Well, just as I did on the nineteenth of last November, I heard my eleven o’clock consultation Thursday morning well before I saw her – in the reception area, once again unloading a boatload of grief on poor Gretchen.
“Who the hell is that?” My current appointment, a gentleman from Norway, with whom I had spent the previous three hours discussing world petroleum economics, delivered his exclamation in an odd mixture of irritation and incredulity. “It sounds like one of your homeless people, yelling at the park police who chase her out of the Reflecting Pool.”
“That…” I explained, “would be Dr. Amatullah Lumumba Venceremos Mariátegui, former member of the Obama Administration transition team, and, today, having resigned in early February, the Regents’ Emeritus Lecturer of Lesbian Studies, Feminist Literary Deconstruction and Marxist Sexual Theory at the University of California, Santa Cruz.”
“Don’t start that [expletive] with me again,” I heard a loud, husky, decidedly assertive and by now uncomfortably familiar female voice declare, “my appointment is for eleven a.m., and it’s [expletive] four [expletive] minutes after eleven, and like I told you last time, Little Bo Peep, your boss better not be in there with some white man who thinks his time is worth more than mine, because if he is, I’m taking both of their [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] home in a [expletive] jar of [expletive] Everclear!”
“I’ve heard about American women like that,” my guest confessed, “but I thought it was just fairy tales… you know, exaggerations, like those stories about French nymphomaniacs.”
“If only,” I quietly moaned, “we Americans only had nymphomaniacs to contend with. This way,” I gestured, “leads to another way out.”
“Through that door?” My guest gave me a slightly apprehensive look as the tirade from the reception area grew steadily louder, more obnoxious and disturbingly obscene. “How will I know…”
“It’s been pretty hectic around here since last January,” I explained, “so Gretchen printed out some pieces of paper with arrows and directions written on them and posted them on the walls. The first one is just beyond the door on the far side of the conference room… over there!”
A loud pounding began on the locked double doors leading from Gretchen’s office to mine.
“I think,” I opined, “now would be a good time to leave.”
With a quick nod my guest departed, and not a moment too soon, because Dr. Mariátegui’s wheel chair rammed through into my office scant seconds later.
“Collins!” Mariátegui screamed, brandishing a razor sharp carpet knife, “What you doing in here, playing with yourself while you watch pornography on the Internet?”
“Of course not, Doctor,” I protested. “My previous client had some extremely important matters to discuss with me, and when she digressed, at the end of our meeting, into relating how her family had been mercilessly exploited by a cruel, greedy, depraved capitalist landlord…”
“Who?” Her eyes narrowed to suspicious slits.
“Well, um, Legree, I believe it was… yes, that’s it, one Simon Legree.”
“Ah, yes,” she nodded sagely. “I’ve heard of him. So her family was one of his victims, then?”
“Oh, yes,” I lied, “and just one, as we both know, of many. Her story, of how Legree… um, took advantage of her great-great-grandmother under the front porch of her family’s tiny, impoverished log cabin in Bethesda, Maryland during the accursed Age of Slavery, it moved me so much, I just… I just lost track of time. I do hope you will forgive me, Dr. Mariátegui. There were, as I am sure you can readily perceive, significantly extenuating circumstances.”
“It doesn’t surprise me in the least,” she sneered, “that a white man would have some problems handling the truth about how evil you are.”
“Oh yes, Dr. Mariátegui,” I replied, “we white men, we sure enough are evil, no doubt about it.”
“Yeah?” She smiled mischievously. “How evil are you?”
“We’re so evil, money says we’re the root of it.”
“No,” she shot back, “seriously now – how evil are you white men?”
“We’re so evil, our ears are terrified of what our tongues might say.”
“True,” she concurred, “that’s evil, but how evil are white men, really?”
“We’re so evil, Satan’s afraid of us,” I offered.
“That’s getting there;” she allowed, “however, I’d say I want the real skinny on how evil white men are.”
“In that case,” I continued, “we’re so evil, we invented banks…”
“Yes!”
“… and corporations…”
“Yes!”
“… and the steam engine…”
“Yes!”
“… and the machine gun…”
“Yes!”
“… and strategic bombing…”
“Yes!”
“… and nuclear weapons…”
“Yes,” she snarled. “Just how evil are you white men, anyway?”
“We’re so evil,” I proclaimed, “we invented Dick Cheney!”
“Now, that’s [expletive] evil!” Dr. Mariátegui cackled, rubbing her hands together with glee. “Let’s get down to work. There ain’t nothing better than paying top dollar to buy advice from the enemy’s foremost consultant! So what the [expletive],” she demanded, “is up with Hillary Clinton?”
“Uh, well,” I groped, “she’s… Secretary of State, isn’t she?”
“Sure as [expletive] she’s the [expletive] Secretary of [expletive] State, [expletive]!” Dr. Mariátegui grumbled. “What I – and my fellow Hillary Clinton supporters – need to know is, how come she looks so bad at it? And why isn’t she exerting the kind of influence – you know, for lesbian feminist revenge against men – that we expected when she got the [expletive] job in the first place?”
“Well,” I pointed out, “historically speaking, the primary mission of the United States Secretary of State has been directed at goals other than lesbian feminist revenge against men.”
“Screw that [expletive]!” Dr. Mariátegui yelled. “The Secretary of State can do whatever the [expletive] she [expletive] wants!”
“Now, Dr. Mariátegui,” I gently admonished in my best diplomatic tone, “as you must remember, I warned you that the Secretary of State has been a most ignominious and disappointing position for at least the last forty years, if not longer. Since at least the Nixon Administration, United States foreign policy has been made and administered from the White House, not Foggy Bottom. I told you Hillary would be frustrated.”
“Frustrated,” Dr. Mariátegui fumed, “is one [expletive] thing. Looking like she fell off a [expletive] turnip truck is another!”
“You are alluding,” I surmised, “to Secretary Clinton’s recent diplomatic tour of Africa?”
“What the [expletive] is that [expletive] thinking?” Dr. Mariátegui loudly demanded of no one in particular.
“Well,” I offered in a consoling voice, “she did make a very strong statement for women’s rights during her visit to the Congo.”
“Yeah,” Dr. Mariátegui snorted, “after she let some… man make a complete fool of her.”
“A mere, jejune, prolix and callow youth,” I observed. “Who, most likely, only wanted to know what President Obama thought of the Chinese bribery scandal that’s the talk of all the bright college students’ nocturnal soirees in his country. He can’t be blamed for a botched translation that substituted ‘your husband’ for ‘your President,’ now can he? And besides, if you will permit me the comparison, it seems that Secretary Clinton’s reply was highly… congruent with something that you, yourself might have uttered.”
“You mean, when she said, ‘You want to know what my husband thinks? My husband is not the Secretary of State. I am. You ask my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband,’ is that what you’re talking about?”
“Why, yes,” I acknowledged.
“Did she tell him to go [expletive] himself, like she should have?” Dr. Mariátegui bitterly complained. “No, she [expletive] did not!”
“Goodness gracious, madame,” I proposed, “surely you can’t think that would have been a good idea! Consider the reaction she received for the relatively mild remarks she made.”
“In for a [expletive] dime,” Dr. Mariátegui muttered, “in for a [expletive] dollar. At least if she’d told him to go [expletive] himself the world would know they’re dealing with the brass-bottomed bull dyke me and my friends all know and love!”
“Granted,” I returned, “but I’m not certain that the world needs to be reminded in such an obvious and prominent manner, that the United States Secretary of State is a brass-bottomed bull dyke – not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.”
“The world,” Dr. Mariátegui growled, “needs to have that shouted in its collective, culturally primitive, and intellectually deaf ear, that’s what it [expletive] needs! I mean, what the [expletive]? Am I going to have to live to be a [expletive] hundred years old before I see the world ruled by lesbian feminist socialism, like it’s supposed to be? Look at what she did in Kenya!”
“Address the eighth US-sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum in Nairobi?” I asked.
“[Expletive] the eighth US-sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum in Nairobi!”
“Oh,” I interjected, “then you must be talking about when she insisted on shaking hands with Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, head of the transitional government of Somalia, and caused him irreparable political damage for violation of sharia code and contradiction of Koranic tradition.”
“[Expletive] Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, Somalia, sharia code, Islam and religion in general,” Dr. Mariátegui roared. “I’m talking about what she told that [expletive] sexist bastard Kikuyu!”
“You mean,” I inquired, “Godwin Kipkemoi Chepkurgor, the former city councilor of Nakuru, in south Kenya? I think he’s a Masai, actually. Back in 2000, he offered Secretary Clinton forty goats and twenty cows for Chelsea. And when she visited Kenya, I hear he approached her again, although with a somewhat reduced dowry bid of twenty five goats and nine cows. But, in his culture, that’s only to be expected, you know – Chelsea’s nearly thirty now, after all.”
“She should have cut his [expletive] [expletive] off!” Dr. Mariátegui hissed.
“Not that forty goats and twenty cows wasn’t a pretty fair offer for Chelsea back when she was twenty,” I mused.
“You think that’s funny?” Dr. Mariátegui demanded.
“No, no, not at all,” I clarified. “Let’s face the facts – turkey baster conception or not, you have to give Hillary credit for a certain type of integrity, anyway – the sperm donor was obviously William Jefferson Clinton. Chelsea looks just like her father; and that’s not a good thing for a girl…”
“Chelsea Clinton is not a girl!” Dr. Mariátegui fulminated. “And looking like your father doesn’t make a woman ugly, either! I look like my father!”
“Your father was Sonny Liston?”
“Step close enough so I can hit you with a right hook,” she taunted, “and you’re going to find out! Anyway, I read Chelsea’s engaged to an investment banker!”
“Number one,” I parried, “you’re the last person on earth I’d expect to use being engaged to an investment banker as a positive argument, and number two, given what investment bankers have contributed to the world lately, there’s a respectable chance that Chelsea is going to end up wishing she had married Godwin Kipkemoi Chepkurgor instead.”
“Touché,” Dr. Mariátegui sighed. “So, like I said, what the [expletive] is going on with Hillary?”
“It’s simple,” I explained. “Barack Obama outsmarted her.”
“What?” Dr. Mariátegui bristled. “How?”
“As they say in the Mafia,” I elaborated, “a successful boss must ‘keep his friends close, and his enemies even closer.’ That’s what Obama did when he offered Hillary Clinton what is supposed to be the highest Cabinet post in the US government – he completely co-opted her. Right off the bat, what happened? Obama stuck his thumb in Hillary’s eye, appointing his guy, James Steinberg, instead of Hillary’s choice, Richard Holbrooke, to the Deputy Secretary position. Then, it was six months before Obama would allow her on the television news talk shows – not even on Sunday mornings! And ask yourself, who went to Africa first? He did! So what does any kind of African sojourn on Hillary’s behalf appear to be? In a word, anticlimax, that’s what. Then, at the first plausible opportunity, he plays her husband off against her. It was brilliant, really. Obama’s a shrewd fellow, no doubt about it, and he knew for sure that Bill Clinton’s ego is so big and so dangerous, it makes the Hindenburg look like a helium party balloon. First, a trial run, giving a wink and a nod to the UN when they appointed Bill Clinton special envoy to Haiti, and then, after verifying how steamed up that little circus got Hillary, putting Bill on a plane to North Korea, making sure he’s in the headlines for a couple of days – and, hey, it’s a cakewalk – she’s totally humiliated, and Bill is so gratified at a chance to get back at her, he’s got to be pure putty in Obama’s hands the next time he wants to rake Hillary over the coals. And Africa isn’t the only example, either. What about Obama’s trip to Russia? What was Hillary doing while he shmoozed with Putin and Lavrov in a posh dacha? I’ll tell you where – sitting around waiting for José Manuel Zelaya, the ousted president of Honduras, to come walk down the street from the OAS building and cry on her shoulder, boo-hoo, boo-hoo! So Africa merely provides the latest example, you see – Obama visits Cairo and makes an historic speech, and with nobody from the State Department in sight, either. Then Obama rubs Hillary’s nose in it – the White House leaked to the media that the United States will send an ambassador to Syria, and Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, for God’s sake, found out about it the same way a GS-9 who works in the US Embassy in London does – on the telly, luv! Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Hillary Clinton isn’t even the person to see if you want a major ambassadorial post! Obama’s handing them out like party favors from the Oval Office. Bottom line, Doc, Obama may be black, but he’s one hundred percent male, and not about to let some overly ambitious lesbian feminist get the better of him.”
“And what,” Dr. Mariátegui harrumphed, “makes you so [expletive] sure about that?”
“How do you suppose,” I inquired, “Hillary got that cast on her arm?”
“I don’t know,” Dr. Mariátegui shrugged, “the papers said she fell down.”
“No,” I informed her with a knowing wink, “not at all. She fractured her radius on Barack Obama’s sternum while she was attempting to elbow him out of the way.”