Dear Mr. President Read online

  And that’s when the idea about flying kicked in. As Hale wheeled himself out of the backyard and down the driveway, I leaned out to watch, lost my balance, and fell to the ground. I landed on my back. For several minutes, I thought I was paralyzed, because I couldn’t move my limbs. Then I must have blacked out. When I woke up, the stars were strewn across the night sky, and a copy of Hale’s petition was taped to my chest. That was four days ago. Eventually, I got back up here, and I haven’t been back down since. My back is killing me, but it hurts less when I stay hunched over. That’s how I’m sitting now, hunched over. And, with all these birds around, a thought occurred to me: Maybe the pain in my back wasn’t from the fall but was some sort of growing pains for wings that were about to sprout on my back. Like when a tooth hurts before it comes in. I figure that’s not too much to ask for. I figure if you can get an ear or a mouth, then it’s possible to get a set of wings. And, of course, if I had wings I could fly out to my mother-in-law’s house in Seattle, and I know that if Mrs. Laverne looked up in the sky and saw me flying with my new wings, she would get over the ear and mouth and nose thing. Who could turn down a man with wings? So I’ve been checking for them every morning, but they haven’t come in yet, and I feel like I’m running out of time.

  That’s why I was wondering if you could do an old friend a favor and write Mrs. Laverne a short note to tell her that she should come home with Jimmy, Jr., so that we can be a family again. Could you tell her that you are proud of me and that I served my country honorably? Could you tell her that I said she should come back so we can start the healing? I’m afraid she just won’t listen to me anymore, sir. She won’t even talk to me. The last time I called over there, she put the mouth on the phone and the mouth said, “Jesus, don’t you ever give up, Laverne? Don’t you think we know it’s you that keeps calling in the middle of the night? Can’t you take a hint, Laverne?” and that’s when I hung up. Because I definitely wasn’t going to sit there and take that from that lying son of a bitch.

  I sure would appreciate you writing that letter, sir. Please send it to 381 Bengal Street, Seattle, WA 98122, which is my mother-in-law’s address. Then maybe I could start to get my life back. I mean if a man doesn’t have his family, what does he have? I miss carrying Jimmy, Jr., around on my shoulders and playing Dinosaur, and the only company I have is the birds up here in the tree. Winter is coming on, and the leaves are falling off. Soon, even the birds will be gone. I know you’ll understand, sir. And I know Mrs. Laverne will listen to you. Please give my best to First Lady Barbara Bush, George W., and Jeb. Yes, sir. Tell them I said hi and that I think of them often. And, as always, it is an extreme honor to serve under you, sir.

  SEMPER FIDELIS,

  Lance Corporal James Laverne

  The American Green Machine

  Good morning, CLARENCE T. FORDHAM, please do not be alarmed, because I can imagine what you are contemplating right now as you struggle to attain consciousness and the answer is no, this is not a confidential message from God that has been precision-guided into your head, but it is certainly the next best thing, because I am without question a card-carrying member of God’s most celebrated band of brothers and sisters: the United States Marine Corps. CLARENCE T. FORDHAM, my name is Recruiter Staff Sergeant Hartigan of the United States Marine Corps, and our records indicate that this May you will be graduating from LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON HIGH SCHOOL (go BRAHMAS), and so I wanted to take this opportunity to personally congratulate you on your forthcoming graduation and to discuss the possibility of an exhilarating and rewarding career in my beloved corps.

  But first I would like to ask you one simple question. CLARENCE T. FORDHAM, can you tell me what you accomplished yesterday? Because it is extremely important to me that you know that in the course of performing my duties yesterday as a staff sergeant in the United States Marine Corps I accomplished these things:

  Went scuba diving in the Atlantic Ocean, where I not only executed a top-priority mission, but also saw a wide array of fascinating and ecologically significant aquatic life

  Employed incredibly dangerous underwater demolitions to blow a hole in the ocean floor the size of an SUV

  Saved a young man’s life

  CLARENCE T. FORDHAM, if you are processing this text in black print on what appears to be a white/off-white background, then that means you have received your first BRAIN-MAIL®, which is to say that yesterday, I, Recruiter Staff Sergeant Hartigan, issued a direct order and then last night a reconnaissance Marine entered your residence by any means necessary and, with the aid of a scalpel and scissors and a piece of black thread, installed the newest 720-Wireless Extended Range Data Link (WERDL) in your head while you were asleep. Now obviously we would not have elected to install the WERDL in your head had we not received from you the no-postage-necessary American Citizen Poll Postcard with Democratic Multiple Choice Question (ACPPDMCQ), on which you astutely checked answer C. Saddam Hussein + weapons of mass destruction = evil.

  How this works is with the simple flip of a switch here at our office, the WERDL manifests an artificial computer screen up on the inside rear plate of your skull, thereby prompting your mind’s eye to metabolize the information on this screen through a response method innate to the modern central nervous system, known as Picking Fruit. Unfortunately, at this time, we only possess the admittedly limited capacity to receive messages with our brains and not to compose and send out, but each day our elite panel of bioresearchers and computer programmers take significant steps toward making this a reality, because BRAIN-MAIL® is a vital component of America’s exclusive 900 SLAM weapon system.

  CLARENCE T. FORDHAM, now that you have been informed as to how it is that you are receiving this message inside your head, and what our motivation is in contacting you, I am under obligation by law to inform you that should you continue to process beyond this paragraph, this act will imply your consent to a) allow the WERDL to remain in your head even if you decide not to enlist in the United States Marine Corps, and b) allow a government-sponsored surgeon to enter your residence while you are asleep and through a simple pain-free procedure erase any memory you might have of the WERDL’s presence in your head. However, if you do not want to process this message further and subsequently discover how you can shape your life into a winning success story beyond your wildest dreams, and if instead you want to abort this exchange, please carefully peel the Military Vision Restraints (MVR) from your eyes and pick up a phone immediately and dial 1-800-YES-JOIN, and you will speak with one of our representatives who can deactivate your WERDL with the flip of a switch.1

  Congratulations, CLARENCE T. FORDHAM, you have now successfully overcome the first Human Strategy Obstacle (HSO) toward metamorphizing into not only a member of the most elite fighting force in the history of the world, but an invincible emblem of justice and peace and the American way. Let me be the first to say that I am proud to call you my brother, and as such I would like to ask you one last simple question: How many people who have a PROSTHETIC LEG can emphatically declare that they are an invincible emblem of justice and peace and the American way? Yes, that is correct, CLARENCE T. FORDHAM, we are fully cognizant of the fact that you have a PROSTHETIC LEG, and further, that it was your intention to conceal your condition from us because you surmised said knowledge would terminate the possibility of membership in our elite fraternity. However, CLARENCE T. FORDHAM, we are also cognizant of the fact that your condition has endowed you with an incomprehensible amount of physical and mental anguish, because before we consider offering membership to an individual, we disseminate representatives into the world to solicit firsthand testimonials and assessments regarding the individual in question from friends, family members, and peers. We meticulously compile a United States Marine Corps Personnel Report. Below you will find an excerpt from your very own United States Marine Corps Personnel Report:

  USMC PERSONNEL REPORT ON CLARENCE T. FORDHAM2

  MARTIN FITCH: I haven’t ever talked to Clarence but I k
now who he is and I know he knows who I am, because our last names start with F so we’ve always been in the same homeroom. This year he’s in my Calculus II class, and I’ve always wanted to be nice to him, but since he has that fake leg I never know what the right thing to do is because if I act friendly to him I don’t want him to think I feel sorry for him, but on the flip side I don’t want him to think I don’t care either, so what I do is ignore him, and that way he knows I really do care. Last month Clarence hobbled into class and his eyes were bloodshot and it looked like he’d been crying. He kept snuffling through class, and at first I think we all tried to ignore it out of a sense of courtesy, even the teacher, Mrs. Phillips, who was busy running through quadratic equations at the blackboard, but then the snuffling got louder, so finally Mrs. Phillips sidled over to his desk and bent down and whispered something in his ear, and then he whispered something back and busted out sobbing. Then he grabbed his stuff and raced out the door. Well, I only found out what happened the next day. It turns out some of the jocks in gym class had pinned him down in the locker room and stolen his fake leg while singing “O Christmas Tree.” Then the jocks tied the leg to the flag in front of our school, so when the bell rang after sixth period everyone poured out the front doors and there was Clarence’s naked leg dangling from the top of the flagpole.

  KRISTEN WEMBERLY: Isn’t that the guy who was born in a test tube? Didn’t the test tube explode when they tried to pull him out of it?

  GENE KASPER: Clarence is “different,” I knew that right off. When I first fell for Donna, I thought she was too good to be true, I mean yeah, of course she’d been married before, and that meant she’d already done all the kinky, keep-the-marriage-spicy stuff with some other guy, the backdoor stuff and the pretend-rape-by-candlelight stuff, but I didn’t care, because when you’re a second husband like me, there’s just some things you don’t talk about if you want to be able to sleep at night. But when we were dating I kept waiting for the catch, because Donna was so perfect and everything, and I remember how relieved I was the first time I saw her bare feet and she didn’t have four toes. But then one night she brought me home and the bottom dropped out. I saw Clarence sitting on the couch and he wasn’t wearing his leg, and Donna said, “Gene, meet my son Clarence.” And then Clarence got up and hopped over to me, and I thought, Oh shit. Of course I never let on, I mean it’s not Clarence’s fault that he was born that way. Plus I loved Donna, so the very next week I popped the question. Clarence has a disability, and sure, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’d love to have a son who I could cheer for from the stands. But you have to accept people for who they are, right?

  CLARENCE T. FORDHAM, all of the above testimonials are supreme examples of acute and misdirected idiocy, because your PROSTHETIC LEG is a sign of what you have always secretly known: you were deposited on the face of this earth to do something spectacular and unforgettable, because when you lie in bed at night and look into the future and envision yourself showing the world how valuable you truly are, well, this is the truth. And while we are on the slippery subject of truth, I feel compelled to confess that when I claimed to have saved a young man’s life yesterday I was lying, because the young man’s life I was referring to having saved was yours, CLARENCE T. FORDHAM, and we both know that that is happening right now, today, not yesterday.

  So in order for you to comprehend what I am alluding to, I want you to carefully peel the MVRs from your eyes, but please keep processing this message after you peel the MVRs from your eyes, and be sure to lift the blankets back so your entire body is visible. Now do you see what I am talking about, CLARENCE T. FORDHAM? Can you see the miracle that I am talking about, CLARENCE T. FORDHAM? God, I wish I was there to see the look on your face, CLARENCE T. FORDHAM.

  Because what you are looking at, Devil Dog, is a GO-DURA-LIFE-LEG®, which is yet another brilliant innovation manufactured by Syntechillate, LLC, a little known Bermuda-based subsidiary of the United States Marine Corps. Now, clearly this GO-DURA-LIFE-LEG® appears in every capacity to be an actual human leg, right down to the client-customized pigmentation and color-coordinated leg hair, but the truth is this GO-DURA-LIFE-LEG® will radically out-perform an actual human leg, because the artificial muscles have been enhanced through a cutting-edge process known as robo-gene-modification, which is to say that you will never even have to exercise this leg as it is designed to achieve optimal performance no matter how small or large the task. So go ahead, give it a test run, take that new GO-DURA-LIFE-LEG® of yours for a jog around the block. Go be the miracle that you are now with your new GO-DURA-LIFE-LEG®. Go kick a perfect field goal from the opposite end zone, and, while you are at it, do us both a favor and go kick down KRISTEN WEMBERLY’S door and declare that you are a United States Marine and watch her melt in your hands.

  But before you do any of these things, CLARENCE T. FORDHAM, I want you to sprint down here to see me at the Marine Corps Recruitment Center (MCRC) on Congress Avenue and sign some documents and take a videotaped sworn oath stating that you will consentually accompany me to the Military Enlistment Processing Station (MEPS) one week from today. I want you to sprint down here and burst through the doors and I will be standing here waiting with the papers all drawn up, CLARENCE T. FORDHAM, and you will be in and out of my office in less than an hour and then you will be free to walk around on your new GO-DURA-LIFE-LEG®, knowing in your heart that you did the right thing for yourself and for your country today. So what do you say, CLARENCE T. FORDHAM? That is truly my last and final question. What do you say?

  General Schwarzkopf Looks Back at His Humble Beginning

  PART I

  I thought I was dead, but really I’d just been born, pushed out into the bright light by the big powerful walls of my mom’s vagina. I was one of those “blue babies,” which meant that I had to live in a glass case for the first two months of my life. Every day my parents would come to the hospital and look down at me with their faces full of hope, and we’d talk back and forth, me by waving my arms around and wiggling my little fingers, and them by pointing and smiling at me. I kept telling them things couldn’t go on like this forever, and that I wanted to be buried pronto. I kept telling them don’t come back until you bring a hearse. I’d say, “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  That was back when my heart was the size of a raisin. You could have taken my heart out and put it in a box of raisins and nobody would know the difference. You could have packed the box of raisins in your kid’s lunch bag and nobody would know the difference. And your kid could have thrown my heart at some girl he had a crush on and accidentally put her eye out with it, so that the girl grew up and got a black belt in karate, so that there was a tiny bit less love in the world than there should have been because there was a lonely one-eyed karate master woman roaming the streets at night, and nobody would know the difference.

  PART II

  I discovered early on that I couldn’t stand up for any real period of time. One of my earliest memories is of me falling down on my toy fire truck. The truck had been a gift from my dad, and I still remember what my dad said as he handed the truck to me. He said, “You have a lot of ground to cover.” Back then the fact that I could only get to about half the fires in time didn’t seem to matter. Each time I fell down my dad would come out of nowhere and pick me up, and then my legs would start all over again and I would go running off into a wall or a door or something and fall down again.

  But as I got older things took a turn for the worse. I started spending more and more time in bed. I would fall maybe five times easy on my way to the kitchen to get a glass of water. I was always dying of thirst. Whole wings of the house went up in flames and I would just lie in bed and let them burn to the ground.

  About that time my mom started going around claiming it was my head that was at the heart of the matter. My mom would say to her guests, “It’s a goddamn shame.” Eventually my mom dragged me to a therapist. When I asked the therapist if I could borrow some sort of leg
brace he told me to shut up, and I fell down. The therapist handed me a mirror and asked what was wrong with this picture. When we were done with the evaluation, the therapist went up to my mom and told her he didn’t understand it but that I seemed to be fine. The disappointment was written all over my mom’s face.

  The rest of my story really isn’t important. You’ve heard it all a hundred times before. Boy finds bull in the woods. Boy falls for bull. Boy rides bull’s back off into the sunset. Boy’s feet never touch the ground again.

  Woman in Uniform

  COVERT INSERTION

  When dawn broke, I spotted a couple of gigantic pigs snoozing thirty feet or so away in the dust, next to an abandoned train track that ran alongside the highway. Bedouins in cloaks suddenly appeared toting primitive wood rakes and hoes, hitting the fields, while mongrel dogs scampered around, yapping their ancient, unintelligible song, and furtive women dragged their children by the hand as if by a leash. This was a vibrant community, but Intel had assured us there’d be no one here. Fucking Intelligence.

  I turned and was startled by an Arab kid standing stock-still maybe ten feet away in the wheat with his eyes glued to me. He must have been about thirteen, with a white turban piled high on his head like a reverse snowcone.

  I put a threatening finger to my lips.

  The kid spoke up with a broken Arabian accent. “Yu be kwiet yu own self, beetch. Whade fuck. Allyu git de hell out now. Yu trespasseen. Thees privut property.”

  We poured out of the Hide Site with our rifles and surrounded the kid, and Thrash stuck the tip of his 9mm to the kid’s forehead. In broad daylight, with civilians everywhere. Fucking Intelligence.

  THE WIDESPREAD PROLIFERATION OF RACIAL PROFILING IN IRAQ

  The kid seemed oblivious to Thrash. “Oly sheet. Whos de weetback?” he said, pointing at Jesus.