by Michael Dare
with apologies to Charles Dickens
Stave 4: The Third of the Three Spirits
There was nothing Clinton would rather do than have an orgasm. Orgasms were a way of life for Clinton, and he spent much of his time either coming down from the previous one or preparing for the next. He would think about the particulars, the new combination of ingredients that would make the next better than the last. It was a fun game where he was always the winner. A constituent’s mouth was better than a sock on the freeway, but not by much. To Clinton, all orgasms were good, no matter where or how achieved.
Sometimes Clinton’s dick would get hard when he didn’t want it to, an embarrassing companion to times when he did want it to but it wouldn’t. Sometimes Clinton’s dick would get hard when somebody else wanted it to, even if he didn’t want it to. That usually got him in trouble. Sometimes Clinton’s dick got hard when he wanted it to, even if somebody else didn’t want it to. That usually got him in trouble too. Sometimes he thought about sex but didn’t do a gosh darn thing about it. That never got him in trouble. Sometimes Clinton’s dick got washed in the shower by no one other than Clinton, and he was not masturbating, even if a picture from a hidden camera in the White House got published on the Internet of Clinton with his hands in that area - the royal staff at half mast, covered in soap, ready for action, bending to the left. Sometimes Clinton’s dick got hard in the middle of the night entirely of its own volition, and Hillary usually found out. Sometimes Clinton’s dick got hard if the wind blew and no one was to blame but the weather. Sometimes Clinton’s dick got hard just thinking about some writer somewhere writing about his dick getting hard.
Clinton couldn’t understand why there was such a deep misconception of his bodily functions. When Clinton needed to empty his bowels, all he had to do was sit down and allow a certain sphincter to relax. When Clinton needed to empty his bladder, all he had to do was stand there and tighten one muscle while relaxing another. But when Clinton needed to empty his gonads, he had to take someone to dinner. If women didn’t have sex while ovulating, the unfertilized egg would drop quietly from the fallopian nest and out the nearest exit. But if men didn’t ejaculate, the semen would stay put, the pressure building until every single cell of sticky DNA started screaming “Let me out of here!”
All men’s brains take them in a million different directions, but all men’s penises think the same. “Stick me in something,” the penis is constantly reminding the brain. “Oh please, won’t you stick me in something?” It’s good that the brain doesn’t work this way or who knows how many more people’s heads would be buried up other’s asses. The one and only body part that men want to stick into other people is their penis, with fists coming a far second. Men who constantly put their fists into other people are labeled violent misfits, while men who constantly put their penises into other people are labeled sexual deviants, forcing men to sublimate the only impulse they get that makes them uniquely male, the part that no woman can ever experience - the constant compulsion to insert yourself into another human being.
Clinton was a devotee of penetration. Though well in his 60s, he still had daily erections that wouldn’t quit. He had long ago forgone the effort of finding a single woman who could keep up with him, preferring a vast cavalcade of fresh young beauties who flew in and out of his life like candy wrappers in a hurricane.
When Clinton met people, he would immediately picture what it would be like to have sex with them. It was automatic. He couldn’t help it. He would picture himself inserted into them. It flew by in a microsecond, the briefest of thoughts, but nevertheless there, every time, no matter who, no matter where. When he went to the corner to buy a soda, he would picture himself slipping it to the woman in line ahead of him. Next question? Yes, Mr. Donaldson? Down on his knees, begging for it, toupee flying. If Clinton drove through a Jack-in-the-Box, he would picture himself slipping it to Jack, right there over the menu. May I have your order, please? There was nothing Clinton could do about it. It was permanently ingrained, part of his DNA, inherited from that guy in the Ford from Stave 2, who got it from Adam. In the club at night, tending bar, the biker in line for a beer, those two blonde babes near the phone, all down on their knees, mouth’s open, ready for anything. No matter where he looked, even the Irani cashier at the 7/11, on the floor, butt in the air. That always settled him down. He wrote these thoughts off as flights of fancy, and fantasy they were, only to be celebrated during those miraculous moments when fantasy and reality collided and he found himself with someone who was actually doing what had previously been just a daydream. It happened a lot, giving Clinton ample excuse for confusing fact with fiction. The same problem this book has.
Clinton tried to separate his emotional and sexual lives from his political life in order to stay sane. It didn’t work. Back in the Hillary days, he used to save certain acts for her alone. Hillary knew this and, indeed, took great advantage of it. In truth, for a while, she was the only one for whom sex was not a quickie. She got his complete attention. No talking to Yasser while fucking Hillary, no siree.
Talking to other heads of state while getting head had always been one of the unspoken perks of the presidency. Would the Bay of Pigs have been such a disaster had not Kennedy made all his important phone calls while Marilyn Monroe was playing lollipop under the desk? Not likely. Like all males, the blood pressure in one brain went down as the blood pressure in the other brain went up, rendering him if not actually stupid, at least, one would have to concede, just a hair less on optimum efficiency than the times during which the brain in his skull was the sole administrator of the human mechanism. That being said, one would also have to allow that both Kennedy and Clinton were smart enough to never allow themselves to get any stupider than necessary to get the job done, depending, of course, upon what you think the word “job” means.
Ken Starr was just doing his “job.” Matt Drudge was just doing his, though more “hand” than “blow.” The fact that one branch of the Government was trying to ban Internet pornography while another was producing and publishing the Starr Report was an irony befitting fiction, so I’ll use it, because fiction this is. Except for this. The Supreme Court of the United States once had to decide whether one state had the right to ban a certain pornographic film, a copy of which was presented to the Supreme Court as evidence at a private screening. All justices attended but one, who declared that it didn’t make any difference whether he thought the film was pornographic or not. It was free speech, period, and shame on those other justices who needed to see for themselves whether the film aroused their prurient interest.
When I saw what the Starr Report was, I had a similar reaction. It was nobody’s business, not mine, not anybody’s. My taste in pornography runs elsewhere. I refused to read it, and shame on all who did. Reading it justified its existence, just as obeying unjust laws justifies their existence, but that’s another matter, perhaps A Halloween Carol.
Having the opportunity to alienate a goodly percentage of the readership with extremist views and haughty taunts is but one of the many pleasures afforded the novelist. Aren’t you glad this isn’t non-fiction? Having admitted my virtual ignorance of the facts behind the story I continue to tell, I continue to tell it.The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came, Clinton bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery. It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.
He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.
“ Am I in the presence of the Ghost of Valentines Day Yet To Come?” asked Clinton.
The Spirit seemed to answer not, yet communicated distinctly. It pointed onward with its hand. “You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,” Clinton pursued. “Is that so, Spirit?”
The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received. Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Clinton feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, observing his condition, and gave him time to recover.
But Clinton was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched his own eyes to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black.
“Ghost of the Future,” he exclaimed, “You’re scaring the piss out of me - much more than those other spirits combined. As least they were avid conversationalists, but this silence stuff is nerve wracking. Don’t you think you could bend the rules a little and talk to me? Huh? Just a little?”
It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them. “You’re the boss,” said Clinton. “Lead on. Let’s get this over with as fast as possible.”
The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Clinton followed in the shadow of its garb, which bore him up and carried him along.
They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its own accord. But there they were, in the heart of it; downtown Los Angeles, outside the courthouse, among the derelicts who hurried up and down, and chinking the money in their pockets, conversing in groups, and looking for handouts, as Clinton had seen them often.
The ghost and Clinton flew inside, past the guard, bypassing the metal detector, up five flights of stairs to the civil section, directly into a courtroom where Monica Lewinsky was delivering her final summation to the jury, the judge, the cameras, and Bill himself in the defendant’s chair. The crowd seemed unconcerned that floating above them, halfway towards the ceiling, was a horrifying apparition of death itself, along with another Clinton.
“Look, we all understand why there are laws against discrimination, but this isn’t a case of discrimination, it’s a case of discretion.” She had them. She knew she had them. She was going to win this one. All she had to do was make sense.
“When Mr. Clinton hires cooks who work back in the kitchen and have no contact with the public, the matter of looks doesn’t enter into it. If he hired only good-looking women as chefs, that would be discrimination because looks have nothing to do with the job. But we’re talking about the waitresses. We’re talking about the people up front, who deal personally with the public. If you ran a business, wouldn’t you want somebody attractive for that position? Would you hire someone with Psoriasis on their arms if their job involved shaking hands with people? Of course not. That’s not discrimination, it’s common sense. If you’re tone deaf, you don’t get a job with the symphony. If you’re ugly, well...how far do the rights of the ugly go? Can Leona Helmsly sue Playboy Magazine for not hiring her as a centerfold simply because the decision was made based upon her lack of attraction? Of course not.
“And is it really so bad that there is a job somewhere where attractiveness is part of the job description? Where it’s necessary to fit some sort of physical criteria? Mr. Clinton runs a social establishment where heterosexual males try to pick up heterosexual females. That’s his clientele, horny guys who like sexy women. You may not like that. You may think it’s a sleazy way to make a living. But it’s not illegal to try to attract a particular type of client, clients who would unquestionably be turned off by the presence of a gay male in their midst. Hooters doesn’t discriminate against gay men. Gay men may enter Hooters any time they want as customers, though the name itself usually keeps them out.
“But hiring them? Does Hooters have to hire people who will drive away customers? There are gay bars with gay waiters and gay clients. There are straight bars with straight waiters and straight clients. What’s so wrong with that? Why would you want to force these people to co-mingle if they’re turned off by each other? It doesn’t make sense. You’re asking for a riot. I say live and let live. I know a tanning salon that only hires people with incredible tans. I also know a bowling alley that won’t hire you as an instructor if you only have one leg. My client isn’t guilty of discrimination. He’s guilty of common sense.”
At this, both Clintons, the one above and below, were overcome with admiration. The woman who had almost destroyed his presidency more than a decade ago had just delivered his perfect defense. But the case was not over. Anna Tourney stood up.
“My colleague would have you believe that it’s not discrimination if you don’t hire someone because of their sexual orientation,” she started. “Let’s just listen to that argument again, only this time let’s change straight to white and gay to black. Mr. Valentine runs a white bar where white people go to pick up white people. Mr. Valentine won’t hire you if you’re black because he doesn’t want to offend his white customers.”
She surveyed the crowd. They thought they had been convinced by Lewinsky’s argument. They were wrong. “Does this sit well with you?” she continued. “Off course not. It’s offensive and clearly illegal. You cannot refuse to hire someone for no other reason than their race. That’s called racism, and it’s against the law. And refusing to hire someone because of their sex is called sexism, and it is also against the law. Please don’t let Ms. Lewinsky pull the wool over your eyes when she says this isn’t discrimination. It is.
“But don’t listen to me, listen to the Supreme Court in Price Waterhouse vs. Hopkins.” She pulled out a piece of paper and read. “An employer who has allowed a discriminatory motive to play a part in an employment decision must prove by clear and convincing evidence that it would have made the same decision in the absence of discrimination.” The perfect place for a dramatic pause. She waited five seconds, then “Have they done that? Have they proven that they would have made this decision in the absence of sex? No, they have not.”
Tiresome but effective. As elated as he had been after Monica addressed the jury, he was depressed now. Clinton realized that he had something to worry about. He might actually be found guilty.
Court was recessed while the jury deliberated. Clinton headed towards the men’s room, as did Clinton, who found an opportunity to escape from the presence of the Ghost of Valentines Future who was momentarily distracted by Herald Rivera.
The court bathroom was not fancy, but miraculously empty since Clinton had slipped down a flight of stairs to a less used facility, puffing a cigarette along the hidden corridors. Clinton stepped up to a urinal as Clinton entered and took the stall next to him.
“Hoo boy.”
“Quite a day, huh?”
“Who said that?”
“I did. Wait a minute. You can hear me?”
“Yeah, I can hear you but…” Clinton looked about but could not see the other Clinton. He thought he was alone, and clearly hallucinating. “Wait a minute. I shouldn’t be saying this out loud.”
“Why not. There’s no one here.”
“Yeah, but if there were, they’d look at me like I’m crazy.”
“There’s no one else here and you’re not crazy. I’m here. I’m talking to you.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m you.”
“I’m talking to myself?”
“Yep.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Monica did an incredible job in court, but I just want you to know that she’s also cheating on you.”
“What, you mean she has another client?”
“No, I mean she’s working both sides. She sort of wins even if you lose. She’s got it all worked out.”
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
“But you’re me.”
“That’s right.”
“So if I confront her with this, who should I say told me?”
“Me.”
“I should say that I told me?”
“Tell her an informed source. Since when do you tell lawyers the truth.”
“I see your point.”
“So do I, I think it’s time to zip.”
At that, someone did come in, telling of the return of the jury.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?”
“We have, your honor. We find for the plaintiff and order Mr. Valentine to pay to the defendant the full amount of damages, plus another $1,000,000 in punitive damages.”
The crowd jumped to its feet in an uproar. One Clinton said “What? Christ, I’m ruined” while the other said “What? Christ, I’m ruined.” One Clinton stayed there in the courtroom surrounded by media while the other flew out the window with the ghastly spirit.
They entered Hooters in ten years. It had fallen into hard times. The girls were older, the music raunchier, and the drinks waterier. The word sleazy came to mind. Clinton was not happy at all.
“I can’t believe this. Who hired those women?”
The spirit silently led Clinton towards a table where he recognized the waitress. “What? It’s the same women? And they still work here?”
“Say, baby, whatayuh doin’ after work?” belched a customer.
To Clinton’s surprise, the waitress replied “Whatayuh got in mind?”
“I don’t believe it,” said Clinton, continuing to talk to the spirit, as though there was a ghost of a chance for conversation. “She’s taking him up on that? What’s happened to this place?”
They wandered towards the bar where two men enjoyed a conversation over drinks.
“Boy, Hooters is sure different.”
“Yeah, it hasn’t been the same since Clinton sold it because of that lawsuit.”
“Bad for Hooters. Here’s to Clinton.”
“I’ll say. What’s he worth now? How many billions.”
“Too many.”
“I’ll say. Too many of MY dollars are in his pocket, I’ll tell you that.”
“Yeah, me too. I’ve got one at home. Cost me a bundle.”
“But worth it, huh? Aren’t they worth it?”
“I’ll say. You can go to a place like this and not worry about having to pick someone up. If it doesn’t work out, you know you’ve always got a little something at home.”
“What the hell are they talking about!” said Clinton to the spirit. “Come on, this doesn’t make sense. You’ve got to talk to me.”
The bartender clicked on the TV, which was showing, at that very moment, a 20/20 about the life of William Jefferson Clinton. They had just gotten to the good part.
“It was in the year 2020 that Clinton truly conquered the sex market,” said Hugh Downs, with appropriate visuals. “After divesting himself of Hooters, he sank every penny he had left into artificial vagina research. In a unique series of tests, 90% of male subjects were unable to distinguish between a Clinton Artificial Vagina and a real one. Once installed into an anatomically correct Hybrid IV crash test dummy covered in Clinton’s patented artificial female cloneskin, he had a product that sold itself. Clinton’s Artificial Women were efficient sperm collectors, so there were enormous initial sales to sperm banks, whose customers were much happier with a Clinton Artificial Woman than with a Penthouse and a cup. After years of hearing from liberated women who resented being treated like objects, men were thrilled to take home an object that demanded to be treated like a woman. It was found that unmarried men who were regular users of Clinton’s Artificial Women were happier, healthier, and freer of prostate problems than single men who didn’t. As sales skyrocketed, rape and venereal disease rates went down, putting potential detractors into a quandary. Though they found the concept detestable, it was hard to publicly condemn something that was clearly doing society a service.”
Clinton and the Spirit, annoyed at the quality of the reception, flew into the television set to become an integral part of the documentary, Clinton flying in and out and experiencing every aspect of his future life. It all flew past.
The marketing department. What should they call it? Among the names considered: The Ejaculator, The Artificial Fuck, The Fuck Machine, The Orgasmatron, My Love Mannequin, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Nookie, The U-Boner, and Gee My Dick Feels So Good. All rejected in favor of exploiting the Clinton name to the max. Clinton’s Artificial Women it was.
The business really took off when Pamela Anderson licensed her body to Clinton. After years of giving TV networks the right to broadcast filmed pictures of her body for men to ogle, it was but a slight leap of logic for her to give Clinton the right to manufacture exact robotic replicas of her body for men to fuck. They sold millions of Artificial Pamelas all over the world, twice as many Madonnas, and an industry was born.
Kevin Sorvo and Brad Pitt were the first Clinton Artificial Men, but the biggest sellers of all time were the Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman variety pack, discounted for the pair, the perfect gift for the couple who have everything but a couple of movie stars to fuck.
Of course not every celebrity was willing to license their likeness as a Clinton Artificial Anything, a point driven home when Bill Gates was caught in a public restroom with a bootleg Ed Asner.
Not that the world’s prostitutes were totally out of business. There were still those who actually preferred to pay for the touch of an actual human being, but most of them were monogamous breeders looking to procreate. Anyone whose sexual preferences diverted from the norm found it much easier to practice their perversion upon an Artificial, where the risk was less personal, and there was no chance of getting turned down.
Clinton’s future was a sexual revelry. He ate, slept, drank sex, sex day in and day out, with partners and without, with Viagra or without, a life devoted to ejaculation that quickly faded from view as he found himself with the spirit outside a Beverly Hills Mall where there was a little knot of businessmen. Observing that the spirit’s hand was pointed to them, Clinton advanced to listen to their talk.
“No,” said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, “ I don’t know much about it, either way. I only know he’s dead.”
“When did he die.” inquired another.
“Last night, I believe.”
“Why, what was the matter with him.” asked a third, taking a vast quantity of cocaine out of a very large snuff-box and shoving it up his nose. “I thought he’d never die.”
“God knows,” said the first, with a yawn. “Probably fucked himself to death.”
“What’s going to happen with his money.” asked a red-faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose.
“I haven’t heard,” said the man with the large chin, yawning again. “His family gone or dispossessed. Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn’t left it to me. That’s all I know.”
This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.
“It’s likely to be a very strange funeral,” said the same speaker. “The social event of the decade. Someone call Ticketron for reservations.”
“I don’t mind going if sex is provided,” observed the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose, surely one of the Single but Ugly. “But I must ejaculate if so.”
Another laugh as the speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups. Clinton knew the men, and looked towards the Spirit for an explanation.
The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons meeting. Clinton listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie here.
He knew these men, also, very well. They were men of politics and business: extremely wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a business point of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view.
“How are you.” said one.
“How are you.” returned the other.
“Well.” said the first. “Old Dickhead has gone and met his maker, huh?”
“So I am told,” returned the second. “Nice weather, isn’t it.”
“Seasonable for this time of year. You’re not a handball player, are you?”
“No. No. Excuse me, I’ve got to get to a meeting.”
Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their parting.
Clinton was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Hillary, his old partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost’s province was the Future. Nor could he think of anyone immediately connected with himself, to whom he could apply them. But never doubting that these visits had some latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to pay close attention to every word he heard, and everything he saw; and especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these riddles easy.
He looked about in that very place for his own image; but another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through. It gave him little surprise, however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out in this.
Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel very cold.
They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, where Clinton had never penetrated before, although he recognized its situation, and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched; the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offenses of smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.
Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a bridge of curious offense, in a shroud of smoggy mist, ill lit and made eerie by the ghastly yellow of the halogens.
Across this cement span there came two automobiles from opposite directions, both black BMWs, both advancing slowly till finally stopping at the middle of the span, but 20 feet from each other. The back right door of each car opened simultaneously revealing a man in each, attired in suit, hat, and sunglasses. Each grabbed a suitcase from the seat next to them, exited the car, slammed the door, and headed towards the midway point between the cars, leaving behind two muscle-bound drivers with their hands now on guns instead of their steering wheels.
They faced each other.
“Got it?” said one.
“Got it!” said the other.
Clinton listened to this dialogue in horror. As they stood there in the scanty light afforded by the ancient streetlights, he viewed them with a detestation and disgust, which could hardly have been greater. Surely what was about to transpire was illegal, but the lack of witnesses made him sure they’d get away with it.
Still five feet away, one of the men opened his suitcase, revealing its contents to the other. It was filled with cash.
“Spirit.” said Clinton, shuddering from head to foot, “what is this?“
The other man, seeing the cash prize awaiting him, opened his own suitcase, revealing a refrigerated carrying case of the sort used by hospitals to transfer organs.
Clinton recoiled in terror as the man opened the carrying case, revealing Clinton’s very own penis, separated from its owner, basking in a bed of ice.
Clinton glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the organ. Clinton looked back to be sure, but there was no doubt it was his. When he looked upon the bed of ice, he thought, if this penis could be raised up now, what would be its foremost thoughts. Lust? Carnal fulfillment? Mouths and cunts to penetrate.
“Spirit.” he said, “why should my manhood be treated thus? This is a terrible place. In leaving it, I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go.”
Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the disconnected boner.
Clinton couldn’t stand it. “Let me see some tenderness connected with my death,” he said. “Don’t leave me with this image.”
The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a massive stone monument to the boner that changed history. As in a dream, Clinton witnessed statues being erected in his organ’s honor, wars being fought, thousands of devout worshipers circling around it like a carnal Ramadan, half-naked jungle girls bowing before it, rubbing themselves up to it, coating it with precious oils, purchasing their own personal replicas for self-fulfillment, the hottest seller of the month, the assembly lines running 24 hours a day, they can’t make enough of them, the artificial Clinton, a perfect replica, guaranteed to please, grinding them out, giving pleasure to thousands of women simultaneously, yee-hah, the all time sex champ of the universe.
“Stop!” Clinton shouted, “Enough is enough. My dick isn’t that important. Nothing is that important.” The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet; and as they went along, Clinton looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. “Isn’t there someone, somewhere, who mourns my passing?” He gazed at the spirit. They entered a funeral home where Clinton could hear someone blubbering their eyes out. Why, it was Crotchet! Good old Crotchet, despite everything, was mourning his death. The Spirit pointed once again, this time to the coffin before Crotchet, which contained a dead Peke-a-poo. Tiny Tim had finally found peace when, unable to run out of the way, a grand piano fell on his head. Crotchet was beside himself, and totally oblivious to the death of his former employer.
With a sweep of his skin-impaired arm, the phantom sped off. Clinton joined the spirit in travel once again, wondering why and where they were off to. They reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering.
A churchyard. A full moon. Was that a hound, baying at the infernal emptiness surrounding the grounds? It was well past visiting hours, dark, musty, foreboding and mysterious, overrun by grass and weeds. A worthy place to spend eternity.
Clinton was not stupid. He knew what was coming. “Spirit? Hello? I know I’m going to die, all right? This is redundant. You’re rubbing my face in it. I don’t need to see my final resting place.”
The Phantom stood among the graves, and pointed down to one. He advanced towards it trembling.
“Didn’t you hear me?” choked out Clinton, a bit of hysteria creeping into his smooth demeanor. “I’m not going to look at this. Besides, this isn’t Arlington. I can’t possibly be buried in this place.”
The ghost pointed downward.
“All right, look,” said Clinton, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only.”
Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.
“I mean I’ve got dozens of possible futures, right? This is only one of them. There are lots of possibilities,” he pleaded. “This is what happens if I do what you showed me, but if I stray from that course, the ends will change. Say it. Come on, please, will you say something? Can this be changed?”
The Spirit was immovable as ever.
“Okay,” he said, trying to be jovial. “You got me. I know this grave is mine. Some day I’m going to die. Don’t make me look at the date. I got your message. Let’s get out of here.”
Seeing he had no choice, Clinton crept towards the freshly dug mound of dirt, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave not his own name, but the name Molly Adams.
“What?!” shrieked Clinton, pulling back in horror. “Molly’s dead? What happened? I don’t get it.”
The spirit shook its head and pointed to the grave right next to Molly’s. Clinton stared.
“No, Spirit. Oh no, no. This is impossible.”
The finger still was there.
Clinton stared back at the Tombstone over the tiny grave, falling to his knees, wiping away the dust and gravel. William Jefferson Clinton V. His son. Molly had never had it “taken care of.” With a shuddering rush of adrenaline, Clinton realized why he never saw her again. She was raising his child in secrecy. “My son. I had a son. And she named him after me. How did she die?”
The spirit remained silent.
“Spirit.” he cried, tightly clutching at its robe, “hear me. I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been for this to happen. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?”
The finger pointed further still, past the tiny grave, to a further grave. For the first time the hand appeared to shake. Clinton looked at the new tombstone. Bob Crotchet. What was going on? With a shudder, the answer rushed to his brain. The $500 a month. The “family” matter. It was Clinton’s family and not his own that Crotchet was supporting with his larceny. Clinton didn’t understand all the connections or how these three died. He only knew one thing. Somehow he was responsible. Tears poured down his face in agony.
“Good Spirit,” he pursued, as he fell down upon the ground before it: “Don’t tell me I killed my own son. Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I may change these shadows you have shown me, by a changed life.”
The kind hand trembled.
“My son is still alive in the present. I can fix things. We are going back to the present, aren’t we? This is just one possible future. Send me back. I promise you, I will make this future impossible. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Just tell me I may change the writing on this stone.”
In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.
Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom’s hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a wisp of smoke from a burned out candle on his bedpost at home.
Stave 5: The End of It
