Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Rumsfeld was in Taos, New Mexico three days later, and was resting in another of his favorite old chairs, examining yet again the Columbian Orator, which alone of his books at Mount Misery he had decided to take with him west for the festivities so gaily planned by his wife, Joyce. Douglass had not returned the next night following his spectacular appearance, the last night Rumsfeld was in Maryland before he decided to escape that turmoil and head to New Mexico for some family time and a warmer Christmas. As a result of this, Rumsfeld had never had a chance to ask the spirit where those two books had come from, who had been responsible for leaving them on his desk at the Old Executive Office Building and atop his kitchen table in Maryland. Still reeling from the experience and trying to decide whether or not Mr. Douglass had, in actuality, issued forth from his conscience unhinged by a bout with too much Scotch, Rumsfeld ground his teeth thinking how he would probably never know where this beautiful old book had come from. Don hated loose ends; when he left something, he wanted it to be finished, one way or the other, a definitive result. This book was like holding all of Iraq within his hands; it was the ambiguity of the situations which made him dwell upon them, it was this ambiguity which had made him miserable. Here was misery, at last defined: not knowing whether all you have done has been worth a damn or even if it has failed. Not knowing and not being able to know made him Old Man Misery, in ill-repose to a History that would only be written long after he was dead. There was something grossly unfair in not even being able to know how despised your name would be to posterity.

Rumsfeld had a new pair of shoes on, lighter and made of canvas for the warmth of the Southwest, and new glass frames, too. He wore an open-necked cotton shirt that had just been pressed; a far window was open and the cloth ruffled about his chest from a slight, pleasantly cool breeze somewhere gathered upon the hundreds of miles of desert that was his neighborhood and home. There were no ghosts in New Mexico, the land may have been enchanted but was far too young to have known the kind of horror that shaped this nation when it was very, very new, and still confused as to what rights were worthy of what men. But hadn’t there once been Indians here in this desert, hadn’t they, too, faced the conqueror’s justice from another group of men whom had arrived with a Bible, a flag and an interest in trade? Where had they all gone? Rumsfeld allowed the thought only the briefest grace; then, it too was banished, one more uncomfortable thing that had nothing to do with him, a man who had been born hundreds of years after the slaughter which took the ground underneath his feet from its former masters. All of this was just History, and – Rumsfeld thought – What can be said of History? By the time it is written, we’ll all be dead.

There were more prosaic concerns which could occupy his mind now. For one, the smell of all the cooking going on in that kitchen was worth forgetting everything else, if only for the day. Joyce was going all out, and it pleased Don to know the woman still cared enough, after all that had just occurred, to try and make him happy with a family Christmas and vast plates of freshly-baked cookies and pies. It reminded him of some of the only truly free time he’d known while serving this latest disaster of a Bush.

Friday nights were the one time he and Dick allowed themselves to relax, and have a huge old dinner the likes of which they’d both grown up with. Dick would invite them over to the official residence, a grand old house in a terrific part of Northeast D.C. by the National Observatory, and his limo would pass the horde of protestors who had permanently besieged the mansion outside the gate, and Don would smile knowing that they couldn’t see who it was that was going right past them and not even bothering to honk. The assembled discontents of civilization were magically blind to the ultimate prey passing their sentinels; here was their much-loathed “war criminal”, parting their barricades with the assurance of a sleepwalker.

Inside the Cheney household, a different world appeared at the front door and became more pronounced as Don moved through the mansion to the vice-president’s sitting rooms. Lynne insisted upon cooking herself, almost as if the Cheneys were normal people, and it would be vast platters of pot roast, meatloaf, Salisbury steak, acres of corn and whole fields of mashed potatoes – things Dick shouldn’t even have been looking at after five heart attacks. Yet eat he did, ravenously, and with great satisfaction; very few words were exchanged when the men sat down for the serious business of chow, but what a perfect time it was regardless. Everyone’s cholesterol was under control, Dick’s heart was solid as a mule’s, Don still looked like a varsity wrestler from Princeton – those meals were the few peaceful moments for men serving a president who knew, and embraced, only war.

At some point, the protestors had taken to reciting lists of the soldiers and Marines killed in Iraq, and during the balmy Fall weather when the District was almost livable, the monotonous sound of the names of dead young men carried in through the open windows, spoiling the atmosphere of these homey, family get-togethers. One night, the endless list of slaughtered youth too much to endure, Dick had slammed his fork down in disgust, and went over to the French doors and threw them shut. “Goddamn them, what do they think – I wanted all of these boys to be coming home in bags?” It was the one time politics had been allowed to ruin the Friday night dinners. Rumsfeld felt great empathy for his old friend; that blood was on his hands, too. But, he allowed – What are you going to do? War is hell and young men die; that’s life. That’s life – and Dick sat back down and finished his slab of roasted chicken. Later, there was pie and coffee. Don learned that you couldn’t let the business of State ruin your disposition; and it was knowledge he appreciated right now, knowing how hard his still-lovely wife had worked to make this family Christmas a special time for him.

He put the book down and went to the kitchen, where Joyce was having coffee with one of their grandchildren. The young woman would live to see what was said of her grandfather, but he would not. The old man resolved to spend time with the girl, be kind to her and pleasant, so that she would remember something other than what his enemies would write of him. Don knew he had to let them know something other than what would come to be known as the truth, because that truth was going to be very, very hard on him.

He had planned for a notable, if unspectacular, retirement; planned for what remained of he and Joyce’s lives, their children, and the children after that. He’d felt he would have needed a few breaks, but that if a couple things tilted his way he might yet be able to salvage his reputation, earned with such tremendous effort through forty-odd years of American history, moving through all of these events and somehow preserving his dignity and his balls. He felt that he had secured that peaceable retirement just a few years before, that he could segue to uselessness removed and above all of those who never like him anyway, but whom he had, finally, outlasted.

But on the spot men become men again and mountains mountains.

Don Rumsfeld would spend the remainder of his days erasing History before it was even written, invalidating facts with a penitent’s guilt, letting people know there had been a real man behind the catastrophic legend being burnished by the enemies who loathed the very mention of his name. He would start by going into the other room, becoming a smiling grandfather as he passed, pouring a cup of coffee, sitting down and reading the paper, and behaving like a normal, tired, yet still-vital old man.

Here was Old Man Misery, and he had many things to say about the History he swore would never be written. That task accomplished, and only then, could he die in peace. Rumsfeld smiled as he entered the kitchen and caught the eye of his granddaughter, knowing that his work would keep him alive, and for many, many years to come.