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g’ joob g’ goo—goo g’ joob
(I am the egg-man, ooh they are the egg-men, ooh)

Phillip Gardner

    In his final moments as President, George W. Bush sits in the Oval Office listening to A Whiter Shade of Pale. The headphones are new, a gift from a corporate contributor he can’t name, and he’s thinking that the song is coming through clearer than it ever has before—the Hammond organ speaking to him in a way it was meant to; and he wishes he’d really listened when the song first came out, in another year, when it’s message was clear and present.
    The song that precedes it is Midnight Hour and the one that follows is Louie, Louie. Neither brings comfort to him, though the former seems a thing that can be addressed with swift and appropriate action, while the latter has an ephemeral quality less likely to show up on the infrared sensors or answer to satellite-guided instruction.
    As the helicopter lifts off from the White House lawn for the last time, George W. Bush still fears the reporters’ constant question: How can he justify his unwavering choice to “stay the course.” Lately his closest associates, those he believes things with, have reflected discredit upon him and called into serious doubt his judgment, his ability to do business. He’s not feeling well liked, even by his most loyal and trusted sycophants. But sitting now beside his wife, he doesn’t want to think about that. Somehow the soft drone of the chopper’s rotors reminds him of the Proco Harem song. He’s feeling sentimental and a little sincere. He takes his wife’s hand.
    “I really want to know what, you know, pleases you,” he says. “Now that we can begin again.”
    “We can’t talk about that here.”
    “The thing is, that once I get in the saddle, you pretty much know where I’m gonna come down. You don’t find me flip-flopping. I can stay the course with the best of ‘em, can’t I sugar? I mean the proof is in the puddin’—”
    “Not now.”
    “—but it’s not the same with you. I feel I’m in a guessing game, did she or didn’t she? What did I do right—or wrong? Where are the latest polls, I’m asking myself. I can acknowledge that mistakes were made. I can take corrective action.”
    “I don’t know what to tell you.”
    “What can I do to make it happen? I ask myself. One time it’s, you know, a little of this, a little of that,” his shoulders sway and he gives her that Howdy Doody grin, “sort of mid-tempo. The next thing I know you’re wanting a little AC/DC slamdancing.”
    “AC/DC??”
    “I just want to please you. What’s so unusual about a husband who wants to please his wife?”
    “I’m not complaining.”
    “But you’re not exactly coming back for a second term, either.”
    “Do you want me to?”
    “Oh, geeze.”
    “Think about it like shopping—”
    “I’m gonna open a vein now.”
    “I didn’t mean it that way, George. When women go shopping, they don’t have to make a purchase—”
    “Oh, Sam Walton, where are you?”
    “—they don’t measure their fun, when they shop, by how much they buy.”
    “Take me to the mall. I’m working now within your metaphor?”
    “So when you and I do it, like this morning, I can say I really, really liked it—”
    “But nothing rang up at the register. Oh, baby, I’m just looking for a little good news.”
    “You’re taking this much too far, George.”
    “This is my point; you’re absolutely right. Where is far? How far is too far? Where is the end, really? How far?”
    “Don’t get all metaphysical on me, George.”
    “I’m trying to figure the laws of the physical. Who’s getting metaphysical?”
    “Look at you, you’re all worked up when I thought we’d had a very pleasant, low-impact, reasonably satisfying few minutes.”
    “Really? You mean it?”
    “Yes. I can lie there—“
    “While I’m being very—presidential?”
    “Yes. Or no.”
    “Don’t do me like this.”
    “And I can think, Oh, I like that; that feels good.”
    “You’re window shopping.”
    “Not exactly.”
    “Then what!?”
    “Well, maybe.”
    “Oh, geeze.”
    “We’re talking about pleasure here, George. I can experience pleasure, feel it, think about it, without considering how it’s going to turn out.
    “Like a nice shopping trip.”
    “Yes.”
    “And you can like it as much as you like shopping? I mean, while I’m Mr. Buckeroo? Without pressure to withdraw when I don’t feel like it or think about how it’s gonna turn out?”
    “You second guess yourself too much, dear.”
    As George considers this, the moment is shattered by a thought and the whisper of a reporter’s voice in his ear. The voice says, “His-t-ory?” But the voice is Aretha Franklin’s voice to the tune of “Res-p-ect.” George is not well equipped for such incongruities.
    The chopper touches down with the gentle satisfaction of a satiated breath. Its rotors no longer play the note from Whiter Shade of Pale. Instead George Bush hears the oscillation of a dissonant two-note pattern, something he’s heard before but can’t name, a song he knows but doesn’t like, I Am The Walrus. He looks over at his wife, who smiles out the small oval window. She fingers the flag pinned above her breast.
    George Bush takes a deep breath. “Can you imagine our ever having sex again?”
    “Not at the moment, George. Not now.”

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