Sunshine on an Open Tomb. Tim Kinsella

       Dedicated to Virginia, Mark Lombardi, Richard Brautigan, and DMC

      Our heart survives between

      hammers, just as the tongue between

      the teeth is still able to praise.

      Rilke, “The Ninth Duino Elegy”

      Oh, I gotta get rid of my goddam Halliburton stock.

      L-BJ, overheard at 1:00 pm, 11/22/63

       A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

      Trusted Reader,

      It seems meaningful to me given the current and ever- accelerating circumstances of Life on Earth that I make something clear: I wrote the first draft of this book immediately after the 2012 U.S. presidential election, hoping for it to be out in time for the 2016 election season. Hahaha!

      When I missed that goal—the book at that time was more than 2.5 times its current length—I wasn’t sure exactly how it would resonate in the shifting cultural context.

      Turns out, still don’t know.

      But here it is.

      Best Wishes—

       CHAPTER 1 I Did Not Want This Mission

      Games! Games! Games! Games! Games! Games! Games! Games! Games!

      Who even knows who taught you what, you know?

      Arriving back at my condo, knuckle sprainy from that meek Barbarian’s nose, I unwrapped a second Polish but never lifted it from its paper.

      I pondered my reflection on the surface of ze Tube, other and vertiginous.

      The distraction of other people does indeed prevent me from collapsing inwards.

      So I grabbed a tape from my stack and clicked it on.

      But it really is impossible to block out that the ball will roll between Buckner’s legs, so I flipped to Le 24-Hour-News Channel.

      The Personality lamented a salty-eyed orphan’s looming blindness.

      Footage showed the child burying a feather at the beach.

      I considered masturbating, masturbating and fantasizing that I was masturbating in a hotel room.

      But I hated doing it in front of Aaron, standing there silent as furniture, when I wasn’t sure I’d be an alligator.

      A bomb at the Iranian embassy in Beirut.

      A car bomb kills seven and injures 11 near the Lebanon border.

      A man strapped with explosives blows himself up in a Gotham subway station.

      The room reeked of fabric softener and vinegar from a week-old side salad left untouched.

      The paper on the coffee table had become translucent with Polish grease, and the girl dozed off sitting up on the far end of the couch.

      On a hastily built tarmac stage, Junior waved that weird wave he’d developed ever since his stigmata.

      They’d cut his hair, shaved his beard, and peeled him out of those dingy tunics.

      Test marketing proved that Junior triggered generalized despair in The Barbarians, so he never lingered near a mic longer than to blurt single words like Freedom or Hope.

      Sprawled substantially on my sticky couch, Jell-o streaks across my jersey, I dug under a crumby cushion to find the remote.

      And Le 24-Hour-News Channel cut from Junior waving on the tarmac to Junior lit hot in a studio sitting with The Personality.

      Freshly spiffed up from his State of Grace, they let him talk.

      The Personality’s show was an austere circus.

      He expounded ideologies so extreme they made Political Realism appear reasonable in comparison.

      An old Family chum, only his unrestrained, boundless shamelessness qualified him for his position.

      Of course, he was also blessed with pre-existing conditions for soapboxing and bloviation.

      I found the remote, oily chip crumbs lodged between rubber buttons.

      I couldn’t turn away, but instinctively I muted ze Tube.

      And well aware of how self-defeating my instincts can swing, I hit record.

      Junior and The Personality stared into each other’s smiley gazes, longingly.

      I swear they kept winking at each other.

      It was hard to believe that after the studio’s hot lights browned down, they wouldn’t slowly kiss.

      And though I did fear death by gagging on puke, I dared up the volume to its lowest audible level.

      And there sat Junior, happy and flattered for his penetrating insights.

      His cultivated drawl: “The Objective Biography is a very interesting read, very interesting. Of course, it’s been a unique experience to grow up in our family, and I’ve never before seen, or heard, or read such a fair’nbalanced, informative account of our family’s long history of service to The Homelan. It’s not without its criticisms, but it’s fair. Everything that I know has been recounted accurately, and it even filled in a few blank spots I’ve had. Some things make sense to me now in a way that they never have.”

      That moment right before someone goes bananas in which they know they’re about to go bananas, like in Edgar Allan Poe movies, that was me.

      Under my own repugnant reflection dim on the surface of ze Tube, Junior, my own flesh and blood, said in summary: “I endorse this book entirely as, finally, the ultimate biography of my family’s long history of service to our great nation.”

      The Personality, in closing, asked Junior—the army reserves deserter, the State of Grace survivor, the high chandelier smasher—pleasant and small-talky: “And what’s up with your youngest brother? Haven’t heard much from him lately.”

      Junior smirked pleasantly,