Ghost Troop Home Page April Fools Part 3
Dear Dr. P,
I’ve enjoyed our unique arrangement of appointment by phone, and I want to thank you for indulging the volume of email I’ve been generating lately. All of that was a method to spread a lot of information quickly. I’m done with widespread broadcast, at least for a while. Information is my artillery, and I don’t want to get sloppy with it or it will lose its punch.
I have Jimi in the room playing blues, slow and soulful; I’ve got Mary Jane on my lips, three millennia of learning in my head, and an ego that hasn’t hit a home run for a while. Ain’t it the ones like me who make yours a fun job? Not to gloat in my dementia, but that’s what I read in a book by Martin Gross, The Psychological Society, written c. 1979. He said that shrinks liked intelligent, charming, neurotic people, and that’s what I try to be each time I see you, speak or write to you.
I could talk for an hour about the book, even though
I haven’t read Gross in twenty-four years; I can also recite poems that I wrote
for women twenty years ago, word for word – but I can’t remember the names of
the women who inspired them. Shit, I
can’t remember the names of anyone
nowadays. Doc, I don’t know whether
I’m a Renaissance man, a Rousseau man, or a Raving
Wait a minute, don’t answer.
I’ve got an idea of what heaven would be for me, Dr. Pesikoff. It would be if I could have the honor of having coffee with you, Mr. Colemanoleman and Professor G. We would talk about these times and events in the secure past tense, not in the dreadful present tense or in the perilous future tense, best understood by us Cassandras.
So let me see, I’ve got a Cassandra complex because I saw the mistake of the invasion of
And Doc, I think I’ve got an Antigone complex because I felt the death of my brothers-in-arms, to the point of defying Authority at any cost. If you read about her in the drama by Sophocles, you’ll find her saying just about the exact same words I’ve been saying in a quest to gain heroic martyrdom at the hands of the state.
And Doc, I’ve got an Iphiginia complex, too. She was Agamemnon’s daughter, whom he had to sacrifice in order to set the winds straight to Illium? Haven’t I’ve made sure that while I was daring Authority to kill me, I knew that if I got whacked, the face of tyranny would be plain. I ain’t no silent, shy Dr. David Kelly, sir, and I will not go quietly into the night. No sir, by God, I was brought up Baptist, white and mean, and I have raised Cain on the way to hell with a rebel yell on my lips and a long staff in my hands.
Anyway, I’m sticking in there with my three weird
sisters, Cassandra, Antigone and Iphiginia,
‘cause it’s like Coach Royal who brought a trophy to
Do you think it possible that one day someone might say this letter was a compliment to the ability of a good therapist to engage, stabilize and give focus to an unfocused man, at least for long-enough to take care of important business? Each of us just has a different business to tend to. Maybe I’m lucky that I’ve gotten to do mine. Who knows?
This entire experience has been a big April Fools joke, since either I’m crazy or my country is. I’ve either got a work of genius going here or a dynamite fiction story. We’ll see, I guess, though I’ve got my fears about that now, too.
Could it be that the submersion of the Battle of Baghdad was a scam implicating everyone too deeply, and it couldn’t be admitted? You said when I’d come back from Ft. Stewart that you thought I was right but you thought it would take longer to come out than I imagined, and damned if you weren’t right on the money. Well, what if I’m the wrong guy with the wrong grudge no matter who holds power after the next election? Hell, Wesley Clark was the analyst on duty for CNN when it went down, and he knew about it from the git-go. Does that mean there’s a deal on with the media left to let bygones be bygones for a successful Democratic candidacy? Possible?
These would be disturbing thoughts from my position, wouldn’t they? I should think I might soon gain a legendary status, my dear Dr. P, as a crazy Cold Warrior who applied for political sanctuary in Russia, or an insane white wetback, who had swum the Rio Grande to get out of Texas, living somewhere in the Yucatan and practicing martial arts at the shore by the pounding sea.
Well, good night, Doc. It’s been good of you to listen to my woes, and I always appreciate it. I think it’s nonsense for mentally disturbed people to fail to thank their therapists. Are they crazy or something? Shalom.
E. May
PS: A couple
of unpublished essays attached if you’re interested. One is about Captain
Yee, the Moslem officer whom I believe was targeted by the Bushlings as another Captain Dreyfus (the French Jewish
officer); the other is a pessimistic
analysis of the tactical situation in
Ghost Troop Home Page April Fools Part 3