Detail of John Everett Millais, "Ophelia" (1851-52)

I had split the fallen old-growth oak lengthwise, like a hot dog, with the blunt edge of my Webelos hatchet. Cracking it apart like a reedy ribcage, I had expected the hollowed trunk would prove an inviting bolt-hole, where my weary soul could find restful purchase.

Fine, smoky-yellow wood, lined with the soft clocoa of wild mushrooms – it would be a fine job. A few minutes of hacking with the adze of any rotted wood, and I would climb inside, lying down in my cool natural coffin, an open casket exposed to the elements. There I would remain. Would I drown in my sleep, choking on a sudden peal of midnight rain? Would I bake and broil at high noon, like a fajita sizzling on a Chili’s platter? I knew not, nor did I care. My cork-lined room would also be my grave. I would be delivered from the strictures of American life and public service in the only space more confining for a human.

But there were too many spiders inside the tree trunk. There was also a mildew odor.

I returned to the farmhouse, lank, ashamed. I had also forgotten the adze. The Boy didn’t even look up at me sweeping the porch. I felt like the proverbial heel. And so many letters since I’d gone! 

The first was from Eric Holder. I knew even before I’d slit the envelope with the cheese knife I keep for this purpose what it would say.

Eric, in his own words, is feeling “a creeping sense of personal remorse” for authorizing the FBI to spy on a reporter. I had sensed this was coming. A man of Eric’s sterling integrity would not gild the lily when he sensed immorality – especially his own. He is severe in that sense, as hard on himself as he is on the ghouls he has devoted his career protecting ordinary, decent Americans from. At times, he even found it necessary to substitute his own depravity for that of our enemies. And he has instilled this sense of destiny in his men – one of whom just shot an unarmed Chechen in the head last week, rightfully claiming the combatant had leapt for a dull decorative katana with a broken handle.

I will send Eric a begonia pressed between two slabs of concrete, to signify my empathy.

The second letter was perfumed – that faint, familiar aroma of Elizabeth Taylor’s “White Diamonds.” I also knew what this letter would say. My close personal friend, Rep. Michele Bachmann, has announced she will not be running for reelection. As is her wont, she made it plain that this decision had nothing to do with the open ethics investigation against her, the cooperation of a former employee with a corruption probe, or the liberal media which mobilized Republican primary voters against her. Nor was it because of her migraines, an unfortunate byproduct for such a prodigious intelligence. As explained in her letter, the real reason is a noble one – Michelle will devote her efforts to the healing ministry of her husband, Marcus. There are many homosexual teens in Minnesota still in need of the holy glow of God’s grace. Marcus knows first-hand. He has canvassed most of the state in his Wrangler seeking out these wayward youths.

I will send the Bachmanns a list I and the Boy compiled, after pain-staking detective work, of some fifteen hundred Islamic pinko homophiles in the Twin Cities.

The final letter was of course a final invitation. And as flattered as I was, I could in no way accept the President’s request that I return to his service as the “heckler-in-chief.” Barack had a very important speech last week, something about high-altitude something-or-other, and sensed trouble. “Cherished friend,” the letter begins, “I sense trouble.” His unerring predictive capacities remain inspiring. For midway through that speech, some humanitarian shouted out of turn, something about a secret prison where the Arabs seem intent on starving themselves. How rude! As Dexter Filkins explained, this was the rude way to react to a slightly shopworn promise to close down Guantanamo – barely a gulag, and in the scenic Caribbean. Ah, it would’ve been fine point-scoring, Barack giving me the nod for me to stand, heckle the heckler about her rudeness, about the right way to be ashamed of a cesspit of depravity, operating beyond any laws or decency.

I am sending Barack my love. It is not easy to sustain an ether high amid such incivility.

General Gandhi

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