, eh?,” into the white-suited journalist’s ear, the tantalizing nuggets he uncovered were never to be written about in the beloved and indelibly etched Opinion pages of the legendary Amarillo Globe-Republican.

For the unfortunate Mr. Van Camp was to uncover a secret in Iowa that would suck away his very will to live. By the time he got to Cedar Rapids, Van Camp realized that Hillary Clinton would not be winning the Iowa caucuses and in the increasingly desperate Democratic party of the two-thousand-oughties, her failure to win would severely jeopardize her chances of Building a Bridge to the 1990s in the general election. And what reason would Van Camp have to exist, what indeed would be the raison d'être of the entire squalling Opinion pages of the Globe-Republican without the Clintons as a foil? If “Billary” (another original Van Camp coinage) were to finally ride off into his/her last sunset, the entire operation—right down to the conspiracy-theorizing Vince Foster letter-writing junkies—might as well close up shop.

Van Camp was found sobbing in a cornfield. The Midwesterner who found him there was drunk on that strange combination of Power and Apathy that is unique to Iowa in January of years divisible by four. “Look,” that grandiose and indifferent, corn-fed and oft-flown over Heartlander yelped, “I done made a Texan cry.”

The middle-American “crouched” on his “haunches”. He looked Virgil in the eyes. “I am a no-nonsense straight-shooter,” he announced, quoting from materials in his multi-media promotional package. “I am the very Salt of the very Earth! I am an upright and honest straight arrow and I will tell you how to vote! Come with me to the café.” He pronounced the final word with the accent on the first syllable and the shortest of a’s.

Van Camp looked at his Big Chief tablet in which he took all of his notes and wrote all of his columns. The first page contained his notes from his interview with the Ames accountant, Beancounter Lewis. “You remember that bit from 2004 about how ‘all Democrats in later, bigger states should vote for John Kerry in their primaries to show ‘em that we’re unified behind beating Bush’?” Beancounter had cackled. “Ha, ha! That was mine! Mine, mine, mine!”

Van Camp tore the page from the tablet, and began constructing his resignation letter to Kanelis.

spacedark

Part two in the series will tell the untold story of Kanelis’ and Dudley’s attempt to incite Van Camp to stay by promising to shoot Seewald.