Tell me about it, Har,” I said.“  You’ll feel much better when you do.”

“Cruel, Waid, cruel.  Where was I…oh; well, late that afternoon I drove into Washington and went to Watergate Plaza.  I’d heard that’s where Bill and Hillary like to jog.”

“You CASED the joint?”

“I guess so…sorta…in my mind.”

“Did you have the gun?”

“It was back in my motel room but the feds said that was good enough.”

“You mean to say their case is based on this particular day one spring when you had suicidal depression and went for a moviola walk in Washington?”

“No Gary,” he said with irritation.“  They said it was a case of intent.  Clinton wasn’t even there.  He was in Europe, but I had the INTENT to do him.”

“Didn’t they see that you were a failure?”

“That didn’t matter.  You’re the one who said the thing about wolves and coyotes.  Remember the wolves and coyotes and eagles?”

“Then you must have decided to go get the gun later after you’d figured out a plan.”

“I’m not sure about that part. Maybe I was thinking about doing Clinton later. Hell, I probably wanted to call Dan Rather…”

“But you were gonna blast the first family…”

“in a fiery hail of bullets…”

“raining death…”

“unloading my gun then pulling my trusty bayonet…”

“YOU HAD A KNIFE?”

“Well, no…but I could leap through the air and grab Bill by the throat…”

“and as he shrieks in terror under your iron grip…”

“drowning in the whitewater of my wrath…”

“you’d throttle his goozle and snap his neck…”

“fulfilling the prophecy, pulling the sword from the stone, marrying the scepter of righteousness with the scabbard of freedom…”

“O-oh saay can you seeee…”

“I tingle all over just thinking about it, Waid.”

We sat in a kind of reverential silence for a minute, then something occurred to me.  “Just one thing, Harry.  Bill Clinton is a lot bigger than you.  No offense but I think he could beat you up.”

Harry was quiet for a minute.  Then he must have decided to make a confession.“  Did you ever see the picture on the old Three Musketeers bars, Gar?  The one from when we were kids.”

“What?”

“The picture on the front, one of those guys looks like me. The little guy in the red suit looks like me.”

“So what?”

“He’s a MUSKETEER, Waid!  He’s little and dumpy and dressed funny, but he’s a GODDAMN MUSKETEER!”

“Hmmm…”  I decided to plunge ahead.“  So at this juncture you were out somewhere in la-la-land, stalking through Watergate Plaza like Bilbo Baggins, no longer an unemployed history teacher…”

“I was a man of action!”

“Harry, you’re a gray-haired, pot-gutted, big-nosed academic.”

“Here, let’s not get personal.  Bill Clinton has a big nose.”

“Did you want to be Rambo?”

“I saw myself as the Sir Galahad type.  I was always partial to literary heroes.  Jean Valjean maybe, or Tarzan of the Apes.  I had pain too…like Hamlet.”

“Like Hamlet.”

“Yeah, Waid.  Like Hamlet.”

When they came and arrested him, Harry was devastated. All those friendly guys who interviewed him were not his friends at all but AGENT PROVOCATEURS in slimy service to the government and for six months he sat in the county jail stewing about the tricks and lies. When he received his day in court, before the sentence was pronounced, Harry finally found an audience unencumbered with duplicitous motive and he spoke for over an hour (the press were there) on things like moral decay and the sickness of our legal system. He knew exactly what the judge was going to give him but he lectured her unmercifully anyway, at one point admonishing her to stop turning away and picking at her fingernails, and to look at him while he talked as he was obliged to do when things were reversed. ("She really got mad at that one, Waid.")

"So in the end she gave you six years." I said.

"yeah. It's all she could do. The guidelines are specific.

"What do they expect you to do when you get out?"

"Oh, they'll watch me."

"Maybe they could've done that without jail. It would have been cheaper."

"I have to be punished for thinking bad thoughts about the federal government. I used to think this country was in danger of losing its perspectives on freedom. Boy was I stupid." He paused for a minute, reflecting on his past. "And when I was in the military, I spent most of the time in intelligence. Can you believe that?"

"You should've known better then."

"Twelve years in the Air Force."

"A military spy."

"Now, though, I know better...and America is safe again."