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THE
Tarpeian Rock

An Annual Literary Magazine

"Hinc ad Tarpeiam sedem et Capitolia ducit
aurea nunc, olim siluestribus horrida dumis."
--Virgil's Aeneid, VIII, l. 347-8

Articles from
the 2006 issue...

Filleting Nemo

If Bigfoot Could Vote

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If Bigfoot Could Vote, I Know Who He'd Vote For

by Claudio R. Salvucci

    If there’s any constituency that’s woefully underserved in this wretched feed trough we call a political system, it’s the giant forest humanoid.
    You know who you are.
    Wherever you hail from, whatever color your fur is, whatever dialect of grunt you speak, you’re the silent, and invisible majority.
    You may be a Northwest Coast Bigfoot, a Florida Skunk Ape, even a lily-white Tibetan Yeti who swallowed a whole stack of temporary worker visas when a snippy Customs Official insisted that importation of half-gnawed yak carcasses was strictly prohibited.
    And I may be just your average human-American, but I know what you are going through every November in this country. You feel frozen out of the process to such an extent that even treating you like second-class citizens would be an incomparable improvement over where you are now: secluded in some vast wilderness waste, enjoying the clean mountain air and a tastily rancid slab of meat only to have some snot-nosed cryptozoologist poke through your morning’s business, stick a camera in your face, and launch terribly embarrassing blogs revealing intimate personal details about your shoe size and problem body odor.
    And then, you don’t have a soul.
    Which kinda stinks also.
    So this crummy earth is all you got, and you gotta think to yourself that you really want a few guys out there in Congress sticking up for your rights. But who’s gonna do it?
    Well, first ones you might think of are the Democrats. And I’m sure the Dems would be glad to have you: I know Emily’s List is out looking to add a more attractive demographic to its ranks. And there’s the whole entitlement gravy train. Hook up with some high-ranking limousine liberals, and before you can say “pork barrel,” 62 federal agencies are sweeping into the woods dispensing every perk under the sun. That high will only last you, however, the few months it takes the Internal Robbin' You Service to inform you that you are in technical violation of Statute 1,848,499.007 for not filing Schedule Cx4Qⁿ regarding the failure to declare all monetary assets held in trust in a supine repository—i.e., the living room sofa.
    Dems are nice if you’re big on big words. But you, my friend, certainly ain’t one of the “little people”, and last I checked, “grrraaarr” wasn’t in Webster’s.
    So the second option is the Republicans. Well, I’m sure they’re glad to have you too: anything vaguely brown in the GOP gets shoved in front of anything vaguely resembling a lens at every possible opportunity. If you go this route, you’ll lose a bit on the entitlements, in that instead of the Dems’ 62 programs you’ll only get a paltry 61 1/2, but to make up for this hideous travesty of justice, the Pubbies set you up with one thing the Dems won’t touch—firepower. Hook up with some high-ranking NRA types, and before you can say “lock ‘n’ load” you’re in the woods patiently demonstrating to Tex the Mighty Huntin’ Man what a 12 gauge looks like from the muzzle end. See how he likes it when you open up on his Humvee till his engine block leaks like runny Swiss cheese. Yet, again, while this may be fun for a while, it’s also pointless, because it only takes a few UN resolutions for Tex to come back with a squadron of B-1s and 10 megatons of instant parking-lot-in-a-can.

So if we can cross off the major parties for the modern sensible Sasquatch, what about the Reform party? Well, the problem there is, once you’re on their mailing list, you’re contractually obligated to run at the bottom of their ticket at the next election cycle. And, historically, what good has the Vice-Presidency ever done for a mute, hulking, painfully shy apelike creature?
    And the Socialists? Well, they've got long hair, that whole we-love-the-forest thing, and the pungent aroma of protestor eau de bee-oo that was in a bygone era exclusively the official fragrance of men who, ya know, actually did real work for a living. But jet-setting around the world, marching in staged rallies that are about as grass roots as Jacko’s fourth nose, and fomenting world revolution day and night, is just too urban, too crowded for you shy, retiring creatures. Plus, I’m thinking lunchtime could be a bit awkward when the vegans are nibbling their cruelty-free organic flax chips while your incisors are sawing through what’s left of a mule deer’s gastrocnemius.
    So what’s the upshot of all this?
    Well, my friend, America’s a human country.
    Solidly human.
    And so there’s not one single party in the political system tailor-made for an eight-foot, forest-dwelling hairy primate that skulks unknown at the margins of human civilization and whose animalistic notion of personal conduct is completely unbounded by any semblance of moral order and self-discipline.
    One that isn’t the Libertarians, anyway.

Claudio R. Salvucci, the hairless, smaller, and slightly less malodorous Italian version of Bigfoot, is believed to exist in the environs of New Jersey where he routinely battles the Jersey Devil.

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