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BUSINESS SECRETS FROM THE STARS by David Dvorkin       To Democracy You were the best       Nine     Preoccupied as he was with himself, Malcolm rarely paid attention to politics. This was an unfortunate habit, albeit only one of many that characterized the confidant of the star-dwelling Merskeenians. Malcolm might have argued that the events he invented for those imagined beings in their ancient time and faraway place had a great impact on his bank account and were therefore more important than real events. Real events, though, sadly ignored by Malcolm until they impinged on his life with seeming suddenness, had a very great impact on the world. Daddy Longlegs had succeeded to his father's estate, had made much money in the oil business, and had entered politics. In time, as we know, he would become Vice President of the United States, and later, on a doleful day, President. Alas, he and Grammy had never been able to have human children bearing their own DNA. In a way, that didn't matter, for they had come to think of the three little brothers as their very own human children. This had happened at an early point, perhaps on that August day when they had taken the three simians to church in their three little suits and Reverend Gregory declared them cute little monkeys. Earlier, Grammy had said she would raise them as though they were her own children, but the truth was that, until Gregory conferred his blessing upon them, she had begun to be increasingly bothered by their hairiness, their waddling walk, and their habit of climbing the drapes and, from a height where she couldn't reach them, urinating and defecating on her new carpets. She had sometimes been on the verge of condemning them as dirty, filthy, hairy apes and requesting that Daddy have them put down or at the very least put out - sent away to some traveling circus, perhaps. But Gregory had changed all that. So she schooled her heart and her mind and learned to keep newspapers spread over the carpets and in time she did indeed come to love the three brothers as though they had been her own and as though they had been human. After all, she couldn't deny that they certainly were cute little monkeys. Perhaps Daddy neglected the boys a bit. He was a very busy man. He flung himself into his official duties when he served as Vice President under the Great Confibulator. Not that Daddy cared for all of those duties. Some of them he considered beneath him. For example, he had to chair the meetings of the group working on the Teeny Tiny Robot Soldiers Undertaking. Also the group working on the Fiendishly Fine Wire Initiative. And those weird biologists from the Suddenly Severe Tummy Virus Breeding Program. Not to mention the Wishful Thinking Anti-Missile Shield, and the Booby Trapped Eggs team, and those El Movimiento para Envenenar la Barba de Fidel Castro people. He hated all of them. Beneath him. Wacky. Silly. Small. He wanted to concentrate on the big, important stuff. Like the National Cathedral. Ah, the National Cathedral! That was something worth spending his time on. Daddy had been charged by President Gone Away with finally completing the construction of the National Cathedral in Washington. This stunningly un-Constitutional undertaking had started many decades earlier and had moved along in fits and starts under a succession of Presidents, all of whom had ignored the whirling sounds emanating from the graves of the Founding Fathers. There had been occasional opposition from the living, too, but the opposition had been waning for years, and finally Daddy sensed that victory was at hand. Even so, a small gang of fiendish Democrats who wanted to put a stop to the construction refused to budge. Daddy made a list of their names and where they lived and he bided his time. Shortly after Daddy was sworn in as President, a couple of those awful Democrats wandered away into the Virginia wilderness one day and were eaten by orangutans. The surviving opponents quickly changed their minds, and the necessary funds for the completion of the Cathedral were appropriated. The remaining work was rushed through. A grand opening ceremony was held. Daddy was finally able to relax and enjoy himself a bit with his mistress. Daddy's determination to have the Cathedral finished didn't stem from his religious devotion, which wasn't particularly strong. He was able to get Reverend Gregory installed as the Cathedral's Director, and although the building was supposed to be a home for people of all faiths, in practice the services held there were predominantly those of the Church of the Moneyed Classes and were presided over by Reverend Gregory. And fine services they were. Fine sermons, too. Daddy didn't attend very often, but when he did, he was able to stay awake at least halfway through. Usually. Gregory liked to start his sermons off with a bang. Often, he'd step up to the lectern, stand silently for a while looking at the great crowd filling the immense space, and then suddenly he'd yell, "USA! USA! Number One! Number One! Jesus wants you to remember that." That part would keep Daddy awake and smiling. After that, Gregory would tend to get theological, and that's when Daddy's eyelids would start getting heavy. Gregory didn't care. He was in his element. Let Daddy sleep. Gregory preached on. "On this beautiful day, in this magnificent house of God, in this fine city, in this great country, the greatest country ever in the history of the world, let us give thanks that we are Americans and not pansy-ass Europeans or something even worse. How God has blessed us! I think he deserves a healthy round of applause. Don't you?" Applause. "We have wealth. We have power. We have riches and abundance and glory and might and missiles and bombs and really great television shows. Most important of all, the people here in this really admirable building have lots and lots of money. Money, my dear friends, is a sign of God's blessing. Those who possess money are being rewarded for doing God's will. Those who don't have money - well, obviously God has turned his face from them. Money is the visible form in this world of God's blessing, and it will be transformed for the wealthy into God's eternal spiritual blessing once you pass from this world into the next. "Therefore, God wants you to accumulate as much of his blessing here on Earth as you possibly can, so that you will be able to exchange it for a vast amount of his spiritual blessing once you are gathered to his bosom. As Jesus told us, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a poor man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." His audience nodded in happy agreement. Unlike Daddy, most of them didn't find the theological sections of Reverend Gregory's sermon to be tedious or difficult to understand at all. That was part of the man's genius, they agreed - his ability to make even the most complex and subtle theological concepts simple and easy enough for anyone to understand. Sometimes - rarely - Reverend Gregory would feel in a prophetic mood and would talk about trials and tribulations, the Antichrist and the Second Coming, the End Times and the Millennium. His audience didn't care as much for these sermons as they did for the ones about the blessedness of the rich and their forthcoming rewards in Heaven, but Gregory had a soft spot for what he thought of as his Hell on Earth sermons. He could raise his voice a lot more and shake his finger sternly at the congregation and talk about blood and death and vast destruction and mighty armies clashing in the Middle East. It was a lot more fun. He hated to reach the end of such a sermon - namely, all the namby-pamby stuff about the syrupy-sweet peaceful and loving eternal kingdom of Jesus being established on Earth - but it was necessary to end with that, something upbeat, another promise to his audience of eternal good times which, he would assure them, they had earned. There was good stuff along the way, though, before he got to the syrupy part. "Every knee shall bow! And America will be seated at the right hand of God, designated to rule the Earth in his name, to be his enforcers. That's what we were chosen for. City on the Hill? No! Army of God in a fortress on the hilltop! We earned it by throwing off the yoke of British monarchy and fighting for our independence. Our forefathers were strong and brave and macho and hairy chested!" He waved his soft fist in the air, and his heavy jowls wobbled. "They weren't going to take orders from some effete old king over in England! No, they wanted to rule themselves! Free, independent, democratic, strong men. And in the day that is coming, we will be rewarded by being foremost of those who bow their heads and accept Jesus as their lord and master. When that glorious day comes, don't you dare look the Lord in the eye! You will meet your Maker on your knees, like a true free, proud American Christian. Tremble in fear and be humble and contrite before Jesus your lord, because you are Americans! The best, the greatest, the most stupendously wonderful nation there ever was or ever will be." Zowie! So let Daddy sleep. Reverend Gregory had a fine, powerful voice, and he seemed able to keep other people awake and listening to what he said. That was what counted - both to Gregory and to Daddy. Daddy was already planning ahead to his reelection campaign. When that time came, at least once a week Gregory would use the National Cathedral's pulpit to deliver a sermon supporting Daddy. That was the whole point. Occasionally, Grammy complained about Daddy's neglect of the boys. She didn't understand just how far ahead Daddy was planning and how much of his attention that absorbed. He felt his own future was assured, so now he was putting his efforts into building careers for the boys. He envisioned a life in politics for all of them, after an appropriate amount of time spent in the oil business. That's how the Longlegs men did it. After some oil time, the boys would go into politics locally, although not at too low a level. Governorships, maybe. Then - and he smiled whenever he envisioned this - one after the other, they would become President. Daddy decided to introduce the boys to the American public during a ceremony where everyone would be feeling happy, full of good cheer, and not thinking too deeply about politics. The event he had chosen was the lighting of the national Christmas tree, the first time he would be overseeing this grand national ceremony. Christmas! An enormous Christmas tree! His boys beginning their journey to world domination! No wonder he was feeling cheerful as he crunched across the thin layer of snow covering the lawn in front of the White House. The sky was clear, the sun was bright, albeit low in the sky and weak, and the air was crisp and clean and cold. Ahead, the tree and the hand-picked crowd and the hand-picked reporters waited. Grammy and the boys were right behind him. It was a good day to be alive. Until the reporter waylaid him halfway across the lawn. At first Daddy suspected nothing. He thought the reporter and the cameraman hovering behind him were two of the hand picked, so he smiled graciously at them. "Mr. President," the reporter said, thrusting his microphone forward, "how do you feel on this lovely afternoon?" "Grand day," Daddy said. "Good day to be alive. Good folks. Good country. Fine tree. Looking forward to it." "As you know, sir, questions have been raised about the constitutionality of this ceremony." "What? Who?" "Various people, sir. They wonder if it's appropriate for the President, in his official capacity, to be participating in a ritual associated with one particular religious sect." "Christianity!" Daddy said, scandalized. "Not a sect! Christianity!" "Yes, sir. The Christian sect. The national Christmas tree, the National Cathedral - what about citizens who aren't Christians? For that matter, what about Americans who are atheists?" "Atheists! Not Americans. You can't call them Americans. Shouldn't be allowed to vote. One nation under God. Says so in the Constitution." "No, it doesn't." "Declaration of Independence." "No, sir. Not in there, either." The reporter would have said more, but Daddy had finally gestured to his Secret Service agents, who descended upon the two men in a swarm, rushed them into waiting cars, and drove them away to a forest in Pennsylvania, where both men committed suicide with well-placed shots to the back of the head. "Atheists," Daddy muttered. "Rubbish. Not real citizens. Christian nation. Bastard. Hurt my feelings." He shrugged. "But I'm okay. I'm a Longlegs. Don't cry for me, Argentina. Boys, you got that? Understand my point?" The three J kids weren't paying attention, though. Their eyes were fixed in wonder on the towering California redwood, one of the last of the remaining giants, that had been cut down and then transported in many stages by helicopter to the White House lawn, where it had been bolted back together and propped up to serve as the national Christmas Tree. They were too stunned and delighted to make any sounds at all. It towered above all the other trees and even above the White House itself. In the bright lights, its trunk glowed a dark red. The deep, twisting vertical grooves in its bark were pools of shadow, hints of mystery. Dying, it sang (to those who listened) of a faraway misty forest, damp, chilly air, dim light, the sound of dripping water, the smell of moist earth, the deep, spongy forest floor, layer upon layer of life, plant life, animal life, insect life - above all, life. Jibber thought it would be a really neat thing to climb. "This way, boys!" Daddy said. He strode toward the podium on the lawn where he would make his perfunctory remarks before throwing the cross-shaped switch that would light up the great tree and remove another brick or two from poor old Thos. Jefferson's wall. Not noticing that his three boys weren't behind him, Daddy ascended the podium and grinned happily at the reporters and television cameras. He was at the top of the world! This was where he belonged! There was a pause while a group of aging men with expanding middles, wearing rough approximations to Revolutionary War army uniforms, trudged into view. It was the Capital Chapter of the National Musket Association. Grim-faced, determined, patriotic, the group marched in ragged order to the base of the immense tree. There they halted, executed an almost acceptable about face, and stopped, facing Daddy, their muskets resting against their right shoulders at varying angles approximating the vertical. The chapter president waddled forward and positioned himself in front of them. "Musketeers!" he cried. "Present arms!" Daddy watched the confusing, disorganized display with a smile frozen on his face. Why where these ancient fools doing this? Why weren't they in some rest home, watching the tree-lighting ceremony on television? Why did he have to endure this? He was the President of the United States! The leader of the free world! The most important man in existence! He didn't have to eat broccoli, and he shouldn't have to be subjected to this. For a while, the Musketeers bumped into each other, dropped their weapons, spilled powder and musket balls onto the White House lawn, and in various ways provided great entertainment for their fellow citizens. Malcolm, who had nothing better to do, was watching all of this on television, and for a few minutes, the Musketeers made him feel less sorry for himself. For that he felt grateful to the Musketeers, whom he normally considered a great scab on the body politic and a suppurating lesion in the national psyche. The Musketeers finally got themselves sufficiently organized and ready to fire a musket volley in honor of Daddy, the White House, the nation, the Revolution, Christmas, Jesus, Santa Claus, gunpowder, and their dwindling testosterone. They stood stiffly, holding their muskets pointing at a forty-five degree angle, and pulled their triggers almost simultaneously. The muskets belched flame and smoke and dirt and the occasional ramrod. Daddy and everyone else ducked. Musket balls pinged against the White House walls and bounced away and rolled across the lawns. Remarkably, casualties were identical to those suffered by the British forces at the hands of the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington Green, when the Shot Heard Round the World began the American Revolution. Which is to say, there were no casualties. Emulating the Minutemen they idolized, but fortunately in much more organized and less panicky fashion and far more slowly than the Minutemen retreating from Lexington on that glorious occasion, the Musketeers marched away out of view of the television cameras and their puzzled fellow citizens. Malcolm put his umpteenth beer aside and stood up and saluted the television screen. When the muskets roared and the smoke billowed across the lawn, the three simian brothers had scuttled for cover. Jibber had led the pack. He had been feeling jumpy all day. That morning, Tess had waggled her star-spangled behind at him again. She was determined to do her androidal duty as it had been programmed into her. Jibber had been keeping watch for her out of the corner of his eye ever since then. Any sudden movement, especially if it involved a star, alarmed him. Now, as the sound died away and the smoke broke and dissipated in the light breeze, the three brothers appeared again. They looked around cautiously at first. When it became clear that there was no danger, they grew bolder. Evading the Secret Service men by scampering between their legs, the three began to circulate in the crowd, charming one and all. Jibber gibbered adorably, Jebber made eyes at the pretty women and happily let them pet him, and Jabber picked pockets quickly and efficiently. The Secret Service men were closing in - warily, for the little boys had big simian teeth and had used them on members of the SS before. Resignedly, Jebber and Jabber let themselves be corralled. But Jibber's attention had returned to the un-Constitutional enormity of the national Christmas tree. Waddling rapidly away from his would-be captors, whom the crowd delightedly and deliberately interfered with, Jibber made his way to the base of the dying redwood and stood leaning against its trunk, staring up at the branches draped with lights stretching away up into the twilight sky. A Secret Service man broke from the crowd. His clothes were torn, his hair was rumpled, his face was scratched. "I've got you now, you little shit!" he shrieked, instantly destroying his career, and flung himself through the air at Jibber. Jibber squeaked and leaped at the tree. There were no branches this low down, but the bark, rough even in its natural state and severely gouged by the equipment that had been used to extract it from among its dwindling band of brothers and then transport it across the continent, provided adequate handholds for the little creature's small, strong fingers. Up he scrambled, looking more like a large spider or perhaps a robot than the son of the actual, for sure, goddamitall President of the United States. He stopped halfway up, panting from a combination of exertion - he hadn't done this kind of climbing for a long time, after all - lingering fear of Secret Service men and muskets, and exhilaration. Mostly from exhilaration. As he recovered his breath, he began to smell insects. These were different from any insects he had smelled before. They were aliens, natives of a very different place, doomed creatures snatched from one of the world's most beautiful places and brought to one of its most treacherous. Being insects, they didn't see things in those terms. Being Jibber, Jibber didn't either. He poked a finger cautiously into one of the bark's deep cracks, speared something interesting with his fingernail, and pulled it out to examine it. He looked at the thing, wriggling helplessly against the monkey spike sticking through its body. He sniffed it and the juices oozing from its grotesque wound and spreading over his fingernail. He put his finger in his mouth, sucked the little critter off, and tumbled it around with his tongue. He maneuvered it over to the right side of his jaw and then squeezed it slowly between his molars. The crackling and popping feeling and the brief desperate scrabbling of its tiny feet against his tongue were a new delight. This insect was deliciously different from any insects he remembered from Africa or had eaten in Texas or Washington! This tree was certainly a fine thing, but the insect was even better. Wherever the tree had come from - and of course understanding geography was far beyond Jibber's mental capacity - he wanted to go there. How he would feast! He became aware again of the crowd below him. He looked out over them. They were staring up at him in amazement. Instinct told him to forget about the insects for now and concentrate on going up, to the heights where lions and leopards and humans wouldn't be able to follow him. He gibbered at the upturned faces for a few seconds and then turned his own gaze upward again and resumed climbing. Watching from across the lawn, Daddy was torn between feelings of paternal delight and vicarious pleasure at the exploits of his little boy, and fury at the little bastard. Thank God we were able to keep him from being sent to Viet Nam, he thought. What would have happened once he'd seen those damned jungles over there? We'd probably never have seen him again. Or maybe he'd have shown up some day in black pajamas. You never know with these boys. Meanwhile, Jibber, climbing ever more rapidly as he fell back into the swing of his original lifestyle, had reached the very tippity top of the tree! Except that it wasn't the real, original top, for that had been sliced off and the trunk had then been shaped and prepped and a large star inserted into it. This decoration would become the star of the evening when Daddy threw a switch. It would become a light unto the nations. It would be as if God had reached down one mighty, lengthy finger from Heaven to demonstrate to the world that America was his favorite nation, the divinely chosen Number One. Daddy wanted to delay the lighting ceremony until Jibber could be brought safely down. However, various political aides muttered worriedly to him about the evening television news schedules and the suddenly bored and increasingly restive crowd. Damn bullies, Daddy thought. People been bullying me all my life. Never get to do just what I want to do. He pulled the switch. Nothing happened. Unfortunately, while climbing, Jibber had once or twice pulled himself up by the electrical wire that circled the mighty tree trunk and was meant to carry electrical current to the star. With the last such yank, as he was pulling himself onto the tree's flattened top, he had managed to pull the wire loose from the star. "Now what?" Daddy asked the Universe. Quick checks were made and it was determined that there was no problem with the power supply or the electric wire leading to the tree. Clearly, the problem must be somewhere above the ground, somewhere up there. "Up there," Daddy said, pointing. "Someone's going to have to go up there and find the problem and fix it." Looking up, he could see the fake star silhouetted against the real ones. And then he saw something else that made his heart skip a beat. Another silhouette suddenly appeared next to the star, the unmistakable shape of his darling little boy, the hellspawn idiot. "Good God," Daddy said. He pointed again. "Damned good thing there isn't any current. Someone's got to go up there and get him down." He looked around at the sturdy yeomen of the Secret Service, all of whom looked at the ground or gazed into the general distance. "Hmph," Daddy said dismissively. "Need a helicopter. Do it myself. Used to be a flyboy in the old days, you know." Shamed by the courage or at least bravado of the creaking antique, a couple of SS boys reluctantly offered to do the flying and rescuing themselves. Fortunately, helicopters are abundant in and around the White House, for the nation never knows when it will be necessary to whisk the president to some trouble spot to perform a deed of diplomatic derring-do, or when it will be necessary to snatch him away from danger. Within minutes, the two Secret Service men were lifting off - wop, wop, wop - and heading toward the top of the tree. They circled around the top. They turned the craft's spotlight on and focused it on the small flat space where Jibber stood gripping the star in sudden terror. He stared openmouthed at the monstrous insect that was about to pounce on him. The two men in the helicopter wondered what their next step should be. "I say we just shoot the little fucker off there," one of them said. "Easy target." He held up his hands as though he were aiming a rifle. "Pow, pow, pow! Blast him to smithereens." "Tempting," the other man agreed. "But incriminating. We'd be the obvious suspects. Maybe I could swing in low and blow him off with the downdraft. Look like an accident. We were doing our best. Following procedure. Couldn't be helped. You know the drill." "Good idea! Let's give it a try." The moved down toward the frozen first son. The manmade wind blasted at Jibber, pushing him away from the star, toward the edge. But his fingers squeezed even more tightly. Suddenly, part of him did unfreeze. Two parts, actually. Fore and aft. Terror emptied his bowels and his bladder simultaneously. Such was the force of his evacuation that his trousers burst apart and liquids and solids covered his legs and the ground in an instant. They also covered the base of the star, at precisely the point where the wire had been pulled away. The fluids completed the broken circuit. The national star burst into life. Jibber howled and flung himself backward, flying off the small platform and landing on one of the higher branches, to which he clung with arms and legs and hands and feet and teeth. At the base of the star, the fluids and solids Jibber had left behind sizzled and sparked and danced in the powerful current, shooting off the tree like the dastardly rockets of the dastardly British in 1814. The humans watching below were entranced. "Ooh!" They pointed at the brilliant sparks. "Aah!" One of these little Jibber-produced Congreves flew into the helicopter and hit the pilot in the eyes. "Shit!" the Secret Service man shrieked accurately. He clawed at his face and the helicopter spun around and went up and down and flipped over and plummeted to the ground, fortunately avoiding the crowd. The two Secret Service men were later buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full honors. Jibber eventually made his way down the tree under his own power. The full story of the incident was detailed to the nation by various television news services later that evening and repeatedly for the next few days. The story they told was not entirely accurate in every detail, however. According to the media, the national Christmas tree had been sabotaged by Iraqi agents. These infiltrators shot down the helicopter dispatched to stop them and undo their evil. The day was saved by Jibber Longlegs, who single-handedly undid the sabotage, enabling the star to shine properly, after which he subdued the Iraqis and ate them, which was why there were no bodies to display. "Plus," the newsreaders all added, "on top of all of that, he sure is a cute little monkey." Watching one of those broadcasts, Malcolm found himself wishing that he were a cute little monkey. Or at least that someone would find him cute in any sense. He could hear Grandpa Tibbs sneering and snarling that he was worthless and would never amount to anything. Thank God Marlene had never met Grandpa Tibbs. Malcolm shuddered at the thought of two such evil forces cooperating, creating between them something so terrible, so destructive to what there was of Malcolm's ego, that the fabric of reality might have been rent by it. He could not imagine a greater evil than those two acting together. Nothing so terrible had ever been seen in the world or ever would be. * * * * * In the meantime, two old guys were wandering around Portland, Maine religiously offing men named Malcolm. P. P. Something beginning with P. * * * * * The Longlegs presidency drifted along. A reporter got wind of the existence of Daddy's mistress and tried to dig up all the juicy details. The reporter was abducted by aliens. The mistress was sold to Longlegs family business partners in the Middle East. The three brothers never stopped looking like miniature apes, but as the years passed they became increasingly human in the ways that counted. Jabber never lost the gift of the gab. He went into business, specializing in crooked deals, underhanded negotiations, and skimming millions from the government. In this, he was of course no different from countless businessmen with parents who were outwardly human. And that was fine with him. Unlike his two simian siblings, he had no wish to stand out. All he wanted to do was get disgustingly rich, and if he managed to destroy some companies and lives along the way, that was just icing on the cake. Jibber and Jebber both went into politics, gladdening Daddy's heart. Carefully guided every day by legions of Daddy's family retainers, the two monkeyboys did well. In time, both were elected governors of large states. Jebber had never lost the habit of covering up his face and then spreading his fingers and peeking out. The voters in his state were enchanted by the gesture. It reassured them that he could quite literally see no evil. That seemed a good reason to vote for him. Jibber had kept up his habit of gibbering meaninglessly. The voters in his state were convinced that it must all mean something, and so they voted for him. Besides, he was such a cute little monkey. This was all occasionally disheartening to the more intelligent and worthy human beings both brothers had defeated, but they kept reminding themselves that "democracy" derives ultimately from an ancient word which means "rule by fools." Occasionally, the three brothers still gathered at the family estate to pick lice out of each other's hair. Photographers were not allowed on the property at such times.

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