Strangerer

"He found it an interesting book and a quick read." --White House Press Secretary Tony Snow on President Bush's recent absorption in Albert Camus's The Stranger. Mom passed away today. Or yesterday maybe. I don't know. Saw it on CNN. I had the sound off on the TV, and when they showed Mom's picture, I thought it was Lauren Bacall. Made me sad. Loved her in To Have and Have More. Got on the horn to Rove and said, "Lauren Bacall died." All of a sudden, alarms went off. The Secret Service ran into my bedroom. I shouted "Pillow fight!" but this was for real. I could hear the jets buzzing in the sky. Turned out that "Lauren Bacall died" was code for "We're under attack." No one told me they changed the damn code. Thought it was still "every cloud has a silver lining."Mom dead. It was hard to believe. Just hate bad news like that. Damn liberal media stick it in your face. Had Bolten check it out on Fox News to be absolutely sure. He reported back and said, "Chief, do you remember what happened to Spot, when he stopped barking, forever? We have a similar situation here." Good hire, El Bolto. Funny, I didn't feel anything one way or another once I knew it was true. Only spoke with Mom once in my life. I was five. I said, "I'm frightened." She said, "That's impossible." Never heard from her again. I told The Bolten, "Saddle up. Let's fly down to Crawford and bury Spot. " "Mom," said Bolten. I said: "You call me `Chief,' or `Mr. President,' or `Boss,' you little shit-bag." He turned red and said, "I mean, bury Mom, Mr. President." Got him. I couldn't stop laughing. Up in the sky, in Air Force One. Everything on the ground got smaller as we went higher. Made me think. Love that. Rove sitting down a ways. Bolten up here. No reporters. Cheney on the other side there. Secret Service, Marines. One of the Secret Service guys was Muslim. Ali something. I said, "Do you mind if I call you `Chaim'? I have trouble remembering `Ali.'" Cracked everyone up. He said it was fine. Great guy. Incredible that some of these people are self- exploders. Once saw a Saudi prince fart so hard he blew himself off his chaise lounge and into the pool. Whole different ballgame with the royal family. Great hosts. Great entertainers. Cheney asked Ali if he could look at his gun. Loves guns, that Cheney. Loves to hunt. Last Thanksgiving he actually brought down a flock of turkeys with a shoulder-to-air missile. Powerful men need hobbies. Dad used to collect famous thank-you notes. Had one from a Roman emperor. LaGuardia, I think. There was a commotion in the cabin. Old Cheney had mistakenly shot Ali in the foot. Ali grimaced but waved his hand, saying, "It's nothing. Not your fault." Then he limped off to the bathroom. If only the whole damn region was like that. I had the Doc go and fix him. The Big C came over. He lowered his head and spoke in a whisper. The Cheney cracks me up. "I'm fucked," he said. "Shooting Arabs for sport. On the presidential plane. That's what they'll say. Completely fucked." He put Ali's gun down on the table and pushed it away. "Hair-triggers are for wimps and people weakened by allergies," he said. He gave that crooked little half-smile of his that would have made me worry, if I was a man who didn't have a destiny and I knew how to worry. "No reporters, no problemo," I told him. "Easy for you to say," Cheney said. Actually it wasn't. I had trouble pronouncing "problemo." I was glad I wasn't in The Big C's shoes. I was glad I was in the shoes of a man whose Mom just died and who would get a brief honeymoon with the press. But what if I was in El Cheney's shoes? What if it was me instead of Cheney who'd shot that Arab? What if it was Lauren Bacall and not Spot who'd died? What if everything that happened could just as easily happen another way? In that case, I could be in anybody's shoes. But no matter whose shoes I'd be in, I would still be wearing my socks. That makes all the difference. And things would still happen the way I want them to happen. The idea that nothing made sense was absurd. Ali came out of the bathroom and sat down across from me. Suddenly, the sun was in my eyes. Something flashed at me, like metal. A knife. I picked Ali's gun up off the table and squeezed off four shots. The president in his socks. Makes things happen. Without fear. Told Bolten to write up a mental reminder for me. Have to send a thank-you note to Mom.

By lee siegel