Armageddon-To-It

 

Just outside Tallahassee, Florida there is a rather rundown trailer home standing all alone next to a billboard advertising a "Gator Park" 5 miles down the road. The billboard is sun drenched and peeling and depicts a man holding open the jaws of an enormous alligator while he puts his face in the terrifying creature's mouth. Hundreds of people travel this stretch of road daily and while they all look at the billboard and briefly contemplate stopping at the gator park, none of them look at the trailer home and think of dropping in for a visit. But perhaps they would if they knew that within that dilapidated house on wheels lives a man whose sole purpose in life is to end the world as we know it. Inside this trailer lives 36 year old, Martin Spears, a one-time entrepreneur, would-be dictator, and down on his luck Anti-Christ.

The inside of the trailer is musty and dark. Martin Spears sits in a light blue recliner that has seen better days. He is wearing a lavender bathrobe that is open across the middle and nothing else but boxer shorts with the face of the Grinch stenciled on their front. His hair is greasy and the bottoms of his feet are dirty. Next to him is a T.V. stand, appropriately supporting an empty T.V. dinner dish now being used an as ashtray. Over the sounds of The Price Is Right, he begins his story: "It wasn't always like this you know. I had money, women, hell, I had half a million followers on Twitter! Now I live with my mom." He points over his shoulder to a leather faced woman somewhere between the ages of 45 and 75 wearing a housecoat and fluffy pink slippers. The disappointment in her son is a constant expression on her face. "Where did it all go wrong?" I ask him. "It all started with that idiot posting naked pictures of himself. I told him not to." For reasons of libel, neither of us mention the man by name. "I told him not to do it. I was his assistant. We were poised to make a run at the White House, but he was so obsessed with his own penis. He said it was pretty." Recounting the story makes Michael Spears wince even now. He gropes on the floor for a half full can of Pabst Blue Ribbon amid a dozen or so empties. "If that moron could have just kept it in his pants, I'd be re-writing Presidential policy even now. Maybe I'd have even usurped the position myself, who knows?"

For near an hour Michael Spears laments about this missed opportunity. He tells of half-brained schemes wherein the world economy has collapsed and World War 3 ends with nuclear war and the annihilation of billions of people. "It would have been so beautiful," he muses, "a masterpiece." Sulking he explains that he did have a plan B, devised shortly after he lost his political connections. "I wanted to create a cult," he says, "a big one, not like those half-assed ones started by Charles Manson or David Koresh, but something to be proud of. I took the money I had and bought a few dozen buildings. We started colonies and businesses all across the country. We were this close," he tells me holding his fingers and inch apart. When I ask him what happened he says one word, Obamacare. "Suddenly, all of my volunteers wanted wages and 401 K's and health insurance; even my wives wanted security for our children! It broke me, financially. I have nothing left."

"I'm just in a rut right now," he assures me, "Ever since that December 21st, 2012 passed I just don't feel as motivated as I used to, like I missed my chance. It really took the wind out of my sails." Broke, unwanted, and without many viable ideas for world domination, Michael Spears promises he will somehow bounce back. "I don't know how. I don't know when, but someday. I'll destroy you and everyone else on this stinking planet," he vows. This is hard to believe but nonetheless sends a chill up my spine. He has the look of a man crazy enough to do anything he puts his mind to. I for one will keep my eye out for Mr. Spears and maybe someday after a trip to the Tallahassee Gator Park, I'll pop in on him un-expectedly; I just hope to God he's still here.