The (Surrealistic, Barely Avoided) Conversion of Paul

"But what are we to do with the weak?" Paul asks, his pupils having strangely grown to the size of dark quarters since the reception that followed Mitt's big speech. "What do we do with the losers, the screw ups, the ones who can't be whipped into shape, who buy high and sell low, who don't respond  to reasonable incentives ... "

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" Mitt wonders, frankly, frustrated, sitting his glass of plain water on the coffee table and leveling a severe pair of non-dilated eyes at his young companion. These odd, incongruous questions from Paul are very perplexing, particularly after he, Mitt, has just given a speech that was nearly as memorable as Clint Eastwood's discussion with the empty chair.

Paul, holding what looks like a Cosmo in one of those pretty glasses, leans forward in his stuffed leather chair, his head slightly askance. He appears both amused and disoriented, as if he were staring at himself in one of those old-fashioned fun house mirrors. "I thought Mormons didn't curse."

"I didn't curse," Mitt informs him. "I was being profane—adjectivally profane—which is something different."

"You know what you look like?" Paul says now. "You look like someone who would play the president in a movie where the president doesn't have much of a part ... like in that movie where Clint Eastwood plays the Secret Service agent who listens to Miles Davis ... and then puts the moves on Renee Russo ... this when he isn't trying to catch John Malkovich, who, if you ever saw the movie, is way creepy, some ex-CIA guy ..."

Mitt, bristling, gives him a good slap across the face in the hope it'll straighten him out. Paul smiles, as if he wants him to do it again. Mitt asks, "Have you been drinking? Is that what this is all about? Tell me something, why is it that Catholics drink so much? Especially the Irish Catholics. Why, when I was the governor, in Boston—"

Paul winces. "Don't mention Boston."

"What?"

"With Boston comes equivocation. The Etch-a-Sketch has erased it."

Mitt wants to slug him now but doesn't. Instead he points to the glass. "Do me a favor and tell me what you had to drink. What are in those pink things? And what are those things floating in your glass."

"Confetti." Paul replies dreamily. He looks down in his glass. "Little tiny squares of confetti ..."

Mitt gets up. "I'm going to call the doctor. I think you've been drugged—"

Paul laughs—hysterically, convulsively, like someone who has been drugged—then says, "You know what I can't understand? I can't understand why you can't drink just a little coffee in the morning, before you step in front of a microphone. I mean, your forefathers took Benzedrine—"

Mitt picks up the phone, but then remembers what happened to McGovern after they found out Thomas Eagleton had had a few jolts to his nervous system. Mitt doesn't want to end up like George McGovern in '72. No, Mitt thinks he'll just have to talk him down himself. "Listen to me," he begins, only to have Paul ignore him, run over to the window, stick his head out and yell, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!!"

"Imagine," Paul says, coming back now, his face flushed, "if people actually DID that. If they wouldn't just accept their lot in life. If everytime people like us left our homes without security we had to worry about getting our throats slit by someone who wasn't accepting his lot—"

"But people don't do that," Mitt replies, his voice soft and reassuring. "They have television to calm them. And there are many, many drugs. There are workout routines. Moreover, we DO have security. At least for the moment—"

Paul frowns. "We're going to lose, aren't we."

Mitt knows it's true, but sees no need in adding despair to Paul's situation at the moment. He regrets that he let that last part slip out. "Now, now, let's not be silly—"

"The Secret Service, for us, is fleeting. Soon we will be on our own—"

Mitt sighs, thinking this is what often happens to these true-believer types. Even Barry Goldwater went soft in the end, after he had that homosexual caregiver ... No, better to lick your finger, he thinks, and hold it up into the breeze for guidance. "We're going to straighten this country out," Mitt takes Paul by the shoulders and insists, staring into Paul's eyes, now, and seeing a full-length black and white reflection of himself. "We're going to cut the capital gains tax so I can make serious bank again. We're going to repeal that health plan that Obama stole from me, all of it except the part about covering the people with pre-existing conditions—"

"The expensive part," Paul says.

"That's right," Mitt winks. "After all, I'm not heartless.

Paul smiles, supremely entertained as he watches Mitt's entire skull expand and contract like the lobe of lung. He takes another sip of his Cosmo—he loves these things. He wonders what one would cost in a real bar. Then, suddenly, his mood slips. "The poor will always be with us. I just didn't realize until now just how much—how close—they would be. If we do what I want to do with Medicaid, for instance, Uncle Ned might be in my basement. And maybe Aunt Virginia. Those two couldn't balance a checkbook much less make sensible decisions with a Medicare voucher. Uncle Ned would have probably taken it and bought the FaceBook IPO—"

"Then he deserves what he gets," says Mitt, who is finding all this fussy talk of consequences tedious.

"What he'll get is a tent," Paul retorts. "One big enough to hold all his guns, and he'll pitch it in my yard! Until I let him have a room in my basement!"

"Make him help out," Mitt suggests, sensibly. "Who knows? If you train him right, you might be able to fire the guy who mows your lawn."

"Or Ned could shoot me in my sleep."

"Well then there's always Virginia. You did say Virginia, right? Maybe she wouldn't be entirely useless. Maybe she could pick up the slack for Ned. Does she do floors? The person doing my floors at the moment is ... let's just say he isn't doing much of a job."

"Why don't you fire him?" Paul suggests, looking a bit more himself, Mitt thinks. "I thought you liked firing people."

"I would," Mitt admits, believing he may have seen the turn, "but he frightens me."

Paul stares at him indignantly and shrugs. "So don't call him again. Get someone else to do your floors. Get a dog, an alarm system. Hire someone else."

"But he hasn't left since the day I let him in."

Paul is at once intrigued and aghast. "What do you mean he hasn't left."

Mitt isn't entirely sure this is working, but keeps on. "I mean, Paul, that I have a big house, and the guy who does my floors, or did, once, is living in one of the rooms—the one farthest from mine and Ann's. I got him a flat-screen TV with all the premium channels and I have my chef cook him whatever he wants when he wants it. You could do the same for your aunt and uncle. Maybe build your uncle an underground firing range, so that he leaves you alone—"

"But I don't have that kind of money, Mitt. I'm not as rich as you."

Mitt scoffs. He's tired of people telling him they aren't as rich as he is. "Well then, fire your maid. Get a job manipulating resources in the private sector. Be practical."

"But I want to be vice-president! If I was vice-president, and maybe, someday, the president, then I could have the Secret Service take care of Ned—"

"Or—I'm just saying, OR—you could make Ayn Rand up in Atheist Heaven proud, and get your spoiled by government work self to work in the private sector, and make millions, and buy an island somewhere. How well does your uncle swim?"

Paul, who could swear that the room they're in has just turned into a jumpy castle, thinks about this and says, "I'm not sure."

"Stick with me," Mitt finally says, not at all sure if it is good advice or bad at this point. "Once we're done handing out favors we'll be able to get you an island for a decent price. We'll get you set up better than Dr. No."

Paul smiles at the James Bond reference. He likes James Bond, how things always seem to work out for him, how James is a government employee, too, but nobody makes fun of him, because he's James Bond and would kick their ass if they did. He offers Mitt a drink from his glass."

"No," Mitt says, a bit shocked. He waves his hand and makes an attempt at a joke. "You know us Mormons. If it isn't Benzedrine, it's crap."

"Benzedrine?" Paul has forgotten about his Benzedrine remark.

"Never mind," says Mitt, adding, "What do you say I freshen up my water and grab my Book of Mormon, and you grab your copy of Atlas Shrugged, and we see which book will put us to sleep first."

Paul, much to Mitt's relief, thought that was a great idea. After a little bit, Paul asked, "Do you think I could do a mission to Africa some day? Get away from all these government jobs ..."

"This is America," Mitt answered, distracted and overwhelmed by the torpor of Rand's prose. "You can do anything you want here."

"That's what I was hoping."

And in this way, the universe was righted once more.