Me: Mr. President! Good to see you! You must be pleased about the election.
N: [surly] Don't make me laugh. [He doesn't look a bit like laughing.]
Me: So... You won't be going to the Inauguration?
N: [laughs sourly] I'm the last guy these bozos wanna see. Even though wasn't for me, they wouldn't be there.
Me: Ain't that the truth. But still... your guy won. You've gotta be pleased, right? A complete idiot and he won amazingly -- a thirty-year record for turnout, and still the Republican took it. Unheard of. Since, like...
N: [smiling tightly] '72.
Me: Indeed. But I guess that was a little special, wasn't it?
N: [truculent] Sure as hell was. I could have beat anybody they put in there, but they nominated that sap McGovern so they could have an excuse to purge their own left wing. [Self-pitying] Nixon, doing the Establishment's dirty work for them. As usual.
Me: But... this election. You're not pleased? Really?
N: Don't you get it? This is the beginning of the end. End of the Nixon era.
Me: I would have said it's the consummation of the Nixon era.
N: [grouchy] Same thing. You never heard of the dialectic? Karl Marx, he's next door to me. Gotta tell ya, the guy is smart. We talk a lot. He's Jewish, of course, but not like that conceited prick Kissinger. Ol' Karl, he's a regular guy.
Me: I'm a great admirer of Dr. Marx. Do you ever see Hegel?
N: All the time. Guy never shuts up, but he only speaks German. Gives me the creeps. But Marx, now -- shit, he's practically an American.
Me: He was really interested in our Civil War, as I recall.
N: [looks at me incredulously] Who isn't?
Me: Fair enough. But this end of an era thing -- you seem very upset. Tell me about it. [This would be a dangerous gambit if Nixon had ever been in analysis; but of course he wasn't.]
N: Oh, I'll tell you about it. I'll sure as hell tell you about it. [Pause] Do you think this is what I had in mind? All these religious nuts, and a guy from Texas -- Texas, for Chrissake, Lyndon Johnson was from Texas -- with that stupid phony hick accent they've given him? [Recovers himself a bit] In case you hadn't noticed, I am MISTER California. I am a very modern guy. I'm the archetypal modern guy, in fact. --Take that look off your face.
Me: Sorry.
N: [continues] This horseshit is anything but California. And so, of course, it's doomed. They've hijacked my ship and steered it on the rocks.
Me: Uh, sir, it doesn't look much like the rocks. They seem to have destroyed the Democratic Party completely.
N: [Uncannily sounding like a Valley Girl] Ifff only. The Democrats are destroyed, all right, but we didn't do it. They've destroyed themselves, and so, of course, we're next -- you can see that, can't you? Ever hear of a little word called... symbiosis?
Me: [chancing it] Tell me more.
N: [looking disgusted] Don't be cute. You know exactly what I mean.
Me: But I'd like to hear it from you. I mean, I can theorize, but Christ, you were there.
N: And you weren't? I just about drafted your ass back in '70.
Me: [flattered] You noticed!
N: [deflatingly] Not at the time. Supernatural being now, though.
Me: Well then. Gimme the supernatural perspective. -- Uhh, question, though -- do you ever run into FDR up there?
N: [squirms] No.
Me: How come?
N: Let's not talk about that fucking stuck-up snob, OK?
Me: [feeling bold, for some reason] But we can't really talk about it without talking about him, can we?
N: [grudging] Well, that's where it starts, of course, but...
Me: Well, it really starts in '29, doesn't it -- the depression, and...
N: [explodes] No, asshole, it starts with the Civil War. Or maybe the fucking Trojan War. Do you think I've got all night?
Me: [truculent] You've got eternity.
N: [this amuses him, for some reason] Har. Well, you have a point there. Okay. Let's start with Mister Cape, Mister Cigarette Holder, Mister Best Friend of Winston Drunk On His Ass Churchill. What a twink. But he was a genius, you gotta give him that. He had the nig-- uh, the African-Americans eating out of his hand, even though he never did a goddam thing for 'em. Got 'em away from us, and into the Democratic Party, everywhere they could vote, that is --
Me: Everywhere but the South.
N: Yep. Funny to think we used to be their party, huh?
Me: Hilarious.
N: Well, the way I see it, ol' Franklin had two reasons for cozying up to our darker brothers. Number one --
Me: Eleanor!
N: Naah, naah, you don't get it. She was a real idealist, all right -- hell, she was practically a fucking Commie -- but Franklin never did anything on principle in his life.
Me: Uh... OK. Reason number one --
N: Bigger majorities, more congressional seats up North. See, that was all gain. He took 'em from us and didn't lose anybody up there. Didn't lose anybody down South, either, 'cause he left the South alone.
Me: OK. Reason number two...?
N: Reason number two, and this wasn't so obvious, was he wanted to put those old Foghorn Leghorns in Congress -- you know, all those Southern blowhards, like that senile windbag Sam Ervin... [his face gets red and he bites his lip and stops talking]
Me: [obliging] That old phony!
N: [back in stride] You said it. Well, guys like him controlled the party in those days, and FDR, he wanted to put 'em in a box, ease 'em out of the driver's seat. 'Cause he actually did have some stuff he wanted to do, y'know? And they weren't going for it. They wanted to keep the South the way it was. So he sweet-talked 'em, and persuaded 'em he was containing their problem with the [excruciatingly bad Southern accent] Nigras, and all the time he was sawing off their perch.
Me: [thoughtful] I see.
N: Typical FDR. He's dancing on the tight wire, and picks your pocket while you're watching.
Me: And then...?
N: [checks a nonexistent watch on his wrist. He doesn't seem to notice that it's not there] Well, to make a long story short, the blacks weren't satisfied with sweet talk. Maybe you remember how feisty they got, long about sixty-four, sixty-five.
Me: Yep.
N: And the guys who came after Roosevelt weren't in his league. Well, Johnson, he was pretty fucking good, matter of fact, but he had the war on his hands too. So anyway, old FDR handed 'em this time bomb, and that's when it went off. [Smiles that insincere, upper-teeth-only grin of his] When we were in opposition and glamor-puss Jack had gotten the Dems in the White House. So they ended up holding the bag. And in '68 I painted 'em with tar a foot thick. [laughs, this time genuinely] Tar babies. I turned 'em into the Tar Babies. So they lost the white South. And they didn't have the nerve after that to really go after the Black Belt -- that coulda cut the fucking South in half, just like Sherman did. But they didn't have anything to sell 'em. Damn fool McGovern going for all the hippies and sex fiends, and meanwhile the party is busy selling out the unions -- that was their other big bloc -- and the cities were getting drained by the suburbs, another FDR legacy, roads and subsidized mortgages and shit, so the old city machines were dead -- oh, we had everything going for us. [a happy reminiscent smile] Good times, good times.
Me: And the best was yet to come.
N: [frowns] Well, yes and no.
Me: Uh, I didn't mean --
N: I know what you meant. You meant those fools at the DLC.
Me: You read my mind.
N: I can do that now, y'know. [pause] Matter of fact, I was always pretty good at it.
Me: [uncomfortable] Anyway, the DLC --
N: Yeah. The great triangulators. Every time we moved right, they were so close behind us they should have given us an engagement ring. So it was perfect. We'd beat 'em up and get into office, and they'd apologize for not being us, and then we'd do it again. They were like the straight man. They were Martin and we were Lewis.
Me: Well, it still seems to be working.
N: Yeah. A little bit too well, though.
Me: Meaning...?
N: [annoyed] Well, now they've really collapsed, though, don't you see? They're dead. They can't even pretend to be a political party any more. Sixty percent turnout, and they still lose the White House and all those statehouses and House seats and Senate seats -- they got slaughtered. No way can we keep getting people worried about a corpse. And all those nig-- uh, blacks, and the poor schmucks, or schmuckettes really, that work in the Wal-Marts and Burger Kings -- all the people that they always kept in line -- they're gonna find somebody else.
Me: Who, for heaven's sake?
N: How should I know? I'm not prescient, y'know. [casts a nervous glance over his shoulder] You-Know-Who keeps that for himself.
Me: You think it'll be Nader?
N: [snorts] Not likely. But stranger things have happened.
Me: Well, whoever it is, they're no threat to you guys.
N: Not directly, no. But you realize that we're a pretty improbable coalition just like they are. Without the Dems to line up against, we'll start coming apart at the seams too. That's where the symbiosis comes in, see? The Dems were never really an opposition, y'know, but as long as they sorta looked like one, we could keep our crazies in line. That's what we each did for the other -- we kept their people in line, and they kept our people in line. It was like magic, really. But if they get to where they can't hold up their end -- and it looks like they have -- well --! I mean, people are fucking complicated, you know? It's not impossible for somebody to take votes from both of us.
Me: It's not a one-dimensional space. I mean, people talk about left and right, but --
N: [approving] Now you're thinking. There's also up and down, and in and out, and forward and back, clockwise and counterclockwise --
Me: East, west, and winding. As my grandmother used to say.
N: A fine woman. Sends her regards. She voted for me, you know.
Me: You met her? [Nixon is starting to become transparent] Wait!
N: No can do, pal. See you. We'll talk about the other dimensions one of these days. [He fades out, leaving only his upper-tooth grin lingering, Cheshire-cat-like, in the darkness]