Mark Doten - The Infernal

Pull yourself up, out of the tunnel, into the room above.

Yes yes I can see now a natural light.

The decision to serve, it’s never an easy one, or I mean it’s always easy, or should be, but our sisters stop us …

My sister stops me, my Condi, her demand I ZVFH EH B/ U LTE AJ AXP0

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Condi’s always held me back, my sister and her sickness, I told Richard B. Myers as we pulled up at the checkpoint.

Quote unquote playing at policy, quote unquote trotting the globe, her words , while I’ve been playing and trotting, what she’s been doing is dying in Montana …

At the foundlings home, me and Condi, we survived as a twosome, brother and sister among all the other foundlings …

All those cruel, stricken, needy, and brutish children, me and Condi faced them side by side, suffered side by side …

It was side by side, as a twosome, that our adoptive parents one day snapped us up, into that perfect family, World’s Best Dad , homes in California, New York, Italy, France, Spain …

They only wanted one, I don’t remember which one, we went into hysterics …

So they exchanged a look, a tight-lipped grin, and said, Fine, we’ll find a use for both …

The ideal family, a childless couple of great wealth …

Jay, well, and Jay …

There goes Jay!..

Condi, listen, Jay, old Jay, Jay the snake , he just dove out …

Got to hand it to him, didn’t see it coming, how right here at the checkpoint Jay’d leave our armored vehicle, dive right out the window, wow, he was over it, did he just blow us like a pop stand, or what? …

Saw the window go down, thought I’d tell him how in an armored vehicle you don’t just put the window down like that, then he dove out of it …

Not my fault if Jay couldn’t take it all in, the things I was saying, if processing all that made him make me want to whip out the world’s smallest violin, better call the WWWWWWAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHBU LANCE , poor Jay, the lame, the jerkwater, whiny-ass titty baby …

Wow and the sniper fire biting the road behind Jay, pock pock pock , and look and here comes Hume, Hume Horan, he just traded with Jay, pock pock pock , I mean are they even going to make it …

Richard B. Myers, the well-known chairman &c., scooted front right seat to front left, Hume Horan dove in, front right window, sat front right, me I worked my way another three inches right, inch by inch, I was now nine inches off the longitudinal axis of the armored vehicle …

And Jay dove in the window of the armored vehicle one back …

Harvard together, then Yale together, that was me and Condi, or I mean Yale together, then Harvard together, a twosome at school, that’s my first point, second is, we still were after …

We had a great heart, the two of us together …

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World capitals, marble columns with alabaster inlays, sprays of African and Japanese flowers, walls of electrical lights spilling up into vast networks of chandeliers, party after party, always a twosome together, Milan, Venice, New York …

Turning, snapping movie stars, turning, snapping world leaders …

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Life photo of Faye Dunaway, Pucci scarf, soon the signature Dunaway photo, People photo of Pétain, Nice balcony, grinding a cigarette under his heel the signature late-Pétain photo …

My Condi, it wasn’t the money she cared about, prestige, acclaim, kudos, kind words , no, her photography was just a filter on the party horror …

Fact , she hated parties …

Fact , she hated it worse to get left on her lonesome …

Put her with anyone else but me what that was wasn’t company, it was still on her lonesome …

On her lonesome , what it meant was not with me …

After Harvard, Yale, before the accident, the one that did Mom and Dad in, it was hundreds of parties we went to together, Condi always a few steps back, flashbulbs going pop pop pop …

After Yale, Harvard, she said, No parties , I said, No: parties , she threw in the towel, OK, she said, I’ll be a tagalong …

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First Paul Wolfowitz called me, then Scooter Libby …

I told Scooter and Paul, told them both the same, said I’d be honored to serve, just needed to talk it through with my sister first …

Condi fought it …

She fought it same as she’s fought every job I ever wanted …

What job? …

You already have a job …

The country needed me, I told her, the world, too, effects of my actions, it wasn’t just the Green Zone they’d be felt in, think Dubai, think Tehran, think Boston and Vegas, there’s nowhere I could think of the effects wouldn’t be felt in …

She said NO, she needed me, voice hoarse …

Listen to me , she said, listen to my voice …

Soon , she said, I won’t be able to talk at all, I’ll be back to the puffing, it’ll just be puff puff puff …

Condi’s disease, when it’s as bad as it gets, she can’t speak, all she can do is puff, once a year Condi’s a mute, a puffer, maybe more now, two times, three times a year …

No more puffing me, I said, no more puffing! I said and I hung up on her and just look at us now, I told Hume Horan and Richard B. Myers, the well-known chairman &c., as we sped through the palace gates.

Mom and Dad, it was way too young we lost them, yes, me and Condi, adults , but only just, did they have to assault their children with a premature death attack like that …

Au revoir parties, hello life of service …

Parents died, I made something of myself, did the parents proud, the dead parents, Condi took a different path …

Condi checked in, Wheatland Memorial Hospital, Harlowton, Montana, gave herself over to sicknesses …

Finally the hospital gave her the boot, she snapped up a farmhouse just outside town, ten thousand acres going to scrub in all directions, I told Hume Horan and Richard B. Myers, the well-known Jewish chairman &c., as we sped through the palace gates.

Tore down the farm buildings, started work on her Harlowton compound, walls, gates, video cameras, years go by and it’s more and more, trucks unloading huge spools of razor wire …

She hired bodyguards and auxiliary bodyguards, nurses and auxiliary nurses, she snapped up new personnel by the day and at the same time started work on her tower, a spiral staircase, all white, running up and up inside it …

She moved in before it was finished, took the top floor and forced them to work around her …

Weren’t cheap, raise the tower, leave the bedroom, top floor, untouched, no noise permitted, no clatter, not the least vibration, weren’t cheap to keep going up, one two three four five six seven eight stories, thirty-eight, one hundred thirty-eight, all those stories rising, Condi going up and up …

Gantry cranes and tower cranes and level luffing cranes, precision work at a vast scale, no windows my sister could take it in through, my sister demanded no windows , just video screens, a bank of screens on the wall opposite her bed, truth is my sister’s not entirely well, I told Hume Horan and Richard B. Myers as we sped through the palace gates.