Eileen Gunn: Stable Strategies and Others

Slowly and carefully, he drew in his mind a picture of the surrounding land as it would have been without the interference of the white man. He imagined the land stripped of the crust of human domination, cleaner even than it had been in his childhood. It looked good that way.

Glad I kept this old house, he thought. Happier here than in one of those damn futurama things. He walked slowly down the path to the hot tub, his cane making dull tapping sounds on the slate-blue flagstone. A good soak would ease the pain he felt in his knees, elbows, back, the artificial hips, all over, really. Where do these random stabs come from, he wondered. Now the left wrist, a really sharp one. Nothing the matter with the wrist — it’ll still open jars — just a mean shot of pain right now. A reminder I’m still alive, I guess.

He tapped across the redwood deck to the tub, shed his yukata, and, gripping the bars, lowered himself into the water. It was hot all right.

The pain was seeping away from his joints. He settled down further into the water and leaned his head back against the cedar rim of the tub. Quiet, this time of day, just the occasional clinking of dishes off at the kitchen end of the house as his housekeeper Lillian got the breakfast ready.

After breakfast, he had to meet with the crew from that PBS show, Geraldo’s Manifest Destinies . Wasn’t really sure why he’d agreed to do this — except Haldeman thought it would help with fundraising for the museum. Always was uncomfortable with the primping you had to do for television. Now that running for office was happily behind him, all he needed was a blowdryer on the topknot and a little light makeup he could do himself.

Might even be fun to get someone out here — it had been kind of lonely since he finished his memoirs. He had no political agenda, just a little harmless PR puffery for the presidential museum to get those contributions rolling in. Guess he could spout off on just about any old subject he wanted, and let the chips fall where they may.

Birds were making a small racket at the feeder. Got to figure out how to keep those damn robins from eating all the seed before the doves and quail get to it….

Lillian had left his Washington Post within reach, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was in it. Wouldn’t be good news. AIDS, oil spills, violence. Bleeding heart editorials about the homeless.

Maybe I should just cancel the damn thing and stick to Popular Mechanics . Nah, he thought. Bite the bullet. Find out what they’re saying back there.

He unfolded the paper. No major stories this morning.

“Noriega trial delayed.” They’ll never bring him to trial. Too many buried bodies.

“Rad babies denied entrance from Mid-East.” Tough call. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

“Federal Judge Finds Rap LP Obscene.” What’s the world coming to? Who listens to this stuff?

Inside, the headlines were even less involving.

“RFK to run in ’92?” Nah. Never gone for the big job, never will.

“New Season For Tricky Dick .” Twenty years that thing’s been on the air, about time he retired, wasn’t it? Funny thing about Nixon — wouldn’t have thought he’d make it on TV in any way, shape, or form. But some peculiar inability to concede defeat had led him to confront the medium and master it. Just as well he hadn’t taken the same approach to politics. Never did trust the man.

He flipped quickly to the editorial pages, guaranteed to raise his blood pressure.

“Politics as Usual?” read the head on the lead editorial.Negative political advertising is nothing new. The present trend of sleazy innuendo started with the notorious 1964 campaign that drove Lyndon Johnson from office. But the current spate of smarmy sensationalism, everyone seems to agree, is the dirtiest yet, exceeding even the harsh 1988 campaign of —

Sonofabitch. All that stuff about Johnson was true, dammit. Sure, Ailes made the most of it, but there’s no law against that — that’s what a PR guy is for. Doggonit, the best thing about starting the day off with the Post was that it could only get better.

Members of the audience raise their hands to ask questions, chosen beforehand for their originality, sincerity, and capability of being answered with a lie.

The first few are too easy. “Do you agree with Andrew Jackson that there are no necessary evils in government?” “Do you think the us should trust the Russians?” With questions that cut and dried, everybody can pretty much agree when Tricky Dick is lying and when he is telling the truth.

The best kind of questions for the show, all the regular watchers agree, are questions that result in an emotional reaction of some kind as well as a factual answer, or questions that bring forth an elaborate anecdote. This is where Tricky Dick is an artist with fact and fiction, heartfelt appeal and outright lie.

The living room had been radically rearranged by stylists from the Geraldo show, and now the two men, former president and respected pbs commentator, sat waiting in carefully angled armchairs positioned in front of a wall of books and kachina dolls. Geraldo’s sculptured features were passive, his eyes blank. He got the signal to start, sprang vibrantly to life, and addressed the camera: “Rad babies! AIDS! Mutant rats! Is this the man responsible? We’ll be back in just two minutes.” The network cut to announcements, and Geraldo turned off again. A makeup girl appeared next to him, pushed a recalcitrant tuft of mustache into place, and misted it with a tiny can of hairspray.

Always hated this part of politics, thought the former president. Won’t say I was born too late, but I’m damned sure I wasn’t born a minute too soon — never be able to stand the rigmarole that politicians have to go through now.

The camera was back, and Geraldo revived again: “For better or worse, tactical nukes are now a way of life in troubled parts of the world. These baby bombs, first deployed by our guest today during the Viet Nam war, are easy to use and tough to clean up after. What do you say, Barry, can we lay this mess at your doorstep?”

“Well, as I’ve said before, Geraldo, I wasn’t the only one involved in deciding to use these weapons, but I accept responsibility for the decision, yes.”

“I guess we know you stand behind your use of nukes in Viet Nam, but don’t you feel a little guilty about the millions of deaths that have resulted from the proliferation of these weapons?”

“As far as that goes, Geraldo, I think you have to look on these things as being the natural result of a free market econom— ”

“Thanks, Barry. We’ll be back with more, after these messages.”

Why did I agree to do this, wondered the former president. Haldeman’s got some explaining ahead of him.

A young man in the audience, hair a little long but neatly combed, raises his hand: “Sir, can you tell us, did you ever take LSD in the Sixties? If so, what was it like for you?”

The familiar hollow vowels: “I’m glad you asked me that question.” Running a hand over the top of his head. “As a matter of fact, the truth is,” — Tricky Dick’s voice becomes dramatically husky — “yes, I have taken LSD.” A subdued murmur of anticipation from the audience: what a great question!

“Of course, this was before it was declared illegal. I am not a — I’ve always believed in law and order.

“It began — it was some time back around 1965, after Pat and I had moved back to California. We had some, uh, show business friends, who had, who had experimented with LSD. Pat and I were going through a period of…of withdrawal from politics, and our friends thought it might help us, uh, make our peace with our destinies, if we took some of this LSD.” He takes a deep breath. “Let me tell you what happened.” The camera zooms in on his hands: he’s wringing them nervously. “We arranged for this fellow to come to our house, to be our ‘guide,’ and he gave us two little white pills. This cost about three hundred dollars, which was a lot of money back then, as you might remember. Well, Pat and I just looked at each other. We were nervous, but we’d come this far, and we were determined to see it through.