Donald Rumsefeld is in my basement. I kidnapped him from his home "Mount Misery" on a Sunday afternoon. He did not fight much. He sighed instead of screaming. He sat like a punished child on the floor in back of the van, his bagged head hanging between his legs. His left sock rolled down to the ankle.
DAY 1: Begins simply. Rumsfeld is lead from the van to the room in the basement. It is soundproof. White laminate on the walls and floor. Fluorescent lights fill the room like a rocket launch. Two speakers in the ceiling play Night Ranger's "Sister Christian" on loop. "Sister Christian, oh the time has come. You know you're the only one to say okay." The volume turned all the way to the right. Rumsfeld is chained to the wall. His arms above his head. The bag left on his head.
I know he's lying about Abu Ghraib. I watched his testimony on C-SPAN. This is matter of national security.
DAY 2: Three Iranian homosexuals enter and compliment Rumsfeld on his suit. A urine puddle stains the floor. He tries to speak. To be brave. They remove the bag from his head and place the ball in his mouth. The Iranian homosexuals wear leather outfits like the one worn by the biker in The Village People. One holds a revolver at his temple. They remove the chains from his ankles and slip him from his trousers and underwear. He resists. They persist. The pistol pressed to his temple. Making sure to brush his penis with their shoulders, they re-chain his ankles, remove the chains round his wrists and take off his jacket and shirt but leave the red, power tie loose around his neck. A bright streak down his chest. They retie his wrists and exit. A young woman enters in a nun's habit. She is naked but for the habit. She opens a stool and sets it across from Rumsfeld. She insults him. His fat stomach. His pathetic penis that could never please a woman. His thin legs. His woman-like muscles. She aims a hose at his genitals. If his head dips into sleep she shoots scalding water at him. This is repeated each time his head dips. "Sister Christian" blares: "Where you going? What you looking for? You know those boys don't want to play no more."
I have read the Taguba Report. I know Rumsfeld ordered Miltary Police through shadow agents to "loosen up" thieves and arsonists, convince them they shared Islama-Facist ideology. This is for the good of the country.
DAY 3: A man in an Iraqi uniform and bushy mustache enters. The Iraqi removes Rumsfeld's glasses, crushes them under his boot. He takes the glass shards and cuts FAGGOT into Rumsfeld's chess. The naked nun smears ink into his cuts and blood, tattooing him. The ball in Rumsfeld's throat prevents a real scream. The snot from his nose prevents his breathing. The ball is removed. The nun brings in his meal. She spoon feeds him Raisin Bran in sour milk. Rumsfeld gags. The nun explains this is the only food he will get. He eats. The Iraqi brings in a plastic bucket. Two young crocodiles slosh in the bucket. This is his toilet. When he overturns the bucket, the nun sprays him with scalding water from the hose. The crocs are placed back in the bucket. He gets the hose again when he refuses to sit. When he does the crocs catch his testicles and he leaps up, knocking over the bucket. He gets the hose again. Then he is re-chained. When the Iraqi has to piss, he pisses on Rumsfeld. If Rumsfeld closes his mouth he gets the hose. This feeding is repeated. "Sister Christian" persists: "You're motoring. What's your price for flight? In finding mister right?"
Donald Rumsfeld believes in clichés like "the ends justify the means." Like "all's well that ends well." Like "it's not over till it's over." Rumsfeld believes in clichés like "nothing is off the table."
DAY 4. An inch of water fills Rumsfeld's room. He jumps at first. The Iraqi enters and places a long oak table along the wall across from Rumsfeld. The Iraqi releases the chains from Rumsfeld's ankles. The naked nun enters carrying Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom. The Iraqi exits. "Sister Christian" is turned down to a whisper: "Babe you know you're growing up so fast and mama's worrying that you won't last." The nun steps up to the table and stretches out. Her legs open to Rumsfeld, framing his stare. She removes her glass eye from her right socket and fingers it into her vagina. Iris out. Staring back at Rumsfeld. She reads from de Sade starting at "The First Day." When Rumsfeld becomes aroused fifty volts of electricity gets charged into the water on the floor. Rumsfeld jumps but has to land. He jumps until his erection is gone. Then the nun continues reading. Until Rumsfeld begins to show an erection and fifty volts is charged, again, through the water. He jumps his erection away. If his head dips into sleep, the electricity sent through the water causes his neck to snap upward and his eyebrows to smoke. This continues. "Sister Christian" whispers: "Sister Christian, there's so much in life. Don't you give it up before your time is due."
Donald Rumsfeld lied. He knows of the 24 hour a day, fifty days in a row interrogations. He knows the MPs used dogs and women's underwear to scare and embarrass, to provoke confessions to create more prisoners. The piles of nude men, their hairy asses unprotected from snarling Dobermans put our soldiers at risk from the same treatment.
DAY 5: "Sister Christian" is turned back to the right, full volume: "You've got him in your sight and driving thru the night. Motoring." The nun exits with her book. The Iraqi removes the table. The water is drained from the floor. Rumsfeld sizzles.Two American Marines enter. Their swords shine like lighting under the florescent lights. Rumsfeld is given the option to suck off Private Gonzalez or be sodomized by Lt. Jones. He chooses Private Gonzalez after Lt. Jones slices off Rumsfeld's left nipple. It falls to the floor like a pepperoni picked off a pizza. Rumsfeld's arms are unchained and he is pushed on all fours. He is instructed not to gag or spit up or he will be sodomized by Lt. Jones. He jerks away when Private Gonzalez ejaculates. Rumsfeld, therefore, is sodomized by Lt. Jones. During this time he begins to become erect. The nun enters and scalds him with her hose. Sergeant Williams and Sergeant Michaels enter. Rumsfeld is given the same choice again. "Sister Christian" soars from the speakers: "Motoring. What's your price for flight? In finding mister right? You'll be alright tonight."
Congress will not make him confess. Swearing to God will not make him confess. Generals under his command will not make him confess. Government Reports citing his own words will not make him confess. Photographs of him with war criminals will not make him confess. Only one option is left.
DAY 6: The nun exits with her hose after feeding Rumsfeld. He is allowed to drink the urine of the marines. They exit. The Iraqi carries in the garroting chair and the marines lift Rumsfeld into it. His head is placed against the headrest and the steel loop is locked around his neck. The marines exit. I enter wearing a judge's robe and English wig. I ask him what he has to confess. When he starts, the Iraqi turns the screw in the headrest. Rumsfeld stops. I ask again what he has to confess. He begins speaking. The Iraqi turns the screw. This continues. Each time Rumsfeld attempts to speak the screw is turned and it, at first, just touches his neck, almost affectionately. But each turn screws the point in deeper into the back of his neck. Rumsfeld's face turns violent and red. "Sister Christian" pleads: "You know that you're the only one to say okay but you're motoring."
Only one option is left. This is for the good of the country. This is a matter of national security.
DAY 7: Rumsfeld is dumped on the lawn of his home "Mount Misery" at 4 am. Naked but for the tattoo and the bruises covering him like splotches on a cow. His only instruction: confess. While ubiquitous in his head: "Sister Christian, oh the time has come."
After shutting down The Dawn for lack of payment of freedom tax, The Corporation finds The Day at pawn shop trading acceptance letter and seesaw for Masonic three dollar bill. The Cops stick on handcuffs and confine The Day in handleless back seat of fish tank; then cement swallows The Day like frogs do a fly in the river.
Inmate, cellmate, #7472, confesses insurance fraud, selling testicles in Bangkok as delicacy, and other cock suck and bull stories to The Day who glows through issued jumpsuit, mumbles something about looking for collective unconscious and only finding clichés, and hums: "Oh mama, can this really be the end?"
The Day springs to the bars to plead with the crocodile skin guard: "Please, send a boyscout, there are two strippers in my shower, and I think I left my toaster on."
An idealistic coup grouped in a hollow tree stump, put on gray wigs, smoked Constitutional Amendments with grass while planning jailbreak, pre-trial. Said their leader, the one elected third: "Narcolepsy won't save us here. They always find us when we close our eyes. The Corporation kicked the shit out of our shoeshine boy. We've got to go back in time to prevent this crime."
Applause. Approval. Required signatures appropriated. Volunteers voted on. Then they shrank The Poet and shot him through constructed wormhole seventeen times the speed of light, only backward so Poet lands forward, in future, on a beach in Biloxi in the brain of Baptized boy.
Dropping toy truck, Poet Boy, very Blakeian, meditates on glass and ice, chalk and Chianti, ink and incorporated, and bounces from primrose petal into a unified but not united protest crowd outside courthouse lifting signs: "No Night Without Day, No Work Without Pay, No Freedom For The Gay, and Cunt Cunt Cunt, We Need More Cunt!"
Thought Poet Boy: "I need a nose full of this loose love."
Thought proctologist with seaweed stethoscope: "There's no narrative pulse here."
Thought The Day, contained, dying like a star: "This cell can't hold me. These laws won't fold me. This is the way I feel. This is the way I feel." And sun shone through the bars outside into the courtyard.
TV anchor in exclusive interview, asks The Day: "Is The World ending?" "No, but mine is." "Something's got to give. More at eleven, if there is one."
The carousel stops spinning. The comedians stop grinning. The vagrants start roaming. The unkept start combing. The innocent confess twice. Thought God: "I fucking prefer mice."
Rabbit jury, all eunuchs, picked out of a hat. Read the button on the velvet visor of the prosecutor: "No blacks, too sympathetic." Poet Boy as public defender. Rasputin reincarnated as cloaked judge. Court crowd spilling over like Buddha's gut.
The crab mallet on the bird liver on Rasputin's bench sounds: "Crap, crap, crap."
He asks through covered eyes: "The verdict's been arrived at, anyone have nothing to say?"
Prosecutor stands: "For dismembering ambush machines, for building tragedies at ritual railroad stations with encyclopedias, for terminating contracts of 13 guidance counselors, and for habitually attacking mothers with coat hangers, we the state, we the people, we the always sane, wish to accuse and convict this flaming fool and have him locked away in keyless basement with policemen serving time for beating suspects."
Poet Boy objects: "Motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfucker!" which causes the lining of the nun-sitting-in-the-back-row's stomach to cough over corrupt collar of The Corporation's pick-pocketed Senator.
Suggests Prosecutor: "If this coarse language continues, disbar the defense attorney and sentence him to 15 years of teaching Composition."
Claims Poet Boy: "I'm not trying to be offensive, I'm not trying to be funny. I'm not trying to be crude. I'm just trying to defend The Day's freedom of reflection."
Rasputin blushes: "I like the language. It'll stay."
Suntanned Sultan P.I. turns over opium discovered in The Day's icebox and points: "Your memorized Camper Van Beethoven won't save you now."
Willie Randolph sings, before divulging hiding place of magic stolen from Franco Harris' shoestrings: "Hit the cymbal and drum and end this song, I'm double-parked so I can't stay long."
Paid perjurer proctologist, who donates his $300 an hour to a fund in his father's name at Central Michigan University to ensure all respected and responsible professors are pushed out of department by gossip, testifies: "To be seen as understanding in one somebody's eyes is to inevitably be an asshole in uncountable others. And I know one when I see one."
Ponytailed Prostitute reads affadavit containing now-famous post-coital confession concerning The Day's desire to be far from where the crowds are.
Announces Prosecutor, after groping prostitute and smelling greased finger: "The demonstrative anti-social behavior manifested in this claim is redundant and recurring in The Day's preadolescent need to disappear once every 12 hours."
The Debutante's girdle with the anarchy laces is a moot delivery for the accused. The Democratic Donkey's hawing testimony is misrepresented by court reporter. The sweat on The Day's forehead is slick as peeled onion. Poet Boy does Byronic best with comatosed jury: "C'mon, you've got your own itch to scratch, your own mix to match, your own hole to patch. You've got your own judge to coerce, your own crowd to disperse, your own infant to nurse, your own debt to make worse. And so does my client."
Then Roman Gods rip off roof of courthouse, pissed about being ignored in contemporary literature. All heads raise in whirl of wind. Rasputin lifts out, yelling over helicopter buzz: "It'll be alright; I'll get help!"
Station wagons fill with packed lunches. The green Army rolls in to fight the phantoms. A vibration hums from the sexual energy plant. Rabid dogs chew unsupervised skulls with fluoride teeth. Tourists steal shampoo and evacuate motels. The stadium courthouse crowd falls into itself. Avalanches spread like hairlines, contagious, across the hills. Regurgitated sewage flushes the suburbs. Furnaces empty yellow smoke on Main Street, which splits along the fault line. Ms. Jefferson holds a camcorder to her eye.
HermAphrodite lowers herself into lobotomized courtroom on angel headed hipster wings and lifts The Day from wire cage, and returns sun, a bullet hole of fire, into cool apocalyptic sky, never to come back down.
Poet and Boy separate in a cloud of choke back on beach. Says Poet to Boy: "I don't think they comprehend the significance of this."
Boy: "It's so easy to be misunderstood."
Poet: "The world is a wonderful place not to get involved in."
Brad Johnson lives in the margins of a Wes Anderson film. He has two chapbooks, Void Where Prohibited and The Happiness Theory available from Pudding House.