Barrack spoke the truth. Before he even ran for the Senate, the Right Reverend provided him with the the insight that led to the winning slogan of his Presidential Campaign: "In Barry You'll Have a Friend in The White House."
Barrack was not a religious person when he first met his pastor. The music, not the doctrine, originally attracted him to the services. The foot stomping worship of the choir was quite different from what occurred at The Unitarian Church he grew up attending. He had found those services downright boring and the Rod McKuen songs they played made him want to puke (Sausalito and sign language/Commune and coffee/Stanyan Street and your wide eyes!). If it were possible to become a lapsed Unitarian, he would have done that -- proudly. Instead Barry joined the "Infinity Church" of Peewee Leftnut. The choir itself was worth the price of admission.
As a preacher, Leftnut was known to get "a bit rough in his remarks." Barrack thought this understandable. After all, instead of citing Ludwig Wittgenstein, Walt Whitman and The Transcendentalists, he used the "old testament" as his source. For Barrack his improvisations on those superstitions turned it into a spiritual jazz. The cadences and the rhythms of his oratory were such that it didn't matter what he said. The fact that large crowds could be enthralled by such blather is what Barry found inspiring. For instance, Peewee's sermon, "Whitey is an Honorable Man," did justice to both Shakespeare and Mark Anthony -- although Barrack zoned out a quarter of the way through. Still, it was good to hear the Pastor refer to Whites as honorable. Refreshing. As usual, Reverend Leftnut ended the sermon in a crescendo -- nay, in a cascade of crescendos that so worked up the crowd that Barrack could not understand the finer points. For instance, that certain segments of the population were devils and demons on account of what's in their DNA -- so no need to blame them individually, just watch 'em close.
But even though he misunderstood much, Barrack thought he caught "the Gist" of what his pastor said. He preferred "The Gist." Often, when he was a Senator, the member of some pressure group would come to see him, and put some thick report on his desk. And Senator Abamo would say, "Give me the gist!" And they would give him the Gist, and some money, and a promise to round up thousands of votes in the next election. And so he became quite fond of the Gist. And in this sense the Gist of Reverend Leftnut -- campaign contributions and votes -- was quite good indeed.
It was another of Peewee's Sermons that provided the occasion of Barrack's inspiration. The Right Reverend's sonorous voice -- which wooed before it wowed -- caused Barrack to drift and dream as he sat in the pew. First, Barrack wondered what the woman beside him looked like naked, even though she was his wife (he thought it would be a sin to envision his mistress). Then he mentally calculate the value of pi, carrying it out many decimal points (until it occurred to him he may have made a mistake way back, let's see...). Next, he envisioned a rubrics cube and began arranging all the colors. It was surprisingly easy. He wondered why solving it in his mind was easier than in real life. And as he wondered about the ease of solving puzzles, the Right Reverend's voice intruded, and injected the Gist into his mind as if using a hypodermic on his skull.
"The American people," Peewee sermonized, "need to Socialize more!" And Senator Abamo thought: this is true, we could all be more friendly and sociable. "We need to Socialize!" screamed the Reverend, "From the top down!" And the Senator nodded in agreement: being sociable was an area where our leaders could lead. And Leftnut Screamed, "The Upshot: Don't be economical as you Socialize! Be audacious as you Socialize!" Yes, someone must take the lead when making new friends. "The Upshot is! Socialize or shoot! It's The Upshot or be shot!" And Barrack saw it clear: we must reach across the divides. We must be friends or risk violence.
These insights led him to write his second best selling book: The Audacity of Friendship. His first was "Barrack Life," the memoir of the inner turmoil and psychological oppression he experienced as a student at an exclusive boarding school and an Ivy League University. In the end, he recommended to young people that they become ascetics rather than addicts to the globe-hopping swell life, as happened to him. If it were possible to be a lapsed jet-setter, he would be.
Thus the Right Reverend provided him with the title for his new book and the slogan for his campaign: "America! Sociable from the Top Down." He told the cheering crowds, "I know we are a needy nation. And a friend in need is indeed a friend! Other Presidents tell you the Bucks will stop. They even brag about the bucks stopping, as if that were a good thing! But I say the Bucks will never stop! When we run out, we'll print more!" He easily won the election, carrying every corner of the nation except the Economics Department at the University of Chicago.
Once it became obvious he would carry Fifty States minus an economics faculty, Barrack sat down to consult Reverend Leftnut about the sorts of people he should appoint to government. When they discussed the Supreme Court, Leftnut listed a number of qualities one should look for in a Justice. He felt the ability converse with God so that God can confirm your prejudices was most important. It occurred to the future President that the man who most embodied this attribute was the fiery Reverend himself. So he secretly determined to select his Pastor as his first appointment to the Supreme Court. It seemed a simple way to payback both the Reverend and the Nation for all that they had meant to him (and to each other). Now, it is true the Man of God lacked the expected legal experience, but he would more than make up that deficit with the "spirit" he could bring to the law.
With no initial Supreme Court vacancies, however, President Abamo decided he could best introduce his pastor to the voters by appointing him Poet Laureate of the United States. He thought "the master of rhyme and time" must surely be qualified for that position. Plus, when he nominated Peewee for the Supreme Court, he will have already been vetted.
The plan began to unravel at the Inauguration. The Reverend who got "rough in his remarks" did not disappoint that day. It was overcast and cool but Peewee warmed things right up. He intoned, "America's Buzzards are buzzing. It's vultures are vulture eating." Before the listeners could decide if those statements made any sense, he charged forward. "America's! Buzzards! Buzz: You murdered my Daddy! You raped my mama! America's! Vultures! Eat! Devour! The poor! Munch on! The Children! America's! Harlot! That Rich Bitch! Bitches! Gimme Mo' Money, Ho'-Ho'-Honey!"
The first fist fight broke out early. It was between an ACLU litigator and an elderly nun. By the time Leftnut suggested the nation "let slip the bull goose loonies of resentment; erupt the volcanoes of revenge; give the whole heartland heartburn," the riots were in full swing. It quickly spread to every part of the nation -- except the Heritage Foundation, which was burned to the ground but otherwise was too proud to participate.
The next day Leftnut left on a hastily arranged world tour: so sudden was the departure that foreign capitals hardly had time to organize flag burnings. As the cities smoldered and the ten trillion dollar "Uprising reconstruction and reparations bill" wound its way through congress, Barrack's advisers thought to ease the Reverend Leftnut out of the "newly empowered" Poet Laureate position. They decided to make him Secretary of Education since nobody knows who the Secretary of Education is or cares what he says.
But as Secretary of Education, Leftnut would sermonize at the weekly cabinet meetings. The only way to get him to shut up was to double his budget. Obviously, that could not go on indefinitely since fairness dictated that all other departments get similar increases. Even the Defense Department was having difficulty spending all the additional funds (though, surprisingly, the Education Dept. had no such problem).
Fortunately, there was soon a vacancy on the Supreme Court. The Law Clerks tried to awaken a Justice from a three year nap and discovered he was actually dead. So they erased "I completely concur with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg" from the office chalk board and called the President.
Having already been vetted, the Reverend Leftnut sailed through his confirmation hearings. And all went well until noon of the first day.
Justice Leftnut wanted to nationalize the airlines but was confounded by a bunch of lawyerly arguments. So instead, he insisted the Court nationalize the Friendly Skies. "If we cannot nationalize the Airlines, then nationalize the air!" The entire legal community was so taken with the audacity of the argument that the ruling became law right then and there. Besides, it was the only way to get him to shut up. From that moment the Federal Government owned the skies, and any pies the skies may hold. In an editorial the New York Times called in a triumph of common sense over greed. On the futures market, the dollar price of air skyrocketed. It remained steady in Pesos. When Barrack heard the ruling, he suddenly realized what "Socializing from the top down" actually meant.
For ordinary folks Nationalizing the sky had consequences that only became apparent the next day. People woke up to the news that Federal Government now owned everything above the first floor: the top 99 stories of the Sears Tower, your attic and roof, the tops of utility poles and so on. At first property owners did not know what to do with this news, other than stop the mortgage payments. Barrack himself hoped that if everyone ignored the ruling, life could go on as before. But one fellow in St. Louis was getting his roof fixed, and figured since he no longer owned the roof he'd send the bill to the government. Soon everyone was getting their roofs fixed and upper floors remodeled -- and since they weren't paying the bills themselves, agreeing to double or triple the going rate (including kick backs). Instead of the tax payers sending in money, they began sending in different kinds of bills -- stacks of them. Within a week, the Treasury Secretary complained and quit. His temporary replacement complained and quit. The temporary replacement's temporary replacement complained and quit. And so on. The whole mess was now called "Barrack Socialism."
The Pie in the sky upkeep was too costly. Barrack realized they must privatize the air. Then they could tax the pies and pay all those bills. But to carry out what the New York Times now called "the most sweeping privatization in the history of the world," they would have to get Peewee off the Supreme Court. For it was said he held the other Justices by the ears: no one wanted to set him off sermonizing, so all decisions were now unanimous. They called the court, "Peewee's Sermons and the Supremes."
Actually, getting Justice Leftnut off the court proved surprisingly easy. On the court everyone had given up arguing with him. The traditional afternoon nap (after milk and cookies) didn't fit his temperament. And while being in a position where one's word is literally the law held an attraction, he soon realized it was contentious argument that he craved. So when the offer came for him to swap places with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, he readily agreed. The formalities were quickly handled and within a week Justice Schumer sat on the Court and Senator Leftnut shared a desk with Hillary Clinton (the Senate office building was burnt to the ground during the third wave of riots so everyone had to double up). Barrack was so relieved by the change that even hearing that Justice Schumer wanted the country to make the country more sociable (from the ground up) didn't bother him.
The crowded office conditions hardly mattered to Senator Leftnut, since he spent all his time on the Senate floor. He and Senator Byrd launched a filibuster on his first day. The rest of the nation couldn't figure out what all that talk and argument was about, and in truth was preoccupied with its own problems.
Normally when the Capitol is in gridlock the United States does quite well. Unfortunately, it was during the Byrd/Leftnut filibuster that Hawaii and Alaska left the union. The rest of the nation rationalized this departure on a "Last in, first out" basis. When Texas left, it was pointed out that Texas was independent nation when it joined the Union. When California joined the rest of the Southwest in "The Peso Union" is seemed a reasonable response to economic upheaval. In fact, it was not until the Southern Confederacy reformed that the antebellum bells went off. But by that time the North had already seceded from the Union. So when the Byrd/Leftnut debate entered its third month, the United States of America consisted of Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and American Samoa -- with the latter two reconsidering their association.
Afterwards it was unkindly said that the nation conceived in "just words" had achieved a fitting end: Not in a bang. Not in a whimper. But in a bloviation into oblivion.
THE END
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