1

 He floated up through the dark to a vast gray inner-space.

Where am I? I’m on my back. The surface under me feels hard.
In bed? If so, where?

On one side of him he could hear machine sounds:

Am I in a hospital?

He dismissed that thought and its corollary, that if he were in a hospital, something bad must have happened to him, and thought it prudent not to attempt to open his eyes to find out just yet, preferring to see himself in his mind’s eye as a song-and-dance man. This was the way he had experienced significant occasions ever since his fifth birthday, when his father had taken him to his first vaudeville show.

The songs he performed in his mind on such occasions - as a boy, at confrontations with his father or the school principal; when he was grown, at Board Meetings, the White House Oval Office, Congressional Hearings, and Disarmament Conferences - were sometimes ironic, sometimes straight, new-minted or parodies of well known pieces. They played parallel with the actual event, and most of his life’s memories were a compound of the two versions. Now, from somewhere below his mind’s line of sight, flashing on and off like letters on an electronic billboard, he saw words from a family precept: ‘Smile’ and ‘Adversity’. The complete saying might have been, “Smile as you face adversity,”
but his alter-ego - a never-aging soft shoe man in striped blazer, white flannels, straw hat and cane - took off on just those two words, to a bouncy 1920s style tune:

“Ev’rybod-y loves a Lov-er and they love a Smile-er, too!
So whenever skies are gray-hay here’s the thinggg to dooo

If you’ve lost an ear - you’ve got one left, you hear
So Smile, Smile, Smile!
If you’ve lost a leg don’t stand around and beg
Just Smile, Smile, Smile!
The world is not a gloomy place, it only looks that way
Things are better when you smile, that’s what wise men say
So if you’re out of luck, say I don’t give a fuck
And Smile, Smile, Smile!”

Ghostly applause echoed about his ears and revived the uneasy sense that something bad had happened to him:

What, though - some kind of accident? Too many martinis before lunch? Did I have lunch? Criminy! This kind of scatter-shot mind-wandering isn’t going to help my situation...Point taken...So just what the hell is my situation?...I flew to D.C...Why?...Oh, yeah - as a favor to our lily-livered senator, Bill Reardon, I was to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee - yeah...Did I get to it? The Hearing?...Yeah...yeah, I remember that, too...Mick Finnegan was with me as usual...and Reardon’s family Doolahan was there!...Yeah...and when I first saw him I was afraid he was our Doolahan and had come for me - like it was The End of The Road for me...and...and...I remember thinking, “Thank god, I’ve taken care of Kathy. Mick’ll follow my instructions and see that she’s safe from sharks like Likely George Blodgett”...

Goddam corporate raider, that Blodgett...Has a hair up his ass about me, tried three times to take over Missouri Crown...I beat his ass every time, but he’s the type that never gives up. Anything happens to me, he’ll be at it again.”

So where was I?...oh, yeah, Reardon’s Doolahan. I mean, this guy was BIG...He was sitting up there on the dais with Sam Nunn and Strom Thurmond...And just like Grandpa said Doolahans were when they come for you, he was headless - but he wasn’t holding his head under his arm the way Grandpa said Doolahans did. No! HIS goddam Head was on the Committee desk in front of him, like the Head is some kind of deputy, and it’s speaking up like it was a regular Senator...Another thing! He wasn’t wearing the black cloak Grandpa said Doolahans always wore...he had on a navy-blue chalk-striped suit like all those pols! Told me the black cloak was only for when there was a death in the family...And...and right after that...what happened?...what?...

Oh, yeah...Some smart-ass doctor!...Yes!...Fussing over me, claiming that I’d had a - had a str - a stro -

Nah, nah! Must’ve dreamed the doctor, nothing wrong with me, I feel fine...fine...

His denial of the doctor and his condition caused a sea-change in his surroundings: the Void around him darkened; menacing fingers of fog reached toward him, closing in on him, shutting out the light. And he heard heavy footsteps approaching - footsteps which he knew were pursuing him -

Okay, o-KAY, the fucking doctor was real! I accept that - okay?

His concession had an immediate effect on the fog fingers and they began to retreat, restoring a dim gray light.

That’s better. So let’s try what else I can remember...For openers, who am I?

A cold thrill of fear went down his spine.

What’s my name? WHY CAN’T I REMEMBER MY GODDAM NAME!

Easy, easy, heart’s going too fast - remember what Dr. Joe said: “You have the quickest adrenaline reaction I’ve ever seen. Got to control it or one day it’ll burn you up.” So back off, take a deep breath...another...another...there, that’s better...heart beat’s slowing...

Maybe the reason I can’t remember is because...why?...because I haven’t really taken a day off in I don’t know how long?...Yes! That’s it!...And the pressure!...But I can’t let up, not if I want to continue to be ‘necessary’. Pop wasn’t, even Grandpa at the end wasn’t, but I’m at The Top...Prez, CEO, Chairman of the Board...have to plan for everybody at Missouri Crown...like God...Wonder how He stands it...if there is a god.

And there is! I settled that argument with myself a long time ago.

But He’s not the personal buttinsky that Father Jack Fucking Cardinal Gribbon says - with all that primitive crap about souls and hell and purgatory and limbo. Nah, umpty-billion years ago He just put the whole thing in motion and He’s left us alone ever since. But just the same it must be awful, sitting up there - watching us fuck things up any way we can - knowing He’s responsible for starting the whole goddam mess in the first place. Probably why we’ve never found life anywhere else in the universe - He isn’t taking a chance on any more fuckups. Anyway! Let’s get back to maybe why I can’t remember my goddam name. Some CEOs I know have to take ten or twenty pills a day to get by on their little patch, or go to a shrink, but not me, I tough it out. Held together when we lost Conn in Nam. Even after Kathy and I lost Little Boy - that was rough, both of us were in a real funk. Kath wanted us to talk to Father Jack - but shit, I couldn’t spill my guts to a guy I beat his ass off all the way through high school and college. No, that soul-saving sonofabitch may be a Cardinal and her confessor, but he’s not mine. So Dr. Joe suggested that Kath and I have a talk with this head-doc he’d gone to school with, but I wasn’t having somebody digging around in my gray matter. Kath did try him, but he didn’t help - some joker named Merkle -

The surging roar of an airplane’s jet engines enveloped him and lifted him into an impenetrable blackness.