My exit was no laughing matter, torn as I was from the shores of a superpower. When I was called to the Capital I knew I was headed for much smaller quarters than my Manhattan office, but I could never have imagined this stall, a room smack-dab in the middle of a massacre. Before I left, the butcher showed me how to make the best cut. I bought vitamins and a gun, said goodbye to my mother, consulted with my doctor, cheated on my wife and shot a small animal. I put it all in my report and prepared to meet the President. He informed me that my death would be trivial but necessary. My accountant assured me he would invest the proceeds. I changed all the dates, dug up my father’s bones and hid them in the attic. I was free.
When I got here George’s thunder rolled, the rich were leaving for France and the dead could speak. My advisor was a man at the disposal of the coalition except when he was transporting Afghan heroin up his ass. He told me that his eyes block the future and it is difficult to find a good firing squad in the middle of a morning milking. I didn’t understand a word he said and later I realised it just didn’t matter. Happily my bewilderment did not preclude us from becoming friends. His name was Aban. This country is my orchard, he said, if you put it in a box it will shrink every distance and Texas cannot adapt to small spaces. Sorry for the invasion, I said, the good news is we have no plan for the occupation. Our best estimate is just a few weeks. We do what we do, and then we discover the reason. It’s a blind man’s technique. We’ll leave after the contracts are signed.
It was in New York that I accepted my mission. Two Texas couriers walked past the cafe, a fruit stand, a tobacconist and dog people scattered to both sides of the boulevard. Up four floors of a brownstone to my office overlooking a courtyard with old trees where squirrels lived and birds came to visit. They were an odd pair, one small, a touch overweight and impeccably groomed, the other tall, slim and dishevelled. The tall man placed a briefcase on my desk, I already had the combination. The document began and ended with please advise as to your earliest departure. I placed a note in the case and scrambled the tumblers. The smaller man picked it up, we’ll see you there, he said … where, I said … that’s classified.
In the morning there was a car at my door. The driver handed me a plane ticket to the Nation’s Capital, executive class. There will be another car when you land, he said. The Capital was all fancy chocolates, the rustle of girls, skirts through a wheat field. One of them showed me a dictionary and pointed to the words that were missing. Only these are good for planting, she said. I wanted to disagree but she took my head in her hands which were clean as ivory. These are the hours we will teach you to forget, she said, now sleep while I read to you from the book of last things. This is what evenings are like in the Capital, tea and biscuits, the end elsewhere, a rumour from a faraway puddle.
I am a diplomat, a messenger in the mouth of what is already here, of what has already been said. Each morning I cut a deal with my reflection and then I watch as he picks up the razor. When I’m not travelling I live in New York. New York is in Texas. I speak many languages, perhaps all of them, and have access to vast lists and addresses. In Galilee I turned a carpenter into a king. I was there when the British and the French raided your village. In El Salvador I turned death squads into freedom fighters and farmers into rebels. In Iran I armed the government and the government in waiting. During negotiations I keep the car running with plenty of cash in the trunk. The Air Force will clarify what I can’t explain.
When I arrived at the Capital the President was in the library and a film crew was rolling up cables and carefully placing equipment into hard metal cases. They were preparing to leave. The Commander-in-Chief looked a little lost and felt compelled to explain the venue was the choice of his handlers. Hell, he said, everyone knows I’m not a scholar ... yes sir, Mr. President. He was happy I’d come and told me I’d be going away to the war. I was to scrub the names and change the numbers, or the other way around, before they were sent back to Texas. Mr. President, I can do that from New York … we must find our reasons there and rattle them here … what are our reasons … whatever you say they are … yes of course.
