The Glory Never Begins

Washington, D.C., a chilly and cheerless room, the black ops wing of a black ops agency.

The Governor stands alone in the sterile room. The only furniture is a dime-store horse, the kind you used to put a nickel in for a rocking ride. The Governor is inspecting it thoughtfully when an elderly man wearing a smock enters from one of four doors, followed by a young nurse. Both are thin and wear reading glasses.

“Good day, Governor.”

“Hello ... Doctor, I assume?” A nod. The Governor stands erect before them, as if at a podium. “Tell me why I’m here, please,” he says with authority.

The doctor looks down and smiles. “You are one of your party’s candidates for election to the office of President of the United States. We must examine you.”

“For what?”

“The history gland.”

“This is highly irregular. This was supposed to be a mid-level CIA briefing. I was told nothing about this.”

“Yet here you are. Should you win the primary, you of course know that there will be one person always near you whose orders you can’t countermand.”

“Yes, my personal physician. Are you he?”

“No. I will only examine you.”

“For the history gland. I have no knowledge of such a gland.”

“Yet it exists.”

“And if I don’t have it?”

“You will be forced to withdraw your nomination.”

“By whose authority?”

“Mine,” says the doctor, then, nodding to the nurse, “and hers.”

The Governor is silent. “Very well,” he says. “Let’s do it.”

A tongue depressor is pressed. An ear lamp is lit. A nose lamp probes. The Governor is stripped to his boxers and palpitated almost everywhere.

“Strip, please,” say the doctor.

The Governor, a serious man, pulls down his shorts seriously. The doctor puts on gloves, squats, and continues his examination. “Nurse,” he says.

“I can tell you what that is,” the Governor says to the ceiling. He feels the gloved hands of the nurse, smaller and more delicate.

“Extra testicle,” she says.

“They called me ‘ET’ in flight school,” says the Governor.

“Not there,” says the doctor, perhaps to the nurse. “The horse, please,” he says, and the Governor turns to it obediently. The plastic saddle feels smooth and worn.

The rest of the exam is painful for the Governor. He hears the doctor say, “Your opinion, please.” More pain, sharper. He begins to react in his usual way; now he is embarrassed.

The pain subsides. “Well?” the doctor asks.

“It has an excellent architecture,” says the nurse, “but I’m not sure. The shape is wrong. It may be detached.”

“As I thought. Unconnected to the nerve bundle?”

“Perhaps.”

“You may dress, Governor.”

Quote from Winston Churchill, Life Magazine edition of April 4th, 1955

“Nothing like the Battle of Omdurman will ever be seen again (during it Churchill rode against the Dervishes in the last classic cavalry charge of the British Army). It was the last link in the long chain of those spectacular conflicts whose vivid and majestic splendour has done so much to invest war with glamour ... Cavalry charged at full gallop in close order and infantry or spearsmen stood upright ... to resist them ... War ... has now become cruel and squalid. In fact it has been completely spoilt. It is all the fault of Democracy and Science ... [that] War ceased to be a gentleman’s game.”

I don’t think that the cavalry charge disappeared. It was around in World Wars One and Two, and the Korean War. The only thing missing was the horses. It make no sense to run horses at machine guns – but men, fine.

All the rules of logic dictate that it makes no sense to for men to run straight at machine guns, but we are talking about war. The theatre of unreasonble men. How else to take hold of a strategic position when there’s no other way around it except straight at the barrels of those stuttering death devices? I don’t really know, but in World War I there was no good reason, because nothing was gained from it except early meetings with the Maker for millions upon millions of young men. For years the only territorial gain for either side was a few miles of the front. Back and forth for years, over the shredding and grinding of the bones. Glory.

Previous “gentlemen’s wars,” meaning, I suppose, the innumerable conflicts between France and Britain or between them and their future or past colonies, were conducted, in the absence of horses, by orderly columns of men sent walking or running toward an enemy who awaited them in orderly columns. Those waiting fired at those walking or running when they were in range. Many of those walking or running then fell down. When horses were present, they fell down also. It made sense to all concerned, and everyone had a jolly time of it, the survivors returning home covered in glory or whatever else was required to be esteemed by older people and younger women. Then someone invented the machine gun, and in the absence of tanks, fewer young men came home.

But that was how wars were fought, and that was how a gentleman won his “honor,” which today might be called “glamour.” Modern cinema has attained enough realism to portray this event in its visual fullness; go see “Legends of the Fall” for some First World War action, or maybe Pork Chop Hill for less realistic Korean action. See anything about D Day. There was no way for the men in front of a charge to survive; if a position was overrun, it was usually by soldiers running over the bodies of their comrades at machine guns that were either overheated or out of ammunition. Sometimes a position could be taken out by flanking them if the terrain permitted, but basically soldiers had to exhaust the machine guns with human bodies. If you were in front you were dead, and that was it. If you turned and ran, your commanding officer would be obliged to shoot you if he could – if he himself hadn’t been cut in half. The Japanese were famous for the human wave. One veteran of Iwo Jima told me, “Those Japs would get all worked up on that foo-foo powder, and then here comes the wave.” I don’t know what he meant about “foo-foo powder,” but whatever it was (hashish?), it made them crazy enough to run at machine guns without being prodded by a bayonet in the back. I guess the foo-foo made it look like a good idea, a noble and fine and necessary sacrifice for your country, your culture, your race, your immortal emperor.

I doubt that the male preying mantis knows that he will be devoured by the female right after he mates with her. I know this because I read it in a book, but a mantis can’t read. If he knew, would she still look hot? Would she be so irresistible? Would he still find her mandibles glistening? Maybe.

I heard it said that “the purpose of all great art and achievement is, ultimately, pussy.” Sorry about that word, but I believe it’s the direct quote. And by extension, I’m sure that wisdom applies to acts of courage. I’m sure that having survived a run into machine guns increases one’s chances of getting laid. You don’t do that because you want to die – you do it for reasons either complex or primitive or both, but you know you’ll get some more nooky if you don’t die. Certainly this was the “glamour” that Churchill spoke of.

“We are going to pass you, so to speak,” says the doctor; the Governor hears him remove his gloves. “but with reservations.”

“I assume you found what you were looking for.” He is still afraid and embarrassed to face them. His shoes are difficult to put on without a chair.

“Nurse?” says the doctor. The nurse continues, “You seem to have glands that are overactive enough to produce the testosterone needed to govern, and the fluids to carry it. In fact, if anything you are –”

“But women govern also.”

“Not from an office high enough to be invested with the power to declare war,” says the nurse. “Should one arise, we will examine her as well.”

“Marta and I have a theory that we are eager to ...” the doctor trails off.

These words chill the Governor. He knows now that he will be able to turn around and face them in about ten seconds. He hears the crinkling of gloves being removed.

It is actually four seconds.

“You’re aware, of course,” says the doctor, “that politicians and violent criminals have generally the same testosterone levels. But to offset that, we feel confident that your history gland, although irregular, is also intact, and that is all we are required to state under the law.”

“I don’t know this law,” the Governor says while wondering about several things at once. Where are the gloves? The doctor’s hands are empty.

“Today you will learn several things. However, as to your situation here, we are unsure how your chemistry will direct you. The history gland is understood as to its function, its ability to store in a metabolic state a memory of the different transformations your nervous system undergoes as it receives certain kinds of information in whatever form, but results – consequences – of irregularities in its physical condition have yet to be mapped. We will be watching you closely.”

“And with great interest,” says the nurse slowly. The doctor watches her with, it appears to the Governor, great interest.

“On the strength of what you have done here, Doctor, you have confidence that I have ... passed your inspection. How can that be?”

“We have acquired a great deal of data. Precise measurements were taken, subtle analyses were performed.”

“How is that possible? I see no machinery here!”

The doctor glances at the nurse, who is looking up at the Governor over the rim of her reading glasses. “I am a woman,” she says quietly.

The Governor frowns at her, then at the doctor. “Well, then. I have some questions ...”

“I’m sure you do, Governor, but I’m afraid that others are waiting to speak with you. You may go through the door behind you.”

“Very well. Good day.”

“Good day, Governor,” the doctor and nurse say in unison.

The Governor, satisfied that more information lies at the end of what appears to be a process, looks over his shoulder as he opens the door to the next room; he sees the doctor and nurse exit through a door that they hadn’t used when entering. Beyond them he sees an examination table with stirrups. The nurse walks toward it, her smock sliding from thin shoulders, and the door closes.

He enters a similar room, but this one smells differently, strange. The light is very low and it is cold. Again, a door in each of the four walls, and again only one furnishing, a chair. Or it appears to be a chair. It is bigger than even an enormous person would need. Above each of the chair’s arms is another arm.

A door opens and an elderly man in a dark suit nods to him. “Governor,” he says, while holding the door open. The man looks behind him as if waiting for someone else. The Governor hears a slow, heavy scuffling sound.