CLEAR LAKE, Iowa —
His breath was on the boy’s nose. And he would’ve ripped it off without a blink.
It was the Donald Trump rally. Iowa. Couple of weeks before the caucus. Trump didn’t need to win the state, but he was going to “win, win, win,” because he is Donald Trump.
His son arrived a few days before with a loaded gun. When he isn’t handling his net-worth of $275 million, “Junior” is shooting holes in leopards and cutting the tails off elephants. So while his father spoke to a crowd of white Iowans, Donald Trump Jr. stalked the cool backfields, painting the snow with red.
The Rolling Stones played over the rally loudspeaker.
“Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields, sold in the market down in New Orleans.”
I was there. In a 1950s diner booth at the back of the rally. It was milkshakes. Rock ‘n’ roll. Trump was on his way.
Tornado, a police canine, was whining. He was foaming. He wanted to get closer to the face of a skinny black boy who stood about 3-feet-tall (light-up rubber boots included). The guard laughed and so did the boy and so did his nervous mother. Tornado panted.
I’d arrived outside the Surf Ballroom three hours before, vomited in a nearby field, stood in line with a large woman and a case of the stomach flu. The woman’s head was wrapped in a bandana, which was covered by a scarf, which was topped with a hat, which was all stuffed in a tight, furry hood.
After several hours of unwrapping her face, she told me that, since Obama became president, she’s been “afraid to take (her) family to McDonald’s.” She can’t recognize America, and now her children are in danger.
She pulled her son close. His hat read, “Batman for President.” I gagged as the flu cut my stomach.
Tornado barked. He was patrolling the crowd, which stretched down the block, around the corner, out of sight. A mile of bearded men, NRA hats, John Deer sweatshirts and a small black boy with his mother and a pair of light-up rubber boots. All sniffed by a German shepherd, stuffed through metal detectors and fed stacks of campaign propaganda. It was 9 degrees in Clear Lake, and you could barely see the pulse of light beneath the boys’ feet.
The “Batman for President” kid began stomping and muttering. A reporter stuck her notepad in my face. She asked why I was there, or here, or then or maybe now. The stomach flu was thickening me, and my grip was drowning. I told her I was a journalist, and then I told her I wasn’t sure, and then I started making guttural noises.
Bat kid was stomping, and there was something else. He was chanting.
A man stuck full of “Trump for President” pins wandered by, selling them for $5 a piece (or 3 for $10).
The reporter had moved on to a veteran, who stood three bodies ahead. He wore a light jacket. Iowa was cold today, but he’d spent colder nights in Afghanistan, where he’d trained a squad of “pretty f***ing non-receptive” Afghani policemen. He’d bought one of the $5 pins and stabbed it in the flag bandana wrapped around his skull. He’d also come prepared with a plan to Make America Great Again, which he relayed to the reporter’s mic.
“Bomb their oil fields. All of them. Their economic security, blow it up,” he said.
The reporter took a picture of him. He looked at the sun, proud. Eyes burning, but proud.
Bat Kid was stomping and chanting again, so I leaned close. His voice was weak, but it strengthened. With every beat, it grew.
“Trump. Trump. Trump.”
…
Inside, Mick Jagger crooned.
“I’m no school boy, but I know what I like. You should have heard them just around midnight.”
In 67 years, the Surf Ballroom never saw a crowd this large. Buddy Holly, ZZ Top, Santana — no one beat Trump. It sagged from the weight.
I sat at the fringe, clutched my stomach in a 1950s diner booth. Tropical paintings and signed guitars hung around me. Newspaper clippings with Buddy Holly, his eyes squinting in black frames. Washed-out photos of waitresses on roller skates and a couple kissing on the dance floor — taken a few summers after we dropped a five-ton nuke on Hiroshima. It was all milkshakes. Rock ‘n’ roll.
A squeal behind my booth.
Trump would be onstage in minutes, and Tornado was rolling on his back, tongue flopping. The boy with the boots was rubbing his belly and both of them were shrieking.
Tornado is a dual-purpose canine, meaning he can smell bad things and bite bad guys. His nose, which keeps snorting from all the tickling, has about 45 times the scent-receptors as people. In this case, that means he can smell black powder, C4, detonation cords and anything else a terrorist would bring to the Donald Trump rally. Weed, too.
He can also kill. And with a word from the guard, he would snap this boy’s neck and wag while he did it.
“How come you taste so good?” Mick Jagger sang.
Tornado licked the boy’s throat, made him giggle. They hugged. Mom smiled, still nervous.
The crowd pulsed from the dance floor, chanting “Trump, Trump, Trump,” rippling my coffee. He was close.
“You know what language he speaks?” said the guard.
The boy shook his head. No.
“Sitz!” the guard yelled. His dog sat, lowered its ears. Tornado speaks German.
…
An old woman gave me a smile. It was gummy. I hesitated. She was at the edge of the swaying mass that covered the Surf Ballroom, and I was a few yards away. My stomach was yelping and leaping into my throat, and the crowd churned, swelled and crested again, crashed against the ballroom shore.
I stepped into the swell and, before I was carried off, she winked at me. It was a brief comfort. An uneasy comfort. Like a mattress soaked in gasoline.
In the swell. I bounced off a couple holding a “Ukrainians love Trump” sign, spun across the floor, palm tree portraits unravelling to a blur of green and sunshine, lines of white teeth. A pair of tiny shoes skimmed past my nose. They were attached to a little girl, clinging desperately to a “VETERANS FOR TRUMP” sign as her grandfather swung her around like a broken windmill.
I stopped myself inches from an XXL t-shirt. It read, “Iowa 80, World’s Largest Truck Stop!”
The music stopped. The press adjusted their cameras. A dark, hunched figure watched me from across the dance floor. His eyes sank like a midnight drowning, and he clutched his stomach until it nearly disappeared. Mick Jagger started singing again. I looked away from the mirror and a camera flashed in my eyes.
Blinded, I stumbled through the crowd, their faces silhouettes and lightning bolts. Sparks hit my vision, fuzzed it. It all looked like cheap TV.
A couple wondered by in 1950s attire, slow-dancing. She leaned against his chest, her eyes in his, and she kissed his open mouth. A figure limped through the crowd. It was Donald J. Trump Jr., dragging a nine-point buck straight through the rally. I slapped my head and he disappeared.
“He’s a shoot-from-the-hip kind of guy. I like that,” a voice drifted by. “He’s ticking off the right people.”
I dropped to my knee, a killer in my stomach. The flu was done toying with me. My hands shook, and my notebook was a mess of crude drawings and letters. Sweat leaked from my fingers, and the letters turned to black puddles. I didn’t have long. I saw the bat-signal and rose to my feet.
The kid was still wearing his “Batman for President” hat. He watched me, leaned against his mother, sipped his hot chocolate. She had unwrapped her head, exposing it like an open wound. Her fingers ran through a tangle of thin blonde hair as she addressed a reporter.
“You’re an American. I’m American. We have values,” she said. “If you come to America, don’t bring your values over here. You know, go ahead, bring your values. But American values come first. Then, your values.”
Donald Trump was at the podium. His hair was bible-thick, and it never swayed — just like on TV. Pictures of BB King and Lynyrd Skynyrd threatened to fall as the Ballroom shook.
Tornado sat and wagged, licked his chomps. He knew chaos. Officers had shot blanks in his ears while he eviscerated dummies.
Trump shook his fist.
“We’re angry at stupid people,” he said. “You can’t buy elections anymore. People are too smart for that.”
The man in the Iowa-80 sweatshirt giggled and bounced on his army boots. His weight shook the ground, and I nearly fell into him.
Bat Kid pulled away from his mother, walked up to me. I hacked into my arm and faced him, notebook in hand.
“ISIS, we’re gonna knock ‘em out. Boom, boom, boom!” Trump shot his finger gun at the crowd. “We’re gonna win. All. The. Time.”
A pudgy finger poked the camera that hung around my neck. Bat kid studied himself in the lens, his face distorted by the fingerprint swirl. I asked why he was here, and he licked his chocolate-y mustache.
“Swamp People is on tonight,” he said. “Do you watch it?”
Two little hands dropped a “VETERANS FOR TRUMP!” poster by my feet.
I gagged, and Bat Kid ran back to his mother, eyed me suspiciously. He tugged at her coat. No, not now. Mother’s busy watching Trump. He tugged again, and she gave him an iPhone.
He jogged past me to the edge of the crowd, the 1950s’ diner section, and sat next to the black boy with light-up boots. The iPhone painted neon blue across their faces, and their eyes faded.
They gasped, pointed to the screen, where crocodiles showed their teeth. Where bearded men pointed shotguns at the camera. Where there were heroes, bloody ultra-violence, thrashing beasts in the muck — and all of it in brilliant HD.
A crocodile dove beneath the boat, circled the man onboard, who smiled and winked at the audience. A shotgun blast hit the water, and it went silent. The boys cheered, and so did thousands of others around me, chanting “Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!” Children waved flags with the casino king’s face. Men lifted their NRA hats. And a pair of young lovers embraced amid the commotion.
This must be real. And if not, why shouldn’t we believe it?
Tornado stood by and watched, hair raised on his back.
