America, You Sexy Bitch (47 page)

Michael’s friends are pleasant otherwise, but they are not really my people. I do not mean that to come off in a mean way; they are just much older than me and in completely different spaces in their lives. It’s just a little difficult, for whatever reason, to find a spark with another person at the party that would lead to a mind-blowing conversation. It is all very pleasant, but uneventful. I am of the mind-set that in order for people to truly bond at a party there needs to be some combination of whiskey shots, fireworks, or fire arms, and none of those things were happening. But nonetheless it is a nice evening and nice of Martha to go out of her way to throw a party for the end of our trip.

I start to fade toward the end of the night. I’m feeling a little woozy and sweaty and am certain I can no longer drink any more baby Bud Lights or talk about why America is such a polarizing place right now. Right before I head off to bed, truly exhausted, Michael yells towards me, “You called it!”

“Ughh,” I sort of yell-grunt back, but he’s right. On the final night, I did call it.

 

Michael:
Meghan says good night and I wonder if she’s had a nice time. One advantage of being a politician’s daughter, I guess, is that you learn to adapt to new social situations with ease. Even so, these are not her people; they are mostly white, heterosexual, married suburbanites with children. They are, in other words, what the world thinks of when it thinks of Republicans.

Stereotypes have a funny way of falling apart when you actually talk to people. This was one of the great lessons of the trip. I am as guilty of indulging in stereotypes as anybody, and I definitely had my preconceived notions of what I would find on the road. Yet the only generality I would apply to the people we met is that all of them care about their country and want it to succeed. Almost none of them thought of themselves primarily as “Republicans” or “Democrats,” none of them embodied the media caricatures we see shown to us on various cable news outlets. As far as I could tell, every single person wanted the same things: the opportunity to succeed and to make a productive life for themselves and their children. No more, no less.

The funny thing about Meghan’s life and my own is that, judging only by lifestyle, we represent the stereotypes of the opposing political party. She’s the young, free-spirited wild child who lives in big cities. I’m the buttoned-up family guy with the wife, two kids, and house with the (literal, in my case) white picket fence. But people aren’t stereotypes, they’re just people.

(Actually Omar the Anarchist was a stereotype, but he’s the exception that proves the rule.)

Not long after Meghan calls it (and I would like to note for the record that on our final night, she
did
call it, the wuss), Stephie’s giving me the “see you later” wave from across the yard. She’d been sticking close to Meghan all night. Whether she was feeling shy or just protective, I don’t know, but it’s amazing to me how close these two have grown. They could not be more different. Stephie: the yoga-practicing vegetarian who artfully origamied her month’s worth of clothing into a fanny pack is totally BFFs with the gun-toting,
high-heel-wearing Meghan McCain. Again, stereotypes are a poor predictor of actual human interactions.

Most people are gone by midnight. Matthew and Jessica are spending the night with their two kids, so they’re still here, and the house is pretty full. Cousin John, graciously, has agreed to sleep in the RV again to make room for everybody. He’s already there as those of us still awake lean against each other on the patio comparing notes on the evening.

For the most part, I think my liberal friends behaved themselves. Yes, there was the unfortunate comment about Meghan’s dad selling his soul and another one along the lines of “what this country needs is a benevolent dictator,” but considering the amount of alcohol and s’mores consumed, I would say we did okay.

We’re just standing around the fire pit, watching the small flames burn themselves down, and I’m thrilled to be home, but also a little sad that our cross-country tour is at an end. My brain goes to that scene in
The Breakfast Club,
a favorite movie from my teenage years, released the year Meghan was born. Towards the end, there’s a scene in which the various characters—each of them a high school stereotype—have bonded and are talking about how they’ll all be going back to their regular lives when school resumes in a couple of days. Anthony Michael Hall’s character, the nerd, says something like, “We’ll still be friends Monday, right?”

That’s sort of how it feels here tonight with Meghan. After tonight we go back to our regular lives, and I like to think we’ll still be friends on Monday, but I don’t know if we will. It’s a big country and we’re just two people in it.

When I wake up in the morning, I go outside to see if Cousin John wants some coffee. But when I get out there, the big RV is already gone. I’m not sure why he didn’t say goodbye to us. Maybe because goodbyes are tough, or maybe because he just wanted to be an Aspen cowboy and ride off into the sunrise. Adios, Gumdrop, adios.

As for Meghan, she’ll be taking a car to the airport for her long flight back to the West Coast. I’m sure she’s just as anxious to get
back to her home as I was to mine, even though it won’t be her home for long. She’s already got a realtor in New York scouting apartments for her to look at. I was getting married when I was her age, and she’s still trying to figure out where she’s going to sleep from month to month. I envy her freedom and her spirit, but I don’t envy her suitcase, which is probably at least thirty pounds over any airline’s weight limit.

I help her lug the thing up from the basement bedroom where she slept. She is in her pajamas but fully made up. The rest of us are not nearly so well put together. Martha looks like she slept in a Dyson vacuum cleaner. Frankly, we’re a mess.

Even so, the mood around the kitchen table is pretty good as we eat a greasy breakfast designed to blot up whatever alcohol still soaks our brains. There’s some lazy talk about how to fill the day after Meghan heads for the airport and Stephie takes the train back to New York City to reunite with her fiancé. Her wedding is in three months. Meghan and I will see each other there, if not sooner.

After spending pretty much every waking moment for the past month together, we’re both a little sad to say goodbye. One thing that makes it easier for her, I’m sure, is the presence of screaming children. Once hyperactive kids are introduced to the mix, farewells become much, much simpler. By the time her car shows up, I think she is more than ready to go.

We drag her beastly suitcase out to the car and exchange our goodbyes. I am not a huggy person by nature, and I have been particularly untouchy during this trip lest she think, even for a second, that my intentions are anything less than honorable. Even so, I give her a big hug in our driveway and tell her I will miss her.

“I’ll miss you too, Black.”

And with that, she disappears into the Lincoln Town Car, bound for sunny California all the way back across this big and beautiful screwed up country. We are, as a nation, a hot mess. I stand and wave as Meghan’s car drives away, then head back inside to enjoy in America with my family and friends.

 

Meghan:
I wake up very early the next morning and hug everyone goodbye. I thank Martha for her hospitality. Michael, well I just hug Michael and tell him I will miss him, which is true. I will miss him.

As I stand outside of Michael’s gorgeous home, I gaze across his well-kept yard at his perfect matched set of kids, beautiful wife, and BMW X-something or other, and fight back an ironic laugh. Michael may be a liberal, Obama Kool-Aid-drinking Democrat, but underneath it all, at his core, he is a conservative family man, with family values, who lives the life of Ward Cleaver. I may be a conservative, Jesus-loving Republican, who’d rather shoot a gun, throw back some whiskey, and split hairs over health care, but at my core, I am a real free spirit who never really wants to live in the suburbs, and finds the idea of having sex with one person for the rest of my life akin to some kind of punishment. Here we are, assigned our roles, and playing them with all the heart we can muster.

How about them apples? I think that ended up being the funniest part about our assumed divide. That our roles completely reverse when we step away from how we want our government run and look closer at how we live our own personal lives. Labels are stupid. The world is incredibly gray and people who want to turn it into something strictly black and white have either never experienced the other side or are lying to themselves about something.

On the car ride to the airport I still have a weird feeling that I have been doing the walk of shame after a late night out, or hanging out at someone’s house who I don’t know very well. As much as I think Michael and I have grown close and come to find a meeting place and common ground with many things, I wonder if we really will stay in touch and remain friends.

The ugly truth is that we are entirely different species and in entirely different places in our lives. I have no regrets about taking on this crazy idea and road trip. I know Michael believes in nothing and I believe in everything, but I do believe that we came into each other’s lives for a reason. I am surprised to think back at how initially judgmental I was of Michael and Stephie—to a degree—and how much I have wound up loving both of them, and of course
Cousin John. I hope Michael feels the same way, but I cannot be certain.

Will Michael and I actually end up remaining friends? Who knows? His life is so different, his world is so different, he still has a way of getting on my last possible nerve. Regardless, I leave his house that morning at the crack of dawn with no regrets. More than anything it was fun to be part of a social experiment and, dare I say, it felt important. I believe in what we just went through together and am hopeful that in some small way it might offer a different perspective about two completely opposite people attempting in every way they can to have a common ground.

As I sit in the backseat of the car that’s driving me to the airport, I am also frankly a bit relieved that I made it out of the situation relatively unscathed. I wonder if Michael and I will continue to play a significant role in each other’s lives. For the moment, however, I am happy to say goodbye. I am happy to go back to the world I love and the people who understand me. I have had fun on this journey but am relieved to be returning to a place and a life where I do not have to explain who I am, why I do what I do, or believe what I believe to anyone.

As soon as I get back to LA, I email Michael thanking him for everything and for going on the trip with me, half expecting this to be one of the last times we are in touch on a personal level. I hope I’m wrong.

A week later I get a package. I do not remember ordering anything. I tear open the package to find a pair of black-and-pink Crocs. In my size. I can’t help but break out into a fit of laughter and produce a huge smile. I press Michael’s number on my phone.

“Nice try, Black,” I say as I hug them to me. “They are going in the garbage.”

Thank you to everybody who helped us plan our trip and spoke to us along the way: Senator John McCain, Cindy McCain, Jack McCain, James McCain, Bridget McCain, Martha Hagen-Black, Ruthie Black, Elijah Black, Jill Schwartz, Sandy Sherman, Betsy, David, and Eli Schneider, Laurye Blackford, Robert Guinsler, Barry Goldblatt, Flip Brophy, Jill Ehrenreich, Jackie White, Paul Carr, Jennifer and Michael Cornthwaite, Daisy Delfina, Jessica Janson, G-Cup Bitch, Larry Fink, Carl Arky, Deb Lindner, Patrice and Dave Arent, Christopher, Robert, and Jessica Cargill, Jonah Evans, Glen from New Orleans, Jacques Morial, Milton Walker, Nina Zapala, Cathy and Ken Plante, Nancy and Burt Walker, John Richardson, Alicia Dean, Darlene Bieber, Rick Rzepka, Bradley Morrow, Erin Stattel, Tom and Anita Metzger, Frank and Lauren LaRose, Eide Alawan, Joyce and Jimmy Schenck, Charlie Grob, Rep. Andrew Schock, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Rep. Richard Hanna, Phil Elliott, Christian Berle, Casey Pick, David Black, Matt Simeon, Andrew Brady, Andrew Powaleny, Ben Grove, Ashton Randle, and Joe Donoghue.

We would also like to thank our agents Max Stubblefield, Geoff Suddleson, Jay Gassner, Ted Schachter and Mike Berkowitz, and everyone at United Talent Agency without which our road trip and this book never would have happened.

Special thanks to “Cousin” John Harvey.

And extra special thanks to Mrs. Stephie “Nermal” Grob Plante, without whom we would not have survived.

And finally, thank you to the all the men and women in our armed forces who have served and continue to serve this country and make sacrifices for us every day.

Copyright © 2012 by Meghan McCain and Hot Schwartz Productions, Inc.

 

Interior photos courtesy of Stephie Grob Plante.

 

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eISBN : 978-0-306-82108-0

 

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