Bill: Yeah, George. Thanks for ... being there. George.

George: Bill, it's late.

Bill: I'm watching Discovery. They're exhuming President Taylor -- Andrew Taylor. Fifteen years before Lincoln, maybe mudered.

George: Conspiracy theory stuff.

Bill: Right, George, right.

George: So you called me because of Discovery?

Bill: Yeah, well... I was thinking. It's not the same before the election. I was thinking... are they gonna dig us up that way? They tore off his fingernails, George. I mean, his fingernails.

George: For the test thing.

Bill: Right, yeah. To test for arsenic. They exhumed the President.

George: Welcome to the White House.

Bill: What do you mean?

George: (laughing) Well, you're there now, Mister President.

Bill: Right. I'm sorry, George.

George: Why are you sorry, Bill?

Bill: Because it's late. Because it's stupid. I mean, I beat you. I won.

George: Yeah, you did. But that's politics. Some day someone will beat you. Or your guy.

Bill: Right. It's just that... they dig up Presidents. I can just imagine... fifty, a hundred years from now... you know?

George: I know, Bill. I know. It's... secret service, for example, for life. They leave when you fuck at least, but... it's the life thing, the President thing.

Bill: You know, I never hated you. I tried to do so much, and it's all failed. Socialized medicine... I know you don't agree, but... .

George: Yeah, well... you have to make choices. Spend the political capital thing... hard.

Bill: I mean, you're President. You should be able... you know? Right?

George: You gotta give on this to get that, tit and tat, dancing. Richard learned that. But that's not why you're calling me, the political advice thing.

Bill: It's just... there are people out there doing voodoo with little dolls of me, you know. The images on TV... I just... .

George: They burned me in effigy. Tried to have me killed. It happens. You get used to it.

Bill: Still, it's just... monumental.

George: That's the point. The President thing.

Bill: Did you call Ron this way?

George: It was a little different. I was there, in the White House, V.P. and all the rest, so... the bananas didn't go very far, right? I was familiar with the secret service, all that, the President thing -- not President, though. But, you know, that's how it is. You see it on TV and you identify, that sort of thing.

Bill: You're making so much sense, George. I'm sorry for all the things I said. I just... .

George: You really are a... liberal, you know?

Bill: Well, you don't have to get snippy. I should remember that line, pass it on... .

George: You are... just don't get so sentimental, okay? There's... no need for that.

Bill: I guess you're right. But... I remember, when... during the, ah, inauguration... one of the feminists, Dworkin, somebody... she looked at those planes, those jets, and she said -- I don't remember, really, the actual words... .

George: It's okay. I'm here for you. You don't have to be, you know, say the perfect thing, but the thing is, you know, you can just... just say it, because... there's no press here.

Bill: We're off the record, right?

George: Presidential privilege.

Bill: Good. Great. Thanks, George.

George: Don't mention it. Your turn, someday. The CIA, you know. You know how to keep things quiet.

Bill: Right, I'd imagine. I've learned so much in the last few months. And now, the fingernail.

George: What did Dworkin say, Bill?

Bill: Something like, "those are our planes and tanks now." In the context of being a, an anti-war protester, against war, all her life. And now we were in charge. We were President. And those were our planes and tanks.

George: So let me ask you a question. Ron and I talked about this. Jimmy too. It's a little game. But, you understand, you have to keep it a secret.

Bill: I'm getting used to that. CIA briefings every morning, you know.

George: I know very well. Some of the Senators don't, but that's another thing.

Bill: Right, right.

George: Yeah. Just blab all over the place, these secret briefings to the closed committees. Loose lips and all.

Bill: Right, right. So what's the game?

George: Oh. Well, it's the desert island game.

Bill: And?

George: You're on a desert island and you have to choose a... a someone to be on the island with you, for talking. For talking. All alone, no one else. Forever.

Bill: Right.

George: So. Say, a working class guy from, say, Arkansas or, I don't know, Castro.

Bill: (laughing) I think I see your point.

George: Congratulations. Jimmy got it eventually, but it took a little time. Sinned in my heart and all that.

Bill: (pained laughing) Right.

George: So, Arkansas Man or Castro?

Bill: God. Castro. I have to say Castro.

George: Yes, yes. Mao or, I don't know, Rosa Parks.

Bill: Funny thing about Rosa Parks. She was a bitch. I mean, what she did was great, right? Obviously.

George: What a good liberal.

Bill: Am I?

George: No one was arguing with that.

Bill: Well, she wasn't the first one to refuse to sit in the back, you know? But, well, she made a better spokesperson. More sympathetic. No criminal record.

George: Yeah, so?

Bill: Mao. God, Mao.

George: Right, right.

Bill: It's a variation on the old game, who would you rather sleep with? And you know, Madonna or Audrey Hepburn. A young Audrey Hepburn. The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower. That Audrey Hepburn.

George: Hepburn. Madonna's, well, not my generation. I don't "get" her... .

Bill: You ever play that game?

George: Not a big passtime, but I know it. And some other things like that.

Bill: It doesn't offend you?

George: I was President. I ran the CIA, Billy.

Bill: I was governor.

George: Yeah, Bill, I know.

Bill: I just... what do you mean? God, I can't believe... .

George: What?

Bill: That... that I'm having this conversation.

George: And?

Bill: And what?

George: There was a question.

Bill: Oh, well. That's... I was saying that, well, about... well, about sex.

George: The game doesn't offend me.

Bill: Because you were President.

George: I know what you're going through. Hell, you're young. Younger than me. I thought -- I think that I would've made a better President, but, well, you're Mister Virile. I'm sure. Compared to me. I can imagine what you're going through.

Bill: As President.

George: Right.

Bill: You... with the bomb, the b-- the suitcase and... .

George: Right. Erection city.

Bill: (laughter) I just can't... I would never have imagined you saying that. Having this conversation with you.

George: Well... .

Bill: No, I'm sorry. Thanks, George. Just... thanks.

George: So, Mao or M.L.K.?

Bill: Well, King was... King is a great American.

George: I told you, no President talk. This is not going to leak.

Bill: Well, it's just that... I'd really like to talk to him and... he's dead, so... .

George: Mao's too.

Bill: Right, but... .

George: On a desert island. For the rest of your life. Sand and coconuts, waves, right?

Bill: Well, I think that... I'd have to say M.L.K.

George: (after a pause) You're new. I can forgive that.

Bill: No, I mean... I really admire him. The passion of that man, like... he was wonderful.

George: You... I agree, Bill. It's just... you'll grow into it, okay?

Bill: Okay.

George: After four years, you don't have much to talk to.

Bill: What?

George: Desert island. That whole thing.

Bill: Right, well. Thanks for talking. The shrew is, well... this is a private conversation. Presidential matters.

George: The perfect cover for presidential appetites.

Bill: Sometimes you can be so... succinct. I like that about you.

George: Should've said that during the campaign.

Bill: I was... I didn't mean to suggest that... .

George: Now you... I didn't... with the offense thing. So... know why it's not personal. It's just politics. It was for Kennedy in '60. Tore Nixon a new ass hole, terrible. No contest. Personal, vendictive, the whole attack thing. Best of friends in '59. Not personal.

Bill: Thanks. I knew that. I was governor.

George: No, no, I know. I don't mean... I just... policy, you know?

Bill: I do. I think. Well, I'm going to bed. If I have nightmares about fingernails, about my fingernails being removed and being on a desert island with King and Marilyn Monroe, well, I won't blame you.

George: That's sweet of you. Call anytime. Policy aside, we need to stick together. ‘Cause there's only a half dozen of us, yourself included, who know. Who can imagine. It's not the same. It's not.

Bill: So I'm learning. My discovery, thanks to Discovery. Good night, George.

George: Good night. And the sweet dreams thing.

Bill: You too.

YOUR WEEKLY ASSIGNMENT

This column is fictional, obviously, the second column as such. Any similarity to persons, living or dead, is, of course, purely coincidental. The next column is due on 21 November.

I'm still working on the five-part series I promised you, which won't count for the regular columns.

A new column by me is now available on continuitypages.com. It's Sequential Culture #5, available here.

Changes have been made here at persiancaesar.com to the Publications and A Stalker's Paradise sections.

Also added is Living in a Flat World, an old work of fiction that was available on the earliest version of PersianCaesar, when it was housed on Lawrence University's server. (Bet they wish they'd extended my privileges after graduation.)

Your weekly assignment this week is to tell someone about this column. Since the departure of The Continuity Pages to continuitypages.com, hits are down here and I'm really craving an increase for the egoism necessary to continue my (unpaid) work. Thanks. No, really: thanks. Time to make Julian happy.

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