Just Suppose . . .

By Paul Gray

Scene: The Oval Office. The television lights and cameras are ready.

Disembodied voice: "Five, four, three, two, one."

Q. Good evening, Mr. President. Thank you for allowing us and our viewing audience to join you here.

A. My pleasure, I'm sure.

Q. For openers, Sir, let's suppose you have a grandchild . . .

A. I do, plenty of 'em . . .

Q. And that grandchild came to you and admitted that he had once smoked marijuana while listening to a bootlegged Megadeth tape on a Sony Walkman, and that he had passed the joint on to a multicultural friend of uncertain sexual orientation, and that a spaced-out biker at the same party had cursed all politicians who favor crash-helmet laws . . .

A. Ummm . . .

Q. And that as a result of this experience, your grandchild confessed to feeling that life is meaningless, just one darned inconsequential thing after another, and that maybe the best thing for him to do would be to go to beautician school. How would you counsel him?

A. ((Lengthy pause)) I'm not sure I follow the drift . . .

Q. O.K., let me try it this way. Suppose you had a different grandchild . . .

A. Oh, boy, another grandchild . . .

Q. No, Sir, a girl this time. And this grandchild told you that she believed her body had been won in an intergalactic lottery by an extraterrestrial named Zonk whom she had met at college, and that where Zonk came from, "family values" had a far different meaning than they do here on earth. For example, on Zonk's home planet consensual simultaneous polygamy was regarded as pretty much standard operating procedure, and so, for that matter, were intimate, but caring, relationships with plants. Now . . .

A. ((Looking to his side)) Are we on live?

Voice offscreen: Yes, Mr. President.

Q. Now, Sir, this grandchild asks your permission to go off with Zonk and pay a visit to his planet. She explains that she wants to see and experience these different family values for herself, the better to be able to make an informed judgment on the life-style of her choice. What would you say to her, or to any young person faced with such a situation?

A. Isn't all that a little, er, hypothetical?

Q. Does that mean you won't answer the question, Sir?

A. ((Edgily)) No, no, all it means is I've never had a grandchild come to me and say that someone named Wonk . . .

Q. That's Zonk . . .

A. Whatever. No grandchild of mine has ever asked my advice about taking a trip to another planet. How can I possibly respond . . . ?

Q. I understand, Mr. President. The old vision thing, I suppose, rearing its ugly head. Permit me to go at this from another slant. Suppose that Mrs. Bush . . .

A. Now just hold on here a minute, I don't see why we have to drag Bar into this . . .

Q. ((Insistently)) Suppose that Mrs. Bush has been kidnapped by a band of Aleut separatist terrorists who are demanding that the island of Attu be towed by a reclamation team under the auspices of the United Nations southward to the San Diego harbor, where the climate is warmer and where the islanders can paddle onshore to catch a movie or a meal at McDonald's. Furthermore, these international criminals say that if their ultimatums are not met within three days, Mrs. Bush, your wife of 47 years, will be set adrift on the Bering Strait in a rubber dinghy with nothing to sustain her but some frozen whale blubber and a complete set of Jane Fonda exercise cassettes. What would be your response? Would you put your arm around her?

A. ((Eyes skittering)) This is a joke, isn't it?

Voice offscreen: Easy, Mr. President. Some 30 million potential voters are zapping past right this minute, waiting for an answer.

Q. To reiterate: Would you put your arm around her, Sir? Would this deeply intense, deeply personal, deeply deep family crisis change in any way your commitment to the rule of international law and to the principal that islands, all things being equal, should stay where God put them?

A. ((Digging a finger into his shirt collar)) Well, of course I'd put my arm around Bar. Only, if she's in a rubber raft somewhere off Alaska and I'm here at the White House, I don't quite see how I could . . . I mean . . .

Q. ((Huffily)) Thank you, Sir. That clarifies that.

A. Well, could I at least add something about God and islands?

Q. I'm sorry, Mr. President, our time is almost over. One final question, if I may. Suppose that you are a venerable Douglas fir somewhere in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. And further suppose that your upper branches provide home and shelter for the endangered spotted owl. And then one day you hear the sound of approaching chain saws. The owls start to flap around you in alarm. And then you see the lumberjacks approaching your trunk, and you realize that the foreman of the crew is actually Elvis . . .