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George Jr. is perturbed. He is sulky and pouty and has to force a smirky grin at the guests as they enter the banquet room, pretending as if he really wanted them all there, all these betrayers and backstabbers and people he thought he knew but who turn out, instead, to be involved in whole big bunches of illegal and traitorous stuff he has no clue about. They are all a bunch of goddamn boogerheads, he thinks.
He forces a smile. No one is willing to hold his blinky little gaze for more than three seconds. He wants to scream. He wants to run away. He wants a beer. He wants 10 beers. He grabs a fistful of baseball-shaped hors d'oeuvres (Gul-dang, I love baseball, he thinks). Barb shoots him a look: Sit up straight, stop pouting or else, use a napkin. He sips his mineral water, sullenly, chats with McClellan while scanning the room for Condi, though his eyes first find Rove, slithering around as usual.
Rove works the room, shakes hands, squeezing a little too hard to remind everyone who "the architect" really is. Everyone understands, even as they furtively wipe their hands on their pants after he touches them. Rove grabs fistfuls of baby shrimp and shoves them into his mouth when he thinks no one's looking, swallows without chewing. He smells like baby aspirin and old bacon.
Karl sneaks furtive glances at Barb. He is awed by her natural power, her girth, her effortless cunning. That teal makes her look so ... so ... seaworthy. He wants her. Badly. She knows it. They have a secret thing -- it is matronly and sweaty and creepy as hell and takes place every other Sunday in a Ritz-Carlton just off the Beltway.
Rummy knows all about it. He and Dick stand near the bar and take huge swigs of scotch and puffs from thick Cuban cigars and speak in low, mean tones out the sides of their mouths, occasionally bursting into dark laughter that sounds like a brick being dragged over a cheese grater. Rummy says something about the Karl/Barb flesh-fest and wonders, a little too loudly, if Oedipus would have felt differently about his mother if she had spanked him. Cheney grunts, retorts with a joke about how pleasurable it must be to hold a lit cigarette near the open eyeball of a terrified prisoner in Guantanamo and demand Osama's cell phone number. Ha.
Dick glances over at Lynne, who is, of course, eyeing one of the Latina servants with open-mouthed hunger. Dick hasn't seen Lynne naked in years. He realizes this is a very good thing. Something to be thankful for, certainly. But Lynne is happy. Her life is full of joyous bridge tournaments and bashing of gay rights and copious lesbian fantasies. She is nothing like poor, lost Condi.
Condi is lonely. So, so lonely, sitting over in the far corner, all by herself, nursing her one glass of white wine. No one really talks to her anymore except Dubya and a maybe few brusque words from Rummy, who she suspects is always imagining her cleaning his guns and polishing his boots and calling him "master." Suddenly, her heart jumps. She sees Dubya looking at her from across the room. She smiles that demonic, dominatrix-y smile that always creeps out the Asian press. He does that thing with his thin little lips, that little gesture only she understands. Her body is instantly warmed. Oh their special bond, a dark secret. It is her breath, her raison d'être. It keeps her alive.
Sam Alito stops by, darts in and out, stealing bites, patting everyone on the back, runs up and gives Dubya a big hug, which embarrasses Dubya and makes Cheney look at him even more disdainfully. Sam is laughing too loudly. He smells of tequila and bad ideas. Laura, however, giggles and looks at him coyly. Her legs quiver. She is wearing way too much White Diamonds and her hair hasn't moved since 2003. No one cares.
Meanwhile, Jenna and Barbara Jr. sneak tequila shots in the Rose Garden and flirt with the Secret Service for, like, the millionth time, to no effect. Jenna is so, like, buzzed. She adjusts her bra strap, again. Then her thong. Damn but she hates these formal things. That Alito guy keeps coming out, begging for shots. They don't want to go back into that miserable, dank banquet room. Barbara Jr. stares vacantly into the near distance. Why couldn't life be more like it is on "The West Wing"? That show, like, totally ruled.
The banquet room reeks and coils and sighs. It is full of bleak energy and missed opportunities, spiritual paranoia and repressed desire and dishonest laughter. The turkey comes out dry. There is not enough pie for Dubya. Rumsfeld slurps his scotch, drunkenly. Dick eyes the dark thigh meat. Condi has to pee. There is little to be thankful for, inside this room.
Outside, however, among the nation's awakening throngs, gratitude and hope are beginning to swell and grow anew.
Only three years left. It's long but not that long. Every person in that gloomy room will be gone. History. Nothing left but an ugly stain, oily residue, scar tissue. The room will be refreshed. The turkey will be moist. There will be more cranberry sauce. This dark, warmongering chapter will finally end. Pie all around.
It is not, the world realizes, too early to be thankful for that.
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