The Dream Body of George W. Bush

This was written at the turn of this year and just published by Elizabeth van Fleet in Spot, a magazine she edited at St. Mary's College of Maryland.

I wake up—I wake up inside the dream, you understand—and I’m in my freshman dorm room, in my bed. It’s a narrow bunk bed; I couldn’t sit up without bumping my head. Sometimes when I got into it, it felt like I was climbing into my coffin. Anyway, I wake up—inside the dream—and my roommate, F---, is just standing there in the semi-dark, turned away from me, in his pajamas. My freshman roommate was a very dorky guy, who wore pajamas and picked his nose right in front of me. He turns slightly toward me and I can see he’s got a hunting knife, a big, scary-looking, slasher-movie kind of knife, like you’d gut a deer with.
Then he smiles down at me and he hasn’t got a knife in his hand anymore. He’s a got this unworldly big hardon tenting his jammies, like a fireplug, thicker than a guy’s dick could possibly be. He rubs it just a little, smiling. Then it’s like there’s a close-up of his face, or maybe he’s leaning in over me, and I see he’s got blood in his mouth, like his gums were bad or he bit his tongue or something, but he’s still smiling, and he’s turned into George W. Bush, like he looks in those pictures from his Texas Air National Guard service, grinning like he knows exactly what I’m thinking.

* * * *

My friend M--- and I are on an assembly line, in chef’s hats and smocks, like Lucy and Ethel, and there are candies coming by, we’re trying to roll them in chocolate but of course they’re coming too fast, so instead of freaking out like Lucy and Ethel in the show we just laugh and laugh like we’re stoned, and the guy in charge comes out like he does in the TV show, only it’s George W. Bush, and he looks at us in disgust. Then he reaches over and takes my friend’s chin, but gently, into his hand, and then he suddenly spits, hard, into my friend’s face, like a cobra spitting venom. And my friend’s head explodes. And then he turns to me and says, “Now you clean this mess up,” and leaves, and I start trying to clean up, and then the assembly line starts again and a coffin comes down the line and I have to drape an American flag over it and salute it as—the assembly line is like as long as a football field now—as it disappears out of sight.

* * * *

The night before my wedding two years ago, I had this strange dream: I’m back in the high-school locker room, and I’m stripping off my football uniform. There are a couple of other guys around doing the same. But beyond, I can see a very brightly lit white space, like a typical Chelsea art gallery, with people standing around. I recognize people I’ve seen on TV: Condoleeza Rice, Dick Cheney, Nancy Pelosi, Antonin Scalia. They’re all holding drinks and laughing. And then I see the guys and girls I knew in high school, the football players and cheerleaders, in typical Manhattan cater-waiter outfits, serving them.
For some reason, even though they can see me, I don’t mind at all walking past them completely naked, just carrying a towel, on my way to the shower. When I enter the shower room, the perspective gets all weird, like in Carrie: there’s only one guy there, but it’s like my field of vision has narrowed so he’s all I see, even though he’s all the way across the room from me. His back is turned, but I can see it’s an older guy, and I figure it’s the coach, who it always seemed to me, was in the showers more than he really ought to be. I mean, nobody thought there was anything funny actually going on, that I know of, but we knew that teachers weren’t really supposed to shower with students, and he always did. Anyway, I have this ominous feeling, like something’s going to happen that I’m going to have to deal with, to make a decision about, to act or fail to act.
I wash, he washes. And nothing happens. It’s not like I want something to happen, but I can’t believe I’m just standing here taking a shower with this guy when it feels like something’s supposed to happen. So finally I say, “Hey.” And the guy turns around. And it’s not the coach, it’s George W. Bush. He’s a lot shorter than I thought, really short, like 5’2”, though he’s got a dick on him like 6 inches soft, and his entire body is hairless, almost like a little boy with a huge cock on him. So he just nods at me, like, “How ya doin’?” and continues to wash. And I can’t stand not knowing what’s on his mind now, and I say, “Are you here for the party?” and he just looks at me, like, “Why would someone like me want to go to a party like that?” So I say, “I haven’t seen you here before. Do you teach here or something?” And again, he looks at me like why would I ask such a stupid question, only he seems more sorry for me than superior. Then I ask, “Are you here for the football game?” and he smiles kind of sadly and says to me, “To tell you the truth, I don’t really pay that much attention to sports.”

* * * *

I dream I’m Colin Powell and I’m standing at attention at some kind of ceremony, in my uniform. I’m saluting and there are flags and a lot of Marines in uniform; I think it’s a funeral at a military cemetery, or maybe a memorial service; I can see Washington-type monument buildings around. And there’s this weird little buzzing noise, really bothering me. It’s a voice, saying something; I can’t hear what it’s saying. I look to my right, and there’s no one standing there. Then I look down and it’s George W. Bush, only he’s the size of a kid, like three feet tall, and he’s got a tiny, buzzy little voice and he’s talking the whole time. I try to tell him quietly to simmer down, just hang on, be quiet while whatever it is is going on. But he starts plucking at my trouser leg, and then he’s pulling at it it, and he pulls my pants down and I get tangled on them and fall on the floor and he’s attacking me, digging into me with sharp fingernails, going for my face. And he’s still the size of a little kid and I’m still Colin Powell, by the way.

* * * *

I don’t know about this, this dream really shook me up. All it is, is we’re sitting in a rowboat, me and this old friend of mine, from home. I can feel the water rocking the boat gently, I can hear the insects and the birds and the fish occasionally breaking the water; I can see the sunlight filtered through low-hanging branches. And we’re fishing, you know, with poles, out of the boat. On the bank of the river, in the sunlight, I can see some guys playing touch football. They have their shirts off, and they look like those pictures you see in an Abercrombie & Fitch store, like they’re just pretending to play football, just pretending to have a good time. And somehow, my friend turns into George W. Bush; he’s looking quiet and intense, like he’s thinking all seriously about something, and then I notice that the base of the pole he’s using is rubbing against his crotch, he’s rubbing himself off against it, and suddenly I’m really anxious, I mean I’m pretty terrified, like what’s gonna happen here. And he doesn’t feel like my friend anymore, but different, like a grownup does, when you’re a kid. And Bush grins at me, but that don’t make me feel any better, and he reaches across me, like to get at the tackle box, but his hand grazes across my crotch, and when the side of his hand brushes across it, I feel that my dick is rock-hard, and that’s when I . . . I mean, if you’d a told me I’d wake up from a dream about George W. Bush with a fresh load in my jockeys, I just don’t know what.

* * * *

I go through this doorway in like an ancient pyramid with Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, guiding me, holding a torch. Before me is a mummy in one of those mummy-container things, and it opens slowly, you know, like in a movie, and standing there inside the thing is . . . Laura Bush. Her skin is like painted porcelain, and she seems as much like a statue as a person. She is beautiful but scary for some reason, and I draw back and look to Lara Croft for help. But now it isn’t Lara Croft there any more, it’s George W. Bush, and he’s wearing a long white Arab-type and one of those little white caps, like a fez, I guess. And then he says this weird thing: “Kneel. Kneel before the goddess of necessity.” He isn’t holding the torch any more, but the room is glowing with light and I realize that the light is coming from within him. I do kneel. “What am I supposed to know?” I ask, because I realize that I can learn a really big secret here. And he says, “When you come right down to it, it isn’t what you do that matters. It’s what you say.”

* * * *

I wake up in a cabin in the woods, and I hear noises, like someone rattling around in the kitchen. I walk down a hall, a carpeted hall, way too long and fancy to be in any cabin, and through a doorway I see that I’m looking into the Oval Office—in the White House, you know? The President is standing, turned away from me; it’s like there’s a stove at the window, and he’s cooking eggs and bacon or something, he’s wearing an apron and humming a little tune, like a TV sitcom theme song. He turns towards me—it’s George W. Bush—waves me over, scoops breakfast onto two plates, and sets them down. I come over and look at the plates and there’s a little dead dog on one and a little boy’s head on the other. And he’s smiling, smiling, and now he looks sort of more like Alfred E. Newman from Mad magazine.

* * * *

I get hired by this creepy old guy to be a male prostitute. I mean, I’ve never had a sexual experience with a guy or felt any desire to, but it makes sense in a way, because the whole scene feels like it isn’t about sex in any normal sense at all, but about a task or ordeal, something distasteful to me I have to go through to prove myself. The guy who hires me is like a parody of sophistication in a bad old movie, wearing a smoking jacket, drinking a glass of white wine, and he has this ridiculous snotty British accent. Anyway, I have to strip and get in bed and wait for him, and when he comes in, he’s a little old man now, wrinkled and bald and squinty, and he’s taken his teeth out. I lie back on the bed and he “services” me, and all I can think about is, is my dick big enough, is it hard enough, is he going to like it, and I’m disgusted, yes, but really I mostly feel like it’s a job interview and I’m anxious about how I’m coming across. Then I’m on top of him and he’s got his thin creepy white arms around me and my cock is in, I guess, his hole and I’m pumping, pumping . . . It doesn’t feel tight, it feels loose and slimy, like I’m fucking into mud, like I’m sinking into a morass. It’s scary and depressing. I stop in a kind of shock and the old guy opens his eyes and looks up at me, and now suddenly, he’s George W. Bush. And he looks up at me, like “Why d’you stop?” but smiling that weird smirk of his and he says, “You’re doin’ a heck of a job, man, a heck of a job.”

* * * *

In this dream I’m running through a futuristic city. I run along some rails way up high, like the rails of an elevated tram line. I run through alleys, I run on empty desert roads, I run through crowds of Asian-looking people in some third-world type marketplace. And at some point, I realize that I’m Tom Cruise and I’m running to save the world from something, I have to get somewhere, I have to stop some catastrophe from happening, some supervillains are going to destroy our way of life. I run out on a pier, and this is the part that really looks like a movie, with edits and everything: I run towards a boat, with a huge flat deck, like a battleship, that is pulling away, and I run toward the end of the pier, and I just keep running, I fly through the air—I’m still Tom Cruise—and I land, gently as a feather on the deck. I’m surrounded by thousands of men in uniform, simple uniforms, chambray shirts and blue pants, and they’re looking toward the sky, gesturing and shouting, full of hope and expectation, transported by their excitement, and I see a form floating down through the sky. There’s no plane or anything, he’s just drifting down as if from heaven, but with a parachute, and he lands on an upper deck, men are stripping his parachute away and he stands revealed to the crowd below, holding his arms up like Rocky, and grinning, full of confidence and vigor, and I see that it’s George W. Bush, looking incredibly virile and youthful, like a guy in a ‘50s war movie. There’s a banner behind him but I can’t see what it says, and this is very frustrating for me, because I feel that, if I just knew what the banner said, I’d know how everything is going to turn out.