Arnold Sawislak - Dwarf Rapes Nun; Flees in UFO - A Novel of Journalism

Newton’s burp when I told him about Swift’s demand matched the general’s. “Jesus, he’s some kind of fever blister, ain’t he? Didn’t you say we’ve got until 6 p.m. to file? Next chance you get, call and tell him I’ll have two columns before the deadline. Three, if he wants it.”

That was going to be a trick, because our next stop was 350 miles north of the city at the far end of the state. We got back into the motorcade, drove to the airport, and piled into the Boeing 727 charter the general was using.

Painted on the nose of the plane was “ Jacta alea est .” My Latin being what it wasn’t, when we got settled in our seats I asked the guy across the aisle if he knew what it meant.

“The New York Times man said it’s what Caesar said when he crossed the Rubicon—‘The die is cast.’ The guy from the Daily News said that may be what the quote says, but that ain’t what Caesar said. He claims old Julius got to the river and found his quartermaster had forgotten to bring boats and said, The shit is going to hit the fan."’

Newton was sitting next to me with his seat reclined to its limit and his hat tipped over his face. The stewardess came by and asked him to raise the seat during the takeoff, which was imminent. Newton emitted a long snore. She reached over and raised his hat and jumped a foot to the accompaniment of a high-C yelp. Somewhere during the morning Newton had picked up a rubber mask of Jabba the Hut. She decided to leave him alone.

After we got off the ground, the general came back into the press section and allowed that he had done? well in the morning and expected great things of this swing through the state.

Someone asked him if it was true that when he was in the Pentagon he had developed a plan to base MX missiles on the Strip in Las Vegas.

“Best plan I ever had,” the general replied. “Everywhere else the namby-pamby civilians were crying about how the birds were going to destroy their patio cookouts and give fish and wild geese anxiety attacks or something.

“So I picked the one place in the country where a major missile launch wouldn’t disturb anyone. Hell, we used to do atomic tests just down the road from Vegas and it never bothered the players. But those lily-livered politicians in the secretary’s office vetoed it—claimed it was an unwarranted intrusion on the private sector. I think Howard Hughes threatened to refuse to pay his taxes if we went ahead with it.”

The general turned to go back to the front of the plane, but stopped and said, “You camera boys. I’m going to take over the controls for a while. Come along if you want some pictures.”

The photogs stampeded into the front of the plane. They took turns in the cockpit and after ten minutes Whine came back.

“Did you get it?” Newton asked as Whine slipped by to his seat.

“Right here,” Whine said, patting the camera.

“Give me the roll,” Newton said in a low voice.

“What’dya mean?”

“Give me the film, damn it.”

Whine rolled up the film, opened the camera, and handed Newton the cartridge. He put it under his hat, which he tipped back over his face.

A few minutes later, half a dozen other photographers came back, followed by the traveling press secretary and the pilot. From the gabbling, it seemed that something was wrong.

“Listen up, everybody.” the press guy said. “We made a goof with this thing about the general flying the plane. He’s qualified on jets, but he doesn’t have a passenger certificate, and it’s going to be six kinds of hell if it gets in the papers. So please, will the writers forget about it and the camera guys just throw away the film.”

Nobody said anything. The pilot stepped in front of the press secretary. “This is important, guys. If this gets out, I’ll probably get grounded and technically the general could be charged with a federal crime. If you won’t do it for me and the general, think how long you might be stuck up in the north woods until the airline gets a substitute pilot up here. Could be days.”

Groans and curses filled the cabin, but first one and then half a dozen photographers pulled the film out of their cameras and passed it to the press secretary. Whine nudged Newton, who tipped up his hat, reached down in Whine’s bag, and handed an unexposed film cartridge into the aisle. He grinned and went back into his felt shell.

“And the writers… will all you guys keep this dark?”

There was a mumble of “OKs,” and the pilot and the secretary returned to the forward compartment.

It was about 3:30 when we landed, and Newton touched my arm as we were leaving the plane.

“I’m not going on the motorcade. Ill see you when you get back.”

Newton slipped out of the line for the bus and disappeared into the terminal. As I went up the steps of the bus, I could see him leaning over the air express desk.

We were in transit about seven hours, making about four stops for speeches and ending up with a long and boring banquet and not much news. It was dark when we got back-to the airport, but a couple hundred of the generals supporters were waiting for a final word from the great man. He got up on a platform, did about five minutes of thank you s, and then paused, groping for a final word.

“We enjoyed our time here, and it was made more pleas ant by the fact that we were flown here by a native of this area. Captain Crockhorn, come on up here.”

The pilot started to climb the steps and the general went on: “The captain is a fine and generous man as well as a skillful aviator. Why, he even let an old fighter jockey like me handle his plane on our way here.”

The pilot stopped with one foot suspended—a look of horror on his face. One of the photographers blurted out, “Oh, shit!” and a couple of reporters started back for the terminal, but it was too late. The general climbed down from the platform and went up the steps of the plane. The press secretary, yelled, “Takeoff in four minutes,” and everybody ran for the plane.

Newton already was aboard, regaling the stewardess he had earlier caused to nearly wet her pants with some cock-and-bull story—about being the last American to leave Iran—and his trek across the desert to escape the clutches of the Ayatollah.

He grinned at Whine and me as we sat down. Over the racket of photographers and reporters yelling unprintables at the press secretary, he muttered, “The film got to the paper. They’re going to use it on the front page with my story about the general violating the civil aviation laws.”

I knew the wraps were off the story now, but they sure weren’t when Newton wrote it.

“But we promised not to write it,” I said.

“Not me,” Newton said; leaning back in his seat. “I was asleep.”

We got back to the city just after 11:00—too late for most of the others in the plane to get much either in their papers or on the air. It was a good story, but not really big enough to warrant tearing up front pages or news shows.

Lut, of course, Swift played the story like the Second Coming, which panicked the late night people at the wire service bureaus when they saw the first edition in the capital. They banged out bell-ringing stories, which in turn woke up the night side telegraph editors all the way to the East Coast and, from what I heard later, resulted in a half dozen or so 2:00 a.m. telephone calls demanding matching stories from the reporters who had been with the campaign. Most of them were too groggy to do more than mumble, “Pick up the wires,” Some did and the Capital Register & Press got mentioned high up because Swift had copyrighted the story just in case anyone thought to run the story without credit.

We didn’t have to explain to anyone the next morning. We were enroute at 7:00 a.m. for Barnwell, where we were picking up the senators campaign. Swift had left a note at the hotel desk, congratulating Newton.