On January 20, 2009, George Walker Bush climbed the White House fence, and looking westward with joy, beheld his chopper coming with the mist. But as he descended the lawn toward the helipad, unease came upon him, and he thought, "How shall I go in self-righteousness and without subpoenas?" At that moment, Bush decided he would not leave without justifying himself first. As George appears before his fawning cronies, he muses over an array of moral topics related to the Bush Administration through a lens of pompous greed, violence, and corruption. With a voice of unconfirmed wisdom, George speaks on love ("Only when the love of yourself allows you to trample others without regret have you found the sacred path hidden among many"), oil ("Truly oil has fed the tasteless dreams of an era while never quenching them"), and finally self-knowledge, when he clears his throat and says, "Um," cueing everyone in the crowd to take a bathroom break. In this laugh-out-loud reimagining of events occurring before Bush made his final exit from the White House, a Propheteer is finally provided the opportunity to leave a tiny flame of his spirit behind.
The Propheteer
By Jason CoeiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 Jason Coe
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4502-6057-2 Contents
II. On Love........................................10III. On Marriage...................................14IV. On Giving......................................17V. On Children.....................................21VI. On Work........................................23VII. On Guns.......................................27VIII. On Oil.......................................29IX. On Houses......................................32X. On Laws.........................................36XI. On Freedom.....................................38XII. On Buying and Selling.........................41XIII. On Self Knowledge............................44XIV. On Crime and Punishment.......................46XV. On Good and Evil...............................48XVI. On Prayer.....................................50XVII. On Justice...................................54XVIII. On Pleasure.................................56XIX. On the Poor...................................58XX. On Booty.......................................61XXI. On Nepotism...................................65XXII. On Pain......................................68XXIII. On Death....................................70XXIV. The Farewell.................................73
Chapter One
The Coming of the Chopper
George, the chosen one, the grandson, son, brother, father and uncle of chosen ones, who was a dusk onto his day, had waited eight years in the White House in the city of Washington for the helicopter that was to carry him back to the land of Texas.
In this eighth year, on the 20th day of January, in the month of pardons, he climbed the White House fence, and looking westward, beheld his chopper coming with the mist. The medallions of his flightsuit were flung open, and his joy leapt sweetly over the Potomac. He prayed quite loudly, and with a lot of amens.
But as he descended the lawn toward the helipad, an unease came upon him, and he thought in his heart:
How shall I go in self-righteousness and without subpoenas? Nay, not without justifying myself shall I leave this place. For long were the nights of mumbling spent within these walls, and many were the kernels of popcorn caught in a row. Condi had the record at 73- the night we bailed out AIG. Too many times was I lost in its hallways, and how many tour groups had to help me find the nearest bathroom. And of the thousands of times I ordered KFC, Laura only caught me wiping my hands on the draperies twice. Truly, who can withdraw from such memories without an O'Douls and a heartache? Today it is not a Commander-in-Chief ballcap I tear off, but my Secret Service beaconed underwear as well. Yet I cannot dawdle. The wild blue yonder calls me back onto her bosom, even as I never passed my flight physical. For to stay another term is yet beyond the power of voting machines. But in offshore accounts shall we take all that was here and all that will be collected for the next hundred years. Alas, I cannot take the very stones of these walls, though I should like to. But I have stuffed my flightsuit with Diet Cokes and Jolly Ranchers. Alone and without his nest the dodo must cross the sky.
Now when he lay down on the veranda for a quick nap he looked again toward the West and his coming brethren. His chopper had begun to circle. And upon her pontoons clung the men of Texas, giving him the "Hook 'em Horns" sign. He farted with glee, and pointed to a nearby secret serviceman. In the awkward silence that followed, his heart cried out to his fellow Texans and he said:
My brothers, sons of my dad's friends, sopping with oil and drying off with money. How often have we had prairie dog culls in my dreams? And now you come in my wakefulness, which is truly no different than my sleep. With my piggy bank, my pretzels and Ken Lay's letters, am I ready at last to depart. Then I shall stand among you, a millionaire Texan among millionaire Texans and the illegal Mexicans we employ but pretend to want deported. And you, my beloved Oval Office, with my iPod stashed for extra-long meetings. And you, my beloved Press Room, where I learned a dozen new words every day from my answer key. And you, Lincoln's Bedroom, where I would hide under the bed and growl when Putin stayed over. And of course the broken dumbwaiter where I would hide porn. Only one more winding shall I make through your spaces, only one last time to become locked in the coat closet while shortcutting.
As he swaggered, he saw from afar his deputies and staff hanging up on their lawyers and coming forth. As he heard them calling his dad's name, he turned and looked behind him, and, seeing nothing, he finally understood that they were calling him instead. He said to himself:
What day is it anyway? And what the hell do they want? And what shall I give to him whom I already pardoned? And what shall I give to him whom I already gave no-bid contracts? And which of these was my Secret Santa who gave me a value-pack of Tic-Tacs? Before them shall my mind become a maze with no exit? Shall my thoughts become a fountain drink with no free refills? Or will God talk through me like before I started my medicine, when he told me to "transform" the Middle East? A seeker of silences am I, and what many pearls/perils (I couldn't hear him clearly) of wisdom has God told me when I muted commercials, that I may now pass on? If this is my day of harvest I should not have slept until noon. If this is the hour of my final gratuitous speech then where is my teleprompter and earpiece?
This he said in words. But much in his deeper heart was quieted as he remembered the music from Star Wars.
When he stepped back onto the veranda all his cronies had gathered to greet him. Even those whose ideas had been utterly discredited had turned out to see him off. Tears clotted every glistening eye as his gaze moved over the crowd. The elders among them stepped forth and spoke, saying:
Go not away from us yet. Lament! On your last day have you slept until noon and left only a shard of time for us to bask in your counsel. As you played Cowboys and Indians in your final dreams, we dared not wake you, not even for your breakfast burrito or your Washington Times open to "Beetle Bailey". No stranger are you among us. Because we all worked for your father. Do not permit us yet to long for your favors. Stay in our company unto the end. Let not our 4-8 year exile from government hold us apart and our tax cuts become a memory. You have walked among us and bumped into walls. You have hidden behind the drapes and giggled. But we have loved your threat of veto and your power to portray even our final run on the treasury as a crisis of good and evil. As we have worked these years to veil our blossoming dividends in Exxon and Lockheed-Martin, our love has remained silent. Yet we love you more than the very voting machines that begot you. It is to our shame that we have not unfolded our love for all to admire and stood at your side. And the fact that your approval rating was the lowest in history had something to do with our silence.
Now others came forth and beckoned him equally. But his gaze did not rise to meet theirs. His head...
