39.

Here is the head of Henry Kissinger again, floating, bobbing this way and that. Once again, his eyeglasses become opaque when he turns toward the light.

“Ja, ja,” he says and, occasionally, begins laughing.

In this dream, the head of Henry Kissinger is held in place by three braided stainless steel cables that rise fifty or sixty feet from a normal-sized but headless torso seated at a desk far beneath the head. The body wears an elegant blue suit, white shirt, and silk tie. The collar of the shirt wraps around a dark hole. The cables disappear inside the hole and are anchored there inside the body.

The head nods and speaks in that avuncular Henry Kissinger manner.

“Who’d have thought an immigrant boy like me could rule the world.”

Then he laughs again.

The body at the desk aligns and taps some papers and puts them in a neat pile. “Ja, alles in Ordnung. Alles klar.”

Everything in order. Everything clear.

Across the front edge of the desk is a row of old-fashioned, wooden-handled stamps.

Occasionally a young man in a Harris Tweed sport coat much like the one I bought at I. Magnin presents himself to the headless body and looks up at the head of Henry Kissinger with a kind of awe.

“You are a fine young man,” the head of Henry Kissinger booms. Then he throws his head back and laughs. “Yale is it, young man? Are you a Yale man?”

The head of Henry Kissinger looks down. The lenses of his glasses are opaque.

“Yessir, Mr. Kissinger. Class of 1967. A Yale man, yes.”

“Very good,” the head of Henry Kissinger says.

His right hand, yards beneath his head, picks up a stamp and stamps the young man’s face. The stamp head is circular, a foot across.

CIA, the black letters across the young man’s face read. CIA.

“You are one of us now,” the head of Henry Kissinger proclaims. “One of us. Yes, yes.”

Then I am standing there in my Harris Tweed sport coat.

“You, young man. Where are you from?” the head of Henry Kissinger asks me. The arms of the body in front of me cross on its chest. I can see the head, far above, swaying back and forth on the steel cables.

“Columbia perhaps. You look like you might be a Columbia man.”

“Arkansas,” I say. “The University of Arkansas.”

The right arm of the torso reaches toward the stamps and stops in midgesture.

“I have Harvard,” the head of Henry Kissinger booms. “I have Yale and Princeton and Columbia. I have Stanford, but not Arkansas, no. I don’t think you’re one of us, young man. You’re just not smart enough. You’ll have to move along.”

I back away from the desk and pull out a .45.

Bam. Bam. Bam.

I fire and fire some more. The spent cartridges clatter on the floor, smoking as they fall. I miss him every time. I am sweating and terrified.

“I’m a killer, you fucker,” I scream up at the head of Henry Kissinger. “You don’t understand. I’m a killer.”

“I’m sorry,” Henry Kissinger laughs. “You missed. You didn’t qualify as a killer. Remember? Peter Everwine did that for you. Peter went to Yale. I’m sorry. You’re just not one of us, are you?”

But I want to be, don’t I? I want to be one of us. I start to cry.

“I’ll try, sir,” I say. “I’ll do what you tell me to do. I’ll do whatever you say. Just give me a chance. Give me a chance.”