Checkpoint Page 7

  BEN: Why did you go there?

  JAY: It was last year, just around this time last year, I took the bus all the way from Birmingham to Dallas. There’s a great bus station in Dallas, it’s practically untouched, classic Deco lines, the Greyhound station. Just the way it would have looked, at least on the outside, in 1963.

  BEN: But what made you take the bus there?

  JAY: It was that thing I read on the Net, the news story. It was so awful.

  BEN: About what?

  JAY: It was in the Sydney Morning Herald.

  BEN: Sydney, Australia?

  JAY: Yes.

  BEN: What was the story?

  JAY: Oh, it was about this checkpoint, and, um. I don’t want to—oh, it was a thing that happened, that nobody would have ever wanted to happen. But it happened, and it made me so mad. So mad at him.

  BEN: Why don’t you tell me.

  JAY: It was just an event. Well. Okay. There were a bunch of Army guys there and this Land Rover drove toward them. It was filled with a family, they were fleeing. Many children. Everybody was jammed into this car, and they were trying to get out of the war zone.

  BEN: Okay.

  JAY: And they waved, and somebody at the checkpoint misinterpreted the wave, and so there was a huge blast of fire, and one of the women in the car, the mother, she said, “I saw the—” Sorry.

  BEN: It’s okay.

  JAY: She said, “I saw the heads—” Pull myself together.

  BEN: It’s all right.

  JAY: She said, “I saw the heads of my two little girls come off.” That’s what she fucking said. I’m not kidding you, man. “My two little girls.” That’s what she fucking said. Can you imagine it? You’re just trying to get your family out of a war zone? Your farm’s already been blasted by helicopters, and then a bunch of guys in Kevlar open fire on your kids, and you see that happen? Ho, God.

  BEN: That’s bad.

  JAY: Liberators. Such bullshit. It’s just one event. The grandfather was killed, too. You know what he had on? He was wearing a pin-striped suit so that he would look more American. Ho, man. Ho, man. And that creep, that fucking Texas punk, who can’t even talk, with his drugged-out eyes, he brought us to this point, to this war, and for nothing, for not one red fucking thing. And I thought, I want to see what it feels like to be in the last place where a president was shot dead. Where somebody had moved from the fantasy stage over to the reality stage, shall we say. So I took the bus there. And I stood there. And I thought, Man, there’s no way I could do this. Too sharp an angle.

  BEN: Good. That’s good! That’s good!

  JAY: The feeling ebbed a little, and then a couple months ago it began to build again. Fallujah. Marine snipers on the roofs, shooting at everything. At ambulances. At children. Shooting at an old woman holding a white flag. Mosques hit. F-16s again, flames everywhere. And Kufa, boys with shrapnel wounds. Six people in a family died there, three children. And the prisons. The mockery on the

  guards’ faces. It’s like when he was governor of Texas, smirking over the executions. The man’s personality trickles down through the entire military hierarchy and makes everyone meaner and nastier.

  BEN: Including you.

  JAY: Including me. And nobody around him is saying, Stop. Pull the Army out, get the Delta Force out, get the SEALS out, get the Green Berets out, get the CIA out, get the Marine snipers out, get the F-16s totally the fuck away from that part of the world. Right now. Yes, cut and run. Get away from that country that you have so royally fucked up. You know? Nobody’s saying it to him. So then the desire for justice just starts moving through me. It’s like a huge paddlewheel, it just churns up all of this foam and fury. VENGEANCE.

  BEN: Please don’t stand up! I mean it, this will invalidate any point you will ever want to make.

  JAY: This is the point that I want to make. You’re blocking me.

  BEN: You’ll just become another nutcase. What if I knock you out with this bottle?

  JAY: Don’t.

  BEN: And what if coincidentally tonight, while you’re out cold, somebody else shoots him, and tomorrow morning you wake up and you read the headline, and it says, you know, CRAZED MAN WIGS OUT AND SHOOTS PRESIDENT? I mean, what would your reaction be?

  JAY: Now, that’s a good question, that’s a very good question.

  BEN: Would your reaction be that this was a good thing? Remember what’s happening tomorrow, okay, Cheney’s on TV from some hideout, the stock markets are tumbling, the, um—

  JAY: The stock markets? They’re all just Styrofoam pellets. They’re just big boxes of Styrofoam popcorn, that’s what stocks are.

  BEN: In any case, the day after, are you going to think, Ah, good, he did that, so I don’t have to?

  JAY: I’m going to think, I wish he hadn’t done that. I wish I’d done that. Because this is the one thing that I have to contribute.

  BEN: You’re going to have other things. You will. Be patient.

  JAY: Let me ask you. I’m going to go down there now and I may well get hit before I make it very far. But I may not. There’s a hole in the fence. I’ve seen it, I know it’s there, and I’m just going to RAM my way through that fucking hole. And I’m going to be out there on that lawn, and I’m going to run like a crazy man with my gun and my hammer. And those guys on the roof, you know? Here’s the thing. The chances that somebody is going to be running toward the White House at any given moment are practically zero. They’re like the people at the bomb-detection machines at the airport. There’s no chance that they’re ever going to find a terrorist. So even though every piece of their training says to look for the danger signs, they know that there are no danger signs. Okay. So I’m counting on that. The guy’s working his way through a bag of Skittles up there. His job is so awful. His job is to sit on the roof day after day, squinting at nothing. I mean, of all the pointless things to spend your life doing. Not only that, maybe he doesn’t even like the president. Maybe the president spoke sharply to him one time. Or maybe he loves him. Anyway, he’s beginning to have his doubts about the war. So he’s not as attentive.

  BEN: He’s—

  JAY: So I push my way through. I break out across the green, no cover, but I’m sprinting, and I’m fast, and I’m going to make it.

  BEN: Then what? You’re still outside.

  JAY: Then, with my hammer, I smash my way through the windows. And then I leap in. I wave at Condoleezza. “Stick to the piano, baby!”

  BEN: And then you’re shot, and you fall.

  JAY: Maybe, maybe not. But here’s my question for you. Say I’m down, I’m bleeding on the rug, but I’ve got the gun under me and I’ve got just enough strength left to point it toward him—won’t part of you think, He’s got it coming to him? Huh?

  BEN: I don’t—

  JAY: Won’t you think to yourself, Man, I hope that little peckerfuck gets it right between the eyes?

  BEN: I don’t—I’m not—I can’t predict how I would react if the president were actually shot.

  JAY: You know part of you would celebrate.

  BEN: I think that the simple sight of any human being stilled, you know—dead—that there’s a basic patheticness to that. There’s just a sadness or a stillness of one’s emotions that comes from their not being able to speak, that is so, so . . . I don’t want to say “sobering,” but so quieting. So that, no, I don’t think I’d feel any need to celebrate. Much as I dislike the guy. In fact I think I would feel a certain amount of horror knowing that to an extent I was part of it. To an extent I had something to do with it because I’d talked to you about it at length, and I’d failed. I wasn’t successful in convincing you not to do it.

  JAY: Don’t be so hard on yourself.

  BEN: But don’t you think that if you—I mean, you’ve seen the tape of when Kennedy was shot. You’ve seen the frames that were cut out of the film because all that blood is blasting from his head? A spray of brain? I mean, it’s a horrifying sight. It’s a human being that is now just noth
ing. You want to be a part of that?

  JAY: That’s the thing. I have allowed myself to feel that feeling with the people in Fallujah, in Karbala, in Nasiriyah, in Basra, in Baghdad, in Mosul—all these cities. And Afghanistan before that. I’ve seen the pictures. And I feel that they—I mean Bush, any Marine sergeant, any soldier—all these guys are in the war business, one way or another. So they know that there’s a certain risk involved. You can become a casualty of the wars you incite, or that you volunteer for. But these kids who are having their limbs blown off, they don’t even know what’s going on. There’s just a sudden sound of the jet engines. Have you ever heard a Warthog?

  BEN: I don’t think so.

  JAY: Well, they make this sound. Arrw. It’s a kind of a walrus sound, almost, it’s really disturbing. Arrw. I don’t know if it’s some sort of adjustment that the engines do as they’re descending, but it’s a fearful sound, it’s like a giant swallowing. And you know, here are some kids playing in a street, they hear this walrus sound, and suddenly there are bits of really hot metal flying through the air. They look down in surprise and their own blood is coming out, and they’re feeling cold. And they’re dying fast. They don’t know what’s going on. They can’t even explain to themselves what happened. They’re noncombatants. They’re innocent, they’re innocent even of the knowledge that they are innocent. They’re people just living their lives, and now their lives are over.

  BEN: It hurts.

  JAY: I can’t stand it, Ben! I can’t! I have to do something! You hear the man giving one of his radio addresses, and he has that way he has of slurring his words, as if he’s drunk but he’s not—“Housing sales are at an all-time high”—and you think of the war in the streets over there and of him tearing down what’s left of the country, and you feel murderous, just MURDEROUS!

  BEN: Feel murderous, by all means. Rage inwardly. Just don’t actually attempt the murder. That’s the dividing line.

  JAY: Okay, well, I’m crossing it.

  BEN: He’s a person, try to remember that. A person’s a person, as the good doctor said. He’s a human being.

  JAY: No, he’s not, he’s forfeited that status.

  BEN: He really hasn’t. He’s got that sudden smile that he makes when he’s answering a question. Have you seen it? It looks like he’s not sure how he’s going to finish the sentence, and there’s a second of panic, his brow furrows, and then—ah!—he thinks of a word that he can plug in there. A big presidential word. He says it, and he flashes that childish smile of relief. It’s a little moment of pride—“I made it, guys.”

  JAY: I see fear in his look sometimes. He knows what he’s done.

  BEN: I don’t really think he does know, but he may sometimes have an inkling of how lost he is, how utterly at sea. So why’d you come here, Jay? To kill this person?

  JAY: Why should he have a couple of hundred Secret Service men protecting him? Why does he deserve rocket launchers on his roof? Who was protecting those people in the Land Rover?

  BEN: Nobody was. Nobody.

  JAY: I can’t understand why this outlaw, this FELON, who’s killed something like twelve thousand people, should be alive when those girls are dead. It’s just wrong. Not only is he alive, he’s served coffee in special little fancy china cups, he’s flown around in a big airplane with a living room in it, he’s treated with round-the-clock, shit-eating deference! Reporters are out there in the Rose Garden: “Mr. President? Oh, Mr. President? Tootle-ooh!” It’s got to stop.

  BEN: Where’s this hammer of yours?

  JAY: Under the comforter.

  BEN: I don’t see it.

  JAY: Other side. Just fold it back.

  BEN: Nice hammer.

  JAY: Made in Brazil, do you see that?

  BEN: Interesting. Yes, it’s just as I thought.

  JAY: What?

  BEN: This is a special voodoo hammer.

  JAY: Don’t mess around, man. I’m not in the mood.

  BEN: Bear with me. Let’s take George W.’s picture from the box of bullets and place it faceup on a cushion. Like so. Where did you get the picture, by the way?

  JAY: I got it off the White House website. It’s an official photo.

  BEN: Of course he’s wearing the little flag pin.

  JAY: Oh, that flag pin, it infuriates me. Rrrrr!

  BEN: Now, this hammer is known as the Brazilian Mojo Hammer of Justice. Whatever harm you inflict upon an evildoer’s image with this hammer will also be visited upon the evildoer himself.

  JAY: I see. Okay.

  BEN: So take a good smart whack at his forehead with it. Go on.

  JAY: Just lay it on him?

  BEN: Yes, put him out of his misery. He needs it. He needs that hammerblow in the middle of his forehead.

  JAY: I’m a little hesitant.

  BEN: Why?

  JAY: I’m scared to do it!

  BEN: Just lift the hammer. Good. Now when you bring it down, put your whole strength into it. Really kill him. Ready? Now, GO!

  JAY: HHHHHHHRRRRRRAAAAAAAGH! [Flump!]

  BEN: And again?

  JAY: DAMMIT! [Flump!] BASTARD! [Flump!] RRRRRRRRAAAAGH! [Flump!]

  BEN: Okay, okay. Wow. So how do you feel now? Any better?

  JAY: No, I don’t think so. Well, maybe I do. Actually I do feel a little better. Whoooo! Heh heh heh. For a second I almost felt like I was killing him. I really did, and I even felt sorry for him when I was killing him, that’s the sick thing. He kept on smiling through it. His tie didn’t budge.

  BEN: No harm done to the cushion, I hope?

  JAY: No, the picture’s a bit torn, but that’s to be expected. Whew, I’m a wreck.

  BEN: See that? The only way to find out that you’re not a killer is by killing the guy.

  JAY: Yeah, but let’s face it, all I really did was attack a picture. That’s not justice. He’s still wearing his flag pin every day. I want the man to crawl on his hands and knees down the streets of Baghdad saying, “I am so sorry, folks. I am so sorry that I put you through this. Just because I’m a reformed alcoholic and I needed a little war buzz, I destroyed your country, and I killed your families. And I am so fucking profoundly sorry for that.” That’s what he has to say. I won’t rest till he says it. That will be true justice.

  BEN: He can’t very well say it if you’ve assassinated him, can he?

  JAY: Hmm. That’s an excellent point.

  BEN: Where’s your gun? Or do you not have one?

  JAY: I told you I had a gun.

  BEN: Tell me where it is, then.

  JAY: The gun?

  BEN: Yeah. Where is it?

  JAY: It’s in the closet.

  BEN: Where?

  JAY: Under the extra pillow.

  BEN: Jesus, Jay, this is a gun!

  JAY: I know.

  BEN: Okay, listen, you freak, we’re going to check out of here.

  JAY: I can’t, I’ve got all my stuff unpacked.

  BEN: Pack it back up. Right now. Let’s go. We’re going to get out of Washington. This place isn’t healthy for you.

  JAY: I have a mission.

  BEN: Your mission is over. Now move it, or I’ll—I’ll shoot you in the leg.

  JAY: You’re not capable of that.

  BEN: Don’t push me, I’ve had a very long afternoon. We’re going to bury this gun somewhere. Ugh, it’s got my fingerprints all over it. We’re going to bury the bullets, too. And the hammer. We’re going to get you home, you demented bum, we’ll get you a chair, you can sit outside in the chair, I’ll lash you to it, you can take your shoes off, put your feet in the grass. It’s beautiful outside! I’ll show you my camera. Now get packing!

  JAY: Are you sure you don’t want to take a little walk with me while we’re in town? See the sights?

  BEN: No.

  JAY: We should at least drive by the White House. I could show you where I marched.

  BEN: Absolutely not.

  JAY: How about Dick Cheney’s house? The vice presidential mansion, in
all its stateliness. Hmmmmm?

  BEN: No! Now pack up. And let’s turn that thing off now.

  JAY: You sure?

  BEN: Really. Off. OFF.

  JAY: All right, all right, all right, here we go. Over and out.

  [Click.]

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Nicholson Baker was born in 1957 and attended the Eastman School of Music and Haverford College. He has published six previous novels—The Mezzanine (1988), Room Temperature (1990), Vox (1992), The Fermata (1994), The Everlasting Story of Nory (1998), and A Box of Matches (2003)—and three works of nonfiction, U and I (1991), The Size of Thoughts (1996), and Double Fold (2001), which won a National Book Critics Circle Award. He lives in Maine with his wife and two children.

  Also by Nicholson Baker

  The Mezzanine

  Room Temperature

  U and I

  Vox

  The Fermata

  The Size of Thoughts

  The Everlasting Story of Nory

  Double Fold

  A Box of Matches

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  Copyright © 2004 by Nicholson Baker

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.aaknopf.com

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2004014528

  eISBN: 978-1-4000-4415-3

  v3.0