The Spiritual Assassination of George H.W. Bush
Part One: The Murder
Former President George W. Bush had an idea where this was going. “This is going nowhere,” he firmly stated.
His wife, Laura Bush, dismissed his misgivings. “George, now you know that this has to be done. Otherwise, how on earth are you going to be recognized when you give your dissertation tomorrow?”
George H.W. Bush was to give a doctoral dissertation on the effects of embryonic stem-cell research, in which he would explain how these little stem cells of little babies will eventually cause all-out nuclear war and the resurrection of Saddam Hussein, the most treacherous, most ill willed, most evil, most goodamned ugly son of a bitch ever to tyrannize a democracy.
This mayhem would, with a very high level of certainty, break out because these little stem cells of the little babies contain little souls, and these souls would eventually find their way into the minds of the bodies in which the stem cells are used, and these bodies would be controlled by a coin flip—their body’s spiritual possession going back and forth between the body’s original soul and that of the aforesaid little baby.
The science is fairly simple, but the consequences are incomprehensible. Any demonically inclined man of terror could get his hands on the stem cells of a ruthless oppressor of the past (as small a task as finding a strand of hair from an old coat), and stemcellize any man in a position of power, and therefore in a position of destruction.
Needless to say, with billions of souls being thrown into billions of bodies already occupied by souls, disagreements would occur not only between world leaders, but within their own heads. There would be a major global war, with microcosm upon microcosm of scattered battles around the world followed by Earth-shattering nuclear attacks from every country whose leader has been infected, which would wipe the human race from existence.
The injection of stem cells, particularly those of Saddam Hussein, had haunted George throughout his presidency, and now he sought to prevent the event from occurring through his well-researched dissertation, which, if approved, would allow him a PhD in Genetic Engineering’s Spiritual Side Effects, an area of study created, and subsequently officially founded, in 1967 by Lyndon B. Johnson, who thought that the tainted Communist souls of the dead North Vietnamese would have to be dealt with when they, certain hell-dwellers in the afterlife, try to overthrow the angels of heaven via guerilla warfare—a tactic that has won wars for underdogs since Brutus jumped onto Caesar from behind to slide his cold, betraying dagger into the dictator’s cold, betraying heart.
Johnson sought to stop this heavenly revolution by funding research to find a special bullet to kill a body and soul simultaneously (instead of the mere physical murder that the bullets of the present accomplish). Unfortunately, after his election, President Nixon cut the operation short, redirecting its financing to begin his own “secret project.” That special bullet was never invented, but God knows Lyndon B.’s followers never stopped trying.
Anyway, the thing that George W. declared to be “going nowhere” was his hair. He had let it grow for five months now, and he wanted to keep it that way. Laura knew better.
“George, now you know you’re just being foolish. Just let the nice man cut your hair,” she said.
The nice man smiled, and held a pair of scissors in front of him in his right hand with his arm extended, as if presenting a lovely gift. Due to the presence of governmental bodyguards, this gesture unfortunately lead to the unfortunate drawing of seven nine millimeter pistols and one four inch butterfly knife, followed by the discharge of seven nine millimeter bullets and the overhand tomahawk-style release of one four inch butterfly knife. Needless to say, the unsuspecting barber was fairly alarmed when he heard the seven bangs and the one “schwing!” Unfortunately, the barber had no time to react and was hit by all that was thrown at him. He collapsed to the ground, apparently—no, most likely—dead. One of the gunslingers felt the pulse of the barber for exactly fifteen seconds. He was, apparently, dead.
“George, now you know this is all your fault,” Laura said as she helped the bodyguards move the corpse outside the barber shop, while George sat with his arms across his chest and a stern disposition across his face in a seat which, unfortunately, had already been pumped up to match this particular barber’s height.
“It’s not my fault,” George spat back, as Laura was fumbling with the barber’s remarkably small head while shoving him into the trunk of a black, window-tinted “SSSUV” (presidential shorthand for “Secret Service SUV”).
“George, we have to go. The boys are saying we made a mistake…and now we have to go bury the body.”
George kept still, arms still crossed. “I won’t go.”
“So first you don’t want to come and now you won’t leave?”
Laura threw her hands up in exasperation, hands that unfortunately came across the path of a swinging ceiling fan.
George smiled. “I wanna go eat now.”
George’s recently acquired eating habits had become a slight cause for concern. It wasn’t the fact that George, in an attempt to connect with his innate being, had made it a rule to only eat what he kills; although this did lead to George, having wiped out most of the deer and rabbits on the Ranch, choosing instead to execute his dog, Jesus (the one pronounced “hayzoos”—named by George in an attempt to immerse himself in the culture of his Spanish-speaking Spanish teacher). And yes, hunting his food was a costly habit: George’s life insurance was raised in price, and that one time he shred up the left side of the SSSUV with his twelve gauge. But these things were just George being George. No, the real problem, the more problematic one, was that whenever he ate, the food remnants that did not make it into his mouth became entangled in his thick, greasy beard, made worse by his refusal to shower, or even wipe the filth off with his hands. It was an unsanitary and inappropriate habit to be getting into.
“What do you want to eat, George?” Laura was growing impatient.
George looked around for some live game to hunt. He pointed at the SSSUV’s trunk that was holding the bloodied corpse. No shotgun necessary.
Laura was disgusted. “You want to eat him?! The barber?!”
George made the sign of the cross. Laura gasped in terror. You see, George says a prayer of grace before every meal, and once he says it he has to, by the binding law of God, eat whatever he was thankful for eating.
Laura rushed to the chair, but it was too late, George had finished his prayer of thanks, and stood up and made his way to the trunk of the car. “To the Ranch!” he yelled, his gray hair flopping about on the windy day.
Part Two: The Assassination
When Laura thought about it, I mean, really thought about it, she smiled. After all, this barber needed to be disposed of, and George was merely a willing disposer by way of ingestion.
Back at the ranch, Willy, George’s last remaining dog, ran to meet his owners. He had just been hanging around a certain Oak tree, reflecting on the fun times he and Jesus would have when they would chase one another around its base, each trying to catch the other’s tails. After Willy had barked more than one squirrel up the tree’s fairly arduously branched journey to the top, he smelled the familiar scent of SSSUV exhaust, which could only mean that his beloved Master was home.
The meal made from the barber was magnificent, and George was very thankful after he had consumed all one hundred and seventy three pounds of this thirty-five-year-old man within a record twenty-nine hours.
When George was done with his meal, Laura (who used George’s “grub time” to read as many Clancy’s, Gresham’s, and Chicken Soup for the Soul’s as she could) was in the middle of a heart wrenching, true recollection of a seven-year-old orphan, who, with very clear diction, wrote of how he became an orphan and why he could never feel true happiness again. Laura loved to sympathize.
George usually let out a large belch to mark his meal’s conclusion, and when it came around this time, Laura rushed to the dining hall to find George slumped in his eating chair, apparently unconscious.
“George!” Laura was frantic, and she slapped him and beat him until he gasped, finally awoken by the hand of a particularly effective right jab.
“How long was I out?” George asked.
“I’m not sure,” Laura replied, breathing heavily, trying to calm her excited nerves. “I heard your belch, and I came here as soon as I could.”
George’s beard was soaked with blood and sprinkled with specks of flesh and toenails. He appeared confused. “Belch? I’m not sure what you are speaking of, for I don’t belch. I hold the belch in. I find it rude to belch. I’m not a belcher.”
Laura was suspicious of George’s unkind words towards belching. “What is wrong with you, George?”
“I do not know this George you speak of. I am Julian, barber and chef, though never both at once.”
Laura froze. It was happening. The soul of the barber had found its way into George’s body by its original body’s consumption. This was a breakthrough in Metaphysics, Calculus, Biology, Psychology and Physics. It at least warranted George a PhD.
“Julian,” Laura spoke slowly, “Now you shouldn’t panic, but you’re dead… We killed you about a day and a half ago.”
Julian, that is George’s body possessed by Julian’s soul, did not believe Laura’s ominous words until he saw for himself his reflection in the mirror. He began to cry, and would not stop. When Barbara slapped him, he only sobbed some more. He sporadically sputtered out nonsensical nonsense, “Blood…hair…dry…gray!”
Laura knew there had to be a way out of this mess. “For every problem there is a solution, and the solution is right in front of you”—a piece of advice very aptly presented at the end of a particularly uplifting story from “Chicken Soup for the Menopausal Soul,” in which a childless spinster went through menopause yet still wanted children; so she received reconstructive surgery to become a man, married a lovely young woman, and with her had eight joyful and remarkable children. Her story was placed in a section of the book entitled, “When Things Hurt.”
The solution is always right in front of you, Laura repeated over and over again.
Laura received a sudden burst of purebred determination and then it hit her: chicken soup. These books are always saying how beneficial chicken soup can be for the soul. Well maybe, just maybe, some soup will cure her husband of this terrible affliction.
She ran into the kitchen and quickly baked some canned soup. Thirty minutes later she realized that canned soup could not be baked and took the can out of the oven, opened it, and threw the soup in a pot.
She entered the dining room with the soup, finding George (still possessed by Julian’s soul) with his hair cut short in a medium length, post-modern, slightly conservative “business” comb over, and his beard cleanly shaven off, with his sideburns lengthened “retro-style”. Laura then knew that George’s soul was nowhere near overthrowing Julian’s tyranny. This bowl of chicken soup was his only chance of survival.
Laura appeared calm and collected, but she was in truth terrified of what this barber’s soul might do to her via George’s body if George never came back. Laura then took a moment to seriously consider how things would be if George never returned. After all, she thought, how bad can a barber be to live with? All they do is sit around, snip some locks, buzz some sideburns, shave a few necks, and sweep up the fallen hair into a barrel. Sometimes they even come to work a little late, that is, on the particularly slow days, perhaps a Tuesday.
“No,” Laura affirmed. “My husband is a strong and punctual man.”
Part Three: The Execution
Laura approached the barber. “Julian?” she sputtered.
George’s freshly groomed body looked up from his chair and smiled. “I decided to perform the trim myself!” he triumphantly burst out, with a laugh and a fist pump.
“That’s…very nice, Julian.”
“You know, Laura, I’ve been thinking. I wouldn’t mind being in this man’s body for the rest of his life. After all, my other body is dead, and I don’t know what my other options are.”
“Well, now we’ll have to see what George says.”
“But George isn’t coming back,” Julian insisted. The true reason for which Julian was so eager to stay was as malicious as it was selfish, and as selfish as it was adulterous. Julian had fallen in love with Laura the moment she walked through the barbershop door, and at this moment he wanted nothing more than to make her his wife.
Laura put the bowl of soup on top of the bloody plate from the previous dining session. “Now eat up Julian, this will help you clear your head.”
Julian looked at the soup, then at Laura, then at the spoon, and then used the spoon to eat the soup while looking at Laura.
When he finished, his eyes grew wide, face glowed red, tightly fisted hands beat the table. He threw porcelain dishes and silverware in every direction, at one point wounding Laura with ricochet fragments of a wine glass, as the blast of the shatter managed to measure an extraordinarily large circumference. Finally, he collapsed on the ground.
Laura hurried over. “George?”
He struggled to open his tear-soaked eyes.
“George?”
With his eyes now opened fully, George’s body gazed at Laura. George’s body smiled. “It’s me honey, what a ride, let me tell you.”
Laura was so relieved that she fell to the floor, crying hysterically. She was so relieved that she continued sobbing for a full minute. After that minute, though, she pulled herself together. She stood up, and hugged her husband.
“What was it like, George?”
“It was spectacular.”
“Oh George, you gave me the biggest fright.”
“Sorry, honey.”
Laura tenderly touched her husband’s shaven face, and asked if he would like to join her in the bedroom for some personal Bush time.
“I would love that honey, you go ahead and I’ll be right there.”
When Laura left the room, George situated himself in front of a mirror. He picked a steak knife off the ground and cut off a small patch of hair near the right temple.
“There, perfect.” Then he winked at himself, to which he received no wink in return. “C’mon, George, give me a wink.”
The mirror’s reflection held a contemptuous expression, had its arms folded, and shook its head.
“You know you’ll never win against me. I, Julian the barber-cook, am now sole proprietor of the body of George W Bush, husband of Laura Bush, and future father of a few post-menopausal children.”
George presented Julian with the middle finger of his right reflection hand, stomped his reflection feet, and yelled the ABC’s in reflection frustration (a proven anger management technique—it soothes the conscience like a warm breeze on a Puerto Rican beach).
George’s soul did not calm down, though, and was unfathomably upset, saying terrible things like, “I ate you once, and I’ll eat you again you no good backstabbing barber!” and, “I knew the first time I saw you that you were up to no good! I’ll eat you again…you’ll see!”
At one point he rolled his reflection eyes and yelled, “What’d you do to my hair? Did a blind horse cut it for you?!” Like I said, terrible, awful things.
Julian smiled smugly, unscathed by the vicious words. He briefly laughed in a menacing diabolical fashion, hopped up the stairs, skipped to the master bedroom, and jumped onto a bed where Laura was glossing through a “Reader’s Digest,” laughing at all the funny jokes and frowning at the duds.
