The Ghost of Saddam-
by Bill O’Toole

A disheveled, age-indeterminate man bolts upright in a bed at the center of a dimly lit room. Through an oversized bay window the last orange embers of an early winter sunset mark the horizon where a blue-black Pacific meets a near-black sky. The room is handsomely appointed with cherry wood walls adorned with white panels hung here and there like blank canvasses yet to be painted. Fresh cut flowers bloom from cut glass vases giving the room a formal, yet airy feel. Beside the bed, two black leather chairs are angled the way they might be in front of a desk in a Manhattan office. The man in the bed is sweating profusely, entangled in snakes of twisted sheets. His expression changes abruptly from one of stupor to terror, like a patient about to undergo surgery without anesthesia. 
	“Not you again,” the man in the bed screams at one of the white wall panels beyond the foot of his bed. “I told you before I have nothing left…”
	“Easy, George. There’s nothing to fear. I’m here to help you.” 
	“Help me? You murderer!”
	“Harsh words, George.”
	“Where are we?” The man in the bed breaks eye contact with the wall, looking around the room.
	“You’re back at the clinic George…again. Fourth time this year. They’re thinking of naming this particular suite after you.” 
	“You rat bastard. What are you doing here?”
	“Its like I said George, I’ve come to help you, strange as that may sound.”
	“What day is it?”
	“It’s New Year’s Day George, an anniversary of sorts for both of us.”
	“What are you talking about?”
	“Today is the tenth anniversary of my hanging,” the ghost figure says, fingering a noose around his neck.
	“Nurse…nurse!” the disheveled man screams, thrashing at the sheets. 
	A well groomed woman with short black hair enters the room, moving quickly to the bedside. An ID badge dangles from her cardigan sweater. Behind her, an older man with a graying beard follows and stands at the foot of the bed.
	“What is it, sir?” the woman asks.
	“Nurse, I saw him again. He was right there,” the man in the bed says, pointing at a panel behind the older man.
	“Who sir?”
	“Saddam…Saddam!”
	The nurse exchanges glances with the man with the beard, a trace of discomfort lines her face, as if wishing she had not heard what was just said. “There’s no one here sir. It’s just Doctor Earl and myself.”
	“No he was right there…right there on the wall. I saw him. He had the rope around his neck…just like…”
	The nurse looks at the doctor with dismay.
	“Where’s my shot?” the man says. “That’s the only thing that makes him go away.” The bed quivers as the man attempts to extricate himself from the tangle of sheets. On closer inspection these have been twisted and tied deliberately into restraints. “Why can’t I stop shaking?”
	“Delirium tremens, sir…it’s too early. I just gave you a shot. Try to rest. There’s no one else here. We‘ll be right outside.”
	“No! Please! Don’t leave me,” the man shouts, thrusting forward and extending one, newly freed arm in her direction, like a child desperate to embrace his mother.
	“But sir…there are other…”
	The doctor nods and the woman gives the man in the bed a one-armed hug, easing him as she does so into a recumbent position on the bed. “I’ll tell you what sir. I’ll stay right here with you,” she says, gesturing to one of the chairs.
	“Thank you, thank you so much,” the man says, clasping both her hands in his single free one. Within moments his eyes are closed…and the voice returns.
	“So George this is your anniversary as well.”
	“What are you talking about?”
	“Don’t you remember? It was ten years ago today…sitting in Cheney’s office celebrating with Rummy, watching the video of my hanging. Coming back? Remember the toast…the hair of the dog? What harm could one do?”
	The man in the bed covers his face with his hands. “Don’t remind me.”
	“It was New Year’s day and the three of you were watching the CIA tape, the real one. You didn’t have to strain your eyes on those grainy cell phone videos, the bootlegs that ran all over the internet. Do you remember that feeling of mastery, of victory, of control? Of absolute power …?”
	“I can’t believe I…”
	“Pride before the fall. That’s how it always happens George. That’s when everything really began to unravel.”
	The man in the bed begins to weep.
	“Let me ask you something George, do you have any memory of what happened last night? Why you’re here?”
	The question seems to catch the man off guard, halting his tears as he looks up and around the room with a puzzled expression. “Its fuzzy…not really.”
	“Well let me fill you in. You made quite a New Year’s impression at the Daughters of the Alamo party.”
	“Oh no.”
	“Yes, that’s right. And unlike some of the other ‘private’ affairs where people covered for you, this time there were plenty of cameras and media on hand.”
	“Oh my God! No!” The man brings his hands to his face, covering an expression of horror. He then spreads his fingers and peers at the blank white wall panel with a look of disbelief, as if it were a television screen on the morning of September eleventh.
	“Oh yes, George.”
	“What…did I…?”
	“Well there was the drinking from the punch bowl with Jerry Jones, then a little game of grab ass with Sarah Palin, captured by US weekly, and then the now classic, promenade staircase fall…the tumble heard…or seen around the world. You must still be sore from that one.”
	The man in the bed extends his arms and legs fearfully, as if afraid that any discomfort might give credence to the ghost’s testimony. Upon wincing in pain he cringes almost simultaneously. “Oh my God…is that what this is…”
	“Gerald Ford would have been proud. Letterman plans to open every show with it.”
	“No!”	The man collapses into the bed, cowering in a fetal position.
	“Yes George, the democrats have dubbed you  the new Sarah Palin…the gift that keeps on giving.”
	“This can’t be happening.”
	“Ask your nurse, George.”
	The man in the bed turns to face the woman in the chair. “Is it true I made a fool of myself last night…on TV?”	
	The nurse hesitates, then nods. “I’m afraid so, sir. But that never has to happen again.WE can help you.”
	The disheveled man sinks back into bed.
	“So George our fortunes have changed quite a bit in the last ten years. The Sunis control Baghdad, or Saddam city as it’s now called. And you’ve gone from the smug leader who captured the evil-doer to a national laughing stock.”
 	“Maybe so but at least I’m no murderer.”
	“Don’t be so certain George… I can tell you I felt justified in everything I ever did…right up to the second when the rope snapped my neck.”
	“What are you saying?”
	“It’s hard to explain George, but when you die, all the distractions go away…the wine, women, and song…the power.  And the only thing left is time. Without diversions your awareness grows. You get a conscience. And when you’ve had a hand in the death of so many…like I have…well, the weight of the damned thing can crush you.”
	“Well that me be your plight, but it’s not mine.”
	“You do realize, George, that time has recast our private war in a different light. Historians now call the nighttime bombing of Baghdad America’s Pearl Harbor.”
	“That’s just liberal media crap.”
	“Is it George? Look where we are a decade later, warlords controlling the territories the size of cities, an Iranian superpower, the seeds of retribution embedded deep into the next generation of Islam. Not to mention all the dead, the wounded, the shattered families. …and for what?” 
	“National security.”
	“Oh come on, George, you’re talking to Saddam. We both know Reagan had the same intelligence reports on the weapons. They were twenty years old.”
	The man on the bed casts his eyes downward.
	“Let me ask you, George. Why did you really do it?”
	“National security, plain and simple.”
	“A general answer to a specific question. George, that’s the oldest form of bureaucratic bullshit in the book.”
	“That’s our position…my position.”
	“Let me ask you, George, how many times have you been to this clinic? How many times have you reached this very same point, where you have to get honest and tell the truth…or start the cycle of BS all over again. Don’t you ever get tired of doing the same exact thing and expecting a different result?”
	The man stares down at the sheets.
	“You do realize that until you come clean you will never really leave this place. You’ll always be a prisoner.” The statement echoed in the silence for a long minute…then the voice began again. “Tens of thousands dead, the wounded, the orphans. All this and no specific reason from the decider-in-chief…”
	“Stop! I can’t.” The man in the bed becomes ashen and his shoulders drop. “Don’t you think I think about that?” he shouts. The nurse closes her book and looks up. “I think about it everyday…why do you think I … I…come here?”
	“I think you come here because you are unwilling to be honest…about your past.”
	“But there’s nothing I can do. It’s water under the bridge.”
	“There is something you can do, George. You can tell the truth. Once and for all.”
	“Why dredge all this up? The past is the past.”
	“George, that’s what I’m here to help you see. The key to the jail cell you are in today is buried in your past. We are, as they say, as sick as our secrets.” 
	“You sound like Jeb.”
	“Why did you invade my country?”
	“It’s a long story.”
	“I’ve got nothing but time.”
	“A…after 9/11 Dick had all these ideas from his think tank. He said if we set up an American-style democracy in the Middle East…that all the other countries would follow suit…fall like dominos…problems solved…one big happy world.”
	“George, that’s rich.” The ghost laughed. “And you believed him?”
	“I guess I did. He called 9/11 an opportunity, a cover to do what you people…wouldn’t do on your own.”
	“You know as naïve as that sounds, it’s the first explanation that makes sense. You realize though how childlike that notion is...was?”
	“I do now.”
	“The weapons?”
	“We figured we’d dig up those missile shells from the Eighties, put them on TV. Whatever happened to them?”
	“Syria…actually early on.”
	The man in the bed nods. 
	“Quite an apocalyptic attack for a twenty year old intelligence report. Don’t you think?”
	“When you’re dealing with fanatics, a religion that dictates you kill all the infidels…after 9/11...it doesn’t pay to take chances.”
	“George, let me give you a little insight into my part of the world. Islam today is where the West was in 700 AD. An earlier stage in development…the same place Christianity was at when it launched the crusades and the inquisition.”
	“What do you mean?”
	“If you had landed in England in 700 AD with the Magna carte and the Bill of Rights and told the masses of the wonders of democracy, they would have stoned you on the spot. They weren’t ready. People—societies—have to reach a point where they are ready for that step. They can’t have it imposed upon them by outside forces.”
	The man leans forward attentive and calm.
	“Now let’s get back to you. What do you say, George. Are you ready to tell another living soul what you’ve just told me?”
	“I can’t.”
	“Private sins, George, need private confessions…but public sins…”
	A grave look swept over the man’s face. “How do I tell the parents of a dead soldier that their child died…in a mistake…an experiment? I mean how do you come out and say the central theme of your entire public life…is based on a lie? It can’t be done.”
	“Yes it can, George, and I’ve brought another spirit here to help you. Another conservative American politician. He’s been very helpful to me.”
	“Dick Nixon?”
	“Good guess, George, but actually it’s another politician named George. Governor George Wallace.”
	“George Wallace? That racist rascal?”
	“That’s right sir,” a voice drenched in a thick, formal southern accent comes from a figure in a wheelchair projected onto another panel beside Saddam.
	“Good guess with Richard Nixon sir, but he still blames Liddy…or Kissinger…or the Jews.”
	“Actually, I know for a fact governor that Nixon blames the Jews in general,” the ghost of Saddam says.
	The figure in the wheelchair eyes the man with the noose suspiciously. “Remind me when we’re through here, you still have more work to do.” The wheelchair figure then turns his attention back to the man in the bed. “Sir, I too found myself in a position like your own. And I too was brought to my knees by an …affliction. In my case it was a bullet to the base of my spine. As you know, more than any public figure at the time, I fanned the fires of bigotry and discrimination all over the South. I never got as far as you, but as a spoiler I wielded tremendous power. Black people loathed me.”
	“No kidding.”
	“It might surprise you to know then that almost all the people at my funeral were black.”
	“Really? I mean…it does. What happened?”
	“After I was shot, and paralyzed, I found myself angry, desperate, alone. Sound familiar? There was no one left to blame and I started to wonder if maybe…just maybe it was me…that I was wrong. There’s a power in recognizing you have a problem you cannot surmount on your own.”
	The figure on the bed leans forward with rapt attention. 
	“I had always wondered why it was that while I was out spreading my ‘truth’ about the black man swinging from the trees I was being lambasted with nasty reviews and pelted with debris…and finally bullets. All this while Martin Luther King was speaking eloquently to throngs of adoring people all over the country…black and white. And I started to wonder…to doubt really…what I had been taught about the differences between the races. I mean here was a black man, as articulate as any person I had ever heard, poetic even…and here I was trying to convince people he should be packed in a crate a shipped back to Africa.”
	The man on the bed actually grinned at this.
	“And I thought maybe, just maybe…I was wrong. Maybe the bullet in my spine was some kind of reflection…of all my hate…right back at me. I know now we are not punished for our sins sir…we are punished by them.”
	“So what did you do?”
	“Well, I started slowly. First I contacted the pastors of a few well known black churches in Alabama and asked if I could speak at their churches on Sunday to apologize for my past.”
	“Really?”
	“Yes. And despite the expected rebukes from a lot of them, some actually said yes. Now you must realize, this is a little like Hitler giving a talk at a synagogue.” The man in the bed emits a laugh causing the nurse in the chair to close her book.
	“I went to a handful of these churches and talked about the hate that consumed me and admitted I was wrong, and asked the people for their forgiveness and their prayers. And you know what?”
	“What?”
	“They gave it to me. They forgave me. And the word spread from one church to the next and more invitations came…more Sundays…more apologies…no press…no cameras. That was one thing I insisted on. I didn’t want this to be a publicity stunt. Actually the first hint the national media got of the whole thing was at my funeral a few years later when they noticed the church filled with mostly black mourners. Reverend Jackson said from the podium the black Christian community had lost a true friend in George Wallace. Who would have believed that? No one from the governor’s office came, none of my old cronies from Alabama. They had disowned me years before.”
	A thin mist glazes the eyes of the man in bed.
	“So you see, in a sense sir, the bullet in my spine saved me. And all I’m saying is the same thing can happen to you.”
	“So what do you think, George?” the ghost of Saddam says.
	“I don’t think I can do that,” he cries out. 
	The nurse sits up and studies his face.
	“It would be better if I just die, take this to the grave.”
	“That’s what we’re here to tell you George, death doesn’t settle it. It only makes it worse. More time, more awareness, no distractions….”
	“You have a chance now to change the substance of what you will reflect on for eternity.”
	“That’s the difference between the two of us,” the Saddam ghost says, looking at the man in the wheelchair. “The Governor is at peace…”
	The light in the room seems to fade and the man in the bed sees images of himself from different angles projected onto the white panels where the ghosts had been. It is if a camera were moving about the room, attempting to capture each nuance of fear and despair. And then two futures appear simultaneously, one on each panel, more falls down the stairs…returns to the clinic. And beside that the contented wise face of the man in the wheelchair. Repetition and despair alongside redemption. Fine beads of sweat form on his brow then evaporate. He is alone at a sacred crossroads, the place where each human being finds themselves at least once in a lifetime.
	“Nurse.”
	“Yes, Mr. President.”
	“Would you please call my brother Jeb. There is something I need to tell him.”